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

Wrong side of capitalism, cont.

Zizek/Counterpunch:

""

One often hears that the true message of the Eurozone crisis is that not only the Euro, but the project of the united Europe itself is dead. But before endorsing this general statement, one should add a Leninist twist to it: Europe is dead—ok, but which Europe? The answer is: the post-political Europe of accommodation to the world market, the Europe which was repeatedly rejected at referendums, the Brussels technocratic-expert Europe. The Europe that presents itself as standing for cold European reason against Greek passion and corruption, for mathematics against pathetics. But, utopian as it may appear, the space is still open for another Europe: a re-politicized Europe, founded on a shared emancipatory project; the Europe that gave birth to ancient Greek democracy, to the French and October Revolutions. This is why one should avoid the temptation to react to the ongoing financial crisis with a retreat to fully sovereign nation-states, easy prey for free-floating international capital, which can play one state against the other. More than ever, the reply to every crisis should be more internationalist and universalist than the universality of global capital......."

In the words of the immortal Ed McMahon, I did not know that.

Mo' Zizek!

e-Bay chicken ranch

LATimes/Brown/Whitman

"""In a blistering final debate, Democratic candidate for governor Jerry Brown apologized to his Republican counterpart Meg Whitman on Tuesday for a slur directed at her by an associate, an apology that Whitman did not explicitly accept as she cast his campaign as insulting to all Californians.

                      "Kitty Whitman"

"""Brown continued to insist that Whitman was seeking office to enrich wealthy Californians such as herself, while she derided Brown as a "same old same old" politician who helped lead California into its present straits and said she represented a fresh start for the beleaguered state.

specs sheet

We here at Contingencies sort of respect Mr. Obama for representin' on his bicycle, in the city streets no less (instead of Dubya's little CIA protected forest rides).

Bukowski at the Huntington

Contingencies Kultur kontinues!

"" The Bukowski exhibit, which is organized roughly chronologically, includes photos, letters, drafts and redrafts of his writing, first editions, original artwork, foreign translations, movie memorabilia and other ephemera, including a racing form.


" was his sanctuary, and this was mine," Linda Lee Bukowski, his widow, said of the Huntington. When Bukowski was gambling at the track in nearby Arcadia, she visited the library and gardens.


She arranged for his papers to come to the institution and saw the exhibit for the first time Friday.


"It's surrealistic," she said. In the foyer, in a class case, sit Bukowski's typewriter, wine glass, pens and boom box, a little dingy, arranged just as they were in his office. Linda Lee Bukowski explained that she's left his office just as it was, going in twice a year to dust. "It's like home," she said, looking at the case. "I'm walking into this room at the Huntington, and it's like home."

CA Demopublicans on Prop 19

Jerry Brown and Meg Whitman both oppose Prop. 19. Senator DiDi Feinstein, California's own Margaret Thatcher, also opposes 19, and recently joined hands with LA Sheriff-Jefe Baca and other CA crimefighters to   once again proclaim how much Prop. 19 pisses her off. Nearly all the leading Democrats oppose Prop. 19, as does the GOP--whether Yacht-club, or Evinrude club.

"Ignorance is Strength"

Admittedly, Proposition 19 may have some problems. For one, the primary backers tend to be entrepreneurial types--head-shop owners, in brief-- who stand to make a buck selling paraphernalia, marijuana "education", so forth were Prop. 19 to pass--f*ck them. Furthermore, local governments could still regulate pot use to such an extent as to make it nearly impossible to grow or use (imagine cops stopping by every few days to inspect your small crop).


Proposition 19 would, however, allow some home cultivation and use of cannabis. In effect 19 would eliminate the dealers, large growers, and...mobsters from the pot trade (there are rumors that pot growers and possibly mafiosi actually have ordered Democrats to oppose the law). Prop. 19  would also raise some needed tax funds to help rebuild the post-Ahhnuld CA infrastructure.   Additionally, citizens found in possession of small amounts of pot would not be subject to criminal charges.


Maybe those citizens who favor Prop. 19--and who object to nanny state tactics, regardless of which political party enforces them-- should simply not vote for any candidate who opposes 19, Demo or GOP, instead resorting to the tried and true political tactic of DFV (Don't F*cking Vote).

