COLLECTIVE MADNESS


“Soft despotism is a term coined by Alexis de Tocqueville describing the state into which a country overrun by "a network of small complicated rules" might degrade. Soft despotism is different from despotism (also called 'hard despotism') in the sense that it is not obvious to the people."

Sunday, January 03, 2010

Indeed you must have a cup of tea at the unbirthday bar.




63 comments:

  1. Sweet dreams, hoss.

    Looks like an open bar, everbody!

    Think I'll have a double Bushmills and a strawberry soda back. Just to get warmed up.

    ReplyDelete
  2. I can't stop laughing.



    I have NO IDEA what happened back there. None. Nada. Zip. Zilch. Squat.

    ReplyDelete
  3. The Mad Tea Party.

    How hard Is it to change the name of a blog?

    ReplyDelete
  4. Maybe a fishing trip would be just the thing.

    ReplyDelete
  5. Hey there, Stella!

    ...you get a line and i'll get a pole we'll go down to the crawdad hole honey, sugar baby mine.

    ReplyDelete
  6. You can all go fuck off. And stay fuck off.

    But I'd note in passing, Idaho won the Hunmanitarian Bowl by a single point, I think it was 43-42.

    Fuck ass Linear can go check on it for you.

    Great game. The Kentuckies came on down and scored with 40 seconds to go, putting them one touchdown ahead, but our Idaho men, some of whom live in bob's apartments, well tenanted, lively, true, scored with 4 seconds left, and, shoved a two point conversion up their ass, like I'd like to do to Linear.

    Right there on the blue field, we won.

    As a gesture of appreciation, I'll raise their rent next year, cause I know they'll be there, and they've earned it.

    ReplyDelete
  7. Stella B., why don't you and Linear move in together somewhere out in the country, like by a lake or something.

    Y'all can bugger one another.

    ReplyDelete
  8. Bob, Bob, Bob...

    I'm not her type, and anyhow...

    ...we'd never burden the thread with our inane chit chat.




    Would we, Stella?

    .

    ReplyDelete
  9. Hey, Bob.

    If Stella and I was to come up to Idaho for some fishin', could we use your condo?

    .

    ReplyDelete
  10. Stella B. Starlight seems to be a fucking lawyer.

    Let's hang her, get the night off right.

    Then we'll string up Linear.

    ReplyDelete
  11. Yeah, sure, you can use it.

    For awhile.

    I just want a damage deposit.

    No rent though, it yours.

    I'm open minded man, take people off the streets.

    ReplyDelete
  12. Am I to take that as a no?

    Seems kinda unneighborly.

    Just sayin'

    .

    ReplyDelete
  13. Oh, well...

    Thank you, Bob.

    Sorry I jumped the gun there.

    .

    ReplyDelete
  14. No prob with the damage receipt.

    We'll bring our own linens and towels.

    Gut the fish before we come in the house...

    You know the drill.

    .

    ReplyDelete
  15. In the early dark hours of October 23, 1985, just days before 'Frets Magazine' named him the best finger-picking guitarist of the year in folk, blues, or country music, Eddy Merle Watson rolled his farm tractor on a steep hillside near his home, ending the life of one of the world's great musicians in a tragedy worthy of the blues ballads he loved...

    Doc and Merle Watson.


    RIP, Merle.

    .

    ReplyDelete
  16. Whoa,

    That's some kinda pickin', there.

    ReplyDelete
  17. That second tune, Settin' on Top of the World, was done by Delaney and Bonnie on one of my all time favorite albums back in the '70s, Delaney and Bonnie and Friends, Motel Shot.

    Can't find it anywhere on youtube.

    .

    ReplyDelete
  18. To my Melody, clear eyed, and bright, the light of my very life--

    Like A Rock

    ReplyDelete
  19. Sorry, Rufus.

    Sippin' whiskey and good pickin' music...

    I just cain't handle no Chinese ekonomiks...

    ...at the moment.

    .

