‘The Road’ (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hbLgszfXTAY) is a difficult film. Difficult to watch and fearful to contemplate. After my single viewing, I arrived at the conventional interpretation: an american post apocalypse. But, this is wrong. A more careful 'reading' of the film shows that the film is not so much, post apocalypse, but ‘apocalypse now’! Consider: there is no pre-apocalyptic world depicted and there is no reason given for the apocalypse that is shown and the whole world, as suggested by the father when asked by his son if there was something different on the other side of the ocean, is as it is in the story before the viewer.
The Road is now. What blinds most of us from seeing it is our cupidity. Our homeless are on The Road now. Our sick without insurance are on The Road now. Those from foreign lands who come to amerika to seek out jobs on the bottom rungs of employment are on The Road now. Our long-term unemployed will soon be on The Road.
The most striking metaphor in the film is the mansion that the father and son happen upon. That mansion is the myth of amerika. The cellar is the reality!
We are dupes of dopes. We are led by fools. The Road shows where that leadership leads. The Road also shows us what happens when we tire of that leadership and put it down like a rabid dog. The Road shows us the ending of the myth of amerikan civilization. And, to that end, The Road is a parable of justice. What a tough justice it is. But then, who said justice would be a sunny day at the beach? Unironically, The Road gives resonance to our next ‘great leader’, sarah pallin’s, remark: “We eat therefore we hunt.”
bon appétit!
Wednesday, December 16, 2009
Thursday, November 26, 2009
On the Precipice of War
And so, we stand on the precipice yet again. It seems that no Democratic president can resist the bait of republicans to shed the blood of American citizens for some lost cause. Obama’s presidency will be effectively over with the committal of 40,000 more troops to Afghanistan because these troops will be quickly neutralized and some American general will call for more. Obama will not be able to resist the logic of ‘we’ve already sent in so many, that if we pull out now, all will be in vain’. Like Johnson, Obama will fear being the first president to lose a war to an ideology and like Johnson, he will find that ‘guns and butter’ don’t mix.
Obama may think that sending more troops to Afghanistan will placate the republicans, but it won’t. The minute anything goes wrong with McChrystal’s plan, the republicans will howl for Obama’s blood. And to stop them, he’ll send in more troops. History will write that Obama, as was Johnson, was once a chance for America to have advanced both domestically and in foreign policy; but he was no student of history and lost his country to a part of the world, well schooled in taking down civilizations, that had nothing to lose in spreading the fight all over the world.
So, with Israel and Iran also on the precipice of war, I welcome you to World War IV.
Obama may think that sending more troops to Afghanistan will placate the republicans, but it won’t. The minute anything goes wrong with McChrystal’s plan, the republicans will howl for Obama’s blood. And to stop them, he’ll send in more troops. History will write that Obama, as was Johnson, was once a chance for America to have advanced both domestically and in foreign policy; but he was no student of history and lost his country to a part of the world, well schooled in taking down civilizations, that had nothing to lose in spreading the fight all over the world.
So, with Israel and Iran also on the precipice of war, I welcome you to World War IV.
Tuesday, October 20, 2009
Open Letter to President Obama – Afghanistan
Dear Mr. President,
I hope this letter reaches you in some form or the other. It is extremely important that you not make the major mistake by which your presidency will be defined. It is extremely important that you not make the mistake Lyndon Johnson did in Vietnam.
No not escalate the war in Afghanistan. Listen to your generals and then make the correct decision. Remember, generals are always generals and will opt for war in most situations because that is how they are trained to solve problems. Generals and armies are for destroying countries and their inhabitants. They are not for nation building.
The most important thing you must remember is just one thing.
No matter how long the U.S. military stays in Afghanistan, no matter how many people we kill there (unless we kill everyone), no matter who we coerce, no matter who we ‘pay off’, no matter how clean the next elections are, no matter how good a leader of Afghanistan we put in place, no matter how many Americans are killed, no matter how much money we spend on the war; at the end of the day, we will leave Afghanistan (unless you plan to make it part of the U.S. somehow)! At that point the Taliban and al-Qaeda will return. Why? Because they live there! They raise their children there. And, for every father we kill, for every mother, brother, sister, and cousin we kill; some child will swear a blood oath to take us down!
The countries we are engaged in have much less to lose in an indefinite war than we do. To win, all they have to do is survive. By surviving, they will wear our economy down to third world status, for the majority of Americans. By surviving, they will become heroes to many people at the bottom of the societies in the Islamic world. By surviving, they will become dispersed throughout the Islamic world and more sophisticated in guerrilla technique. And, with access to nuclear munitions, there is no way to estimate what they will be able to do in ten or twenty or fifty years of continuous war with us.
There is only one way out of the quagmire the republicans left for you: Apologize to the Islamic world for what we have done there for the last 50 years. Pledge to help rebuild everything the Western powers have destroyed. Take a neutral approach to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Remove our troops back to the states which will host them. Use current technology, special-forces, and the CIA to contain al-Qaeda as best they can. This is the optimal solution: minimize casualties and economic waste and maximize good will.
Please do not let the republicans determine your foreign policy. They are extremely bad at foreign policy! Please, do not let the three wars we are engaged in (Iraq, Afghanistan, and Pakistan) consume us. We have much to do domestically to recover from the Bush recession. We cannot afford endless war in Asia.
I wish you the best of luck in your endeavors and I hope you maintain the good will of the world, expressed in your Peace Prize.
Sincerely,
jborrow33
I hope this letter reaches you in some form or the other. It is extremely important that you not make the major mistake by which your presidency will be defined. It is extremely important that you not make the mistake Lyndon Johnson did in Vietnam.
No not escalate the war in Afghanistan. Listen to your generals and then make the correct decision. Remember, generals are always generals and will opt for war in most situations because that is how they are trained to solve problems. Generals and armies are for destroying countries and their inhabitants. They are not for nation building.
The most important thing you must remember is just one thing.
No matter how long the U.S. military stays in Afghanistan, no matter how many people we kill there (unless we kill everyone), no matter who we coerce, no matter who we ‘pay off’, no matter how clean the next elections are, no matter how good a leader of Afghanistan we put in place, no matter how many Americans are killed, no matter how much money we spend on the war; at the end of the day, we will leave Afghanistan (unless you plan to make it part of the U.S. somehow)! At that point the Taliban and al-Qaeda will return. Why? Because they live there! They raise their children there. And, for every father we kill, for every mother, brother, sister, and cousin we kill; some child will swear a blood oath to take us down!
The countries we are engaged in have much less to lose in an indefinite war than we do. To win, all they have to do is survive. By surviving, they will wear our economy down to third world status, for the majority of Americans. By surviving, they will become heroes to many people at the bottom of the societies in the Islamic world. By surviving, they will become dispersed throughout the Islamic world and more sophisticated in guerrilla technique. And, with access to nuclear munitions, there is no way to estimate what they will be able to do in ten or twenty or fifty years of continuous war with us.
There is only one way out of the quagmire the republicans left for you: Apologize to the Islamic world for what we have done there for the last 50 years. Pledge to help rebuild everything the Western powers have destroyed. Take a neutral approach to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Remove our troops back to the states which will host them. Use current technology, special-forces, and the CIA to contain al-Qaeda as best they can. This is the optimal solution: minimize casualties and economic waste and maximize good will.
Please do not let the republicans determine your foreign policy. They are extremely bad at foreign policy! Please, do not let the three wars we are engaged in (Iraq, Afghanistan, and Pakistan) consume us. We have much to do domestically to recover from the Bush recession. We cannot afford endless war in Asia.
I wish you the best of luck in your endeavors and I hope you maintain the good will of the world, expressed in your Peace Prize.
Sincerely,
jborrow33
Thursday, October 15, 2009
To The White Separatist Who Called C-SPAN This Morning
this post is to the white separatist who called c-span's washington journal this morning (oct. 15, 2009) to interrupt prof. cornell west with the dumb idea of partitioning 'the country' along racial lines.
it won't work.
first: not all whites want to live in one partition. i assure you that rich white people won't want to be in a 'state' with a majority of poor uneducated white (as they've been called in the past) trash! rich white's live in their enclaves like new england, northern cali., hawaii, and parts of maryland and virginia. the only way poor uneducated whites are wanted in these areas is as a guest worker!
second: you talk about partitioning this land as if it's the white man's land to partition. well...it's not! while whites are in an ongoing process of ripping off the native americans (including native hawaiians), this land remains theirs! your treaties are either bogus or expired, which makes you merely occupiers as you are in iraq and afghanistan. now, you can try to act like colonial brits (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Rhodes_Colossus) and partition the land into separate little 'countries', but look what it got them then (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/First_Anglo-Afghan_War) and look at what its got us now (http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/world/specials/afghanistan/)!
third: there're a lot more racial/ethnic groups in america, than you probably suspect. and they will all want a chunk of 'the country' when you start dividing it up! almost every 'country' in africa and south america and asia has an immigrant minority here. i'm sure nigerian americans will want their own part of the country! and, you can forget 'drill baby drill' if you partition, because anwar will become part of inuit land, and i'm sure they're not so stupid as to let the oil companies come in and tear it up!
no...there's a much easier solution for you white separatists: go back to where ever in europe your people came from in the first place!!!!!!! (although, i doubt they'll have you, given your general financial and educational status as well as your backward politics.) we'll all be happier. (except for the euros!)
if the euros won't take you, then a better idea is a north/south split along political lines. we libs will take everything above the old 'border states' + the union territories + alaska + hawaii and you cons can have the confederacy including tennessee. you separatists can then kick anyone you want out of your 'country' across the border into mexico!
it won't work.
first: not all whites want to live in one partition. i assure you that rich white people won't want to be in a 'state' with a majority of poor uneducated white (as they've been called in the past) trash! rich white's live in their enclaves like new england, northern cali., hawaii, and parts of maryland and virginia. the only way poor uneducated whites are wanted in these areas is as a guest worker!
second: you talk about partitioning this land as if it's the white man's land to partition. well...it's not! while whites are in an ongoing process of ripping off the native americans (including native hawaiians), this land remains theirs! your treaties are either bogus or expired, which makes you merely occupiers as you are in iraq and afghanistan. now, you can try to act like colonial brits (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Rhodes_Colossus) and partition the land into separate little 'countries', but look what it got them then (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/First_Anglo-Afghan_War) and look at what its got us now (http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/world/specials/afghanistan/)!
third: there're a lot more racial/ethnic groups in america, than you probably suspect. and they will all want a chunk of 'the country' when you start dividing it up! almost every 'country' in africa and south america and asia has an immigrant minority here. i'm sure nigerian americans will want their own part of the country! and, you can forget 'drill baby drill' if you partition, because anwar will become part of inuit land, and i'm sure they're not so stupid as to let the oil companies come in and tear it up!
no...there's a much easier solution for you white separatists: go back to where ever in europe your people came from in the first place!!!!!!! (although, i doubt they'll have you, given your general financial and educational status as well as your backward politics.) we'll all be happier. (except for the euros!)
if the euros won't take you, then a better idea is a north/south split along political lines. we libs will take everything above the old 'border states' + the union territories + alaska + hawaii and you cons can have the confederacy including tennessee. you separatists can then kick anyone you want out of your 'country' across the border into mexico!
Monday, October 12, 2009
Film Review: Capitalism—A Love Story
Just viewed ‘Capitalism—A Love Story’ (http://www.capitalismalovestory.com/).
Michael Moore completes his critique of America. What more can be said. Moore clearly shows that America (i.e., the American dream of my childhood) is dead for all of us who have to work for a living at average jobs which pay average wages. Klepto-corporate Amerika (see Citigroup Oct 16, 2005 Plutonomy Report Part 1) is where we live now, and it is an obscenity! (http://moneycentral.msn.com/content/Insurance/P64954.asp) American exceptionalism. America, ‘the greatest country’. America, ‘the land of the free’. All 100% US Bulls Hit! Moore shows that class warfare is real and deadly. Congress is bought and sold. Republicans and Democrats are bought and sold. The White House is nothing but a corporate outhouse. The Fed and Treasury are nothing more than boardrooms of Goldman Suchs (http://www2.goldmansachs.com/ -- oh look, some peasants!).
‘Capitalism’ shows that there are some small rays of hope in a few isolated cases of rebellion against foreclosure and a certain thieving windows company (and its bank—The Bunk Of Amerika), but for the most part, what sticks in the memory, is the face of upper class white male Wall Street indifference. Moore is quite clear in his solution: capitalism must be eliminated! We may not be able to eliminate our corrupt capitalist ruling class (without eliminating ourselves—the working class), but we need never hear their BS lies again.
Michael Moore completes his critique of America. What more can be said. Moore clearly shows that America (i.e., the American dream of my childhood) is dead for all of us who have to work for a living at average jobs which pay average wages. Klepto-corporate Amerika (see Citigroup Oct 16, 2005 Plutonomy Report Part 1) is where we live now, and it is an obscenity! (http://moneycentral.msn.com/content/Insurance/P64954.asp) American exceptionalism. America, ‘the greatest country’. America, ‘the land of the free’. All 100% US Bulls Hit! Moore shows that class warfare is real and deadly. Congress is bought and sold. Republicans and Democrats are bought and sold. The White House is nothing but a corporate outhouse. The Fed and Treasury are nothing more than boardrooms of Goldman Suchs (http://www2.goldmansachs.com/ -- oh look, some peasants!).
‘Capitalism’ shows that there are some small rays of hope in a few isolated cases of rebellion against foreclosure and a certain thieving windows company (and its bank—The Bunk Of Amerika), but for the most part, what sticks in the memory, is the face of upper class white male Wall Street indifference. Moore is quite clear in his solution: capitalism must be eliminated! We may not be able to eliminate our corrupt capitalist ruling class (without eliminating ourselves—the working class), but we need never hear their BS lies again.
