Keeper of the Clown Bell

[spoiler alert]  "Your private email server is the least of your problems." I don't want to read too much into the popularity of Game of Thrones and it's impact on western civilization. I've watched the show and enjoyed the fantasy world it creates without linking it explicitly to our modern political and cultural environment though I might be wrong about that - maybe I should take a college course on the subject . But there is one story line that does resonate with the here and now and it's the conflict between Queen Bitch Cersei Lannister and Saintly Tyrant the High Sparrow who has spent most of season 5 and 6 humiliating Cersei and brainwashing her people. This meddling preacher has been warned but he ignored the warnings and in his self-righteous piety stepped way, way over the line - first by forcing Cersei to walk nude through the streets while she was pelted with rotten food and then by brain washing the king (Cersei's son) and forcing her to ...

Driving around town today I switched on NPR (also known as government radio) to hear big news out of the administrative state. I was immediately hit with a love letter from Nina Totenberg to goofy Elizabeth Warren that explained how an appearance on The Daily Show turned the junior Senator into a "star" despite her stage fright and ignorance. Really great stuff. Then came a report by Nell Greenfieldboyce on "secret" warehouses for paranoid government preppers that are scattered across the fruited plain - there at least 6 but maybe more and nobody knows where they are. They are described as something resembling Walmart Super Center packed to the roof with supplies, medicine and other essentials that might be required by local health services were some catastrophic event to occur by act of God or man. It started as a small project (by government standards) in 1999 with a paltry $50M budget but it's now grown to $7B. That's right tax paying schlub - $7,0...

When something catastrophic like Brexit happens I like to take some time and surf the web to the left side of cyberspace and experience the rending of cloth and pulling of hair by the losers. Childish and insensitive of me? I guess so, but it's also hilarious and, in the grand scheme of things, harmless. As luck would have it the Brexit vote happened just a few days before Gay Day when tens of thousands of people world wide go out in the sweltering June heat and march for pride and this year " they’re prouder than ever ." So I've been surfing a rainbow sea of IP all morning where the swells are mighty big and I hopped on a cresting wave of agitprop that gave me the best ride of the day. It didn't have anything to do with Brexit explicitly, and yet, if you read between the lines Brexit had everything to do with it. It was an article in The Guardian titled " Too straight, white and corporate: why some queer people are skipping SF Pride " and it's ma...

Somewhere in the distance I hear the bells ring Darkness settles on the town as the children start to sing (= British voters) The lady 'cross the street she shuts out the night There's a cast of thousands waiting as she turns out the light (= Queen of England) London boys are staring as the girls go hand in hand With a pocket full of innocence, their entrance is grand (= Sadiq Khan) And the Queen of the dream stands before them all She stretches out her hand as the curtains start to fall (= Angela Merkel) Standing by the trapdoor aware of me and you Are the actor and the clown their waiting for their cue (= David Cameron and Boris Johnson) And there's a lady over there she's acting pretty cool But when it comes to playing life she's always playin' the fool (= Hillary Clinton) But it's too late, too late, too late Too late for love Yes it's too late too late, too late Too late for love I can do this with one arm... gone One of the ...

I think it's time to initiate Plan B . #Imwithyou https://t.co/tan8BmAuR8 pic.twitter.com/5EZ7X1ZZKh — Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) June 22, 2016

The mission of OpenAI is to research AI and other machine-learning technologies with an eye toward making sure that the robots don't one day go rogue and destroy humanity. Musk and Altman are on it and have established a $1B (that's B as in billion) "non-profit" called OpenAI to design intelligence that will operate off-the-shelf robots. You see, robots will be ubiquitous and spending money on building them is a waist of resources because without a "mind" the robot is pretty useless. And since they will be everywhere - pumping your gas (or pugging in your Tesla), crawling down mine shafts to get the coal that powers the turbines that generates the electricity to power your Tesla, delivering the pizza you ordered from your Tesla while parked near the beach on a starry summer evening, giving you the greatest blow job you ever had in your Tesla post-pizza dinner - These robots will be doing everything for you. And as with any slave, the slave masters must...

"When you need help, you call the police. But when the police needs help, they call S.W.A.T." "Hold back guys, he's just killing fags." There's quite a lot to say about the Orlando mass shooting at the Pulse night club but one thing that has not been talked about enough is  the timeline  of the shooting on early Sunday morning. The shooting started at about 2AM and aside from killing club kids the terrorist also shot at an off duty cop outside the bar. That means a 911 call to the authorities was logged almost as soon as the shooting started but the killer was not capped until after 5AM which means he had three (3!!!) hours to murder and terrorize his victims. Three hours is a LONG time - it's Baltimore to NYC by car, it's sitting through The Titanic , it's 23 showers - it's 180 minutes of horror and I, for one, want to know exactly what the cops and authorities managing this fiasco were doing for 3 fucking hours.  The city of Orlan...

