Weekend Update: Androids vs. iPhones and War Games

Friday morning and Wally has finally made up his mind and decided against replacing his 3G Motorola with a much newer iPhone 5s.  “The buypartisan app seems like fun,” he'd wrote on the internet and looked forward to downloading and using his new toy. 

“And I’m actually anticipating doing some serious shopping and barcode scanning this weekend," he’d said to friends.

But alas, when he went to download the buypartisan app, he found that it did not work on his Android.  Meanwhile, most of his iPhone owning friends were having a blast at the stores and, of course, they sent him their many “thank you” texts for having turned them onto the app, in the first place.

Late Friday night, however, Wally learned that the buypartisan app will soon be available for Androids, and hopes it's out before he is forced to purchase an iPhone.  He wants in on the fun, but since he uses his cell only for voice and text, he’d like to save a few bucks and stick with his obsolete Motorola 3G

War Games

Wally’s been following the news and readily admits to having mixed feelings.  “As for Syria and Iraq,” he says, “they need to figure out their own shit because we ain’t the cops of the world.”  On the other hand, he realizes that ISIS is composed of psychopaths and crazy people and some of them have U.S. Passports and will be a problem upon their return.  “Besides,” he says, “we’re the ones who upset the applecart over there in the first place.”

Putin’s Russia?  Now that’s a different story.  “Everyone knows the man is crazy,” Wally said in a recent tweet.  “But is he crazy like a fox?”  He does like Russia’s story about how their soldiers ended up crossing the border into Ukraine.   “Story is, they had gotten lost or were on vacation.”  Although not sure of which is true, Wally gets a kick out of the map Canada’s NATO delegation drew for the Russian soldiers.   And, of course, Russia’s response was almost as funny

Friday, 8/29/14

Wally said that he came across this on twitter.

Possible: A Nationwide Law Enforcement Conspiracy

Wally can’t help but wonder about all the shootings of unarmed African-American teens, of late.  “I don’t know how most white people feel about them,” he said.  “But for me, it’s real creepy.”   And citing the many police shootings and beatings of unarmed black people across the nation, “It’s starting to seem like more than random events and may be informal, but very organized.”

 Although the well-known police shooting of Michael Brown in Ferguson, MO is very scary, Wally is just as concerned about the death of Victor White III, in New Iberia, LA,, last March  "What I can’t understand is how an African-American teenager managed to commit suicide by shooting himself in the chest, while in the back seat of a police car, hands cuffed behind him, “ he said.

While insisting that he is not some kind of conspiracy freak, Wally is quick to point out, neither does he believe in coincidence.   

Wally says he first noticed a lot of red states starting to pass eviscerating, but subtle anti-union legislation and cutting of taxes for the wealthy, among other kinds of distasteful policies, sometime around 2007.  Like many others, he noticed, but paid it little attention.   “After all,” he had said, “just a bunch of Republicans screwing us over to make life better for rich people.”

But these anti-worker laws and policies, it later turned out, were not just mere coincidence.  Not only were the passing of the legislation well organized, the subtle scenario was well executed and a perfect conspiracy.  It was a well-funded group of elites, including the Koch brothers, behind a group calling itself the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC).

“I’m not saying the shootings are a conspiracy or anything, but a black teenager with a body full of bullets charging at a cop, or another one shooting himself in the chest, hands cuffed behind him, while in the back seat of a police car?”

For Wally, the Oath Keepers, or something like them, may end up doing for police and sheriffs as something similar to what ALEC has done for corporations and politicians.   “I’m just saying...” he said.

It’s Not Just Demographics, Stupid

GO:  IPI-Clock

Although he missed it by less than twenty-four hours, he still missed it.  Worse yet, he didn’t even know it was coming until after it had already passed.  On Friday, August 22, 2014, according to EthniFacts, the United States of America reached its “Multicultural Tipping Point.”

And Wally is a little depressed about it.  “I’m PC and into the diversity thing,” he recently told friends.  “But right now, we’re on the precipice and either we’ll step back a little or jump off.

“Meanwhile, we’re all pissed off, angry and compartmentalized.   Whites want to keep what they have and fear the rest of us want to take it from them and that we’ll treat them like they treat us.  And the fact that we have an African American as president really scares the shit out of them and they’d rather cut off their nose to spite their face than abide a successful black president.”

At times, even Wally is known to be verbose.  In short, most minorities go to #Ferguson, and white people tend toward #ILoveFerguson.   “It’s a simple tale of two cities,” Wally said.  “And symbolic of what’s happening all over the country.”

It’s possible that the Republicans will take the Senate in November, 2014.  And if they do, according to Wally, our government will most likely cease to function and we’ll all be fucked. 

Right now, Obama is sending a message that he is no longer, “the caver in chief,” and will stand strong and fight them off.  Meanwhile, Republicans are betting that he’ll fold and cave rather than risk a total government shutdown.  Now, does that suck or what?

