Maine Violates Separation of State and Religion

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Thursday March 05, 2020 · 4:25 AM PST

2020/03/05 · 04:25

When Maine originally allowed religious exemptions from mandatory vaccination requirements, they legally acknowledged their constitutional obligation to not interfere with the individual’s religious beliefs. Their new mandatory vaccination requirements blatantly violate the separation of church and state.

No parent should be forced to have their child injected with Green Monkey kidney cells, brain cells from aborted fetuses, peanut oil, preservatives, or genetically modified pathogens.

If your children have been vaccinated, unvaccinated children pose ZERO risk to your children, so mind your own business.

Maine still allows exemption for children with immune deficiencies, but what about parents with infants who have such deficiencies that are undiagnosed? Is it right to force them to risk their infant’s life with doses of foreign substances?

It is perfectly legal to kill your child before birth, but should you choose to let your child live beyond birth, you are forced to risk his/her life with mass produced, potentially deadly concoctions? It is a fact that some children die from vaccinations. It is a fact that some children experience irreparable harm from vaccinations. It is a fact that vaccines are sometimes contaminated.

Pro choice should not be limited solely to the destruction of the unborn.

If big pharma and their shills in corporate media have you convinced that you have a right to stick your nose in the raising of other peoples offspring, shame on you...you are dupid beyond reason.

What Book Has Most Inspired You?

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Sunday March 01, 2020 · 4:52 AM PST

2020/03/01 · 04:52

The most popular book is likely the Bible. Most Christians pray to God before sleep, and the Bible is often a part of that process.

The current squatter on the Golden Throne in the White House claims to be both a genius and a moral ‘man’. He has claimed on multiple occasions that he doesn’t have to ask God for forgiveness, the implication being that he hasn’t sinned. This in spite of the fact that he has made over 16,000 provably false and/or misleading claims and statements since being elected.

This self-proclaimed ‘paragon of virtue’ would certainly turn to the Bible for spiritual guidance as he advances his efforts on behalf of God’s Will and humanity. Perhaps he drifts off to sleep with the words of the Book of Proverbs on his mind, or the Ten Commandments. Maybe just little snippets of verses such as “...suffer not the little children...”

You may already know the truth behind my sarcasm. Here are just a few of the all-time favorite quotes from Trump’s bedside table inspirational book during his marriage to Ivana.

1. If you want the sympathy of the broad masses, you must tell them the crudest and most stupid things.

2. Tell a lie loud enough and long enough and people will believe it.

3. The greater the crime perpetrated by the leadership, the less likely that the people will ever believe their leaders to be capable of perpetrating such an event.

4. What luck for governments, that people are so stupid!

5. It is quite a special secret pleasure how the people around us fail to realize what is really happening to them.

6. What good fortune for those in power that people do not think!

7. Terrorism is the best political weapon, for nothing drives people harder than the fear of sudden death.

8. It is not truth that matters, but victory.

9. If you tell a big enough lie, and tell it frequently, it will be believed.

10. A woman must be a cute, naïve, cuddly thing, - tender, sweet, and stupid.

11. By the means of shrewd lies, unremittingly repeated, it is possible to make people believe that heaven is hell, — and hell heaven. The greater the lie, the more readily it will be believed.

12. The receptivity of the masses is very limited, their intelligence is small, but the power of their forgetting is enormous. In consequence of these facts, all effective propaganda must be limited to a very few points and must harp on these in slogans until the last member of the public understands what you want him to understand by your slogan.

These are only a few of the words lurking in Trump’s bedside copy of Adolf Hitler’s speeches...the man responsible for the death of 70 to 85 million men, women, and children...Trump's Inspiration. Perhaps he even returned home to his pregnant wife after an adulterous tryst with Stormy Daniels to sate his other lust with the words of his idol.

If you have the stomach for it, observe some of his rally speeches and interviews...it is obvious that Hitler’s protégé learned his lessons well.

