Shutdown… Shutdown… SHUTDOWN… AHHH THE Sky is falling!

NewImage

I had another blog that I was working on.

It wasn’t going well, and may end up in the dustbin.

Hey, it happens sometimes so sue me… it’s not like you’re paying for my assault on your senses.


By now we’ve all heard about the government shutdown.

Sure the government is shutdown but it’s pretty obvious that the powers in Washington DC are playing games to make sure that the Shutdown is right in the faces of the citizens.I’m convinced that a lot of this is pure theater.

NewImage

Riddle me this? What kind of sense does it make to allocate resources like barricades and police to patrol monuments that normally have no such patrols of barricades?

It’s not like the Monuments in Washington DC have huge fences around them and single entrances. 

I’ve walked the length of the reflecting pond toward the Lincoln memorial from the Washington monument and never encountered a fence, park ranger, officer, or any other Government tendril.

NewImage

These places are open, they are designed to be open and accessible. These places are designed this way with purpose.

For me, these monuments are not only about venerating the great men that helped build this country, their openness is a comment on our freedom.

How times have changed!

These monuments are also a reminder that at one time we walked with our heads held high, fearless, and the concept of vandalizing any of these monuments was simply unthinkable. 

Getting to the Lincoln memorial at dusk and watching the lights come on was for me important and powerful. Entering the memorial itself was timeless and I took my time reading the great words inscribed inside. 

NewImage

By the time I left the memorial night had fallen. The lights of the Capital twinkled in the distance and the various monuments were awash in light.

I was in one of the oldest cities in our country and I felt a pride that was almost overwhelming. 

Now because of The Shutdown (Doom musical sound effect… please)

These free parks and open spaces are being closed at great expense and difficulty. WHY?

What does this prove, other than our leaders are far more interested in being vindictive and stupid. They’re making absolutely sure that vacation plans while already disrupted, are completely ruined.

Families in transit arrive in Washington DC, only to find that they can’t visit open air memorials? What’s the sense in that?

NewImage

What next, huge concrete domes over monuments, armed guards checking passports and a visitors right to be there? Metal detectors, body scanners, and then full body x-rays to make sure that you’re not carrying contraband in your anus?

How is this saving money?

In every instance it’s taking more man power to tell people the monuments are closed than it would to simply allow the monuments to be open and accessible.

The WWII memorial, the Vietnam Wall closed? Really?

This is exactly the kind of vindictive wasteful thinking that got us into the shutdown in the first place. But now instead of Congress kicking each other in the nuts, they’re kicking the average citizen.

NOAADown

Another stupidity is that the Government put notices similar to this one, on Websites immediately.

We all know that the government IT departments haven’t shut down. This is another Fuck you to the people from our elected officials in Washington.


At the risk of sounding like one of the crazy right wing nutjobs.

It’s time for We The People to stand up and raise hell.

We need to kick all of our so called leaders to the curb and get some people that are actually willing to do their jobs.

The problems we’re facing aren’t going to magically go away. It’s going to take thinking, reasoning people who understand that cooperation is necessary for the good of the country.

Impeach ’em, Recall ’em whatever it takes. They are OUR Employees and they haven’t done the job(s) they were elected to do. Time to fire them and find someone who will do the job as we direct.

This vindictive bullshit has got to stop.

 

You have got to be kidding me…

Images

I saw some video of the person trying to ram the gate at the White house.

It didn’t look to me like she tried to ram anything.

It looked a lot more like she’d made a wrong turn and was trying to figure out what to do next when the DC police and Secret Service responded with shouting and waving a whole lot of guns at her.

That video is not available on the web yet…  And it may never be because it makes the DC police and Secret Service look really bad.

I think she decided to just get the hell away from all these crazy people and their scary guns, who then started shooting.

Images 1

This led to a police chase where our “evildoer” hit a cop car practically destroying it, then sped on to her final destination.

Really? Crown Victoria vs. Lexus and the Lexus is drivable? While the Crown Vic is totaled. Really?

I think it’s far more likely that the cop driving the Crown Vic hit something else or was hit because you can see the front of the Lexus in some of the photos.

Unknown 1

This one for example.

The front of the Lexus doesn’t look nearly as screwed up as I’d expect after seeing the Cops car.

The initial news reports were that the Woman had started shooting at the cops.

As it turned out she was completely unarmed and had a 1 year old child in the back seat.

I can easily imagine a Mother getting freaked out because she was lost or made a wrong turn then was suddenly confronted with 20 or 30 men with guns all shouting at her and she decided…

THE HELL WITH THIS!

I’m getting my child and myself away from these crazy people who aren’t listening to what I’m saying.

I’ll grant you it probably wasn’t the smartest move.