Democrats, meanwhile, seem to be focused on 2016 and already writing off 2014.  Only problem is, a lot can happen in those two short years.  Imagine the worst possible things that Republican governments can do and, rest assured, it will be done.  Not only will they do as bad as you imagine, they will do worse than you can imagine.

In two years, they can suppress the vote, destroy the environment, repeal Obamacare, eviscerate public education and privatize social security, and that’s just for starts.   For Republicans, it’s all about power and control and by 2016, there may be only a few Democrats left who are still able to vote.  Republicans do not play fair and will do whatever it takes.  This is not a game for them and neither is it about democracy.

But if Republicans end up controlling both houses of Congress as well as state legislatures, it’ll be just like Wally said, “…we’ll all be fucked.”

Weird Wally Sez:  Remember, This ain’t no party, this ain’t no disco, this ain’t no fooling around.

A Buy Partisan (BuyPartisan) App Has Finally Arrived: Now We Can Spend Consciously

App's screenshot after scanning the barcode of a product

Although Wally is technically smartphone illiterate and manages well enough with his Motorola 3G, when he chanced upon something called a “BuyPartisan” app, he downloaded it immediately.  It was his second ever smartphone download.  “Since there is no longer such a thing “bipartisan” in politics,” he said, “I may as well join the shitfest.”

According to Colby Itkowitz, of the Washington Post’s “In the Loop,” Matthew Colbert “developed the app to give consumers more knowledge about how they spend their money.  For some, it may translate to not buying a certain cereal anymore, for others it could simply be a conversation starter, Colbert said.  But he hopes all users will appreciate having at their fingertips an awareness that a fraction of their grocery bill went to political contributions.”

Wally says that he is anxious to try it out, “It’s my newest and most fun toy of the year, so far.”  And although he doubts that the app will seriously effect his buying habits, “it’ll still be fun to know where some of my money goes,” he said.

“As long as people take Wally’s attitude towards the app, there won’t be much of a problem,” says one Denver attorney.  “But should it become both popular and effective, then you can expect that state and federal legislators will start passing laws placing mucho limits on what apps like that will be able to do.  Most likely it’ll happen as a Corporate Privacy issue because, unlike in the recent past, corporations are now people.”

It’s Time for Voter Registration in Ferguson, MO

Let's protest at the polls people. Let's protest at the polls

“The Ferguson Police Department,” insists Wally, “is what happens when black people don’t vote.”  And despite all that is wrong in Ferguson politics, the fact remains that most brothers and sisters of Ferguson didn’t bother to vote.  “It’s only common sense that people tend to get the type of government they deserve,” he’d said.

Initially, Wally was somewhat upset with the victims of the Ferguson Police and wondered how it was possible in a town where African Americans outnumber whites by more than two-thirds, whites hold all the political power? 

Like most Americans, regardless of race, Wally’s thoughts and opinions were much like bumper stickers; short, sweet and to the point.  And “Black People Don’t Vote,” precisely fit the bill. 

But after typing “how many blacks voted in the last Ferguson, MO elections,” into google search,  Wally says that he now sees with eyes wide open and things aren’t always as they first appear.  As a result, Wally figures it might be a good idea to couple voter registration and education to the current protests, “That'll scare the shit out of those power hungry bastards,” he said.

Note:  Today is August 19, 2014 and the mentioned search has surely been updated and improved.  But by far, the best article to date appeared in yesterday’s edition of the Daily Kos and is probably still worth reading even if you read nothing else.  

Weird Wally Sez:  Remember, if you don't vote, you won't count.

Foiled in Ferguson and WTF

It’s hard to accomplish a police cover-up when the whole world is watching.  #Ferguson

Riot Gear ✔️

Tear Gas ✔️

Camouflage ✔️

Assault Rifles ✔️

Armored Land Mine Vehicles ✔

Dashboard cameras X

Wally and his laptop were up way past midnight logging onto google search and twitter.  Besides live-streaming, he was looking for an answer to a very simple question.  “How is it possible that a town with a 67% African-American population, has a white mayor, mostly all white police force, no members on the local school board and, of the six members of the city council, only one is black.”

But what was most scary for Wally were the videos and images coming out of Ferguson.  For a county, according to the 2010 census, of just under a million people, the local police looked more like an occupying army, and instead of “to protect and to serve,” their mission seemed more like, “to repress and to repel.”

Outfitted in gasmasks, riot gear, assault rifles, and camouflage, these masked invaders patrolled in Humvees and Armored Land mind Vehicles.  And what Wally wants to know is, in a county jurisdiction of less than a million people, where the hell did all that money come from?

