Howdy,

Doesn't talking about tax bases and city planning just get your week off to a lovely start? And now for something completely different....


its


James Burke.

One of my favorite TV shows has been posted on youtube until some copyright privateer ruins the party. Connections by and staring James Burke was a BBC show in which Burke began with something very simple and shows how that one invention was a trigger for immense historical change. I have a few books from grad school all about such triggers, and let me tell you, James Burke delivers it in a much more enjoyable way.

For example.

In one episode he shows a village square full of medieval peasants laughing, feasting, playing music, and dancing. The camera angle is from the ground looking straight up and Burke says "Now, I want you to do me a favor, look up the ladies dresses. Yup, that is right, the trigger for historical change is frilly knickers" and 20 minutes in the program later you have the computer.

The show is wonderful. When/if I become a social studies teacher I hope to do a James Burke routine with a few topics. Hear that? He is inspirational. That is a damn good show.

Anyway, here is the first part of the first episode. All of them are on youtube, all of them are cut up into five, ten minute bits. All are wonderful. Enjoy them while you can.

Politicians don't get me hard.

Oh ya, those young left leaning kids love Obama, and certainly he is spreadable like butter. But no hard on, just limp with missed expectations.

And activists? Unless you want to add Emma Goldman's face to Mt. Rushmore, well, you might as well just smell like patchouli and volunteer for NYPIRG.

But then, there is Kevin Gaughan.

Kevin is not a politician. Yes, he has run for mayor, but not being a gear in the local machine he missed out.

Kevin isn't a 'all wet but no boner' activist. He isn't saving Pandas or documenting the east side as it crumbles into memory. The man has done research, crunched his numbers, has lifted a veil, and he has a plan to stick it to the bride.

This, is The Cost.

A site in which Kevin has tabulated the cost of running the local governments and compares them to a comparable city. The findings are absurd.

It is like this. Decades ago Atlanta was the sort of city you were as likely to find a McDonald's as you were to be having sex with your first cousin. That is to say, it was a place you wouldn't want to live. But as corporations moved down and took the population of New Jersey with them the city grew. As the city expanded so did the city line. Atlanta ate hamlets and villages and all became one big city with a normal rate of web-toed incest babies.

Buffalo never has.

Kenmore is a good place to start. It has 15,555 people living there and six elected officials. Buffalo has a population of 279,745 with 24 elected officials. That means, if Buffalo had the same ratio of people to elected officials there would be 90 members of the common council instead of 10.

The figures in his report jump off the page and makes us wonder just why the hell we are spending so much money on government. How many officials do we need to pick up the trash anyway? If Kenmore were to become apart of Buffalo we could save over $600,000. And that is just dinky Kenmore. Imagine what would happen if villages like Sloan or Brant were incorporated into municipalities? Not necessarily Buffalo, but a greater Williamsville, or Amherst.

How does all this stack up to the comparable cities. This is a real hoot.

What Kevin is calling greater Buffalo has 439 elected officials and 45 governments. Somehow New York City with ten times the population manages to get by with one government and half the elected officials. Indianapolis, which has a similar population to us has 14 governments and half the elected officials.

Gaugen solution isn't as draconian as the research suggests. The hatchet sounds really nice to me, but Kevin is nicer than me. He proposes that local governments each drop two elected officials by attrition, for a total of 84 politicians.

That doesn't sound to bad, does it?

How much ignorance can $27 Million buy? A whole heck of a lot it seems. In fact you can build a whole museum! A monolith to the perpetual dull glaze that shall keep zombie science at bay.

Specifically, the Creation Museum in Kentucky is what I am talking about. Now, if you care to chime in with the Evolution is 'just' a theory thing, best not read ahead and read a little on just what the heck that science thing is and how amazingly nontrivial something like a theory is.

A dandy little slide show can be found here and boy is it worth it! The second photo is a triceratops with a blanket and saddle. Some poor child is being hoisted on top for a photo op that I hope become regrettable one day. It is worth the visit just for that photo alone.

There is a fun little bit of logic here. Evolution takes millions of years, right? So all those changes we see evolving in life couldn't possibly have explained the difference between a fox and a Doberman if the flood was only a few thousand years ago, right? So god must have built all this genetic variation into the original couple taken onto Noah's ark.

Yup, evolution is too slow in the time frame of the bible, and thus God has something built in. I wish the same could be said for my aging computer.

Another fun moment is how deformed, web-toed incest babies don't spring for from Adam/Eve and Noah and his crew (arrg! Shiva me timbers!) Genetic mutation has, despite all evidence, anything to do recessive traits. Rather, it is all about sin.

You see, mutations are mistakes (it says so right there); mistakes caused by sin. People did not mutate as much because their sins weren't as accumulated or as great (so, why the whole flood thing again?) And, and this is my favorite part, close relatives today are more likely to have mutant incest babies because their sins are similar.

I will give you a second to giggle snort your beverage through your nose.


Look, this isn't about religion. This is about religion throwing on the mantle of science and parading around like a buffoon. Nor is this a Christian thing. I would be snotty at any creation museum be it Christian, Hindi, Wiccian, or what ever. The joke is that willfully ignorant people spending 27 million to give something unscientific a shred of scientific validity. 27 million that could be spent in far more Christian ways like, oh, let us just say, an endowment fund to keep charities perpetually running. WWJD? I hope he would be clutching his belly and laughing right next to me.

good day

Hello,


Having just posted about stupid American's protesting stupid Russia in a stupid way, I was on a bit of a Russia kick.