    ReplyDelete
  20. A man
    Must learn to
    Move like the wind


    They are all gone now
    The old ones I loved so well
    A man must move like the wind

    Where are they now
    Those ones I loved so well
    They are gone

    Yet I get up and move
    That's what a man must do

    The Hindu word for world
    I have read
    Translates as
    It moves, it moves

    That's the meaning of it
    In Hindu
    Yet, they also know
    A center remains

    ReplyDelete
  21. bob said...
    A man
    Must learn to
    Move like the wind


    They are all gone now
    The old ones I loved so well
    A man must move like the wind

    Where are they now
    Those ones I loved so well
    They are gone

    Yet I get up and move
    That's what a man must do

    The Hindu word for world
    I have read
    Translates as
    It moves, it moves

    That's the meaning of it
    In Hindu
    Yet, they also know
    A center remains
    Of the moving wind

    There, that's better

    ReplyDelete
  22. What if we've been put on a watch list?
    I don't want to be in the first cohort to be sentenced to Barry's Rubber Rooms.

    ReplyDelete
  23. "Kill 'em and eat 'em.

    Its them or us!" read the sign

    on the stables road.

    ...................

    Two daughters, one bear,

    shared a ledge on Half Dome trail.

    Mel got her pack back
    .

    .....................

    Family Haiku by linearthinker

    ...remember 5--7--5

    .

    ReplyDelete
  24. Don't worry, Doug. If they've got Us on a "watch" list they'll be too busy laughing to cause us any trouble.

    ReplyDelete
  25. One more:

    Imitation is

    easily the sincerest

    form of flattery
    .

    .

    ReplyDelete
  26. A Message from your buddy, Pat, Rufus!

    A Decade of Self-Delusion

    About the first decade of what was to be the Second American Century, the pessimists have been proven right.

    According to the International Monetary Fund, the United States began the century producing 32 percent of the world's gross domestic product. We ended the decade producing 24 percent. No nation in modern history, save for the late Soviet Union, has seen so precipitous a decline in relative power in a single decade.

    The United States began the century with a budget surplus. We ended with a deficit of 10 percent of gross domestic product, which will be repeated in 2010. Where the economy was at full employment in 2000, 10 percent of the labor force is out of work today and another 7 percent is underemployed or has given up looking for a job.

    Between one-fourth and one-third of all U.S. manufacturing jobs have disappeared in 10 years, the fruits of a free-trade ideology that has proven anything but free for this country. Our future is being outsourced -- to China.

    While the median income of American families was stagnant, the national debt doubled.

    The dollar lost half its value against the euro. Once the most self-sufficient republic in history, which produced 96 percent of all it consumed, the U.S.A. is almost as dependent on foreign nations today for manufactured goods, and the loans to pay for them, as we were in the early years of the republic.

    What the British were to us then, China is today.

    ReplyDelete
  27. You can take it, one way or the other, just as you please, by moving some words around, in the last gasp there.

    As for me, I think I'd like to meet my grandfather there.

    But, I ain't sure.

    ReplyDelete
  28. linear found nothing abnormal, all systems go.
    Someone else thot lithium was in order.
    I just thot the abbearance Czar's attention might be caught.

    ReplyDelete
  29. I know what it is.

    You don't have any whiskey in the house, do you doug?

    Must be Sonia's influence.

    ReplyDelete
  30. ...abbearance...

    c'mon now. is that a word?

    .

    ReplyDelete
  31. Whiskey won't help you out.

    I've learned that teaching.

    Goodnight, LInear, I'm angry no longer.

    ReplyDelete
  32. "March 7, 1650

    Council of State, Day's Proceedings.

    I. Mr. Frost to take Mr. Dugard's subscription to the engagement,
    and his recognizance for his future good abbearance according to
    the sense of a paper sent by him to the Council."

    ReplyDelete
  33. The Mad Tea Party (formerly Elephant Bar) Sitcom

    Casting Director's Report

    Deuce revealed. Full frontal nudity.

    .

    ReplyDelete
  34. Good night, Bob.

    Happy New Year to ya.

    .

    ReplyDelete
  35. Blogger Deuce said...

    I'll be back in the morning.

    Trish was heard to mutter, ...Oh fuck, Deuce...

    never.ever.leave.those.guys.alone.in.the.bar
    .

    .

    ReplyDelete
  36. Buchanan is a buffoon.

