The Daily Bird #367.

Lady House Sparrows. I don’t often have an opportunity to capture the wealth of sparrows we have on property. All the feeding stations are highly sheltered, and sparrows don’t care for being watched at all, and with good reason (Sharp-shinned Hawks). Then a mum showed with a baby, cleaning up, then babe waited patiently for mum to return with more food. A rare moment here, click for full size.

© C. Ford.

Guess What June 1st Is…WNAAD.

I had no idea, it’s thanks to Intransitive that I now know. Check out that post, do a bit of reading, and pass the knowledge along. This is particularly important here in uStates, not only for every individual who has had to deal with the nightmare of a narcissistic relation; but all of us here are now at the whim of a narcissist currently playing at president. We should all know more about this, and make sure that others are educated as well. It’s also important to let people know there is help, that they are not alone in trying to cope.

Read more at Intransitive.

Mr. Tweet Returns.

After the Unpresident’s disastrous ‘tour’, it didn’t take long before Mr. Tweet once again made an appearance, having another multi-tweet meltdown, scattering his delusions like dandelion achenes in the wind. It also didn’t take long for the Twitterati to respond to the latest salver of idiotbites laid before them.

Mr. Tweet: “I suggest that we add more dollars to Healthcare and make it the best anywhere. ObamaCare is dead – the Republicans will do much better!”

As one astute person observed in response, we had healthcare with more dollars in, it was called the ACA, aka ObamaCare.

Mr. Tweet: “The massive TAX CUTS/REFORM that I have submitted is moving along in the process very well, actually ahead of schedule. Big benefits to all!”

Oh yes, let’s see, you promised this mess within 100 days. It’s over that now. Benefits to all? I do believe he thinks only filthy rich people actually exist. Oh, and maybe the servant class. Outside of that, I think we all disappear.

Mr. Tweet: “The Fake News Media works hard at disparaging & demeaning my use of social media because they don’t want America to hear the real story!”

This piece of America is intelligent enough to read actual news, not shitshows like Fox, is capable of doing basic fact checking, is not afraid of words or the reading of them, and can judge shite filled tweets when seen.

It’s amazing, really, just how easy it is to get Donny unglued. I hope people all over take a clue from the scathing Twitterati, and show up in masses at his planned ‘campaign rallies’, and let fly with the questions and mockery. That might result in getting his ass out of office, something the democrats won’t even try to do until fucking 2019. What the hell is the point? He needs out now. Cry havoc and let slip the dogs of mockery!

You can see some of the choice responses at Raw Story.

Climate Accord: Trump To Pull Out.

“Montenegro Prime Minister Dusko Markovic, center right, after appearing to be pushed by Donald Trump, center.” CREDIT for caption/photo: AP/Matt Dunham.

There’s been a great deal of anxiety laden speculation over the Paris Climate Accord, as that represents our last, best hope. It seems it’s a last, best hope that the Tiny Tyrant wants no part of, and plans to withdraw from.  This is not yet formal, and the Tiny Tyrant is subject to doing rapid turnabouts on a whim, but he’s never been secretive about his scorn for the climate accord, or his desire to pull out. The damage he has already done here in uStates is tremendous, it won’t be long before we’re back to 1970s levels of pollution, with smog alerts and steeping in trash and toxicity once again. Naturally, this will lead to a much sicker populace, one which will not be able to take care of themselves, thanks to the Fuck You Care Plan. There’s one other country which is also adamantly against the climate accord. Bet you don’t need three guesses, either. It’s Russia.

President Donald Trump has privately told “confidants” he intends to leave the Paris accord on climate change, “according to three sources with direct knowledge,” Axios reported Saturday.

After persuading voters that America isn’t great anymore, Trump apparently intends to make sure of it — by having this country lead the effort to kill humanity’s last, best hope of avoiding catastrophic climate change.

Quitting a unanimous agreement by 190+ nations after a two-decade negotiating process would make us a rogue nation, a global pariah, like Vladimir Putin’s Russia. And, it could make Putin happy, as we’ll see.

While Trump tweeted out Saturday from Italy that “I will make my final decision on the Paris Accord next week,” German Chancellor Angela Merkel told reporters after the G7 meeting, “The whole discussion about climate has been difficult, or rather very unsatisfactory.” She added, “Here we have the situation that six members, or even seven if you want to add the EU, stand against one.”

Axios notes that “Although Trump made it clear during the campaign and in multiple conversations before his overseas trip that he favored withdrawal, he has been known to abruptly change his mind.” They add, however, top political appointees at EPA “were relieved” when Trump refused to join a consensus G7 statement reaffirming “their strong commitment” to the Paris accord.

While the White House’s attack on domestic climate action already undermines the global effort to avert climate catastrophe, we shouldn’t discount the importance of a U.S. withdrawal from Paris — especially if Trump teams with Russian President Vladimir Putin to undermine the whole global negotiating process.

Think Progress has the full story.

Every Penis Tells A Story.

‘Once somebody has bared their body, they are much more likely to bare their soul. You get a much better interview after the picture.’ Photograph: Laura Dodsworth.

This is a truly absorbing project from Laura Dodsworth, author and photographer of Manhood: The Bare Reality. It’s not the photos of all the penises which fascinate; most people have seen more than one, it’s the people attached to said penises, and their stories about the various tangles of manhood and the ever elusive sense of masculinity. I found myself sitting down with a cuppa to read all the stories at the Guardian, and I will buy the book.

