~(Ayn)

Rynd  Paul? Paul  Rand?  Rand Ayn [Chait/NewRepub]:   

""""Earlier this year I wrote about Ryan and his deep devotion to the philosophy of Rand, particularly her inverted Marxist economic-political worldview:


Ryan would retain some bare-bones subsidies for the poorest, but the overwhelming thrust in every way is to liberate the lucky and successful to enjoy their good fortune without burdening them with any responsibility for the welfare of their fellow citizens. This is the core of Ryan's moral philosophy:

"The reason I got involved in public service, by and large, if I had to credit one thinker, one person, it would be Ayn Rand," Ryan said at a D.C. gathering four years ago honoring the author of "Atlas Shrugged" and "The Fountainhead." ...

                                        

At the Rand celebration he spoke at in 2005, Ryan invoked the central theme of Rand's writings when he told his audience that, "Almost every fight we are involved in here on Capitol Hill ... is a fight that usually comes down to one conflict--individualism versus collectivism."

The core of the Randian worldview, as absorbed by the modern GOP, is a belief that the natural market distribution of income is inherently moral, and the central struggle of politics is to free the successful from having the fruits of their superiority redistributed by looters and moochers."""""

Muzack

"a $4 trillion gift..."

Making the Rich Happy  ( Counterpunch/A.C.: )

""Nicely in time for the end-of-year job ratings, President Obama has crawled from the political graveyard, where only a month ago wreaths were being heaped around his sepulcher. The Commentariat now gravely applauds his recent victories in the US Congress: repeal of the Don't Ask, Don't Tell inhibitions on gays in the military; Senate ratification of the new START treaty on nuclear weapons with the Russians; passage of a $4.3bn bill – previously blocked by Republicans - providing health benefits for emergency rescue workers in the 9/11 attacks of 2001.

Something missing from my list? You noticed? Yes indeed: first and absolutely foremost, the successful deal with Republicans on taxes, better described as a $4 trillion gift to America’s rich people, by extending the Bush tax cuts. With the all-important tax surrender under their belts the Republicans don’t seem too upset in having allowing Obama’s his mini-swath of victories. There aren’t too many votes in insisting that 1500 nukes aren’t enough for Uncle Sam, particularly since Obama did his usual trick a year ago of surrendering before the battle began, pledging vast new outlays to the nuclear-industrial-complex. Would it have been that smart to deny benefits to 9/11 responders or say that gays in the military have to stay in the closet. Presumably they’ll fight all the more fiercely now they can stand Out and Proud. On things that really matter, once they reassemble after the break, the Republicans will probably stay awake, though with a President who surrenders with the alacrity of Obama, excessive vigilance probably isn’t necessary.

You give $4 trillion to the rich and they express their thanks in measured terms. Their hired opinion formers laud the spirit of admirable compromise enabling responsible members of Congress to come together in bipartisanship to keep the hogwallow open for business."".......

Mormowned

Little Moron?

***** ***** ***** *****
Mark Twain describes his meeting with Mormonic "Destroying Angel":

""Half an hour or an hour later, we changed horses, and took supper with a Mormon "Destroying Angel." "Destroying Angels," as I understand it, are Latter-Day Saints who are set apart by the church to conduct permanent disappearances of obnoxious citizens. I had heard a deal about these Mormon Destroying Angels and the dark and bloody deeds they had done, and when I entered this one's house I had my shudder all ready. But alas for all our romances, he was nothing but a loud, profane, offensive, old blackguard! He was murderous enough, possibly, to fill the bill of a Destroyer, but would you have any kind of an Angel devoid of dignity? Could you abide an Angel in an unclean shirt and no suspenders? Could you respect an Angel with a horse-laugh and a swagger like a buccaneer?

There were other blackguards present - comrades of this one. And there was one person that looked like a gentleman - Heber C. Kimball's son, tall and well made, and thirty years old, perhaps. A lot of slatternly women flitted hither and thither in a hurry, with coffee-pots, plates of bread, and other appurtenances to supper, and these were said to be the wives of the Angel - or some of them, at least. And of course they were; for if they had been hired "help" they would not have let an angel from above storm and swear at them as he did, let alone one from the place this one hailed from.

This was our first experience of the western "peculiar institution," and it was not very prepossessing. We did not tarry long to observe it, but hurried on to the home of the Latter-Day Saints, the stronghold of the prophets, the capital of the only absolute monarch in America - Great Salt Lake City.""

Holy Honey Bees,batman! The Destroying Angels still exist, brethhrrenn: check Googleland for the "Nauvoo Legion" (official name of Utah National Guard).

Merry Carjackmas

Aaron Clay Tanner has some unique if dangerous methods for coping with holiday depression and stress. On Dec 17 around 5 pm, after allegedly stabbing his mother numerous times, Tanner pushed her out of their car on the 14 Freeway at the interchange with the 5 Freeway. Tanner headed north on the 14 and exited at the Newhall Avenue off-ramp, and then immediately after leaving the off-ramp, smashed into another vehicle in the park-and-ride lot. Tanner's car was rendered inoperable, so he promptly carjacks a gal in her PT Cruiser, with her 4-year-old son inside.

A deputy spotted the PT Cruiser about four miles away, where Tanner had rear-ended another vehicle and then backed into a tree, disabling the stolen PT Cruiser. As the deputy approached, Tanner then leaps out of the smashed Cruiser and...circled around and steals the deputy’s patrol car. The deputy immediately alerted other cops and a nearby LASD helicopter.

So now Tanner's in the stolen cop car, driving wildly through Saugus, with deputies in pursuit. Then poor Mr. Tanner makes another mistake: moving at a high rate of speed he headed into a cul-de-sac, where he crashes the cop's car into a 4-foot block wall, breaks through the embankment and...then careens down a hill about 100 feet, rolling the car several times. Finally Tanner reaches the bottom of the hill, where the patrol vehicle bursts into flames. ...But the phunn's not over yet.

The cops run to bust Tanner and... Tanner reaches for a cop shotgun, and they wrestle with Tanner in the cop car, and he bites several cops as they attempt to handcuff him. Eventually they take him out with a Taser, and carry him off to the hospital in critical condition. Regardless, he'll be booked on charges of attempted murder, kidnapping, carjacking, attempted carjacking, auto theft, assault with a deadly weapon, evading arrest, and felony hit-and-run with injuries. And you think you got problems.

musique du jour

sabado Gigante

musick.

Economics of Sociopaths

"""""Brad DeLong asserts that the microfoundations of economics point not to a Hobbesian vision of the war of all against all, but rather to Adam Smith's propensities for peaceful cooperation, especially through exchange. "The foundation of microeconomics is not the Hobbesian 'this is good for me' but rather the Smithian 'this trade is good for us,' and on the uses and abuses of markets built on top of the 'this trade is good for us' principle." Bertram objects that this isn't true, and others in DeLong's comments section further object that modern economics simply does not rest on this Smithian vision. DeLong replies: "Seems to me the normal education of an economist includes an awful lot about ultimatum games and rule of law these days..."

I have to call this one against DeLong — rather to my surprise, since I usually get more out of his writing than Bertram's. The fact is that the foundations of standard microeconomic models envisage people as hedonistic sociopaths [ETA: see below], and theorists prevent mayhem from breaking out in their models by the simple expedient of ignoring the possibility. """

Noël*

Antidote for Lieberdems--
Remembering-

Celine:::

....   .........

