And the "Bishop George Berkeley Society for the Advancement of Knowledge of Bats."

Public Occurrences is pleased to announce the formation of the "Egypt-America Friendship Committee."

What is he pointing at?  What are you pointing at dopey, stupid person?

Or would it?   Ah, you see, that is a good question. "If a tree fell in the forest and there was no one around to hear it did it make a sound?"  That was Bishop Berkeley's question. That is a different but similar question. Bishop Berkeley's question went to the nature of the physical world and of human knowledge. Sound is detected by one of the five senses. If no homo sapiens heard it did the frigging tree make a sound? Not to us homos. What if a frigging bat heard it? Then in frigging bat world it made a frigging sound. Who cares? Now, a Berkeleyan formulation incorporating protesting Egyptians would be "If an Egyptian protested and no one was around to hear him (or her) would he (or she) make a sound?"  This is a tremendous formulation of the question because it incorporates modern content-blocking software which was not available in Bishop Berkeley's time. As in Bishop Berkeley's original formulation incorporating trees the answer would be no as to humans, however it would be as to bats. But the point of Bishop Berkeley's question went to the nature of all human knowledge, not just what we hear. So, I, Benjamin Harris, have not heard with my own ears a single frigging protesting Egyptian. But I still know about it, i.e. it is within my knowledge as a homo, and is no less aggravating that I don't frigging actually hear it. So Bishop Berkeley's literal question reduces human knowledge to the sense of hearing which is really frigging stupid of Bishop Berkeley and is also aggravating. However, Bishop Berkeley's question is more fundamentally inapposite to our question which, reformulated, is "If protesting Egyptians are public occurrences are non-protesting Egyptians public occurrences?"  This question leaves out bats and confines itself to humans. It is a less stupid question than Bishop Berkeley's because it deals with all five human senses. It is also a more subtle question because it confronts us with the relative importance of all the zillion frigging things comprising human knowledge. So, protesting Egyptians have been public occurrences because it was unusual, it was outside the norm. Normally Egyptians just sat there looking at the Pyramids with their fingers up their asses. Egyptians with their fingers up their asses was not a public occurrence. Then they started protesting and that was unusual. Protesting Egyptians became public occurrences, Egyptians with their fingers up their asses ceased to be public occurrences. Now that Egyptians have been continually protesting for two years protesting Egyptians are relatively non-public occurrences and non-protesting Egyptians are, relatively, public occurrences. So that's the answer to the frigging question. 

No protests in Egypt, now that would really be a public occurrence. 

Protests in Egypt.

There are protests in Egypt.

As protests in Egypt are public occurrences and this is Public Occurrences we note it.

Done.

Fracking Yeah!

3,2,1, we have liftoff.  Sort of looks like a rocket launcher.  Sort of is, metaphorically.

That image, friends and enemies, is a thing of beauty. It is a new-fangled oil well in Elk County Pennsylvania.  Hundreds like it are transforming the American economy.

That oil well is tapping into Marcellus Shale, a geological formation consisting of marine sedimentary rock that has long been known to have natural gas trapped within it.

Looks oily, don’t it?

It is oily. And gassy:

That’s spring water so full of methane you can light it on fire.

Marcellus Shale underlies almost all of West Virginia, over half of Pennsylvania, half of Ohio, about one-half of Kentucky, one-third of New York, and parts of Virginia, Maryland, Tennessee and Alabama.

How much natural gas and shale oil is in the Marcellus? Enough to have cut the price of natural gas by two-thirds since 2008. Enough that OPEC, OPEC now, said this:

“Given recent significant increases in North American shale oil and shale gas production, it is now clear that these resources might play an increasingly important role in non-OPEC medium- and long-term supply prospects.”

Enough that the International Energy Agency has said this:

“By around 2020, [that’s 7+ years]  the United States is projected to become the largest global [“global,” as in "the whole world" global.]   oil producer. [“producer”] The result is a continued fall in U.S. oil imports to the extent that North America becomes a net oil exporter [that means we sell it]  around 2030.”

Is that not a beautiful thing?

