Ploptoberfest is better with Blue Bonnet on it!

Ploptoberfest may be starting to lurch back to life! This weekend is the first Ploptoberfest held on 5th Street since 2015. The fest has returned to its rightful location after being confined to 2nd Street for years (when it took place at all).

Yesterday, I noticed someone plopped the lid of a tub of Blue Bonnet margarine. When I went into a portable restroom, I noticed Miss Blue Bonnet staring up at the world from the abysmal depths of the poopot. She looked as hilarious as you might imagine. Later, I noticed someone plopped a plastic cup.

Celebrity look-alikes included Oliver Anthony, James Garner, and Suzi Quatro.

And that's only Friday. Think of the promise that Saturday holds if I go down there again!

Homeless camp exists only in far right's mind

The only place the homeless get to live rent-free is in the far right's heads.

And when I talk about the far right, I'm using the historic definition of the term. Lately, the Democrats have been branding all challenges from the left as right-wing. But I'm using the real definition, not the shitlib definition. The Democrats these days support actual far right stances more and more.

Recently, some neighborhood "leader" in Cincinnati drafted a letter demanding removal of a homeless camp in Burnet Woods, a city park. The letter demanded police close the park at 10 PM every night to expel the homeless and discard their belongings. The letter pointed fingers at the homeless over assorted ills that plague the city.

A big problem with this letter - besides its general meanness - is that there is no homeless camp in Burnet Woods. A few homeless people might gather there, but there is no camp. The camp exists only in somebody's minuscule mind. Park employees and visitors confirmed to the media that there is no camp.

The letter prompted some folks to post a flyer around the area charging that a neighborhood committee aims to "displace and throw out the property of local homeless people." The flyer pointed out that these raids cause the homeless to lose medications and personal documents.

The main location of concern in Burnet Woods seems to be the corner of Ludlow and Clifton avenues. It just so happens that I had lunch at this corner on Saturday on the way home from Zinecinnati. There were folks gathered around, but none of them said a word to me or did anything illegal. Bees were a bigger threat than homeless people were.

I bet the writer of the letter is actually mad because he saw homeless people not wearing masks.

New Mexico governor flunks basic civics

Remember when we had 3 branches of government that provided checks and balances on each other? That was cool.

One issue we go back and forth on is gun control. There are many events that shape how the matter should be handled. Concealed carry is generally a right. We've never denied it. But you don't get to stomp into a crowd like a weirdo and brandish assault rifles at random people.

Now something strange is happening in New Mexico, where embattled Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham has just issued an executive order suspending the right to concealed carry in Albuquerque's Bernalillo County.

One thing is for sure: This order is illegal. The right to concealed carry is backed up by statute in New Mexico, as it is almost everywhere else in America. That's the law. Governors aren't supposed to be able to just bark down orders suspending laws on a whim.

Lujan Grisham can't very well claim she cares about protecting children, after she supported child abuse in the name of fighting COVID. America might be the only country in the world with such a severe gun violence epidemic, but it's also one of the few modern nations with such a deep history of economic inequality and where schools were closed over COVID for as long as they were. Since long before COVID, our political "leaders" have maliciously refused to address our bad schools, choosing instead to punish students who were forced out of school. And community improvement projects disproportionately benefit rich areas and the wealthy, while the poor languish in despair. Gun violence has root causes - which are never addressed.

If a governor can unilaterally declare an emergency and use it to suspend legally protected rights, then you really don't have legally protected rights.

Much of this is basic middle school civics. The governor's main job is to execute the law - not write her own laws. She is not part of the legislative branch. If you want to change the law, write to lawmakers.

Even some politicians and activists who favor more gun control say Lujan Grisham is overreaching. They point out that constitutional liberties have no exceptions for emergencies declared by governors. On the other hand, what have we been experiencing for the past 3½ years? The sequence of events in this story is very similar to that of the COVID lockdowns - which established a bad precedent that governors can suspend rights at will.

This could get out of hand in a way far worse than it appears now. Recently, for the first time in my life, I began to seriously believe that America could end up under widespread martial law that far exceeds even what we saw during COVID. What folks in New Mexico are seeing could be just the start. Considering the past lies and abuse by our "leaders", it could be a deliberate step to completely disempower the public in the face of unimaginable totalitarianism.

Va-voom! ('Sesame Street' Wednesday)

Since I was about 5, I've had this melody in my head that I've insisted appeared on 'Sesame Street'. Eventually I concluded that I was only imagining it, and it was never really on the show.

