Ireland, continued

Wherein Joyce as in James (from POTAAAYM) illustrates a problem faced by all honest Fenians...e.g., objecting to corrupt papists and priests does not imply supporting protestants, scottish ghouls, freemasons and zionists, or the Windsorian whores...

""He threw his fist on the table and, frowning angrily, protruded one finger after another.
—Didn't the bishops of Ireland betray us in the time of the union when Bishop Lanigan presented an address of loyalty to the Marquess Cornwallis? Didn't the bishops and priests sell the aspirations of their country in 1829 in return for catholic emancipation? Didn't they denounce the fenian movement from the pulpit and in the confession box? And didn't they dishonour the ashes of Terence Bellew MacManus?
His face was glowing with anger and Stephen felt the glow rise to his own cheek as the spoken words thrilled him. Mr Dedalus uttered a guffaw of coarse scorn.
—O, by God, he cried, I forgot little old Paul Cullen! Another apple of God's eye!
Dante bent across the table and cried to Mr Casey:
—Right! Right! They were always right! God and morality and religion come first.
Mrs Dedalus, seeing her excitement, said to her:
—Mrs Riordan, don't excite yourself answering them.
—God and religion before everything! Dante cried. God and religion before the world.
Mr Casey raised his clenched fist and brought it down on the table with a crash.
—Very well then, he shouted hoarsely, if it comes to that, no God for Ireland!
—John! John! cried Mr Dedalus, seizing his guest by the coat sleeve.
Dante stared across the table, her cheeks shaking. Mr Casey struggled up from his chair and bent across the table towards her, scraping the air from before his eyes with one hand as though he were tearing aside a cobweb.

—No God for Ireland! he cried. We have had too much God In Ireland. Away with God!
—Blasphemer! Devil! screamed Dante, starting to her feet and almost spitting in his face.
Uncle Charles and Mr Dedalus pulled Mr Casey back into his chair again, talking to him from both sides reasonably. He stared before him out of his dark flaming eyes, repeating:
—Away with God, I say!
Dante shoved her chair violently aside and left the table, upsetting her napkin-ring which rolled slowly along the carpet and came to rest against the foot of an easy-chair. Mrs Dedalus rose quickly and followed her towards the door. At the door Dante turned round violently and shouted down the room, her cheeks flushed and quivering with rage:
—Devil out of hell! We won! We crushed him to death! Fiend!
The door slammed behind her.
Mr Casey, freeing his arms from his holders, suddenly bowed his head on his hands with a sob of pain.
—Poor Parnell! he cried loudly. My dead king!
He sobbed loudly and bitterly.
Stephen, raising his terror-stricken face, saw that his father's eyes were full of tears.""

Whoa. A bit more than Riverdance

Ezra Pound ...en español ...

Con Usura

Con usura no tiene el hombre casa de buena piedra
Con bien cortados bloques y dispuestos
de modo que el diseño lo cobije,
con usura no hay paraíso pintado para el hombre en los muros de su iglesia
harpes et lutz (arpas y laúdes)
o lugar donde la virgen reciba el mensaje
y su halo se proyecte por la grieta,
con usura
no se ve el hombre Gonzaga,
ni a su gente ni a sus concubinas
no se pinta un cuadro para que perdure ni para tenerlo en casa
sino para venderlo y pronto
con usura,
pecado contra la naturaleza,
es tu pan para siempre harapiento,
seco como papel, sin trigo de montaña,
sin la fuerte harina. ....


EP/CantarXLV

Usury

""""There are two sorts of wealth-getting, as I have said; one is a part of household management, the other is retail trade: the former necessary and honorable, while that which consists in exchange is justly censured; for it is unnatural, and a mode by which men gain from one another. The most hated sort, and with the greatest reason, is usury, which makes a gain out of money itself, and not from the natural object of it. For money was intended to be used in exchange, but not to increase at interest. And this term interest, which means the birth of money from money, is applied to the breeding of money because the offspring resembles the parent. Wherefore of an modes of getting wealth this is the most unnatural. """ (Aristotle, Politics)

Bastante, para ahora

CEO of USA-Co

Blankfein, CEO of Goldman-Sachs "does God's work":

""""Blankfein was named as one of "The Most Outrageous CEO of 2009" by Forbes magazine.[4] Taking a different position, Financial Times, which named Blankfein as its "2009 Person of the Year," stated: "His bank has stuck to its strengths, unashamedly taken advantage of the low interest rates and diminished competition resulting from the crisis to make big trading profits."[5] Critics of Goldman Sachs and Wall Street have taken issue with those practices

ANSTEIGEN!


On January 13, 2010, Blankfein testified before the Financial Crisis Inquiry Commission, that he considered Goldman Sachs's role as primarily a market maker, not a creator of the product (i.e., subprime mortgage-related securities).[7] Goldman Sachs was sued on April 16, 2010 by the SEC for the fraudulent selling of a collateralized debt obligation tied to subprime mortgages, a product which Goldman Sachs had created[8]

With Blankfein at the helm Goldman has also been criticized "by lawmakers and pundits for issues from its pay practices to its role in helping Greece mask the size of its debts."[8] Blankfein testified before Congress in April of 2010 at a hearing of the Senate Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations.[improper synthesis?] He said that Goldman Sachs had no moral or legal obligation to inform its clients it was betting against the products which they were buying from Goldman Sachs because it was not acting in a fiduciary role.""""

"The Rational State"

Your semi-annual Herbert "Homie" Marcuse update, Contingencies fans!

""""Hegel’s early political philosophy is reminiscent of the origins of political theory in modern society. Hobbes also founded his Leviathan State upon the otherwise unconquerable chaos, the bellum omnium contra omnes, of individualistic society. Between Hobbes and Hegel, however, lies the period in which the absolutist state had unleashed the economic forces of capitalism, and in which political economy had uncovered some of the mechanisms of the capitalist labour process. Hegel had indulged in a study of political economy. His analysis of civil society got to the root structure of modern society and presented elaborate critical analysis, whereas Hobbes got and used intuitive insight. And even more, Hegel discovered in the upsurge of the French Revolution principles that pointed beyond the given framework of individualist society. The ideas of reason and freedom, of a unity between the common and the particular interest, denoted, for him, values that could not be sacrificed to the state. He struggled all his life to render them consonant with the necessity of ‘controlling and curbing’. His attempts to solve the problem are manifold, and the final triumph goes not to the Leviathan, but to the rational state under the rule of law.



The second Jenenser Realphilosophie goes on to discuss the manner in which civil society is integrated with the state. Hegel discusses the political form of this society under the heading of ‘Constitution’. Law (Gesetz) changes the blind totality of exchange relations into the consciously regulated apparatus of the state. The picture of the anarchy and confusion of civil society is painted in even darker colours than before.

[The individual] is subject to the complete confusion and hazard of the whole. A mass of the population is condemned to the stupefying, unhealthy and insecure labour of factories, manufactories, mines, and so on. Whole branches of industry which supported a large bulk of the population suddenly fold up because the mode changes or because the values of their products fall on account of new inventions in other countries, or for other reasons. Whole masses are thus abandoned to helpless poverty. The conflict between vast wealth and vast poverty steps forth, a poverty unable to improve its condition. Wealth becomes ... a predominant power. Its accumulation takes place partly by chance, partly through the general mode of distribution ... Acquisition develops into a many-sided system which ramifies into fields from which smaller business cannot profit. The utmost abstractness of labour reaches into the most individual types of work and continues to widen its sphere. This inequality of wealth and poverty, this need and necessity turn into the utmost dismemberment of will, inner rebellion and hatred.""""

Though not one of our phavorite philosophical eggheads, Marcuse did know his Hegel.

Meg-o-nomics

Kelly/HuffPo:

""""Okay, so here's what's changed about the justification for the tax cut in the new issue of Meg Magazine.
The first edition read like this:

ELIMINATE THE STATE TAX ON CAPITAL GAINS
California is one of a few states in the country that doesn't tax capital gains at a lower rate than traditional income.

This trick figure comes from the fact that in some states the tax on capital gains can't be lower than the tax on traditional income because they're both zero. Another way to look at this stat: 41 states tax capital gains and traditional income (wages) at the exact same rate. So by "a few" she means 4/5ths.

This is double taxation at its worst.

This is horseshit at its most specious. Everything gets taxed over and over. Meg pays the liar who writes lies for her. That's taxed. He pays the therapist who helps him live with the guilt. That gets taxed. The therapist buys liquor. That gets taxed. Double taxation isn't an economic argument. It's just something Frank Luntz made up one day to mess with Joe the Plumber's head.

California's tax treatment of capital gains is a major impediment to capital formation and investment in new jobs.

For example, if a billionaire didn't have to pay taxes, he could hire you to express his dog's anal glands. And you could pay taxes.

We should align California's tax treatment of capital gains with other competing states.

There's nothing to "align" with. There are no states - not a single one - where they tax income and don't tax capital gains""".