Friday, October 9, 2009
Israel vs. Palestine 2
guess i called this one right:
Israeli Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman announced before meeting Mitchell earlier on Thursday that he would tell the envoy there was no chance of a peace deal for many years.
"There are many conflicts in the world that haven't reached a comprehensive solution and people learned to live with it," Lieberman, a hawk in Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's right-leaning coalition government, told Israel Radio.
"Whoever says that it's possible to reach in the coming years a comprehensive agreement...simply doesn't understand the reality," Lieberman said. "He's spreading illusions and in the end brings disappointment."
(http://www.reuters.com/article/topNews/idUSL821569720091008)
it seems to me that this is where we can 'cut em loose'. if the isies aren't going to make a deal with the pals, then the 'gig' is up and they can go their own way. we can then concentrate on that part of the, so called, middle east that is our real national interest, the oil!
shalom!
cluck, cluck, cluck
and, now for an economics lesson:
well...cluck, cluck little duck.
we'll really need a lot more oil as we "rein in spending".
the economic deficit isn't the only deficit in town!
Palin, the former Republican vice presidential candidate and ex-governor of Alaska, launched her dollar criticism on her Facebook page. She linked dollar weakness to U.S. dependence on foreign oil, large U.S. deficits and questions about whether the dollar deserves to retain its vaunted status of reserve currency.(http://www.reuters.com/article/bondsNews/idUSN0854512520091008)
"We can see the effect of this in the price of gold, which hit a record high today in response to fears about the weakened dollar," Palin wrote on Facebook this week.
"All of this is a result of our out-of-control debt. This is why we need to rein in spending, and this is also why we need energy independence."
well...cluck, cluck little duck.
we'll really need a lot more oil as we "rein in spending".
the economic deficit isn't the only deficit in town!
Top ten (pretty good) reasons for President Obama to win The Nobel Peace Prize:
10. Searching for a way to slow nuclear proliferation in Asia.
9. Working with the rest of the world to address Global Warming.
8. Deploying a fairly first rate Secretary of State.
7. Trying to restart the failed Israeli-Palestinian peace process.
6. Starting the stand down in Iraq. (Better late than never.)
5. Clamping down, a teeny-weenie, on the unconstitutional wire-tapping of the American public of the Bush administration.
4. Shutting down the CIA's international rendition-torture-prison program.
3. Attempting to close Guantanamo Bay which is stain upon the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution.
2. Upholding the sanctions against torture in our various codes of conduct.
1. Showing unbelievable forbearance and tolerance and adherence to the American principles of freedom of speech and assembly in not lashing out at the American right wing KKK and smashing them into dust with all the powers an American president can bring to bear against treason in a time of war!
Bravo, Mr. President!
9. Working with the rest of the world to address Global Warming.
8. Deploying a fairly first rate Secretary of State.
7. Trying to restart the failed Israeli-Palestinian peace process.
6. Starting the stand down in Iraq. (Better late than never.)
5. Clamping down, a teeny-weenie, on the unconstitutional wire-tapping of the American public of the Bush administration.
4. Shutting down the CIA's international rendition-torture-prison program.
3. Attempting to close Guantanamo Bay which is stain upon the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution.
2. Upholding the sanctions against torture in our various codes of conduct.
1. Showing unbelievable forbearance and tolerance and adherence to the American principles of freedom of speech and assembly in not lashing out at the American right wing KKK and smashing them into dust with all the powers an American president can bring to bear against treason in a time of war!
Bravo, Mr. President!
Tuesday, September 22, 2009
Israel vs. Palestine
This post has an odd title because Israel is a part of Palestine: a (so called) 'jewish state' carved out of the land of the Palestinians by the big-three and the UN. The odd case of Israel is that it is a part fighting against the whole of which it is a part. Can a part ever prevail over a whole? my guess is: not unless the part gobbles up the whole! And this is what i see the Israelis (isies) doing: gobbling up all of the Palestinian land (worth having) and slowly positioning the Palestinians (pals).
OK, this has been done lots of times in history where a stronger group takes the land of a weaker group (e.g., euros vs. native amers). And, if you don't stop it while it's happening, who's to say, a hundred years later, who was right and who was wrong. But...wait! It is now, and this is happening now. So, who's trying to stop it? amers, euros, chines, nips, Eskimos? Nope. not a one of them. (Well, maybe Jimmy Carter.) Anyone calling for a gasoline embargo against the isies?
No...my guess is: the whole world is going to sit back and watch the Israelis take all of the west bank, take back the beach front, and then shove the pals into a 'homeland' along the Jordanian border in the 'stinkingest' part of the desert they have. (probably downwind of the Israeli nuclear bomb reactors.)
Let's face it, the 'two state solution' was bogus from the start. We can all easily understand that the isies were never going to allow the pals to have a full-up sovereign state (which means loading up on all the weapons they can buy)! The isies will probably wall-off the pals in whatever homeland they give them, so they have no freedom of movement (which means loading up on all the weapons they can buy). Now, the isies might be 'white about it' and allow a full 'right of return' for the pals...to their new homeland!
So, since we all know this, why is Obama wasting his time with these clowns?
Could he have possibly missed the simple to understand point above? Does he know something we don't? I doubt it. The plain and simple fact is that the isies want as much of Palestine as they can get away with grabbing, just like the whites did in the Americas.
We can all understand that, so that's that. Nothing more to be said. Obama should simply walk away from the whole problem. (The Israelis--Netanyouwho--aren't listening to him anyway.) Let the isies work it out with their neighbors. They're smart guys. I'm sure they can handle the problem. Plus, they've got a fine military, great Intel organizations, and NUKES! What more could they want?
The isies don't need us and they certainly don't need our money. The pals and the isie Arabs are tough and have a great birth rate. So, let the 'love' competition begin. We'll see who gets the land in the end (by shear weight of numbers)!
OK, this has been done lots of times in history where a stronger group takes the land of a weaker group (e.g., euros vs. native amers). And, if you don't stop it while it's happening, who's to say, a hundred years later, who was right and who was wrong. But...wait! It is now, and this is happening now. So, who's trying to stop it? amers, euros, chines, nips, Eskimos? Nope. not a one of them. (Well, maybe Jimmy Carter.) Anyone calling for a gasoline embargo against the isies?
No...my guess is: the whole world is going to sit back and watch the Israelis take all of the west bank, take back the beach front, and then shove the pals into a 'homeland' along the Jordanian border in the 'stinkingest' part of the desert they have. (probably downwind of the Israeli nuclear bomb reactors.)
Let's face it, the 'two state solution' was bogus from the start. We can all easily understand that the isies were never going to allow the pals to have a full-up sovereign state (which means loading up on all the weapons they can buy)! The isies will probably wall-off the pals in whatever homeland they give them, so they have no freedom of movement (which means loading up on all the weapons they can buy). Now, the isies might be 'white about it' and allow a full 'right of return' for the pals...to their new homeland!
So, since we all know this, why is Obama wasting his time with these clowns?
Could he have possibly missed the simple to understand point above? Does he know something we don't? I doubt it. The plain and simple fact is that the isies want as much of Palestine as they can get away with grabbing, just like the whites did in the Americas.
We can all understand that, so that's that. Nothing more to be said. Obama should simply walk away from the whole problem. (The Israelis--Netanyouwho--aren't listening to him anyway.) Let the isies work it out with their neighbors. They're smart guys. I'm sure they can handle the problem. Plus, they've got a fine military, great Intel organizations, and NUKES! What more could they want?
The isies don't need us and they certainly don't need our money. The pals and the isie Arabs are tough and have a great birth rate. So, let the 'love' competition begin. We'll see who gets the land in the end (by shear weight of numbers)!
Sunday, September 13, 2009
the Kracker Klown Koalition strikes again!
my god, not back from vacation a hot minute, when the Kracker Klown Koalition (KKK) strikes again: http://www.joetheheckler.com/?gclid=CO3W6f638JwCFVlM5QodLyFKsg ! what a horse's hind parts! i guess Wrong Way Wilson (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PqDKbCwiaVY) is just the Ratpublican Mob party in all it's heckling glory (having nothing of substance to say).
america is coming to an end (again)! (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uqxmPjB0WSs) however, this time, america has become the country of STUPID!! that we elect people like Wrong Way Wilson and Bush shows how stupid we have become. (of course though, black people never vote for these klowns in large numbers...hmmm...wonder if they know something the rest of us don't? are they're smarter??) just hope this place holds together long enough for another trip to utah!
good luck to ya...have a nice day,
more later!
america is coming to an end (again)! (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uqxmPjB0WSs) however, this time, america has become the country of STUPID!! that we elect people like Wrong Way Wilson and Bush shows how stupid we have become. (of course though, black people never vote for these klowns in large numbers...hmmm...wonder if they know something the rest of us don't? are they're smarter??) just hope this place holds together long enough for another trip to utah!
good luck to ya...have a nice day,
more later!
just back from four corners
wow...just back from utah! my god, what a beautiful desert! three days at bullfrog/burr trail, down to page through the upper glen canyon and hite areas, a day at page with a boat trip to rainbow bridge, buckskin gulch (didn't win 'the wave' lotto), and then out through zion with a setting sun turning the utah desert the iconic red butte (or bench as they call them in utah) country. you'll find me camping out around hite or in white canyon (http://www.desertusa.com/mag01/dec/main/white.html) from now on, when i'm there. i'll be doing the 'slick rock' in that area for a while.
Sunday, August 30, 2009
Think On This
Dear readers...while i'm away, think on how much money we've wasted in four areas (hmmm...four corners-of the same thing?) over the last eight years:
I. White MIL budget
II. Black MIL budget
III. War On Drugs
IV. Imprisonment
My guess is, we spent 15 trillion and change. Now, I'll give'em half that for legit purposes, but the rest i believe has just gone down the drain for nothing! (Not to mention the people killed using up the money.) So, by my estimates, we've poured 7.5 trillion right down the toilet. We've spent on this crap right up to the point where we've almost bankrupted our collective selves. And what did we get for all this? A castle? An acre of land? Bin Laden? Less dope headz? Less dope? NOPE!
We got nada, nothing, zip. Just a bunch of useless people working on useless stuff. (Better that they're walking the streets!)
Now, just think of what we'd have if we put 7.5 trillion into NASA over the last eight years? We be on the moon and/or mars! We might even have the capability to mine asteroids.
But, nooo-oh. We can't go to mars. It's too haaard.
Yeah, crap, i'm outta here...see you out in the four corners region!
more on this stuff---later...
I. White MIL budget
II. Black MIL budget
III. War On Drugs
IV. Imprisonment
My guess is, we spent 15 trillion and change. Now, I'll give'em half that for legit purposes, but the rest i believe has just gone down the drain for nothing! (Not to mention the people killed using up the money.) So, by my estimates, we've poured 7.5 trillion right down the toilet. We've spent on this crap right up to the point where we've almost bankrupted our collective selves. And what did we get for all this? A castle? An acre of land? Bin Laden? Less dope headz? Less dope? NOPE!
We got nada, nothing, zip. Just a bunch of useless people working on useless stuff. (Better that they're walking the streets!)
Now, just think of what we'd have if we put 7.5 trillion into NASA over the last eight years? We be on the moon and/or mars! We might even have the capability to mine asteroids.
But, nooo-oh. We can't go to mars. It's too haaard.
Yeah, crap, i'm outta here...see you out in the four corners region!
more on this stuff---later...
August’s Parade of the Dead
August 2009 has been a hell of month for the dead. May they all rest in the states and respective places they have coming. Foremost among them all was my mother and then Teddy Kennedy. Two tireless fighters for civil rights back in the 1960’s. While Kennedy fought in the Senate, my mother fought in the streets. She and her groups, using passive resistance, opened lunch counters and restaurants all over the state in which she lived. They are all to be remembered!
You Ship Of Fools
Oh, you ship of fools.
You have sunk yourselves again.
Sitting on the rocks, you ask…great questions.
Your pundits look bemused.
Your ignorance is too great to question them.
No profundities erupt!
Only a fetid fowl.
You fools you fools you fools.
Your best and brightest have
colluded (again) with your dumbest and their thieves.
To take your fortunes,
and pass them around, laughing to the
clink of flutes and tart of bubbly.
Ahh…life is good.
Your ship is wreck.
Sinking in water you befouled.
Your admirals stand a fore with albatross a hang.
Raven pecks at the portal.
Eyes plucked and driving blind.
You are smashed upon the rocks.
Sinking sin king s i n k i n g…
Your city is a wreck.
Staberinde!
Blasted and hollowed.
Burnt and cored.
Angry mob, abandon ship!
Burn your institutions of freedom.
Blow hard your trumps you fools!
Your sister is letched
On the bone white chair.
You look on.
A grinning crone.
I know your secret.
What do you know?
Who am I to care?
You’ve had it, you fools.
It is over, except for the long fall.
No moon, no mars, no super conductor,
No super collider.
Your 'brainiacs' just produce software toys.
You get no answers to the questions,
too BIG to fall.
In your end you will whine.
All your vain notions of exceptionalism,
will lie smashed in a ditch.
Your struggles will be for naught.
Your thefts will be your legacy.
Close your eyes now.
“Die.”
You have sunk yourselves again.
Sitting on the rocks, you ask…great questions.
Your pundits look bemused.
Your ignorance is too great to question them.
No profundities erupt!
Only a fetid fowl.
You fools you fools you fools.
Your best and brightest have
colluded (again) with your dumbest and their thieves.
To take your fortunes,
and pass them around, laughing to the
clink of flutes and tart of bubbly.
Ahh…life is good.