Duck and Cover...21st Century Style

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Tuesday January 28, 2020 · 4:46 AM PST

2020/01/28 · 04:46

Anyone who went to school during the 50’s and early 60’s remembers the ‘duck and cover’ drills. We were taught to duck under our desks and cover our heads as s protection against a nuclear detonation. We were being herded from behind...learning to follow ridiculous orders because communism was nipping at our heels. The school basement was filled with ‘civil defense’ rations as if to validate the premise that a nuclear disaster was imminent…

Republican senators are performing their own ‘duck and cover’ exercises in the Impeachment trial. They are under the impression that their lies and obfuscations will protect them from the annihilation that should soon to be their lot. Their basements are filled with emergency rations of cash which they think will ensure their political survival when the smoke clears. Thanks to mainstream media, especially Fox (so-called) News, this may be true.

Have you ever seen video from the Ukrainian struggle to protect their people from the Russian invasion that has been going on for years? Does that war even seem real to you? Where are the embedded reporters who chronicle this invasion?

When is the last time you saw footage from the slaughter in Yemen? Thousands of men, women, and children have been vaporized or starved to death by the Saudi’s killing machine. Our government is front and center in this genocide...we provide the weapons, military intelligence, air support, and political cover. Hell, the Saudis even regularly bomb the hospitals to finish off those unfortunates that may have survived their initial American provided hellfire.

We Americans wallow in the morass of unreality that is doled out to us daily...We watch our screens and happily laugh with the soundtracks like obedient puppies. Reality is what we choose it to be, with happy endings never more than minutes away. Soothed to sleep with eyes wide open, their lulla-buys steer us where they want us to go.

Our leaders have changed our shining and pure ‘city on a hill’ into a dark and twisted Mordor, exporting the means of death and destruction around the planet. Is it any wonder that those who facilitate these travesties expect us to swallow their elephant?

These are the same politicians who willingly sanctify the zygote yet carpet bomb the child.

Lobster Tales...Squished Traps

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Sunday January 26, 2020 · 5:54 AM PST

2020/01/26 · 05:54

Resistance to my entry into the local fishing grounds was fierce. There are multiple ways to screw with another fisherman...some subtle and some dramatic. The first hint that I was unwelcome was the fact that a former close friend who used to be the ‘life of the party’, started dumping his traps so close to mine that we were always getting entangled. I fished ‘singles’ from a 21 foot open boat, and my pothauler was incapable of hauling more than one trap at a time.

When he would later haul his offending pair of traps, rather than take the time to untangle our gear, he would cut my line and retie it with a hard knot.

I used to work with this guy, we clammed together and partied together for years, but when he quit drinking, he became a mean and miserable person.

Another way that fishermen eliminate competition is to make traps disappear. The three main ways of accomplishing this are …

1. Cut the buoy...the rope sinks and the trap is lost.

2. Haul the trap(s), stuff rope and buoy into the trap, and push it back overboard.

3. Drag or drop the trap into water whose depth exceeds the length of the attached rope.

I have never messed with another fisherman’s gear, so I don’t know which is the preferred method. Number one is quick, easy, but the downside is the possibility that another fisherman may get snarled up in the remaining rope and find the gear. If the trap belongs to one of the ‘in’ fisherman, the finder might attached a plastic jug or an old float to the trap and put it back. Otherwise...kerplunk and buh bye.

Number two is more time consuming and risky, but has the added advantage of the lobsters that can be stolen. A foggy day makes number two way less risky.

Number three is similar to number two as you can steal the lobsters if you actually haul the gear, but just grabbing a buoy and tying it off while you drag it out deeper is way less risky but also less profitable.

One day, I discovered an ‘in your face’ method that one fisherman used to mess with me. I hauled a trap that had been squished nearly flat. Now this is no small feat...traps are inherently rugged. If you stick to the edges, you can stand or walk on them. The first time this happened, I brought the trap home and discarded it. After the second time, I started ‘unsquishing’ such traps, an extremely time-consuming but hugely satisfying process.