Honestly if I was already stressed because I was lost and then turned into an area to consider my options, then looked up and saw a bunch of guys pointing guns at me and screaming at me… I’d be very much inclined to run.

OUT OF FEAR FOR MY LIFE!

These cops in the first video are obviously cranked beyond any reasonable notches. The gate in question is quite some distance from the White House.

That these folks were cranked tighter than a Meth addict coming down hard is something we as a people and a country should really take a good long look at.

A couple of weeks ago NYPD shot innocent bystanders because some nut job was running around in traffic.

The police missed the nut job they were shooting at.

Last year I believe NYPD shot 13 or 14 people in a similar incident where they only grazed the actual criminal but did a lot of harm to innocent bystanders.

Now it looks as if the DC police are just as amped up, stupid and irresponsible as NYPD. 

DC police killed this woman in front of her child. 

This lady was unarmed, obviously afraid, and we will never know what her intention was.

The one thing that we can be sure of and that we need to dial way down is living in fear.

The media, bloggers, Twitter, and god only knows what other media sources seem to thrive on filling us up with fear, of living.

It’s unnecessary and it leads to police over-reaction to common every day events.

What ever happened to an officer approaching the vehicle and saying something civil like “Ma’am you can’t park here you must move along.

How about the civility of “Are you lost Ma’am and can I help you?

Instead because DC is freaking out, the response was probably something like;

GET OUT OF THE CAR MAGGOT, FUCKING BITCH,  DOWN ON YOUR KNEES, NOW, NOW, NOW, I DON’T GIVE A SHIT WHAT YOUR EXCUSE IS, GET OUT OF THE CAR ON THE GROUND, NOW BITCH! 

Then there’s the very real possibility that if you don’t move fast enough or you move too fast you’re going to at minimum get beat to hell and at maximum you’re going to be shot.

Given that choice I’d probably opt to stay in the car and make a run for it. At least I’d have a cocoon of steel around me.

We need to take the fear mongering down several notches. 

Not everyone is planning to do congress or the president harm. If congress and / or the president are that fearful, maybe some introspection on how they are doing their job is in order.

Sometimes people make wrong turns. Sometimes people veer onto side streets trying to avoid an accident, then have to figure out how to get back on course. It happens every day in every city in the US.

They killed an unarmed woman… 

Will she be mourned and venerated like Trayvon Martin?

Surely her life was important and she was worthy of a police officer listening to her.

It’s painful to live in fear


The reports this morning are even more bizarre. This lady suffering from post partum depression loads up her child, drives from Connecticut to Washington DC and tried to ram a barricade at the White House? Was the child the Presidents?

None of it makes any sense and honestly given the spin that the DC police and the media are putting on this event. I am for the first time in my life fearful of the police and my government.

The behavior we saw yesterday and the police now trying to imply, if not outright say this woman was a threat to the security of the White House is ludicrous.

The internal investigation of this incident will be covered up. The police will be found completely blameless. The Secret Service will continue to claim they acted properly. 

Meanwhile the woman’s name will be slandered and her child will be without a parent.

The handling of this incident makes me want to vomit.

The truth of the matter will never come out. If we were able to keep track of the officers quitting the DC police department over the next year I wouldn’t be surprised to see a huge turnover.

I don’t think the officers leaving would be bad cops, rather I suspect they’d be the cops whose morals and ethics wouldn’t let them continue to work for a department that clearly has no moral boundaries.

It’s one of those days.

NewImage

I fired up my computer and started rooting around for a link to a web site I know I have saved somewhere.

I can’t find it

What I did find is one of the strangest assortments of websites I’ve ever seen… And they’re all sites I actually took the time to save.

What was I thinking?

UH OH! 

NewImage

I just fell down the rabbit hole. The OCD is running wild (I’m actually only OCD about my computer…) I’m deleting tons of web addresses and wondering why the hell I saved them in the first place.

I’ve completely forgotten what I was searching for.

At the same time I happened to notice that I had over 3000 tweets… I found out that you can’t select them all and delete them. You have to delete them one at a time #lame.

But I found a little web app that will go through and delete your tweets. 

NewImage

I set it to automatically delete all my tweets older than 2 weeks.

Do I really need to leave online traces of my thoughts from a particular time? Nah…

Tweets are supposed to be ephemeral I think 2 weeks is long enough for a tweet to live.

I wish Twitter would allow us to set a “time to live” for our tweets. In fact, I just sent that request to twitter engineering.

OH! I remembered what I was looking for…. Oh crap! I forgot again. <– Damn senior moment! Squirrel!

I’m off to go be a grumpy old man…

“HEY… You kids! GET OFF MY LAWN!!!!”

I’m really going to go finish cleaning up my computer and try to get something constructive done today.

I hope you have a great day.