No, Seriously . . . Barack Obama Day Is Now a Holiday

by Kim D.

'Barack Obama Day' is now an Illinois holiday https://t.co/GTfodDHRLX pic.twitter.com/A4VFHTLnLf

— NBC Chicago (@nbcchicago) August 5, 2017

According to the above news source, this year Barack Obama got an extra present on his 56th birthday - a holiday. Illinois Governor Bruce Rauner made it official this past Friday. Hence from this date forward, August 4th will be deemed Barack Obama Day.  Well, it will in Illinois at least. 

The bill declares that Barack Obama Day will "observed throughout the State as a day set apart to honor the 44th President of the United States of America who began his career serving the People of Illinois in both the Illinois State Senate and the United States Senate, and dedicated his life to protecting the rights of Americans and building bridges across communities."

Unfortunately, this holiday is only a commemorative one. Kids will have to go to school and workplaces will not close to honor the 44th president each year. 

Hidden Democrat-Nazi Ties? D'Souza Calls It the Big Lie

Good Morning: Drivers on the Phone

Ain't Going Down This Time

In the Still of the Night

No pain, no gain: Silos and Socialists

by Angela K. Durden
Technology inventor protecting creator's copyrights. Business writer, novelist, songwriter, and Citizen Journalist.


All social media are simply companies trying to keep eyeballs on their silo in order to attract paying advertisers. In other words, you are the corn they hope the cows will want.

To keep you there, they redesign interfaces and change how they work, changes which often screw with very corn they want to keep. They change APIs so that companies servicing mutual customers have difficulty connecting if that connect has potential to take the corn to another silo.

After that add the scatter shot, please-God-this-time-let-it-work posts that are badly written and poorly aimed, and you then can begin to wonder how it is anybody sees anything at all on these here worldwide Internets.

Next, throw in the PC-Socialist-We-Know-What's-Best-For-You corporate manipulations of post notifications — especially if those posts are from or are connected to any black-listed phrases, words, people, images, sites, or topics they have prohibited by dictate.

Case in point. 

I was looking for an image to illustrate this article using the theme of "no pain, no gain" and went to Google. But all the images I saw were the same old thing. Images of hard bodies beautifully lit pushing the corporate-spreadsheet-driven narrative that painful exercise is good for you but only when you pay big bucks for it.

I go back to redo the search when I notice —

"Report Inappropriate Predictions"?

What the hell did Google/Alphabet mean by inappropriate? And who would I report that to?

You don't even have to ask. I'm way ahead of you on this. Of course I clicked it. I am Citizen Journalist, after all. Here's what came up —

Hateful?

Hateful? Sexually explicit? Violent? Dangerous and harmful activity? How does one report those? What happens then? 

I clicked the Legal Help page link which led me to Lumen Database.

The help page belied its name as it seemed more self-serving than helpful. In other words, Google/Alphabet affirmed over and over their methods were transparent and blah, blah, blah. On the other hand, the Lumen Database was very informative and fun, too.

Still, hateful, sexually explicit, violent, dangerous, and harmful are all adjectives subject to the eye of the beholder. 

For instance, one person's sexually explicit is another person's regular Saturday night. One's hateful is another's righteous dogma, and so forth. Right? Am I lying? I am not.

In other words, the categories above are all based on an opinion, a viewpoint.

Now, Google promises they will only take action if a law is broken, but ask me how much I believe that from them? Go on. Ask me!

"Angela, how much do you believe Google?"

Thank you for asking. I appreciate that. 

Answer: Not at all. 

Especially in light of their continued leading position in the gutting of copyright protections and other data manipulations they employ to feed business to themselves while they screw everybody else.

The Moth & The Flame "Red Flag"

Road Trip Talk with the RNC

by Kim D.

Setting: Traveling by car from Texas to South Carolina. Bluetooth shows an incoming call. As I tap the screen to accept the call from an 800 number, my gut feeling is I will regret accepting it. I was wrong.

Me:  Hello.

Lady from RNC: Good afternoon. My name is "redacted" and I am calling from the Republican National Committee. Let me first state that this call is being recorded for quality assurance purposes. As you know the Republicans in Congress are fighting a battle with obstructionist Democrats. We need your support and help more than ever.  Today we are asking that you please commit to a $75 donation to the Republican Party. Can we count on you?

Me:  You seem like a lovely person and my response is in no way directed at you personally.  Please confirm again that this conversation is being recorded.

Lady from RNC: Yes it is but . . .

Me:  Good. Please pass my thoughts on to the higher ups in your organization.  You asked for my support in 2010 to repeal Obamacare. I gave it with dollars and my vote. You took the support, won the House and did nothing. Then you asked again in 2012 with a renewed promise.  I gave again.  In 2014, you declared if you had the House and Senate, you could take action to repeal Obamacare. I gave money and pulled a lever for you, and you won again. This time the Senate. Yet, you did nothing.  In this past election, you swore with the House, Senate, and the White House, Obamacare would finally be repealed.

Lady from RNC: Excuse me ma'am but . . . 