Californians need an update to voting regulations, like a policy altering the vote-day card so as to allow NO notes on any or all candidates: a NO vote should be allowed on e-Meg, and a NO on Jerry Moonbeams, and/or a NOTA vota (Senor NOTA! as in None-of-the-above). When the total NO or NOTA votes outnumber the YES votes, the political process will have been significantly advanced.

* * *


In related news, Chupacabras?.

Our Fearless Leader

The Slavoj Zizek show...

....""""Badiou gives the introduction, and Zizek, sitting in the first row, can hardly remain in his seat. He moves his lips as if he were giving the talk himself. Badiou is an affable, well-dressed elderly gentleman. He doesn't look like an enemy of the state, but more like an easy-going East German pensioner. Negri, who is also sitting on the stage, looks like Badiou's polar opposite. He seems emaciated, as if he had just been released from prison, and not nine years ago. Badiou quotes Mao in his introduction: "Be resolute, fear no sacrifice and surmount every difficulty to win victory."

And just as the audience looks ready to cringe, Zizek interrupts Badiou to quote Samuel Beckett instead: "Try again. Fail again. Fail better." He laughs and looks around to see if anyone is laughing with him.

He can speak more quickly than he can think. He's like a jackhammer. He has published more than 50 books, which have been translated into more than 20 languages. His most recent book, "Living in the End Times," is a 400-page treatise on the demise of the liberal democracy.""""

Guar-ann-teed to scare the fock out of the ordinary American Nephite. Either way, better Beckett than Bad-deux (continuing the ad-slogan philosophastry, mo' Hegel, less Lacan).

Economics, sans "ethics"

And sans pointless number-crunching. A Contingencies Klassic:V for Veblen

"The addiction to sports, therefore, in a peculiar degree marks an arrested development in man's moral nature”


Mo'!

Rev. Chopin

Freddie K, does Freddy C's Etude 10/1: "waterfall". Real music ignites...the bonfire of the vanities.... for that matter [for any people who know something about realmusick] Chopin, house pianist, played jazz harmonies circa 1835, flattened fifths, substitutions, chromaticism, exotic scales and all.

Arguments From Authori-tay

Krugman on Brooks:

"""A quick note on David Brooks’s column today. I have no idea what he’s talking about when he says,

The Demand Siders don’t have a good explanation for the past two years

Funny, I thought we had a perfectly good explanation: severe downturn in demand from the financial crisis, and a stimulus which we warned from the beginning wasn’t nearly big enough. And as I’ve been trying to point out, events have strongly confirmed a demand-side view of the world.

But there’s something else in David’s column, which I see a lot: the argument that because a lot of important people believe something, it must make sense:

Moreover, the Demand Siders write as if everybody who disagrees with them is immoral or a moron. But, in fact, many prize-festooned economists do not support another stimulus. Most European leaders and central bankers think it’s time to begin reducing debt, not increasing it — as do many economists at the international economic institutions. Are you sure your theorists are right and theirs are wrong?

Yes, I am. It’s called looking at the evidence. I’ve looked hard at the arguments the Pain Caucus is making, the evidence that supposedly supports their case — and there’s no there there.

And you just have to wonder how it’s possible to have lived through the last ten years and still imagine that because a lot of Serious People believe something, you should believe it too. Iraq? Housing bubble? Inflation? (It’s worth remembering that Trichet actually raised rates in June 2008, because he believed that inflation — not the financial crisis — was the big threat facing Europe.)

The moral I’ve taken from recent years isn’t Be Humble — it’s Question Authority. And you should too."""

Guru Krugman says...Question Authority, peoples. Even that of the supply-siders, libertarian nutbags, or Liz Cheney's panocha.

Bubba Mehserle's "mistake"

SF Gate:

""The jury deliberated less than seven hours to reach the verdict in the trial of former BART officer Johannes Mehserle for murdering Oscar Grant: involuntary manslaughter. In other words, although the former officer was found guilty of pulling a gun on Grant and shooting him in the back as he lay face down, hand-cuffed, on a platform, the jury did not find that Mehserle had any intent to end Grant's life when he pulled his gun and shot him in the back as he lay handcuffed on the platform, face down, with another officer's knee pushing into in his back.

With this verdict, the jury essentially affirmed their belief that Mehserle, while guilty, had made a "mistake". As someone who has observed juries deliberate, the idea this jury could reach a consensus so quickly in such a complicated case makes me wonder how many of the people sitting in the jury box actually listened to what they heard."""

The mistake was letting Mehserle, a murderer with a badge, walk on 187.

As predicted....

Spain defeats Germany, 1-0. And Contingencies called it.

La Furia Roja's a team, a fast-moving one at that (and will take down Netherlands). Mannschaft's merely a collection of talented individuals (seemed a bit tired according to reports, even if young). The whole is not just the sum of its parts.

Enough to have a Glenn Beck dreaming of an attack of the LAMANITE hordes.

Efficaciousness, continued

The Wonder, Work, and Power Meme

"But what of the thing that the priest promises to the believer, the wholly transcendental "beyond"--how is that to be demonstrated?--The "proof by power," thus assumed, is actually no more at bottom than a belief that the effects which faith promises will not fail to appear. In a formula: "I believe that faith makes for blessedness--therefore, it is true." . . But this is as far as we may go. This "therefore" would be absurdum itself as a criterion of truth.--But let us admit, for the sake of politeness, that blessedness by faith may be demonstrated (--not merely hoped for, and not merely promised by the suspicious lips of a priest): even so, could blessedness--in a technical term, pleasure--ever be a proof of truth? So little is this true that it is almost a proof against truth when sensations of pleasure influence the answer to the question "What is true?" or, at all events, it is enough to make that "truth" highly suspicious. The proof by "pleasure" is a proof of "pleasure"--nothing more; why in the world should it be assumed that true judgments give more pleasure than false ones, and that, in conformity to some pre-established harmony, they necessarily bring agreeable feelings in their train?--The experience of all disciplined and profound minds teaches the contrary. Man has had to fight for every atom of the truth, and has had to pay for it almost everything that the heart, that human love, that human trust cling to. Greatness of soul is needed for this business: the service of truth is the hardest of all services.--What, then, is the meaning of integrityin things intellectual? It means that a man must be severe with his own heart, that he must scorn "beautiful feelings," and that he makes every Yea and Nay a matter of conscience!--Faith makes blessed:therefore, it lies. . . . "(from the AntiKhrist, Mencken's translation)

One could imagine some enthusiastic xtian, like one now bellowing out her support for Sarah Palin (or really, for B.O.), saying something like "I believe that faith makes for blessedness--therefore, it is true." That efficaciousness of faith (to borrow a term from Quine) in a sense suffices for the True Believer, whether in terms of religious faith, or political faith in a sense (e.g., the Teabagger's "faith" in phree enterprise). The Griswold family marches into the First Church of The Redeemer, sings a few hosannas, listens to Pastor Sunday lecture on the Anglicized Gospels, and feels uplifted before getting back in the Yukon and heading towards Carrows, and the kids seem calmer, and well, blessed: what more proof does Pops Griswold need? (Or, similarly, Pops Griswold remembers some advice from a business course instructor--buy low, sell high, etc--, wins on the stock market--ergo, capitalism works...) That's a pragmatist point which the madman Nietzsche understands-- and which the overly analytical skeptic --the Bertrand Russell sort--often has overlooked, regardless of his effective skewering of vague theological concepts.

Freemason day

""The sealed obligation, the drinking of wine from a human skull, is a ceremony not less objectionable. This you know, sir, is the scene, in which the candidate takes the
skull in his hand and says, " As the sins of the whole world were laid upon the head of our Saviour, so may the sins of the person whose skull this once was, be heaped upon my head in addition to my own ; and may they appear in judgment against me, both here and hereafter, should I violate any obligation in Masonry or the orders of knighthood which I have heretofore taken, take at this time, or may be hereafter instructed in ; so help me God,"
— and he drinks the wine from the skull.

And is not this enough ? No. The Knight Templar takes an oath containing many promises —
binding himself under no less penalty than to have his head struck off and placed on the highest spire in Christendom, should he knowingly or willingly
violate any part of his solemn obligation of a Knight Templar. ""

( JQ Adams, Letters on the Masonic Institution)

Mo' Masonic phunn

MANNSCHAFT!

Don't cry for me,Argentina. Aufveedersehen, Maridonna

World Cup: Germany beats Argentina, 4-0

CAPE TOWN, South Africa – Don't mess with Germany, on or off the field.

Miroslav Klose scored twice to move into a tie for second on the all-time World Cup scoring list, and Germany backed up its pre-game trash talk with an emphatic 4-0 rout of Argentina in the quarterfinals Saturday. The dominant display — along with Germany's two other four-goal games — should demand the attention of everyone still playing in South Africa.

"It was absolute class," Germany coach Joachim Loew said.

Hard to argue with that.

Zauber, Zooper Spitze!

Oranje!

Netherlands  crushes Brazilla , 2-1. 

voonderbar
"""


After they conceded, Brazil looked like flawed machine, unable to string together passes or shots. Wesley Schnejder's header—also a product of horrible Brazilian defending from a set piece—instantly turned Dunga's men into 10 nutjobs (Kaka looked like the only competent player on the pitch in blue for the last 25 minutes).