Seems as if the St. Louis County and Ferguson Police Departments were part of a federal program run out of the Law Enforcement Support Office (LESO) and known as Program 1033.  Designed to distribute surplus military equipment to police departments across the country, Program 1033 gave away $449,309,003.71 in arms and armor in 2013 alone.  The equipment ranges from simple pistols and assault rifles to MRAPS and Heavy Armored Vehicles, used in Iraq and Afghanistan.

“Problem with that kind of policing,” Wally insists, “is that the cops become schoolyard bullies and everyone else is helpless.”

The Real American Spring

#Ferguson      Nothing else need be said.

The Coming Shakeup at MSNBC and NBC News

Wally stayed up very late last night doing, what he refers to as, “important research.”   This morning, he told some friends that the shit will soon be hitting the fan at MSNBC and NBC NEWS.  And if there is any truth to what he said, the splatter pattern will be interesting.

Although he declines to name his sources, Wally is saying, “I wouldn’t put my money on Chuck Todd to host Meet the Press yet, if I were you.” 

According to Wally, many at NBC want to change the show’s format and Deborah Turness, President of NBC News, remains uncertain if MtP should even continue. 

In order for the show to survive, says Wally, NBC is considering pulling in Chris Matthews from MSNBC.  Problem is, Chris Matthews is quietly talking about retirement.  The other contender, Rachel Maddow, is saying, “I already have a life, thank you very much.”  With Matthews and Maddow pretty much out of the picture, Turness is said to be considering Joy-Ann Reid for the spot.  “It’s not as much of a long as you may think,” one NBC insider is rumored to have said.  “Watch this space.”

Weird Wally Sez:  Remember, you read this on the internet.

#IfTheyGunnedMeDown

Wally is reported to have spent most of this weekend hold up in his apartment and reading tweets on the, #IfTheyGunnedMeDown, Twitter feed.  Several years north of 65, he knew he appeared neither threatening nor gangsta, but Wally also realized that there were a lot of crazy white people and cops with guns on the street.  “It’s like open season black folk,” he tweeted.  “And it’s pretty scary.”

Although he seldom mentions it in mixed company, the recent killings of young black people by white civilians and cops is very much on his mind.  And since most whites simply don’t understand, Wally usually remains mute on the matter.  But in the absence of whites, he is said to freely speak his mind. 

Ever since Trayvon Martin was shot while walking home from the store in 2012, Wally has felt a bit more distant from even his closest white friends.  “It’s hard to explain,” he told one white friend.  “But I do know that you’ll never know that kind of fear for yourself, your children, nor your grandkids.”

Twenty some years ago, Wally’s son was in his teens and early twenties and there didn’t seem to be so much gun craziness and stereotyping.   Now, on almost a daily bases, young, unarmed black people are being shot.  And even after their death, the deceased are treated like defendants with a lot of whites assuming that the black person must have been doing something to deserve it.

“Do you remember hurricane Katrina in 2005 and how the media had two different descriptions for very similar photos and videos?” Wally asked a friend, via cell.  “If you were white, you found food.  But if you were black, you stole food.  And it’s still all like that and not too much has changed.”

Iraq: The Bombs Have Dropped, The Death Toll's Ris. I wonder Where Dick Cheney Is?

Seems as if things have changed in Iraq almost overnight and like most everyone else, Wally doesn’t have a clue.  “It’s okay to be ignorant of something,” he said.  "As long as you admit that you don’t know what you’re talking about.” 

The good thing is, Wally didn’t have to hear from Dick Cheney and all those other neocon assholes on the right, before the shit had hit the fan.  Thus far, the only comment Wally has heard from FOX News and other wingnuts, is that Obama is bombing Iraq in order to distract us from Benghazi.  But it’s only Friday, and less than twenty-four hours since we started engaging the insurgents with airstrikes.  By Sunday morning, Wally knew, the neocons would be all over the talk shows, talking smack about the president.

Wally also knew that it would be the same people who got us into this Iraq mess, who’d be pointing out all of Obama’s mistakes in the Middle East and blaming him for everything that’s happened in that area.  And never once will they connect the dots back to the first cause, it’s the Bush/Cheney invasion of Iraq on a bullshit tip that got this whole nightmare going in the first place.

Meanwhile, Wally is not sure if our involvement on any level is a good idea, but genocide sure as hell trumps make believe WMDs.  But on Sunday morning, FOX News and Republicans will be blaming Obama and Meet the Press will come up with a neocon or two to help confuse us more.  “At least FOX News, has an agenda,” Wally insists.  “But Meet the Press, I don’t know what their problem is.  Maybe they need some new booking agents and new host with some balls, who can think on her feet.

Weird Wally’s Right Wing Money Making Scheme

Weird Wally refused to either confirm or deny that he is working on a secret project, but a close friend and gossip, recently retired from NSA, has hinted that Wally’s Wi-Fi may have been hacked.  “And from the looks of things, he’s definitely up to no good.”  The possibility that Wally might, in fact, be up to no good came as no surprise to members of the Old Farts Symposium (FOS), as they sat for their monthly luncheon at a one star restaurant in downtown Denver.