But now I've stumbled on a website that listed a few lost 'Sesame Street' segments. One of the entries is about a segment on lowercase 'v'. It says that while the Spanish-language version can't be found, the English-language version is still out there...

Now that I've found this, I do remember the Spanish and English versions, but most importantly, it confirms that the melody that I had in my head did indeed appear on 'Sesame Street'. What I'm talking about here is the melody sung by the animated mouth.

In other words, this is yet another Snuffleupagus moment confirmed by YouTube - like the Big Boy commercial and the PBS show where the kid asks French-speaking Quebec residents if they speak English. If I say I saw something 40 to 45 years ago on TV, you should probably assume it's real.

Another right-wing Macron power grab

Some people deny that any postwar Western country can be a dictatorship. Yet Francisco Franco ruled Spain in my lifetime. And Ronald Reagan expressed admiration for Franco.

Under right-wing President Emmanuel Macron, France is essentially a dictatorship. Now Macron is digging in his jackboots further by saying he is open to "experimenting" with mandatory uniforms in public schools. According to the AP, Macron's plan to "experiment" on France's schoolchildren came after right-wing politicians expressed support for school uniforms. Right-wing politicians? You mean like Macron?

This is only the latest in a series of affronts to civil liberties plaguing the country. Macron isn't the only culprit, as other top French officials have also attempted to fan the flames of fascism, often pointing fingers at political foes.

Hulk Hogan look-alike spotted at Kroger

Today at the Kro, I saw a Hulk Hogan look-alike walking around in front of the store.

More talk but no action from Kentucky Democrats

Democrats in the Kentucky legislature have announced new labor bills for the 2024 session. But you know damn well they won't seriously do a thing to pass them. The Democratic Party of today is not the Democratic Party we grew up with.

For one thing, the legislature has become overwhelmingly Republican - in part because the Democrats wouldn't do enough to pass some of these bills before. So these bills have little chance of becoming law at the state level. If they do, it will be because more Republicans begin supporting what were once Democratic ideas. For another thing, the Democrats can already pass laws like these in cities and counties that they already control - yet they refuse to.

Perhaps 5 or 10 years ago, the Democrats actually were passing some decent laws at the local level in Kentucky. But no more. Nowadays when you read about good local laws passing, it's usually in the Republican-led small towns, not the Democratic-led larger cities. These are usually laws the Democrats used to support but now won't make any serious efforts to enact - if they express support for these laws at all.

Democrats today are the Republicans of 20 years ago. I've had to give up on my once-great Democratic Party.

Also, who do you think is responsible for the brutal, classist war against the homeless in Louisville lately? Louisville isn't one of these Republican small towns. That's another example of the Democrats being taken over by Bush-era Republicans.

People beered at Rip-off-fest

Earlier tonight, I went to Riverfest - or as I call it, Rip-off-fest.

Allowed Clouds were violated fluently. To defy the festival's ban on outside beverages, musical instruments, and tools, I smuggled in Pepsi, a kazoo, and a screwdriver. I also read that hula hoops are banned now too, but I can't very well sneak in a hula hoop in my pants pocket. Even funnier, people brang in beer - at a festival that has long been dry. Another Allowed Cloud was violated by someone setting off their own fireworks. People smoked pot too!

In addition to all these Allowed Cloud violations, I saw 2 - count 'em, 2 - people who were in such a festive mood that they bubbled.

New York City to use drones to spy on cookouts

Is it fascism yet?

New York City has announced plans to fly police drones over backyard barbecues this Labor Day weekend to spy on private gatherings. It's not even entirely clear why.

Privacy advocates are rightly outraged.

Incompetent Mayor Eric Adams boasts of his support for expanded use of police drones to monitor New Yorkers' private behavior.

If someone sees a surveillance drone hovering over their backyard, I hope they shoot it right out of the sky.

Ba-de-ya! The September ish is here!

Ba-de-ya! The September issue of The Last Word is now pub, and it's our back-to-school ish!

It talks about schools censoring books, toilets blowing up in Denver parks, our plan to fight continuing totalitarianism, my high school's electron microscope, Old Stopsignface, and more!

So point your pooper here...

https://www.scribd.com/document/668117117/The-Last-Word-9-2023

If that doesn't work, saunter on over here...

http://bunkerblast.info/lastword/lw2309.pdf

Bubbling, Alaska style

Earlier, I received an important e-mail informing me that a young woman bubbled while waiting in line for a train in Alaska.