Melo, after conceding the own goal, got sent off for a vicious and needless challenge.

The football purists might mourn the end of Brazil at the World Cup, but no-one's going to miss a side who seemed to enjoy lying on the floor rather than playing the beautiful game. It was Holland who played the game—and now, if Arjen Robben could just realise that there's other people in the park other than himself—this team will be World Cup winners come a week from Sunday.""""' Now, Mannschaft musst defeat Mara-prima donna and his paysanos...

ShriverSpeak

Maria Shriver on....the Ahhts

"Art is fundamental, unique to each of us.


For me, writing allows me to be creative, to be thoughtful and to learn more about myself and those who inspire me. But I also see art in so many other aspects of life: in parenting, in expressing our spirituality, even simply how we dress each and every day.

My husband, Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger, paints to relax. And of course, he loves to act. But he also approached bodybuilding as a form of art, self-expression and communication."

Governator Ahhhnuld, un Belle-artiste!   Zut.  Perhaps a Self-portrait as The Terminator, terminating the California  economy.   Paraphrasing Kierkegaard, the person in despair does not generally know it's in despair.

Halten Zee programz! sez Gov. Girly Mann

"""California begins a new budget year Thursday without a spending plan in place and with no agreement imminent between state legislators and Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger on how to close a $19.1-billion deficit.


State employees and others who depend on government money were bracing Wednesday for the possible fallout. Thousands of state workers took to the Capitol steps, protesting spending cuts and the governor's threat to slash their pay. Community colleges and vendors that do business with the state are on edge, their payments in jeopardy because of the budget delay.


And California's top finance officials warned of further reductions in the state's already woeful credit ratings on Wall Street."""

Discuss an update of Prop. 13, or taxing the salaries of grossly overpaid California corporate executives, perhaps increasing sales taxes on luxury vehicles? No, instead axe day care and schools. Ahhhuldnomics, the politics of those too stoopid for politics. Put a celebrity in a gulag for Jeeezuss.

Mo' on McKhrustal'd

Alex Cockburn

"""Just when Barack Obama's presidency was drowning in BP's crude oil, a megalomaniacal US Army general called Stanley McChrystal, commander of the US-led coalition in Afghanistan, did him several huge favors.

• He took the spotlight off the Gulf of Mexico.

• He gave Obama a marvelous opportunity to act the decisive Commander-in-Chief, packing his insubordinate general into retirement.

• By committing political suicide he created a vacancy for the one general the right wing can't fault Obama for putting in his place - Gen David Petraeus.

Weeks before McChrystal and his drunken retinue fired from the lip, pouring their contempt for Obama and his top Afghan advisors into the notebook of Rolling Stone reporter Michael Hastings, the writing was on the wall. A steady stream of leaks from the Pentagon registered dissatisfaction among the top Pentagon brass at the way the war in Afghanistan was going.

Last year McChrystal courted immediate dismissal by publicly daring Obama to deny him the extra troops he demanded to instrument the counter-insurgency strategy he pledged would vanquish the Taliban, win over the Afghan people and allow Obama to promise liberal critics of the Afghan war he'd have the troops out by 2011.

Obama had the opportunity then to emulate Harry Truman's famous firing of World War Two hero Gen Douglas MacArthur for insubordination. But Obama blinked. He gave McChrystal almost exactly what he wanted....."

When bereft of blog, Bounce

(guar-ann-teed to scare the fock out of the average WASP, zionist, or mormonic POS)

Bonus/malus

Germany 4, Anglo-land, 1.


"Die Kelten, beiläufig gesagt, waren durchaus eine blonde Rasse...."

(from Nietzsche, Genealogy of Morals)

"""In Hinsicht auf unser Problem, das aus guten Gründen ein stilles Problem genannt werden kann und sich wählerisch nur an wenige Ohren wendet, ist es von keinem kleinen Interesse, festzustellen, dass vielfach noch in jenen Worten und Wurzeln, die „gut“ bezeichnen, die Hauptnuance durchschimmert, auf welche hin die Vornehmen sich eben als Menschen höheren Ranges fühlten. Zwar benennen sie sich vielleicht in den häufigsten Fällen einfach nach ihrer Überlegenheit an Macht (als „die Mächtigen“, „die Herren“, „die Gebietenden“) oder nach dem sichtbarsten Abzeichen dieser Überlegenheit, zum Beispiel als „die Reichen“, „die Besitzenden“ (das ist der Sinn von arya; und entsprechend im Eranischen und Slavischen). Aber auch nach einem typischen Charakterzuge: und dies ist der Fall, der uns hier angeht. Sie heissen sich zum Beispiel „die Wahrhaftigen“: voran der griechische Adel, dessen Mundstück der Megarische Dichter Theognis ist. Das dafür ausgeprägte Wort ἐσϑλος bedeutet der Wurzel nach Einen, der ist, der Realität hat, der wirklich ist, der wahr ist; dann, mit einer subjektiven Wendung, den Wahren als den Wahrhaftigen: in dieser Phase der Begriffs-Verwandlung wird es zum Schlag- und Stichwort des Adels und geht ganz und gar in den Sinn „adelig“ über, zur Abgrenzung vom lügenhaften gemeinen Mann, so wie Theognis ihn nimmt und schildert, — bis endlich das Wort, nach dem Niedergange des Adels, zur Bezeichnung der seelischen noblesse übrig bleibt und gleichsam reif und süss wird. Im Worte κακός wie in δειλός (der Plebejer im Gegensatz zum ἀγαϑός) ist die Feigheit unterstrichen: dies giebt vielleicht einen Wink, in welcher Richtung man die etymologische Herkunft des mehrfach deutbaren ἀγαϑός zu suchen hat. Im lateinischen malus (dem ich μέλας zur Seite stelle) könnte der gemeine Mann als der Dunkelfarbige, vor allem als der Schwarzhaarige („hic niger est —“) gekennzeichnet sein, als der vorarische Insasse des italischen Bodens, der sich von der herrschend gewordenen blonden, nämlich arischen Eroberer-Rasse durch die Farbe am deutlichsten abhob; wenigstens bot mir das Gälische den genau entsprechenden Fall, — fin (zum Beispiel im Namen Fin-Gal), das abzeichnende Wort des Adels, zuletzt der Gute, Edle, Reine, ursprünglich der Blondkopf, im Gegensatz zu den dunklen, schwarzhaarigen Ureinwohnern. Die Kelten, beiläufig gesagt, waren durchaus eine blonde Rasse...."

""""the chief instruments of state power...."

From Lenin's State and Revolution:

""""Engels elucidates the concept of the “power” which is called the state, a power which arose from society but places itself above it and alienates itself more and more from it. What does this power mainly consist of? It consists of special bodies of armed men having prisons, etc., at their command.

We are justified in speaking of special bodies of armed men, because the public power which is an attribute of every state “does not directly coincide” with the armed population, with its “self-acting armed organization".

Like all great revolutionary thinkers, Engels tries to draw the attention of the class-conscious workers to what prevailing philistinism regards as least worthy of attention, as the most habitual thing, hallowed by prejudices that are not only deep-rooted but, one might say, petrified. A standing army and police are the chief instruments of state power.""""

Perhaps some egghead should update that classic State & Rev., with something like "A standing army and police are the chief instruments of state power, characteristic of both capitalist and communist nations..."

Should Feds have a Net kill switch?

No.

Lieberman's S.3480 bill sounds so paternal and safe: Protecting Cyberspace as a National Asset Act of 2010. Our Daily Cup of Joe wants to free our "cybercommunity" of "cyberterrorists" by giving our President a "kill switch" to shut down the internet in the name of "cybersecurity" and "cyberdefense."

Listen to this US Senate link yourself and hear Senator Collins hair-on-fire warning, "We cannot wait for a cyber9/11!," and Senator Lieberman's worries about "cyberwarriors," "cyberspies," "cyberbandits," and "cybercriminals."

Jus' say Nyet to J-Edgar Lieberdem, 'fore he and the Demopublicans gulag us.
CIndy/dKos

My Fellow 'Mericans

Alex C./Counterpunch:

The French have a phrase, “He missed an excellent opportunity to keep his mouth shut.” That’s certainly true of Obama last Tuesday when he rolled out a big gun from the arsenal of White House crisis management, an Oval Office address. Excluding FDR’s radio chats of the 1930s, there’s scant evidence across the past forty years that as a venue for rallying the nation, the presidential sanctum did Obama’s predecessors as president much good. In Obama’s case many of his stoutest supporters in the press could say little in its favor. Obama would have been advised to say nothing and leave the nation to the evening's main business, the NBA playoffs.

It was certainly the worst rally-the-nation speech by a US president I’ve ever watched, and that includes Nixon’s cornered-rat addresses of the early 1970s and – an ominous parallel -- Jimmy Carter’s fireside chat on April 1977, four months into his presidency, in the Oval Office promoting his plan for Energy Independence. To dramatize the need for conservation Carter wore a cardigan. He said the crusade for energy reduction was “the moral equivalent of war.” As he said these words he clenched his fist. America was not impressed, but more than they were on Tuesday."""""

