Soccer Top 10, With a Bonus

Robocup 2011

1. Real Madrid
2. AC Milan
3. Barcelona
4. Bayern Munich
5. Benfica
6. Manchester United
7. Borussia Dortmund
8. Paris St. Germain
9. Porto
10 Manchester City

Who the Hell are 'Livability.com?"

Well, they mentioned Omaha as culturally significant, so never mind. 

In truth, the music scene isn't bad.  The venues are cool, for the most part.  I was never really into the Saddle Creek scene myself, and of course that's been on the fade for awhile now.  But those guys all still have some good affecting stuff in their catalogs, (except for 'The Good Life', those guys are just hacks. )  But more importantly their reputation still attracts all the well-regarded alternative bands to Omaha.  And the opening of the Qwest Center has mostly put in end to the old disgrace of top-name acts bypassing the place for Iowa City or Sioux Falls.  The loss of Homer's record store was a tragedy, and like the Kennedy assassination the death of The Ranch Bowl  still haunts terribly even though it is quite ancient history indeed now.

So in the main, it's exactly what you'd expect the music scene for a cozy medium-sized city to be.  Not spectacular, but tolerable, and even some gems of real beauty if you know the people and know where to look.

"Omaha is... alright"- Paul Clark.

Have Spent The Last Several Days

Alone with the highways of Nebraska.  Good weather.  Good for the soul. 

And the radio.  Lots and lots of 'The Eagles'.  Not quite so good. 

Up The OT: US HWY 26 From Ogalala to Bayard

Lake McConaughy, Chimney Rock, Courthouse & Jailhouse Rocks, Ash Hollow:

 

And in case you're interested, here's some bonus information on the honorable Dame MMM.  Mary Murray Murdoch, died and buried in the shadow of Chimney Rock, Oct. 3rd 1856. 

In the Hometown for a Few Days: Just Because

Last night a bloc of seasonably normal weather ran into the seasonably warm weather we've been having, producing thunderstorms and several tornadoes.  At least one of these twisters chose to cross the Platte Valley on the ground, cutting a south-to-north path about five to six miles west of Highway 83 or about two miles west of the edge of North Platte proper.  Perfectly in line to jack up Union Pacific's Bailey Yards.* the town's primary employer. A couple of nearby homes were flattened, the people who had been living there now somewhat inconvenienced but uninjured, and a semi was overturned on Interstate 80 to the west of town, driver injured mildly.   The Golden Spike Tower remained standing through the perilous night, Yah be praised.        Several windows on the west end of town proper blasted out by downdrafts.

*(Largest railroad reclassification yard in the World!  No.  I'm not exactly sure what that means either.  But hey, biggest in the world. )

So naturally it was the perfect time for me to come home.  Everyone here has a lightness in their step like they just went to a rave or had sex or went skydiving.  Probably this is the most exciting thing to happen in North Platte since that cop killer with the portable meth lab- Moses was it?  Was gallivanting through the countryside kind of sort of nearby but not really.

Today I think I'm going to Chimney Rock.  It's as perfect a day for a good hike as there's ever going to be.  Cooler, but nowhere near cold, a workday where I should have the scenery and the silence to myself, and too early for snakes too, probably.  Mostly though I just feel the need to make like Gabriel Conroy and experience the far west of my own land.  Goodbye to you whoever you may be. 

Soccer Top 10

1. Real Madrid
2. AC Milan
3. Barcelona
4. Bayern Munich
5. Benfica
6. Paris St. Germain
7. Manchester United
8. Borussia Dortmund
9. Boca Juniors
10. Juventus

"Can't a Man Control His Bitch With Violence?"

"Last month on the conservative Web site Townhall.com, the conservative icon Phyllis Schlafly called the Violence Against Women Act a slush fund “used to fill feminist coffers” and demanded that Republicans stand up against legislation that promotes “divorce, breakup of marriage and hatred of men.”

 Many men find the idea of personally identifying with feminism to be just a bit too hippieish for comfort.  Even those of us with more liberal or libertine sensibilities have still bought into the stereotypes of how doing so would make you, 'one of those people.' 

All the same this hot new reactionary spasm of the month, against women this time, is of no small personal concern  to men and general and we bachelors in particular.  If you're wondering how this is so just read Mona Charens' recent attack on an advice columnist for not commanding an accidentally pregnant couple to get married.    Or David Brooks' latest work, a concern troll over lower birth rates. 

Obviously the desire to put women back in their place is the main driving force behind the latest right-wing fad, and of course it is women who would suffer the most if they were to succeed.  But there is also quite clearly a desire to return sex to its historical status as a weapon of conformity upon all.   I.E., you ain't getting any unless you conform. 

