August 1, 2020

Check it out -- Okra

Taken with a Kyocera cell phone and enhanced with ToolWiz Pro, a great little app. Very easy to use and free. 👍🏼
[link:|

July 22, 2020

Sen. Heinrich calling for BCSO Sheriff to resign

Source: KOB News

ALBUQUERQUE, N.M.- U.S. Senator Martin Heinrich is calling for the resignation of Bernalillo County Sheriff Manny Gonzales.

“Sheriff Gonzales wasn’t representing Bernalillo County when he opposed body cameras. He wasn’t representing Bernalillo County when he opposed efforts for common sense gun violence reforms. And he isn’t with us now," Heinrich said.

The senator claims Sheriff Gonzales is inviting the Trump administration to send federal forces to help patrol the city.

“Instead of collaborating with the Albuquerque Police Department, the Sheriff is inviting the President’s stormtroopers into Albuquerque," Heinrich said. "If we can learn anything from Portland, it’s that we don’t need this kind of 'help' from the White House. The President is currently using federal law enforcement agents like a domestic paramilitary force. That’s precisely how fascism begins and none of us should ever encourage or accept it."

Sheriff Gonzales is scheduled to meet with Pres. Trump and Attorney General William Barr Wednesday to discuss combating crime as part of Operation Relentless Pursuit.

Read more: https://www.kob.com/albuquerque-news/sen-heinrich-calling-for-bcso-sheriff-gonzales-to-resign/5801654/

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Very pleased that Senator Heinrich made this statement—before the brown shirts are deployed in Albuquerque.

July 9, 2020

Indigenous Americans had contact with Polynesians 800 years ago, DNA study confirms

Indigenous Americans and Polynesians crossed thousands of miles of open ocean and made contact with each other as early as 1200 A.D., centuries before the arrival of Europeans, a new study has found.

Archeologists have long believed the two regions made early contact, pointing to the early, widespread cultivation of a South American plant in Polynesia, a collection of more than 1,000 islands scattered over the Pacific Ocean.

The results of a genomic study now confirmed they did.

According to a paper published Wednesday in the journal Nature, researchers found "conclusive evidence" for the early encounter between the two groups, after analyzing the DNA of more than 800 individuals from 17 Polynesian islands and 15 indigenous American groups on the Pacific coast.
The researchers were looking for signs that prehistoric Polynesians and Indigenous Americans had children together, which would leave a clear genetic signature in their offspring -- called an admixture.

What they found was that people from several eastern Polynesian islands, including Rapa Nui -- also known as Easter Island -- have genetic traces in their DNA linked to indigenous South Americans. The genetic signatures showed a strong connection to the Zenu, an indigenous group from Colombia.

Researchers then traced the timing of their encounter by analyzing the length of the indigenous American genomic segments, and decided the initial admixture took place in the eastern islands of Polynesia around 1150-1230 A.D.

But in Rapa Nui, that admixture was dated much later to around 1380 A.D., despite the island being the closest to South America.

"Our analyses suggest strongly that a single contact event occurred in eastern Polynesia, before the settlement of Rapa Nui, between Polynesian individuals and a Native American group most closely related to the indigenous inhabitants of present-day Colombia," the study said.

[link:https://www.cnn.com/2020/07/09/asia/polynesia-america-intl-hnk-scli-scn/index.html|

🗿 There it is—Thor Heyerdahl is vindicated. A good reminder to keep thinking outside the box. There is an astonishing theory that, after the 3rd Punic War, Carthaginians made their way to South America and founded the Chachapoyas culture. Looking forward to additional evidence there. [link:https://www.pbs.org/wnet/secrets/carthages-lost-war|

June 30, 2020

Senate strips provision from bill requiring campaigns to report foreign intelligence help

Source: CNN

The Senate will incorporate the annual intelligence policy legislation into the National Defense Authorization Act -- but only after stripping language from the intelligence bill that would have required presidential campaigns to report offers of foreign election help.

Sen. Mark Warner of Virginia, the top Democrat on the Senate Intelligence Committee, said Tuesday that Senate Republicans forced the removal of the election reporting provision as a condition to include the intelligence bill on the must-pass defense policy legislation.

Earlier this month, the Senate Intelligence Committee approved an amendment on an 8-7 vote from Warner and GOP Sen. Susan Collins of Maine, which added a provision to the Intelligence Authorization Act requiring campaigns to notify federal authorities about offers of foreign election help.

That bill, however, was unlikely to get Senate floor time on its own, which is why it's being included in the National Defense Authorization Act. The effort to strip the foreign election help provision from the intelligence bill was not a surprise, as acting Senate Intelligence Chairman Marco Rubio, a Florida Republican, predicted earlier this month it would be removed before the bill was on the floor, because of an objection from the Senate Rules Committee.