Ouch.

No Chaplains on govt. dime (Madison, cont.)

[From James Madison's undated essay “Monopolies, Perpetuities, Corporations, Ecclesiastical Endowments.”]

"""""Is the appointment of chaplains to the two houses of Congress consistent with the Constitution, and with the pure principle of religious freedom?

In strictness the answer on both points must be in the negative. The Constitution of the United States forbids everything like an establishment of a national religion. The law appointing chaplains establishes a religious worship for the national representatives, to be performed by ministers of religion, elected by a majority of them; and these are to be paid out of the national taxes. Does not this involve the principle of a national establishment, applicable to a provision for a religious worship for the constituent, as well as of the representative body, approved by the majority, and conducted by ministers of religion paid by the entire nation.

The establishment of the chaplainship to Congress is a palpable [easily noticeable] violation of equal rights, as well as of constitutional principles. The tenants of the chaplains elected shut the door of worship against the members whose creeds and consciences forbid a participation in that of the majority. To say nothing of other sects, this is the case with that of Roman Catholics and Quakers who have always had members in one or both of the legislative branches. Could a Catholic clergyman ever hope to be appointed a chaplain? To say that his religious principles are obnoxious or that his sect is small, is to lift the evil at once and exhibit in its naked deformity the doctrine that religious truth is to be tested by numbers, or that the major sects have a right to govern the minor.

If religion consist in voluntary acts of individuals singly, or voluntarily associated, and it be proper that public functionaries, as well as their constituents should discharge their religious duties, let them like there constituents, do so at their own expence. How small a contribution from each member of Congress would suffice for the purpose? How just would it be in its principle? How noble in its exemplary sacrifice to the genius of the Constitution; and the divine right of conscience? Why should the expence of a religious worship be allowed for the legislature, be paid by the public, more than that for the executive or judiciary branch of the government?""""

Let me put it to you this way (as Walt Becker might say): while we're not so down with the old flag-waving crackerbarrel Americana, Madison's writing at times approaches philosophy of a sort (and I wager he had read Aristotle,et al along with the Lockean indoctrination). His point contra-govt. and military chaplains remains relevant (even for those who consider all American founders Oppressors). The Fundamentalist churches are well-represented in the US Military; there are probably 20 baptist or presbyterian petty dictators for one priest (or imam, or rabbi). Madison insists correctly that religion should never be decided by vox populi, yet in effect that's what happens by allowing ministers to be apportioned via the numbers of the various factions serving in the military. The reasonable solution would be to eliminate funding for ALL religious functionaries, thus saving on govt. spending, and controlling religious enthusiasm as well.

Professor Palin's thoughts on the Petroleum biz

HuffPo/Dunn:

"""Perhaps the biggest joke being fobbed by Palin to the American public is that she is some sort of expert on energy issues. Sarah Palin isn't an expert on anything -- remember that this is a woman who didn't know the difference between England and Great Britain as she began her not-so-celebrated run for the vice-presidency -- and who quit her governorship after two-and-a-half years of failed leadership and being found guilty of "abuse of power" in the Last Frontier. It's all smoke and mirrors. She is fed a series of talking points by her advisers before each of her punditry appearances and then dishes them out in what my friends in Alaska have dubbed "word salads" -- without the dressing.

O'Reilly lied, too, of course, when he said, "I'm pleased to have you on the program tonight [as] there is not a governor in the United States who has more experience than you do dealing with the oil companies." Sarah Palin? The half-governor? Uh, Alaska isn't even the largest oil-producing state in the union. Texas is, followed by Alaska, California... and you didn't guess it: North Dakota. Is anyone touting current North Dakota governor John Hoeven as a national expert in resource policy? And why does everyone -- including Palin herself -- keep pretending that she is still governor?

As Andrew Halcro, the bright and witty Anchorage based businessman who ran against Palin for governor in 2006, wrote me yesterday: "Listening to Sarah Palin lecture on the oil-and-gas industry is like listening to Bernie Madoff talk about safe investing; zero credibility."""

Credibility?? Who needs credibility with hotlips and a bodacious bod like the hotsexxay Miss Sarah P.

Bloomsday.

"""Mr Leopold Bloom ate with relish the inner organs of beasts and fowls. He liked thick giblet soup, nutty gizzards, a stuffed roast heart, liverslices fried with crustcrumbs, fried hencods' roes. Most of all he liked grilled mutton kidneys which gave to his palate a fine tang of faintly scented urine.

Kidneys were in his mind as he moved about the kitchen softly, righting her breakfast things on the humpy tray. Gelid light and air were in the kitchen but out of doors gentle summer morning everywhere. Made him feel a bit peckish.

The coals were reddening."""


Bloomsday is being celebrated around the world today as fans come together to appreciate James Joyce's classic novel "Ulysses." The book, widely considered to be one of the greatest modern novels ever written, takes place over the span of just one day -- June 16, 1904 -- and follows the musings and adventures of two men living in Dublin, Leopold Bloom and Stephen Dedalus.

Fans are particularly joyous in celebrating Joyce's masterpiece not only because of the book's importance but because the book at its essence celebrates life itself as it is, especially in Bloom's wife Molly's soliloquy."""

The HuffPo hack merely affirms the pop, "bawdy", Rabelaisian interpretation of Joyce's classic Ulysses, says Contingencies. Those adepts who carefully peruse JJ's strange labyrinthe will find little to celebrate (tho' JJ would indulge a comic-erotic mode at times); the essential message of the tome closer to Dante--and thomistic tradition, not to say the Book of Revelation (quien esta La Senora "Molly", realmente?/) -- than to Drs Freud & Co. (yet politically squeaking JJ did not quite join his one-time amigo Ez Pound in praising Il Duce (did he??). Also see the "Cyclops" chapter for the politics of U.--and the pub boyos denouncing Cromwell (and by implication that great prevaricator Johannes Calvin...found residing in, like, raw sewage in one of Pound's cantos))...

Joyce, like Pound, and about any irishmen (apart from WASP skum) detested all things Britannian--and Ulysses itself not lacking anti-semitic aspects-- but he finally broke with catolicos (his people's religion, since like St. Paddy), and objected to the blackshirts (and the more thuggish ones in brown as well...like youse, Bubba!). Joyce may have once even met with...Malatesta's posse).

(oh, and a note to Maxine McSnitch--chinga tu madre, blanca-basura, conservativo, dyslexico mormon)

Soccer = LAMANITE conspiracy, says the Beckster

""Every World Cup, it arrives like clockwork. As sure as the ultimate soccer spectacle brings guaranteed adrenaline and agony to fans across the United States, it also drives the right-wing noise machine utterly insane.


"It doesn't matter how you try to sell it to us," yipped the Prom King of new right, Glenn Beck. "It doesn't matter how many celebrities you get, it doesn't matter how many bars open early, it doesn't matter how many beer commercials they run, we don't want the World Cup, we don't like the World Cup, we don't like soccer, we want nothing to do with it."Beck's wingnut godfather, G. Gordon Liddy also said on his radio program,


"Whatever happened to American exceptionalism? This game ... originated with the South American Indians and instead of a ball, they used to use the head, the decapitated head, of an enemy warrior." ""

Homie G. Gordon--he's gone soft--Futbol's machismo, hombre. Now, maybe they could use Beck's decapitated head. As a Mormonic's he's an Infidel anyway (according to any tradtional criteria...even like Reasonable).  That'd make for an interesting game.  Really, American hicks and rustics detest soccer because it reminds them of all those languages they never learned.  Foo-ootbol??? like why in the f**k ain't the monkeys wearing helmets, or uniforms and pads, Bubba...

Copa Mundial

"""Spain, reigning European champion, has taken over Brazil's mantle as the most entertaining side around. The midfield is packed with smallish, creative passers—led by the magnificent Xavi—who weave intricate patterns and befuddle opponents and, up front, David Villa and Fernando Torres are two of the most prolific forwards in the world. The concern, perhaps, is that Spain's midfielders are all a bit too similar to each other and that, top to bottom, there is a certain lack of size and physicality, which could lead it to get bullied off the pitch by a more muscular opponent.


Nit-picking? Possibly. And it's true that most of the other nations have equally big nits to pick. Argentina is blessed with a boatload of talent up front—two out of Lionel Messi, Diego Milito, Gonzalo Higuaín, Sergio Agüero and Carlos Tévez will likely be on the bench, even though they would be starters for most other teams—and is solid throughout, but coach Diego Maradona is an unknown quantity whose tenure has been marked by erratic choices and volatile behavior (his foul-mouthed rant at reporters after qualifying earned him a suspension from FIFA). Mr. Maradona straddles the line between genius and folly: As a player he clearly leaned toward the genius side; as a coach the jury is most definitely still out.


England, inventor of the game, made Fabio Capello the highest-paid coach in the world in the hopes that his pedigree (nine league titles in 15 seasons) would exorcise the demons of underachievement that have plagued it in the past. Mr. Capello has restored confidence and single-mindedness, but giving the English a top-shelf goalkeeper or depth in attack is beyond even his considerable powers.""'