Trump needs a logo The gears are grinding on the left side of the isle. Islamic nut job shoots up army base = workplace violence (Fort Hood) Islamic nut jobs shoot up government office building = workplace violence (San Bernardino) Islamic nut job shoots up gay bar = systemic temporal lobe failure (Orlando) In the hierarchy of the oppressed we’re witnessing a 90 MPH head on collision - it’s insane. And the public reaction has been dispiriting (to say the least) for those of us who want to win and survive. Take, for example, this note from an expat living overseas who's been monitoring news and social media to gage the public mood here in America. Mr. White Chocolate Chas T, Why are ‘we’ so unwilling to tell the truth – even within our own circle of friends? Much less, why are ‘we’ so afraid to speak out to others, of what is right and what is wrong? Look at FB. Total silence ex Hillary supporters. Why is that the case, when I know that at least 60-65% of...

Jeb Bush announced his 2016 candidacy for President of the United States of America . Below are his remarks from dimension X, as prepared for delivery. Thank you all very much. I always feel welcome at Miami-Dade College. This is a place that welcomes everyone with their hearts set on the future – a place where hard work and achievement used to lead to success.  The campaign that begins today is about leaving nostalgia for that yesterday and its false hopes behind and seizing the heart of the future. We are 17 long months from the time for choosing. The heart of America’s future is at stake. Our prosperity and our security rest in the balance of this opportunity for this nation and I call on every Republican to rise to the occasion. Already, the choice is taking shape. The party now in the White House is planning a no-suspense primary, for a no-change election. To hold onto power. To slog on with the same agenda under another name: That’s our opponents’ call to action ...

"Hate will never win. Tonight's show stands as a symbol and a celebration of that principle." Hamilton (the musical) cleaned up at this years Tony Awards and I think it's wonderful that one of the true geniuses of Revolutionary America is still knocking 'em dead in NYC. It's much better treatment than he gets in New Jersey where the  Alexander Hamilton Service Plaza insults the free born citizens conscience with it's horrifying design and decor. Hamilton deserves better from the Turnpike State because he was gunned down in NJ in a duel with the unprincipled opportunist A. Burr. Raise this monstrosity Gov. Chistie and build something glorious in it's place - something worthy of Alexander Hamilton 's legacy.

One of the things that's always bugged me about the Westboro Baptist Church  based in the great State of Kansas is that they're a bunch of pussy's when it comes to lifting a finger to bring down the wrath of God on the sodomites, Jews, musicians and many, many, many other sinners who disobey God's word. It's like they really don't believe their own preaching - They're sort of like the Occupy Wall Street gang in that they make a bunch of noise, say outlandish things, think they're "right" based on an interpretation of texts far removed from their daily experience but, in the end, will never throw down and start fighting (or more to the point, start killing). They're weak (as DJT might say) and don't back up their rhetoric with any meaningful action. Granted, any organization that will protest a Guns & Roses concert can't be all bad, but taken as a whole WBC sucks eggs and it's members will probably suffer eternal damnation...

An updated bloody shirt When it comes to Paleoconservatism it's hard to get more authoritative than the American Thinker and today they're recommending that GOP punditry hightail their asses to "realville" before November. I disagree. This blog has been having so much fun with the GOP punditry and their reaction to Trump that I hope they never get real. Starting a year and a half ago the pundits have been making fools of themselves to such a degree that one wonders why they haven't just thrown in the towel and quit by now. Here is a brief, but not exhaustive review of their greatest misses (honestly, I could devote the KOTCB blog exclusively to GOP pundits because every day at least one of them writes a stupid hit piece on Trump). The road to Realville is a long arduous trek for these folks and there would be great suffering and maybe even death along the way. Politico backs a Bush/Romney GOP Ticket - Roger Simon's take on the GOP field. The gullib...

Selfie Yesterday Franklin Lee Burruss copped a plea and got what would have been a lifetime sentence reduced to 40 years with a 5 year minimum meaning that if he behaves himself he'll be free as a bird by the 2024 election and, thanks to Gov. McBloomberg , able to vote in the Commonwealth of Virginia. As part of the agreement, Burruss’ first-degree murder charge was downgraded to second-degree murder — the language in Burruss’ indictment was augmented to remove the words “with premeditation” and include the word “maliciously.” As any lawyer can tell you there's a fine distinction between "premeditated" and "malicious" behavior but for the life of me (and more to the point, for the life of Tayler Lindsey Burruss) I have a hard time drawing that line. Reading the accounts of the murder scene paint a clear picture of horror regardless of what qualifier you stick in front of it. The prosecutor, Jeff Haislip, gives a pretty good breakdown of what happene...

What'd I Do? 6 months in jail for getting to 3rd base. Boy oh boy, times have changed. Thank God I'm not 19 years old. I feel horrible for my kids having to navigate the bullshit cultural environment these millennial have created (with the help of their parents). I feel sympathy for a judge like Aaron Persky who has to navigate the hypersensitive emotions and misguided sense of justice demanded by the snowflakes who inhabit his alma mater, Stanford University, and hand down decisions on cases that never should be brought before him . There is clearly something horribly wrong with our justice system and it's a cancer that has metastasized to infect every aspect of our laws and the legal system which happens to be the foundation of our national consensus and bedrock of the republic known as the United States of America. Without dramatic corrective action the sickness will likely devour its host and leave nothing but a rotting corps to be picked over by carrion who savo...