“Power”‘s That Be

“Aging Power” (c)Lawrence A Capozzolo

Power … it’s an amazing and amazingly useful thing.

From a simple think like electricity that give us the easy life – heating our homes, cooking, keeping food fresh … it’s wonderful. I think if people went back to the old days where you had to go to market daily or, well, kill a chicken here and there on your farm for food, etc people would very much appreciate how much less than simply power is – when applied in its correct context.

Then there is the other “power” – political and otherwise. Many times it’s a power that starts out for good – freeing people and otherwise, many times from tyranny.

So, why many times does that good power “go south”, get rusted, and eventually possibly become what it was initially fighting to correct?

Here is what I think:

Power is useful when used with good guidance. When that guidance is ignored or no longer sought out, it becomes like an older part of a power grid – the rust takes over and no longer efficiently transfers electricity across that part of the grid (holding back services from those that need it).

Lot’s of time checks and balances are in place, the rusting is noticed, and replaced with new sections – and the power flows again to those that need it.

The other reason … we just don’t to even start discussing a subject like this because people are “tired of dealing with it”.

Well, sometimes you have to deal with things … in a positive manner.

Sometimes those dealings take time.

Sometime with baby-steps so small that you may never see the end result in your life time.

So, next time you want to vent on Facebook on another popular social media venue – maybe take a day to cool down and email or write to someone that can get that rust that is impeding whatever power problem you have removed or remidiated. It may not happen that day … but maybe your children will have a much brighter future because you took a few minutes to put somthing in motion.

Save the world — talk to someone, write a letter, care. Baby-steps are still steps.

-SWB

Just something to think about.

 

Those Blooming People – Stick People Entitlement

 

… and Thoughts For The Strange

SWB Series Combined: Thoughts For The Strange and Thinking Inside The Box

Yep … a two-fer. Two columns of completely horrid writing and essay (or whatever you ant to call it) combined into one. We’re doing this for the Mils who might not want to take the time to read two whole articles … honestly we’re trying to adapt to our audience. And yes … we realize Alexa is probably actually the one reading it to them.

Think Inside The Box … protest against stick people!!!

Let’s see if we can get Alexa to give itself commands ….

“Alexa ….. read ….. crap”.

Alexa …. “reading Screaming Weasel Blog.”

… see, works every time.

Now on to something substantial {{insert groan here}}. The groaning doesn’t mean stop reading, it’ll be painful – but if we are all strong we can make it through.

Remember – I have to write this garbage … you just have to read it.

Ok …. now … really …

Those Blooming People (yes, I watch too much British TV – TV in America basically sucks, unless you’ve had your brain sucked out) – I’m tired of them, just like everyone else. Those entitled stick people walking around everywhere. They think they are due everything in life just because they were forced to spend years and years stuck to back windows on cars and trucks. They complain about everything …. and their dogs are too thin to keep leashes on them. I’ve been bitten six times by a stick dog that’s gotten out of its leash.

I mean, come on, stick people really aren’t people … they just think they are sentient after they finally fell off their perspective car or truck windows when their cage on wheels finally got turned into a cube in the end of life car compactor thingy. Yes, I said thingy – it’s a valid technical term.  No, you say?!? … sorry, it’s MY article so I can say what term is valid or not. Get – that – straight.

Now, this stick person entitlement issue.

I can understand humans becoming entitled.  I may not like it, but I can understand it. Although a technical person, at times I do actually dip into humanity – not much, but it happens – so as a result I do understand things a bit. But, even as a technical person, I’m not entitled – so why do stick people get to be? I mean it’s to the point where stick people have legislation going to keep stick dinosaurs that eat stick people from being put on cars and trucks. The stick people are completely offended that normal humans (and even tech people) take humor in them getting eaten by stick dinosaurs. It’s ridiculous, and a complete waste of the governments time. I’m sure it will end up in the Supreme Courts, wasting even more of the public’s money.

I still like Godzilla better than stick people. I grew up with Godzilla on TV. In relation to stick people … he’s my hero.

