caucus99percent

free-range politics, organic community

Hot War, Cold War
Bring along the Atom Bombs

The on again, off again war with Iran teeters on the whim of the Don. Some how I don't trust his "morality". Many of the analysts in today's column suggest Trump has painted himself into a corner with Iran. This week we let lapse the last of the nuclear treaties, START. No telling what that move will precipitate...a new nuclear arms race, when we already have enough bombs to blown up the world multiple times? The other big news item of the week is the fall out from the Epstein files. Their release is echoing in various western halls of power, especially in Europe. The UK press is trying to promote the lame idea that Jeffery Epstein was a Russian agent. When in doubt, blame it on Russia. All that and more below the fold...

The US is in decline, mostly because not even the international investor classes trust it anymore. But we're down with that, right?

Afternoon folks!

It's a stylistic smorgasbord of blues this week starting out with an album from Syl Johnson, a Chicago blues and soul artist backed by the Hi (records) rhythm section as he was at the height of his commercial output, reprising some of his hits along with some other cool material. After that we move to New Orleans for a compilation album of two great singer/piano players, labelmates Tommy Ridgely and Bobby Mitchell. Following that is another compilation album of artists from the Trumpet label in the early 50's, including harmonica player Jerry McCain and then it's on to a more modern band and a live album from Little Charlie and the Nightcats a fun, talented band worth a serious listen. We finish off with an album from The Texas Tornados who are difficult to fit into a specific stylistic category, but maybe you could call it Texas music.

Enjoy the tunes and have a great weekend!

Good morning, good people! You know I constantly bitch about police overstepping their constitutional bounds. You may remember me ranting and raving about kill switches in cars.
Citizens have no reason to be watched until there is some reason to be watched. A kill switch is instant detention.

And, then, there is this, from Splendora, Texas:

Happy Friday everyone. Welcome to Friday Night Photos your once a week escape from the day to day insanity of the world we live in. Post any photos, memes, music or whatever else you find of interest that helps tune out the madness.

We had a mild Santa Ana the last three days. Temps were in the high 80s to low 90s with humidity in the teens. Things are back to normal today, 70° and 51% humidity. Slight chance of rain in the forecast for the middle of next week.

I haven't posted any flowers since last July and with much of the country dealing with the cold and snow I thought some flowers were in order to help brighten things up.

Morning.

This week followed one of my study themes - by understanding the patterns in history and foreign affairs - reflections on local matters become more comprehensive.

Please feel free to bring up any subject.

Things are Getting So Weird

Maybe this is 'just' me getting old, but it seems to me that things are changing and getting weirder every day. Even simple things, like avoiding online/email/internet scams. I was around, and using computers, big huge mainframe computers, when the internet started to develop from Darpanet. I was the first student in my graduate department to use a computer, I was one of the first to have a desktop computer (it was like, 1981, I think. Dad got it for me for fun). I was one of the first to use Linux, in fact I started with something like Redhat 1.0 and Gnome 0.3. Point is I've got a pretty good background in computers, internet, detecting phishing, scams, and all kinds of other things. I've never been scammed, and because I've used Linux for so long, I'm not really aware of all the scams happening.

The Basics, I think we all know them. (From rmonnetworks.com)