Here's my blog repost of that "famous" Facebook post from a few years ago about my ketamine rage in hospital after my burn incident.
Oddly enough that post has been deleted from Facebook, and it wasn't deleted by me. I'm guessing Facebook deleted it because it contains drug use, even though it was legal, medically supervised drug use in a hospital. That's what Facebook does, it censors you, it suppresses or amplifies your posts in other people's newsfeeds as it sees fit, and will even delete your past posts if they don't conform to its own nebulous standards. It uses algorithms to give you newsfeed articles that you're more likely to react to, and is designed to be habit forming in a similar way to gambling. I'm sure many of you have already formed a tight mental association between boredom and looking at Facebook on your phone. Facebook also restricts you to a limited range of human experiences, makes you conform, and keeps you hidden behind its blue "iron curtain" so it can monetize you for advertising without competition from the rest of the internet.
So I'm glad I had the foresight to save this piece of creative writing somewhere other than Fakebook, and I'm glad I've moved to blogging. There'll be a blog post about these things soon, but for now there's this.
There was repaving going on in my street in North Park a while ago. I drove home one night and as usual by 8pm there was no parking available in my inner city neighborhood, as has always been the case for the last 14 years I've lived there, because the City of San Diego does absolutely fucking nothing to fix the parking situation in this town. Just as they've done absolutely fucking nothing to fix the parking problem in San Diego's beach cities, which have been at 120% parking capacity for the entire 23 years I've lived in this city. I do actually have a parking space at my condo's garage, but I try to avoid it because I have a big car and it doesn't fit well in the limited space there and just makes life difficult for people. So I try to be kind to my neighbors and park on the street whenever possible. However on this night with the street paving going on and one end of my street blocked off, the usual nightmarish parking was now exacerbated to an impossible level. So I did what I often do, I used my "secret parking space", which is half a parking space on an odd corner that most people avoid because it's partly in a red curb. I parked my truck half in the red curb, as I sometimes do if I have to, and most of the time I get away with it. I've parked in this little patch of red curb before and I've occasionally got tickets for it, but I always pay them immediately. I consider this the cost of having my "secret parking space". However this night I really had no choice because of the street paving. Next morning I had a ticket for being parked partly on a red curb. Really, City of San Diego? Mind you, these are the same parking inspectors that have absolutely no power to enforce parking in the alleys behind the houses and apartment blocks in the inner city. Parking in the alleys looks like parking in the back streets of Tijuana, a lawless free for all. I asked a couple of butch-dyke parking inspectors about this one time. I had to actually chase them down because they like to drive off if you approach them, the weak stupid cum buckets. I asked them if they could give this badly parked car in the alley a ticket. They told me I would need to call the police. I told them they were wearing uniforms that say "San Diego Police", and their shit little three-wheeled midget car they drive around in says "San Diego Police". So this doesn't mean they're police? They mumbled something and were vague and drove off. I noticed they didn't have guns on their hips, so I figure they're not actually law enforcement officers and are only marked as "Police" so people won't harass them for the shitty job they do, which is basically generating revenue by being parasites on law-abiding citizens most of the time. So I appealed the ticket and asked City of San Diego Parking what kind of scum-sucking bottom-feeding algae eaters would give someone a parking ticket under such conditions with the road work going on? After some weeks of procrastinating and masturbating in their ivory towers downtown, they responded that "Inconvenience or inability to park is no excuse for parking illegally". Yeah ok, so maybe you should poke your head out of your know-nothing do-nothing government shit job for a moment and come out to my neighborhood at 8pm some time and see how parking is here, dipshits! Perhaps the City of San Diego Parking thinks that I shouldn't own a car if I'm going to live in the inner city? This is the same City of San Diego that recently relaxed construction permitting allowing less parking spaces in newly constructed apartment buildings, to ease the housing crisis that these incompetent City clowns created in the first place. Stupid hippies! This is the same City of San Diego that recently made plans for a cycle way along a nearby street, and promised angle parking would be put in along our wide street