And since Wally had failed to show, the Symposium wasted little time in voicing their concerns about his recent behavior.   After over an hour of trading information and speculation, their concern for Wally was near panic.  “Shouldn’t we do an intervention,” a former attorney gleefully suggested.

Seems as if Wally has hit upon, what he calls a, “low risk-high income,” get rich quick scheme.   “And Sarah Palin is his inspiration,” someone had said during lunch.   But what had initially gotten everyone’s attention was a google search Wally had done a little over a week ago.  “Hesearched for ‘top right-wing money making schemes’” the retired NSA employee said, while distributing printouts.   “It’s like he’s studying up on building a business model,” NSA concluded.  “Kind of like getting an online MBA.” 

Most of those present agreed that Wally was a decent writer.  But, was he devious enough to actually go through with such a brazen scam?  Now that, was way open to debate.  The gathering noted that the Republican Party is a goldmine for unscrupulous entrepreneurs.  “I know of several people who’ve run for office with no intention of ever being elected.  After losing, they write books, appear on FOX News, give speeches and make a damn good living being has-beens,” a retired political science professor quickly pointed out.

After many minutes of debate, NSA managed to get everyone’s attention again, “I stopped by his place around six this morning…”

“Isn’t that the time he usually goes to AA?” a retired social worker (MSW) chimed in.

“Anyway,” continued NSA, “I thought I heard him scream for help, so I had no choice but to pick the lock and…”

“You remind of an old ordering pizza joke,” MSW said.

But NSA would not be sidetracked, “He wasn’t home,” NSA continued, “but when I accidently bumped his laptop, I saw a website he’s designing and a bunch of eBooks he’d written and uploaded to Amazon.  Looks like he’s planning to sell them for eight bucks a download.”

“What kind of eBooks?” someone asked.

“Stuff like, ‘Obama’s Secret Journey: Africa to America’ and ‘Research Proves: GMOs Are Good for You.’”  NSA then produced a printout of an email Wally had sent to Monsanto about buying advertising space on his yet to be named website.

By lunch end, the only thing the group could agree on was that Wally was up to something and that NSA should probably keep an eye on him.  Before leaving, they all asked for separate checks and paid with separate credit cards

Later, outside in the parking lot, MSW is rumored to have asked NSA if Wally had gotten his Private Detective License yet.

“Why ask me?” replied NSA.

“Because I can’t imagine Wally ever owning a gun.”

“What does owning a gun have to do with being a private investigator?” NSA asked.

“Whoever heard of a private dick without a gun,” replied MSW.

Twelve Basic Laws of Karma Revealed

Weird Wally does not believe in “coincidence” and whenever he runs up against anything even remotely similar, he calls it “synchronicity.”  The main difference, according to Wally, is that a mere coincidence seems random.  With synchronicity, however, a coincidence has both meaning, and is meaningful.   Coincidence can often be shrugged off.  But synchronicity, now that bears some looking into.  And far above many things, Wally loves a good metaphysical puzzle. 

Even after finishing his thirty minute, morning Mindfulness routine, he was still in a funk and knew he had only himself to blame.  Unable to name a cause, Wally logged onto Facebook for lack of anything else to do.

While scrolling through his Fb feed, he came across a “Been there, done that” photo (see insert below), and immediately shared it on Facebook.  A few clicks later, Wally hit upon an interesting post from themirrorpost.com.  He immediately shared that one also.  “Talk about synchronicity,” he said to a friend, later that morning.  “Meaningful coincidence, Gatta love it.”

Finishing up with Facebook, Wally knew that something about the two posts are meaningful for him and all he has to do is look for clues and find the meaning.

But before starting out on his quest, he is said to have taken a moment or two to thank the Gods of Synchronicity for his blessing.

Twelve Little Known Laws Of Karma That Will Change Your Life

What is Karma?  Karma is the Sanskrit word for action. It is equivalent to Newton’s law of ‘every action must have a reaction’. When we think, speak or act we initiate a force that will react accordingly. This returning force maybe modified, changed or suspended, but most people will not be able eradicate it.

This law of cause and effect is not punishment, but is wholly for the sake of education or learning.

A person may not escape the consequences of his actions, but he will suffer only if he himself has made the conditions ripe for his suffering. Ignorance of the law is no excuse whether the laws are man-made or universal.


To stop being afraid and to start being empowered in the worlds of karma and reincarnation, here is what you need to know about karmic laws.

http://www.themirrorpost.com/2014/07/12-little-known-laws-of-karma-that-will.html

1. THE GREAT LAW

- “As you sow, so shall you reap”. This is also known as the “Law of Cause and Effect”.
- Whatever we put out in the Universe is what comes back to us.
- If what we want is Happiness, Peace, Love, Friendship… Then we should BE Happy, Peaceful, Loving and a True Friend.