On the day that I discovered my last flattened trap, I had my son with me as my sternman. Lobsters were crawling and I needed help getting my gear hauled before the other boats ‘helped’ me by cleaning out my traps. We had just hauled and baited up a few strings of gear that stretched around a point of land which put out of sight of the first few traps that we had tended.

As we motored back around that point, we observed one of the bigger boats right beside one of our recently tended traps. When the captain of that boat saw us, he hammered the throttle and sped over to some of his gear. He started to haul a pair but immediately threw the buoy back and sped off at an uncharacteristically high rate of speed.

Of course we checked that trap and, sure enough, the trap was squished flat. We had just accomplished on of the rarest feats in lobstering...we had caught him in the act of gear molestation. After wrestling the trap back into fishing shape, we continued on with our day.

I had been suspicious of that captain since the first time I hauled a flattened trap years earlier. That thieving tub of lard weighed over 400lbs. But now that I knew for sure, what to do?

A new trap costs between $100 and $200 as a general rule. Add a buoy and a bunch of rope and a pair is worth up to $500 to $600. My gear, however, is mostly patched up junk...I have never paid more than $10. for a trap. My rope and buoy is worth more than the cost of my traps. I was now sure of the identity of the culprit, and accepted fishing protocol was to cut a bunch of his gear.

Instead, I cursed him and called down every type of misfortune that I could think of on his blackened soul. I don’t know how effective this usually is, but a few months later he died of a massive coronary. Poetic justice reigned supreme.

Lobster Tales

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Tuesday January 14, 2020 · 4:59 AM PST

2020/01/14 · 04:59

This is the first of a series stories relating to my 48 year (and counting) history as a Maine commercial fisherman.

In 2003. after six years as a sternman on an historically successful lobster boat, two years of which were spent participating in a required apprenticeship program, I began my ‘career’ as a lobster fisherman.

A lobster license is a very difficult acquisition. The zone in which I was sponsored had no waiting list at that time, but now does. More on the subject of the apprenticeship program will be the subject of a later post.

As I neared the completion of my apprenticeship I had several crucial decisions to make. Lobster fishermen are notoriously territorial, and any new participants are certain to experience years of resistance in the form of verbal threats, theft of lobsters, missing traps, and even sunken boats.

I first had to decide the color combination on my buoys. Each fisherman has a color pattern and combination that is unique to the area in which he/she fishes. I chose a set of colors that I felt was subtle enough not to stand out from a distance as beacon announcing ‘new fisherman...stranger danger!’

Next came the critical choice of boat name. Nearly all lobster fishermen are Republicans and claim to be Christians, so I factored that into my choice of the name ‘Thy Neighbor’.

Next came the choice of what type of boat to start out with. I made the stupid choice to father children rather than accumulate assets early on in my life, so the resulting ‘hand to mouth’ nature of being constantly challenged financially limited my choice considerably. This limitation worked in my favor as a new, shiny, expensive boat is guaranteed to be provocative.

My friend Todd fronted me a clunky, ugly, crappy little 16 foot boat from which I had to haul my traps by hand. It was so ugly and impractical I prayed that its mere existence would evoke a smidgeon of sympathy and not appear threatening.

Lastly, I had to choose where to set my traps. I chose to fish around the margins of the desirable locations, primarily in shallow waters where the typical huge, expensive boats could not safely navigate.

So, armed with 100 patched up, old castaway junky traps I began. One of the first locations where I encountered both excellent lobster populations but a serious problem was in very shallow cove northwest of Alley Island. The water was so shallow that even my little boat had difficulty navigating the myriad hazards there, and I could only haul around the time of high tide. I knew that any pilferage was likely to come from one of the dozens of camps which dotted the adjacent shore. Fortunately, I began hauling in huge catches of large lobsters…I had stumbled onto the mother lode.

Right away I found traps moved, trap tags missing, and lobsters stolen. I told Todd about it and said that I was going to report the gear molestation to the Maine Department of Marine Resources. His response was...” Whatever you do, don’t report it, You will piss off the other fishermen by inviting wardens into the area. You will piss off the wardens by asking them to enforce the law, they expect fishermen to police their own problems. And worst of all, you will make yourself a target of the wardens’ anger.”