"""""You don't do anything for free. You've got to pay. A story you make up, that isn't worth anything. The only story that counts is the one you pay for. When it's paid for, then you've got the right to transform it. Otherwise it's lousy. Me, I work . . . I have a contract, it's got to be filled. Only I'm sixty-six years old today, I'm seventy-five percent mutilated. At my age most men have retired. I owe six million to Gallimard . . . so I'm obliged to keep on going . . . I already have another novel in the works: always the same stuff . . . It's chicken feed. I know a few novels. But novels are a little like lace . . . an art that disappeared with the convents. Novels can't fight cars, movies, television, booze. A guy who's eaten well, who's escaped the big war, in the evenings gives a peck to the old lady and his day's finished. Done with."""""

"Noël" ---


late 14c., from M.E. nowel, from O.Fr. noel "the Christmas season," variant of nael, from L. natalis (dies) "birth (day)," in Eccles. L. in reference to the birthday of Christ, from natus, pp. of nasci "be born" (Old L. gnasci; see genus).    ...also   sp. nacimiento,  Navidad...from latin nasci,   gnasci "to be born,"

genus


(pl. genera), 1550s as a term of logic, "kind or class of things" (biological sense dates from c.1600), from L. genus (gen. generis) "race, stock, kind; family, birth, descent, origin," cognate with Gk. genos "race, kind," and gonos "birth, offspring, stock," from PIE base *gen-/*gon-/*gn- "produce, beget, be born" (cf. Skt. janati "begets, bears," janah "race," jatah "born;" Avestan zizanenti "they bear;" Gk. gignesthai "to become, happen;" L. gignere "to beget," gnasci "to be born," genius "procreative divinity, inborn tutelary spirit, innate quality," ingenium "inborn character," germen "shoot, bud, embryo, germ;" Lith. gentis "kinsmen;" Goth. kuni "race;" O.E. cennan "beget, create;" O.H.G. kind "child;" O.Ir. ro-genar "I was born;" Welsh geni "to be born;" Armenian chanim "I bear, I am born").

Not a speck of semitic in it.

Ahhnuld looks back

LA Times/Schwarzenegger

AS: "People are very receptive when I talk about these things because I’m a Hummer driver … not a tree hugger."

SchwarziSpeak: ~(Reason), 24-7.   

 

Ἀποκάλυψις

from THE FACE OF THE DEEP/Christine Rossetti Miss Rossetti's commentary on ...the Book of Revelation:

"""""4. And the woman was arrayed in purple and scarlet
colour, and decked with gold and precious stones and pearls, having a golden cup in her hand full of abominations and filthiness of her fornication :

5. And upon her forehead was a name written, Mystery, Babylon the Great, The Mother of Harlots and Abominations of the Earth.

The beast is scarlet, and the woman wears scarlet. He is full of names of blasphemy, and her names are of the same sort. He is scarlet as sin. She is both scarlet and particoloured, decked with such gauds as St. Paul warns us women against. As it seemed possible to study the sun-clothed exalted Woman (ch. xii.) as a figure of the all-glorious destiny awaiting the Virtuous Woman, so now I think this obscene woman may (on the surface) be studied as illustrating the particular foulness, degradation, loathsomeness, to which a perverse rebellious
woman because feminine not masculine is liable.

Holbrooke, unplugged

JoshFrank/Counterpunch

""""The disturbing symbiosis between Holbrooke and figures like überhawk Paul Wolfowitz is startling.

"In an unguarded moment just before the 2000 election, Richard Holbrooke opened a foreign policy speech with a fawning tribute to his host, Paul Wolfowitz, who was then the dean of the Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies in Washington," reported Tim Shorrock following the terrorist attacks in 2001.

Shorrock continued: "Holbrooke, a senior adviser to Al Gore, was acutely aware that either he or Wolfowitz would be playing important roles in the next administration. Looking perhaps to assure the world of the continuity of U.S. foreign policy, he told his audience that Wolfowitz's 'recent activities illustrate something that's very important about American foreign policy in an election year, and that is the degree to which there are still common themes between the parties.' The example he chose to illustrate his point was East Timor, which was invaded and occupied in 1975 by Indonesia with U.S. weapons – a security policy backed and partly shaped by Holbrooke and Wolfowitz. 'Paul and I,' he said, 'have been in frequent touch to make sure that we keep [East Timor] out of the presidential campaign, where it would do no good to American or Indonesian interests.'"

Holbrooke worked vigorously to keep his bloody campaign silent, and it appears to have paid off. In chilling words, Holbrooke described the motivations behind his support of Indonesia's genocidal actions:

"The situation in East Timor is one of the number of very important concerns of the United States in Indonesia. Indonesia, with a population of 150 million people, is the fifth largest nation in the world, is a moderate member of the Non-Aligned Movement, is an important oil producer – which plays a moderate role within OPEC – and occupies a strategic position astride the sea lanes between the Pacific and Indian Oceans. … We highly value our cooperative relationship with Indonesia."

Richard Holbrooke may have died, but the influence he had on U.S. foreign policy continues to kill.""""

Sabado Gigante

Igor'sBoogie/FZ/MoI


Contingencies fans probably have heard of  the death of Beefheart.   Ave atque vale. Google "Don Van Vliet selling vacuum cleaners to Aldous Huxley" for mo,'  or not. Or peruse the Up Sifter   and Lester Bangs' trenchant rock scrawlings.

Ice Rose


official Cont. role model Lester Bangs on Beefheart:

Intolerance: a plea

Zizek:

""""The key moment of any theoretical (and ethical, and political, and - as Badiou demonstrated - even aesthetic) struggle is the rise of universality out of the particular life-world. The commonplace according to which we are all irreducibly grounded in a particular (contingent) life-world, so that all universality is irreducibly colored by (embedded in) a particular life-world, should be turned around: the authentic moment of discovery, the breakthrough, occurs when a properly universal dimension explodes from within a particular context and becomes "for-itself," directly experienced as such (as universal). This universality-for-itself is not simply external to (or above) the particular context: it is inscribed into it, it perturbs and affects it from within, so that the identity of the particular is split into its particular and its universal aspect. Did already Marx not point out how the true problem with Homer is not to explain the roots of his epics in the early Greek society, but to account for the fact that, although clearly rooted in their historical context, they were able to transcend their historical origin and speak to all epochs. Perhaps, the most elementary hermeneutic test of the greatness of a work of art is its ability to survive being torn out of its original context: in the case of a truly great work of art, each epoch reinvents/rediscovers its own figure of this work, like there is a romantic Shakespeare, a realist Shakespeare, etc. Take Wagner's Parsifal: a lot of historicist work was done recently trying to bring out the contextual "true meaning" of the Wagnerian figures and topics: the pale Hagen is really a masturbating Jew; Amfortas' wound is really syphillis... The idea is that Wagner is mobilizing historical codes known to everyone in his epoch: when a person stumbles, sings in cracking high tones, makes nervous gestures, etc., "everyone knew" this is a Jew, so Mime from Siegfried is a caricature of a Jew; the fear of syphillis as the illness in the groin one gets from having intercourse with an "impure" woman was an obsession in the second half of the 19th century, so it was "clear to everyone" that Amfortas really contracted syphillis from Kundry... """

Mitt, taxes and the Adversary

Mitt Rumney

""Death and taxes and the Divine Right of Kings, it is said, my friends, are life's only three certainties. But in the wake of President Obama's tax compromise with congressional Republicans, only death and the Divine Right retain the status of certainty: the future for taxation has been left up in the air. And Mr. Uncertainty is not a friend of investment, prosperity, or Kings and their subjects.