Did the Prohibition Party take over Louisville?

It wasn't just our imagination. The cities actually are getting worse again in matters of public policy, while rural areas are getting better.

As rural counties in Kentucky vote to loosen alcohol laws, the state's biggest city - Louisville - is seeing protests against Family Dollar stores selling beer.

Louisville today is like Piner 20 years ago.

This is going in the Illness Log!

For the record, since at least Friday, I was plagued by a tonsil stone lodged in my windpipe, and I was running a fever as a result. I wasn't able to dislodge it until this morning.

Campbell County Schools ban 3 books

This happened back in February, but it wasn't covered by main local media until now.

The right-wing Campbell County Schools have generally been hostile to free expression and the interests of the community's young people, and now the district has banned 3 books from its libraries: 'Lucky' by Alice Sebold, 'Tricks' by Ellen Hopkins, and 'Out Of Darkness' by Ashley Hope Perez. What I'm talking about here is not books being removed from required reading lists. Rather, the books were censored from school libraries, so now nobody can even choose to borrow the books.

The district was reportedly reviewing 17 other books.

Are they gonna paddle kids who try to borrow these books?

These acts of censorship came at the direction of some organization that hasn't accomplished much on any issue. That includes fighting against our schools' COVID fascism. I'm just one person, but I've done more to fight against the COVID tyranny in our schools than this group has. I was on it right away, but look how long it took them. They spend more effort yanking books off library shelves than making sure schools are open like normal.

Kind of like the Campbell County Schools do.

New York! Connecticut! Maine! Game day bucket go boom!

In May, I goed on a road trip to the Northeast. It included Acadia National Park, parts of New York state, and other goodies.

Now I have 231 photos posted from the event! These pictures cover only the first part of the trip, but you're ready to read 'em and peep nonetheless...

http://bunkerblast.info/roadpics/ohme23a.html
http://bunkerblast.info/roadpics/ohme23b.html
http://bunkerblast.info/roadpics/ohme23c.html
http://bunkerblast.info/roadpics/ohme23d.html
http://bunkerblast.info/roadpics/ohme23e.html
http://bunkerblast.info/roadpics/ohme23f.html
http://bunkerblast.info/roadpics/ohme23g.html
http://bunkerblast.info/roadpics/ohme23h.html
http://bunkerblast.info/roadpics/ohme23i.html
http://bunkerblast.info/roadpics/ohme23j.html

Have no fear, the August ish is here!

Because this is a month ending in 'bip', a new Last Word is now pub!

The August ish talks about more ruined vacations, my cartoon reviews, sitting on a wad of bubble gum at an Occupy march, a person farting at Bush's inauguration, censorship of DVD's, and more!

So point your pooper here...

https://www.scribd.com/document/662189050/The-Last-Word-8-2023

If that doesn't work, scoot on over here...

http://bunkerblast.info/lastword/lw2308.pdf

How we missed our chance for a safer bridge

The Licking Valley Girl Scouts Bridge is the highway bridge that replaced the Shortway Bridge between Covington and Newport. When it opened in 2001, I immediately noticed the span had a major drawback: Despite the 4 wide lanes of road traffic, it had a sidewalk on only one side and no bike lane whatsoever.

I repeat, this was 2001 - hardly ancient history. By 2001, highway planners should have known to include better pedestrian and bike access, especially since the roadway invited vrooming cars and SUV's. I complained about this bitterly in the years after the bridge opened. I warned point-blank that this was a dangerous - possibly deadly - situation. I pleaded for years for this setup to be corrected.

These warnings were not heeded by highway officials. Last year, a woman was hit by a car and killed while riding a bicycle on this bridge. It was a hit-and-run. A few days ago, a motorist pleaded guilty to a series of charges stemming from the tragedy.

Some local residents pointed out that this was preventable but that nobody tries to remedy things like this until after someone is killed. With the stark decline of our cities in this decade, it's also been noted that Boone County is now vastly outpacing Covington and Newport in adding new bike amenities.

Since officials were warned that the bridge was dangerous and refused to fix it, we should look into criminal or civil penalties against our officials.

The FCC is getting completely screwy

This entry is about the twisted mess American radio is these days - and how the FCC lets it go on.

There's an article in the Detroit Free Press about a small high school radio station in Ontonagon, Michigan, that's been around for 45 years. It even managed to stay on the air during the height of the pandemic, when school was closed. But now an out-of-town religious broadcaster has applied to start a station in the same area on the same frequency.

