More snow ...

It's gotten to the point where I leave one shovel outside the front door and another out back. Jesus-fucking-Christ, I'm sick of this shit already. The next idiot I hear telling me climate change is nothing more than Al Gore's bullshit is gonna get a punch in the mouth.

Tea Horse Road

I sat in the doctor's office yesterday while Mrs. G got a follow-up on her tonsil procedure of last week. The doc scripped her a stronger antibiotic and a steroid, but she's done with pain and is no longer a hydrocodone-d lump on the couch. She's chipper and cheery and getting her energy back.

I read this fascinating article about something I didn't know existed. The older I get, the more things I find like that.

Chinese tea and Tibetan horses were long traded on a legendary trail. Today remnants of the passageway reveal grand vistas — and a surprising new commerce.

Then, with one wide sweep of my ax, the bamboo falls. Before me is a four-foot-wide cobblestone trail curving up through the forest, slick with green moss, almost overgrown. Some of the stones are pitted with water-filled divots, left by the metal-spiked crutches used by hundreds of thousands of porters who trod this trail for a millennium.

Backs bent beneath immense, imaginary loads of brick tea, veiny hands on T-shaped crutches, heads down and eyes on their splayed feet, the two old men showed me how they wobbled single file along a wet stretch of cobblestone. After seven steps Gan stopped and stamped his crutch three times, following tradition. Both men circled their crutches around to their backs to rest their wood-frame packs atop the crutch. Wiping sweat from their brows with phantom bamboo whisks, they croaked out the tea porter song:

Seven steps up, you have to rest.
Eight steps down, you have to rest.
Eleven steps flat, you have to rest.
You are stupid, if you don't rest.

Tea portering ended soon after Mao took over the country in 1949 and a highway was built. Redistributing land from the wealthy to the poor, Mao released the tea porters from servitude. "It was the happiest day of my life," Luo said. After he received his parcel of land, he began to grow his own rice and "that sad period passed away."

One rainy black morning halfway through the festival, while the police are looking the other way, Sue and I slip off in a Land Cruiser to find out what has happened to Tibet's Tea Horse Road. We race all day on dirt roads, grinding over passes, almost rolling on steep slopes. We don't stop at checkpoints, and we creep right past village police stations. By nightfall we reach Lharigo, a village between two enormous passes that once served as a sanctuary along the Gyalam. Surreptitiously, we go door-to-door looking for horses to take us up to 17,756-foot Nubgang Pass. There are none to be found, and we're directed to a saloon on the edge of town. Inside, Tibetan cowboys are drinking beer, shooting pool, and placing bets on a dice game called sho. They laugh when we ask for horses. No one rides horses anymore.

That part's the same the world over: ya want the 411, hit a saloon and chat up the locals. Who knew the Tibetans have cowboy biker bars? Just like the western U.S.. Heh.

Outside the saloon, instead of steeds of muscle standing in the mud, there are steeds of steel: tough little Chinese motorcycles decorated like their bone-and-blood predecessors—red-and-blue Tibetan wool rugs cover the saddles, tassels dangle from the handlebars. For a price, two cowboys offer to take us to the base of the pass; from there we must walk.

We set off in the dark the next morning, backpacks strapped to the bikes like saddlebags. The cowboys are as adept on motorbikes as their ancestors were on horseback. We bounce through black bogs where the mud is two feet deep, splash through blue braided streams where our mufflers burble in the water.

Sounds like a dream vacation to me!

Up the valley we pass the black tents of Tibetan nomads. Parked in front of many of the yak hair tents are big Chinese trucks or Land Cruisers. Where did nomads get the money to buy such vehicles? Certainly not from the traditional yak meat-and-butter economy.

Magic caterpillars. Go read.

BTW, the Tibetans liked tea that was pressed into bricks from what we would consider stems and seeds, which they mix with yak butter and salt and drink 40 cups a day. I ain't gonna mess with one of 'em!

Sometimes there's stuff that's a needed respite and refuge from politics.

Headline of the Day

Group Requests DOJ To Investigate Scalia and Thomas Involvement With Koch Corporate Fundraisers

Read it. It may be the last time you'll hear about it.

Quote of the Day

My hero, Rep. Anthony Weiner on the Repugs' stupidity/pandering to the Dead End Quarter by seeming to but not really repealing the health care law:

"You know, I wanna just advise people watching at home playing that now-popular drinking game of you take a shot every time Republicans say something that's not true, please assign a designated driver: this is gonna be a long afternoon."

Take an old motorcycle club tip for taking a lotta people to a party: Rent a bus. One DUI is better than fifty.

Anybody who plays that drinking game better get new livers by the case too.

Real Amurikans other than just us commies don't like the 'baggers much either

Blue Texan at FDL. Links at site.

