Thursday,  I  Think  Seriously,  About  Stupid  Shit

So we’re discussing getting a couple chickens….

We’re going thru about two dozen eggs every week, chickens would really be cost effective since I only buy free-range organic eggs ($3.39/doz)

To have chickens you need a henhouse…otherwise they nest all over the place & you won’t always find the eggs. So I tried teh googel.

First I found a small chicken house ] that looked pretty big to me! It was  8X8 and would hold 15-20 hens….much more than I require right now….I just wanted 2 or 3 hens….

So I turned to the Mother Earth News

There are dozens of reasons to keep a few hens in your back yard, including pest control and sheer entertainment. Fresh eggs may be the most popular reason, and eggs from hens allowed to do what comes naturally ? roam and peck at grasses, weed seeds and bugs ? not only taste better, they’re better for you than eggs from cage-raised hens.Free-range eggs are higher in vitamin E and beta carotene, and lower in cholesterol.

Reading the article about chicken coops I found that my thinking of a walk-in shed with a small outside run of barren earth is outdated…  there’s a better way to keep hens!

Instead of a traditional chicken shed, use a small moveable pen that allows chickens to eat bugs (ticks, grasshoppers, worms, fleas, etc.), grass (yes, chickens do eat grass and plants) and weed seeds. Let your chickens graze in the yard and move the pen every day or two. This creates a synergistic relationship ~ both the chickens and the lawn benefit.

I ran across this beautiful henspa gazebo

I was in love until I found it was just a bit over $5k….

the city chicken shows houses that are much less showy….

and something called a hen ‘tractor’….

and I guess if you have a bunch in a row it’s a convoy (^.^)

This henhutch on wheels is really cool. With something like this even folks in the suburbs could do chickens!

If you are interested in raising chickens backyard chickens is a good starting point….

I’ll let y’all know when we get to fixing up a chicken pen….

Thanks for stopping in, so glad You’re here …. (yes, YOU!)

this is an open thread… relax.. Hang out and chit chat awhile…

O, but… Please don’t rec the pony party, another will trot up in a few hours.

(^.^)

The construct is not mine; you can thank Charles Dodgson for that.

Not that Hillary’s campaign bothered to thank him – my guess is they adopted the Mock Turtle’s curriculum strategy all by their brilliant selves. I mean, it does seem like it was tailor-made for the campaign they ran, doesn’t it?

`I couldn’t afford to learn it.’ said the Mock Turtle with a sigh. `I only took the regular course.’

`What was that?’ inquired Alice.

`Reeling and Writhing, of course, to begin with,’ the Mock Turtle replied; `and then the different branches of Arithmetic — Ambition, Distraction, Uglification, and Derision.’

`I never heard of “Uglification,” Alice ventured to say. `What is it?’

The Gryphon lifted up both its paws in surprise. `What! Never heard of uglifying!’ it exclaimed. `You know what to beautify is, I suppose?’

`Yes,’ said Alice doubtfully: `it means – to – make – anything – prettier.’

`Well, then,’ the Gryphon went on, `if you don’t know what to uglify is, you ARE a simpleton.’

In spite of everyone else in the political world declaring her campaign over, Hillary, using her unique math skills, continues to see what no one else can: how she can cobble together enough delegate votes to be declared the nominee. Now, most of us who studied Arithmetic in school are limited in our calculations to using the standard tools of Addition, Subtraction, Multiplication and Division – but that’s probably because we went to those non-white, non-working, elitist schools.

Hillary and her inner circle, on the other hand, are free of such obvious handicaps as using conventional, elite Arithmetic –

Elite opinion is always on the side of doing things that really disadvantages the vast majority of Americans

– “the vast majority of Americans named Hillary Clinton,” she meant. So Hillary and her advisors instead have prudently chosen to pursue the Mock Turtle’s methods:

Ambition: The very foundation of Hillary Math.

Distraction: Rev. Wright, Bill Ayers, Tony Rezko, et al.

Uglification: Apologies to all working, hard-working Americans, white Americans.

Derision: Actually, Hillary Math reverts in this case to the old-fashioned, elitist tool of Division, but “Derision” is not off the table – in the event that alliteration – or obliteration – is necessary.

As the Clinton camp each day gives us a new lesson in Hillary Math, that lesson has a particular effect on Democratic chances to take the White House in November:

`That’s the reason they’re called lessons,’ the Gryphon remarked: `because they lessen from day to day.’

Now, some have speculatated that Hillary might have a special plan in mind to secure the nomination, a plan that would ensure that the Democrats don’t have a nominee until the convention in September.

`What a curious plan!’ exclaimed Alice.