Your ship is wreck.
Sinking in water you befouled.
Your admirals stand a fore with albatross a hang.
Raven pecks at the portal.
Eyes plucked and driving blind.
You are smashed upon the rocks.
Sinking sin king s i n k i n g…
Your city is a wreck.
Staberinde!
Blasted and hollowed.
Burnt and cored.
Angry mob, abandon ship!
Burn your institutions of freedom.
Blow hard your trumps you fools!
Your sister is letched
On the bone white chair.
You look on.
A grinning crone.
I know your secret.
What do you know?
Who am I to care?
You’ve had it, you fools.
It is over, except for the long fall.
No moon, no mars, no super conductor,
No super collider.
Your 'brainiacs' just produce software toys.
You get no answers to the questions,
too BIG to fall.
In your end you will whine.
All your vain notions of exceptionalism,
will lie smashed in a ditch.
Your struggles will be for naught.
Your thefts will be your legacy.
Close your eyes now.
“Die.”
Monday, August 24, 2009
The Summer of Hate!
This was supposed to be a of ‘summer of love’ (http://www.taossummeroflove.com/calendar/ , http://www.vanityfair.com/online/culture/2009/08/12/the-summer-of-love-2009.html). It didn’t turn out that way.
Summer 2009 has become the summer of angry white republican party mobs roaming the American landscape looking to castrate a feckless president who does not seem able to distinguish friend from foe. In his attempts to ‘tack left’ then ‘tack right’ at strategic points, Obama has ‘come-off’ just looking like a leaf blowing in the wind.
He has backed himself into a corner as he has no friends on the right and he is fast losing what support he could have counted on, on the left (http://theplumline.whorunsgov.com/president-obama/poll-obama-and-congressional-dems-dropping-among-democrats/ ; http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/08/20/AR2009082004305.html?hpid=topnews).
He is a man losing control. Perhaps, this is an important test for anyone who would be president. Their, existential moment.
But, make no mistake about it! The mob knows! The mob can smell it! They can smell the fear of man who has backed himself into a corner. They thrive upon it, revel in it. Obama is coming apart. Just what the 'right' wants.
But, there is more! These republican mobs are not just hostile to the president, they are armed and dangerous!!
With the calls for armed insurrection ringing from the Hill (http://dumpbachmann.blogspot.com/2009/03/another-michele-bachmann-radio-eruption.html) and Obama, in his infinite wisdom, allowing people to come to town halls armed (http://www.baltimoresun.com/news/opinion/editorial/bal-ed.guns21aug21,0,1613427.story), it is only a matter of time before these mobs kill someone (http://crooksandliars.com/logan-murphy/service-employees-union-recieves-viol)!
In being sanguine about all of this, Obama is risking all of us!!! Imagine what would happen in every major city in this country if Obama got shot by some vile and ignorant republican rabble! There would be no safe haven. It would be the Red Summer of 1919 again (http://www.absoluteastronomy.com/topics/Red_Summer_of_1919).
This must stop.
If there is any place that Obama should know he must stand his ground and get tough with the right-wing, it should be to protect his own life! Now, he might view himself as some cross between ‘transformative’ men like Gandhi, King, and Reagan. He might view himself as a martyr.
Well, if you do, Obama, do it somewhere else!!!!!!!!!!!! Try a little walk in the country over in the Helmand valley (take a pipe and a copy of the Rig Vedas-- http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Helmand_Province).
No, he must put us, the American people, before himself!
He must put in place a civil emergency order (as civility is breaking down everywhere these meetings are being held), banning all guns (not in the hands of law-enforcement personnel) from town hall meetings IMMEDIATELY!
Why? Just look who's 'waiting in the wings': (http://enduringamerica.com/2009/04/24/meet-your-next-president-of-texas-mr-chuck-norris/)
yeah, well..."yippie-kai-yay motherf**kers"!
more later...(allah willing and tikrit don't rise)
Summer 2009 has become the summer of angry white republican party mobs roaming the American landscape looking to castrate a feckless president who does not seem able to distinguish friend from foe. In his attempts to ‘tack left’ then ‘tack right’ at strategic points, Obama has ‘come-off’ just looking like a leaf blowing in the wind.
He has backed himself into a corner as he has no friends on the right and he is fast losing what support he could have counted on, on the left (http://theplumline.whorunsgov.com/president-obama/poll-obama-and-congressional-dems-dropping-among-democrats/ ; http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/08/20/AR2009082004305.html?hpid=topnews).
He is a man losing control. Perhaps, this is an important test for anyone who would be president. Their, existential moment.
But, make no mistake about it! The mob knows! The mob can smell it! They can smell the fear of man who has backed himself into a corner. They thrive upon it, revel in it. Obama is coming apart. Just what the 'right' wants.
But, there is more! These republican mobs are not just hostile to the president, they are armed and dangerous!!
With the calls for armed insurrection ringing from the Hill (http://dumpbachmann.blogspot.com/2009/03/another-michele-bachmann-radio-eruption.html) and Obama, in his infinite wisdom, allowing people to come to town halls armed (http://www.baltimoresun.com/news/opinion/editorial/bal-ed.guns21aug21,0,1613427.story), it is only a matter of time before these mobs kill someone (http://crooksandliars.com/logan-murphy/service-employees-union-recieves-viol)!
In being sanguine about all of this, Obama is risking all of us!!! Imagine what would happen in every major city in this country if Obama got shot by some vile and ignorant republican rabble! There would be no safe haven. It would be the Red Summer of 1919 again (http://www.absoluteastronomy.com/topics/Red_Summer_of_1919).
This must stop.
If there is any place that Obama should know he must stand his ground and get tough with the right-wing, it should be to protect his own life! Now, he might view himself as some cross between ‘transformative’ men like Gandhi, King, and Reagan. He might view himself as a martyr.
Well, if you do, Obama, do it somewhere else!!!!!!!!!!!! Try a little walk in the country over in the Helmand valley (take a pipe and a copy of the Rig Vedas-- http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Helmand_Province).
No, he must put us, the American people, before himself!
He must put in place a civil emergency order (as civility is breaking down everywhere these meetings are being held), banning all guns (not in the hands of law-enforcement personnel) from town hall meetings IMMEDIATELY!
Why? Just look who's 'waiting in the wings': (http://enduringamerica.com/2009/04/24/meet-your-next-president-of-texas-mr-chuck-norris/)
yeah, well..."yippie-kai-yay motherf**kers"!
more later...(allah willing and tikrit don't rise)
Tuesday, August 18, 2009
Hell’s Newest Angel
While all men start life innocent of the evils of the world of our making, very few escape them. Some, not only do not escape them, they come to revel in them. For some, these evils ally themselves to a groveling sycophancy by which they are able to raise themselves up in a world seemingly corrupted by nature itself. For these chosen few, treason in the name of ideology is not to be feared, for no courts of connected men will ever find their way to the truth. Then, a way with words becomes commodity. Editions of lies are cut up and pressed between moments of corporate self congratulation. Their influence metastasizes. Success follows. But the social environment becomes a cancer eating away at the organ of self-image. In the end, “making a lot of money and doing very little”, your images are cancelled and you are let go. Stygian waters part, for Hell’s newest angel. (In memoriam: http://www.reuters.com/article/topNews/idUSTRE57H4ZQ20090818).
Sunday, August 16, 2009
The Problem with America & A Solution
THE PROBLEM
The fundamental problem with
I. "Genocide" of the red-man (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Native_American_genocide#Genocide_debate).
II. Enslavement of the black-man (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_slavery).
III. Rape of the environment (both social and physical) (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ecological_impact_of_colonial_Americans_before_1877).
Although one or more of these crimes have been committed in every region of this hemisphere and many other places in the world, the heinous nature of these crimes has been keenly perceived from the beginning of the state that resulted from the revolution against British rule (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_Revolution). These crimes (and others) have divided
The first culture is one that finds no problem with any of the crimes. It has, in fact, enshrined these crimes into the notion of ‘manifest destiny’ where this land and all of its animals and peoples were gifted, by God, to be ruled by peoples of white European (but most particularly, English) descent (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Manifest_Destiny). This culture combines simplistic notions of protestant Christianity with white suprematism and unfettered capitalism.
The second culture (the one I belong to) combines secularism and racial and religious tolerance with the application of capitalism to the establishment of a civil society (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Civil_society) and a social safety net (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Safety_net). The second culture finds great moral and historical issue with these crimes considered ‘manifest destiny’ by the first culture. The second culture sees these crimes as the festering seeds of the destruction of a just and proper American culture. American militarism, jingoism, and racism are seen in the second culture to have roots in these crimes. While, the second culture has attempted to enshrine the Rights Of Englishmen (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rights_of_Englishmen) in the heart of this nation’s political philosophy, all attempts have been compromised due to the other culture in order to hold ‘The Union’ together. This, of course leads right up to the War Between The States (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_Civil_War).
I will (simplistically) call the first culture Conservative America (CA) and the second culture, Liberal America (LA).
Now, the fundamental assertion of this essay is that CA and LA are fundamentally philosophically incompatible. We see this played-out everyday in the news and congress and the courts. We see this currently being played-out over ‘health care reform’. It is easy to predict that ‘health care reform’ will be compromised as have all other legislative attempts to form a greater civil society in American history.
So, how do we deal with this incompatibility?
THE SOLUTION
The solution to most of the current social problems in American is to have CA secede from the
The main problem I see with this arrangement is a security problem brought on by military aggression from the SS. I envision the SS attempting to invade various countries in Latin America as well as staging a take over of
If a partition would work for Israel (Palestine), why wouldn't it work here?
but, of course, ‘the devil is in the details’, so...
more…on that…later!
Tuesday, August 11, 2009
Panetta and the CIA
Either Leon Panetta doesn't know what he is doing or he doesn't know what he's talking about
or he doesn't write these essays.
he writes in "Congress and the CIA: Time to Move On" By Leon Panetta
Sunday, August 2, 2009:
"Last month, at a meeting overseas of intelligence service chiefs, one of my counterparts from a major Western ally pulled me aside. Why, he asked, is Washington so consumed with what the CIA did in the past, when the most pressing national security concerns are in the present? It was a very good question."
actually, it's not a good question at all. it's a question that only a simpleton would ask. why?
because, it's obvious that what the cia has done in the past will affect the world in the future.
consider the iranian revolution that kicked out the cia cronny sha palavi and installed the ayatola Khomeini!
consider the cia's backing of the authoritarian take over of argentina and the cia's assissination of the elected socialist president salvador allende.
consider the cia's role in vietnam and cambodia that lead right up to the victory of north vietnam over the croony stooge governments of the south and the take over of the Khmer Rouge of cambodia and the ensuing slaughter.
consider all of the bloody dictators the cia installed all over africa in the war against communism in the 1960s. that's left nothing but basket-case countries ripe for al-Qaeda.
consider the cia's arming of the al-Qaeda in the war against the commies in afghanistan.
well...you know what that led to!
Panetta writes:
"In its earliest days, the Obama administration made policy changes in intelligence that ended some controversial practices. The CIA no longer operates black sites and no longer employs "enhanced" interrogation techniques."
Oh yeah? Prove it! Panetta can't prove anything. No one working in the intel community can prove anything about what they do because its all classified. This is a very stupid situation. All anyone who leads this community can do is to ask the public to 'trust' them. And why should we? Do they trust us? Do they trust you? (Try getting a job in one of the agencies!)
Panetta writes:
"I recognize that there will always be tension in oversight relationships, but there are also shared
responsibilities. Those include protecting the classified information that shapes our conversations. Together, the CIA and Congress must find a balance between appropriate oversight and a recognition that the security of the United States depends on a CIA that is totally focused on the job of defending America."
How about the cia finding greater transperancy? This idea that "the security of the United States depends on a CIA" is no more than a matter of conjecture! Here I would definitely ask for proof!
Panetta writes:
"The time has come for both Democrats and Republicans to take a deep breath and recognize the reality of what happened after Sept. 11, 2001."
Hey Panetta, that is the question!! What did happen after Sept. 11, 2001?
Panetta writes:
"The question is not the sincerity or the patriotism of those who were dealing with the aftermath of Sept. 11."
Oh yes it is!!!!! These intel types tried to (and probably have) put into place all of the technical apparatus of an authoritarian state. (Chinese, eat your hearts out!)
Panetta writes:
"The country was frightened, and political leaders were trying to respond as best they could. Judgments were made. Some of them were wrong."
Panetta gets one right!
Panetta writes:
"But that should not taint those public servants who did their duty pursuant to the legal guidance provided."
Wait, so is Panetta saying that because these people did their jobs wrong and made bad judgments, they shouldn't be tainted? If not for doing their jobs wrong and making bad judgments, when should they be tainted? For doing their jobs correctly? Is there a CIA award
for doing your job wrong and making bad judgments?
Dear reader, try doing your job wrong and making bad judgments! See what happens to you!
Panetta writes:
"The last election made clear that the public wanted to move in a new direction."
Yes, that's true, but the new direction was not suppose to be the same old 'sweep it under
the rug' of the bush administration.
Panetta writes:
"Intelligence can be a valuable weapon..."
Wait, intelligence can also be used to avoid harm and harming, if you know what you're doing. When was intel 'weaponized'?
"...but it is not one we should use on each other."
tell that to ashcroft.
when an intelligence group is allowed to run counter-intelligence operations and dis-information operations, it's products are going to go everywhere and eventually come back to the home population. These sorts of operations are very hard to 'contain'. start lying and it comes right back to munch your sitter.
Panetta writes:
"As the president has said, this is not a time for retribution. Debates over who knew what
when -- or what happened seven years ago -- miss a larger, more important point: We are a nation at war in a dangerous world..."