to make more parking spaces, yet no such parking ever materialized. The same City of San Diego that's done nothing to fix parking issues in the beach cities in the 23 years I've lived in this city. The same City of San Diego that can't figure out to run the trolley lines to the beaches, Balboa Park, the zoo, Seaworld, etc. Well anyway, fuck the City. I swore that if I ever got another parking ticket at my "secret parking space" I would paint that red curb gray, so I did. I had fun spray painting the curb gray. In five minutes I had done what the worthless stinking horse fuckers at City of San Diego Parking couldn't do in over a decade. You useless cunts!! Actually that's an insult to cunts because cunts are useful and they're not. The only downside to spray painting the curb gray is that now I don't have my "secret parking space", because other people can use it. See what a fucking criminal I am, I created a parking space for everyone to use? So if you're reading this City of San Diego Parking, just know that I've painted a bunch of other red curbs in my neighborhood gray to create more parking spaces, while maintaining safe visibility at the street corners, and there's fuck-all you worthless clowns can do about it. Oh and I also had to trim the tree at the corner of my street that was blocking the view and was a frequent cause of near-accidents at that corner. I had to do it because you didn't. You're welcome San Diego, the fee I'm charging for that tree trimming is, um, let me make up a number, $76, the same price as the red curb ticket you gave me, you cunts! Finally, City of San Diego Parking, just to show my verbal love for how you keep our streets free of parking chaos by parasitizing on innocent people, I'd like to say that I hope you die slowly and horribly of cancer, and that your house burns down with you, and your family, and your dog in it. You're welcome, go fuck yourself.
Update. It's now six years since I originally wrote this blog and I've now moved to La Jolla. In this neighborhood the parking inspectors just drive on by. You can park your car in front of your house for months and they do nothing about it, despite some law about having to move your car every 72 hours.
When the street sweepers come by, they just drive around your car. I don't remember how many street sweeping parking tickets I got in North Park in the 14 years I lived there, probably more than a dozen. So basically the scum at City Parking allow the wealthy people of La Jolla to park with impunity, while inner-city residents are used as a source of revenue. City parking are just corrupt assholes.
Even worse, the stupid cock-gagging fuckwits at City Hall recently had to install parking meters at Balboa Park, because they raised the wages of city workers by 23% and then hoped their ballot measure to increase the city sales tax would cover the cost of this pay raise. Of course the people of San Diego voted against the sales tax increase, so the city then decided to make up some revenue by adding paid parking at Balboa Park. You can hate these pieces of shit enough. In response I simply decided not to renew my zoo membership after 23 years as a continuous member, and I no longer go to Balboa Prk for anything. How much is Balboa Park making from me now? ZERO!! -Dave Bad Person. References https://www.sandiego.gov/parking San Diego Municipal Code, Chapter 8, Article 6, Division 1: General Parking Regulations. This states that parking in alleys isn't allowed unless signed. So the parking inspectors aren't actually doing their job and can be considered corrupt, but I'm ok with this since parking is so tight anyway. You'll also notice there's no mention of "inconvenience and inability to park". Whatever bitches. https://docs.sandiego.gov/municode/MuniCodeChapter08/Ch08Art06Division01.pdf
As you may or may not know, I like to grow plants, mostly succulent plants like cactus and so on. I recently visited the Huntington Botanic Garden in Pasadena and was impressed by the White Silk Floss Tree (Ceiba insignis, aka Chorisia insignis), which has a large bottle-shaped trunk. Ever since then I've been looking for seeds or plants of this tree to grow myself, as it doesn't seem to be common. Typically when I find a rare plant, especially one I can't afford to buy, I'll look for seeds of it. However I was not able to find seeds of the White Silk Floss Tree anywhere, so I gave up on it. Then I was heading over to my father-in-law's house and happened to notice an odd flowering tree just a few blocks from his place.
Eureka, I've found it!! Now for those seeds! From my book on Ornamental Trees of San Diego, I knew the location of one other White Silk Floss Tree. However it was in Escondido, 30 miles (48 km) away.
Google Maps street view showed me that the tree was still there after 16 years since this book was published. Even more interesting is that street view images seem to be taken at different times of the year, so I was able to see if flowers and fruits are formed on both these White Silk Floss Trees. It turned out there were sometimes fruits on the one I'd just discovered.