The deal has several key features. It reduces payroll taxes and extends unemployment benefits for the little people, and keeps the tax rates of brother Bush intact. So far, so good. But intermixed with the benefits are considerable costs of not inconsiderable consequence. Given the unambiguous message that the Elect sent to Washington in November, it is difficult to understand how our political leaders could have stooped to such a disappointing agreement. The new, more conservative, Nephite and christian Congress should reach a better and more pious solution.

The deal keeps current tax rates from rising to pre-Bush era levels for two years. But in 2013, unless Congress acts again, rates will increase dramatically, nearly equalling Clinton socialist-era levels--which is to say, Statist-Adversary levels.   Lest we forget friends, the government bureaucrats--the modern Statist-Adversaries--are nothing but a committee for managing the common affairs of the little people, which is to say--Lamanites."

10 years gone

Bush/Gore/WSWS

""The events of Election Day 2000, encompassing the night of Tuesday, November 7 and the early morning hours of Wednesday, November 8, are among the most extraordinary in American political history. Yet they came after a presidential campaign of the most humdrum character, in which no political issues were seriously discussed. The consensus among political pundits and pollsters was that Bush, then governor of Texas, held a narrow but significant lead over his Democratic opponent, Vice President Al Gore.

As in 1998, however, when predictions of major Republican gains in the midst of the impeachment crisis failed to materialize, it appeared as the votes began to be counted that the political establishment had underestimated the popular hostility towards the right-wing program of the Republican Party, founded on tax cuts for the wealthy and the slashing of domestic social spending.

Gore won many of the big industrial states with relative ease, including Michigan and Pennsylvania. The Democrats were sweeping the northeastern states and were expected to win the Pacific Coast, while Bush carried the south and southwest, the Rocky Mountain states and Ohio. It appeared that the election would be decided by Florida’s 25 votes in the Electoral College.

Just before 8 p.m., several US television networks called the outcome in Florida for Gore, based on their exit polls of voters compiled throughout the day. The Bush campaign reacted immediately, breaking with precedent and putting the candidate before television cameras to denounce the network projections and declare his certainty that Florida—where his brother Jeb was governor and the Republicans controlled the machinery of state government—would end up in his column."""

María, Te Adoramos

"The various modes of worship which prevailed in the Roman world were all considered by the people as equally true; by the philosopher as equally false; and by the magistrate as equally useful."  (Gibbon)

compromise

Gary-Hart/HuffPo

"Deciding when to compromise should be easier than it is for a leader. Should you give something you are against to get something you want? Or should you stand on principle and refuse to compromise? These classic questions for democratic leaders used to be rare, but they are becoming more common.

That is because the current Democratic president is confronted by a minority opposition party (soon to be majority in the House) that has adopted as its policy unified opposition to virtually all Democratic initiatives. Against the standard press assumption regarding "polarization" in Washington, that has not been the policy of an opposition Democratic party many of whose leaders voted for the Iraq war and Bush tax cuts most of their party constituents were against. Neither Presidents Carter, Clinton, nor Obama are or were far left or liberal (contrary to the ridiculous Fox rhetoric about socialists)."

more on BO's Tax-scam :RobertReich

~(WASP)

Dupree'sParadise/Boulez/FZ

Boulez conducts Zappa's Dupree's Paradise (with cheesy claymation for the schtoopid Amercanische) Enough to have the usual yokel reaching for his Book of Mormon  (ah swear that sounds like a soundtrack for the  LAMANITEs themselves, pilgrim--which is to say the preterite rabble...). Rather superior to the usual Aaron Copland philaharmonic sounds (Copland never wrote those obbligati) --who, I suspect FZ was parodying at times, though that wicked jazzy-atonal piano section--Mingus-ish-- no parody tho perhaps slightly programmatic as in....urban-capitalist Entropy with a capital E.-- Copland or Lennie Bernstein hits the 'hood. (those who don't recognize Copland probably aren't ready to listen to FZ's serious music).

sabado Gigante

II.


Bert hisself, supposedly (en pinche aleman)

(Dedicated to a piece of mierda AKA Darrell Issa, and gangsters of all sorts, derechos y izquierdas).
____________________________

""""On thinking about Hell, I gather

My brother Shelley found it was a place
Much like the city of London. I
Who live in Los Angeles and not in London
Find, on thinking about Hell, that it must be
Still more like Los Angeles. """"

Bertolt Brecht



¡Nada mas que clasicos!

NY Times: Ministry of Mis-information

Porter/Counterpunch:

"""""A diplomatic cable from last February released by Wikileaks provides a detailed account of how Russian specialists on the Iranian ballistic missile program refuted the U.S. suggestion that Iran has missiles that could target European capitals or intends to develop such a capability.

In fact, the Russians challenged the very existence of the mystery missile the U.S. claims Iran acquired from North Korea.

But readers of the two leading U.S. newspapers never learned those key facts about the document.

The New York Times and Washington Post reported only that the United States believed Iran had acquired such missiles - supposedly called the BM-25 - from North Korea. Neither newspaper reported the detailed Russian refutation of the U.S. view on the issue or the lack of hard evidence for the BM-25 from the U.S. side. """"

Miserliness

LA Times:

""""A proposal to provide Social Security recipients with a lump-sum payment of $250 as a modest income boost in difficult economic times was blocked Wednesday by Republican-led opposition in the House and Senate.

The measure would have provided the one-time payment to 54 million Social Security recipients in lieu of an annual cost-of-living adjustment.

This is the second consecutive year that the cost-of-living adjustment has not been awarded, a result of the country's low inflation rate. Last year, Congress authorized a $250 payment to each recipient as part of the economic stimulus measure.

President Obama and congressional Democrats urged Congress to send another round of payments, but Senate Republicans had vowed to block Democratic-backed legislation that does not concern tax cuts and government spending.

The bill, which required 60 votes to pass in the Senate, failed on a 53-45 vote late Wednesday afternoon. Independent Sen. Joe Lieberman of Connecticut and Democratic Sens. Russell D. Feingold of Wisconsin, Kay Hagan of North Carolina, Mark Udall of Colorado and Mark R. Warner of Virginia joined Republicans in voting against the bill.

Warner's office said he voted against it on the basis of its cost, estimated at $13 billion. Other Democrats did not respond to requests for comment.

Most Democrats said the rejection of the proposal stood in contrast to a pending deal in which the wealthiest earners would continue receiving a tax break.

"People are wondering how it could be that we could provide a million dollars in tax breaks to the richest people in this country but we couldn't come up with $250 for struggling seniors and disabled vets," Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) said before the vote.""""

“Wish a miser long life, and you wish him no good.” Ben Franklin

sabado gigante

Igor'sBoogie/FZ/MoI

Contingencies fans probably have heard of  the death of Beefheart.   Ave atque vale. Google "Don Van Vliet selling vacuum cleaners to Aldous Huxley" for mo,'  or not. Or peruse the Up Sifter   and Lester Bangs' trenchant rock scrawlings.

Ice Rose

Lester Bangs on Beefheart:

ὀλιγαρχία

How the Oligarchs took over America:

""""Not surprisingly, political power has a way of following wealth. What that means is: you can't understand how the rich seized control of American politics, and arguably American society, without understanding how a small group of Americans got so much money in the first place.