    The Euro began trading at $1.19 to the Dollar. It's now at $1.46.

    And, this statement:

    Once the most self-sufficient republic in history, which produced 96 percent of all it consumed,

    He didn't mention that that was one of the primary causes of the War Between the States. The Northern-dominated Congress passed trade laws that forced the Southern States to buy equipment/machinery from the North at a much higher price than they could get from Europe, and force them to Sell their agricultural products to the Yankees at a Lower price than they could get abroad.

    As for "manufacturing:" We will continue to automate/roboticize. That's the only way to stay ahead of the pack.

    Oh, and he didn't mention that "production," itself, has, with the exception of the last year, continued to rise.

    He's just a blowhard, nazi asshole.

    ReplyDelete
  37. That should have been $1.19 to the Eurodollar. $1.46 to the Eurodollar.

    ReplyDelete
  38. Buchanan is a buffoon.

    ...

    He's just a blowhard, nazi asshole
    .

    ...

    Amen, brother!

    Meanwhile, in my headphones...

    ...let me hear ye son...

    ...[Merle's riff]

    ...Well the ol' Mississippi,
    she's a deep and wide,
    and the gal that I love,
    Lord she's on the other side...

    ...and now she's gone,
    and I don't worry,
    cause I'm settin' on top o' the world
    ...

    .

    ReplyDelete
  39. Ohhhh, lordy!

    I'm in for a headache in the mornin'.

    That fresh bottle of Bushmills...half gone. No buttermilk.

    Good reason to sleep in til noon, I guess.

    .

    ReplyDelete
  40. A man must move like the wind
    is dammed good, Linear.

    Go there now, and do better.

    ReplyDelete
  41. Tom Paxton. last thing on my mind

    ..from the source.

    Ian and Sylvia did it well, also. Y'all probably heard it first by Peter, Paul and Mary.

    .

    ReplyDelete
  42. This comment has been removed by the author.

    ReplyDelete
  43. Buchanan, Nazi.
    Peter, Paul, Marry,
    Commies, all.

    ReplyDelete
  44. Stepped out front for a smoke...saw the paper shrouded in its little plastic bag layin' in the snow.

    Tiptoed off the walk to pick it up...did a header into the damn snow...

    Time to hit the hay.

    Night, Bob...et al.

    .

    ReplyDelete
  45. :-)
    Nite linear!
    You'll have to explain this "snow" phenomenon, sometime.

    ReplyDelete
  46. "Thus sang the uncouth Swain to th'Okes and rills,
    While the still morn went out with Sandals gray,
    He touch'd the tender stops of various Quills,
    With eager thought warbling his Dorick lay:
    And now the Sun had stretch'd out all the hills,
    And now was dropt into the Western bay;
    At last he rose, and twitch'd his Mantle blew:
    To morrow to fresh Woods, and Pastures new"

    ReplyDelete
  47. Peru's mountain people face fight for survival in a bitter winter

    Climate change is bringing freezing temperatures to poor villages where families have long existed on the margins of survival!!!
    Now some must choose whether to save the animals that give them a living, or their children


    If it is hot and dry, and crops die next year,
    the cause will be…
    You guessed it:
    Climate Change!

    ReplyDelete
  48. Should have told you earlier, hope sale is still on @ RadioShack:

    I got a Logitech Wireless Keyboard and Mouse for 14 bucks.
    Bought two.

    Favorite feature:
    Smallest, lightest keyboard I've had.
    ...always suffered small keyboard envy with Mac owners.

    ReplyDelete
  49. also:
    1. Hoochie Coochie
    2. Smokin' Dynamite
    3. Second Hand Man
    4. Crosscut Saw
    5. Leaving in the Morning
    6. I'm Your 44
    7. Going Back to Louisiana
    8. Everybody Wants to Win
    9. I'm Ready
    10. Nineteen Years Old
    11. You're Gonna Get Lucky
    12. Sail On

    ReplyDelete
  50. Ummm, Doug...

    You're not going to like this...

    There's been a new post up for the last couple hours.

    ReplyDelete
  51. Don't have mother Teresita to tell me.
    You MoFos don't either!

    ReplyDelete