On to the box – I can see the corporate hiring quota systems changing right now:

1. Everyone else.
2. Stick People.
3. Typical tech guy.

I’ll never get a real job again.

All because of stick people entitlement. I mean really, things that were once on car windows now get rights? Really??

Maybe I’ll just get a job as a gardener … let me check Indeed.

Wait, What???? I can only get a job as a gardener if no stick flowers are included in the jobs I work, because it’s been negotiated that only stick people can work on gardens with stick flowers?!?!?!?!?!?

WTF???

I give up.

-SWB

Yep … we STRESS strange on this one.

 

The Art of Photography While Driving and How it Pertains to Politics

A great low-res pic of the roadway in from my car.

As you can see, my fancy new windshield wipers are working flawlessly.

… or maybe you can’t see.  It’s taken with my fancy $10 Vivitar key chain camera bought at Rite Aide 5 years ago. Beats my $2400 Fuji Pro2 any day 🙂

So why post a really bad photo from a camera where it’s in high debate that it actually has a lens in it?

Well, a bit of nostalgia …..it really capture images like those very crappy film camera you bought in the gum ball machines in the 70s and 80s – a really distorted, although recognizable view of what’s really there.

BTW …. before we go further, a little clarification for the thin-minded: I really didn’t take this while I was driving the car, I was stopped in a legal area to do so with someone behind me for safety. Why do I have to clarify that? … Well, because I’ve been around long enough to know if enough people read this, some of the more dim-witted will buy a few key chain cams and start taking pics around the ‘burgh in their cars while forgetting to actually drive their cars. I would feel bad about any accidents(well, not that bad … they’re the stupid idiots taking pics while driving their cars), considering I’d already have to deal with dumb questions like “how do I get the pics off the cam, it doesn’t have a screen”. I get the same question from people that buy modern day film cameras, failing to realize they bought a film camera (you can’t make that one up).

Ok … now past the incoherent babble, what does this even have to do with modern day politics??

Well, it’s exactly the same thing … a view that looks like what our founding fathers created, blurred a bit so you can’t see the details, but cheap enough you’ll but it anyway (when I did an art project with keychain cams I sold some of the pics at shows for $30 a piece … more than I ever sold with shots taken with my pro camera).

It’s sort of like reality shows (I’m REALLY hoping you don’t think any part of those shows are real), which our elections are starting to get like – well produced marketing with enough blur so you think you are really getting what you ordered until you actually open the box and find a really crappy picture of a road taking with a camera that cost three times less that what you just paid for the picture.

The art of photography and how it pertains to politics … it’s really an unsafe stupid way to get a really crappy blurry image of reality.

Realize what’s around you, look at what’s around you, make informed decisions, don’t let modern day marketing make the decisions for you.

This is our political contribution to the 2016 reality show (ooops … I mean election).

-SWB

Stupidity Persists – the liberty bridge burning

Image (c) pittsburgh.cbslocal.com … see article: http://pittsburgh.cbslocal.com/photo-galleries/2016/09/02/smoke-rises-over-city-during-tarp-fire-on-liberty-bridge/

N’uff for the credits (we thank CBS for posting the pics and article), now for our bit:

Most of us that have giving ideas to SWB or written the rant, smack, and whining we put into words in this blog have also worked many years with events and other goings on in Pittsburgh (city and surrounding) and we’ve dealt with the safety harassment of the city’s demands on fire retardant ratings for anything during those events.

Basically that means when something started burning it has to stop after so many seconds or minute (I don’t remember all the direct specs).

BTW …. by harassment, I mean having your event shut down or delayed … having artists break their tents down until they can get a fire retardant tent or you can provide one, etc, etc.

Which makes SWB ask the question —– how did this even happen???

IF the city pushed and harassed those bridge contractors as they do the common folk running events within the city limits, that fire should have put itself out minutes after it started with NO damage or safety threats to anyone.

In other words, this should have never happened ….. but as we can see the same tarps are the ones still covering the work areas on the bridge – lovely.