Though Contingencies would like to see Germany (that is, Die deutsche Nationalmannschaft) go to victory , we predict Espana, La Furia Roja  will prove too fast and furious and defeat Germany or the fairies England (or,  perhaps Argentina in final...long shots Brazilla...or netherlands, ivory coast)

Madame e-Meg --approved by DickDick Cheney!

Casino Politics/Stahl/Counterpunch:

"""All the buzz about the primary results in California, and across the country, tonight are about how this may yet be the "year of the woman," but one thing comes across loud and clear from California, this is certainly the year of the corporations. As of June 8, the Republican nominee for Senate is Carly Fiorina whose name is synonymous with Hewlett Packard. And, in the governor's corner is Meg Whitman, Madame E-Bay.

Consider the irony in a state that is home to the highest foreclosure rate in the country, that has taken twice the amount of government bailout money as Michigan and New York, two of the three states in the top rungs of economic sewage, yes, and in a year which has witnessed a populist revolt against big business, the Republican Party is delivering two candidates, one for governor and the other for the Senate, both of whom are synonymous with big business.

Until 2008, Meg Whitman was the president and chief executive officer of E-Bay, and her Republican Party counterpart in the Senate, Carly Fiorina, was the CEO of Hewlett Packard. And, if the endorsement from Sarah Palin alone isn't enough to make shivers run up and down your spine, think about this. Wasn't it perfect timing for the Supreme Court to conveniently grant corporations the right to free speech just in time for a state governorship to go on the auction block""? 

Psychopathology 101 (continued)

re Civilization and Its Discontents (Freud)

The elderly Freud--his books were being burnt by the nazis the last few years of his life-- had rejected most of his earlier ego-psychology, and shifted his analysis from the hysteria-victims in his parlor to human history and society-at- large:

"Men are not gentle, friendly creatures wishing for love, who simply defend themselves if they are attacked, but that a powerful measure of desire for aggression has to be reckoned as part of their instinctual endowment. The result is that their neighbour is to them not only a possible helper or sexual object, but also a temptation to them to gratify their aggressiveness on him, to exploit his capacity for work without recompense, to use him sexually without his consent, to seize his possessions, to humiliate him, to cause him pain, to torture and to kill him. Homo homini lupus; who has the courage to dispute it in the face of all the evidence in his own life and in history? This aggressive cruelty usually lies in wait for some provocation, or else it steps into the service of some other purpose, the aim of which might as well have been achieved by milder measures. In circumstances that favour it, when those forces in the mind which ordinarily inhibit it cease to operate, it also manifests itself spontaneously and reveals men as savage beasts to whom the thought of sparing their own kind is alien. Anyone who calls to mind the atrocities of the early migrations, of the invasion by the Huns or by the so-called Mongols under Jenghiz Khan and Tamurlane, of the sack of Jerusalem by the pious Crusaders, even indeed the horrors of the last world-war, will have to bow his head humbly before the truth of this view of man."

Jack, Neal, and Russell?

Russell Brand, for BeatCo:

"""Russell Brand turns 35 on Friday, the day Get Him to the Greek, his first starring role in a Hollywood film hits the big screen. He reprises his performance as stoner/womanizer rocker Aldous Snow in the film, a character we first met in Forgetting Sarah Marshall.
Brand, a veteran stand-up comic and British radio and TV show host, once did this splendid, loose and funny BBC documentary celebrating the 50th anniversary of a novel he read at 19, Jack Kerouac’s On the Road. You can watch it in its entirety on Youtube.
For the show, a road trip trek, Brand pointed out how perfect he was for such a documentary. He’d be “doing stuff that I know a bit about, like drugs and sex and living in the moment, good stuff like that.”"""

Kah-razy, daddy--fly-on, into the mad fevered roads of the American night, at least if the shekels are there. Now, classs open your Kerouac reader to page 010101010101010101010

Homegrrl Hypatia

A recent flick, Agora, presents the life of Hypatia, legendary pagan mathematician-philosopher of Alexandria, supposedly killed by early christian zealots:

"Agora,” bristling with ideas and topical provocations, unfolds in a world of togas, sandals and high-flown language, a setting that might lead you to expect camp, classicism or “Gladiator.” What you get, at least in the early scenes, is the story of three young men with a crush on their science teacher. Her name is Hypatia, she is a noblewoman in the Egyptian city of Alexandria — it’s the fourth century A.D., by the way — and since she is played by Rachel Weisz, you can hardly blame them. Hypatia, who is based on a historical figure, pursues the mysteries of the cosmos with dogged dialectical skill and is regarded throughout the city with admiration and awe. One of her slaves, Davus (Max Minghella), visibly pines for her, as does a shy pupil named Synesius (Rupert Evans), and one much less shy named Orestes (Oscar Isaac), who propositions her in the famous library of Alexandria, which she directs. Later he makes a public declaration of his love, and she responds by presenting him with a handkerchief stained with her menstrual blood, a rejection much more blunt than any text message."""

click here for primary sources on the life of Hypatia, as opposed to hype. Guar-ann-teeed to scare monotheistic cowboys of all stripes (ie, christian, jewish, and/or muslim)

Queen Meg

Item: CA-GOP nomination for Governor of California

Price: $150 million. Buy It Now!


Megzilla/CA for sale

"""GOP gubernatorial candidate Meg Whitman is making inroads among Republicans of all stripes, from young voters to born-again Christians, according to the most recent Field Poll released Thursday.

After seeing her lead dwindle in public opinion polls last month, Whitman has surged back to a 26 percentage-point advantage over rival Steve Poizner less than a week before the June 8 primary. ...

"Meg Whitman has spent $90 million, and that's four times more than I'm spending ..." he said. "So people want to know why all the negative advertising? What's the truth? What is Meg Whitman trying to cover up?"""

No Meg

Oil Spill Follies

Back to the proverbial drawing board...and lest we forget BP denied the existence of underwater plumes for a few weeks, until independent researchers/video crews showed otherwise.



(for cutting-edge, PC eco-indignation peruse pas au dela)

Hobbes' ghost

You should read this interesting article on Hobbes penned by one Ann Talbot:

....""""If the ghost of Thomas Hobbes were to board an airplane and head across the Atlantic, he would surely point out to {Corey Robin, hack at The Nation} that men’s politics are determined by their class interests, because that was the lesson that he had learned through hard experience by the time he came to write Leviathan. Hobbes would recognise in Obama a man whose political actions are determined in the most blatant way by the interests of the financial oligarchy.

And what would Robin do if the ghost of Thomas Hobbes came knocking on his door? He would certainly consign him to one of the inner circles of hell, because Hobbes the materialist, Hobbes the determinist, certainly belongs at the very least in a rogues’ gallery of evil Enlightenment figures for academics like Robin who derive their arguments, at several removes, from the theories associated with the Frankfurt School. The diverse and often antagonistic trends in twentieth century thought that spring from the Frankfurt School are often regarded as some form of Marxism, but they owe more to nineteenth century German irrationalism. They were taken up by the radical left in the postwar period and influenced the ensuing waves of postmodern, poststructuralist and deconstructionist thought in more recent years. What is common to them is the desire to trace back all the ills of modern capitalism to the Enlightenment and the Scientific Revolution, to rational thought, to materialism and most of all to determinism.

These irrational anti-Enlightenment traditions of thought are entirely foreign to the ideas of Marx and Engels. Writing of the Renaissance and Scientific Revolution, Engels described the period as “a time which called for giants and produced giants—giants in power of thought, passion and character, in universality and learning.” [4] Thomas Hobbes would certainly qualify as one of those giants.

Dennis Hopper RIP

"""The motorcycles for the film (Easy Rider), based on hardtail frames and Panhead engines, were designed and built by chopper builders Cliff Vaughs and Ben Hardy, following ideas of Peter Fonda, and handled by Tex Hall and Dan Haggerty (of Grizzly f-ing Adams fame!) during shooting.


In total, four former police officer bikes were used in the film. The 1949, 1950 and 1952 Harley Davidson Hydra-Glide bikes were purchased at an auction for US$ 500 (equivalent to approx. US$ 2500 at 2007 currency rates). Each bike had a backup to make sure that shooting could continue in case one of the old machines failed or got wrecked accidentally. One "Captain America" was demolished in the final scene, while the other three were stolen and probably taken apart before their significance as movie props became known. The demolished bike was rebuilt by Dan Haggerty and shown in a museum. He sold it at an auction in 2001. Many other replicas have been built since the film’s release."""

When the aged Hopper or Fonda jumped on a hardtail supposedly from Easy Rider--they're just saddling a mutha-f-ing replica! The original panheads were stolen during the making of that semi-legendary flick. RIP, Billy or in the extended original, Anima eius et animae omnium fidelium defunctorum per Dei misericordiam requiescant in pace.