I didn’t listen...I called the DMR.

A few days after that ill-fated call, as I approached the area, I saw one of my buoys floating in about two feet of water close to the shore. As I attempted to get closer to said trap I saw a DMR boat with two wardens bearing down on me from behind the island. I motored back out to deeper water so that we could safely heave two and converse.

The ‘alpha’ warden told me that I was guilty of two violations. First, there was no tag in my trap. I told him that part of my reported problem was stolen tags, that I had 400 tags but only fished 100 traps, that the tag had obviously been stolen. Second, he informed me that the trap had float rope on top of the water.

Each trap typically has a length of floating rope to keep it from getting tangled in rocks on the bottom. Above that is sinking rope to prevent the floating rope from presenting a hazard to navigation. Said trap had six feet of float rope and twelve feet of sink rope. Prior to its being dragged into shallow water, it was perfectly legal.

Before this incident, I had been a licensed commercial fisherman for 33 years with zero warnings or convictions. As a result of this encounter with the wardens, I was issued a written warning for those two bogus violations.

In the interest of full disclosure, I will relate a prior incident involving this ‘alpha’ warden. Years earlier, I was digging clams in front of a camp owned by my in-laws. The tide was low and the water very shallow. Far down the shore I noticed a wardens’ boat attempting to reach shore, but struggling in the shallows. This same warden got out of the boat and was immediately mired in the deep mud beside the boat. After a considerable struggle, he slogged his way to shore and plodded up the 150 or so yards to my location. This whole process gave me ample time to come up with a sufficiently sarcastic comment to gift him with. It was a blistering hot day, and he was sweating and muddy from his exertions. When he got close I said...” That was a very impressive swat operation you just pulled off.”

He proceeded to check my license, and after a rancorous verbal exchange he left. I suspect that the two incidents were possibly related.

The DMR is in no way the lobstermans’ friend. When a fisherman encounters problems with theft or gear molestation, he is expected to deal with it himself. How? By cutting off buoys in the affected area...buoys of the suspected offender and buoys of the other fishermen. The theory is that the other fishermen will know who is the likely thief and will stop him in their own self interest.

In the 16 years that I have been lobster fishing on my own, I have never cut a buoy. I have a very good idea who is messing with my gear, but will not repay evil with evil, and will NEVER call the DMR to report a problem again.

My next post on this subject will explain how the wardens arbitrarily interpret and enforce certain laws to intimidate and harass the lobstering community.

It's a Federal Sales Tax...

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Sunday January 12, 2020 · 4:11 AM PST

2020/01/12 · 04:11

The Republican Party has been complicit in enabling Trump’s Federal Sales Tax on imports from certain countries, as the revenue gathered has helped mask the true impact of their huge tax giveaway to their rich donor class.

Stop calling it a ‘tariff’ and call it what it is!

It’s way past time to change the conversation to reflect the reality of the many ways the modern version of ‘conservatism’ is parasitizing America’s wealth...need to fix a broken economy? Apply leeches...

MAGA-Animus

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Thursday December 19, 2019 · 4:21 AM PST

2019/12/19 · 04:21

The next time you watch a clip of Trump surrounded by his bog-dwelling parasites, take a look at their faces. Every one who surrounds Trump has a face that is permanently etched with the lines and wrinkles of a person who scowls and frowns their way through their miserable lives. His parasitic bog-dwelling acolytes are so steeped in hatred and resentment that any semblance of a forced smile is a pathetic parody of the beauty that comes with the smile of a kind and loving spirit.

As you go about your daily life, look around you at the faces of your fellow humans. When you see someone with the lines from chronic frowns or scowls, be aware that those lines are a reflection of spiritual failure.

When we were granted temporary status on Planet Earth, each of us was granted a mind that is a spiritual garden, waiting to be planted with seeds of beauty and spiritual sustenance. The ideas that are planted therein by others are supposed to enhance one’s capacity for love and tolerance. We enter this life as apprentices, students studying for a career that could extend far beyond earth. Those who become hopelessly mired in the carnal urges of the animal body we were imprisoned in, inevitably regress spiritually, perhaps beyond the capacity to continue their spiritual evolution beyond Earth.