It’s great the contractor or paying $200k plus per day along with the damages to the bridge on top of that … but it’s not like the people that are actually inconvenienced are getting free gas or wear and tear money from the contractor – but I’m sure if those same inconvenienced people decide to work at or host an event in Pittsburgh they will confronted with the fire retardant safety demands of the city … unlike the contractors working on it’s critical infrastructure.

So … the first SWB Clueless award goes to both the Liberty Bridge contractors along with the city itself (sorry, it was too much of a tie to give either one total credit for that level of stupidity considering many lives could have actually been lost).

-SWB

Clueless and Confused: Our Political Parties

Normally SWB would give out a “clueless award” in a post like this, but we thought it really warranted the full “clueless and confused” mention.

If you have an encyclopedia, or at least know how to us Wikipedia on the net you can research and look at how well though out or government structure is (don’t worry, weren’t not going to throw all of the boring details out to ya). It was built to make sure as many people possibly knew as much as possible about the candidates they may consider electing to a full checks and balance system to make sure our government did not turn into a raving dictatorship. Some of the “information passing” parts of the government that were created to accommodate the needs of the horse and carriage days could probably be altered or even eliminated … but the basic design is still that of a great government structure. Unfortunately, like everything else that is well designed – it only take a small few to screw it up.

To move onto our real rant … and considering I fully lean towards either party simply because they both have their major issues neither is willing to admit (the best example of deep denial) – a comment from President Obama clearly highlighted the most major issue any political party has ….. and that is “how quickly they forget”.

We’re going to us the Republican Party as our major example today, simply because they are no longer in power have been reduced to being material for comedians trying to get work, and bloggers trying to get hits. Now, the RP never started many of the things it did, nor did the Bushies (although we’ll give credit that Dad was *much* smarter than Son). They merely continued on traditions created by their predecessors. On of them being spending way too much money the nation did not have – hence, the “how quickly they forget” comment.

Watching the news and listening to people such as state representatives bashing Obama for putting too much green out there, simple forget all of the citizens tax dollar they merely gave to their friends in exchange for political favors, pet projects, etc. Yes, there is much of that in the Democratic party also that needs to be trimmed, but just bashing and doing nothing is the biggest tradition passed down within political generations.

Right now, we really do need to allow the current president to “take a shot” – because that is what everyone else did before him. He is also dealing with something very new – a truly global economy that is based on us. If we don’t figure this out, we won’t just go back to being farmers with small homes and out-houses ….. we’ll end up with only the out-houses.

Our best plan of action: Find the five percent of the idiots screwing up our government, remove them, and give them jobs as managers of their own McDonald’s franchises where they can be rendered harmless (I don’t believe anyone should be out of a job).

So, in the end the “clueless and confused” mention goes out to the five percent of the members in each perspective political party that fight hard to maintain the “screwed up” status of that political party – and make the nation of the United States look like idiots to the rest of the countries out there.

-SWB

PS – When you realize that many of the five percent mentioned in the post above were previously “top notch” corporate managers and sometimes are still sitting on boards of major companies ….. their cluelessness immediately makes complete sense.

FYI – SWB will pick on all the other political parties in due time, as we like to be fair ….. it’s just to early to think up useless babble about all of them and we haven’t had any coffee yet.

BTW – they will quickly forget about this article.

Good News: Stimulus Package working it’s magic

It looks like he stimulus package is doing a little at least – and only a month (more less) after it was started.  It may not be actual magic, but construction jobs, road work, etc are indirectly creating jobs for our every day workers – not just the specialized techie types.

So, if this continues to work and Obama and the Dems pull this off ….. is it kind of like the Oxy Clean guy that everyone thought was a scammer, but actually had a legitimate product that worked really well?

Or will it end up with the Republicans just saying ….. “oh *****, we’re done for the next eight years”?

Anyway …. here is a good reference article from KDKA.

PS – hmmmm this one is smart (Obama) – I hope the other Dems let him stay that way and don’t dumb him down so they understand what he is saying.