Yes, but who are we really at war with? Who made it so dangerous? al-Qaeda or the american right-wing? who's done more damage? who's killed more people? who's running the 'tea bagging parties' and inciting treason and revolt? al-Qaeda or the american right-wing?
Panetta writes:
"Unlike the effort I canceled in June, our present tools are effective, we use them aggressively to go after our enemies, and Congress has been briefed on them."
Prove it! Let's us see how the CIA, NSA, and NRO really work. how about some tours?
Panetta writes:
"I also know that we can learn lessons from the past without getting stuck there. That is what the American people expect. The CIA is ready to do its part."
Panetta is dead wrong here. You never get stuck in the past because an understanding of the past changes the present and changing the present changes what the future would have been without the understanding of the past!
As for what the "American people expect", we really don't expect much out of the CIA. They seem to miss the mark every time. (If the don't, then show us!)
Why is it our public leaders can't think better than high schoolers? my guess is that the 'group think' that goes on in these organizations destroys a person's capabilities to reason on their own, unless that person is extraordinary (which Panetta really isn't). Panetta is just an ordinary guy. Not a bad guy. Not particularly morally courageous. But, this is true of all of the people in the current administration that i'm familiar with.
or he doesn't write these essays.
he writes in "Congress and the CIA: Time to Move On" By Leon Panetta
Sunday, August 2, 2009:
"Last month, at a meeting overseas of intelligence service chiefs, one of my counterparts from a major Western ally pulled me aside. Why, he asked, is Washington so consumed with what the CIA did in the past, when the most pressing national security concerns are in the present? It was a very good question."
actually, it's not a good question at all. it's a question that only a simpleton would ask. why?
because, it's obvious that what the cia has done in the past will affect the world in the future.
consider the iranian revolution that kicked out the cia cronny sha palavi and installed the ayatola Khomeini!
consider the cia's backing of the authoritarian take over of argentina and the cia's assissination of the elected socialist president salvador allende.
consider the cia's role in vietnam and cambodia that lead right up to the victory of north vietnam over the croony stooge governments of the south and the take over of the Khmer Rouge of cambodia and the ensuing slaughter.
consider all of the bloody dictators the cia installed all over africa in the war against communism in the 1960s. that's left nothing but basket-case countries ripe for al-Qaeda.
consider the cia's arming of the al-Qaeda in the war against the commies in afghanistan.
well...you know what that led to!
Panetta writes:
"In its earliest days, the Obama administration made policy changes in intelligence that ended some controversial practices. The CIA no longer operates black sites and no longer employs "enhanced" interrogation techniques."
Oh yeah? Prove it! Panetta can't prove anything. No one working in the intel community can prove anything about what they do because its all classified. This is a very stupid situation. All anyone who leads this community can do is to ask the public to 'trust' them. And why should we? Do they trust us? Do they trust you? (Try getting a job in one of the agencies!)
Panetta writes:
"I recognize that there will always be tension in oversight relationships, but there are also shared
responsibilities. Those include protecting the classified information that shapes our conversations. Together, the CIA and Congress must find a balance between appropriate oversight and a recognition that the security of the United States depends on a CIA that is totally focused on the job of defending America."
How about the cia finding greater transperancy? This idea that "the security of the United States depends on a CIA" is no more than a matter of conjecture! Here I would definitely ask for proof!
Panetta writes:
"The time has come for both Democrats and Republicans to take a deep breath and recognize the reality of what happened after Sept. 11, 2001."
Hey Panetta, that is the question!! What did happen after Sept. 11, 2001?
Panetta writes:
"The question is not the sincerity or the patriotism of those who were dealing with the aftermath of Sept. 11."
Oh yes it is!!!!! These intel types tried to (and probably have) put into place all of the technical apparatus of an authoritarian state. (Chinese, eat your hearts out!)
Panetta writes:
"The country was frightened, and political leaders were trying to respond as best they could. Judgments were made. Some of them were wrong."
Panetta gets one right!
Panetta writes:
"But that should not taint those public servants who did their duty pursuant to the legal guidance provided."
Wait, so is Panetta saying that because these people did their jobs wrong and made bad judgments, they shouldn't be tainted? If not for doing their jobs wrong and making bad judgments, when should they be tainted? For doing their jobs correctly? Is there a CIA award
for doing your job wrong and making bad judgments?
Dear reader, try doing your job wrong and making bad judgments! See what happens to you!
Panetta writes:
"The last election made clear that the public wanted to move in a new direction."
Yes, that's true, but the new direction was not suppose to be the same old 'sweep it under
the rug' of the bush administration.
Panetta writes:
"Intelligence can be a valuable weapon..."
Wait, intelligence can also be used to avoid harm and harming, if you know what you're doing. When was intel 'weaponized'?
"...but it is not one we should use on each other."
tell that to ashcroft.
when an intelligence group is allowed to run counter-intelligence operations and dis-information operations, it's products are going to go everywhere and eventually come back to the home population. These sorts of operations are very hard to 'contain'. start lying and it comes right back to munch your sitter.
Panetta writes:
"As the president has said, this is not a time for retribution. Debates over who knew what
when -- or what happened seven years ago -- miss a larger, more important point: We are a nation at war in a dangerous world..."
Yes, but who are we really at war with? Who made it so dangerous? al-Qaeda or the american right-wing? who's done more damage? who's killed more people? who's running the 'tea bagging parties' and inciting treason and revolt? al-Qaeda or the american right-wing?
Panetta writes:
"Unlike the effort I canceled in June, our present tools are effective, we use them aggressively to go after our enemies, and Congress has been briefed on them."
Prove it! Let's us see how the CIA, NSA, and NRO really work. how about some tours?
Panetta writes:
"I also know that we can learn lessons from the past without getting stuck there. That is what the American people expect. The CIA is ready to do its part."
Panetta is dead wrong here. You never get stuck in the past because an understanding of the past changes the present and changing the present changes what the future would have been without the understanding of the past!
As for what the "American people expect", we really don't expect much out of the CIA. They seem to miss the mark every time. (If the don't, then show us!)
Why is it our public leaders can't think better than high schoolers? my guess is that the 'group think' that goes on in these organizations destroys a person's capabilities to reason on their own, unless that person is extraordinary (which Panetta really isn't). Panetta is just an ordinary guy. Not a bad guy. Not particularly morally courageous. But, this is true of all of the people in the current administration that i'm familiar with.
Wednesday, July 29, 2009
health care reform?
Health care reform? Don't think so. It's not going to happen in our lifetimes. Not here. Why, you ask?
My dear gentle reader, there are many reasons. But, the ones that jump quickly to mind are:
(a) first and foremost—resistance by the Ratpublicans (oops, i meant repubs);
(b) the fact that this is a capitalist society and even medical care must generate a profit;
(c) the unwillingness of the hospitals, AMA, insurance companies, and pharmaceutical companies to be fully transparent (and they have the gall to ask for tort reform);
(d) the power of all of the above's lobby groups; and finally
(e) the lack of grassroots support (Where are all the rallies and marches on Washington to attain 'universal health care coverage'? Where are the ER protests? I went into an ER about a week ago and everyone was just lined up like meek sheep. Looked like they were ok with what they were getting! --Wait till they get the bill!--)
Here's the main issue: Americans are not a ‘folk’ like Danes or Norwegians or even Brits and Canadians.
We do not have the sense of social identity that exists in Denmark, Norway, Britain, and Canada because our social divisions are recent and deep and have not been (dare i say cannot be) mitigated. Just consider the Gates vs. Crawley situation (and have a beer while you're at it).
It's not going to happen.
From the sample of callers to CSPAN’s Washington Journal I've heard every morning this week, it seems that most people with adequate health care insurance are quite comfortable watching those without it deal with the ordeal of the emergency room (at least, up until the time they require emergency treatment). And, there are some, out there, quite willing to forgo health care coverage for themselves in order to insure that no laborer in the U.S. (not fully documented) will have health care! (It would seem that these people have not considered the consequences of an epidemic or endemic under such a policy.)
Bottom line: we're not too smart...or...not smart enough.
You see, doing everything for money is an easy system to construct and convince everyone (who doesn't think too deeply about things) that it's the best system that's ever been created. It (capitalism) doesn't require great moral courage or much intellectual insight or even 'enlightened self-interest'. All it requires is a docile population that will accept a price on everything (from health to justice) and a ruling class (say, a group of established rich and influential families who's wealth goes back to the 18th century and who's children go to all of the best schools and never work in mail rooms) that pays the sheep as little as it can get away with for their labor and charges them as much as they can get away with for the goods and services they create with their labor!
What a system. Ripped-off from two directions at once.
Oh, and lest I forget, the same ruling class buys its way into the highest offices in the government and charges this 'work dependent class', if you will, the maximum taxes it can get away with.
Ripped-off three ways at once!!
And guess what:
Most of these sheeple, getting ripped like this, will not only grin-and-bear-it, they'll send their children off to die in wars started (often, for no good reason) by this ruling class and think themselves 'blessed' when their kids come home just missing a few parts (like a mind).
Wow, what a system of collectivization! The commies never had it so good!!
This must be the greatest system of social control (i.e., country) ever run on a group of workers.
So, you ask yourselves if you're going to get 'health care reform'?
Yeah, you're going to get it.
You're going to get it right where you've always gotten it. Right up your ER!
good luck with that...and...(as always) more later...
My dear gentle reader, there are many reasons. But, the ones that jump quickly to mind are:
(a) first and foremost—resistance by the Ratpublicans (oops, i meant repubs);
(b) the fact that this is a capitalist society and even medical care must generate a profit;
(c) the unwillingness of the hospitals, AMA, insurance companies, and pharmaceutical companies to be fully transparent (and they have the gall to ask for tort reform);
(d) the power of all of the above's lobby groups; and finally
(e) the lack of grassroots support (Where are all the rallies and marches on Washington to attain 'universal health care coverage'? Where are the ER protests? I went into an ER about a week ago and everyone was just lined up like meek sheep. Looked like they were ok with what they were getting! --Wait till they get the bill!--)
Here's the main issue: Americans are not a ‘folk’ like Danes or Norwegians or even Brits and Canadians.
We do not have the sense of social identity that exists in Denmark, Norway, Britain, and Canada because our social divisions are recent and deep and have not been (dare i say cannot be) mitigated. Just consider the Gates vs. Crawley situation (and have a beer while you're at it).
It's not going to happen.
From the sample of callers to CSPAN’s Washington Journal I've heard every morning this week, it seems that most people with adequate health care insurance are quite comfortable watching those without it deal with the ordeal of the emergency room (at least, up until the time they require emergency treatment). And, there are some, out there, quite willing to forgo health care coverage for themselves in order to insure that no laborer in the U.S. (not fully documented) will have health care! (It would seem that these people have not considered the consequences of an epidemic or endemic under such a policy.)
Bottom line: we're not too smart...or...not smart enough.
You see, doing everything for money is an easy system to construct and convince everyone (who doesn't think too deeply about things) that it's the best system that's ever been created. It (capitalism) doesn't require great moral courage or much intellectual insight or even 'enlightened self-interest'. All it requires is a docile population that will accept a price on everything (from health to justice) and a ruling class (say, a group of established rich and influential families who's wealth goes back to the 18th century and who's children go to all of the best schools and never work in mail rooms) that pays the sheep as little as it can get away with for their labor and charges them as much as they can get away with for the goods and services they create with their labor!
What a system. Ripped-off from two directions at once.
Oh, and lest I forget, the same ruling class buys its way into the highest offices in the government and charges this 'work dependent class', if you will, the maximum taxes it can get away with.
Ripped-off three ways at once!!
And guess what:
Most of these sheeple, getting ripped like this, will not only grin-and-bear-it, they'll send their children off to die in wars started (often, for no good reason) by this ruling class and think themselves 'blessed' when their kids come home just missing a few parts (like a mind).
Wow, what a system of collectivization! The commies never had it so good!!
This must be the greatest system of social control (i.e., country) ever run on a group of workers.
So, you ask yourselves if you're going to get 'health care reform'?
Yeah, you're going to get it.
You're going to get it right where you've always gotten it. Right up your ER!
good luck with that...and...(as always) more later...
Sunday, July 26, 2009
Sunday, July 19, 2009
The Wise Latina vs. The Kraker Klown Koalition (Or Why Can’t They Get the Cotton Out?)
Ah gentle readers….what a week for the The Kraker Klown Koalition (aka, KKK)!
What shall we call the Sotomayor nomination hearings, a: swift boating, high-tech lynching?
Whatever we call it, the good ol’boys from ‘the land of cotton’ (Sessions, Cornyn, Kyl, and Graham) took the wise Latina to the wood pile for a little jurisdictional correction. That it came in the form of a good ‘tongue lash’n’ is little different (in intent) than the form it would have taken in ‘the good old days’. However, in this case, what the good ol’boys got in return was a ‘gift wrapping’ in the form of lecture after lecture of finely parsed considerations of the manifold relationships between cases, precedents, legislative prerogative, and the constitution. It was a thing of beauty.
Sessions, Cornyn, Kyl, and Graham looked like churls (see for yourselves -- http://www.c-span.org/Supreme-Court-Sotomayor-Senate-Confirmation-Hearings.aspx). They looked, to your humble writer, like men with neither southern gallantry nor honor. They have shown (yet again) that the repubs are the party of white supremacist in defense of their way of life. Their hatred of Latinos was never so clear.
Further, their notion of supreme court judges as simply judicial umpires is utter nonsense. Supreme court cases involve the review of decisions of other courts and the supreme court is granted the authority of constitutional interpretation. This is not just "calling balls and strikes" (http://www.scotusblog.com/wp/box-score-calling-balls-and-strikes-at-sotomayors-confirmation-hearing/) as Chief Justice John G. Roberts said in the opening remarks of his own confirmation hearings in 2005:
“Judges are like umpires. Umpires don’t make the rules; they apply them. The role of an umpire and a judge is critical. They make sure everybody plays by the rules. But it is a limited role.”