Curious, perhaps, but not surprising. Hillary, you see, has been talking with her (very expensive and always insightful) campaign consultants, the Walrus and the Carpenter:

“The time has come,” the Walrus said,

“To talk of many things:

Of shoes–and ships–and sealing-wax–

Of cabbages–and kings–

And why the sea is boiling hot–

And whether pigs have wings.”

. . .

“A loaf of bread,” the Walrus said,

“Is what we chiefly need:

Pepper and vinegar besides

Are very good indeed–

Now if you’re ready, Oysters dear,

We can begin to feed.”

“But not on us!” the Oysters cried,

Turning a little blue.

“After such kindness, that would be

A dismal thing to do!”

“The night is fine,” the Walrus said.

“Do you admire the view?

“It was so kind of you to come!

And you are very nice!”

The Carpenter said nothing but

“Cut us another slice:

I wish you were not quite so deaf–

I’ve had to ask you twice!”

“It seems a shame,” the Walrus said,

“To play them such a trick,

After we’ve brought them out so far,

And made them trot so quick!”

The Carpenter said nothing but

“The butter’s spread too thick!”

“I weep for you,” the Walrus said:

“I deeply sympathize.”

With sobs and tears he sorted out

Those of the largest size,

Holding his pocket-handkerchief

Before his streaming eyes.

“O Oysters,” said the Carpenter,

“You’ve had a pleasant run!

Shall we be trotting home again?’

But answer came there none–

And this was scarcely odd, because

They’d eaten every one.

Perhaps by the time Hillary’s Math Lessen is over, she, too, will have eaten every one.

Also available in Orange

1. Sometimes standing up to bullies works. The Washington Post reports the FBI backs off from secret order for data after lawsuit. First, the good news:

   The FBI has withdrawn a secret administrative order seeking the name, address and online activity of a patron of the Internet Archive after the San Francisco-based digital library filed suit to block the action.

   Yay Internet Archive! Now, the bad news:

   It is one of only three known instances in which the FBI has backed off from such a data demand, known as a “national security letter,” or NSL, which is not subject to judicial approval and whose recipient is barred from disclosing the order’s existence.

   Only 3 times since September 11, 2001? Gah! Part of the problem is the fascists who wrote and voted for the law included a “gag order provision” that prohibit public disclosure. “FBI officials now issue about 50,000 such orders a year.” So the backdown rate is roughly 1 for every 100,000. Here is how it went down:

   The order against the Internet Archive was served Nov. 26, and the nonprofit challenged it based on a provision of the reauthorized USA Patriot Act, which protects libraries from such requests. The privacy advocacy group Electronic Frontier Foundation represented the archive in the suit, which was joined by the American Civil Liberties Union.

   The archive also alleged that the gag order that accompanied the data demand violated the Constitution.

   As part of their settlement, the FBI agreed to drop the gag order and the archive agreed to withdraw the complaint. The case was unsealed Monday. Yesterday, redacted versions of key documents were filed, allowing the parties to discuss the case.

   The Justice Department knows the gag order violates the Constitution and did not want a Supreme Court decision saying so. The Telcos that are served 50,000 NSLs a year are not refusing this unconstitutional measure. And, according to WaPo, “A bipartisan bill in the House would restore the requirement that NSLs could be used only to collect information that pertains to ‘a foreign or agent of a foreign power’ and would limit the gag order to 30 days, unless a court authorized an extension.” Let’s make Congress do the right thing. Contact your representative and senators.

Four at Four continues with U.S.-Russia tit-for-tat, Crandall Canyon Mine, and flirty flowers.

2. The New York Times reports Russia Expels U.S. Military Attachés.

   Russia has ordered the expulsion of two American military attachés working at the United States embassy in Moscow, the State Department said on Thursday.

   “I can confirm the two military attachés have been asked to leave the country,” said Gonzo R. Gallegos, the department’s director of press relations. “We object to these actions, but we’ll comply with the Russian government’s request.”

   No one at the State Department would speculate about the reasons for the expulsions, although the United States has reportedly expelled a handful of Russians in recent years in little-noticed diplomatic dust-ups.

   Bush and Rice have revived the tit-for-tat of the Cold War.

3. The Salt Lake Tribune reports Congressional panel seeks Crandall Canyon Mine criminal probe. “Crandall Canyon Mine operators may have “willfully misled” federal officials about deteriorating conditions inside the mine, and the Justice Department should launch a criminal probe against the mine’s general manager” is the findings of a House Education and Labor Committee report. Committee chairman George Miller (D CA-07) has “asked the Justice Department to investigate whether mine general manager Laine Adair, ‘individually or in conspiracy with others, willfully concealed or covered up’ or made ‘false representations’ to federal officials about the conditions in the mine, a violation of federal law.”

