Nec Hoc Nec Ilud

* "Calendars Index of Household Wealth in NK:" http://www.dailynk.com/english/read.php?num=12725&cataId=nk01500

* "Congress is finally going to make law enforcement report how many people they kill:" http://www.motherjones.com/politics/2014/12/death-custody-reporting-act-police-shootings-ferguson-garner

* "Fired Buffalo police officer fights for pension after stopping fellow cop from strangling suspect:" http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2014/12/fired-buffalo-police-officer-fights-for-pension-after-stopping-fellow-cop-from-strangling-suspect/#.VJpCSBaUMP4.twitter

* "Milwaukee County Sheriff Says "Not Seeing A Weapon Is Irrelevant" When Police Shoot People:" http://www.buzzfeed.com/tasneemnashrulla/milwaukees-sheriff-says-not-seeing-a-weapon-is-irrelevant-wh?utm_term=.ekRN6jO8R#.tbV60nmlb

* "No Forced Kisses for Your Kids: A Holiday Safety Tip for Families - Doing Right By Our Kids:" http://doingrightbyourkids.com/2011/12/12/no-forced-kisses-for-your-kids-a-holiday-safety-tip-for-families/

* "FDA partially lifts gay blood ban, advocates not happy:" http://www.windycitymediagroup.com/lgbt/FDA-partially-lifts-gay-blood-ban/50045.html

* When I was a kid, my sister insisted on naming her Siamese kitten "Kinky" for his tail. nothing we could do collectively would dissuade her. Shortening it to "Kinks" did not help. I retrospect, the kids across the street naming their dog "Fluffer" was soooo much worse.

* Sometimes I get sensory distortion as a side effect of my sense of smell being turned up to eleven. For over a week now, Gingerbread has smelled like bacon.

* "Undeniable Proof That European Christmas Is Terrifying:" http://www.cracked.com/blog/undeniable-proof-that-european-christmas-terrifying/?utm_source=facebook&utm_medium=fanpage&utm_campaign=new+article&wa_ibsrc=fanpage

* Art for sale: http://thestorydragon.com/?post_type=product

* Our Financial Situation continues Scary: http://www.gofundme.com/cuovws

* The Egyptian military has started shooting into crowds of Democracy protesters.

* UN Observers has issued a support basically saying there is no ceasefire in Syria.

* Pastors advocates punching four years to beat the gay out of them. WWJD? Crush a children "like a cockroach" and sniff little girls, apparently. He then issued a non-apoloy aimed at Christians only and told lies pretending he didn't say what he said, even though it's on tape. WWJD? Tell lies and pretend he's not in favour of extremely violent child abuse when caught. (Triggers, obviously): http://ac360.blogs.cnn.com/2012/05/02/kth-pastor-encourages-parents-to-punch-boys/?hpt=ac_bn3

* Mississippi is up to something pretty fucking terrible yet again: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/26315908/#47272369
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I refuse to call them "pro-life" if they are in favour of higher infant mortality and letting women bleed to death. Looks pretty pro-death to me.

* Exxon runs our government. I know, rain = wet: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/26315908/#47272498
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* More and more howling, less and less sleep. The Butt joined in by repeatedly trying to break my lamp and needing to be kicked out for vomiting. Luckily, he only managed to break the bulb. Exhausting. I dragged myself out with plenty of time for the errands but between sleep deprivation and a stunningly high allergen count, I decided I wasn't fit for dealing with humans or serious cooking, so no Big Gay Potluck for me. (I'm into Overload, and mostly what I want to do is listen to my music and stim somewhere where Hector isn't. Imagine everything I do accompanied by extremely loud howling. Trying to cook, "Howl!" Trying to read, "Hoooooowl! It's simply too much for me. I got a few hours of quiet out of a post goosh nap this evening, but it's not enough. I keep waking up already screaming, "Leave me alone!" I'm likely to lose control and slug any human trying to touch me or even brush against me. Seriously, not a good time for trying to be social).