What a simpleton! Or does he think we, the American people, are simpletons?
In any case, with the white guys like Roberts in the judge system, it is highly likely that “a wise Latina woman with the richness of her experiences would, more often than not, reach a better conclusion”!
(go girl!)
What shall we call the Sotomayor nomination hearings, a: swift boating, high-tech lynching?
Whatever we call it, the good ol’boys from ‘the land of cotton’ (Sessions, Cornyn, Kyl, and Graham) took the wise Latina to the wood pile for a little jurisdictional correction. That it came in the form of a good ‘tongue lash’n’ is little different (in intent) than the form it would have taken in ‘the good old days’. However, in this case, what the good ol’boys got in return was a ‘gift wrapping’ in the form of lecture after lecture of finely parsed considerations of the manifold relationships between cases, precedents, legislative prerogative, and the constitution. It was a thing of beauty.
Sessions, Cornyn, Kyl, and Graham looked like churls (see for yourselves -- http://www.c-span.org/Supreme-Court-Sotomayor-Senate-Confirmation-Hearings.aspx). They looked, to your humble writer, like men with neither southern gallantry nor honor. They have shown (yet again) that the repubs are the party of white supremacist in defense of their way of life. Their hatred of Latinos was never so clear.
Further, their notion of supreme court judges as simply judicial umpires is utter nonsense. Supreme court cases involve the review of decisions of other courts and the supreme court is granted the authority of constitutional interpretation. This is not just "calling balls and strikes" (http://www.scotusblog.com/wp/box-score-calling-balls-and-strikes-at-sotomayors-confirmation-hearing/) as Chief Justice John G. Roberts said in the opening remarks of his own confirmation hearings in 2005:
“Judges are like umpires. Umpires don’t make the rules; they apply them. The role of an umpire and a judge is critical. They make sure everybody plays by the rules. But it is a limited role.”
What a simpleton! Or does he think we, the American people, are simpletons?
In any case, with the white guys like Roberts in the judge system, it is highly likely that “a wise Latina woman with the richness of her experiences would, more often than not, reach a better conclusion”!
(go girl!)
Tuesday, July 14, 2009
the queen of ditz
sarah palin is america’s queen of ditz! (long live the queen.) my god is that woman scatter brained:
alaska's mission - to contribute to america. we're strategic in the world as the air crossroads of the world, as a gatekeeper of the continent. bold visionaries knew this - alaska would be part of america's great destiny.
our destiny to be reached by responsibly developing our natural resources. this land, blessed with clean air, water, wildlife, minerals, and oil and gas. it's energy! god gave us energy.
so to serve the state is a humbling responsibility, because i know in my soul that alaska is of such import, for america's security, in our very volatile world. and you know me by now, i promised even four years ago to show my independence... no more conventional "politics as usual".
life is too short to compromise time and resources... it may be tempting and more comfortable to just keep your head down, plod along, and appease those who demand: "sit down and shut up", but that's the worthless, easy path; that's a quitter's way out. and a problem in our country today is apathy. it would be apathetic to just hunker down and "go with the flow".
nah, only dead fish "go with the flow".
no. productive, fulfilled people determine where to put their efforts, choosing to wisely utilize precious time... to build up.
and there is such a need to build up and fight for our state and our country. i choose to fight for it! and i'll work hard for others who still believe in free enterprise and smaller government; strong national security for our country and support for our troops; energy independence; and for those who will protect freedom and equality and life... i'll work for and campaign for those proud to be american, and those who are inspired by our ideals and won't deride them.
i will support others who seek to serve, in or out of office, for the right reasons, and i don't care what party they're in or no party at all. inside alaska - or outside alaska. but i won't do it from the governor's desk.
i've never believed that i, nor anyone else, needs a title to do this - to make a difference... to help people. so i choose, for my state and my family, more "freedom" to progress, all the way around... so that alaska may progress... i will not seek re-election as governor.
and so as i thought about this announcement that i wouldn't run for re-election and what it means for alaska, i thought about how much fun some governors have as lame ducks... travel around the state, to the lower 48 (maybe), overseas on international trade - as so many politicians do. and then i thought - that's what's wrong - many just accept that lame duck status, hit the road, draw the paycheck, and "milk it".
i'm not putting alaska through that - i promised efficiencies and effectiveness! ? that's not how i am wired. i am not wired to operate under the same old "politics as usual." i promised that four years ago - and i meant it.
say what???????????
i guess that means she’s gone for a while! too bad, she was a great spokesman for the repubs. she could really clear the air.
can any of you, my gentle readers, image palin taking the heat that sotomayor is taking during these hearings/lynchings? can any of you imagine palin handling the questions presented with the cool logic sotomayor exhibits?
there’re about a million unkind things that could be said about palin, but i’ll pass due to time constraints.
now, ross douthat’s opines that: “sarah palin is beloved by millions because her rise suggested…that the old american aphorism about how anyone can grow up to be president might actually be true.” (see the NEW YORK TIMES OP-ED MONDAY, JULY 6, 2009)
well that may be true, but if ‘anyone’ hasn’t mastered history, science, philosophy, rhetoric, math, economics, law, and u.s. politics to, at least, an undergraduate level; it is hard to see what they could contribute as president. sarah palin shows no mastery of any of these things. and, if you believe that how a person speaks is some evidence of how they think, then you can easily see how palin would have been an utter disaster as president or even vice president.
(oh, i have not forgotten the king ditz: that eccentrically silly, giddy, and inane old man…who suspended a presidential campaign—for a day or two—to solve an economic crisis. what a hero!)
more…later…
alaska's mission - to contribute to america. we're strategic in the world as the air crossroads of the world, as a gatekeeper of the continent. bold visionaries knew this - alaska would be part of america's great destiny.
our destiny to be reached by responsibly developing our natural resources. this land, blessed with clean air, water, wildlife, minerals, and oil and gas. it's energy! god gave us energy.
so to serve the state is a humbling responsibility, because i know in my soul that alaska is of such import, for america's security, in our very volatile world. and you know me by now, i promised even four years ago to show my independence... no more conventional "politics as usual".
life is too short to compromise time and resources... it may be tempting and more comfortable to just keep your head down, plod along, and appease those who demand: "sit down and shut up", but that's the worthless, easy path; that's a quitter's way out. and a problem in our country today is apathy. it would be apathetic to just hunker down and "go with the flow".
nah, only dead fish "go with the flow".
no. productive, fulfilled people determine where to put their efforts, choosing to wisely utilize precious time... to build up.
and there is such a need to build up and fight for our state and our country. i choose to fight for it! and i'll work hard for others who still believe in free enterprise and smaller government; strong national security for our country and support for our troops; energy independence; and for those who will protect freedom and equality and life... i'll work for and campaign for those proud to be american, and those who are inspired by our ideals and won't deride them.
i will support others who seek to serve, in or out of office, for the right reasons, and i don't care what party they're in or no party at all. inside alaska - or outside alaska. but i won't do it from the governor's desk.
i've never believed that i, nor anyone else, needs a title to do this - to make a difference... to help people. so i choose, for my state and my family, more "freedom" to progress, all the way around... so that alaska may progress... i will not seek re-election as governor.
and so as i thought about this announcement that i wouldn't run for re-election and what it means for alaska, i thought about how much fun some governors have as lame ducks... travel around the state, to the lower 48 (maybe), overseas on international trade - as so many politicians do. and then i thought - that's what's wrong - many just accept that lame duck status, hit the road, draw the paycheck, and "milk it".
i'm not putting alaska through that - i promised efficiencies and effectiveness! ? that's not how i am wired. i am not wired to operate under the same old "politics as usual." i promised that four years ago - and i meant it.
say what???????????
i guess that means she’s gone for a while! too bad, she was a great spokesman for the repubs. she could really clear the air.
can any of you, my gentle readers, image palin taking the heat that sotomayor is taking during these hearings/lynchings? can any of you imagine palin handling the questions presented with the cool logic sotomayor exhibits?
there’re about a million unkind things that could be said about palin, but i’ll pass due to time constraints.
now, ross douthat’s opines that: “sarah palin is beloved by millions because her rise suggested…that the old american aphorism about how anyone can grow up to be president might actually be true.” (see the NEW YORK TIMES OP-ED MONDAY, JULY 6, 2009)
well that may be true, but if ‘anyone’ hasn’t mastered history, science, philosophy, rhetoric, math, economics, law, and u.s. politics to, at least, an undergraduate level; it is hard to see what they could contribute as president. sarah palin shows no mastery of any of these things. and, if you believe that how a person speaks is some evidence of how they think, then you can easily see how palin would have been an utter disaster as president or even vice president.
(oh, i have not forgotten the king ditz: that eccentrically silly, giddy, and inane old man…who suspended a presidential campaign—for a day or two—to solve an economic crisis. what a hero!)
more…later…
Saturday, June 27, 2009
Metro Control System Fails Test
surprise...surprise: "Metro Control System Fails Test: Technology Should Have Averted Crash" (the washington post, 06/26/2009).
hmmmm...wonder why...
hmmmm...wonder why...
Thursday, June 25, 2009
all systems go(ne)!
my friends, two disasters in one month: the air france airbus 300 (http://www.reuters.com/article/domesticNews/idUSTRE55O6P120090626) and the washington d.c. metro crash (http://www.reuters.com/article/latestCrisis/idUSN23529575).
what gives?
the corporations and governments have no answers. what they do know, they seem to be (as always) covering up.
so...let me venture an answer as to how these wrecks occur: software.
we are not yet in an age where software (s/w) should be allowed to handle the operation of aircraft and train systems or any other systems that can accidentally maim and kill people! yes, i know: s/w can handle such systems under most conditions and most of the time they operate as expected.
but, do they? how would anyone know? how can it be 'proven'? (probability and statistics doesn't 'prove' anything about how systems will work in the real-world! the infinitesimal probability of a thousand heads in a row for an honest coin doesn't 'prove' that outcome won't occur. and it has nothing to say, when it does occur!)
so, what happens when the conditions are drastically different from what some s/w is programmed to handle? or, what happens when the s/w errors? or, what happens when some hacker who knows the frailties of some system, takes advantage of them?
i submit to you that there is no s/w that can gracefully degrade in these situations.
when conditions drastically depart from what some s/w is programmed to handle, the best that can be done is to send the s/w into a 'safe mode' where it continues to run in a type of diagnostic mode after putting the thing it is handling into a 'safety' mode of operation (satellites do this often). however, what happens when an aircraft is being tossed around by storm? any 'safety' mode for that?
as for error and hacking, when those occur, that's it. the execution stream is corrupted and the system is going to do unexpected things. all system developers can do is try to prevent errors and hacks.
now, dear reader, you may or may not know that the metro subway system in d.c. is run by s/w. the operator is just in the car to override the s/w in certain situations (like when some tourist gets caught in the doors when they are closing). in normal circumstances, the trains start and stop and move between A and B under s/w control.
but what would happen if the s/w had errors in it that would cause a train NOT to stop or simply allow a train to go on its merry way with no control? and how would we know if some s/w had or didn't have such an 'error' in it? (we would call these, errors, right?) well...we wouldn't know! why? because of the way s/w is created today.
having over 30 years programming experience in a variety of languages and contexts AND having worked with some of the managers of the metro control s/w a long time ago, i can tell you that the philosophy under which that system (and most others) are developed is one of: just get it done, then test it! in other words: minimal or no design (certainly not a mathematically rigorous design with proof of correctness), sloppy (i.e., non-structured) 1970s style programming, and 'seat-of-the-pants' testing.