Did this mean there is another White Silk Floss Tree nearby that could pollinate this one? It's quite possible. However I also read that this tree can hybridize with Ceiba speciosa, which is a much more common garden tree in San Diego. If these fruits were the result of hybridizing, then they did not contain the seeds I wanted. So how could I be sure to get purebred seeds? Well, I'd have to hand pollinate these trees myself. So I drove 30+ miles to the other tree. Sure enough it had flowers on it.
The only problem now was, there were no flowers within reach. After some effort to try to knock a flower off with a stick, I simply backed my truck up to the tree and stood on top. Success!! I managed to remove a few flowers, and one was particularly dusty with pollen.
I then returned to the tree I'd discovered and began pollinating.
There's no guarantee of success, but this is a good start. If I don't get any seeds then at least I can probably take some cuttings from the tree to propagate it. Now I just need to wait some months for the seed pods to form. The seeds are covered with a thick cotton-like fluff, which is what gives them their name "Silk Floss Tree". The tree is closely related to Kapok (Ceiba pentandra), and the fluff from Kapok seeds was used to stuff pillows and furniture back in the mid 20th century. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Aside from the White Silk Floss Tree, I've been planting some seeds lately, all winter growing plants. I had seeds arrive of Albuca unifoliata, Tylecodon singularis, and Pleiospilos compactus. I also received tubers of Caladium Strawberry Star I'd ordered online, and I planted some seeds of Cyphostemma juttae that I'd had for a while. Here's Albuca unifoliata in a picture from the internet. This plant is from the Northern Cape province region of South Africa. It's a member of the lily family and has an underground bulb, but it produces only one single small succulent leaf, making it something of an oddity.
Albuca unifoliata, these are the seeds I received, and they match the description of the seeds of this plant, so I think they're authentic.
Here are the Tylecodon singularis seeds I received. They're some of the tiniest seeds I've ever seen. These may be challenging to plant and germinate.
Pleisospilos compactus, picture from internet. The seeds I planted came from a plant I found in a garden.
Here are the seed trays I planted up. I know, it's a primitive setup, but works fine. Rather than cover the seeds to maintain humidity, I just keep them bottom watered using trays underneath.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- In other parts of my garden, my Dioscorea elephantipes seedlings are doing ok and are a few months old now. They generally only produce a single leaf for their first year, but they put all their energy into making a small caudex to store water for the next dry season.
At the same time, the recent rain and cold weather was not good for my Euphorbia lactea White Ghost grafted crest. It melted and died. I should have paid more attention and learned that this is a tropical plant, not one for outdoors in winter, even in San Diego's mild climate.
This is what it should look like. Picture from the internet.
I also ordered some tubers of Caladium Strawberry Star. This is not a succulent or desert plant but I found it so interesting that I figured I'd give it a try. These are the tubers I received.
This is how the plants will look when grown. Very pretty.
I also recently acquired a plant of Pelargonium klinghardtense, and another of Kalanchoe humilis. Pelargonium klinghardtense
It's moments like this that I'm reminded of why I started a blog called "Bad Person". It was so I could explore my opinions and exhibit some of the less desirable aspects of my personality without being lambasted and unfairly judged by people on Facebook. Facebook is a notably conformist platform, where everyone is the same shitty shade of blue, and thoughts are best kept small and shallow like many of the minds of the people posting and reading them. It's like a reality TV show where you and your friends are the stars, and ends up becoming a groupthink machine that runs on the lowest common denominator of mob rule and mass conformism. It's a place where people display their narcissism, show off the best parts of their life while keeping their skeletons in the closet, as they mutually stroke each other's egos with "Likes" and insipidly positive comments. This is why I often call it Fakebook. The short and limited nature of Fakebook's posts is not well suited to deeper, larger, and more independent thoughts, and therefore it can never offer the freedom of a blog. I'll have more to say about the nature of Facebook in a future post.