Americans have been watching the Teabaggers for almost two years now, and as it turns out, unbridled, spittle-producing rage isn’t very popular.
...

As they always do, wingnuts are blaming the media — but these numbers are almost identical to the same poll’s findings in June 2010 — well before the ‘Baggers got blood libeled [sic].

Only 35% of Americans like the Teabaggers, about the same number that like Saudi Arabia. Kinda figures. Both love to drill for oil, hate gays, and believe in theocracy.

I'm not happy with the government my own self, but racism, fear, guns, and ignorance ain't the way out. God's never been much help either.

House Republicans Waste Our Time

El Rude-o on what the teabagger House has done so far:

[...] No, seriously, it's like paying for a hooker and watching her hump a pillow all night. Hey, nice show, but when's the fucking start?

That's the point, though, innit? To actually legislate, to actually come up with solutions to the deep, deep problems that afflict this country, which, one should always be reminded, were caused by Republican rule in the first half of the last decade, would mean making decisions that will piss off the teabagging yahoos. Or, if you're gonna please the yahoos, you're gonna end up displeasing your corporate masters and no one wants that teat to go dry. So, with budget cuts, with whatever lame-ass, watered down, and/or outright destructive "reform" they shit out, the Republican leadership still has to figure out how to work it so the money people are pleased and the yahoos think they are.

Heh. They work the yahoos like a red-headed stepchild. So far, that's all the work they've done. Maybe all they know how to do.

Idiot Long Islanders ...

We haz dem. In addition to Rep. Peter King (R - etarded), Pam Geller, Sean Hannity, and BillO the Clown, we have this guy.

Just a thought ...

As I finish my lunch before heading back down to the garage: It takes some chutzpah for Obama to lecture President Hu "'s On First" Jintao on human rights when we have people (some American citizens) incarcerated without charge in Guantanamo or disappeared to European gulags "detained" at "interview centers" throughout the world. Maybe we should clean our own house before getting all sanctimonious with others.

Most Americans Headed to Heaven, Study Shows

The Swift Report

Data reveals few immigrants, minorities in heaven

COLORADO SPRINGS, CO — A new study released this week confirms what many Americans have long suspected: that they are more likely than people from other countries to go to Heaven. The study found that nearly 75% of the people currently in Heaven were originally American citizens. By contrast, the same researchers found that Hell, largely avoided by Americans, is populated mostly by Europeans including large numbers of French, Dutch, and Danish.
...

The study, the largest of its kind, was based on registration data collected at the entry to the Kingdom of Heaven between 1999 and 2009. Researchers discarded registration materials that were filled out in languages other than English, the language that the Bible was original written in. They also eliminated Heaven entrance forms that were completed in English but indicated a non-US originating address, including those from the United Kingdom, Australia, Jamaica and New Zealand.

The research provides a definitive answer to one question that had proved baffling to experts: is President Obama bound for heaven? The data says no, notes Dr. Myer. “As a Muslim he’s more likely to end up in Paradise or what’s known as Jannatu al-Ma`wa.” Adding to the president’s long odds: few Kenyans were found to reside in heaven. “The president would have a much better shot of getting through the Pearly Gates if he was a Christian and had been born here,” says Myers.

What accounts for the strong presence of Americans in Heaven? Afterlife analysts say that Americans are more likely than citizens of other countries to find themselves bound for eternal happiness because they are Christian, God’s chosen religion. Add to that the fact that most Americans support positions that Jesus Christ would likely endorse were He alive today — including small government, low taxes on upper income citizens and Social Security privatization — and the over-representation of US-born citizens in the New Jerusalem is no mystery, say experts.

Well, I'm glad that's cleared up.

Your science is stuck in my mystical

If it's Wednesday, it must be Morford goin' all meta on the known and the unknown, the provable and the unprovable.

Which leads to the other lesson I've learned, deep in the marrow: To suggest that the scientific method, peer-reviewed research, et al, while deeply precious to the advancement of the species, is the only path to valid human knowledge? I find this is almost exactly as packed with total shimmering BS as believing there's a hoary grandfather squatting on a gilded throne in the Carina Nebula surrounded by winged toddlers, all watching you make stupid choices and masturbate to Danish fetish porn. Which is to say, please.

You mean Grandpa is watching me eat this Danish with one hand whilst looking at pretty girls modelling product in this shoe, er, catalog with the other and then ordering the wrong ones? Harrumph!

Not exactly. This is more about the innate truism that there are movements and pulses, states and flavors of understanding science will never, not ever, be able to quantify, measure, figure out, or even accept, because they are not, by their very nature, things that can be figured out.