That story begins in the late 1970s and continues through the Obama years, a period in which American policy has been so skewed toward the rich that we're now living through the worst period of income inequality in modern history. Consider the statistics: 50 years ago, the wealthiest 1% of Americans accounted for one of every 10 dollars of the nation's income; today, it's nearly one in every four. Between 1979 and 2006, the average post-tax household income (including benefits) of the wealthiest 1% increased by 256%; the poorest households saw an increase of 11%; middle class homes, 21%, much of which was due to the arrival of two-job families."""""

Κατά τον δαίμονα εαυτού

                            
 James Douglas "Jim" Morrison (December 8, 1943 — July 3, 1971).

 Admiral George Stephen Morrison placed the plaque with the greek inscription "ΚΑΤΑ ΤΟΝ ΔΑΙΜΟΝΑ ΕΑΥΤΟΥ"-- literally, "According to his own Daemon"--on his son Jim's grave in Pere Lachaise  in the 90s.  


The Crystal Ship

Black Robe, indicted

Senate convicts Louisiana federal judge/LA Times:

"""The Senate on Wednesday convicted a Louisiana federal judge on corruption and perjury charges, the first time in more than two decades the chamber has voted to remove a public official after an impeachment trial.

The vote to remove Judge Thomas Porteous was unanimous on one of the four articles of impeachment; the charges were brought against Porteous in unanimous votes by the House of Representatives in March.

He becomes the eighth federal judge removed from office. The Senate also voted to bar him from ever holding public office in the future.

Porteous, who served on the federal court for the eastern district of Louisiana, was charged with accepting cash and other favors from individuals with business before his court in order to pay gambling debts, and with lying to the Senate and FBI following his nomination to the federal bench."""""

Perhaps the beginning of a trend! US Senate busts up Black Robe gang. The shade of Jefferson, who detested standing courts and John Marshall, might approve (as those who communicate with the dead may know).  Only faux-liberals would approve of the US judicial monarchy--not withstanding the rare victory for authentic democracy served up by a  few intelligent  federalists.  After the Citizens United decision,  any rational non-conservative should have abandoned their faith in the SC as a  great protector of democracy, anyway--yet the judge-loving liberal Tory still persists (some even quote Marx or Zizek, et al and teach in Ivy League schools).

Arsenic-based life study flawed

NASA*::

""""Redfield blogged a scathing attack on Saturday. Over the weekend, a few other scientists took to the Internet as well. Was this merely a case of a few isolated cranks? To find out, I reached out to a dozen experts on Monday. Almost unanimously, they think the NASA scientists have failed to make their case. "It would be really cool if such a bug existed," said San Diego State University's Forest Rohwer, a microbiologist who looks for new species of bacteria and viruses in coral reefs. But, he added, "none of the arguments are very convincing on their own." That was about as positive as the critics could get. "This paper should not have been published," said Shelley Copley of the University of Colorado.""""

The hasty, conclusionary thinking typical of the NASA researchers--"we've discovered a new form of life"!---might be considered symptomatic of corporate research, or what one might term the Factoid-as- Entertainment business ( Factoid-bots live for the newest research or pop-science discovery; paraphrasing that clever factoid-positivist Bertrand Russelll, provide a necessarily true argument that the world didn't start yesterday).

Al Gore did much the same via his pitch of global warming, overlooking many difficult scientific issues (ie, proving whether natural or manmade CO2 results in warming, for one) jumping to conclusions, thus creating both mindless "climate advocates" and a yokel backlash. Uncertainty doesn't move product.

"gambling losses..."

of the American financial aristocracy:

"""""Fed bailout loans outstanding reached a high of $3.3 trillion, but the cumulative amount of cash funneled by the US central bank to banks, hedge funds and major industrial corporations reached the tens of trillions of dollars.

Every major Wall Street bank was on the Fed dole, as were giant companies including General Electric and Verizon Communications. The Fed ran nearly a dozen separate bailout programs which together eclipsed by far the Treasury Department's $700 billion Troubled Asset Relief Program―the program that handed over billions in public funds to the banks in 2008 and 2009. In comparison to the amounts funneled by the Fed to US financial institutions, the Obama administration's $787 billion stimulus package was a drop in the bucket.

These vast sums were loaned out at rock-bottom interest without any strings attached. The banks and corporations that benefited were not even obliged to provide an account of what they did with the money. The entire purpose of the operation was to use public funds to cover the gambling losses of the American financial aristocracy, and create the conditions for the financiers and speculators to make even more money.""""

More evidence confirming the bipartisan character (and...multicultural character) of the corporate dystopia (in brief). Every member of the CA-Demo legislative gang voted yea for TARP.

Evil................

""Most of us have learned to be dispassionate about evil, to look it in the face and find, as often as not, our own grinning reflections with which we do not argue, but good is another matter. Few have stared at that long enough to accept that its face too is grotesque, that in us the good is something under construction. The modes of evil usually receive worthy expression. The modes of good have to be satisfied with a cliche or a smoothing down that will soften their real look."""

— Flannery O'Connor

sabado Gigante

Frank Zappa, December 21, 1940 – December 4, 1993.
FZ-musick: Guar-ann-teed to bother the fock out of honkay protestants, and other assorted moralists (of all colors), even ones who vote ....Dinocrat.


Mo' FZ:

Adams/FZ

Pynchon/FZ

and some holiday muzack

Mo' Dead Barbaras, every day, on the Big C.

L.A. Noir

Complete LA Noir/LATimes

""""Mickey had arrived between 8:30 and 9 p.m. in his new, black Caddy, accompanied by his bulldog, Mickey Jr. The dog had his own checkered bib so he could eat in style off a plate at his master's feet.

At a hearing a month before on Rondelli's application for a license to offer live entertainment, Mickey had taken the 5th when asked if he was a hidden owner. This night, he came early to meet with a black singing group seeking his help and with Roger Leonard, who fancied himself a writer-producer. Leonard was at Mickey's table to talk about making "The Mickey Cohen Story."

Sam Lo Cigno took the seat on Mickey's left and Piscitelle took a seat on the other side, where he could see anyone entering the dining room. Last to arrive was Mickey's date, Sandy Hagen, a model, full name Claretta Hashagen. She ordered the veal scallopini."""""

                    Take dat, ya doity rat

More Contingencies Crime-time klassics:

JamesThompson

Hammett

Burden/metropolis II

Bravo.

More

holiday myths: chanukkah

""""Over the next 100 years, the Maccabees used their military might to expand the Jewish kingdom, forcibly converting the Idumeans to Judaism... They epitomized the worst in military dictatorship... The more successful the Maccabees became, the wealthier and more Hellenistic they became!... they ended up becoming the single most successful Hellenizing force in Jewish society!...the Maccabean Kingdom was conquered by the Romans, and by the time the Rabbis, heirs of the Perushim and Hasidim, edited the Talmud, the land of Israel had known tremendous loss of life and destruction due to vainglorious military resistance and rebellion against Roman might. The martial memories of the Maccabees were no longer seen as reminders of a glorious past but dangerous, seditious influences which must be supressed at all costs ... The rabbis feared glorifying a martial past while still occupied and oppressed...The myth of the cruse of oil masked the truth about Hanukkah for centuries. The rabbis may have deliberately lied about the military origins and Hellenistic causes of Hanukkah in order to maintain the holiday but shifted its focus to God and more religious themes out of a greater need for survival!...""""