Aynnie-wood

the intellectual failings of Ayn Rand, continued...
Garbage and Gravitas/Robin:

"""[Ayn] Rand's following in Hollywood has always been strong. Barbara Stanwyck and Veronica Lake fought to play the part of Dominique Francon in the movie version of The Fountainhead. Never to be outdone in that department, Joan Crawford threw a dinner party for Rand in which she dressed as Francon, wearing a streaming white gown dotted with aquamarine gemstones. More recently, the author of The Virtue of Selfishness and the statement "if civilization is to survive, it is the altruist morality that men have to reject" has found an unlikely pair of fans in the Hollywood humanitarian set. Rand "has a very interesting philosophy," says Angelina Jolie. "You re-evaluate your own life and what's important to you." The Fountainhead "is so dense and complex," marvels Brad Pitt, "it would have to be a six-hour movie." (The 1949 film version has a running time of 113 minutes, and it feels long.) Christina Ricci claims that The Fountainhead is her favorite book because it taught her that "you're not a bad person if you don't love everyone." Rob Lowe boasts that Atlas Shrugged is "a stupendous achievement, and I just adore it." And any boyfriend of Eva Mendes, the actress says, "has to be an Ayn Rand fan."

But Rand, at least according to her fiction, shouldn't have attracted any fans at all. The central plot device of her novels is the conflict between the creative individual and the hostile mass. The greater the individual's achievement, the greater the mass's resistance. As Howard Roark, The Fountainhead's architect hero, puts it:

The great creators—the thinkers, the artists, the scientists, the inventors—stood alone against the men of their time. Every great new thought was opposed. Every great new invention was denounced. The first motor was considered foolish. The airplane was considered impossible. The power loom was considered vicious. Anesthesia was considered sinful. But the men of unborrowed vision went ahead. They fought, they suffered and they paid.

Rand clearly thought of herself as one of these creators. In an interview with Mike Wallace she declared herself "the most creative thinker alive." That was in 1957, when Arendt, Quine, Sartre, Camus, Lukács, Adorno, Murdoch, Heidegger, Beauvoir, Rawls, Anscombe and Popper were all at work. It was also the year of the first performance of Endgame and the publication of Pnin, Doctor Zhivago and The Cat in the Hat. Two years later, Rand told Wallace that "the only philosopher who ever influenced me" was Aristotle. Otherwise, everything came "out of my own mind." She boasted to her friends and to her publisher at Random House, Bennet Cerf, that she was "challenging the cultural tradition of two and a half thousand years." She saw herself as she saw Roark, who said, "I inherit nothing. I stand at the end of no tradition. I may, perhaps, stand at the beginning of one." But tens of thousands of fans were already standing with her. In 1945, just two years after its publication, The Fountainhead sold 100,000 copies. In 1957, the year Atlas Shrugged was published, it sat on the New York Times bestseller list for twenty-one weeks."""

Madoff-land ....."Uomini fummo, e or siam fatti sterpi"
* * *

Dial M for Movieland

Zizek on Cameron's Avatar---

"""Cameron's superficial Hollywood Marxism (his crude privileging of the lower classes and caricatural depiction of the cruel egotism of the rich) should not deceive us. Beneath this sympathy for the poor lies a reactionary myth, first fully deployed by Rudyard Kipling's Captains Courageous. It concerns a young rich person in crisis who gets his (or her) vitality estored through brief intimate contact with the full-blooded life of the poor. What lurks behind the compassion for the poor is their vampiric exploitation.

.....

Avatar's fidelity to the old formula of creating a couple, its full trust in fantasy, and its story of a white man marrying the aboriginal princess and becoming king, make it ideologically a rather conservative, old-fashioned film. Its technical brilliance serves to cover up this basic conservatism. It is easy to discover, beneath the politically correct themes (an honest white guy siding with ecologically sound aborigines against the "military-industrial complex" of the imperialist invaders), an array of brutal racist motifs: a paraplegic outcast from earth is good enough to get the hand of abeautiful local princess, and to help the natives win the decisive battle. The film teaches us that the only choice the aborigines have is to be saved by the human beings or to be destroyed by them. In other words, they can choose either to be the victim of imperialist reality, or to play their allotted role in the white man's fantasy.

At the same time as Avatar is making money all around the world (it generated $1bn after less than three weeks of release), something that strangely resembles its plot is taking place. The southern hills of the Indian state of Orissa, inhabited by the Dongria Kondh people, were sold to mining companies that plan to exploit their immense reserves of bauxite (the deposits are considered to be worth at least $4trn). In reaction to this project, a Maoist (Naxalite) armed rebellion exploded."""

The tradition of all dead generations weighs like a nightmare on the brains of the living (Marx).


and Bigelow's anti-Avatar   

Bach-tag

""Der Krieg ist der Schöpfer, der Hunger der Vernichter aller großen Dinge. Dort wird das Leben durch den Tod gehoben, oft bis zu jener unwiderstehlichen Kraft, deren bloßes Vorhandensein schon den Sieg bedeutet; hier weckt der Hunger jene häßliche, gemeine, ganz unmetaphysische Art von Lebensangst, unter welcher die höhere Formenwelt einer Kultur jäh zusammenbricht und der nackte Daseinskampf menschlicher Bestien beginnt.“" Der Krieg is DER SCHOPFER! jawohl. {Spengler}

Rand as in Aynd?

Counterpunch/Cockburn

""Start with Rand. Like many libertarians he is never happier than in dashing back through the corridors of history to distant, sometimes obscure champions in the fight for liberty, as construed by libertarians. On the night of the MSNC face-off it was William Lloyd Garrison, founder of the New England Anti-Slavery Society in 1832. When Paul rolled out his name in response to one of her early questions about his posture on the 1964 Civil Rights Act, Maddow blinked in astonishment as though he was mustering to his side the shade of the Venerable Bede. If she’d asked him about his posture on the rights of juries to nullify, to act according to the dictates of conscience and to set the law aside, he’d probably have brought up Edward Bushell and the landmark case against William Penn and William Mead in 1670.


Few are destined for Greatness...

Libertarians are like that. On some big and important things they’re admirable and staunch. Many of them, on some big and important things, are rancid. Half of Rand Paul’s positions are disgusting, like his end-of-week defense of BP. Other libertarians decry him from being evasive on O’Reilly’s Show about opposing war with Iran. Libertarians in the dust and heat of the political arena have no grasp of scale or priority. At heart many of them are nutty, martyrs to their truths, like fourth-century Christian schismatics. Ardent to refute charges that they favor the untrammeled sway of the market, the rejection of all federal intrusion, they dash to Von Mises and kindred heroes with all the childish enthusiasm of Gabriel Betteredge invoking Robinson Crusoe in The Moonstone. They have no sense of timing. Rand Paul, after five minutes of jabbing from Maddow, could have easily swerved the conversation towards issues more congenial to the MSNBC audience than his theoretical take on the Civil Rights Act. He could have denounced the farce of financial “reform”, of Bush’s and Obama’s wars, of constitutional abuses. These are all libertarian positions. But no. He couldn’t stop himself shoving his foot in his mouth. He seems dumb.""

Shades of John Galt! The Road to Hades is paved with liberaltarian contentions, as Alex C nearly realizes once out of 10 scrawls. At least AC sees the essential worthlessness of corporate gorgons such as Rachel Maddow--more authenticity than yll see from the usual Press-punk at talent nite.

e-Meg--non voter for 28 years

Bradley/HuffPo:

""Is billionaire Meg Whitman having fun yet? She's certainly had a careening week in her once seeming juggernaut of a bid to succeed Arnold Schwarzenegger as governor of California.

In any car race, the worst moment is not when the trailing car pulls up in the rear view mirror, it's when you can no longer see it in the rear view mirror. That's because it's alongside.

I've been reporting for weeks on her steep slide in private polling on her Republican primary race against super-rich state Insurance Commissioner Steve Poizner, who was once dismissed by nearly all as a hapless speed bump in the race. That culminated here on the Huffington Post in "Meg Whitman's Titanic Campaign for Governor of California.""""

While Poizner may be a corrupt, silicon-valley corporate exec., e-Meg's a corrupt, silicon valley corporate nutbucket. Yay e-Meg!

Mormonics, cont.

perps of the LDS

Ted Bundy--Bundius!--was an LDS boy (why is that not surprising). They forgot to include Joseph Smith hisself.


Mo' mormonic phunn

the Mittster

Ahhnuld-nomix

""People who are in a fortunate position always attribute virtue to what makes them so happy.""(JK Galbraith).

from...WSWS:

"""Question: “Governor, you said you would be seeking additional cuts in Health and Human Services. And I’m wondering, how do you justify that when the economy is not doing well and the demand for government programs is going up?”


Schwarzenegger replied: “Well, I think that you said it. Because the economy is not doing well and because we have a broken budget system we don’t have more money. We have to live within our means. That’s what I need to do in my business, that’s what I need to do in my family We have to live within our means.”


For Schwarzenegger, living within his means apparently involves commuting to work every morning in his own private jet.


The Governor continued, “Everyone has to tighten their belts. Local government has to tighten their belts, we have to tighten our belts. We have to recognize there’s only so much money.”

.... ....