* Money comes tomorrow, so that's more stuff to do tomorrow, sleep or no sleep.

* I had just enough left after meds to buy a sandwich and a Cannoli, so I did that. (I know, I know, wasteful when I'm out of so many things needing replacing). The Cannoli was heavenly, the best I've had since coming west. (The Pacific Northwest is superior in many ways, but lacks the large quantity of small family run Sicilan bakeries of my childhood.) Seriously, the textures were perfect with the pastry shell crisp, and a distinct flavour of it's own, and the filling, oh god, the filling perfect degree of viscosity and the exact right level of sweetness. It's so easy to get wrong, the filling turning the sheel soggy, the filling too stiff and either too sweet or not sweet enough. Omnomnom. We have real Philly pizza downtown. Mallard hand makes rose ice cream like the Persians used to make. Now real cannolis. If only someone would start selling real Sfogliatelle and gooey butter cake, I'd have all the flavours that I'm prone to missing outside of idiosyncratic family recipes. (If I ate meat, there'd be stuff like cheese steak hogies on the list, but I don't miss meat).

* I'm tempted to talk about the Wire, but I'm still recovering from what I just saw. Ouch, ouch, ouch.

* Thanks to it being sacrilegious for any Christian to work in December, the government is no longer funded past Tuesday. Congratulations, Republicans, for your victory in the war against the American people. After all, it's the people who won't be getting their paychecks, unemployment insurance, or Social security checks who are the ones who will really suffer from this glorious Republican victory. Why do Republicans hate ordinary people so much?

* I think I just cottoned to the logic. It is blasphemy to work in December. First responders work in December and work extra hard on Christmas eve because of all the drunks and open flames. Therefore first responders are blasphemers by Republican logic and thus do not deserve health care or compensation for heroically saving people. Similarly, only the ultra rich can afford to take off all of December. Everyone else is a blasphemer, therefore they deserve to have government services stop. The ultra rich, being freed of the need to work, are by definition the only non-sacrilegious people and deserve an extra tax cut at the expense of all us sinners who haven't the luxury to take off a whole month. It all hangs together, really.

* Today, Republicans claimed they couldn't vote on a bill because there was no time for their many Amendments to be discussed. Democrats gave them time to read their amendments and they didn't have any. after a few hours, McCain managed to come up with one. It would be beautiful farce if this worse endangering the whole world by them not renewing the START nuclear monitoring treaty.

* The food safety bill died for good with the Spending bill last night. The Republicans have vowed not to include it in the new year, what with us not needing pesky food safety regulation to prevent big business from including toxic chemicals or e. coli in our food. I mean after all, it's not like we've had a whole bunch of fatal poisonings in recent years, Right? Well, only people not in the top 2% died, so it doesn't really count does it. Congratulations to the republicans on yet another victory in the war against ordinary people. Bonus points for children, the elderly, and the immuno-suppressed being most likely to die in the poisonings they've now enabled.

* I have now enticed Mache into sitting on the pettin throne twice since the furniture rearrangement. She would still rather sit on the lap top key board. Both boys approve of the move. It also has a side benefit of improving my hydration. Clearly a net win. I'm a little worried about the new guppy. He's swimming fine, but at feeding time, he hadn't the sense to follow the school to the surface. Pretty, but dumb. He's in Black and blue, like my crowntails, and nearly as aggressive as one. "That's right cowards! Run away! I'm king of this section of tank!" *other fish swim off to eat* *new guppy does victory dance* All the tetras were alive when I went in there to clean the algae off the tank glass. I expect to lose a few in the next few months, but am wildly pleased that they all passed the first survival hurdle. The white cats were so clingy and needy last night I started worrying hector was escalating, but tonight he's fine, so I think I'll hold off on meds.