Mitt Romney's Mormon p***y

It's time. Oh yes, time for mormon Pussay to say........ Mitt Romney for Prez.  Gather holy Nephites and legions of Nauvoo, and win, baybe, win--the Brighamocracy awaits!  Romney-Palin, or Palin-Romney.  Honey-bees and Harleys

Mo' on Mitt and the frauds of MoroniCo:

mitt-mormbot-

movin-like-a-mormon-panderer-for-jeezuss


mitt-waves-his-flag-of-phreedom.html

Palinocracy

Clickanate!

"""""The larger the mob, the harder the test. In small areas, before small electorates, a first-rate man occasionally fights his way through, carrying even the mob with him by force of his personality. But when the field is nationwide, and the fight must be waged chiefly at second and third hand, and the force of personality cannot so readily make itself felt, then all the odds are on the man who is, intrinsically, the most devious and mediocre - the man who can most easily adeptly disperse the notion that his mind is a virtual vacuum. The Presidency tends, year by year, to go to such men. As democracy is perfected, the office represents, more and more closely, the inner soul of the people. We move toward a lofty ideal. On some great and glorious day the plain folks of the land will reach their heart's desire at last, and the White House will be adorned by a downright moron."""""  (pre-19th Amendment HL Mencken)

sabado gigante

No produci de los Evangelicos

what the world....needs now

is another Jonathan Swift, says Paul Krugman -- (update!)

""""Most people know Swift as the author of “Gulliver’s Travels.” But recent events have me thinking of his 1729 essay “A Modest Proposal,” in which he observed the dire poverty of the Irish, and offered a solution: sell the children as food. “I grant this food will be somewhat dear,” he admitted, but this would make it “very proper for landlords, who, as they have already devoured most of the parents, seem to have the best title to the children.”

O.K., these days it’s not the landlords, it’s the bankers — and they’re just impoverishing the populace, not eating it. But only a satirist — and one with a very savage pen — could do justice to what’s happening to Ireland now.

The Irish story began with a genuine economic miracle. But eventually this gave way to a speculative frenzy driven by runaway banks and real estate developers, all in a cozy relationship with leading politicians. The frenzy was financed with huge borrowing on the part of Irish banks, largely from banks in other European nations. ....""""

El Banquete de los Guajolotes

AContingenciesKlassic

snakes-giving

in flight!


ssssssssnake-rag

Oswald day

"They killed my husband and I have his brains in my hand."


""""Screen the JFK assassination enough times and the audience will laugh.""""

J.G. Ballard.

+ +  +  + +   +  +  + + +

Ball-o-days

"Monday: In Christian countries, the day after the (football) game."

Ambrose Bierce

Prayer-behavior

Pray, v :   To ask the laws of the universe to be annulled on behalf of a single petitioner confessedly unworthy.   Ambrose Bierce.

Feyerabend, cont.

""Looking now at the second element of the refutation-anthropological field work- we see that what is anathema here (and for very good reasons) is still a fundamental principle for the contemporary representatives of the philosophy of the Vienna Circle. According to Carnap, Feigl, Nagel, and others the terms of a theory receive their interpretation, in an indirect fashion, by being related to a different conceptual system which is either an older theory, or an observation language. Older theories, or observation languages are adopted not because of their theoretical excellence (they cannot possibly be: the older theories are usually refuted). They are adopted because they are `used by a certain language community as a means of communication'. ""

sabado gigante

ahhyeahh
Todos los dias son las funebres.
+++++ +++++

Pensativos profundos:


""But for so thoroughly pitiable a creature as Hegel, whose whole pseudo-philosophy is but a monstrous amplification of the Ontological Proof, to have undertaken its defence against Kant, is indeed an alliance of which the Ontological Proof itself might be ashamed, however little it may in general be given to blushing. How can I be expected to speak with deference of men, who have brought philosophy into contempt?"" (Schopenhauer)

The Farce of Fairness

Honderich--

""What is the tradition of conservatism's answer to the question of what is fair in a society? Its answers abound. Resisting change, being for so-called reforms, being against mere theory, respecting human nature, being for self-serving freedoms, less democratic government, the organic society, being against equality -- and for the pretence of indubitable economics, wholly spurious necessities.


None of those ideas and no bundle of them, examined in itself or considered in terms of the history of conservatism, is in sight of being an articulable and consistent candidate for a general principle of fairness. No book on conservatism since Edmund Burke's Reflections on the Revolution in France comes near to doing anything to improve on the vacuity which Burke fills only with social condescension to barbers and with pomp in support of his 'natural aristocracy'.


No Conservative thinking, to take a step against the cant of this moment, and to name the actual subject in hand, has offered a general principle of what is right in society that is worth attention. There are only pieces of public relations. Mill's verdict on conservatism as the stupid party or perhaps the stupidest party was not merely abuse but comprehensible. ""

The myth of Abrahamic authori-tay

""""The story of Abraham has bequeathed a moral legacy in which we have been taught not to question the authority of "fathers," even though, in the process, we betray children. Contemporary realities illustrate the ways in which the sacrifice and betrayal of children has been institutionalized. One can point to the dreadful conditions in which most children in the world are living. Children are abused at the hands of their parents, most frequently fathers or their surrogates, and by priests—the very "fathers" who stand in for God and whose mission it is to protect children. One can also include war and point out that "children" are sent off to fight old men's battles and that the U.S. military budget vastly exceeds that of welfare. The recent welfare debate itself shows how the "fathers" (of state) exercised their power to determine the fate of a whole generation of children.


The story of Abraham is not causative in any direct sense. But because it exemplifies and legitimates a hierarchical structure of authority, a specific form of family, definitions of gender, and the value of obedience that are simultaneously the fountainhead of faith and the bedrock of society, it has created an environment that has made it seem sacrilegious to question these issues.

Happiness index

Carlisle/Guardian

""""... [T]he government's plan to measure happiness raises a further and perhaps more profound philosophical question: regardless of whether this is possible in practice, is it the best way of thinking, even in principle, about what it is to live a good human life? A clue to this idea can be found in the way a term like "utilitarian" is sometimes used disparagingly. When, for example, a course of action is described as "merely utilitarian", this implies that something important has been overlooked. But what might this be?

The German philosopher Martin Heidegger can help us to answer this question. In his work both before and after the second world war, he came to focus increasingly on the issue of modern technology. He argued that technological devices such as machines and gadgets were symptoms of a deeper phenomenon that could be traced back through centuries of western culture. "Technology" in this deep sense refers not to this or that item of equipment, but to a fundamental way of thinking, and of being, that shapes everything we do.""""

Drone-o-nomics

The Re-con business/LA Times:

""""A Global Hawk robotic plane, hovering more than 11 miles above Afghanistan, can snap images of Taliban hide-outs so crystal clear that U.S. intelligence officials can make out the pickup trucks parked nearby — and how long they've been there.

Halfway around the globe in a underground laboratory in El Segundo, Raytheon Co. engineers who helped develop the cameras and sensors for the pilotless spy plane are now working on even more powerful devices that are revolutionizing the way the military gathers intelligence.

The new sensors enable flying drones to "listen in" on cellphone conversations and pinpoint the location of the caller on the ground. Some can even "smell" the air and sniff out chemical plumes emanating from a potential underground nuclear laboratory.""""