Read more: https://www.cnn.com/2020/06/30/politics/senate-removes-ban-foreign-election-help/index.html

June 28, 2020

Chief NM federal judge posed for traitor scum pics

William P. Johnson, chief U.S. district judge for New Mexico, said in a written statement last week he regrets having appeared in two photographs “where others made the wrong decision to display the Confederate flag” while he was a cadet at Virginia Military Institute in the late 1970s.

Johnson provided his written comments in response to questions from The New Mexican about photos from the 1978 and 1979 editions of the school’s yearbook, The Bomb, which depict him and other members of the College Republicans club formally posing with a Confederate flag.

“I do not recall these photographs being taken, yet I am in these two images,” Johnson wrote in a statement, adding the photographs appear to have been taken during his freshman and sophomore years. He wrote he believes the cadets holding the flag in front of the group were upperclassmen.

“I do not know or remember the individuals holding the flag in either photo,” Johnson wrote, “yet I regret that, when I was 18, 19 or maybe 20, I appeared in two photographs where others made the wrong decision to display the Confederate flag.

[link:https://www.santafenewmexican.com/news/local_news/chief-federal-judge-in-albuquerque-says-he-regrets-photographs-with-confederate-flag/article_107b058c-abf0-11ea-acae-bfe25d510d4d.html|

June 4, 2020

Barrington Levy -- Murderer

[link:http://

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Murderer! Murderer!
Sticky doo da, doo da, doo da
Doo da doo, da doo da doo dow
Seen?

Tell dem already, we have to tell dem again
Tell dem already, we have to tell dem again
Tell dem already, we have to tell dem again
Dem a murderer! Dem a murderer, seen?

Dem coming inna my area want to kill off the youth
No dress up inna jacket and dem dress up inna tie
Come a courthouse want to tell pure lies
Dem a murderer, aah

Tell dem already, we have to tell dem again
Tell dem already, we have to tell dem again

'Cause dem muggin' out dem Jeep, want to kick out my teeth
Coming at dem red want to lick off me head
Coming to my lane want to fly out my brain
Dem dress up inna jacket and dem dress up inna tie
Want to deprive I-man from my rights
Dem a murderer! Dem a murderer, aah

Watch dem, watch dem, watch dem, watch dem, watch dem a come
Watch dem, watch dem, watch dem, watch dem, watch dem a come
Dem a vampire (they always suck out your blood)
Watch dem, watch dem, watch dem, watch dem, watch dem a come
Watch dem, watch dem, watch dem, watch dem, watch dem a come
Dem a murderer, aah

Tell dem already, we have to tell dem again
Tell dem already, we have to tell dem again

Anyone we no like, we no keep dem friend
Girls with no feel, we don't chat to dem
'Cause dem a murderer! Dem a murderer, aah
Dress up inna jacket and dem dress up inna tie
Want to deprive I-man from my rights
Dem muggin' out dem Jeep want to kick out my teeth
Coming to my lane want to fly out my brain
Dem dress up inna black, want to send a death cat
Dem a murderer

Murderer! Murderer!
Sticky doo da, doo da, doo da
Doo da doo, da doo da doo dow
Seen?

Watch dem, watch dem, watch dem, watch dem, watch dem a come
Watch dem, watch dem, watch dem, watch dem, watch dem a come
Dem a vampire, dem a vampire, aah

Tell dem already, we have to tell dem again
Tell dem already, we have to tell dem again
Anyone we no like we no keep dem friend
Girls with no feel, we no chat to dem
'Cause dem a murderer! Dem a murderer, aah

Who God bless, say no man could curse
Thank you Jah Jah I don't end up in a hearse
Dem a murderer (they always suck out your blood)
Watch dem, watch dem, watch dem, watch dem, watch dem a come
Watch dem, watch dem, watch dem, watch dem, watch dem a come
Dem a murderer, aah

Tell dem already, we have to tell dem again (dem a murderer)
Tell dem already, we have to tell dem again (murderer)

Any boy weh wicked do, we no keep dem friend
Girls with no feel, we no chat to dem
'Cause dem a murderer, dem a vampire
They always suck out your blood..

May 28, 2020

Cowboys for Trump leader calls for Democratic leaders to be executed

Source: Santa Fe New Mexican

Otero County Commissioner Couy Griffin has again stirred an outcry over his fiery political rhetoric — this time for saying certain Democratic governors should be executed for treason.

Griffin, who founded the group Cowboys for Trump, also told the Daily Beast on Tuesday that anti-lockdown protesters might be justified in using violence.