(New readers: a side effect of my alternative brain design is a tendency to forget to drink, eat, and pee. This is particularly true with the water as the other two are better at sending signals at crisis that I have a reasonable chance of noticing. I've also worked in a routine mini-break at intervals to check for things like hunger and need for toilet, which really helps. When I was teaching, I used to do preventative toileting on a schedule. Something as easily ignored as thirst tends to fade into the background emergency signals about things like the seams in my clothes, the texture of the floor and fabric, and pain, etc.. I learned very young to drink automatically at regular intervals without thinking about it if water is close at hand to keep even hydration. Having the water slightly further away though in reach apparently short circuits this key survival habit. Stupid, I know. I find myself thinking of the last Hitchhiker novel. There's that culture with the books all exactly the same length and the one where the main character randomly dies of thirst. Arthur pages back to find a throwaway mention of the tap breaking earlier on. I'm not quite that bad, but I can really hurt myself if I'm not careful. I also tend to not notice things like cuts, bruises, and sprained ankles I can still walk on until hours later, making it hard to trace how I managed to damage myself this time. I've also been known to fail to notice my hand is burning until the damage was rather more severe than it would have been if I did that that reflexive pull away from the hot thing people with standard brain design do. The process goes: Me touching the hot thing, some time passing. "Hey, something hurts more than average." I look down. "Damn." Pull hand away. It's fairly fast, but not as fast as it would be without the loop through my frontal cortex for a decision.)

* I had downloaded Delicious with intent to use it for bookmarks like two weeks ago, but didn't get around to actually moving the bookmarks. I am so glad I didn't....

* I'm really liking Law and Order:UK. so far, my only complaints are tiny ones. 1. I think the law and Order franchise trappings are distracting and the show would be improved by dropping them. 2. Tonight's episode hadn't enough Freema Agyeman. (Seriously, I like watching the charming and lovely Ms. Agyman play intelligent and competent professional women).

* I keep thinking about why UK works and LA doesn't. The original franchises are very New York. The earlier ones are a topuch hokey in rerun, but the 21st century ones have a grittiness to them that makes them feel right. The UK version has a different flavour of gritty, but they are also working with an old grey city most of the time. The LA one is slick and generic, like the whole CSI franchise, which I find unwatchable, and NCIS, which I lost patience with due to the mysogyny. LALA isn't unwatchable, just boring, but I think it suffers from being too much like everyone else. I bet LA: Chicago or LA: Detroit would work better stylistically, and style matters here, I think.

* RM found, UFO shot out of sky above Israeli nuclear plant: http://www.cnn.com/2010/WORLD/meast/12/16/israel.negev.shootdown/index.html

* Rm found, "Sexual Assaults Up 64% at Military Academies:" http://advocate.com/News/Daily_News/2010/12/16/Sexual_Assaults_Up_64_Percent_at_Military_Academies/

Read about the slap on the wrist penalty structure if you want to make your blood boil.

* wednesday, the symptom set for the current pathogen ramped up, rather. It's making things a bit extra difficult. It's inconvenient as i have a little thing to run on Trin.

* I don't watch a lot of celebrity interview type shows, as they are mostly dull, but flipping channels, I spotted Letterman interviewing Hoffman and DeNiro. I came in halfway through and got hypnotized by the mix of awkward and charming going on. I wish my mother could see it, but the drugs have rendered her so deaf that even with the hearing aid, TV is hard for her to follow and she has trouble processing subtitles while following the visuals, so closed captioning isn't the help to her it sometimes is to me. This was so up her alley though. She loved Actor's Studio and Cavet and this interview reminded me of those, which i do find interesting. The thing that fascinated me most was that I couldn't tell if the actors liked each other. They had a married couple familiarity, that Letterman remarked on, but Mr. Hoffman in particular is so hard to read, even for me. How much is real and isn't, and what the true emotion behind the tone is, is so hard to read.

* Re: the redoing cartoons as live action film trend. When my age was in single fidgets, if you'd asked me if I wanted to see a cartoon or a special effects laden live action thing, I'd have taken the cartoon every time. Just saying.