Peace: it's bad for bidness.

¡Domingo con WSWS!

Zizek the Charlatan

""""Zizek has been hailed as one of the world’s greatest public intellectuals, a leading postmodern, or “post-Marxist” philosopher and an “Elvis of cultural theory.” He is sought after for visiting faculty positions in both Europe and the US and has a loyal following, particularly among a layer of academics and would-be academics who were well represented in his largely homogenous New York City audience.

This narrow social layer is ‌‌Zizek’s universe and his comic spiels are tailored to provoke, titillate and amuse them.

Philosophically, ‌‌Zizek is not an original or innovative thinker. While one academic commentator has claimed that Hegel and Marx are among his core influences, that is a false genealogy.

Zizek is an outgrowth of a reactionary anti-Marxist and anti-materialist tradition that descends from the irrationalism of Schelling, Kierkegaard, Nietzsche and Heidegger. He eclectically draws on the neo-Nietzschean and neo-Heideggerian thought of 1960s French post-structuralism, having adopted the ideas of its leading intellectuals—especially the post-Heideggerian psychoanalysis of Jacques Lacan—when he was a graduate student.""""

Few in NASCAR-Land or Balltown will realize the significance of this, or the abiding power of TrotskyCo for that matter. Maybe when they're on boxcars (or the Peoples' F-150s) headed to Southwestern gulags they might.  That said, the WSWSsters may have overlooked Zizek's bolshevik inclinations--yes, he does rely heavily upon the  "latin quartier Heideggerians" (alas), but he also quotes Lenin at length in the Parallax View (and elsewhere).  With proper re-education, Comrade SZ might escape the fate of the bourgeois liberals and their redneck and/or mormon goons .   

¡Sabado Gigante!

Con nuestro amigo Señor Augustino, que escribiendo sobre de los mentiros malos.

Bankers in Jail

We-have-to-prosecute-fraud-or-else-the-economy-wont-recover

""""As economists such as William Black and James Galbraith have repeatedly said, we cannot solve the economic crisis unless we throw the criminals who committed fraud in jail.

And Nobel prize winning economist George Akerlof has demonstrated that failure to punish white collar criminals – and instead bailing them out- creates incentives for more economic crimes and further destruction of the economy in the future. .......
Nobel prize winning economist Joseph Stiglitz just agreed. As Stiglitz told Yahoo’s Daily Finance on October 20th:

This is a really important point to understand from the point of view of our society. The legal system is supposed to be the codification of our norms and beliefs, things that we need to make our system work. If the legal system is seen as exploitative, then confidence in our whole system starts eroding. And that’s really the problem that’s going on....."

***

Send Larry Summers to Sing-sing....

Veteran's Day Poppy

a Contingencies klassic

Case of the Missing Missile

Whodunit?

The Pentagon Tuesday said it was trying to determine if a missile was launched Monday off the coast of Southern California and who might have launched it.

Spokesmen for the Navy, Air Force, Defense Department and North American Aerospace Defense Command said they were looking into a video posted on the CBS News website that appears to show a rocket or some other object shooting up into the sky and leaving a large contrail over the Pacific Ocean.

The video was shot by a CBS affiliate KCBS' helicopter, the station said Tuesday.

"Nobody within the Department of Defense that we've reached out to has been able to explain what this contrail is, where it came from," Pentagon spokesman Col. Dave Lapan said. "So far, we've come up empty with any explanation."

One misplaced ICBM might rilly ruin your commuting experience.

Pelosi-stein

The Nancy Monster.../Lawrence/Counterpunch

""Two years ago, when Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton was refusing to bow out quietly, her New York Senate colleague Chuck Schumer did a masterful job of gently coaxing the temperamental doyenne to the sidelines. Now, another high-profile Democrat-who-would-be-Queen needs a polite nudge - or perhaps a rude shove - from the national limelight. Sadly for everyone - except Republicans, that is - she's still got her gavel, and is threatening to pummel anyone who comes near.

I'm talking about Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi. Or rather ex-Speaker Nancy Pelosi, thanks to the drubbing the Democrats took in last week’s mid-terms owing to Pelosi's stubborn and determined - but ultimately self-destructive - leadership of the party since Obama took office. As the darling of California’s hyper-liberal 8th congressional district, Pelosi had no problem retaining her own House seat, which was never in danger to begin with. But dozens of her fellow Democrats in “Ordinary America” – those ghastly places where commoners still “cling bitterly to their guns and religion” – went up in flames. And dozens more could suffer the same fate in 2012 if Pelosi wins her bid to become the House minority leader, which is all but assured, since the more conservative Blue Dog base of her leading rival, Steny Hoyer, the current minority leader, has just decimated.""

Bay Area DINOcrats are to authentic Democratic principles (i.e. Woodrow Wilson, FDR, Truman, JFK...) as Stalinism was to Karl Marx.

Guido Fawkes day (belated)

...et sic per gradus ad ima tenditur

"""When asked by one of the lords what he was doing in possession of so much gunpowder, Fawkes answered that his intention was "to blow you Scotch beggars back to your native mountains." He identified himself as a 36-year-old Catholic from Netherdale in Yorkshire, and gave his father's name as Thomas and his mother's as Edith Jackson. Wounds on his body noted by his questioners he explained as the effects of pleurisy. Fawkes admitted his intention to blow up the House of Lords, and expressed regret at his failure to do so. His steadfast manner earned him the admiration of King James, who described Fawkes as possessing "a Roman resolution"....""

Hecho en Inglaterra --Ingles, la lengua de El Diablo, y sus putas y monstruos

sabado gigante

editII



put that in yr chianti, padre

Election impotence

P.C.Roberts/Counterpunch:

""Today both parties are dependent for campaign finance on Wall Street, the military/security complex, AIPAC, the oil industry, agri-business, pharmaceuticals, and the insurance industry. Campaigns no longer consist of debates over issues. They are mud-slinging contests.

Angry voters take their anger out on incumbents, and that is what we saw in the election. Tea Party candidates defeated Republican incumbents in primaries, and Republicans defeated Democrats in the congressional elections.

Policies, however, will not change qualitatively. Quantitatively, Republicans will be more inclined to more rapidly dismantle more of the social safety net than Democrats and more inclined to finish off the remnants of civil liberties. But the powerful private oligarchs will continue to write the legislation that Congress passes and the President signs. New members of Congress will quickly discover that achieving re-election requires bending to the oligarchs’ will. ...""

why the Demos lost

RossBaker/USA Today

""I could make this the shortest postmortem on the midterm elections by simply running the figure "9.6%" in bold print at the head of the page and leave it at that. But I won't. As important as the abnormally high unemployment figure was in steering Tuesday's results in the GOP direction, there was more to the debacle than discontent over joblessness. Even if you throw in the comatose real estate market and the pathetic rates of interest being paid by money market funds to people on fixed incomes, you would have only a portion of the story of the Democrats' misfortune.

Like so many of the economic ills for which President Obama should not be forced to shoulder the entire blame, other factors mostly out of the president's control were in play — such as the long historical trend of the president's party losing seats in midterm elections, sometimes disastrously. The very magnitude of Obama's victory in 2008 and the broad coattails that carried Democrats from unlikely places to seats in Congress prefigured a big falloff in 2010. This "surge and decline" feature of U.S. congressional elections has operated with few exceptions in every midterm since 1934. """

Those who need to pin it on something might pin it on historical factors--the old "surge and decline" in particular. That, and the Foxnews-Herd Mind.