We know so much, we know nothing. Outside of both these truths lies a third thing, in a space where the first two intersect and dance and leave behind a gleaming, impossible residue that tastes like God, but probably isn't. What do you think it is?

I don't know, but if I had extra sensory powers I'd probably just use them to make right-wingers do the chicken at TV press conferences and interviews.

WWJD*?

Or, "I have more morality in the pimple on my ass":

A newly revealed 1997 letter from the Vatican warned Ireland's Catholic bishops not to report all suspected child-abuse cases to police...

And you wonder why I don't put up with God's mouthpieces of any stripe. Big Religion (all of them) are bigger hypocrites than the Republicans.

*What Would Jesus Do? I say he should get around to some serious smiting.

How it works (revisited) ...

Rule #16 from the post I linked to yesterday:

...

Rule #16: You might call this the "Both Sides Now" tactic: If the behavior of some right-winger is undeniably bad such that it can't be explained away, airily dismiss it with "both sides do it." Freely employ false equivalencies such as equating people wearing anti-war t-shirts to a Bush rally with people carrying assault rifles to Obama appearances.

...

Athenae, today, on professional idiot Mark Halperin's false equivalency:

...

Liberals on the Internet, most of whom are just that guy who types stuff occasionally onto a message board, and talk radio conservatives who have billion-dollar businesses and books to their names and tables at wherever they want and invites onto talk shows and profiles in the New York Times about how they're "controversial" and cover stories in Time about how maybe they're just kidding with the genocidal rhetoric. Those are totally equivalent groups. Absolutely. Why, I deplore them completely equally.

...

Hey, Gord, ya think the NYT would give us a column to spread our hate speech*? Yeah, me neither.

*I think the only person we've wanted to see leave their mortal(?) coil ahead of God's plan would be Dick Cheney (and several Wall St. executives). I don't think anybody has a problem with that, being that we still can't prove Cheney is human.

More right-wing terrorism ...

Nah, can't tie these folks to the Right:

...

A backpack bomb with the potential of killing or injuring dozens of people was found Monday along the route of a Martin Luther King Day "unity march" in downtown Spokane, Wash., authorities said today.

"It was a device that clearly was intended to harm or kill people," said Frank Harrill, a senior FBI agent and spokesman for the bureau’s Inland Northwest Joint Terrorism Task Force.

...

Yeah, some crazy pot-smoking Lefty placed a bomb at an MLK parade.

Update:

Montag(in toto):

I imagine any moment Rush the Talking Pig will be telling us that it was planted by a liberal socialist Negro to stimulate affirmative action programs that support slave reparations because who else would plant a bomb on the route of a parade celebrating the leader of the American Civil Rights struggle?

100 Years Of Controlled (Mostly) Crashes

EssEffChron

One hundred years ago Tuesday, Eugene Ely, a 26-year-old automobile racer-turned-aviator, landed a fragile-looking biplane on the deck of the Navy cruiser Pennsylvania in San Francisco Bay and made flying history.

It was the first time an airplane had landed on a warship, and it marked the start of naval aviation.

After warming up his Curtiss biplane - which resembled a bicycle or tricycle with wings - Ely took off from the San Bruno field at 11 a.m. He'd practiced on land over and over. "I was sure of success," he said later.

Just in case, though, he wore an improvised helmet and strapped two bicycle inner tubes over his shoulders to help him stay afloat in case he crashed in the water.

Sounds like the airplane had no difficulty lifting his brain. Mighta needed an extra 1000 feet to get his balls off the ground though. Heh.

Ely had wanted to land into the wind, but the ship was anchored in such a way that he had to land with the wind on his tail, which was potentially dangerous.

He came in at a speed of about 60 mph. To the assembled multitude, it seemed easy.

Looks like the 'arresting gear' was the bridge with four smokestacks for backup instead of those sissy little cables they use today.

I think we could duplicate how this musta felt by pulling into an ice-covered gas station with an office building at the far end at 60 per and gettin' 'er stopped at the gas pump. If ya do it right, or just pull it off, of course it'll look easy.

Rear Adm. E.B. Barry, commander of the Pacific Fleet, thought flying machines would be useful for scouting, but little else. As for a plane attacking a warship, he noted that every warship carried U.S. Marine riflemen. "It seems unreasonable that the bird men could get close enough to become effective," the admiral said.

Heh. We're good, Admiral, but maybe not that good...

The Navy contracted to buy two Curtiss airplanes in May 1911, but did not commission an aircraft carrier until 1922.

The Navy wasn't sure this whole 'landing on a ship' thing would work either.

Ely did not live to see naval aviation take flight. He was killed in a crash at an air show in October 1911, only nine months after he made history.

I think that was probably predictable. Godspeed, Gene.

This is a fascinating look at the Dawn Of Time. Please enjoy the rest.