Personally I enjoy sex that serves no larger procreative purpose.  In fact emotionally vacant sex with complete strangers is the only kind I enjoy  But that's neither here nor there.   I am not the slightest bit willing to give up my own sexual liberty in return for a world where I can command any random woman on the street to make me a sandwich, and I am fairly certain that my opinion on this matter is shared by the majority of the men be they liberal or conservative.  

I know that we're  supposed to pretend that all men are insatiable lust machines with a dozen girlfriends and that all women are virgins and that this can somehow work without the old Athenian alternative.  Lots of people get a romantic charge out of embracing this impossible ideal precisely because it is so obviously impossible.  But when actual political agents try to make this nonsense the official policy of the state, like for real, there is nothing for responsible people to do except to forcefully pull them back from the controls, like a toddler about to touch the stove, and then maybe have a good laugh about it several years after the danger has past. 

Chrisma Excripts

CHINESE HORDE

"During the spring of 2009 Iowa was inandated with a thousand Chinese.  Chinese got into homes illegally and upset the locals so much many until the Chinese left a week later.  A Moslem took charge of transcendental meditation for two years allowing transcendental mediation and two years allowing transcendental meditation only for Moslem countries and not allowing teachers to teach in America except for high schools.  Recently they ousted the Moslem man and are back to teaching all they can." 

"Ken Salazar longtime EPA lawyer stated 700 million acres of mining are to close January 2012.  Many miners stayed put.  Chinese have gotten into uranium mines and sent uranium to China.  This is treason.  Chinese are trying to take hold of all out mining areas.  What if Chinese take all out tungston?  We won't have light bulbs anymore."

"Fort Knox might not have any gold there anymore.  Obama let Chinese take gold out.  This is treason." 

"Yttrium is a rare earth metal that is more abundant on the moon.  Can we put robots on the moon to mine it?  We need our space centers back.  Chinese Sumikan Molycorp is trying to rob us of our gold and minerals at Mountain Pass CA and northern Nevada.  Close them down.  Get them out of the country."

GOOD AS GOLD

"We can mine gold in New Guinea if we can tame the head hunters.  Norman Rockerfeller let his son go there to study anthropology in 1960.  He fell out of a boat and his head might have been shrunk.  The driver in rural roads is stopped by mauraders who take the car and do away with the passengers."

"They would prosper far more if they only were kinder.  The gold has been sitting there known by other country's geologists for decades.  Curfew and military full of buses can end maruders.  They can end kuru disease when they quit eating human brains."

HIGH AND LOW TECH

"Our navy going around the Cape in January 2011 were met with Chinese and South African navy that did them in.  Our navy had depended on our British Dutch whites in Capetown to come to port to refuel for a hundred years.  Many friendly cruise ships interested in seeing wildlife and conversing with natives refueled from this port."

"Can oil tankers have a mini refinery on board?  They could refuel other ships too during hazardous times.  Put small motorboats on ships so if ships are met with laser from Obama's group they can still get away alive.  Out sailors need lead shields even over motor boat engines."

"Obama's laser tech on ships may end cruise ships, oil tankers, container ships, fishing ships and all trade on the ocean.  Laser does nothing to dirt. Ceramic ships with high degree of dirt may be a future ship to make now. Clay shields may be easiest to make." 

STUPID TEACHINGS

"Obama's group is getting into high schools to teach students to overthrow our country with the autobiography of Malcom, a communist Moslem radical.  The Union City California interlopers call it 'life skills' there is not a single life skill in it."

MOVE MEN TO SERVE AMERICANS

"The 2'000 men put in Australia can be moved to the Panam Canal where they can let through only non monoculturals.  chinese have the largest ships of any country and these ships hold only soldiers.  Kepp them out of the Atlantic.  Americans made the Panama Canal.  Let's not ever give the Panama Canal away." 

SHOW YOUR PATRIOTISM


"Don't let drug cartels into Indian reservations in Souther Arizona because that's where pot comes through."

"Arizona residents claim Mexican drug dealers with amo outnumber the INS and customs patrol.  Put dirt over country roads so none get into America.  Arizona governor Jan Brewer can show her patriotism by hiring more men to work at the border.  There are plenty of men that are unemployed that would like to work with shockers, shields and canine." 

SALVIA

"Salvia is very toxic even in the air.  Do not have a web site to sell this hallucinotory toxin.  Humans fall asleep and never wake up again."