2. THE LAW OF CREATION

- Life doesn’t just HAPPEN, it requires our participation.
- We are one with the Universe, both inside and out.
- Whatever surrounds us gives us clues to our inner state.
- BE yourself, and surround yourself with what you want to have present in your Life.

3. THE LAW OF HUMILITY

- What you refuse to accept, will continue for you.
- If what we see is an enemy, or someone with a character trait that we find to be negative, then we ourselves are not focused on a higher level of existence.

4. THE LAW OF GROWTH

- “Wherever you go, there you are”.
- For us to GROW in Spirit, it is we who must change – and not the people, places or things around us.
- The only given we have in our lives is OURSELVES and that is the only factor we have control over.
- When we change who and what we are within our heart our life follows suit and changes too.

5. THE LAW OF RESPONSIBILITY

- Whenever there is something wrong in my life, there is something wrong in me.
- We mirror what surrounds us – and what surrounds us mirrors us; this is a Universal Truth.
- We must take responsibility what is in our life.

6. THE LAW OF CONNECTION

- Even if something we do seems inconsequential, it is very important that it gets done as everything in the Universe is connected.
- Each step leads to the next step, and so forth and so on.
- Someone must do the initial work to get a job done.
- Neither the first step nor the last are of greater significance,
- As they were both needed to accomplish the task.
- Past-Present-Future they are all connected…

7. THE LAW OF FOCUS

- You cannot think of two things at the same time.
- When our focus is on Spiritual Values, it is impossible for us to have lower thoughts such as greed or anger.

8. THE LAW OF GIVING AND HOSPITALITY

- If you believe something to be true, then sometime in your life you will be called upon to demonstrate that particular truth.
- Here is where we put what we CLAIM that we have learned, into actual

9. PRACTICE. THE LAW OF HERE AND NOW

- Looking backward to examine what was, prevents us from being totally in the HERE AND NOW.
- Old thoughts, old patterns of behavior, old dreams…
- Prevent us from having new ones.

10. THE LAW OF CHANGE

- History repeats itself until we learn the lessons that we need to change our path.

11. THE LAW OF PATIENCE AND REWARD

- All Rewards require initial toil.
- Rewards of lasting value require patient and persistent toil.
- True joy follows doing what we’re supposed to be doing, and waiting for the reward to come in on its own time.


12. THE LAW OF SIGNIFICANCE AND INSPIRATION

- You get back from something whatever YOU have put into it.
- The true value of something is a direct result of the energy and intent that is put into it.
- Every personal contribution is also a contribution to the Whole.
- Lack luster contributions have no impact on the Whole, nor do they work to diminish it.
- Loving contributions bring life to, and inspire, the Whole.

Source: livebuddhism.com

Read more at http://www.themirrorpost.com  

  

    

Republicans Must Learn: What Goes Around Comes Around

Wally has seen his share of elections and with each cycle they seem to get worse.  And now that we have a black president, things have really gone over the top.  And instead of working together towards common goals, a few politicians have turned things into “us vs. them” and boiling everything down to simple black and white.  Only problem is, according to Wally, “that old fashioned politics don’t work no more.”

Ever since Nixon’s successful use of evangelicals in his presidential campaigns, Republicans have catered to them and their issues, such as abortion, contraception and gay marriage, which often swept them into office.  As a matter of fact, Wally remembers how Republicans worked hard to get abortion and gay related issues on the ballot most every election.  If nothing else, it brought the evangelicals, along with some other very angry people, out to the polls and they were usually single issue Republican voters.

In 1988, the George H.W. Bush campaign discovered that racism, if subtle enough, was another way of getting very angry people to the polls and Willie Horton became the face of the Bush Campaign. Between the evangelicals and xenophobes, the Republicans had grabbed most all of the voting public, and Wally was highly pissed about it.  On the other hand, and he knew neither how nor why, but they were practicing bad medicine and bad medicine will eventually guarantee a bad outcome.

And with the exception of a glorious eight years which ended with a significant budget surplus and economic growth, things pretty much sucked.  But Clinton was an exception to the rule and Wally saw the second Bush elected.  This time, however, the Republicans added a new paradigm with their image, “compassionate conservatism,” which itself, became an oxymoron.  But few, including Wally, could actually have defined compassionate conservatism, until George W. Bush’s response in Hurricane Katrina of 2005.

It was with heavy heart that Wally lived through the Bush era, but a financial meltdown brought a new Kind of president to Washington.  What will this new kind of president be like, people asked?  “Just like the old kind,” Wally loved to say.

