Crossing "Bottom of the Ocean" off places to visit...

The bottom of the ocean is full of Lovecraftian HR Giger horror!

I mean SERIOUSLY.

Sea spider???


...uses its perfectly arranged teeth to take “cookie sized” chunks out of its prey which includes bigger fish, whales and sometimes humans WHAT.


"Flesh eating crustacean"


WTabsoluteF ?



Okay, this one is from a Cthulhu art book, but you believed it for a second, didn't you, after seeing all the real ones???

With apologies to Tim Rice...

Donald got a royal greet from the Saudis
He trumped off the plane all ready to go
We just really wish he wouldn’t curtsy so low
he taught Islamic folks a lot about Islam
But he couldn’t get a breath in the arid, desert clime!

Salman's rain of cash is why you're in business:
Ivanka got some millions for a bank account
A hundred million should be a sufficient amount
But more important, purpose of that glowing orb is?
You're summoning up Nixon and HITLER? Holy shit!

Let’s hear it for the Rainbow Tour!
It’s been an incredible success.
We weren’t quite sure,
We had a few doubts;
Would the Donald win through?
And the answer is—
--a qualified--

There we go, I told you so!
It makes a difference where we go!
Just turn your cable from fake news
I'll do the same thing with the Jews!
And who could underestimate
The Donald now?
Seriously? CNN? Failing Washington Post? Golf Digest?

No one is underestimating you!
Just do the same thing in Israel please!?...

From FB: "How did you suffer?" (good reference list)

My friend forwarded this to me on FB, and I had been looking for a compiled list of responses for when people say Obama "ruined" the country. I thought this explained it very well, and could be referred to when challenged for "reasons" to justify support of the previous administration.

I have had some of my conservative friends talk about "suffering" under Obama and I have heard them take the position that those of us who did not support Trump should be prepared to "suffer" like they did. Notwithstanding that you can in no way compare Trump's behavior to anyone else, I find this to be a most excellent response:
When a Facebook friend said to him, "We suffered for 8 years. Now it’s your turn.” Here's the cogent reply from one Scott Mednick:
*****
I am surprised you would wish suffering upon me. That of course is your right, I suppose. I do not wish harm on anyone. Your statement seems to continue an ‘US v THEM’ mentality. The election is over. It is important to get past campaigning and campaign rhetoric and get down to what is uniting not dividing and what is best for ALL Americans.
There will never be a President who does everything to everyone’s liking. There are things President Obama (and President Clinton) did that I do not like and conversely there are things I can point to that the Presidents Bush did that I agree with. So I am not 100% in lock step with the outgoing President but have supported him and the overall job he did.
And, if you recall, during the Presidential Campaign back in 2008 the campaign was halted because of the "historic crisis in our financial system." Wall Street bailout negotiations intervened in the election process. The very sobering reality was that there likely could be a Depression and the world financial markets could collapse.
The United States was losing 800,000 jobs a month and was poised to lose at least 10 million jobs the first year once the new President took office. We were in an economic freefall. So let us recall that ALL of America was suffering terribly at the beginning of Obama’s Presidency.
But I wanted to look back over the last 8 years and ask you a few questions. Since much of the rhetoric before Obama was elected was that he would impose Sharia Law, Take Away Your Guns, Create Death Panels, Destroy the Economy, Impose Socialism and, since you will agree that NONE of this came to pass,
I was wondering:
Why have you suffered so?
So let me ask:
Gays and Lesbians can now marry and enjoy the benefits they had been deprived of. Has this caused your suffering?
When Obama took office, the Dow was 6,626. Now it is 19,875. Has this caused your suffering?
We had 82 straight months of private sector job growth - the longest streak in the history of the United States. Has this caused your suffering?
Especially considering where the economy was when he took over, an amazing 11.3 million new jobs were created under President Obama (far more than President Bush). Has this caused your suffering?
Obama has taken Unemployment from 10% down to 4.7%. Has this caused your suffering?
Homelessness among US Veterans has dropped by half. Has this caused your suffering?
Obama shut down the US secret overseas prisons. Has this caused your suffering?
President Obama has created a policy for the families of fallen soldiers to have their travel paid for to be there when remains are flown home. Has this caused your suffering?
We landed a rover on Mars. Has this caused your suffering?
He passed the Matthew Shepard Hate Crimes Prevention Act. Has this caused your suffering?
Uninsured adults has decreased to below 10%: 90% of adults are insured - an increase of 20 million adults. Has this caused your suffering?
People are now covered for pre-existing conditions. Has this caused your suffering?
Insurance Premiums increased an average of $4,677 from 2002-2008, an increase of 58% under Bush. The growth of these insurance premiums has gone up $4,145 – a slower rate of increase. Has this caused your suffering?
Obama added billions of dollars to mental health care for our Veterans. Has this caused your suffering?
Consumer confidence has gone from 37.7 to 98.1 during Obama’s tenure. Has this caused your suffering?
He passed the Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act. Has this caused your suffering?
His bi-annual Nuclear Summit convinced 16 countries to give up and destroy all their loose nuclear material so it could not be stolen. Has this caused your suffering?
He saved the US Auto industry. American cars sold at the beginning of his term were 10.4M and upon his exit 17.5M. Has this caused your suffering?
The deficit as a percentage of the GDP has gone from 9.8% to 3.2%. Has this caused your suffering?
The deficit itself was cut by $800 billion dollars. Has this caused your suffering?
Obama preserved the middle class tax cuts. Has this caused your suffering?
Obama banned solitary confinement for juveniles in federal prisons. Has this caused your suffering?
He signed credit card reform so that rates could not be raised without you being notified. Has this caused your suffering?
He outlawed Government contractors from discriminating against LGBT persons. Has this caused your suffering?
He doubled Pell Grants. Has this caused your suffering?
Abortion is down. Has this caused your suffering?
Violent crime is down. Has this caused your suffering?
He overturned the scientific ban on stem cell research. Has this caused your suffering?
He protected Net Neutrality. Has this caused your suffering?
Obamacare has extended the life of the Medicare insurance trust fund (will be solvent until 2030). Has this caused your suffering?
President Obama repealed "Don't Ask Don't Tell." Has this caused your suffering?
He banned torture. Has this caused your suffering?
He negotiated with Syria to give up its chemical weapons and they were destroyed. Has this caused your suffering?
Solar and Wind Power are at an all time high. Has this caused your suffering?
High School Graduation rates hit 83% - an all-time high. Has this caused your suffering?
Corporate profits are up by 144%. Has this caused your suffering?
He normalized relations with Cuba. Has this caused your suffering?
Reliance on foreign oil is at a 40-year low. Has this caused your suffering?
US Exports are up 28%. Has this caused your suffering?
He appointed the most diverse cabinet ever. Has this caused your suffering?
He reduced the number of troops in both Iraq and Afghanistan. Has this caused your suffering?
Yes, he killed Osama Bin Laden and retrieved all the documents in his possession for analysis. Perhaps THIS caused your suffering?
From an objective standpoint it would appear that the last 8 years have seen some great progress and we were saved from a financial collapse. Things are not perfect. Things can always be better. We are on much better footing now than we were in 2008.
I look forward to understanding what caused you to suffer so much under Obama these last eight years.