American know-how has done it again. What American scientists and engineers have done is “hydraulic fracturing,” a technique of forcing liquid into the formation to break the rock and release the oil and gas. “Fracking” was first made economically practical in 1998 in Texas. Now it is leading to an energy revival in Pennsylvania, where the first traditional oil derrick was built, and in other economically depressed states in the region. Fracking will transform the American economy and global ["whole world"]  geo-politics. 

Macho time.

We celebrate today.  We celebrate a great semi-American, Hector “Macho” Camacho.

We do not mourn Machismo today; last week was for mourning. Last week we mourned his passing, when he was whacked while sitting in a car that had an open baggie of cocaine in it in this upscale neighborhood

in Puerto Rico (“Pware-toe Reek-oh” or “P.R. man, P.R.”).

We must not mourn our loss. Today we celebrate the life of Machismo:  the teenage serial shoplifter, sublime practitioner of the “sweet science,” drug abuser, cutting edge fashion pioneer, popularizer of the jheri curl,

doting father of four sons, only one of whom he was arrested for abusing,

devoted boyfriend of Gloria Fernandez, here wearing traditional mourning white at Machismo’s funeral,

and of Cynthia Castillo, here wearing traditional mourning fuchsia and baseball cap.

Let us celebrate today the esprit with which Machismo infected so many, how it moved Cynthia to kiss his corpse on the lips,

how that moved Gloria and Machismo’s sisters to, impromptu, engage Cynthia in the sweet science.

At the funeral.

As we behold the pale horses draw Machismo’s Puerto Rican flag-draped coffin through the streets of East Harlem

let us remember that Gerald Ford wanted to make Puerto Rico the 51st state.

A friend in China sent this:

I hope we all get lucky this time !!! This year, December has 5 Saturdays, 5 Sundays and 5 Mondays. Dec-12 Mon Tue Wed Thu Fri Sat Sun 31 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 This only happens once every 824 years. The Chinese call it the Money Bag. Send this to all your friends. I send it to you with my best wishes.

Go, West.

Gloom has descended. America, nay all of Western Civilization, lies in darkness. Warrior-statesman Allen West gave up his fight to take back "His" election from thieving liberals today.

Boy, first Rev Books and now this. Rough day.

Image: "The Scream," Edvard Munch (1893).

Our soul-mates at Revolution Books have some great fundraising ideas, huh?  Happy Anti-Thanksgiving everybody.

You are needed -- "Red Friday" and our Anti-Thanksgiving.

Dear friends of Rev Books,

I am writing to you at a serious moment for Revolution Books. This store is more needed than ever today and you are needed as well.

Revolution Books is critically endangered. One thing I can promise is that we are not going to let Revolution Books go the way of so many stores, forced out of business or dumbed down by the homogenization of the culture. Help us set sales records this Friday, Saturday and Sunday.

There has been an advertisement here all day. It reads:

Defend Allen West
Liberals are Stealing His Election.
Demand a Full Recount Today!

To which I would like to say:

Screw Allen West!
And the horse he rode in on!

“The next great coach in college tackle football will be Brian Kelly, recently hired by the University of Cincinnati. I am Benjamin Harris.”  January 1, 2007 http://publicoccurrenc.blogspot.com/search?q=brian+kelly

The University of Notre Dame du lac, which I did not know was Notre Dame’s official name, which is French, which I took two years of in (senior) high school, which I can therefore translate myself as Our Lady of the lake, which refers to the Virgin Mary, who I did not know had any connection with a lake, whose motto is Vita Dulcedo, Spes, which is Latin, which I took two years of in (junior) high school, which I am a little rusty on, which Wikipedia says means “Life, Sweetness, Hope,” whose nickname is the “Fighting Irish,” which is discordant with the aforesaid Virginian and inconsistent with the French name and the Latin motto, is the number one ranked college tackle football team in America today for the first time since 1993 and the aforesaid Brian Kelly, who was very successful at Cincinnati, but never made them the number one team in the country, who left them in 2010 for more sweetness and hope, is now the Notre Dame coach.

I wish to receive plaudits for that bold Vision.  Uno plaudit.

Thank you, thank you, oh you really shouldn't have, thank you.

Image (top): Grace Hall, Notre Dame campus.

China.

