Friday Pussy - depressed cat version

We wonder why the drug companies sell so many anti-depressants. Look no further than any headline news. Note the words used on a daily basis. A brief list from the BBC latest headlines:

blames
dies
bloodbath
dead
tough
scandal
offended
failed
hampers
worried
struggle
violence
fled
kills
murder
mayhem
Yes these were actual words taken from today's headline news. The list goes on but you get the idea. It makes one wonder if there are any of life's pleasures left. Maybe a little to eat would life a spirit? Oh think again. Salt fat and sugar content are far too high, didn't you read the label first? Perhaps a bit of music to sooth the savage beast. You sure that song wasn't pirated? And what medium to choose? mp3, cd, dvd, or old school cassette, 8 track or I hear vinyl is making a comeback. Or you could choose from any of the broadcast media. Over the air FM? No that's about dead. Satellite? That you have to pay for. Cable? Again another subscription. The "Net" then but it's only as good as your cheap chinese made speakers. Oh the heck with it all I'll just hum to myself and stare at the cobwebs on the ceiling.

Then there's sex. That sure got complicated in the last few years. Wouldn't mind filling out these consent forms in triplicate before we go out on a date? A look is no longer considered a green light. And what if she didn't like it? No money back guarantees there. Harassment? I've heard some of the crudest comments from women on the job and it didn't get my feathers ruffled. It was a wild time during the Victorian era only nobody spilled the beans. Wouldn't have been cricket now would it? So where are we now? Teen pregnancies are down but STDs are up so maybe a bit more education is called for. Abstinence only sure failed. You after all should remember what you did when you were their age. 

Bank fails later 
One bank in Minnesota failed this week. Note they always get taken over on Friday so no runs on the bank.

Friday Pussy - I know nuthing

A time line of torture, who knew what and when. Important to note that the U.S. government executed Japanese soldiers after WWII for their part in water boarding prisoners. And if they think they can get off via some statute of limitations law they'd better think again. We're still capturing and convicting WWII German war criminals some 70 years later. So according to the following article not only did Bush and Cheney know about the torture they approved its' use.  http://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-30416398#

The CIA director claims they did not know how to conduct such an interrogation program. I say Horse Shit!  They would have looked no further than the School of the Americas for instruction as to establishing such a program although I doubt they had to. They've been interrogating prisoners since the end of WWII. The school of the Americas - The school was founded in 1946 and from 1961 was assigned the specific goal of teaching "anti-communist counterinsurgency training," a role which it would fulfill for the rest of the Cold War. In this period, it educated several Latin American dictators, generations of their military and, during the 1980s, included the uses of torture in its curriculum. In 2000/2001, the institute was renamed to WHINSEC.

To say that torture worked would be far from the truth no matter what they try tell you. We were getting the truth until the CIA stepped in with its' heavy handed and brutal methods. FBI interrogator Ali Soufan http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2014/dec/12/interrogated-terrorist-cia-senate-report  was gaining much information from high ranking suspect Abu Zubayduh about the way Al Qaeda operated. From his own recalling of events Ali concludes that if the president and congress don't act in this matter then it will surely happen again in the future. It also sends a message to foreign countries that any technique is fair game and they're be no consequences if caught. And if anyone should know that torture doesn't work it would be John McCain who was captured and tortured in Vietnam. He stated that under duress you will tell an interrogator what he wants to hear to get him to stop knowing that the information is false.

So will we move forward and put an end to this madness? I doubt it. History has a way of repeating itself from the Civil War onward, but before we mound our moral high horse and cast criticisms on other nations we'd better take a good hard look at how we operate.

Bank fails later...
No fails this week keep spending

Friday Pussy - Us vs Them

Reality isn't always what it's cut out to be. Is there prejudice ? Of course there is otherwise we'd all wear the exact same clothing and hair styles. And note when working on a job site with multi racial folks when lunchtime comes they all gravitate in groups to their own familiar cliques. But that's not to say it's out of some underlying hate. It's just the way we are as humans. May date back to survival of the group. It now seems the police in this country have taken that to a whole new level. It's now an "us against them mentality". If you aren't part of the police force then you're one of "them". So who are they protecting and serving now?

There was a time when a cop could go his entire career and not once pull his service revolver from its holster. Yes they carried a six shot 38 special if memory serves correct. But these days they're looking more and more like they're going to do combat maneuvers. When did the attitudes change? And what ever happened to probable cause? And while other countries might look on us like the old west we're really not. Granted we have more guns per capita then anyone else on the planet but the bulk of them are collecting dust in the backs of closets. But one only has too look at our movies and TV shows to see an ever increasing level of violence the message being might makes right. Sadly that's become a large part of our foreign policy too.

I think part of the problem is that we are slowly becoming totally disconnected from humanity. How so you might ask? We hop in the car and are immediately disconnected from others. Slow moving granny is no longer that sweet old lady down the lane, she becomes a thing an interference in your way slowing you down.
Then of course there's cell phones and texting. What better way to shut out the world than to watch as a person chin down and thumbs racing be focused and devoid of their surroundings. TV used to be the "drug" of days past. What drug could make you sit for hours with a blank stare on your face watching a piece of furniture? In short we're losing our sense of real human interaction. Even this post has its' drawbacks as we can't see the expression on you faces as you read it.

Back to the original idea. We're taught at a very early age to separate items in terms of same and different with no mention of good or bad. Now it seems entire groups are labeled good or bad.  When was it that people started to become just things, objectified as yet another statistic or notch on a belt of a policeman's report ? Then there's the last thing to consider. One slip up or lapse of logic and it could be you lying there dead on the pavement. All because you looked like one of "them".  Didn't think about that did you?

Bank fails later...
No bank fails this week keep shopping.

Cyber Monday Pussy

Caption: Catnip - check, Tuna - check, Play mouse - check. Now where's the masters credit card and when can Amazon have this delivered?

The entire holiday stick has just lost its' luster I guess. May be due to an aging population or maybe there's no room left in the closet for the once used Chia pets of Christmases past. Do you really need a computerized electronic nose hair trimmer? Cross that one off your list aunt Martha. Quit chuckling and put it back on the shelf. And what was to be so thankful for this fine holiday season? Twenty five million around the world are parked in tents in the desert or living in bombed out buildings. So what joy do we get? Fifty cents off the price of gas at the pump is no great prize. You can now afford to drive to the mall but the bank statement says that's about it so why bother? Now think for a minute the absolute worst gift you've ever received and pop them in the comments. A certain extended ivory handled shoe horn comes to mind for me which at the time was when I took a liking to wearing boots. Like a comb and brush set for a bald man (bad example I know but it was on the top of my head, pun intended).

Ah but let's get to the meat of this little morning mental excursion:

I once recall one of those magic moments, an epiphany if you will, of the sheer insanity of consumerism that pervades the season. One Christmas morning after the floor was strewn with wrapping paper, precious satin bows had been saved and the excitement of the moment had waned, that core concept slapped me in the face of the absurdity of it all. Sneaking gifts into the house and running upstairs so no prying eyes would be let on to the surprise, then carefully (or not) wrapping presents to be nonchalantly placed under the tree. So in a nut shell it was wrap presents upstairs bring them down to be unwrapped then to be returned upstairs to the recipients' room. (I was older then so no toys strewn about the living room.)

When this epiphany struck me one fine Christmas morning I pointed it out to my father who with his droll sense of humor not bothering to look up from the newspaper he was reading quipped "What fools these mortals be."

No bank fails this past week but there's still a month to go.