The problem I have is some of my Facebook "friends" on the far left end of the political spectrum. These are generally, but not always, the kind of young and idealistic know-it-all college hippie types who dropped acid at Burning Man one time and now think they have license to enforce their values and virtues upon the world. These are the same privileged and entitled people who've always had it easy in life, have always gotten things their own way, and are now incapable of understanding how we ended up with a president that isn't the one they voted for, and they feel the need to complain about it constantly and bully anyone who doesn't agree with their opinion. I got tired of these kinds of people in November 2018 when I realized there was no evidence of Russian collusion in the Mueller probe. This caused me to create a Facebook alter-ego that I called "Dave Trollpants", so I could troll these people at my maximum annoyance levels and watch their responses. Much of the time I'd simply post truthful verifiable information, write it in condescending language that told people they were stupid, and then watch these left-leaning folks get angry about it. Many of these people were so unable to withstand someone of a different opinion that they unfriended me on Fakebook. That's how bent out of shape people got. Frankly I couldn't give a shit, most of them I haven't seen for years anyway, and we never had much in common to begin with.
Much of my Dave Trollpants posts predate the existence of this blog and Dave Trollpants hasn't been active much lately. I may get around to posting some of those old posts here in the future. Anyway, the assassination of Iranian General Qasem Soleimani by the US military seemed like another moment ripe for antagonizing these people. This was the Fakebook post I made.
Waaah, the big bad orange man assassinated General Soleimani, boo-fuckin-hoo, mastermind of hundreds of attacks against the US and its allies in the Middle East over the last few years.
Were you not paying attention to the news earlier this year when Iran blew holes in the sides of tankers in the Persian Gulf by dropping limpet mines from drones? The Iranian drone and missile attacks against a Saudi Arabian oil refinery that temporarily halved the country's oil production and sent waves across the world's energy markets? The orchestration of the recent attacks against the US embassy in Iraq? Iran's support of anti-government militias in Iraq for more than a decade? Just to name a few things that might jog your short memory.
Waaah, mummy, the big bad orange man has timed this to try and distract us from his impeachment.
As if we're going to forget about that once the media starts shoving it down our throats again over the next few months.
Waaah, mummy, he didn't ask congress if he could kill an enemy of the state? Waaah, mummy, is he allowed to do that? Waaaah, mummy, *sniffle*, poor innocent mister Soleimani *boohoohoo*.
In the comments I then provided a list Wikipedia articles of recent attacks by the Iranians against the US and its allies in the Middle East. I understand that you shouldn't believe everything you read on Wikipedia and it has been known to have been compromised for propaganda reasons before, but it seemed like a reasonable source, with more sources contained within the articles. I also created the meme image seen at the top of this blog post, "I like Soleimani's new look".
The fact that some people are able to selectively ignore the news of numerous Iranian attacks against the US and its allies in the Middle East over the past few years, and particularly in the past year, and still be able to spew their vitriol about Trump for killing the mastermind of most of these attacks, is a sad reflection of these people's mentality. Soleimani was an enemy combatant and enemy of the state. He was in Baghdad to oversee the recent attacks on the US embassy in Iraq and begin conducting more attacks. He played a dangerous game, and it ended with a deadly outcome for him.
Trumps opponents were talking it up as Trump's Benghazi. They wanted it to be Trump's Benghazi. Trump didn't allow it to become another Benghazi.
The killing of Soleimani comes shortly after the killing of the leader of the Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant (ISIL), Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi. This was a man who was truly a piece of shit. He was a fundamentalist religious zealot who ran a slave state, committed genocide and ethnic cleansing, used rape and enslavement of women as a policy of state, killed homosexuals, and murdered children for listening to western music.
"al-Baghdadi rose to prominence in ISIL after his detainment with Al Qaeda commanders at the American Camp Bucca in Iraq. Afterwards Baghdadi became directly involved in ISIL's atrocities and human rights violations. These include the genocide of Yazidis in Iraq, extensive sexual slavery, organized rape, floggings, and systematic executions. He directed terrorist activities and massacres. He embraced brutality as part of the organization's propaganda efforts, producing videos displaying sexual slavery and executions via hacking, stoning, and burning. al-Baghdadi himself was a rapist who kept several personal sex slaves."