During the interview, published Wednesday, Griffin said top Democrats, such as Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer and Virginia Gov. Ralph Northam, are traitors who deserve the death penalty. Both governors have imposed restrictions to curb the spread of the novel coronavirus.

“You get to pick your poison: You either go before a firing squad, or you get the end of the rope,” Griffin told the Daily Beast.

Read more: https://www.santafenewmexican.com/news/local_news/cowboys-for-trump-leader-calls-for-democratic-leaders-to-be-executed/article_017dba42-a066-11ea-bac0-efd8a4e0120e.html

May 27, 2020

Twitter labels Trump's tweets with a fact check for the first time

Source: Washington Post

Twitter on Tuesday slapped a fact-check label on President Trump’s tweets for the first time, a response to long-standing criticism that the company is too hands-off when it comes to policing misinformation and falsehoods from world leaders.

The move, which escalates tensions between Washington and Silicon Valley in an election year, was made in response to two Trump tweets over the past 24 hours. The tweets falsely claimed that mail-in ballots are fraudulent. Twitter’s label says, “Get the facts about mail-in ballots,” and redirects users to news articles about Trump’s unsubstantiated claim.

The tweets, said Twitter spokeswoman Katie Rosborough, “contain potentially misleading information about voting processes and have been labeled to provide additional context around mail-in ballots.”

The label directs users to articles by CNN, The Washington Post and the Hill, along with selections from the articles and a page summarizing the findings of fact-checkers.


Read more: https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2020/05/26/trump-twitter-label-fact-check/

April 28, 2020

2 geometric pieces from paper

#1 is 30” x 22”
an attempt at a non-local mandala—might make a good mural
[link:https://imgur.com/gallery/eE6vdm9|

#2 is 24” x 22”
[link:https://imgur.com/gallery/lmTfY4P|

(edits—sorry, can’t get the images to load)

April 22, 2020

Elizabeth Warren was made for this moment. Joe Biden should recognize that.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2020/04/22/elizabeth-warren-is-vice-president-country-needs-right-now/

There’s little doubt the medical and economic catastrophe of the coronavirus pandemic will dominate the presidential race. On Wednesday, Axios published a Joe Biden campaign memo revealing his plan to make the case against President Trump, based on the president’s corrupt, inept and out-of-touch response to the coronavirus pandemic. The former vice president and presumptive Democratic nominee can strengthen his argument by selecting Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) as his vice president. There is no one better equipped than Warren to help make the case Republicans are largely responsible for both the mounting death toll and economic carnage of covid-19.

In little more than a month, 22 million Americans have lost their jobs as economic activity ground to a halt. A Gallup poll conducted over the first half of April found 1 in 4 Americans agreeing it was more likely than not they would be unemployed at some point in the next year. And according to a new survey from the Pew Research Center, 3 out of 4 Americans say the economy is in either “poor” or “fair” shape.

The Massachusetts senator has the perfect background for this moment. Warren first achieved academic and public prominence studying bankruptcy, talking repeatedly with families plunged into a financial abyss through unemployment or a health crisis. She went on to co-write a seminal book about the financial plight of the American family, “The Two-Income Trap,” which even counts Fox News host Tucker Carlson among its fans. She offered advice and sympathy to financially overwhelmed families on daytime television shows. Like Biden’s talent for connecting with voters when the subject is grief and emotional loss, Warren’s ability to tap into Americans’ financial fears is all but unique among national politicians.

Then there is Warren’s ability to tie the financial plight of American families to the United States’ culture of legalized corruption. This connection has been grotesquely clear during the coronavirus pandemic. Multiple members of Congress sold off stock after receiving confidential briefings on the growing epidemic. Congressional debates over economic stimulus set off a corporate lobbying gold rush. The relief bills passed have repeatedly favored the richest and most connected, including what Warren called a $500 billion “slush fund” for the largest corporations, while leaving everyone else fighting over scraps. Most recently, a loophole in the Paycheck Protection Plan allowed publicly traded companies like Ruth’s Chris Steak House to get their oven mitts on money meant to help small businesses survive. As the inequities have piled up, Warren has remained vigilant, calling out Trump administration officials and warning them she’s keeping an eye on the money.

Warren can point to a long record of fighting corruption. Corruption, she said in 2018 while debuting a tough bill taking the all too ubiquitous issue on, is “like a cancer eating away at our democracy.” It was a centerpiece of her presidential campaign, too. Speaking in New York’s Washington Square Park last year, in the shadow of the site of the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory fire, she said of the first Gilded Age, “Business owners got richer, politicians got more powerful, and working people paid the price,” adding, “Does any of that sound familiar?” It should.

(continues)