The Democrats in Sacramento, for their part, have made use of the absence of actual budget negotiations to denounce the Schwarzenegger ‘s plans, using oppositional-sounding rhetoric which costs them nothing. According to State Senate President Darrel Steinberg, “The cuts are absolutely unacceptable.” Senator Denise Ducheny of San Diego said that under the Governor’s plan, “children have no value, but corporate tax breaks that do not exist today have greater value than the children of California.”


There can be no doubt however, that the state Democrats will, in the end, fully agree to massive austerity measures in one form or another. The Democrats, no less than the Republicans, represent the interests of the financial elite who demand further sacrifice from the broad masses of the population."""

Authentic demos opposed to Ahhnuld-nomics might consider a celebrity and athlete tax (not to say a modification of Prop. 13, that giveaway to the California wealthy elite). Have west LA and malibu actors, rock stars and jocko-scabs (yes, comrade, pro- athletes are scabs--as are the news-boys pitchin' the schports biz) and corp. executives foot the bill--could say an LA Laker, or ho-wood starlet, or Ahhnuld himself--or a silicon mogul such as Jobs-- pass the same tests the average high school math teacher has?? Un f-ing likely.

Amgen ouch--Palmdale to Big Bear

"""A 135-mile journey of pain and anguish and frustration, of will and of want, of physical endurance and mental fatigue.

Through the dusty streets of Palmdale and up the Angeles Forest Highway, surrounded by the charred remains of the Station Fire, a bleak landscape of blackened sand and burned trees. Up Angeles Crest Highway, more winding than a Slinky and half as fun, and over State Route 138 and its stomach-churning dips.

Past the overturned Kia Amanti and the creative teenage snowboarders and the snowcapped pines of Lake Arrowhead and past Zelda and Tarzan, the Sacramento couple hiking from Mexico to Canada and known to non-trampers as Cindy and David Peters.

Up and up and up State Route 18, into the clouds, the air thinner than a model's wrist, and through Big Bear, waving goodbye to barkeep John Bratton at the Northshore Tavern and Brewery, finally settling at Snow Summit."""

.

Pancake pater-noster

Our Father, which art in kitchens,
hallowed be thy chow;
thy flapjacks come;
thy syrup be poured,
in earth as it is in heaven.
Give us this day our daily cakes
maple syrup, butter, and sides of bacon as well,
and forgive those who serve soy products unto us.
And lead us not into vegetarianism;
but deliver us from health food.
[For thine is the IHOP,
the Carrows, and the Denny's,
for ever and ever.]
A-men.

(with a tip of a hat to St. Alphonzo, and ...St. FZ)

Sabado GIGANTE

Le Connoisseur (Rockwell).

It sounds like every thrift store shopper’s dream. Teri Horton, a 75-year-old former long-haul trucker, bought a painting for a friend as a gag in a California thrift store, only to learn that it could be a lost masterpiece by Jackson Pollock worth more than $50,000,000. The original price tag: $5.


“I saw it at the shop and I asked how much they wanted for it. They told me eight dollars,” says Horton. “I told them, ‘I love my friend, but I don’t love her that much. I’ll give you five.’”

When the painting wouldn’t fit into her friend’s mobile home, Horton brought it back to hers and eventually tried to sell it at a yard sale. When a local art teacher remarked that the painting could be a Pollock, Horton responded with what would later become the title of a documentary about her find: “Who the $#&* is Jackson Pollock?”

Those ahhtistes who will never be Rembrandts or even Rockwells might aspire to Pollock-ness Abstraction, Inc--and cash it in (or, possibly fake your death, and set up your estate properly, THEN rake it in).

Walker Percy's Weirdest Book

from The Chronicle:

""Easily the strangest book [Percy] wrote was Lost in the Cosmos, which is shelved among the nonfiction but is actually an indescribable concoction of hard facts and wild imagination, a parody of self-help books (sort of), a philosophy textbook (kind of), and a collection of short stories, quizzes, diagrams, thought experiments, mathematical formulas, made-up dialogue, ridiculously long chapter titles, and a few David Foster Wallace-worthy footnotes. It's honestly great, or possibly terrible, depending on your level of patience for Percy's stew of literary high jinks.""

"You live in a deranged age, more deranged that usual, because in spite of great scientific and technological advances, man has not the faintest idea of who he is or what he is doing."(Percy)

Dr. Percy's probably not the preferred literary cup of tea for those infatuated with space opera heroes or bay area BeatnikCo, yet he had something valuable to say, even for the non-believer. One might appreciate Percy's mockery of behaviorism (substitute in Dawkins and/or Dennett for Skinner and Quine) without subscribing to his neo-thomist conclusions--or so it seems. PercySpeak could result in a violent reactions in some quarters, like among WASP-masons and/or darwinists who consider all catholics Pat Buchanans (or worse..."Percy? Waddn't he a g*d*mn*ed Marian, a papist? Why BillY Bob, the pagan freak's now learning the errors of his ways in the pit of perdition").

The Yarnell Kid

“RELIGION, n. A daughter of Hope and Fear, explaining to Ignorance the nature of the Unknowable.

"What is your religion my son?" inquired the Archbishop of Rheims.

"Pardon, monseigneur," replied Rochebriant; "I am ashamed of it."

"Then why do you not become an atheist?"

"Impossible! I should be ashamed of atheism."

"In that case, monsieur, you should join the Protestants."”(Bierce)

Dishonoring J.P. Stevens

Turley on the nomination of Kagan:

""President Barack Obama said he wanted to honor the legacy of Associate Justice John Paul Stevens with his nominee. If so, he has chosen to honor it in the breach with a nominee who is likely to dismantle a significant part of Stevens’ legacy. As with Justice Sonia Sotomayor, President Obama has decided to nominate someone who is demonstrably more conservative than the person she is replacing on some issues –potentially moving the Court to the right. I discussed on the nomination on this segment of Countdown.


For many liberals and civil libertarians, the Kagan nomination is a terrible act of betrayal after the President campaigned so heavily on the issue of the Supreme Court during his campaign. He is now replacing a liberal icon with someone who has testified that she does not believe in core protections for accused individuals in the war on terror. During her confirmation hearing Kagan testified that she believed that anyone suspected of helping finance Al Qaeda should be stripped of protections and held under indefinite detention without a trial — agreeing with the Bush Administration....."""

Given corporate liberal control-freaks such as Miss Kagan, who needs conservatives.

LAWFUL, adj. Compatible with the will of a judge having jurisdiction (Bierce).

Phunion

supreme-court-upholds-freedom-of-speech

Chomsky takes a break

eMeg Whit-Goldman

from SF Gate:

""In 2001, Goldman put Whitman on its corporate board, paying her an estimated $475,000for little more than a year of part-time service. The company also gave her insider access to the initial public offerings of hot stocks worth millions, according to the records.

Whitman left the board in 2002 after she was singled out in a congressional probe of bond underwriters and "spinning" - a financial maneuver, now banned, in which Goldman and other firms allegedly traded access to hot IPOs for bond business. Whitman later settled a shareholder lawsuit related to profits she and other execs made from buying the IPOs.

In recent years, Whitman has kept part of her fortune, estimated by Forbes magazine to be $1.2 billion, in investment funds managed by Goldman, her financial disclosure report indicates. For her campaign, she's received $105,500 in donations from Goldman executives, state records show.""

more GoldMeg!HuffPo/Whitman

Miss Meg's not only tied to the Goldman-Sachs sugar daddies (the finance gang who brought us the mortgage crisis, with help from a few others), but also a Mormon (allegedly, cyber-snoops), and supporting Mitt Romneyoid for Der Fuhrer president in 2012. Just say...nyet.

Baron Von Schwarzenegger....tweets

""It promised to be the most exciting and unpredictable election for a generation – and it didn't disappoint. Social media, reflecting its younger user base, has tended to amplify support for the Liberal Democrats and Labour, skewing expectations of its users. On results night, it was the prospect of a Tory majority.

Results came in slowly, partly due to large turnout, but attention was focused on chaos at the polling stations – though the first outrage came at 10.20pm when California governor Arnold Schwarzenegger tweeted: "Just called @davidcameron to congratulate him on the victory.""""

Vee vant to Tweeten Zee upp. Ahhnuld jumped the gun (Cameron won, as did the royalist swineTorys)--the victory was not as resounding as the UK conservatives had hoped, and resulted in a hung parliament. The tweet-call to Cameron--considered by many as a near-fascist--reveals Schwarzenegger's own Goering-lite ideology, his few concessions to the environment or slight increase in taxes notwithstanding (mainly in fees and sales tax, which amount to a tax on the poor).