LA Times/marijuana/

sabado gigante

Cal Tjader......Shoshana



++++++++++  ++++++++++

Nobel prize/Mario-Vargas-Llosa

"""""The amazing thing about "The War of the End of the World" is that it looks at religious cults and end-of-the-world figures in such an insightful way that the reader comes from the novel feeling as though the last word has been said about this subject. Perhaps the greatest pleasure of the novel is that men and women of all types -- soldiers, criminals, landowners, housewives, beggars, intellectuals, priests, believers -- and all social classes are viewed with compassion and interest. No character is dismissed or overlooked, and the result is a tragic celebration of a very human thing, the sweep of an avid belief through a society, and the change and damage it leaves behind. Is the Savior figure in this novel meant to represent Jesus? Or Jim Jones? Vargas Llosa isn't saying, and that makes it all the better."""""

End of Summers.....

Chronicle/Larry-Summers--

""""Consider: As a rising economist at Harvard and at the World Bank, Summers argued for privatization and deregulation in many domains, including finance. Later, as deputy secretary of the treasury and then treasury secretary in the Clinton administration, he implemented those policies. Summers oversaw passage of the Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act, which repealed Glass-Steagall, permitted the previously illegal merger that created Citigroup, and allowed further consolidation in the financial sector. He also successfully fought attempts by Brooksley Born, chair of the Commodity Futures Trading Commission in the Clinton administration, to regulate the financial derivatives that would cause so much damage in the housing bubble and the 2008 economic crisis. He then oversaw passage of the Commodity Futures Modernization Act, which banned all regulation of derivatives, including exempting them from state antigambling laws.

Over the past decade, Summers continued to advocate financial deregulation, both as president of Harvard and as a University Professor after being forced out of the presidency. During this time, Summers became wealthy through consulting and speaking engagements with financial firms. Between 2001 and his entry into the Obama administration, he made more than $20-million from the financial-services industry. (His 2009 federal financial-disclosure form listed his net worth as $17-million to $39-million.)




Summers remained close to Rubin and to Alan Greenspan, a former chairman of the Federal Reserve. When other economists began warning of abuses and systemic risk in the financial system deriving from the environment that Summers, Greenspan, and Rubin had created, Summers mocked and dismissed those warnings. In 2005, at the annual Jackson Hole, Wyo., conference of the world's leading central bankers, the chief economist of the International Monetary Fund, Raghuram Rajan, presented a brilliant paper that constituted the first prominent warning of the coming crisis. Rajan pointed out that the structure of financial-sector compensation, in combination with complex financial products, gave bankers huge cash incentives to take risks with other people's money, while imposing no penalties for any subsequent losses. Rajan warned that this bonus culture rewarded bankers for actions that could destroy their own institutions, or even the entire system, and that this could generate a "full-blown financial crisis" and a "catastrophic meltdown.""""

Summers appears to be headed back to Harvard though a few reasonable humans have suggested Sing Sing or Leavenworth as alternative destinations.

Don't let the door hit ya.....

AlexCockburn--Emanuel's exit

""""By the time Obama hired him, Emanuel already had a proven record of toadyism to corporate America and the neocon lobby. Emanuel was a relict of all that was sleazy in the Clinton White House. Among the body blows that have brought the Democrats to their present ebb, the passage of NAFTA in 1993, with consequent destruction of the American industrial economy, must count as among the most lethal. Key to that passage was Emanuel, who directed the Clinton White House operation to get the treaty passed by any means necessary.


Following his departure from the White House in 1998, Emanuel headed to a well upholstered post in a Chicago banking firm before he won election to Dan Rostenkowski's old Chicago seat. By 2005 he headed the Democratic National Campaign Committee. As such, he decided which candidates for the House should get money and other support from the national party. As Andrew Cockburn and later John Walsh described on this site at that time, Emanuel did his best to recruit candidates, preferably rich ones, guaranteed to eschew vocal opposition to the Iraq war, which Emanuel, a veteran of the Israeli army strongly favored. """"

"Legado latino en conquista del espacio"

Desde La Opinion:

""" El legado de los hispanos va más allá de la exploración de nuevas tierras en Estados Unidos desde hace casi cinco siglos y hoy en día también forma parte de la historia de la conquista del espacio.