Outrageously, the FCC rubber-stamped that request, even though that frequency already had a station. The high school station is now being forced to either find a different frequency or go off the air for good.

Managers of the school station learned of this when the religious station sent them an e-mail about it. This e-mail included a list of other frequencies they could move to. Then why didn't the religious station apply for one of those frequencies instead? Is it because it bips?

Even if knocking another station off the air or forcing it to accept interference is allowed under the FCC's rules, part of the FCC's job is to look at each application to see if it serves the public interest. But it never does, and hasn't in years.

Have no fear, the July ish is here!

Celebrate the Fourth on the first with a fifth by poppin' open a keg or three and relaxing with the July issue of The Last Word!

This ish talks about rich people complaining about storefront flowers ruining their vacation, Trump ruining summer camp, my history of broken calculators, Soviet bubble gum, the loss of the original 'Star Wars', and cheese getting wasted at Kroger.

So point your pooper here...

https://www.scribd.com/document/656412439/The-Last-Word-7-2023

If that doesn't work, scoot on over here...

http://bunkerblast.info/lastword/lw2307.pdf

Aspartame to be declared carcinogen

Aspartame is likely the most common artificial sweetener in the world but has been known by researchers for decades to cause cancer. Its carcinogenic properties have only been very rarely even remotely touched on by the media, and any findings on it are always swept under the rug instantly. Official regulators in most countries have rarely even acknowledged that aspartame causes cancer. They have not only failed to regulate it but often encouraged it to be used even more. The company that made it was connected to Donald Rumsfeld.

Now - for the first time - the WHO's International Agency for Research on Cancer is planning on listing aspartame as "possibly carcinogenic to humans." This follows studies spanning many years, including one just last year in France that found an elevated cancer risk (which the media completely ignored).

Sadly, I know what the official response by American media and regulators is going to be to the WHO ruling. They considered the WHO's COVID-19 recommendations too lax, as the WHO was less reliant on hard lockdowns and mask mandates than the CDC and most U.S. states were. Those bodies went rogue against the WHO by enacting tougher mandates on the public - especially children. You can bet your bottom dollar that American regulators are going to reject the WHO's stance against aspartame, because they reject the WHO every time the WHO is right about something. On every issue lately, American health officials and media are out of step with the science recognized by everyone else, and their immature contrarianism fuels their policy stances that are diametrically opposed to what science would justify.

Another gimme for developers

Everyone in Cincinnati knows that interests like developers and big sports teams always have their grimy hands out - and officials are always happy to oblige.

Now Ohio is planning on passing a budget provision allowing the city to charge users of services like Uber and Lyft to raise $482 million for the city to give to developers to renovate a hotel near the convention center. This plan is being driven by 3CDC, the economic terrorists who have destroyed amenities like Fountain Square and promoted bottomless gentrification and the COVID police state.

This isn't just a handout to developers. This is really like a tax that not only may hit lower economic groups harder but also others who must rely on rideshare services.

The fleecing continues.

Delaware town's effort to let corporations vote stalls

Is it fascism yet?

Recently, city council in Seaford, Delaware, decided to let corporations vote. Corporations would be permitted to vote in public elections in the same manner that people are supposed to be able to vote.

That's fascism. I don't even need to tell you that, because you're smart enough to read this blog. When corporations are declared to be equivalent to people, it's fascism. In fact, this policy would give corporations more power than people have, as voter suppression looms large all over the country.

Jacobin magazine called Seaford's effort "a radical right-wing experiment that cuts at the basic fabric of democracy."

But Seaford's plan seems to have hit a snag as state lawmakers have failed to approve a measure that would allow city council to go forward with its idiocy.

Here's the real bip-up. Seaford already allows property owners who do not even live in the town to vote. This violates the constitutional principle of one vote per person as well as the longstanding protection against property requirements for voting. And get this. A few cities and towns in Delaware already allow corporations to vote. In fact, the manager of numerous businesses in Newark, Delaware, was allowed to vote 31 times - once for each business. Rehoboth Beach allows trusts representing wealthy property owners who do not live in the town to vote - which is exactly the sort of thing I'd expect after hearing about some of the police state totalitarianism in that town.

One of the big problems with the policies discussed above is that they allow wealth to confer special privileges. It could be for rich individuals who own large businesses or fancy second homes, or for faceless corporations like national retail chains that have a store in that town.