Scab-dance day

Jack London defines ....Scab:

"After God had finished the rattlesnake, the toad, the vampire, He had some awful substance left with which He made a scab. A scab is a two-legged animal with a cork-screw soul, a water-logged brain, a combination backbone of jelly and glue. Where others have hearts, he carries a tumor of rotten principles.


When a scab comes down the street, men turn their backs and angels weep in heaven, and the Devil shuts the gates of Hell to keep him out.

No man has a right to scab so long as there is a pool of water to drown his carcass in, or a rope long enough to hang his body with. Judas Iscariot was a gentleman compared with a scab. For betraying his master, he had character enough to hang himself. A scab has not.

Esau sold his birthright for a mess of pottage. Judas Iscariot sold his Savior for thirty pieces of silver. Benedict Arnold sold his country for a promise of a commission in the British Army. The modern strikebreaker sells his birthright, his country, his wife, his children and his fellow men for an unfulfilled promise from his employer, trust or corporation.

Esau was a traitor to himself: Judas Iscariot was a traitor to his God; Benedict Arnold was a traitor to his country; a strikebreaker is a traitor to his God, his country, his wife, his family and his class."

Vvvvvvvvote

a Contingencies klassic--

+++++ +++++ +++++ +++++

A  real leftist offers her thoughts  on Jon Stewart's Rally:

""Jon Stewart, you often offer a left wing critique of American policy and political culture—something I look forward to after along day of living in a place still littered with Confederate flags. To say I was disappointed in your rally and your closing speech would be, to say the least, an understatement.


In fact, I was sickened at drastic swing to the right:

“There are terrorists and racists and Stalinist and theocrats but those are titles that must be earned. You must have the resume. Not being able to distinguish between real racists and Tea Partiers or real bigots and Juan Williams and Rick Sanchez is an insult, not only to those people but to the racists themselves who have put in the exhausting effort it takes to hate."

Hell-o-ween

You really want to scare the neighbors' kids, wear your John McCaint costume.

Aiieeeeeeeee!

Few things are as terrifying as Arizona hicks

more on the lies of John McCaint

sabado Gigante

a Ezra POUND--
¡Cumpleaños feliz!

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. ....

UCSB physicist resigns over global warming

Hal Lewis/Resignation from the American Physical Society:

""When I first joined the American Physical Society sixty-seven years ago it was much smaller, much gentler, and as yet uncorrupted by the money flood (a threat against which Dwight Eisenhower warned a half-century ago). Indeed, the choice of physics as a profession was then a guarantor of a life of poverty and abstinence---it was World War II that changed all that. The prospect of worldly gain drove few physicists. As recently as thirty-five years ago, when I chaired the first APS study of a contentious social/scientific issue, The Reactor Safety Study, though there were zealots aplenty on the outside there was no hint of inordinate pressure on us as physicists. We were therefore able to produce what I believe was and is an honest appraisal of the situation at that time. We were further enabled by the presence of an oversight committee consisting of Pief Panofsky, Vicki Weisskopf, and Hans Bethe, all towering physicists beyond reproach. I was proud of what we did in a charged atmosphere. In the end the oversight committee, in its report to the APS President, noted the complete independence in which we did the job, and predicted that the report would be attacked from both sides. What greater tribute could there be?


How different it is now. The giants no longer walk the earth, and the money flood has become the raison d'être of much physics research, the vital sustenance of much more, and it provides the support for untold numbers of professional jobs. For reasons that will soon become clear my former pride at being an APS Fellow all these years has been turned into shame, and I am forced, with no pleasure at all, to offer you my resignation from the Society.


It is of course, the global warming scam, with the (literally) trillions of dollars driving it, that has corrupted so many scientists, and has carried APS before it like a rogue wave. It is the greatest and most successful pseudoscientific fraud I have seen in my long life as a physicist. Anyone who has the faintest doubt that this is so should force himself to read the ClimateGate documents, which lay it bare. (Montford's book organizes the facts very well.) I don't believe that any real physicist, nay scientist, can read that stuff without revulsion. I would almost make that revulsion a definition of the word scientist.""  

Wow.  Res ipsa  loquitur. 

Wondermark

a genius of sorts

Soros donates 1 mil. to Yes on 19

LA Times:

"""California's marijuana legalization campaign, which has struggled to raise money despite the intense nationwide focus on the issue, was jolted Tuesday when (George Soros) a multibillionaire investor with a long interest in loosening drug laws endorsed Proposition 19 and donated $1 million.

The contribution triples the amount of money that legalization advocates have to spend in the final week before the Nov. 2 election and dwarfs the $317,500 that the California Chamber of Commerce has spent on radio ads in Sacramento, Los Angeles and San Diego against the initiative.

"Better late than never," said Dale Sky Jones, a spokeswoman for the Yes on 19 committee, saying the campaign still has time to reach undecided voters. "It will be a nail-biter to the end."""

Yes on 19.
more on 19

J-Edgar Holder

via the Davis Vanguard:

""US Attorney General Eric Holder and Gil Kerlikowske, Director of the Office of National Drug Control Policy (ONDCP), have inserted themselves into the debate on Prop 19, arguing that they would not only enforce marijuana laws in California but that the Department of Justice would sue to overturn Proposition 19 should it be approved next month by California voters.

It was a move inspired by the possibility that the measure would pass, although recent polls now show it modestly behind as the election next week rapidly approaches.

In response to implied threats, the ACLU has written a letter arguing that there would be no legal basis for the Department of Justice (DOJ) to sue to overturn Proposition 19 should it be approved next month by California voters, and urging the Justice Department not to change its current law enforcement focus on major criminal activity in favor of new enforcement activities against California marijuana users.

"Proposition 19 will let Californians decide whether to change the failed policy of using scarce state law enforcement resources to prohibit, under state law, the adult consumption and possession of small amounts of marijuana," the letter says.""

Prop 19 would also bring in much needed tax-revenues to the post-Ahhnuld CA economy. Prop. 19 also would allow citizens to grow small amounts of marijuana for personal use, instead of being forced to buy it from  the Democratic party mobsters or cartels. 19's a good idea, but maybe a bit dicey, like most authentic freedom is--and freedom tends to scare the F. out of the usual professional politician (which is to say, there's no sound reason that the Feds shouldn't recognize the CA Law--though  it probably offends the Black Robe gang (aka Supreme Court), for some reason or another--or perhaps it offends their priests, rabbis, and/or imams) .   Yes on 19. 

Death Mountain

""LA Times/Reporting from Whitney Portal, Calif. — Dicey.

""That's the word Doug Thompson used to describe the strenuous 11-mile hike to the summit of Mt. Whitney in October, a month of unpredictable weather that can make the first step up the trailhead near Thompson's rustic convenience store the start of a death trap.

About 25,000 people ascend the 14,494-foot mountain each year, and "while a lot of them are physically strong, they don't always have much experience or the proper gear," he said. "A year ago this very week, we had a fatal accident up here."

So far this year, five people have died on Mt. Whitney, and an untold number of hikers have suffered minor injuries, U.S. Forest Service officials said. Earlier this week, more than 75 searchers combed the mountain area for separate groups of climbers marooned for several days after day trips under clear blue skies turned into howling, snowy ordeals.