Además de recorrer territorios inhóspitos y dar nombres a ríos, montañas o ciudades, los hispanos han vencido también todo tipo de obstáculos hasta graduarse de carreras como ciencias, matemáticas o ingeniería que les han abierto la puertas para conquistar sueños ambiciosos como llegar al espacio.

Sueños que en muchos casos empezaron ante el asombro de las imágenes del primer hombre en luna, o la curiosidad despertada por un logo entonces desconocido, como fue el caso del ingeniero Guillermo González, quien encabeza un grupo de ingenieros que trabaja en el diseño de sistemas de aborto de lanzamientos espaciales en el Centro de Investigaciones Langley, (LARC) de la NASA, ubicado en Virginia.

"Qué es eso, NASA", fue lo primero que preguntó a sus padres el ingeniero González, en su humilde vivienda en su ciudad natal de Ponce (Puerto Rico).

"Tenía once años y observé lo que luego supe era el logo de la NASA mientras veía la transmisión de las primera llegada del hombre a la luna y desde entonces quise dedicarme a las ciencias", explicó a Efe el ingeniero puertorriqueño.""""

sabado Gigante (con convidado....JP Sartre!)

from "Existentialism is a Humanism"

""""First, [Existentialism] has been reproached as an invitation to people to dwell in quietism of despair. For if every way to a solution is barred, one would have to regard any action in this world as entirely ineffective, and one would arrive finally at a contemplative philosophy. Moreover, since contemplation is a luxury, this would be only another bourgeois philosophy. This is, especially, the reproach made by the Communists.""""

                                          Zut! 

""From another quarter we are reproached for having underlined all that is ignominious in the human situation, for depicting what is mean, sordid or base to the neglect of certain things that possess charm and beauty and belong to the brighter side of human nature: for example, according to the Catholic critic, Mlle. Mercier, we forget how an infant smiles. Both from this side and from the other we are also reproached for leaving out of account the solidarity of mankind and considering man in isolation. And this, say the Communists, is because we base our doctrine upon pure subjectivity – upon the Cartesian “I think”: which is the moment in which solitary man attains to himself; a position from which it is impossible to regain solidarity with other men who exist outside of the self. The ego cannot reach them through the cogito""""

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



"Les feuilles mortes"

e-Meg, Mitt, Mormonics

the Angel Moroni opposes Big Government too....

"My friends, today I stand before you with Mitt Romney, governor of Massachusetts and candidate for the US President. Like Mitt, I am firmly opposed to liberal bureaucrats and to big government in all of its forms. We are also in agreement in regard to the perils of illegal immigration and are dedicated to fighting our enemy south of the Border, and across the globe if need be. Mitt and I have similar management styles too.  And like Mitt I also believe in the precious freedoms cherished by our American forefathers, and I believe in the NRA and the right of free enterprise, and in combating terrorism. Like Mitt I believe that honest hardworking Americans now face a moral crisis. Mitt and I might differ a little in some of our views, but like most Mormon people he's a hardworking American who cherishes the precious freedoms that our forefathers fought for."


"Mitt's been a very successful CEO and brought the Olympics to Salt Lake City. He knows what it takes to operate a successful business. He knows that like a business, the Government also needs to be held accountable to the shareholders, which is to say, held accountable to hardworking American property owners. We need to view govt. as an asset, rather than liability, and make it turn a profit, instead of costing us an arm and a leg."


"Mitt also understands the values of thrift and prosperity and the dangers of waste and decadence. Joseph Smith, the LDS church father also battled against what he perceived to be the moral ills of his day. Smith was an early supporter of family values. He envisioned a society dedicated to prosperity, to motherhood, and to moral goodness, and to strength. The Angel Moroni visited Smith, and brought him an American message of freedom and moral integrity, of family values, and the right of prosperity and property ownership. Moroni did not support the evils of Statism, that's for sure! "


"So today I ask you my friends to keep those moral messages of Moroni, and Mitt Romney, and our forefathers in mind. We face stiff opposition on all sides. The statists, the union bosses, the loony lefties and malcontents want us defeated. The powers of darkness want us to fail. But fail we shall not. We shall persevere, and our values, and our families, and our management styles shall prevail. Thank you and may God bless each and everyone of you here today."