This ranks right up there with "the model" that has turned over practically the entire city of Sandy Springs, Georgia, to corporations.

Where are the lawsuits?

More about local healthcare monopolies

Kentucky has a corrupt system in place that grants monopolies to healthcare facilities and allows only 7 hospitals to operate in northern Kentucky, an area with hundreds of thousands of people.

Four of the 7 certificates belong to one operator that has had some questionable practices of late and posted medical disinformation on social media accounts. I've had good luck with individual doctors there, but it's generally not doctors or other healthcare professionals who run hospitals these days.

But I've also found that one of the 7 certificates is held by a facility that abused me when I was in my late teens but now operates under a different name, as if to hide its soiled reputation. It now has a partnership with the local hospital system that has most of the rest of the region's healthcare business. The facility that abused me now gets terrible reviews on Google, including a brand new review that says it serves raw food. There are also other complaints about inedible food and about other things that were the exact same things that were going on over 30 years ago. This includes reports that staffers have been verbally abusing and beating patients and not giving them blankets.

Some folks these days say that facilities like this don't do the bad things they did 30 years ago and that everything is better now. But 30 years ago, they said these facilities did not do the things they did 30 years before that, yet they were still doing them. Everyone thinks everything is better than it was, but it never gets better in places like that.

It was the Republicans that put this monopoly system in place, but now there's a few Republican legislators trying to fix it, while the Democrats keep coming up with flimsy excuses to keep this system in place. So it's a bipartisan problem, and the only thing that's changed is which party is worse. The long and short of it is that the Democrats have become the party of abusive healthcare monopolies. They've become the party of child abuse in general: Since 2020, Democrats have done more to lock children out of school than the Republicans have. When a Democratic legislator in Virginia fought against school closures, party hacks recruited an opponent to run against him. So much for "Vote blue no matter who."

A person bubbled at Kroger

Today at the friendly neighborhood Krogie-Wogie, some woman was in such a Krogery mood that she bubbled.

Another funny dream

Last night, I had a dream where I was back in high school, and on the last day of the school year, a standardized test got peed on. This caused the school to notify police, and there was a big story on the news about it.

A person bubbled at Penn Station

Indeed they did.

144 photos from Columbus roadmeet!

In April, I goed to the Columbus roadmeet, and the event yielded 144 photos of a Scholaring interest!

I divided them into 6 parts, and you're gonna peep 'em until your face flies off in front of millions...

http://bunkerblast.info/roadpics/col23a.html
http://bunkerblast.info/roadpics/col23b.html
http://bunkerblast.info/roadpics/col23c.html
http://bunkerblast.info/roadpics/col23d.html
http://bunkerblast.info/roadpics/col23e.html
http://bunkerblast.info/roadpics/col23f.html

Illegal tough for all debts, public and private

We are headed harum-scarum down the road of fascist make-me-believe.

Yesterday, when I went to that public pool in Cincinnati, I made sure I brang a credit card. That's because I read on the website that the pool is now cashless - so I could not pay cash for the $4 admission.

All paper money in the U.S. is labeled as "legal tender for all debts, public and private." Period. Full stop. That means cash is supposed to be accepted for goods and services. The pool is perfectly equipped to accept cash. No excuses. It accepted it when I went there in 2019, so it can accept it now.

The fascist World Economic Forum is rubbing its hands together in excitement at the growing trend of places refusing to accept cash. It's like the days when workers were paid only in scrip.

Cash is freedom. Whenever possible, you should pay cash. Use it or lose it.

Have no fear, the June ish is here!

June wouldn't be June if it didn't sneeze up the June ish of The Last Word!

This ish talks about my Northeastern road trip, the humiliation of online Big Pharma apologists, new developments in a 7th grade schoolyard squabble, a ridiculous commercial for picture discs, and more!

So point thy pooper here...

https://www.scribd.com/document/649640495/The-Last-Word-6-2023

If that doesn't work, glide on over here...

http://bunkerblast.info/lastword/lw2306.pdf

As it wasn't

Remember that Cincinnati city pool I visited a few times in 2019? Today I went back there to make use of this rare heat wave.

Celebrity look-alikes have been known to enjoy this public swimming pool. Just ask the Annie Lennox look-alike who I saw back in 2019. Today, I saw a Harry Styles look-alike there.

Also, some woman brang beer into the pool area, in stark violation of an Allowed Cloud. Funny also.