(at least that was the impression i got from what they told me and how they wanted things done on what we were working on at the time!) now, why did they hold the philosophy they held? because developing s/w any other way is way too expensive (and at the end of the day, s/w development is a business).
i remember telling those managers that doing things the way the were doing it
guaranteed disaster. why? because: a jumble of code (1970s style...and i've done my share), minimally documented, soon becomes opaque to anyone but the actual programmer and often to the actual programmer as well. beyond a certain threshold number of lines of code (depending on the language) the whole system becomes a big unknown to everyone involved. a development team will then break-up into groups having differing opinions about how and why the s/w works the way it seems to. but no lasting consensus will be possible as new operational 'features' come to the fore as the system is tested or used. (the irs tax calulation system is very much in this state, right now!)
in addition, i had learned that testing such a s/w jumble and then adding fixes doesn't work because adding fixes has a certain probability of introducing errors itself. so, you could end up in an infinite regress of testing and fixing.
but most damning of all is that testing s/w jumbles can only find errors that show up often enough and make gross enough errors to be detected.
when a test methodology has eliminated errors (that can be detected) that have a frequency of about 1/week, most teams call the testing 'a wrap'. they then go into 'maintenance mode' where they fix an error when they find an error! yikes, will this prevent me from getting turned into hamburger on the information superhighway? don't think so.
now, clearly, calling testing a wrap doesn't means the s/w is 'error free'. there is no lower limit on the frequency of errors. an error that only occurs once in the life time of a system could potentially destroy it!
now, it is beyond the scope of discussion here to consider the subtlety of errors. most s/w errors don't bring a system down, but make small contributions (e.g. 'memory leaks') which ultimately bring a system down or make it so slow that it can't keep up with the real-time situation.
i really hammered this one home to the managers, who took it as a personal critique. needless to say, my time with them was short!
the bottom line to all this is simple. software isn't born from an act of love of creation, but as a way to make the rich owners of software companies richer!!!!!!!!!!!
the owners and executives of such companies couldn't give 'a rat's rass' about how correct one program out of the hundreds they are working on at any time is! they are much more concerned with how much insuring each program works as it is supposed to (when given proper--mathematically rigorous--requirements for the s/w...which is rarely the case) would impact their profit margins. i've heard: "can't be done." "who cares?" "it's all too much!" "let the experts work on it...meanwhile, get legal to c.o.a. in any case..."
well...enough for tonite...this is just one of the ways capitalism fails us. i'll go into other ways, as current events dictate.
bye...more...l a t e r...
what gives?
the corporations and governments have no answers. what they do know, they seem to be (as always) covering up.
so...let me venture an answer as to how these wrecks occur: software.
we are not yet in an age where software (s/w) should be allowed to handle the operation of aircraft and train systems or any other systems that can accidentally maim and kill people! yes, i know: s/w can handle such systems under most conditions and most of the time they operate as expected.
but, do they? how would anyone know? how can it be 'proven'? (probability and statistics doesn't 'prove' anything about how systems will work in the real-world! the infinitesimal probability of a thousand heads in a row for an honest coin doesn't 'prove' that outcome won't occur. and it has nothing to say, when it does occur!)
so, what happens when the conditions are drastically different from what some s/w is programmed to handle? or, what happens when the s/w errors? or, what happens when some hacker who knows the frailties of some system, takes advantage of them?
i submit to you that there is no s/w that can gracefully degrade in these situations.
when conditions drastically depart from what some s/w is programmed to handle, the best that can be done is to send the s/w into a 'safe mode' where it continues to run in a type of diagnostic mode after putting the thing it is handling into a 'safety' mode of operation (satellites do this often). however, what happens when an aircraft is being tossed around by storm? any 'safety' mode for that?
as for error and hacking, when those occur, that's it. the execution stream is corrupted and the system is going to do unexpected things. all system developers can do is try to prevent errors and hacks.
now, dear reader, you may or may not know that the metro subway system in d.c. is run by s/w. the operator is just in the car to override the s/w in certain situations (like when some tourist gets caught in the doors when they are closing). in normal circumstances, the trains start and stop and move between A and B under s/w control.
but what would happen if the s/w had errors in it that would cause a train NOT to stop or simply allow a train to go on its merry way with no control? and how would we know if some s/w had or didn't have such an 'error' in it? (we would call these, errors, right?) well...we wouldn't know! why? because of the way s/w is created today.
having over 30 years programming experience in a variety of languages and contexts AND having worked with some of the managers of the metro control s/w a long time ago, i can tell you that the philosophy under which that system (and most others) are developed is one of: just get it done, then test it! in other words: minimal or no design (certainly not a mathematically rigorous design with proof of correctness), sloppy (i.e., non-structured) 1970s style programming, and 'seat-of-the-pants' testing.
(at least that was the impression i got from what they told me and how they wanted things done on what we were working on at the time!) now, why did they hold the philosophy they held? because developing s/w any other way is way too expensive (and at the end of the day, s/w development is a business).
i remember telling those managers that doing things the way the were doing it
guaranteed disaster. why? because: a jumble of code (1970s style...and i've done my share), minimally documented, soon becomes opaque to anyone but the actual programmer and often to the actual programmer as well. beyond a certain threshold number of lines of code (depending on the language) the whole system becomes a big unknown to everyone involved. a development team will then break-up into groups having differing opinions about how and why the s/w works the way it seems to. but no lasting consensus will be possible as new operational 'features' come to the fore as the system is tested or used. (the irs tax calulation system is very much in this state, right now!)
in addition, i had learned that testing such a s/w jumble and then adding fixes doesn't work because adding fixes has a certain probability of introducing errors itself. so, you could end up in an infinite regress of testing and fixing.
but most damning of all is that testing s/w jumbles can only find errors that show up often enough and make gross enough errors to be detected.
when a test methodology has eliminated errors (that can be detected) that have a frequency of about 1/week, most teams call the testing 'a wrap'. they then go into 'maintenance mode' where they fix an error when they find an error! yikes, will this prevent me from getting turned into hamburger on the information superhighway? don't think so.
now, clearly, calling testing a wrap doesn't means the s/w is 'error free'. there is no lower limit on the frequency of errors. an error that only occurs once in the life time of a system could potentially destroy it!
now, it is beyond the scope of discussion here to consider the subtlety of errors. most s/w errors don't bring a system down, but make small contributions (e.g. 'memory leaks') which ultimately bring a system down or make it so slow that it can't keep up with the real-time situation.
i really hammered this one home to the managers, who took it as a personal critique. needless to say, my time with them was short!
the bottom line to all this is simple. software isn't born from an act of love of creation, but as a way to make the rich owners of software companies richer!!!!!!!!!!!
the owners and executives of such companies couldn't give 'a rat's rass' about how correct one program out of the hundreds they are working on at any time is! they are much more concerned with how much insuring each program works as it is supposed to (when given proper--mathematically rigorous--requirements for the s/w...which is rarely the case) would impact their profit margins. i've heard: "can't be done." "who cares?" "it's all too much!" "let the experts work on it...meanwhile, get legal to c.o.a. in any case..."
well...enough for tonite...this is just one of the ways capitalism fails us. i'll go into other ways, as current events dictate.
bye...more...l a t e r...
Saturday, June 13, 2009
for those of you who are cspan wash journal listeners, you might have heard Patrick Byrne, Overstock.com, Chairman & CEO this morning. interesting conversation, especially the part on 'naked shorting'. looks like another big economic scandal who's effects the general public has yet to become aware of. according to Byrne, a trillion plus has been removed from the savings/retirements accounts of the american public via this back door.
every time i think i have a handle on the degree of corruption in this country, a whole new level comes to fore. oh well, take a look at
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Naked_short_selling .
looks like there's some way down this depression of corruption to go. the government needs to take over the banks immediately and oversee every financial transaction the way NSA looks at every email and telephone call. in fact there use to be an organization in rockville, md. to do just that, NASD
http://activecause.com/nonprofit-profile/nasd-regulation-inc/id/3f393d343b36252123
http://news.cnet.com/EDS-snags-NASD-outsourcing-deal/2100-1017_3-226601.html
http://www.crn.com/it-channel/18831833;jsessionid=CTAFPJNDOG2WSQSNDLPSKHSCJUNN2JVN
it was never very successful at catching elaborate frauds though.
oh well...more...later
every time i think i have a handle on the degree of corruption in this country, a whole new level comes to fore. oh well, take a look at
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Naked_short_selling .
looks like there's some way down this depression of corruption to go. the government needs to take over the banks immediately and oversee every financial transaction the way NSA looks at every email and telephone call. in fact there use to be an organization in rockville, md. to do just that, NASD
http://activecause.com/nonprofit-profile/nasd-regulation-inc/id/3f393d343b36252123
http://news.cnet.com/EDS-snags-NASD-outsourcing-deal/2100-1017_3-226601.html
http://www.crn.com/it-channel/18831833;jsessionid=CTAFPJNDOG2WSQSNDLPSKHSCJUNN2JVN
it was never very successful at catching elaborate frauds though.
oh well...more...later
Sunday, June 7, 2009
love of country
conservatives and repubs are always questioning those who don't agree with them as to whether they love their country. while i don't usually give conservatives and repubs the time of day, i find this idea of 'love of country' (particularly loving the usa) somewhat interesting.
what does it mean, to 'love your country'? what does loving a country entail? what does 'your country' or 'my country' mean?
as far as i know, i 'have' no country, in the sense that: i own a country, i command a country, i am in some sense more important than others in some country, or i have some particular stake in the ongoing existence of some country. it seems i was simply born into a particular country (usa) by accident. the tibetan 'book of the dead' doesn't mention the
enlightened bhikkhu choosing a 'country' to be reborn into.
what is a country anyway?
first, a country is (for our purpose of political discussion):
2 a: the land of a person's birth, residence, or citizenship
b: a political state or nation or its territory
(http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/country)
but, what is a ‘state’ or 'nation'? from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nation we have:
a nation is a body of people who share a real or imagined common history, culture, language or ethnic origin, who typically inhabit a particular country or territory.[1] The development and conceptualisation of the nation is closely related to the development of modern industrial states and nationalist movements in Europe in the 18th and 19th centuries,[2] although nationalists would trace nations into the past along an uninterrupted lines of historical narrative.
but then there's also the idea of Benedict Anderson that
nations were "imagined communities" because "the members of even the smallest nation
will never know most of their fellow-members, meet them, or even hear of them, yet in the minds of each lives the image of their communion", and traced their origins back to vernacular print journalism, which by its very nature was limited with linguistic zones and addressed a common audience.[4]
ok, what we have so far is "a real or imagined common history, culture, language or ethnic origin" or "imagined communities" or "conceptualisation...closely related to the development of modern industrial states and nationalist movements in Europe in the 18th and 19th centuries". thus, the idea of ‘nation’ seems to be somewhat of an abstraction of historical coincidence. what's to love in such abstractions?
also from wiki/Nation we have that:
Though "nation" is also commonly used in informal discourse as a synonym for state or country, a nation is not identical to a state. Countries where the social concept of "nation" coincides with the political concept of "state" are called nation states.
so, what then is a 'nation state'? from wiki/Nation:
The nation-state is a certain form of state that derives its legitimacy from serving as a sovereign entity for a nation as a sovereign territorial unit. The state is a political and geopolitical entity; the nation is a cultural and/or ethnic entity. The term "nation-state" implies that the two geographically coincide, and this distinguishes the nation state from the other types of state, which historically preceded it.
what is my relation to “a sovereign entity for a nation as a sovereign territorial unit”?
going back to wiki/Nation we have that:
The cultural nation and the State
A state which identifies itself explicitly as the home of a cultural nation is a nation-state. Many of the modern states are in this category or try to legitimize their existence in this way, although there might be disputes and contradictions as to the appropriateness of this. Because so many of the states are nation-states, the words "nation", "country", and "state" are often used synonymously.
If the cultural nation is conceptualized as exclusively ethnically, and not as requiring a territory, a number of nations without land can be found. A prominent example would be the "gypsy nation". This example shows that cultural nations can exist without having an independent state, and not all independent states are cultural nations. Many independent states are simply administrative unions of different cultural nations or peoples.
Another example of cultural nation without a State of its own are the Jews before the creation of the state of Israel. Furthermore the are peoples like the Kurds, which see themselves as nations without a state. On the other end, one can analyze states like Belgium as consisting of several cultural nations, most prominently Flemish and Walloons. The question of whether the state of Canada harbours one cultural nation or two (English Canadian and Québécois) has been object of political debate as well.
Liberalism and the nation
Liberalism, starting in the 17th century with authors like John Locke was the main philosophical current which alimented systematic theories of nationhood and its political implementations. Opposing the theoretical principles of the Ancien Régime, the 17th century liberals called into question the bases of absolute monarchism, and especally the sovereignty of the monarch. They introduced the concept of "citizen", to replace the older notion of "subject". Furthermore, the sovereignty passed from the hands of the absolute monarch into the hands of the nation. The criteria for nationhood were based on rationalism, individual liberty and equality before the law, largely ignoring ethnical or cultural considerations. Thus, the concept of nation employed was the political nation, and not the cultural nation.
(although, it would seem that conservatives want it the other way around!)--blogger
In the American Declaration of Independence and the Declaration of Human Rights, the requirements for nation formation were the same for everybody. The will of the individuals to constitute a political community was sufficient to form a nation.
this is where the difficulty of loving a nation-state (in particular, the u.s.) begins.
we 'born in the usa' are not a nation-state like denmark as we are not a 'folk' like 'the danes'. Further, the requirements for nation formation were never the same for everybody! Clearly they were different for the three main founding communities: native americans, blacks, and the ruling whites. although we never had 'the Ancien Régime' or 'absolute monarchism' or 'the sovereignty of the monarch' we do have our rulers--the rich--old boy networks from: St. John’s, Andover, Exeter, Choate, Milton, Phillips, Harvard, Princeton, Yale, and Brown. (do you think grads from these schools start in the mailroom or as gs 5's? do you think kids from households earning less than $250K/yr usually get into these schools?) the poeple from these schools really 'have' a country (the usa), in the sense of owning large parts of the best territory, commanding industry and politics, and having a REALLY BIG STAKE in the furtherance of their hegemony!
so, am i supposed to 'love' these people or make the ultimate sacrifice for these people? i am not a part of their community and i feel as much for them as they do for me. no, let THEM die for THEIR country!
now, perhaps i could love a "nation...conceptualized...exclusively ethnically", for example, 'the hippie nation' of the late 1960's in the usa. clearly an entity like the "gypsy nation" or even "the Jews before the creation of the state of Israel." i can also see making the ultimate sacrifice for an ethnic group i closely identify with. for me, that would be scientific non-dualists organized around the principal of 'non-interference' (see david loy [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_Loy] 'nonduality' [http://www.amazon.com/Nonduality-Comparative-Philosophy-David-Loy/dp/1573923591]) in a 'green' high-tech society. but, this is not the situation i find myself in.
i am simply a person who finds himself in this particular country by accident of birth. i have no great wealth or particular stake in the place. i am just passing through. i find this place built on territory 'ripped off' from a relatively defensless peoples, built and grown and maintained by black slaves (up to their recent replacement by latinos), and polluted by a bullshit madison avenue industrial consumer culture.