Three of those climbers — Phillip Michael Abraham, 34; Stevan James Filips, 43; and Dale Clymens, 45; all of Omaha — were plucked off the mountain by helicopter Thursday. The group had taken refuge in a rock hut for three days. Only one of them carried a sleeping bag, according to hikers who crossed their paths during the week.

Two others — Sina Sadeghi Baghsorkhin, 27, and his father, Abdolreza Sadeghi, 56 — walked out of the wilderness area uninjured about 1 a.m. Friday, about 50 miles away from their planned exit point.

"Both of those trips were ill-conceived and put rescuers in jeopardy," said K. C. Wylie, director of the Eastern Sierra Inter-Agency Visitor Center in Lone Pine. "We had weather forecasts indicating that there were storms moving in. On Tuesday, the forecast for the Mt. Whitney summit called for a high of 25 degrees and a low of 15 degrees.""

Yo Doug, you're a celebrity!  The usual flatlander melodrama, eh--worse, most of the S&R pissfords can't read a topo map, or know a belay from their butt. Cheeseburger, Coors, and....somethin' somethin. 

sabado gigante

Carmina Burana, y'all

wit 'n wisdom of "Billy Bob" Broden

WASHINGTON – ""Republican congressional candidate Stephen "Billy Bob" Broden stunned his party Thursday, saying he would not rule out violent overthrow of the government if elections did not produce a change in leadership.

In a rambling exchange during a TV interview, Broden, a South Dallas pastor, said a violent uprising "ain't the first option," but it is "on the mutha-f-ing table, along with plenty of other stuff." That drew a denunciation from the head of the Turnipseed County GOP, who called the remarks "not very nice."

In the interview, Brad Watson, political reporter for WTFA-TV asked Broden about a Tea party event last year in Turnipseed County in which he described the nation's government as a pack of liberal tyrants.

"We have a constitutional remedy," Broden said then. "And the Framers say if that don't work, a big can of whupass will, also known as Revolution."

In a prolonged back-and-forth, Broden at first declined to explicitly address insurrection, saying the first way to deal with a repressive government is to "alter it or abolish it."

"If the government has become misdestructive, as Miss Palin would say, to the ends of our sacred liberties, or ain't turning a profit, we have a right to get rid of that government and to get rid of it by any means necessary," Broden said, adding the nation was founded on a violent revolt against Britain's King George III.

Watson asked if violence would be in option in 2010, under the current government.

"The option is on the table. Yes it is. I don't think that we should remove nothin' from the table as it relates to our liberties and our God-given freedoms," Broden said, without elaborating. "And speaking of the table, I'm about to head over to the IHOP for some cakes and sausage--that's my right to breakfast, a right which the liberal-collectivist swine have not as of yet eliminated."

Endorsements, East-Bay style

""Governor: As much as it pains us to say it, we endorse Jerry Brown. He wasn't much of a mayor, and he wasn't much of a governor the first time around either. But he's better than Meg Whitman, who didn't even start voting until recently. The only reason she's gotten this far is because of her obscene wealth. So hold your nose and vote Brown.

Senate: Barbara Boxer is the clear choice. Yes, she could be more effective in the US Senate, but her work on climate-change legislation and her stalwart stances on progressive issues have been noteworthy. Carly Fiorina, by contrast, is a failed ex-CEO and Tea Party wannabe, who would attempt to roll back President Obama's achievements, including health-care and Wall Street reform.

Attorney General: Unfortunately, Democrats have fielded a weak candidate this year. San Francisco District Attorney Kamala Harris has been a mediocre DA. By contrast, her opponent, Los Angeles District Attorney Steve Cooley, a moderate Republican, is very impressive. His office has set the gold standard in California for prosecuting corrupt public officials — both Republicans and Democrats — and for aggressively targeting police misconduct. Our only concerns about him involved gay marriage and marijuana legalization. But his campaign assured us that he has no plans to intervene in the Proposition 8 federal case if he's elected, nor has he decided whether he will defend Prop 19 in court if it wins — which essentially mirrors Harris' position. As a result, we're endorsing Cooley, because he's clearly the better prosecutor.

.....

Proposition 19: Hell Yes. Details next week.""

The Contingencies staff agrees, tentatively, with reservations, and respirator in hand.

from East Bay Express

Remembrance of some things past...

from Top Ten Myths of Popular Psychology:

""Today, there’s broad consensus among psychologists that memory isn’t reproductive — it doesn’t duplicate precisely what we’ve experienced — but reconstructive. What we recall is often a blurry mixture of accurate and inaccurate recollections, along with what jells with our beliefs and hunches. Indeed, researchers have created memories of events that never happened. In the “shopping mall study,” Elizabeth Loftus created a false memory in Chris, a 14-year-old boy. Loftus instructed Chris’s older brother to present Chris with a false story of being lost in a shopping mall at age 5, and she instructed Chris to write down everything he remembered. Initially, Chris reported very little about the false event, but over a two week period, he constructed a detailed memory of it. A flood of similar studies followed, showing that in 18-37% of participants, researchers can implant false memories of such events as serious animal attacks, knocking over a punchbowl at a wedding, getting one’s fingers caught in a mousetrap as a child, witnessing a demonic possession, and riding in a hot air balloon with one’s family.""

Beyond Brown vs Whitman

Paff/Counterpunch:

""""During the last debate Meg Whitman showed how "populist" she was by bragging she'd campaigned "out there" three or four times a week and had spoken to a truck driver. Presumably this was more often than Jerry Brown. Jerry did nothing for months --relying on name recognition and old standby contributors--teachers and public employee unions. Meg relied on the vast pile of money she'd siphoned off her E-bay fencing operation and fat cat peers who expect to benefit with tax breaks. The moment the debate ended TV viewers were assaulted by strident ads making precisely these points--Meg portrayed with piles of cash and laid off employees, Jerry the professional politician beholden to public worker unions. Not the slightest indication of any "real" support for either: no student groups, no community organizations, no grass roots whatsoever. How different this election would have been if Jerry Brown had built his campaign around a voter registration drive.

"Remaking California" wants to ask "cui bono"---who benefits from the present stalemate? One way to answer this question is to ask who spent most of the $1 billion dollars lobbied into Sacramento in the past decade? 50 per centof this money came from teachers and public employee unions, pharmaceutical industries, and Indian casinos--and these are all booming businesses. For Jeff Lustig , the answer is corporate interests, the wealthy, the exploiters of the public realm. At book meetings discussing Lustig’s collection people want to add "public employees" and their unions --an answer that Jeff is reluctant to hear. (He says he objected to panelists blaming public employee unions alone, exclusively, as the beneficiaries of the deadlock; as if public employee unions were the authors of this long-running disaster, without any thought to the benefits reaped by, say, oil interests contesting a royalty tax, development interests, commercial property (contesting market-based valuations for property tax evaluations) etc.""""

Jodl or Zhukov: whose side you on, ese

Sarah hits the Southland

LATimes/PalinRally

“There is no way in heck I’m not going to love a state that when you enter its borders and you look up at the state flag and you see emblazoned on that a Mama Grizzly,” Palin said to cheers in Anaheim.

“Now is when we kick it in to high gear, peoples. Now is when we have to dig deep, like bears in the woods, hunting for food for their families” Palin said, appearing on a stage with other California GOP candidates.

G*d willin' n the creek don't rise

sabado Gigante

una favorita perpetua...La Muerte!

salud