* Not connected to the previous point, I have only seen a tiny clip of Guliver and I can all ready tell it will infuriate me. To save y'all from a replay of Braveheart and Troy, I'm avoiding it like the plague.

* We saw Tron, but I'm simply not up to talking about it in the depth I'd intended. Suffice to say, I do hope they can make a third one.

* (RM found), "Gabourey Sidibe is an Elle covergirl." This makes me so happy: http://marquee.blogs.cnn.com/2010/09/10/gabourey-sidibe-is-an-elle-covergirl/

* (RM found), "Gay Soldiers Escort Gaga to VMAs." I still don't like her music, but she's won me over otherwise: http://advocate.com/News/Daily_News/2010/09/12/Gay_Vets_Escort_Gaga_to_VMAs/

* The deficit dropped 8% in Obama's first year. People who are employed pay taxes. They buy things on which taxes are paid and the money goes to pay wages at the shops and the places that made the things and those people pay taxes on their wages and buy stuff, etc.. This is why stimulus money is actually better for the budget than tax cuts for the rich, which mostly go into savings. The Republicans are threatening to shut down the government after the election if it can't get it's tax cuts for the rich. Meanwhile, folks like Leiberman are saying they won't vote for small tax cuts for the middle class if they can't have the huge tax cuts for the super rich. It's like none of them understand economics. A stronger economy will still give the super rich more money to put into savings, but the economy tanks if the folks in the middle and bottom have nothing to spend. It's an investment. If the rich pay their share in taxes and it gets spent on things like social security and unemployment Insurance, it comes back in profits as those people spend it on things they need.

* I got opinion polled again. I get polled extensively every month or so, so this is not interesting in itself. What fascinated me was that the poor college student sounding woman polling me, was so tangled by some of my answers, she had to get her supervisor. I could hear the older women whispering things like "Ask if he's an independent." I flashed on the ventriloquist scene from Chicago. I felt sorry for the poor pollster anyway, as I'm a classic cantankerous PNW voter with opinions not shown to best advantage in opinion polls and I kept making her spell out the names of politicians and corporations as she sounded congested and things like Pete ans Steve sounded identical. Honestly, I feel bad for anyone polling for elections around here, given the local character and political make up. It can't be fun. This one wasn't a push poll, but they had a whole battery of marketing questions for/against the proposed Cherry Point Port on top of the usual who are you going to vote for and which issues do you care most about right now stuff. Also, I clearly need to research the fuck out of this Port before election time.

* Last night I hit the obligatory transfail Norman Bates Forever Knight episode. I must have seen it two or three times previously, but somehow, I repressed the memory each time. I think it helps to forget it, that it's the episode right before the gear up for the run for the series finale and the impact of the episode right after it is so big, it wipes away the bad taste the crappy episode leaves behind if you're watching one a week instead of several in a night. Sigh.

* Today, waiting in line for the locker room, I thought about the whole swimwear issue. Underneath it all, it feels like a debate about whether or not my body is inherently obscene.

* On the BPAL board, there's been discussion related to people who have something "switch on" when they are in dangerous situations that means even after they are not in danger, they have heightened smell, vision, and hearing. There's a police officer who smells whether a suspect's going to fight or flee, and an Iraq war veteran who can smell all kinds of things related to pregnancy. The police officer uses the smell thing proactively, much like I used mine when I was teaching. They sound so like me, that I'm now wondering if they simply aren't filtering. I'm now wondering if anyone's studying this, because it could give real insight into some of the brain function differences common with SID and Autism. Here are neurotypical people, who's brains under stress start doing something SID like. It might me nothing like, or it might be a big step towards answering some of the questions about alternative brain design and development. One would need a bigger sample and some brain imaging equipment at minium, but it's suggestive.

* I applaud Mr. Stewart for contrasting the measured and moderate words of the community center Imam with the slanted way it got covered in the news.

* I finally got a good look at Lady Gaga's Meat dress. O.o http://gofugyourself.celebuzz.com/assets_c/2010/09/104036852-thumb-420x620.jpg