   The NY Times adds the committee found the Utah mine disaster was preventable. “The report also said that the mining company should never have submitted a request to remove coal from the section of mine where the collapse occurred, and that federal mining officials should not have approved the proposal, because of foreseeable dangers.”

   The deaths were avoidable, the 150-page report said, because five months before the August disaster in the north section of the mine, a similar collapse had occurred in a southern section, offering clear “red flags” indicating that the mine was unstable.

   Rather than informing federal mining officials about the March collapse, the report said, the mine operator cleaned up the site and went on with work in a nearby section.

   The disaster killed 9 miners.

4. Some flowers flirt. BBC News reports Flowers ‘wave’ at passing insects.

   Flowers “wave” at insects to get their attention, scientists have discovered. The finding helps explain why many flowers waft in the breeze, and reveals a hitherto unknown trick used to attract pollinators.

   Scientists made the discovery while studying common wildflowers known as sea campion on the Welsh coast. Mobile flowers are visited more often by insects and also produce more seeds, they report in the Journal of Evolutionary Biology.

   Moving flowers also attract a wider variety of insect species than more static blooms.

So, Cindy McCain says she’ll NEVER release her tax returns.  Poor Miss Too Rich and Impossibly Blond Cindy McCain, heir to a booze fortune and wantin’ to be First Lady, but, by damn, nobody’s gonna know about MY finances.

The arrogance.  The hubris.  The Republicanism.

See The Video of Cindy sweetly sneering at even the notion that, as a public figure, and as wannabe First Lady, she has any obligation to come clean on her riches.

Wonderful.  What a likable person.

Mu . . .

( – promoted by buhdydharma )

The death toll and suffering in Burma continues to rise in the aftermath of Cyclone Nargis (Urdu for daffodil). The situation is dire.

Aid has barely trickled into one of the world’s most isolated and impoverished countries, although experts feared it would be too little to cope with the aftermath of Nargis, which left up to 100,000 feared dead and one million homeless.

Witnesses saw little evidence of a relief effort under way in the hard-hit Irrawaddy delta region.

“We’ll starve to death, if nothing is sent to us,” said Zaw Win, a 32-year-old fisherman who waded through floating corpses to find a boat for the two-hour journey to Bogalay, a town where the government said 10,000 people were killed.

“We need food, water, clothes and shelter,” he told a Reuters reporter.

Source

This poem by a Burmese buddhist monk summarizes everything we need to know.

Let the world Help our people!

each day we pray

each morning we hope

that the dead and destroyed areas saved

we are sure that the world can help

a UN plane arrived after two days delay

why are you making of yourselves as devils

obstructing help needed by people

what are you afraid of

in this kind of catastrophe

we do not think about ourselves

we think for all

for the victims

there shall be no borders

visas shall not needed

for helpful samaritans

with equipments and medicines

do not be a control freak

show the world that you are noble

nobler than the lady

who asked for sanctions

this is not business nor for power

this is humanity

forget about her

show the world that you are a real man

a real soldier

a real army

who wish for the goodness for its people.

the world is flat

for anyone who helps

welcome all

for their kindness

International aid is starting to trickle in

World Food Program spokesman Paul Risley in Bangkok said a Thai cargo plane delivered seven tons of high-energy biscuits and a U.N. chartered flight from Brindisi, Italy arrived in Yangon with water, plastic sheeting, medical kits and other equipment.

He said one other charter flight in Bangkok was awaiting landing clearance permission and a fourth flight was expected to leave from Dubai on Thursday.

The Red Cross/Red Crescent confirmed its first aid plane took off from Kuala Lumpur, carrying six tonnes of shelter materials.

“It’s a modest amount, but we hope once we established it, others will follow,” an official said. “Another eight tonnes of shelter goods will leave on a Thai commercial flight tonight.”

Medicins sans Frontieres (Doctors without Borders), which has 1,000 people in Myanmar, said it was ferrying aid supplies into the delta via trucks and boats. It said it had been granted permission to fly in supplies.

“We are focusing on those still alive; 50 percent of them have wounds and they are infected,” MSF official Frank Smithius in Myanmar told Australian radio. “Because of the winds and high water, people got smashed around.”

Jean-Michel Grand, executive director of Action contre la Faim (Action Against Hunger) in London said the logistical obstacles were formidable.

“The roads are very poor or destroyed, and in many cases there were no roads before. Everybody’s looking at boats as an alternative. It’s going to be a massive logistics challenge.