From Dr. Weimin Mo, English translations of common words and how ordinary Chinese alter them to better reflect their "true" meaning:

freedom-freedamn.
citizen-shitizen.
citizen-antizen.
internet-innernet.
Department (government)-Departyment. [Applicable in America too!]
cadre-gambler.
Secretary (Party)-Sexretary. [ditto.]
online Party follower-Halfyuan.
censor-canclensor.
male nature-animale.[ditto :( ]
government-gunverment. [ditto]
government-goveruption. [ditto]
property (real estate)-pro"poor"ty.
stock market-stuck market. [Love that one. We feel their pain, my 401k turned into a 201k.]
livelihood-livelihard.
professor-pro"fart"sor.

Those are tremendous.

Barack Obama really relates to people and vice verse. He is the most natural, most likable man ever to be president.

Images:  Above, President Obama with American Olympian McKayla Maroney; below Maroney on the medal stand, "not impressed" with her silver medal. 

Search Keyword of the Day.

lebron桌布, "lebron wallpaper" in half-English, half-Chinese.

Image:  The first google image for lebron桌布 .

Reason #1: It would improve the average IQ of the rest of the country.

Don't let the door hit you on your Florida on the way out.

It becomes our disagreeable duty to record as a public occurrence a penis eruption and a vagina eruption on the part of the above penis, David Petraeus and the above vagina, Paula Broadwell. General Petraeus was the Director of the CIA and Broadwell was his biographer...with benefits. The bird hit the air pump on Friday when General Petraeus abruptly resigned and members of the fourth estate "or whichever estate," as Mitt Romney would say, asked, like, why?  Both are married (to other people) although Paula seemed peculiarly possessive of David, allegedly sending threatening emails to another woman of the female persuasion who she thought was encroaching on "her" territory, which is how the FBI found out about the whole general, genital eruption business. Anyway...that's about all that needs be said...How's the CCP's Party Congress going, huh?...Oh, and uh, Friday was Paula's birthday.

10-4.

Florida.

Gotta get this out of my mind.
Violent...URGES.
Take a walk, get some fresh air.
Have a drink.
Have sex.
Have a drink while having sex while taking a walk

Florida.

Barry Goldwater once said he wished he could just lop off the east coast from the rest of the U.S.
That would be messy. Lot of jagged lines.
Florida, zip.
Zippppp, and that turd would just float away in the Caribbean.
Just another banana republic to add to the other banana republics.
A friend told me his grandfather used to say we should have let the South secede.
Said it would have improved the average IQ of the country.
Probably would if we just lopped off Florida.

Florida.

Yes, this is beginning to work on me.
Getting under my skin.
Pissssssssssed.

Florida.

They're still counting, here in Miami. 

"Florida is the asshole of America."
"Why do you say that, Jerry?"
"Look at it, it's even shaped like a big turd."
                                             
You have to give Jerry that and I'm sure you're glad I shared it with you.

Jerry's evocative description has come to mind as, for the second presidential election in the last four, Florida still has not determined a winner. We recall hanging chads and Bush v. Gore. Florida held up the identity of the new president for 36 days in 2000. If the 2012 election had been as close as the pundits had predicted Florida would have done it again.

Why has this happened twice in the same state--and only in that state--in the last four presidential elections? Jerry has an answer.

"No drama Obama" reelected. There wasn't any drama to election day, either. 

The two candidates are both good, accomplished people.

Nice tie.

"Now this is what we do, Graham, we keep this in house, ya hear me, IN HOUSE.  We do NOT report this to the police."  -Graham "Cracker" Spanier and Joe "Pa" Paterno.

Spanier, the former (fired) president of the Pennsylvania State University, was indicted yesterday for perjury, obstruction of justice and endangering the welfare of children in the Gerald "Jerry" Sandusky child rape case.   He joins former (contract not renewed) athletic director Timothy "Tim" Curley and former (retired) university vice president Gary "Gary" Schultz in the dock. If he had lived Paterno would have been indicted too.

The "Nittany Lions" lost to Ohio State last weekend before a meager crowd of 107,000 Penn State people. They play at Purdue tomorrow and are favored to win, making life better.

Continuing our popular series, "Statues of Ukraine."

Motherland.  The 21st google image under "Ukraine statue."
Big mother.

What the hell is that?  The 40th google image under search keyword "Ukraine." 

Gratuitous Insult of Islam for the Day.

I am not done with you, Islam. I will insult you more fully when I'm less busy.