Here's another article about ISIL which gives more details of the atrocities they committed under the leadership of al-Baghdadi, and which they probably still commit today.
Massacres, forced conversion to Islam, and expulsion of Christians, Shia Muslims, and Yazidis.
Attacks on members of the press including torture and murder of local journalists, suicide bombings against TV stations, and release of beheading videos of international journalists.
Public beheadings and mass executions, sometimes with the victims forced to dig their own graves before being shot and pushed in.
Use of chemical weapons including chlorine and mustard gas.
Destruction of religious and cultural heritage, including bulldozing of religious buildings, sites of worship, and archaeological sites.
Child soldiers, some as young a 6 years old, recruited or even kidnapped, indoctrinated, and then used as fighters, suicide bombers, and even as blood transfusion donors for adult ISIL fighters.
Sexual violence and slavery including rape, forced marriage, and the trading of girls and women as sex slaves.
Slavery as state policy
Execution of homosexuals, often by hanging, crucifixion, or throwing them off the tops of tall buildings.
Allegations of human organ trafficking for profit
After reading that list it's pretty clear that al-Baghdadi and ISIL are dangerous psychopaths who are on the same level as the worst political figures in human history. It's at this point that I guess that I'm supposed to invoke the name of Hitler. That's how fucking bad these ISIL pieces of shit are, probably even worse than Hitler but on a smaller scale.
Yet still we have The Washington Post, a Pulitzer prize winning news outlet in the United States, which charges a subscription to read its news, making a mistake in their headline for al-Baghdadi's "obituary". Whoever wrote the headline about an "austere religious scholar" didn't know anything about al-Baghdadi and simply wrote the headline based on the first few lines of the article. It's a simple mistake but one that resulted in a lot of backlash from the public.
Conservative immediately ran with this and created various memes with glowing headlines for the death of other murderous psychopaths. The Washington Post certain got their ass handed to them over it.
Trump came out soon after the death of al-Baghdadi and said the world is a better place with him gone. I don't know how anyone could disagree with that. Anyone who doesn't agree with that is not aware of the horrific things that ISIL have been doing. Many of them live in their little white picket fence world where life is good and everything is pretty and orderly. Their lives revolve around their humdrum little days of frivolity and mirth, where meat comes in a packet and they're considering becoming vegetarian so they don't hurt the poor little animals. The horrific stories of ISIL's campaign of organized rape and murder tend not to make it to the news in their full gore and horror, simply because they're so horrific. You won't be seeing any beheading videos on prime time family news or Good Morning America. But of course these people think they know everything, because they went to college and partied and got drunk and screwed around for four years, and now they have big knobby careers and feel very important, and they think that what they say goes. They read the absolute truth in The Washington Post or The New York Times, which are Pulitzer prize winning publications, and these prizes somehow make everything they publish accurate and unbiased. These publications reaffirm their biases and beliefs.
There are evil people in the world that need to be stopped. We need to stand up to shitbags like Trump, but we also need to get our fucking prioties straight with regard to standing up to shitbags like Soleimani. The punishment for being an enemy of the state is death, pure and simple. So I'm very pleased that Soleimani is dead. It was about fucking time. Check out this parody Twitter account of Qasem Soleimani, it has some good jokes about his death. Ha ha! Suck shit it you dead piece of crap!
If you think the Western media isn't complicit in all of this dumbing down, pussification, and propaganda, think again. The media is the largest manager and controller of public opinion. They know that most people aren't able to critically evaluate the massive amounts of information that we have at our fingertips in today's highly connected world. So they know people will give up and go with their beliefs and biases, and/or be motivated by fear. So what bullshit are they trying to shove down our throats in the news after the death of Soleimani to influence Trump's chances of impeachment, re-election?