But things are changing.  Even the evangelicals are now insisting, “God don’t make no trash,” and are seeing gays as actual children of God.  “And besides,” sez Wally, “Jesus loves them.”  And as many evangelicals come to accept things like global climate change and gay and lesbian marriage, they are leaving the GOP and shrinking its base even more.  No longer can local, state or federal elections be won by simply putting gay marriage on the ballot.

Even President Obama, of late, has been acting like a new kind of president and a lot less like the old kind.  And although Wally wishes he would do more to even out the economic inequality situation, Wally is starting to hope again.  And it seems like the bad medicine of divisiveness and negativity practiced by the GOP for the past forty years, is coming back around and biting them in the butt.  And the pox is now upon their own house.

And what was once hidden is now being revealed and Wally wonders what else will come to light before the November Elections.  “If the past year or two is any indication, we’re all in for a very revealing, but ugly ride,” Wally is rumored to have told the GOP fund raiser who phoned him.  "After all, what goes around, comes around and God still don’t like ugly.”  But Wally still can’t understand how his name and number got on a GOP fund raising list in the first damn place.

  

Television Has News and Views but No Real Clues

Wally is said to have spent most of his weekend finishing up the last few episodes of Star Trek's Next Generation.  Was a time when he'd get up and watch Meet the Press on Sunday morning, but in Wally's mind, David Gregory is no Tim Russert.  While Russert used to confront bullshit when it appeared, Gregory seems to encourage it.   Worse yet, the post Russert version of Meet the Press is more like the Milk Toast Review Show.  “Dude’s always beating a dead horse,” Wally is fond of saying.  “Who gives a shit what folks like Dick Cheney, Don Rumsfeld and William Kristol have to say about the Middle East?  Everyone already knows that those neocons don’t know their ass from a hole in the ground.”   According to Wally’s worldview, if those assholes weren’t always being given a platform from which to spew their bullshit, the rest of us would be a lot better off. 

But although he actually missed the real-time bust because he was watching Melisa-Harris Perry, there was a major confrontation on Meet the Press last Sunday.  Problem was, David Gregory got busted.  Chris Gunness, a spokesperson for the UN Relief and Works Agency did the takedown.  Seems as if Israel had released a video showing, what they alleged to be, Hamas rockets being fired from a UN school.  The allegations later turned out to be false, but Wally found a clip of the bust and posted it to his twitter account the following Monday.  “This is really worth watching,” he wrote.

If Oprah can do it, why not Sarah?

 

It wasn’t all that long ago that Wally used to describe Sarah Palin as, “Hot!” But now, “She’s just plain crazy.”  But, he also concedes, “She might just be crazy like a fox.”  And although he’s never quite sure which kind of crazy she is, he no longer describes her as “Hot!”

But now, she’s gone and raised the ante and Wally can’t wait.  Like Oprah, Sarah Palin is starting her own television channel and since her announcement of her new channel, SarahPalinChannel.com, people have taken to twitter, eager to post their ideas for shows on her channel, #PalinTVShows. 

“But before you go a tweeting your bright ideas,” sez Wally, “you need to check this out…”

Israel’s Gaza Policy is Bad Karma

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/07/20/gaza-photos-israel-palestine-conflict-_n_5603933.html

Weird Wally admits that he is no expert on world affairs, but as far as he’s concerned, there is little difference between the Warsaw Ghetto and the Gaza Strip.  And although he knows next to nothing about the actual situation in Gaza, he does have an opinion.  Make the mistake of asking, he’ll gladly tell you about it.  Pretend to be deaf, and he’ll write it down.  He is, after all, retired and might have nothing else better to do that day.

Between television news and live internet streaming, Wally has been watching a lot of pain and suffering.  The 139 square mile Gaza Strip is home to 1.82 million people with most of the population confined to roughly 44 percent of the land because the Israeli military is saying that they now own the rest.  But that is been so for Palestinians for several decades; the government of one nation telling the citizens of another how to behave and who to vote for.

As a matter of fact, according to Wally, that’s the current situation in a nutshell.  Back in 2006, Israel was telling Palestinians how to vote.  And since Israel had designated Hamas as a terrorist organization, Israel made direct threats to Palestinians and told them not to vote for Hamas.  Naturally, the Palestinians did the exact opposite of what their long time enemy, and schoolyard bully, told them to do.

Israel, having an organized military and sophisticated weapons, threw up a blockade around Gaza which, in turn, pissed off the residents who fought back with rocks.  Hamas, meanwhile, had their own agenda and added their arsenal of out dated and unsophisticated weapons to the fray.

And the Palestinians are caught in the middle.  Because of the blockade, Israel determines what is and is not allowed into Gaza.  And there has been shortages of food medicine and electricity for several decades and life on the Strip has been hard.  But these days, life is even harder and basic necessities like water and sewage are simply not available.  Ever.