Warning: NSFW.  Have a care peeking below the fold, there are penises lurking.

[Read more…]

Okja!

Oh, this looks wonderful! Tilda Swinton plays the villain, something she’s quite good at, and this particular villain has much in common with a real villain – Ivanka Kushner.

Although she began preparing for her role in the upcoming film, Okja, long before last summer’s dystopian Republican convention, Tilda Swinton was not oblivious to a certain similarity between Ivanka Trump and her own character of Lucy Mirando, “a marvellously watchable villain, wincing and scowling with self-pity and fear,” in the words of a five-star review in The Guardian newspaper.

The film, from Snowpiercer’s Bong Joon Ho, follows a genetically modified hippo-like pig and its friendship with a young girl as she tries to protect it from corporate forces trying to slaughter it. “Lucy Mirando is the heir to a rotten great fortune built on the corrupt morally repugnant initiatives carried out by her father,” Swinton said of her character in an interview with The Wrap.

“When we shot in New Yokr last summer, I stood watching the Republican convention on the television in our lunch break dressed as Lucy, watching a different daughter of a different dubious dynasty addressing, from a high podium, a big crowd with glossy blond hair, expensive orthodontics and modeling her Barbie-perfect modest pink dress (concurrently on sale online),” she said.  “Chicken? Egg?”

Swinton viewed Lucy as “part spa manager, part Barbie dollybird, part cult priestess,” and the comparison to Ivanka in all respects is uncanny.

Via Out.

Sunday Facepalm.

ccckenya.com

Wayne Allyn Root is at it again, metaphorical saliva foaming over. Oh, those awful fellow conservatives, they are lazy, cheap, wussie country clubbers! They aren’t properly motivated programmed, so it’s time to call in the pros, those who will attack , and have experience in killing people. That will fix everything right up, because otherwise, he seems to think his life, and that of other batshit conservative christians, will be erased. I think Mr. Root has been watching bad movies.

Outraged that WorldNetDaily had its Twitter account temporarily suspended for its incessant promotion of the debunked Seth Rich conspiracy theory, Root fumed that conservatives “are all wussies and they don’t understand that we have to fight back so viciously and we have to boycott every liberal company in this country.”

Any company that advertises on MSNBC or CNN or in the New York Times, Washington Post or on any liberal website must be universally boycotted by every Trump voter in America, Root said, “before we are taken off the airwaves and our lives are erased.”

I can’t imagine anyone having the time, resources, and energy to “erase” lives such as yours, Mr. Root. Reality is not a bad movie. As for the rest of your plan, while there are too many Trumpholes, as in one is too many, they are actually a very small percentage of the population, and don’t have the power to make a boycott effective.

Reading from a letter he received from a friend, Root claimed that progressive organizations like Right Wing Watch, Media Matters, and the Center for American Progress have massive offices all over the country filled with staff who do nothing but send emails, letters and make phone calls “to sponsors and newspapers and cable and TV networks all over this country and all over this world to try to destroy the right.” Conservatives don’t have a similar operation, Root fumed, because they are “lazy, cheap, wussy, country club, RINO a-holes.”

Oooh, a letter from a friend. What an authoritative source. Nothing like advertising your gullibility. I imagine if these massive offices existed, there would be quite the buzz, because jobs. It’s true that lefties tend to pay attention, and get involved in a lot of grassroots action, sign petitions and all that, but that’s a far cry from this odd conspiracy you have cooked up. Most of us have to get on with the daily business of living, working every day, taking care of families, all that. Not much time leftover to be a paper assassin.

“We need to hire an attack dog,” Root declared. “We need to hire former CIA or NSA or FBI or Navy Seals that have been involved in counter-insurgency operations all over the world, that have killed people, that understand how to fight; that don’t bring a knife to a gunfight, that bring a gun to a gunfight, preferably a shoulder-fired missile to a gunfight, preferably a nuclear weapon to a gunfight!”

We? Who the hell is We? A slight hint here, Mr. Root – people such as you’re describing might not appreciate being called an attack dog. A nuclear weapon to a gunfight. Yeah, there’s that good ol’ christian conservative spirit: obliterate the fuckers, all of them! I can’t say I’d mind if you dropped dead, Mr. Root, because you’re a dangerous zealot, who thinks unleashing nuclear weapons would be a good idea. It would probably be a good thing if you figured out that if nukes fly, you’re dead, too. Jesus Fuck, what is wrong with you people?

“It is time to go after the left as viciously as they go after us,” Root proclaimed. “These people are mentally insane … and I will tell you right now, they would burn books if they could.”

“They would love to burn the Bible, because we all know they hate God,” he added. “And you know they hate the country.”

Let’s take a look. According to you, the left are viciously engaged in letter writing and phone calling. So, you think killers, guns, and nuclear weapons are an appropriate response. And that’s supposed to be mentally sane? Now, as for this: “they would burn books if they could”, um, what is it that you think is preventing people from burning books, if that’s what they want to do? I haven’t burned a bible, but I’ve shredded a couple. *shrug* Nothing happened, no one cares.

I don’t hate “god” because gods don’t exist. I don’t hate the country, either, but I certainly don’t like many of its inhabitants.

Via RWW.