Russian influence is like the Zombie Virus

Back in the day, the rightwingers all had hard-ons for the 24 scenario: a common dramatic situation on the Kiefer Sutherland drama. If you're holding a terrorist who knows about a ticking bomb that will undoubtedly kill scores of people, is it a valid strategy to torture the suspect to reveal the information to stop the bomb and save people?

This scenario is a movie plot; a straw-man sort of thing that probably would never happen in reality the way it does on a fictional TV show. However, many of them liked to float this situation to convince people that routine torture of suspected terrorists was justified.

In my opinion, this Russian influence thing parallels another TV show: The Walking Dead. On that show, it's a routine practice to terminate individuals infected with the zombie virus who will invariably turn into a zombie themselves. It's done before the infection peaks as a "mercy kill" so the victim won't experience the terror of becoming a zombie, and for safety; putting the victim down before they turn and become a dangerous threat is a cold reality in the fiction of the show. Many characters accept that with no cure, this is the smartest move for healthy survivors, and accept it bravely.

Just like 24, Russian influence was an almost unbelievable scenario, but the reality has become clear: Flynn was "infected", and yet the Administration wants to perceive his resignation as the solution and resolution to the entire crisis, dust their hands "problem solved!" and go on like no big deal. This is akin to cutting off a zombie-bitten arm in hopes the virus doesn't continue to spread throughout the body. In zombie shows, this almost never works as the tragic characters expect, and often leads to a future catastrophe that plays out in the worst possible way. The type of "infection" that the potential Russian influence apparently posed to our election (and now our government) does not exist in a vacuum. It's a virus that spreads and offers no benefit to its perpetraitors unless there is collusion.

More of our elected civil servants are infected, and may be unwittingly more dangerous than they realize; they "don't remember" speaking to Russian personnel who neglected to wear their "Hello! I am a counterintelligence Spy!" badge or interacted with foreign entities in an unassuming manner where they themselves don't realize exactly how they've been compromised. The only sure thing for the safety of our government is to make sure every single person who risks continuing the taint of Russia's meddling with our political body from the inside is to purge absolutely everyone who could possibly be affected. It's a rough idea, and a hard one to swallow, but it's the only way to keep our democracy and our government healthy and not just existing as dead meat.

"But...don't you want to support the President for the good of the country?"

What example do I have to follow? The Republicans didn’t want Obama to be a great President; they succeeded in obstructing a good deal of his agenda, then when he managed to take a giant (if not perfect) step forward in providing healthcare for Americans who didn’t have it, they spent $87 million dollars petulantly trying to vote to repeal it over fifty times.

They stole a Supreme Court nomination from him by not even voting on his completely reasonable nominee. During his term. For a year.

Republicans gleefully frame the Obama years as a complete failure; an outright string of lies that serves to set the bar low as possible for the inevitable next Republican President.

And then they give us Donald Trump, who won the election despite being the most inappropriate candidate qualification-wise, and a reprehensibly spoiled, narcissistic, antipathic human being in general, who bullied his way into the nomination. For doing so, they win both houses and complete control of the government.

Cooperation with the opposing party is apparently not how you win elections. “Let’s come together in our desire to destroy all the progress we’ve made in the 20th century” is not an acceptable olive branch.

No. I don’t want to support Trump and his policies, and by proxy the Republican agenda in any way. The Republicans have shown us that you don’t support a President who isn’t from your party even when they desire to move humanity forward. If they state the sky is blue, you engage in 24-hour news-channel propaganda to flood the concept that their truth is a lie. You sabotage them via obstruction, outright lies, and throwing broken glass in the path of every piece of legislation that benefits their agenda. Their agenda is screwing America for the benefit of the rich and privileged. My preferred agenda is improving the quality of life for all.

I’d be sullenly relieved to be proven wrong if America thrives in the next four years in some strange reverse-psychology ploy, but I’m not going to give Trump or his ilk any help or support with their blatantly inhumanitarian goals and methods that I disagree with "for the good of the country".

The Republicans have taught me that's how you win.