Me:  No, you see, that's the problem . . . there are no more excuses.  Never once did I hear anyone say the goal of the Republican Party was to repeal and replace Obamacare.  The promise all along has been to repeal a law that was rammed down our throats, hell bent on destroying our current health care system and intent on pushing Americans into a single-payer system.

Lady from RNC: But . . . 

Me:  My answer to your donation request is  . . .  no  . . . which will also translate to future votes unless Obamacare is repealed. Not replaced. Repealed. It is time for the Republican Party to support and help the people who put them in power. It is time to act on promises repeatedly made. When you've accomplished your promises, feel free to call back to renew my support and help which I will give.

Lady from RNC: (sigh)

Me:  Thank you and have a nice day. (click).

Even geniuses can't be right all the time, or How Einstein got it wrong.

by Angela K. Durden

I'm going on record as saying Einstein was wrong when he said

Sure, by all accounts ol' Albert was a great guy. And smart, too. He hated war. But you know, Einstein and his family fled Germany in 1933 because this fellow by the name of Hitler decided to do what he did.

Einstein decided to speak up against Fascism in 1933 by hying himself and his family off to a country where, and I quote him verbatim, "political freedom, tolerance, and equality of all citizens reign."

Where did Einstein go?
Not Russia.
Not Italy.
Definitely not France.
Einstein was not a stupid man, so...

He came to America. 

Lots of bumper stickers are sold with that first sentence of Einstein's quoted. Makes them feel good. But evil cannot be stopped with a bumper sticker, and don't forget it.

Like a lot of kindly and softhearted folks often do, Einstein forgot that the reason he could sleep easy at night in the U.S. was because the country had strong borders they were willing to defend with something more than a good attitude, wishes, and peace slogans.

The reason the U.S. could defend properly is that they prepared. The U.S. did not want to start a war, but damn they sure didn't want to get caught flat-footed like Britain and France and Poland.

And when it came to stopping war, Truman pulled the trigger on the very thing that stopped Japanese aggression cold and saved many more lives. At that time the war ended and the emperor admitted — to the dismay of the Japanese citizens — he was not God or even a god.

The same people who put this bumper sticker on their car are the same ones that — I double guar-OH-damn-TEE — have security systems on their cars and homes and businesses because they are preparing for bad guys to come and take their stuff and kill them and yet they do not see the difference.

Thank goodness others do know the value of preparation to meet evil.

The WASP (Texas Radio and The Big Beat) - Alternate Version

Jeff Beck/Billy Gibbons: Sixteen Tons

Merle Travis wrote and recorded it, but Tennessee Ernie Ford's version made it a big hit and it became his signature song.

Saturday Silliness: Begging You for Birdseed (Misheard Song Lyrics from Peter Kay)

by Angela K. Durden

Terminator Lite? Go change your underwear and read this.

by Angela K. Durden
Technology inventor protecting creator's copyrights. Business writer, novelist, songwriter, and Citizen Journalist.

Oh, for God's sake, users of Facebook and Linkedin and Twitter: Terminator Lite didn't just get shut down. Now, go change your underwear and get a grip.

Here's what really happened [click link for Forbes.com story]: 

Facebook wanted to get this artificial intelligence program to talk to humans. They failed to tell the program that's what they wanted. The program followed all the other parameters and became extremely efficient in the handling of customer service issues, but human language was inefficient for the program and, in accordance with built-in ability to do so, began communicating in shorthand code, or what is has been called a new language.

This is not a new thing. Programmers have known of this ability to create new language for ages and ages. Anyway, Facebook shut down the program until they could rejigger the parameters and start the experiment up again. 

But the Internet melted down with headlines about SkyNet and the Terminator and O. M. Fricki' G., the end of mankind being averted by Facebook pulling the plug. Yay, Facebook, for saving mankind. Here's a thumbs up for you:  

However, here's the bigger part of this story that everybody is missing.

Have you asked yourself why Facebook is trying to make an artificial intelligence program that can talk to humans? 

I will tell you why.

Because Facebook, one of if not the biggest Politically Correct Liberal Left Wing Socialist-agenda-supporting companies on the planet, is trying to find out how to outsource Customer Service to robots and away from the very humans they claim to love so much. 

Those would include the humans in India and Indonesia and all those other not-quite-first-world and some-definite-third-world countries where they are already earning pitiful amounts of money.

Ain't that a kick in the pants. 

But hey, who are we to call Facebook hypocrites? 

A band having fun performing a great song

Double Dip: I Fought the Law

The song was written in 1958 by Sonny Curtis, and recorded in 1959 when he joined the Crickets, taking the place of the late Buddy Holly on guitar. Joe B. Mauldin and Jerry Allison continued their positions on the standup bass and drums, respectively, while Earl Sinks filled the role for vocals. The song was on their 1960 LP, In Style with the Crickets, and the following year appeared as the b-side of their single, "A Sweet Love". The song never received any airplay. Milwaukee's Paul Stefen and the Royal Lancers covered the song in 1962; it provided them with a local hit, but it never made the national charts.^[1] In 1964, Sammy Masters recorded his cover of the song. That same year, the song was recorded by Bobby Fuller and his band on his own Exeter label in El Paso, which solidified the band's popularity in the West Texas area with one of his biggest local hits.



The Gold Standard Version