But it’s the terror that Israel is inflecting onto the people of Gaza that makes Wally cringe.  “Imagine what life must be like for the people who live there.  At any moment sudden death can come raining down from the sky and there is no safe place for you and your family to go.

“And what of the children who live in daily terror of Israel, a nation gone rogue and drunk with power?  Who is a terrorist is in the eye of the beholder, and a lot of those children will grow up seeing the nation of Israel as a terrorist nation and, ten years down the road, Israel will have to deal with that.”

When jokingly asked if he could be more direct in his statement about Israel’s assault on the Gaza Strip, Wally is rumored to have said, “Looks like genocide to me.”

Updated Link and more on genocide

California Water

Although his abode is a total mess, Wally is determined to keep his promise and host a OCDs Anonymous meeting later this afternoon.  Yet, on Thursday morning 7/17/2014, he had done nothing toward his goal of becoming a Licensed Private Investigator in the State of Colorado.

But after reading an article by Tom Harper about how Nestle is taking hundreds of millions of gallons of water per year, out of California's water supply for its bottled water-bottling operation (Arrowhead and Nestle Pure Life), despite the three year drought, Wally couldn't seem get California water out of his mind. 

Having lived in Colorado for over thirty years, he realized that he shouldn’t really give-a-shit about California water.  But unlike most everything else in the United States, he also knew that this isn’t about California.  “It’s really about the water,” Wally said to some friends.  “Fucking H2O, and some asshole believes that it’s not a universal right, but his to sell to whomever can afford it.”

Although the water is part of California’s water supply, the rights were purchased from the Cabazon Water District for $3 Million around ten years ago.  The Morongo Band of Mission Indians, a sovereign nation and new owners of the rights, in turn, entered into a contract with the Perrier Group, which is owned by Nestle, to bottle their Arrowhead Water at the $26M plant.  And despite the long and severe drought, there may be little that anyone can do about it.

And since air and water are the two most important resources for survival, it only makes sense to privatize them for profit.  Eventually, someone may figure out a way to privatize the very air we breathe, but until then, corporations are either buying up, or just plain stealing all the water. 

Wally suspects that privatization of water is one of the best kept secrets of the multinational corporations, and he is seeing it manifest in third world countries.  But Wally also knows that those third world countries are merely an experiment for what is coming next.  “Before you know it,” Wally is now telling friends, “privatized water will be in your neighborhood.”

Meanwhile, Wally still has two cases of Arrowhead stacked in his tiny apartment.  He says he’ll stop drinking that brand when the cases are empty.  “But I don’t know what I’ll do when I’m done,” he said to a checkout clerk at a nearby Whole Foods.  “Denver water tastes like piss.”

Mitt Me Again, Mr. Romney

Weird Wally is telling anyone who’ll listen about waking up this morning in a cold sweat.   “I had a dream,” he insists.  “And it was horrible!  Mitt Romney was on all over my television trashing Obama, bad mouthing Hillary and, worse yet, beating her in the polls.

“The last election was bad enough, but another one with Mitt Romney as leading man is enough to make me puke.”  When he first learned of the possibility in a Washington Post article back in April, Wally said that he'd actually cringed.  “There’s something offensive about a top one percenter pretending that tax cuts for the wealthy and less regulation of their corporations, which are people, are good things for me.” 

But Wally also says, it’s getting more and more obvious that Romney will be the Republican candidate in 2016.  And Wally isn’t so sure that Hillary will actually be the leading lady.  “It’s quite possible that she may come to her senses,” Wally is rumored to have said on several occasions.

Besides being in the top one percent herself, Hillary will have to put a lot of distance between her and Obama.  “He’s a good president,” Wally wrote in a Reddit post, “but he didn’t see a lot of shit coming his way, and what little he did, seems to have gotten by him.  And Hillary shouldn't have to deal with it.”

If nothing else, Hillary is a fighter and Wally likes that about her.  Many times, he remembers having sighed in frustration when Obama, once again, caved to the other side.  “What part of ‘No’ don’t you understand, Mr. President?” he'd often ask.

Romney vs. Hillary would be nice enough, with Hillary the most likely winner.  She’s a take no enemies kind of politician, but has a lot of baggage.  But Romney vs. Warren, now that, Wally readily admits, “Is something I could get into.”

And although highly unlikely, if Hillary does come to her senses and decides not to rum, Wally says he is comforted by the fact that Elizabeth Warren is waiting in the wings.   But in Wally’s very weird minds’ eye, he is already affixing a “Clinton/Warren in 2016,” sticker to the bumper of his 94 pickup.  

The Private Prison Inmate Blues

Weird Wally felt the change coming for several years and had managed to fight it until early one Sunday morning when he turned on MSNBC’s, Melissa Harris-Perry.   Having worked as an adult probation officer in both New York and Arizona, the last thing Wally wanted to think about were prisons and the people who went there.  But that’s what Miss Meliss was talking about that morning and she caught his attention.  Things had changed since he’d been part of the system and ideas like rehabilitation and humane treatment have totally left the field.  Both motive and mission, as Wally now saw it, could best be described in a single word, profit.  Once the responsibility of governments, prisons are fast becoming privatized and part of a growing “prison industry,” accountable to no one.