Russian history is awesome. It is the story of the runt of the litter who gets beat up at every turn, can do nothing but fail, and then grows up to be a mean alcoholic dad who raises his kid to be the same way.... and um... then gets hit by a car? Or something? I don't know where this metaphor is going.

But, while trying to find some info on Russian exports I came accros this web page.

Russian Urine Against a Scalpel of the Doctor

Now, you too can order Russian human urine bottled online. Ship it directly to your door. Drink the sweet taste of Rus waste and immerse yourself in its healing powers.

Seriously. DRINK SOMEONE ELSE'S URINE FOR YOUR HEALTH!

maybe I was wrong, maybe Russians do understand the full bladder of capitalism than I give them credit for.

drink up kids

• Edit***

Here is a working link to a page that links you to the original and the translation as well as a snippy summery

So, Check this shit out.


Russians hate gays. Oh yes they do. In the city of Moscow, a group of people wanted to have a gay pride parade and festival and all that good stuff. But, once again, city government said no way poofs, why don't you go to one of those western countries that allow degenerates like you to live. And so, a group of people, representatives from poofter/western nations, and civil rights groups went with a petition to the municipal government.

They got the shit beat out of them. Oh yes they did. Homophobes, fascists, the sort of people who would do well in Russian politics beat the ever living hell out of them. And then, our petitioners were arrested. You see, you can have an Eisenstein, a Shostakovitch and still wonder how those surfs got emancipated 100 years ago.

So what do we do here in New York? Well, we protest. Who can we protest? Well... what does Russia do? Don't they make a lot of Vodka? YA! Let's boycott vodka.

And so, protesters lined up in front of the Russian embassy in New York and poured Stoli down the sewer. Held signs aloft begging all gays and gay bars to dump their Stoli and replace it with something else (tolerant Polish vodka perhaps? oh wait... crap"

It is a nice shot at Russia. Stoli's sales are over 400 million a year in America. They are the third largest seller of Vodka in the states. That should give the ol' bear a black eye, right?

First, Stoli is not the state vodka. Money earned does not go into pointing new nuclear weapons at Prague. It is a private company.

Second, Stoli advertises heavily in gay magazines which means KA-CHING money in the hands of gays! Stoli does sponsorships at bars, at social programs, in all kinds of media. KA-CHING here you go gays, some money that you gave us back into the community.

Stoli, for the record, is bottled in Latvia, not Russia.

So um. Drink up my homo-brethren. Enjoy the smooth, crisp taste of vodka beloved by millions of men and women and despised by fascists and Russian politicians.

So, I finally went,


I have thought of pride as 'see your ex-lovers in public' day for so long that I haven't had the desire to go in something just short of forever. This year however, I went. Egads.

Thankfully, having lived in Buffalo a scant three years and being with (e:Jim) for two and a half of those years I don't have much nights of regrettable passion to hang around my neck; though I hear such emo neckwear is fashionable this year.

Scores of delightful folk were there, many estrippers and more bad drag queens than you could shake a beadazzled thong at.

(e:paul) and I had a discussion about why gay pride in Buffalo is a churchy, community event where as gay pride elsewhere is carnival with half naked dancers, public blow jobs, and a city-wide celebratory orgasm. Ok, most of those words did not appear in our discussion, but they along with its attending image were lurking in the back of my mind.

But seconds before we arrived at a solution that would involve godly orgies on church alters with people of all ages, creeds, colors, and abilities it started to rain. Too bad Buffalo, just think of the diseased lust that could have brought your closer to the godhead?

Imagine it Buffalo? Our collective thighs a developed water front? It is enough to make you want to bathe perpetually.

And special congrats to (e:Mike). Well done sir, well done.

There is a momment, amid total inebriation, walking down elmwood and using the parking meter as walking sticks, where typing what one in fact says and what one infact intends end up being two very differnet things.

And so I leave this entry, warts and all, to the magic power of alcohol and a large group of people consuming it.

mazeltov children, mazeltov.

Latoya, like a siren who will eat my bowels, I am drawn to you despite all warnings.

And that moment, with the camera focused on her empty chair, one of the finest minutes in television history.

Ah yes, that feel!

Ten minutes ago I deleted my LiveJournal account. Dear fat baby christ, thank you for splashing that muse up against my skull.

LJ used to be awesome. I had a ton of friends on that had amusing little lives that I enjoyed from afar. Or people who are actually afar and so it is tough to directly communicate. But as the maw of progress ate Lj and zombie MySpace rose from the dead my friends were disappearing. Instead of scores of lovely little snippets of lives akin, I had people close to strangers. People I had never met. People who kept a photo blog of their bowel movements (content deleted. Flush)

baby, finish your drink. Let's get out of here.

So, I just deleted it. The good friends I can keep in touch with. The others? Well, there is a whole universe full of other.

The brightest spot in those whole event is that what ever horrid pastiche I called a journal will not reincarnate itself as a MySpace abortion. Nope. That path which begins with good blogging intentions, which is paved with an eye on the human experience in the personal, can lead only to a dead end of "ZOMG My MoM iS sUcH a BiTcH!!! LOLZ OMG WTF!!1!" And frankly, I take comfort in knowing that when I too die, my remains shall be riddled with worms, and not excessive exclamation points.

good night

(e:Jim) and I are busy moving accross town this week. As such, I am cranky and no fun to be around. The only way I am tolerable when moving is if I get good and drunk. And I as I am making about a dozen car trips between the old place and the new I can't get good and drunk which makes me bad and angry.

So,
I will post back here some time in the future. In the meantime I have a litter of wine that is screaming for me to drink it dead.

cheers