Look in a mirror...smile and frown repeatedly...which one fits? Are you a reflection of love and serenity? Are the seeds of your ideas likely to produce beauty or spiritual decay?

Plant the seeds of your ideas wisely my fellow earthlings, your are hurtling toward your final exam.

Trump's Alzheimer's Defense

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Wednesday October 30, 2019 · 4:21 AM PDT

2019/10/30 · 04:21

It appears that Trump is in the middle stage of Alzheimer’s Disease. Listed below are symptoms of Middle Stage Alzheimer’s according to Google:

Increasing confusion and disorientation

Obsessive, repetitive or impulsive behavior

Delusions (believing things that are untrue)

Problems with speech or language (aphasia)

Disturbed sleep

Changes in mood, such as frequent mood swings, depression and feeling increasingly anxious, frustrated or anxious

Difficulty in performing spatial tasks, such as judging distances

Loss of the ability to identify things

This condition would make a perfect defense against criminal prosecution for his alleged crimes. Come to think of it, it is a perfect defense for all of his toadies if it could be proven that this condition is contagious.

An Asian, An Arab, And A Jew Walked Into An Operating Room

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Tuesday August 20, 2019 · 8:09 PM PDT

2019/08/20 · 20:09

And proceeded to save my life…

Eleven long days ago I underwent robotic surgery on my throat cancer and the procedure was far more than either I or my medical team expected. Complete tonsillectomy and base of tongue tumor removal with right side neck dissection ended up with an excision that went more than halfway under my tongue. An expected three hour procedure went on for five hours, and the results were very reassuring, but…

I was sent the long 250miles home two days later with many instructions on do’s and don’t’s but was especially warned not to cough, sneeze, and especially not vomit, as the result could be serious bleeding which in the extreme could be fatal.

My body did not accept the drugs I was prescribed. My swallowing lessons did not adequately prepare me for what I was faced with. Nausea, heartburn, chest congestion, and dehydration invaded my life.

At home, four long days of living one minute to the next of pills, heartburn, nausea, choking sips of water, agonizing swallows of miniscule amounts of pureed food interspersed with don’t cough, don’t vomit, repeat over and over as I wasted away. Seven days after my procedure, fifteen pounds lighter than before, my fate spilled out before my eyes. A little cough broke through my flagging resolve and delivered a mouthful of blood...followed by more.

One am, thirty miles to the hospital, my wife hustled me to the car and off we went.

There is something special about blood running from your mouth. It gives you a unique perspective on life. Things felt but never expressed clamor for dominance in your mind. But primary are the thoughts that are necessary to survival. Don’t swallow blood or you will vomit and make it worse. Don’t let it get in your lungs or you will cough and tear things up in your throat. Try not to die…It is so very red...it tastes so wrong.

A 911 call on route, an ambulance beside the road, all that was left of the comfort of my wife a lone pair of headlights as she followed in her private capsule of fear for the question marks stamped all over our future...or her future.

Finally, at the hospital, the hive started buzzing as the calls were made, the plumbing applied, the team brought from slumber to precision.

The operating floor was eerily quiet as the members of the surgical team emerged. First, the surgeon, an Asian, assessed and explained as a plan evolved. Then the anesthesiologist, an Arab with an unpronounceable name clasped my hand and an energy crackeled between us...maybe a spark of Allah... as I told him it was a privilege to put my life in his hands. His assistant, Mr. Something Something-stein, a Jewish man spared a tired smile as he attended to his role.

Then the others, an African- American and two Caucasian presumed nurses...but maybe doctors...who cares?

Sedation was delayed to the last second as my blood, now slowed to a trickle, continued to flow into my gut, threatening to erupt, to transform from sustainer to terminator.

And then the operating room, the maze of their tools, so familiar to them and so alien to myself. Then a voice floated on air...”breathe deeply...breathe deep” as I drifted into their hands.