And the more he thought about it, the more Wally realized  that he was actually starting to give a shit about the situation and it mattered not, what kind of people go there.   When citizens allow their governments to outsource responsibility for people in its custody, it is bound to say something about the citizens themselves.  Wally did not want to be that kind of citizen.

“It’s not right to just turn over people’s lives to a for profit entity, ”Wally said to a friend.  “The corporation owns you, body and soul, to do with you as they want.  That is just fucking wrong!”

But it isn’t just prisons, he knew.  Juveniles, mentally ill, immigrants awaiting deportation, all come under the prison privatization scheme.  And corporations are eager to take charge, for a profit, of those which the rest of society would rather ignore.  And if you are a corporation working with such a segment of society, your main job, as you might see it, is to keep them out of sight as much as possible.  “And out of sight,” Wally told himself, “is out of mind.”

And that, he knew, was the secret sauce for a profitable private prison.  Charge as much as you can get away with and provide little or nothing in return.  For certain, do without rehabilitation and mental health counseling.   Medical and food and nutrition expenses must be kept to a minimum and, by the way, why not contract the inmates out to local businesses and construction companies?

Both Juveniles and adults are less safe than ever in these privatized for profit institutions and male rape, violence, killing and suicides have increased.   And because of the corruptness of the private prison system, the court system is also effected.  Nothing of the criminal justice system can remain untarnished.  

 

Of late though, there is a small amount of good news on the horizon.   Some corporations are divesting from the private prison industry, nearly $60 Million so far.  But that is only a drop in the bucket.  Meanwhile Wall Street remains bullish on the industry and thinks it still has a lot of room to grow.   Wally, on the other hand, believes that “we the people,” are better than to allow private prisons to continue.  And although he won’t bet any money on the outcome, Wally says he’s remaining hopeful.

You Are What You Eat, a late braking link regarding prison food!

Sue Obama! Impeach Obama! And Why God Don't Like Ugly

“I’m sick and tired of hearing about it,” Weird Wally announced at an open meeting of Political Bloggers Anonymous, earlier this morning.  “First, John Boehner is going to Sue Obama then, the House is going to impeach him.  And if the Republicans take the Senate, remove him from office.  Haven’t they figured out yet that God don’t like ugly?”

Just after the 2012 election, Wally thought the petty Republican behavior and hatefulness would just go away.  What he’d forgotten was that the Senate Minority Leader had announced to a group of his colleagues on the very night of Obama’s First Inauguration, that their main goal should be to deny him a second term.

“And it just gets worse from there,” Wally said in an email to a fellow blogger.  “It’s like reading a Harry Potter novel where all kinds of voices and illusions are conjured up in order to distract and confuse.”

Wally sensed that the chaos creating magicians were getting too full of themselves and continued their dark magic, unaware of a new kind of light shining upon them.  It was not that this new light was invisible to them, they just were too busy looking backward to pay any kind of attention to what was right in front of them. 

But many spells worked and people seemed blind to them.   The Benghazi and Immigration spells of distraction, among other things, continues to piss on the president’s approval rating,  And even as thousands of desperate, unaccompanied children fleeing death and tyranny arrive hungry at our boarders, Wally is amazed at how successfully the chaos magicians cast spells of confusion amongst the people.  And many citizens gather to toss verbal rocks and abuse upon the children as they arrive.

A lot of these spell casting politicians aren’t for real and even Wally knows what they’re up to.  They run for office with no intention of ever wining.  After saying stupid things and appealing to our most base instincts, they lose elections, but end up making hundreds of thousands of dollars giving speeches, writing books and consulting for think tanks. 

There’s money to be made if you’re on the “right” side of the political divide.  Republican billionaires, like the Koch Brothers, are spending billions trying to tell us that tax cuts for them are a good thing for the rest of us.  They like to call themselves, “job creators,” but Wally knows better.

And although Wally is not a religious kind of guy, he considers himself a person of faith.  And he has absolute faith in the Basic Law of Karma:  What goes around, comes around.  Wally also knows that God don’t like ugly.

That is why, perhaps, he hasn’t give-up.   But even with the chaos yelling and screaming all around him, he knows that chaos cannot succeed.   Chaos has a lot of red meat to toss to its minions, but people like Weird Wally are also feeding off of that same red meat and getting energized.  Maybe enough of us will get out and vote come November and we can keep some Republicans from taking the Senate.  If not, we’ll still have a president who can frustrate and forestall their agenda for another two years.  And although Wally admires and respects President Obama, he doesn’t want to be him.