""""As the exalting one man so greatly above the rest cannot be justified on the equal rights of nature, so neither can it be defended on the authority of scripture; for the will of the Almighty, as declared by Gideon and the prophet Samuel, expressly disapproves of government by kings. All anti-monarchial parts of scripture have been very smoothly glossed over in monarchial governments, but they undoubtedly merit the attention of countries which have their governments yet to form. Render unto Caesar the things which are Caesar's is the scriptural doctrine of courts, yet it is no support of monarchial government, for the Jews at that time were without a king, and in a state of vassalage to the Romans."""(Thomas Paine)

NDOP, cont.--Rev. Melville's sermon

"""There is no life in thee, now, except that rocking life imparted by a gently rolling ship; by her, borrowed from the sea; by the sea, from the inscrutable tides of God. But while this sleep, this dream is on ye, move your foot or hand an inch; slip your hold at all; and your identity comes back in horror. Over Descartian vortices you hover. And perhaps, at mid-day, in the fairest weather, with one half-throttled shriek you drop through that transparent air into the summer sea, no more to rise for ever. Heed it well, ye Pantheists!"""

from Ch. 35, "The Mast-Head", Moby Dick by Herman Melville Guar-ann-teed to scare the phrack out of the usual WASP or wicca, trash mormonic or methodist, wahaabbi or rabbi

onedrawingforeverypageofMobyDick

Decid grazias a Benito Juárez

history of Cinco de mayo, from Wiki-College:

""In 1861, Benito Juárez stopped making interest payments to countries that Mexico owed money to. In response, France[11] attacked Mexico to force payment of this debt. France decided that it would try to take over and occupy Mexico.[12] France was successful at first in its invasion; however, on May 5, 1862, at the city of Puebla, Mexican forces were able to defeat an attack by the larger French army. In the Battle of Puebla, the Mexicans were led by General Ignacio Zaragoza Seguín. Although the Mexican army was victorious over the French at Puebla, the victory only delayed the French advance on Mexico City.


...tespios son algunos de los más grandes demonios de la tierra


A year later, the French occupied Mexico. The French occupying forces placed Emperor Maximilian I on the throne of Mexico in 1864. The French, under pressure from the United States, eventually withdrew in 1866-1867. Maximilian was deposed by President Benito Juárez and executed, five years after the Battle of Puebla."""

Most likely information to be purged, if/when Chairperson eMeg Whitman takes command of the California reich...

Sunday Morning

1

Complacencies of the peignoir, and late
Coffee and oranges in a sunny chair,
And the green freedom of a cockatoo
Upon a rug mingle to dissipate
The holy hush of ancient sacrifice.
She dreams a little, and she feels the dark
Encroachment of that old catastrophe,
As a calm darkens among water-lights.
The pungent oranges and bright, green wings
Seem things in some procession of the dead,
Winding across wide water, without sound.
The day is like wide water, without sound,
Stilled for the passing of her dreaming feet
Over the seas, to silent Palestine,
Dominion of the blood and sepulchre.

2

Why should she give her bounty to the dead?
What is divinity if it can come
Only in silent shadows and in dreams?
Shall she not find in comforts of the sun,
In pungent fruit and bright green wings, or else
In any balm or beauty of the earth,
Things to be cherished like the thought of heaven?
Divinity must live within herself:
Passions of rain, or moods in falling snow;
Grievings in loneliness, or unsubdued
Elations when the forest blooms; gusty
Emotions on wet roads on autumn nights;
All pleasures and all pains, remembering
The bough of summer and the winter branch.
These are the measure destined for her soul.

3

Jove in the clouds had his inhuman birth.
No mother suckled him, no sweet land gave
Large-mannered motions to his mythy mind.
He moved among us, as a muttering king,
Magnificent, would move among his hinds,
Until our blood, commingling, virginal,
With heaven, brought such requital to desire
The very hinds discerned it, in a star.
Shall our blood fail? Or shall it come to be
The blood of paradise? And shall the earth
Seem all of paradise that we shall know?
The sky will be much friendlier then than now,
A part of labor and a part of pain,
And next in glory to enduring love,
Not this dividing and indifferent blue.

4

She says, 'I am content when wakened birds,
Before they fly, test the reality
Of misty fields, by their sweet questionings;
But when the birds are gone, and their warm fields
Return no more, where, then, is paradise?'
There is not any haunt of prophecy,
Nor any old chimera of the grave,
Neither the golden underground, nor isle
Melodious, where spirits gat them home,
Nor visionary south, nor cloudy palm
Remote on heaven's hill, that has endured
As April's green endures; or will endure
Like her remembrance of awakened birds,
Or her desire for June and evening, tipped
By the consummation of the swallow's wings.

5

She says, 'But in contentment I still feel
The need of some imperishable bliss.'
Death is the mother of beauty; hence from her,
Alone, shall come fulfillment to our dreams
And our desires. Although she strews the leaves
Of sure obliteration on our paths,
The path sick sorrow took, the many paths
Where triumph rang its brassy phrase, or love
Whispered a little out of tenderness,
She makes the willow shiver in the sun
For maidens who were wont to sit and gaze
Upon the grass, relinquished to their feet.
She causes boys to pile new plums and pears
On disregarded plate. The maidens taste
And stray impassioned in the littering leaves.

6

Is there no change of death in paradise?
Does ripe fruit never fall? Or do the boughs
Hang always heavy in that perfect sky,
Unchanging, yet so like our perishing earth,
With rivers like our own that seek for seas
They never find, the same receding shores
That never touch with inarticulate pang?
Why set pear upon those river-banks
Or spice the shores with odors of the plum?
Alas, that they should wear our colors there,
The silken weavings of our afternoons,
And pick the strings of our insipid lutes!
Death is the mother of beauty, mystical,
Within whose burning bosom we devise
Our earthly mothers waiting, sleeplessly.

7

Supple and turbulent, a ring of men
Shall chant in orgy on a summer morn
Their boisterous devotion to the sun,
Not as a god, but as a god might be,
Naked among them, like a savage source.
Their chant shall be a chant of paradise,
Out of their blood, returning to the sky;
And in their chant shall enter, voice by voice,
The windy lake wherein their lord delights,
The trees, like serafin, and echoing hills,
That choir among themselves long afterward.
They shall know well the heavenly fellowship
Of men that perish and of summer morn.
And whence they came and whither they shall go
The dew upon their feel shall manifest.

8

She hears, upon that water without sound,
A voice that cries, 'The tomb in Palestine
Is not the porch of spirits lingering.
It is the grave of Jesus, where he lay.'
We live in an old chaos of the sun,
Or old dependency of day and night,
Or island solitude, unsponsored, free,
Of that wide water, inescapable.
Deer walk upon our mountains, and the quail
Whistle about us their spontaneous cries;
Sweet berries ripen in the wilderness;
And, in the isolation of the sky,
At evening, casual flocks of pigeons make
Ambiguous undulations as they sink,
Downward to darkness, on extended wings.

Death is the mother of beauty....Wallace "Wally" Stevens, definitely won a cup of capp., once, at Talent-nite at Cafe Noesis.

National day of ~(prayer)

A wisconsin Federal judge, one Miss Crabb, has declared the National Day of Prayer unconstitutional:

Crabb...wrote in her decision that ‘”some forms of ‘ceremonial deism,’ such as legislative prayer, do not violate the establishment clause.” But she said the National Day of Prayer goes too far.
“It goes beyond mere acknowledgment of religion because its sole purpose is to encourage all citizens to engage in prayer, an inherently religious exercise that serves no secular function in this context,” she said. “In this instance, the government has taken sides on a matter that must be left to individual conscience.”…
The suit was originally filed against then-President George W. Bush and members of his administration, but President Obama is now listed as the defendant because the president enforces the statute in question by issuing a proclamation each year declaring National Day of Prayer.

Crabb'sDecision

Judge Crabb probably made the right decision, or at least the Constitutional decision, and that needn't imply that all prayer is misguided, or superstition. As a type of mental health or contemplation, prayer may provide comfort or serenity. A monk deep in prayer, intoning the latin of the Vulgate-- engages in a meaningful act, whether one shares his faith or not. People praying in the pews on sunday morning--say, a mother praying for her soldier son fighting in the middle east-- also attach a great deal of weight to their prayers, and the sort of glib, Dawkins-ish scoffer--why, any educated person knows prayer doesn't work, yada yada yada-- misses the point, greatly.

The National Day of prayer, however, extends the private act of prayer to the public arena. Judge Crabb probably offends many believers (including jew and muslim, along with christian) with her assertion that public prayer "serves no secular function", but her point seems quite in line with the First Amendment. Of course, the national day of prayer folks claim they are "ecumenical"--the event usually starts with the evangelicals prayers, a catholic priest perhaps, one or two rabbis, an imam, the moongoddess sort, evangelicals again, and maybe a unitarian freak, or one person representing an eastern religion. Yet these religions really have little in common. In ways, they are diametrically opposed (i.e. monotheistic vs polytheistic, for one), and since the evangelicals generally outnumber the other faiths by like 7 to 1, it's in effect a ...baptist prayer meeting, a prayer to Jeezuss of the IHOP, and to his pops, Gott, to keep property values increasing.

James Madison opposed public displays of christianity (or any religion) such as prayers from podiums, and at the end of his life, Madison attempted to keep chaplains out of the US Military (he lost). Crabb's decision seems rather Madisonian--even those religious people who don't belong to the big mainstream churches (ie baptist/presbyterian, or catholic) should approve of her separation of church and state.