Lancing the boil?

Updating Fixer's post:

LATimes

Reporting from Port-au-Prince, Haiti — Haitian authorities took deposed dictator Jean-Claude "Baby Doc" Duvalier to a courthouse for questioning Tuesday amid calls that he be charged with crimes against humanity.

In Duvalier's 15 years in power and during the regime of his father before him, as many as 30,000 Haitian civilians are believed to have been killed, many others tortured and hundreds of thousands forced into exile, human-rights groups say. The younger Duvalier is suspected of stealing up to $300 million from Haiti, the Western Hemisphere's poorest nation.

Haitian authorities said he would be questioned and could be released before the end of the day. It was not clear what, if any, charges the Haitian judiciary would be contemplating. Under international law, however, Duvalier could face indictment for the alleged murder and torture of thousands of opponents, human-rights activists say.

The Haitian cops probably just want his bank account numbers and PIN. Then they'll be done with him.

Good News!

YubaNet

Coffee, that morning elixir, may give us an early jump-start to the day, but numerous studies have shown that it also may be protective against type 2 diabetes. Yet no one has really understood why.

Now, researchers at UCLA have discovered a possible molecular mechanism behind coffee's protective effect. A protein called sex hormone–binding globulin (SHBG) regulates the biological activity of the body's sex hormones, testosterone and estrogen, which have long been thought to play a role in the development of type 2 diabetes. And coffee consumption, it turns out, increases plasma levels of SHBG.

Refill yer cup and read the rest.

Cruel Heart

The Rude Pundit

Hey, gang, lookie here: It's the new battery-operated Dick Cheney action figure. He's thinner, quieter, and ten times more sinister. He's all ours, America. Plus, he's got an electric heart so he's part cyborg: he'll never die.

You'll love your new Dick Cheney action figure when he gets all cuddly telling us about his special new features: "What's happened over time is the technology's gotten better and better and we've gotten more and more experience with people living with this technology. So I'll have to make a decision at some point whether or not I want to go for a transplant." In other words, your Dick Cheney plays a game where he chooses which healthy young adult he wants killed in order for him to continue running. Maybe it'll be you. It's like winning the lottery, except with forced organ removal instead of millions of dollars as your prize.

Of course, your Dick Cheney action figure comes with de facto immunity from prosecution for the many crimes he committed and approved of during his time as Vice President, even though it's easier than ever to find a man who needs to change his batteries every twelve hours or so.

But as long as you do so, America, you will never, ever escape Dick Cheney, old and husky or older and gaunt. Gosh, this model is so much better than the one that drank oil and blew up poor countries. And, remember, every Dick Cheney action figure comes with skull-fucking night-time mode so that, while news people sleep, Cheney can stick his plastic penis into their ears and screw their brains so that they think he has anything meaningful to say beyond "Sorry I fucked it all up so badly," which, if he ever did, would immediately trigger the thermonuclear self-destruct mode embedded inside so he can continue to leave casualties behind.

This is in the wake of the news that The Dick may get a heart transplant. I don't really get the 'trans' part because that implies he had one to begin with but perhaps that's just an inadequacy in the language.

Read the 'comments'. Here's one:

Oh ain't this special! We can have a remake of "wizard of oz"! Cheney needs a heart, Bush needs a brain, and Boehner can be the cowardly lion. Lindsey Graham can star as Dorothy!

The visual of Miss Lindsey and that bunch frolicking up the yellow brick road is kinda heartwarming...

From the standpoint of scientific curiosity, I hope The Dick gets his heart. It may be the first time an organ will reject the body on the Constitutional grounds of "cruel and unusual punishment".

FYI

Editorial: Time To Change Marijuana Laws

Duh.

"Don't cry for me, Tinybrainia..."

Eugene Robinson

For her to take such umbrage, then, at the reporting of evident, pertinent and factual information deepened the impression that she is -- and I must be frank -- astoundingly thin-skinned and egocentric.

The way Palin portrayed herself as not only a popular champion but also a martyr reminded me -- not for the first time -- of Eva Peron. If she chooses this unpromising route to higher political office, I suggest she find a suitable balcony from which to deliver her next address to the nation.

Or perhaps -- solely in the interest of civil discourse -- that there be no next address.

In our dreams.

Update: Swallow and set your drink down.

Raw Story

Newt Gingrich wants fellow Fox News employee Sarah Palin to think before she speaks.

That is the best advice Neutie has ever given. Period. I hope she takes it.

We'd never hear another word out of her.

In our dreams.

OMG, the deficit!!!!1!!!

Same old song and dance:

...

It turns out, however, that members of the House Tea Party Caucus requested more than $1 billion in earmarks in the 2010 fiscal year, the National Journal reports.

...

Hypocrisy much?