now, don't get me wrong. i like my laptop, flat screen tv, 200 channels, ipod, utrasones, vintage wines, accela, $200/pers dinners, $500/nite hotel rooms, avery-fisher hall, moma, the met, the gugie, soho, the village, lofts, miami, fort lauderdale, s.f., monterey, carmel, big sur, vermont, new hampshire, florida, and utah. --the middle class-- lifestyle. (don't even think this is close to the lifestyle of --the rich and famous--.) but I do not believe these things require corrupt corporations, a corrupt government, and a corrupt church of lies. these ‘thing’ can be had without f22's (that have no competitors in the sky); billion dollar subs; sdi-star wars (which can't shoot down a real mix of fakes and nukes); useless wars like vietnam and iraq; and bubble-capitalism.
now, am i supposed to ignore all of this and put forth the myth that this is THE BEST COUNTRY IN THE WORLD? i can't and i won't.
this is just another country on its own particular journey through history. it is neither the best nor worst of nations in the world at the moment. but, it has a blighted history and a dim future (see http://4brevard.com/choice/international-test-scores.htm and http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/12/04/AR2007120400730.html and http://www.whitehouseforsale.org/documents/102804offshoring.pdf).
my advice to you, my good reader, is: don't get caught up in jingoism and sent off to some place, only to come back with no legs, arms, feet, eyes, mind, or in a bag. live as much of 'the good life' as you can. do good work. do no harm. do more with that MS than BS! and, party on 'dude'!
more later...
what does it mean, to 'love your country'? what does loving a country entail? what does 'your country' or 'my country' mean?
as far as i know, i 'have' no country, in the sense that: i own a country, i command a country, i am in some sense more important than others in some country, or i have some particular stake in the ongoing existence of some country. it seems i was simply born into a particular country (usa) by accident. the tibetan 'book of the dead' doesn't mention the
enlightened bhikkhu choosing a 'country' to be reborn into.
what is a country anyway?
first, a country is (for our purpose of political discussion):
2 a: the land of a person's birth, residence, or citizenship
b: a political state or nation or its territory
(http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/country)
but, what is a ‘state’ or 'nation'? from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nation we have:
a nation is a body of people who share a real or imagined common history, culture, language or ethnic origin, who typically inhabit a particular country or territory.[1] The development and conceptualisation of the nation is closely related to the development of modern industrial states and nationalist movements in Europe in the 18th and 19th centuries,[2] although nationalists would trace nations into the past along an uninterrupted lines of historical narrative.
but then there's also the idea of Benedict Anderson that
nations were "imagined communities" because "the members of even the smallest nation
will never know most of their fellow-members, meet them, or even hear of them, yet in the minds of each lives the image of their communion", and traced their origins back to vernacular print journalism, which by its very nature was limited with linguistic zones and addressed a common audience.[4]
ok, what we have so far is "a real or imagined common history, culture, language or ethnic origin" or "imagined communities" or "conceptualisation...closely related to the development of modern industrial states and nationalist movements in Europe in the 18th and 19th centuries". thus, the idea of ‘nation’ seems to be somewhat of an abstraction of historical coincidence. what's to love in such abstractions?
also from wiki/Nation we have that:
Though "nation" is also commonly used in informal discourse as a synonym for state or country, a nation is not identical to a state. Countries where the social concept of "nation" coincides with the political concept of "state" are called nation states.
so, what then is a 'nation state'? from wiki/Nation:
The nation-state is a certain form of state that derives its legitimacy from serving as a sovereign entity for a nation as a sovereign territorial unit. The state is a political and geopolitical entity; the nation is a cultural and/or ethnic entity. The term "nation-state" implies that the two geographically coincide, and this distinguishes the nation state from the other types of state, which historically preceded it.
what is my relation to “a sovereign entity for a nation as a sovereign territorial unit”?
going back to wiki/Nation we have that:
The cultural nation and the State
A state which identifies itself explicitly as the home of a cultural nation is a nation-state. Many of the modern states are in this category or try to legitimize their existence in this way, although there might be disputes and contradictions as to the appropriateness of this. Because so many of the states are nation-states, the words "nation", "country", and "state" are often used synonymously.
If the cultural nation is conceptualized as exclusively ethnically, and not as requiring a territory, a number of nations without land can be found. A prominent example would be the "gypsy nation". This example shows that cultural nations can exist without having an independent state, and not all independent states are cultural nations. Many independent states are simply administrative unions of different cultural nations or peoples.
Another example of cultural nation without a State of its own are the Jews before the creation of the state of Israel. Furthermore the are peoples like the Kurds, which see themselves as nations without a state. On the other end, one can analyze states like Belgium as consisting of several cultural nations, most prominently Flemish and Walloons. The question of whether the state of Canada harbours one cultural nation or two (English Canadian and Québécois) has been object of political debate as well.
Liberalism and the nation
Liberalism, starting in the 17th century with authors like John Locke was the main philosophical current which alimented systematic theories of nationhood and its political implementations. Opposing the theoretical principles of the Ancien Régime, the 17th century liberals called into question the bases of absolute monarchism, and especally the sovereignty of the monarch. They introduced the concept of "citizen", to replace the older notion of "subject". Furthermore, the sovereignty passed from the hands of the absolute monarch into the hands of the nation. The criteria for nationhood were based on rationalism, individual liberty and equality before the law, largely ignoring ethnical or cultural considerations. Thus, the concept of nation employed was the political nation, and not the cultural nation.
(although, it would seem that conservatives want it the other way around!)--blogger
In the American Declaration of Independence and the Declaration of Human Rights, the requirements for nation formation were the same for everybody. The will of the individuals to constitute a political community was sufficient to form a nation.
this is where the difficulty of loving a nation-state (in particular, the u.s.) begins.
we 'born in the usa' are not a nation-state like denmark as we are not a 'folk' like 'the danes'. Further, the requirements for nation formation were never the same for everybody! Clearly they were different for the three main founding communities: native americans, blacks, and the ruling whites. although we never had 'the Ancien Régime' or 'absolute monarchism' or 'the sovereignty of the monarch' we do have our rulers--the rich--old boy networks from: St. John’s, Andover, Exeter, Choate, Milton, Phillips, Harvard, Princeton, Yale, and Brown. (do you think grads from these schools start in the mailroom or as gs 5's? do you think kids from households earning less than $250K/yr usually get into these schools?) the poeple from these schools really 'have' a country (the usa), in the sense of owning large parts of the best territory, commanding industry and politics, and having a REALLY BIG STAKE in the furtherance of their hegemony!
so, am i supposed to 'love' these people or make the ultimate sacrifice for these people? i am not a part of their community and i feel as much for them as they do for me. no, let THEM die for THEIR country!
now, perhaps i could love a "nation...conceptualized...exclusively ethnically", for example, 'the hippie nation' of the late 1960's in the usa. clearly an entity like the "gypsy nation" or even "the Jews before the creation of the state of Israel." i can also see making the ultimate sacrifice for an ethnic group i closely identify with. for me, that would be scientific non-dualists organized around the principal of 'non-interference' (see david loy [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_Loy] 'nonduality' [http://www.amazon.com/Nonduality-Comparative-Philosophy-David-Loy/dp/1573923591]) in a 'green' high-tech society. but, this is not the situation i find myself in.
i am simply a person who finds himself in this particular country by accident of birth. i have no great wealth or particular stake in the place. i am just passing through. i find this place built on territory 'ripped off' from a relatively defensless peoples, built and grown and maintained by black slaves (up to their recent replacement by latinos), and polluted by a bullshit madison avenue industrial consumer culture.
now, don't get me wrong. i like my laptop, flat screen tv, 200 channels, ipod, utrasones, vintage wines, accela, $200/pers dinners, $500/nite hotel rooms, avery-fisher hall, moma, the met, the gugie, soho, the village, lofts, miami, fort lauderdale, s.f., monterey, carmel, big sur, vermont, new hampshire, florida, and utah. --the middle class-- lifestyle. (don't even think this is close to the lifestyle of --the rich and famous--.) but I do not believe these things require corrupt corporations, a corrupt government, and a corrupt church of lies. these ‘thing’ can be had without f22's (that have no competitors in the sky); billion dollar subs; sdi-star wars (which can't shoot down a real mix of fakes and nukes); useless wars like vietnam and iraq; and bubble-capitalism.
now, am i supposed to ignore all of this and put forth the myth that this is THE BEST COUNTRY IN THE WORLD? i can't and i won't.
this is just another country on its own particular journey through history. it is neither the best nor worst of nations in the world at the moment. but, it has a blighted history and a dim future (see http://4brevard.com/choice/international-test-scores.htm and http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/12/04/AR2007120400730.html and http://www.whitehouseforsale.org/documents/102804offshoring.pdf).
my advice to you, my good reader, is: don't get caught up in jingoism and sent off to some place, only to come back with no legs, arms, feet, eyes, mind, or in a bag. live as much of 'the good life' as you can. do good work. do no harm. do more with that MS than BS! and, party on 'dude'!
more later...
Friday, May 29, 2009
photo-torture
so…here we go again! more bush-cheney war crime details:
http://www.reuters.com/article/middleeastCrisis/idUSLS172193
http://www.reuters.com/article/worldNews/idUSTRE54S01W20090529
this time, it's electricity and hetero and homosexual rape! (oh…just like a fraternity party?)
of couse, u.s. admin says no:
http://www.reuters.com/article/topNews/idUSTRE54R50K20090528
but, my friends…i suspect this is just one more disclosure and what remains hidden, for the moment: mutilation and murder.
but, obama…obama, with the power of your office…why are you trying to cover up the atrocious nature of the bush-cheney war crimes?
don’t you realize, that in doing this, you make these crimes yours?
the bush-cheney-obama war crimes
don’t you realize that the only way to keep your reputation intact is to let it all out, now?
how can you be such a fool, after the major political victory you pulled off in getting to the white house?
don’t you realize that you will fracture the democratic party?
no one who holds dear, the constitution and the highest of american ideals, should stay in the democratic party with its current leadership. i consider my vote to have been wasted, yet again. there seem to be no dem leaders with enough courage to make a clean break with the bush policies.
so, i will soon leave the democratic party for the green party.
that way, even if my vote never counts for anything ever again, i will feel good about myself (even when i have to hold my nose to vote for dems to keep the repubs out).
but, right now, i feel like i’ve been ravaged, in the unmentionable depths of the posterior abyss.
let us remember the principle war criminals of the iraq-afgahn-pakistan wars:
bush
cheney
rumsfeld
rice
tenet
powell
gonzales
ashcroft
addington
yoo
feith
haynes
bybee
http://www.reuters.com/article/middleeastCrisis/idUSLS172193
http://www.reuters.com/article/worldNews/idUSTRE54S01W20090529
this time, it's electricity and hetero and homosexual rape! (oh…just like a fraternity party?)
of couse, u.s. admin says no:
http://www.reuters.com/article/topNews/idUSTRE54R50K20090528
but, my friends…i suspect this is just one more disclosure and what remains hidden, for the moment: mutilation and murder.
but, obama…obama, with the power of your office…why are you trying to cover up the atrocious nature of the bush-cheney war crimes?
don’t you realize, that in doing this, you make these crimes yours?
the bush-cheney-obama war crimes
don’t you realize that the only way to keep your reputation intact is to let it all out, now?
how can you be such a fool, after the major political victory you pulled off in getting to the white house?
don’t you realize that you will fracture the democratic party?
no one who holds dear, the constitution and the highest of american ideals, should stay in the democratic party with its current leadership. i consider my vote to have been wasted, yet again. there seem to be no dem leaders with enough courage to make a clean break with the bush policies.
so, i will soon leave the democratic party for the green party.
that way, even if my vote never counts for anything ever again, i will feel good about myself (even when i have to hold my nose to vote for dems to keep the repubs out).
but, right now, i feel like i’ve been ravaged, in the unmentionable depths of the posterior abyss.
let us remember the principle war criminals of the iraq-afgahn-pakistan wars:
bush
cheney
rumsfeld
rice
tenet
powell
gonzales
ashcroft
addington
yoo
feith
haynes
bybee
Monday, May 25, 2009
memorial day
by definition, a memorial is something to keep remembrance alive. thus, memorial day is (or at least should be) a day to keep remembrance alive. what that remembrance is, is another thing.
i will remember all wars! i will remember all of those that fought these wars. i will remember all that have died at the hands of those who have fought these wars. i will remember all the resources that have been wasted fighting these wars. i will remember our continual wasting of resources fighting wars. i will remember all those who have died for nothing in bogus wars of choice (vietnam, iraq, the continuing afghanistan war, the pakistan drone war).
i will not raise the flag of any country on memorial day! i will not praise soldiers that have genocided indigenous peoples of the 'new world'. i will not praise soldiers of the u.s. confederacy who fought to maintain the culture of slavery. i will not praise our warrior class who maintain the military-industrial complex and export arms to the world to maintain world-wide-war as an excuse to spend more money on defense (i.e., themselves). i will not praise those who sponsor the murderous dictatorships of the world. i will not praise our idiot philosophy of 'fighting for peace'.
happy memories...
more later
i will remember all wars! i will remember all of those that fought these wars. i will remember all that have died at the hands of those who have fought these wars. i will remember all the resources that have been wasted fighting these wars. i will remember our continual wasting of resources fighting wars. i will remember all those who have died for nothing in bogus wars of choice (vietnam, iraq, the continuing afghanistan war, the pakistan drone war).
i will not raise the flag of any country on memorial day! i will not praise soldiers that have genocided indigenous peoples of the 'new world'. i will not praise soldiers of the u.s. confederacy who fought to maintain the culture of slavery. i will not praise our warrior class who maintain the military-industrial complex and export arms to the world to maintain world-wide-war as an excuse to spend more money on defense (i.e., themselves). i will not praise those who sponsor the murderous dictatorships of the world. i will not praise our idiot philosophy of 'fighting for peace'.
happy memories...
more later
Saturday, May 23, 2009
Nancy Pelosi vs. The CIA
The CIA and all other intelligence groups can never prove anything, ever, because they can’t declassify current intel. They can never prove that anything they’ve done has saved us from any harm! All these agencies can do is ask the public to believe what they say, and there’s no good reason to believe organizations setup to lie and break the laws of other countries, especially when they’re caught committing war crimes.