I am back now, transformed, evolved. My heart swells and my eyes leak unbidden. Oh that group of earthlings...so diverse but so united of purpose...to save me...this meagre scrap of humanity from death for a time unmeasured. Spiritual giants giving another chance, more time to get things right, to express my love.

I have no room for hate or resentment, the best I can spare is pity. During my stay at the hospital I was surrounded with beauty. There was the team leader doctor, a beautiful woman...Pakistani...perhaps from India, who flowed in and peeked down my throat, studied my chart, asked of my welfare and flowed on with her entourage in tow to the next speck of suffering, and on and on.

There was the young lady from Guatemala who cleaned my room, emptied my trash, and shyly accepted my gratitude with halting, broken English conversation when asked of her life.

The nurses, the doctors, the swallow coach, the physical therapist, the dietician, all there to patch me up, to plug up my leaks, to coax me to health, to give of themselves in service to another suffering traveler through time.

God is not some scary Dude far away in the sky. God walked in and out of my life inside each one who cared, each one who gave, each one who helped heal a broken body and a troubled spirit.

Look around you, He is all around you...He is inside you...waiting to be poured out when you learn how to love.

serendeputy

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Thursday August 08, 2019 · 3:48 AM PDT

2019/08/08 · 03:48

21 weeks after my cancer diagnosis I finally am having robotic surgery today.

Sunday and Monday were spent putting lobster traps out, so it is obvious that I am optimistic about the outcome of this miraculous medical procedure.

If I can find an excuse to send my wife on a mission, I plan on hauling some gear in a week or ten days.

If my gear gets molested, this time the gloves come off and the shore will be littered with the buoys of the malfeasants who dare to steal from me. The word is out, I have made it clear to the local fishermen that I don’t plan on turning the other cheek as I have done for decades. Liberal is not the same as chickenshit coward.

I don’t especially like the new me, but there it is...actions have consequences as the thieving Republican asshole fishermen are about to find out.

If You Support Armed Insurrection Against the US Government, You Are a Traitor...Period.

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Wednesday July 17, 2019 · 7:43 AM PDT

2019/07/17 · 07:43

In the course of my fishing activities I often come in contact with a man who is a virulently anti-liberal Trumpanzee. He is a former high school teacher and coach who is well educated but extremely ignorant.

In the course of our most recent conversation he raved on about the ‘Deep State’ and how socialism is threatening to destroy our country. I threw him a little a little bait by stating that what our country needs is Democratic control of the White House and Congress. He took the bait, hook, line, and sinker.

“If democrats take over and try to make us socialist I’ll be part of the revolution! Anyone who tries to make us socialist will get shot, and I’ll be right on the front lines with my gun.”

After hearing this crap, I replied...”Jesus was a socialist.”

“Then I’ll shoot Him too!” He was now red in the face, eyes wildly darting back and forth, and on the verge of losing it.

Do I push him over the edge, or back off? How about a gentle little nudge…?

“Anyone who supports armed insurrection against our government for any reason is a traitor, and Trump is a treasonous bastard!” Did I say gentle?

Thoroughly enraged and hopelessly incapable of coherent thought, he stormed off. This is what we sentient humans are up against. Don’t kid yourselves people, when Trump loses in 2020, we will see acts of rebellion that will verge on civil war.

If you don’t believe me, put an anti-Trump sign on your vehicle and see what happens. I suggest something along the lines of ‘Trump is Satan’s Bi@ch”.

Kids in Cages for $700/Night? Try Trump Hotel in D.C.

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Tuesday June 25, 2019 · 4:10 AM PDT

2019/06/25 · 04:10

I just checked the cost of a room at T-rump Hotel in Washington D.C. for two adults and one 5yr. old child...$748 per night.

This room features 480sq. feet with 2 queen beds, room for up to 4 additional guests (up to 3 children) with cribs available. Book for 3 nights or more and receive up to a 25% discount! Soap and toothbrushes available. Breakfast available for a mere $40/night/person.

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