Source

Here is how you can donate to these aid organizations:

Food: World Food Programme

Action Against Hunger

Relief supplies: International Committee of the Red Cross

Medicine: Doctors without Borders

Note: All aid organizations are reporting fraud.  Give directly to the organization, not secondary sites or emails.

The Bush administration pissing contest needs to stop

Every since the cyclone hit, the Bush administration has engaged in petty and childish rhetoric. Apparently Secretary of State Rice has been too busy with her lecture circuit, so they trotted out Laura Bush to elevate hypocrisy and insensitivity to an art form. The government of Myanmar can legitimately be criticized for its treatment of its citizens, but none of those criticisms are helpful when 100,000 people are dead and millions are without food or shelter.

Laura Bush either has a very short memory or a defective conscience.

May 3, 2008:

A Category 3 tropical cyclone approaches Myanmar.

There is massive flooding in the low-lying delta areas.

The government is unprepared to handle the aftermath, as thousands drown and millions are left without food or shelter.

————————————-

August 30, 2005:

A Category 3 tropical cyclone approaches New Orleans.

There is massive flooding in the low-lying delta areas.

The government is unprepared to handle the aftermath, as thousands drown and millions are left without food or shelter.

You might think that the press would call her attention to the blatant hypocrisy of criticizing the government of Myanmar for its poor emergency response when her husband’s failure to respond to Katrina was even more egregious. Unlike Myanmar, we had the resources to warn, evacuate, rescue, and speed recovery. Take a look at what she was asked.

Q. Do you think that they have blood on their hands for that lack of warning?

MRS. BUSH: Well, I just think it’s very, very important — that we know already that they are very inept; that they have not been able to govern in a way that lets their company — country, for one thing, build an economy. This is a country that’s rich in natural resources. Their natural resources are being depleted as they sell them off, as far as we can tell from the outside, for the financial benefit of the regime itself and not for the good of the people. We know that.

A government that is inept, fails to act in the best interest of its people, and depletes its resources for financial benefit of well-connected corporations sounds just like the good old United States of America.  

Her concern over natural resource protection in Myanmar is particularly ironic and deliciously ill-informed. The environmental degradation, including the cutting of the mangrove swamps and teak forests, took place under the auspices of our great friend and ally, Great Britain. It was the British who decided to convert the wetlands to rice paddies.

The delta is former swampland that was converted during British colonial times into one of the world’s largest rice-growing areas. It is exceptionally fertile but difficult to traverse.

“The infrastructure was degraded to begin with,” said Sean Turnell, an expert on Myanmar at Macquarie University in Sydney, Australia. Dykes had collapsed, irrigation systems failed and bridges were sometimes impassable before the cyclone, Mr. Turnell said.

The delta was only sparsely inhabited until the 1900s but by the early 20th century had been transformed into what became known as the rice bowl of Asia. Rice grown in the delta fed large swaths of the British empire and colonial Burma, the former name for Myanmar, was for several decades the world’s largest rice exporter. But under military rule, Myanmar has seen a steep decline in rice production as rice paddies have been neglected, international sanctions have prevented many buyers from handling Myanmar’s rice and a lack of investment in modern port facilities and port dredging has made it very expensive to ship rice in or out of Myanmar.

The felling of mangrove swamps and the destruction of dense primary jungle removed natural barriers and may have left populations more vulnerable.

“Obviously nobody thought of the environmental consequences of all this,” Michael Adas, a professor of history at Rutgers University and the author of The Burma Delta, a book about the transformation to a rice-growing center.

Source

This is how mature countries respond to a natural disaster.

On the same day Laura Bush was speaking to the White House Dictation Corps, Australian Foreign Minister Stephen Smith focused on the need for crisis response.

Smith told reporters after a speech in Hong Kong that it remains difficult to evaluate how the disaster played out in Myanmar because of patchy communications.

“I just don’t think we’re in a position to make that sort of judgment now given the difficulties of communication. And also, frankly, it’s not, in my mind, the priority. The priority now is rendering assistance to thousands of displaced people who urgently need our assistance,” he said.

Source

The German government just announced it is doubling its immediate humanitarian relief for the people in Myanmar to one million euro. The funds are available immediately for use primarily for ensuring drinking water supplies, emergency shelters, food, and medical care. Foreign Minister Dr Frank-Walter Steinmeier issued the following statement on the situation in Myanmar:

“The Federal Government is growing extremely concerned as the increasing extent of the disaster in Myanmar becomes known. The top priority now must be to help the injured and homeless. Ensuring supplies of drinking water and medicines is a matter of particular urgency.

Germany has offered its help and is prepared to provide further assistance. I appeal once again to the authorities in Myanmar to allow all helpers unhindered access to the disaster areas and to facilitate an effective international aid operation.”