All Nancy has to do at this point is to clearly call on the CIA to prove it briefed her on water boarding. She need only call for all of the documentation presented at all of the briefings to be declassified, and the whole issue is over!
However, Nancy has stumbled all over this. Now she refuses to say anything, looking guilty as hell. [http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/05/22/AR2009052200339.html] How can she be so slow? How can all of the news orgs be so slow as well? No one (until perhaps yesterday) has challenged the CIA to prove its assertions! We’ve been buried in a pile of nonsense (again) because everyone is too stupid to call for proof. We have dumbed down to the point where we can no longer apply logic to extricate ourselves from simple situations.
Do you see why I named this blog ‘Four Corners’? America always seems to end up at ‘Four Corners’, just to find there’s no there…there.
Wednesday, May 20, 2009
boy of steele
see the boy of steele jump low hurtles faster than a speeding bull****:
http://videocafe.crooksandliars.com/heather/michael-steele-era-apologizing-gop-past-mi
ugh...enjoy...
more later
http://videocafe.crooksandliars.com/heather/michael-steele-era-apologizing-gop-past-mi
ugh...enjoy...
more later
Friday, May 15, 2009
three strikes and yourrr out!
ah...what can i say... by best hopes, drowned... obama, obama...say it ain't so...joe...say it ain't so.
what can you say (or do) when what was once seen as change we could believe in has now become change we might have believed in...
well, we can go to the old ball game! (it is summer, after all)
it's the bottom of the 9th. the bases are loaded. repubs: 4,955 (us soldiers dead in iraq & afghanistan) + 3017 (dead in the world trade center) + unknown numbers of iraqis, pakistanis, and afghanis killed. dems: nothing much (as usual). two down and one to go. obama's at bat.
strike one: continuation of the bush policy of bailing out the banks (i.e., the rich folks, first)
strike two: not prosecuting the people who thought up and executed the bush torture policy (war criminals united)
foul ball: continuing the bush wars
foul ball: sucking up to the repubs
foul ball: hosting a rich peoples' hollywood party during a depression
strike three: covering up more photo evidence of the bush torture policy (see no evil...)
and you'rrrr out (at the old ball game)!
oh well...it was a lopsided score, after all!
arrrgg...more later
what can you say (or do) when what was once seen as change we could believe in has now become change we might have believed in...
well, we can go to the old ball game! (it is summer, after all)
it's the bottom of the 9th. the bases are loaded. repubs: 4,955 (us soldiers dead in iraq & afghanistan) + 3017 (dead in the world trade center) + unknown numbers of iraqis, pakistanis, and afghanis killed. dems: nothing much (as usual). two down and one to go. obama's at bat.
strike one: continuation of the bush policy of bailing out the banks (i.e., the rich folks, first)
strike two: not prosecuting the people who thought up and executed the bush torture policy (war criminals united)
foul ball: continuing the bush wars
foul ball: sucking up to the repubs
foul ball: hosting a rich peoples' hollywood party during a depression
strike three: covering up more photo evidence of the bush torture policy (see no evil...)
and you'rrrr out (at the old ball game)!
oh well...it was a lopsided score, after all!
arrrgg...more later
Friday, May 8, 2009
where does it stop???
well...another day in 'bailout america' and it looks like the geith is at it again (http://www.reuters.com/article/newsOne/idUSTRE54749X20090508):
'After "stress tests" were performed on the 19 largest U.S. banks, the Treasury and the Federal Reserve concluded that 10 of them need to raise a combined $74.6 billion to build a capital buffer to ensure they could keep lending...'
say wha? when did the banks start lending? who're they lending to? each other? don't see too many underwater home owners getting bailed. why is the geith bailing GM/GMAC? GM is a complete loser corp? it's been making crap for years. now, GMAC (the lender of a loser) wants to buyout the other auto making loser:
"GMAC spokeswoman Toni Simonetti said the company was expecting the government to provide new capital soon to allow it to take on the Chrysler business, and said this was separate from any capital-raising it would need to do to raise the $11.5 billion in capital regulators have told it to raise.
'After "stress tests" were performed on the 19 largest U.S. banks, the Treasury and the Federal Reserve concluded that 10 of them need to raise a combined $74.6 billion to build a capital buffer to ensure they could keep lending...'
say wha? when did the banks start lending? who're they lending to? each other? don't see too many underwater home owners getting bailed. why is the geith bailing GM/GMAC? GM is a complete loser corp? it's been making crap for years. now, GMAC (the lender of a loser) wants to buyout the other auto making loser:
"GMAC spokeswoman Toni Simonetti said the company was expecting the government to provide new capital soon to allow it to take on the Chrysler business, and said this was separate from any capital-raising it would need to do to raise the $11.5 billion in capital regulators have told it to raise.
Geithner made clear the government was willing to put a large amount of capital on the line."
oh great, geith...why don't you pay your taxes (on time), then we'll spend some of your money on these losers! he's just pouring our tax dollars into a corporate rat hole.
but, obama seems to be surrounded by rat holes: iraq, afghanistan, pakistan, american corporations, the military, the intel community, the banks, the states, swine flu...
god, where does it stop?
i'll tell you where it (the buck) stops. it stops before it gets to the common guy, the common working man, the guy who get's his taxes taken before he get's his check!
'"Financing is critical to this (restructuring) process, and that requires that GMAC have the ability to provide loans that Americans need to buy cars," Geithner said.'
what's this guy on? who can get a loan for a car? i know i can't! you have to have a perfect credit score.
'While steep job losses continued in April, analysts took heart that the number of jobs lost was the fewest since October, and Geithner also said the data offered some hope.
"They're encouraging in some sense because the rate of decline in the economy as a whole is slowing," he said.'
wow...calculus 101! hey geith, where's the inflection point?
i think we all know that the rate of the decline could still be declining when the percentage of u.s. unemployed goes over 10%. will we still be encouraged (in some sense) then?
we may not know where the inflection point is, but we know what the 'bottom line' is:
100% pure U.S. B.S.
ah, enough...more later!
Friday, May 1, 2009
obama at 100...a new day comin?
first, let me put my politics in plain view. i am a late 1960s liberal of the flower power persuasion.
i detested the eisenhower-kennedy-johnson-nixon vietnam war and the racist-sexist-polluter-corporatist (mad men) society of the time.
naturally then, i considered the reagan-gingrich era another era of social, economic, cultural, and environmental destruction.
the last nine years of republican (repub) hegemony were, simply, the collapse of the philosophic foundation of the right-wing military-business class.
i consider the peak of contemporary american culture to have been when Neil Armstrong stepped onto the surface of the Moon on 20 July 1969. (for a moment the whole world seemed to stop and we seemed to be all one 'mankind'.) after that, although technology has evolved enormously, its been straight downhill. no moon base. no mars. just war war war and trillions spent on war toys. (just think of where we'd be if that money had gone into manned space...)
no...repubs and mad men have left the 'ordinary guy in the street' (e.g., me) with nothing to look forward to but a generational war with the islamic world and a hollowed out post industrial economy.
let's be honest, the future for the working class or anyone without at least an undergraduate degree is going to be grim without traditional unionized factory work.
infrastructure maintenance, fast foods, security, and enlisted military will be the biggest source of working class jobs in the near future. but there will be no job mobility and no way to advance the next generation on service economy wages.
however, before we go down that road, let's enjoy the moment! for the moment, the repubs are finished!
the repubs have no more ideas and no more ‘leaders’ worth serious consideration!
(the corks pop *!*)
in this interregnum, there is a wonderful opportunity to eliminate the whole scaffolding of the military-capitalist-polluter-theocratic society
and replace it with a rational-scientific-ecological society. by ecological i mean both social and physical ecology.
now, if only...there was a leader...
into this gap comes barack obama...44th president of the u.s. congratulations to those of us who had the presence of mind not to go the other way!
grampy & moose girl would have been a real joke. but, perhaps obama is the answer.
it is obvious that he’s a vast intellectual improvement over bush.
from his rhetoric we can feel the compassion missing with the conservative. and yet, now that the voting is over, what remains seems, somehow...lacking? is it 'morning after' blues?
instead of the bold practitioner of the political arts we find a timid, tentative, and seemingly unsure occupier of the office. this is rather
disturbing, given that the dems, as a whole, are a timid and conflicted party (always running scared of the repubs).
what we need now is a clear, clean, and complete break from the repub policies. i think such a break would start with:
(1) nationalizing the banks and underwriting the ‘underwater mortgages’ of people with single homes, who have no history of flipping homes.
(2) using the u.s.-iraq sofa to accelerate our departure from iraq (like the brits).
(3) realizing that there is no win in the afghani-pakistani talibani wars that bush inflamed and getting out of there as fast as possible.
(4) telling israel that its now a big technological power with a first class military and nukes, so it's on its own! good luck and no more handouts!
(5) telling the american people the truth about the u.s. auto industry (and old fashion industry in general): it's dead. no more mass manufacturing of cars on assembly lines, just boutique custom cars with lots of smarts. maybe segway-coffins.
(6) cleaning out the bush repubs remaining in important government positions from which they can undermine his governace.
(7) prosecuting the people who founded the ‘bush torture policy’ (btp), or at least handing them over to the hague if we are too gutless to do the job!
(8) and (i almost forgot), decriminalizing most drugs for adults so we can save money on policing and jailing and warring (with ourselves) and reap the benefits of taxing the stuff, researching the stuff, and enhancing medical techniques with what comes out of the research.
oh well, in summary, obama may not be 'the one' (given his recent comments and policies on all of the above), but he'd better wake up and set a whole new course. (or the dems in congress better make him) because periods of opportunity for big cultural change come rarely and are fleeting (before the next crisis).
on the other hand, obama gets kudos for his changes in: stem-cell, climate, and basic research funding policy!
more later…
i detested the eisenhower-kennedy-johnson-nixon vietnam war and the racist-sexist-polluter-corporatist (mad men) society of the time.
naturally then, i considered the reagan-gingrich era another era of social, economic, cultural, and environmental destruction.
the last nine years of republican (repub) hegemony were, simply, the collapse of the philosophic foundation of the right-wing military-business class.
i consider the peak of contemporary american culture to have been when Neil Armstrong stepped onto the surface of the Moon on 20 July 1969. (for a moment the whole world seemed to stop and we seemed to be all one 'mankind'.) after that, although technology has evolved enormously, its been straight downhill. no moon base. no mars. just war war war and trillions spent on war toys. (just think of where we'd be if that money had gone into manned space...)
no...repubs and mad men have left the 'ordinary guy in the street' (e.g., me) with nothing to look forward to but a generational war with the islamic world and a hollowed out post industrial economy.
let's be honest, the future for the working class or anyone without at least an undergraduate degree is going to be grim without traditional unionized factory work.
infrastructure maintenance, fast foods, security, and enlisted military will be the biggest source of working class jobs in the near future. but there will be no job mobility and no way to advance the next generation on service economy wages.
however, before we go down that road, let's enjoy the moment! for the moment, the repubs are finished!
the repubs have no more ideas and no more ‘leaders’ worth serious consideration!
(the corks pop *!*)
in this interregnum, there is a wonderful opportunity to eliminate the whole scaffolding of the military-capitalist-polluter-theocratic society
and replace it with a rational-scientific-ecological society. by ecological i mean both social and physical ecology.
now, if only...there was a leader...
into this gap comes barack obama...44th president of the u.s. congratulations to those of us who had the presence of mind not to go the other way!
grampy & moose girl would have been a real joke. but, perhaps obama is the answer.
it is obvious that he’s a vast intellectual improvement over bush.
from his rhetoric we can feel the compassion missing with the conservative. and yet, now that the voting is over, what remains seems, somehow...lacking? is it 'morning after' blues?
instead of the bold practitioner of the political arts we find a timid, tentative, and seemingly unsure occupier of the office. this is rather
disturbing, given that the dems, as a whole, are a timid and conflicted party (always running scared of the repubs).
what we need now is a clear, clean, and complete break from the repub policies. i think such a break would start with:
(1) nationalizing the banks and underwriting the ‘underwater mortgages’ of people with single homes, who have no history of flipping homes.
(2) using the u.s.-iraq sofa to accelerate our departure from iraq (like the brits).
(3) realizing that there is no win in the afghani-pakistani talibani wars that bush inflamed and getting out of there as fast as possible.
(4) telling israel that its now a big technological power with a first class military and nukes, so it's on its own! good luck and no more handouts!
(5) telling the american people the truth about the u.s. auto industry (and old fashion industry in general): it's dead. no more mass manufacturing of cars on assembly lines, just boutique custom cars with lots of smarts. maybe segway-coffins.
(6) cleaning out the bush repubs remaining in important government positions from which they can undermine his governace.
(7) prosecuting the people who founded the ‘bush torture policy’ (btp), or at least handing them over to the hague if we are too gutless to do the job!
(8) and (i almost forgot), decriminalizing most drugs for adults so we can save money on policing and jailing and warring (with ourselves) and reap the benefits of taxing the stuff, researching the stuff, and enhancing medical techniques with what comes out of the research.
oh well, in summary, obama may not be 'the one' (given his recent comments and policies on all of the above), but he'd better wake up and set a whole new course. (or the dems in congress better make him) because periods of opportunity for big cultural change come rarely and are fleeting (before the next crisis).
on the other hand, obama gets kudos for his changes in: stem-cell, climate, and basic research funding policy!
more later…
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