1. Killing Soleimani will destabilize the Middle East?
Trump kills one Iranian general and the normally serene and peaceful Middle East is going to be destabilized? As if the Arab spring of 2011 didn't destabilize it? The departure of tens of millions of Arab migrants to Europe and elsewhere after the Arab spring didn't destabilize it? The ongoing 9 year proxy war in Syria didn't destabilize it? The US invasions of Iraq and Afghanistan in the 2000s didn't destabilize it? The 1990s Persian Gulf war didn't destabilize it? The Russian invasion of Afghanistan during the 1980s didn't destabilize it? Russian, US, British, and other empire building in the region for the last century didn't destabilize it? The formation of the nation of Israel after WWII in the British protectorate of Palestine didn't destabilize it? The 400 years of running the countries in the region as oppressive religious kook states didn't destabilize it? The decades of small scale terrorist attacks that have been the only way for people to fight back against their governments didn't destabilize it? But Trump kills one military general and that's going to destabilize the region? What a crock of shit.
2. Killing General Soleimani is an act of war?
Yeah Iran has been blowing up US and allied stuff in the region for years, and ratcheted-up their campaign in the last year, and they've been supporting anti-government militias in Iraq for over a decade. Soleimani was in Iraq to orchestrate a whole new series of attacks on US positions, starting with the recent attacks on the US embassy, but taking him out is an act of war? Now Iran is going to call the killing of Soleimani an act of terrorism and label the US as perpetrators of state sponsored terrorism. Now that is knee-slappingly hilarious!
The next thing we'll hear is the left-leaning media talking up the funeral of Soleimani, and how they've never seen such anti-American sentiment before. Maybe they haven't been paying attention to Iran for the last 40+ years?
3. We are now at war with Iran? Yesterday I heard from an acquaintance of mine who's a former Major in the US Marine Corps. He said that Iran and the US have been exchanging shots at each other since the Reagan years, and that most people are unaware of this history. Consider also that Iran responded with 15 missiles fired at two US bases in Iraq but with no casualties. Iran's Foreign Minister, Javad Zarif, responded that Iran did not seek war. Trump and members of his team also responded that they do not want war. Neither side wants war. So this is just another exchange of shots, the same as has been going on since the 1980s. Note: is it a strange sign of the times that public announcements of diplomatic decisions now happen on Twitter?
Interestingly, Trump was forced to back down on his claims about targeting Iranian cultural sites, which is a war crime under the 1956 Hague Convention. Trump basically called his own bluff when he did this. If he didn't know this law then he didn't know what sites were targeted. Not that being the leader of the most powerful military in the world ever has to bluff, but it was an idiotic mistake. This also resulted in this snippet of video in which Trump claims that "I like to obey the law". This will be an fun little snippet for future use.
Here's just another example of yet another serene and peaceful day in the Middle East. The cause of the stampede? No mention of it. Over 50 killed, 212 hurt in Soleimani funeral stampede; general’s burial delayed
Incident in general’s hometown of Kerman causes mourners to flee for surrounding hills; a Monday procession for the slain general in Tehran drew over 1 million people
Update Soon after I wrote this blog post, the bungling clowns in Iran shot down a Ukrainian passenger jet that took off from their own airport in Tehran, killing all 176 passengers and crew on board. Yet somehow they didn't manage to injure or kill anyone with the six missiles they fired at two Iraqi land bases.
After the downing of the passenger jet, Iran tried to cover up their fuck-up by removing evidence from the crash site, but in the end they had no choice but to fess up to their monumental blunder.
Iran's people were angered by this and protested the downing of the jet. How did Iran's government respond to these protests? They shut down the internet and fired on the protesters to disperse them.
Poor Soleimani, *sniffle*, his killing was an illegal act of war by the big bad orange man. We're so fucked now, WWIII is on. We're all gonna die and it's the big bad orange man's fault. We're the worst country in the world. Boohoohoooo!
As if that wasn't bad enough, shortly after this the Iranian government tried to spread propaganda by claming it was the US's fault that they shot down the passenger jet because the US had ratcheted up tensions. HOW FUCKING COMICAL!!!
PWAAAHAHAAAHAAAHAAAAAA!!
You bungling fucking clowns! Fuck you Iran, and fuck your pathetic little shithole country! You have one choice left, join us or fucking DIE!!!
And to the leftist wanks here in the US who are siding with this piece of shit country, fuck you too!
To the people of Iran who support regime change, we stand with with you!