Source

Too bad Hillary Clinton decided to loan herself another 6 million to continue her futile presidential campaign. Donating the money to the people of Myanmar would have been a real act of leadership.

( – promoted by kestrel9000)

Hat tip to plasticseapolluter

http://www.dod.mil/pubs/foi/mi…

So I’ve been going through the Pentagon Document dump. I have to give it to the Defense Department, they know how to bury stuff. Of course none of this is indexable, being jpgs contained in PDF. Luckily there are orc sorters and what I have found is that a certain obscure PDF has a lot of chunky goodness in it.

Well, not goodness, maybe that last chunk of evil from Time Bandits.

Anywho, I found some interesting items I would like to share.

Below the fold…..

First off, the money shot. I know you are asking, did you find names? Do you know who the list of pundists were on the Pentagon? Yes, and I can do you one better.

I found the roster buried in a 500 page PDF.

Here are your Pentagon All-Stars:

Good lord, where did I find this copy? See, the key to document dumps is to know they are gonna try and hide the most damning tidbits in off-path places. You will never find anything out of protocol in the Generals or their staff’s documents. They know this game and would never be foolish enough to have their stamp below anything incriminating.

That’s what low level employee’s are for. That’ why when I saw the Tara Jones email docs, I knew I had my huckleberry. Jones is just another Goodling, working for the Pentagon instead of the DOJ. I figured she was either to green to filter her communications properly, or was being set up as the scapegoat.

Either way, her doc dump has proven to be the most fruitful so far. So let’s take a look at the propaganda that Jones was peddling:

Oh okay. Now in this document there is a list of talking points and rebuttals. This is from that section, as are the following images.

Now in the first question here, the Administration, or at least the Pentagon, is fully admitting that following the Constitution on American soil would be a “legal complication.” It shows that what they were doing they knew was not within the rules and guidelines of the law of the land.

What risks are being weighed here? Why would a change in their legal status affect the concept of justice? Isn’t that a universal concept? How is justice place dependent?

It’s a rather striking departure from generations of American legal tradition.

The second question is even more quizzical. Presidential Reason to Believe? No longer required? So what, even if Bush doesn’t believe they are guilty, he can still hold these kangaroo courts?

This is a can of worms legal scholars need to get on stat, it makes no sense.

Of course, neither does this:

No that is incorrect, we are still bound by the Geneva Convention, Bush just unsigned the USA being a party to the ICC.  While breaking the Geneva Convention is a war crime, the USA or its personal is not liable to the ICC. It is still a war crime, Bush just moved the goal posts by redefining the “principles”.

See what Bush has done with Yoo is created a new standard on what are Human Rights and what is Torture. By their new standards, they did not torture or violate basic rights. So they can go up and say, “We do not torture.”

But that is by their definition, not the Geneva Convention. This distinction is very important heading into 2009, when this should finally be sorted out by a legitimate Department of Justice.

Speaking or the rule of law:

Oh stay classy Bush and the Pentagon! Well-established offenses? LIke the innocent journalist you tortured for six years? Or that kid you have had lockup since he was 13 for throwing a grenade, which is more than likely from friendly fire?

There is a long list of detainees who “well-established offenses” are open to debate. Yes, there are a couple real bastards in there, but the concept of due process would sort out the innocent. We are denying them this.

Now so you know, the ex post facto law means changing the legal consequences for an act after the transgression has happened. We are protected by Article I, section 9 of the U.S. Constitution and in state law by section 10.

What makes this sad is that it is ex post facto, because before they would have been tried liked the Blind Cleric after the 1993 WTC bombings. Now they are being tortured in secret renditions.

I think that is a severe change in legal consequences, but that is just me.

There are pages and pages of these talking points for the paid military propagandists. I just picked a few that really irked me.

And I thought I would end with this round of the review with a random slide that fills these documents.

Check it out:

4th Generation Warfare! Weeeee!

These reads like a paranoid Alex Jones caller’s worst nightmare.

Actors! Nonlinear battlefields! Psychological warfare!!

To bad the war is on the American people, and not our true enemies.

patent leather rain pelts morse code

on amber waves of multi-grain  

and christmas geese guard easter goslings from black hawks

there’s a madman at the lake

throwing fishing line into emeralds,

singing to the willow weeping there

he’s looking for the 9am express to Never Never Land

but where’s the door, Alice? no. silly.

Alice doesn’t live there anymore. ask for Tink.

he’s the fool at the lake

mouthing god’s words…

and alarmed at cat calls in infant growls

everything is something else, he says

nothing needs to be what it is

he knows it.

the world is this… mixed nuts