A TB JOKE

"A coffin fell out of a limo down the street and went into a pharmacy.  The lid opened and a man popped out and said 'do you have anything to stop this coughing?'"

They're just Plain spoken Salt of the Earth Folk is All, Don't Know hoe to Be eloquent Like you College Hustler Types

"This is nothing! Wait until you see what happens to the n!qqqers here in the US of A when the new civil war starts!"

Todays' Lesson

Robert Fripp is fucking ice cold.  Note thee well. And yes, I'm aware he's something of a dick. 

Ok People,

Paul Meyer spoke out against the ordinance, saying that homosexuality is unnatural and unholy. While he said he does not believe in discrimination or bullying, Meyer told the City Council that he doesn't want that lifestyle shoved down his throat.

"Soved down his throat" over and over again you see this from opponents of gay rights.  'I don't want the gay agenda shoved down my throat.'  This is a joke right?   I mean I'm just going to call you all out right here.  I know for a fact that you can't possibly be so innocently ignorant of non-strictly reproductive sex acts to not see the entendre here, and the thought of so many people being so completely devoid of any self-awareness at all is just too horrifying to consider.  This is some sort of elaborate mass '4Chan' prank or something like that now isn't it?  It has to be.

PS.  To assistant Husker football coach Ron Brown:  So;  God commands every man to be the same strutting braindead macho thug you already happened to be before you found Jesus.  Well of course he does.  Go get fucked by a donkey you theocratic asshole.  

PPS.  Does anyone know how voluntary baldness came to be associated with alpha-maleness?  It's something I've felt a special curiosity about lately.     

Meanwhile, In Nebraska

There's a proposal in the Unicam to, more or less, command people to kill Prairie Dogs on their property. 


It does not, mind you, grant us the liberty to kill prairie dogs.  We already have that.  Everyone, from anywhere, is free to slaughter as many prairie dogs as they like wherever they find them however they see fit.  And this is a liberty that has been passionately defended from legions of strawman hippies and phantom enviromentalists. 

The hatred that farmers and ranchers have for prairie dogs is hard to believe even if you live among them and see it for yourself.  The creatures do cause them legitimate business problems, truth be told.  They can carve up a pasture, and grass is of no small value.  Cows can and do step into the holes, break their legs, and be beyond any help or 'salvage' by the time the owner makes his way to that part of his vast holdings and discovers the ailment. 

This is a bad economic hit for the rancher, and not so fun for the cow either, still.  Still I think the level of genocidal all-caps HATE for the prairie dog goes a good deal beyond that.  One can and will lose several head of cattle a year to storm, blizzard, contagion, etc every year, after all.  Living off the land requires accepting oneself as subject to the vicissitudes of nature, and here I think is where the real source of this rodentary blood lust lies.  These people are for the large part landowners who have been raised in a culture which glorifies land ownership, and are therefore very, very, very disinclined to accept themselves as subject to anything.  These vicissitudes of nature are a deeply resented reminder that property is a legal construction that does not convey one with any spiritual Lordship over whatever a piece of paper says is his.   Generally there is little to be done about these  reminders.  You can't shoot a blizzard or a tornado, but God damn can you ever shoot a prairie dog.

And now this rage against the dirt dog and wverything it represents has reached the point where property rights could potentially be violated.  How to explain this contradiction?  Double think of course, and Ted Turner.  Turner has for many years been buying up large chunks of land for the sake of preserving them.  And of course it goes without saying that preservation is very evil.  Earth is a woman for real men to fuck and there is no other valid thing to do with it.  Everyone knows that.  Worst of all Turner has bought some land for the expressly stated purpose of preserving the hated Prairie Dog.  So now here comes this bill to teach him and other outsiders a lesson.  In Nebraska we kill prarie dogs and that's it.  Understand?   And surely this won't actually violate any real Nebraskans property rights, because of course every real Nebraskan wants to kill any prairie dog he sees.  It's only people who aren't from Nebraska, like some hot-shot Hollywood actor, or Omaha insurance agent, who could possibly objest to this.  So they'll be no trouble, surely. 

Footy Top 10

1. Real Madrid
2. AC Milan
3. Barcelona
4. Bayern Munich
5. Benfica
6. Basel
7. Manchester United
8. Borussia Dortmund
9. Paris St. Germain
10. Juventus

200

The end is the beginning is the end is the end.

Breitbart:

So, it seems that an obsession with punishing weakness and destroying enemies has yet again somehow failed to produce invincibility.  Try and try again I suppose. 

In all seriousness, it is a shame about the poor man.  and I would even wish him to RIP if he didn't share old Tybalt's hatred for peace.