Warning: Extreme elitist misanthropic opinion follows. I watched the latest “Real Time with Bill Maher” the other day, and he decried the intelligence of the American people as unable to do the right thing when voting, citing as one of his examples the fact that most people (according to USA Today) believe in angels, particularly [...]
READ MORE »Posts in category POLITICS
Deregulation.
With the spiraling nose-dive of the economy due to deregulation and risk-free corporate greed in the news, I thought I’d start this short post with a reminder that banking and securities and lending industries aren’t the only areas that suffer from deregulation: the herbal/dietary suppliments are also completely unregulated (well, except that suppliments can’t claim [...]
READ MORE »It’s not a 1st and 4th Amendment violation if we say “whoopsie!”.
You’ll recall my post during the Republican National Convention in which I relayed news that not only were legitimate criminals being rounded up before the RNC commenced, but so were peace activists and protestors, civil liberties activists, government watchdog groups…and evil journalists. Many were raided and harassed and intimidated into submission and property was seized [...]
READ MORE »McCain fails mainly on Spain.
Quick post: Apparently the presidential candidate who’s major platform is that he’s the experienced and knowledgeable foreign policy guy and Obama’s the young and inexperienced guy, doesn’t know what hemisphere Spain is in or at least who the Prime Minister of it is. Bizarre McCain Remarks Appear To Reject Spain As Ally The Spanish journalist [...]
READ MORE »Makes perfect sense that it looked like a bordello…
…since Palin was basically whoring out her town to Washington lobbyists for tens of millions in earmarks. (No offense or disparagement meant to “working girls” by comparing them to sleazy politicians. I’d much rather have a beer with a prostitute than either Palin or McCain. Just a beer, though! Seriously.) What am I talking about? [...]
READ MORE »Those who don’t study history…
Maybe I’m over simplifying things, but I find this very interesting: Nearly 150 years ago our country suffers through a horrific war that drastically alters the economy of the country from top to bottom. But once the war ends, the country starts to go through a period of invention and development, exploration and prosperity. New [...]
READ MORE »I’m voting Republican!
Hat tip to Ellen Datlow for this.
READ MORE »Democracy…when?
One of the stories mentioned in yesterday’s blog post on the police unlawfully raiding peaceful protestor organizations, homes of liberal organizers not even planning to protest, and confiscating computers and cameras (the dangerous weapons of the press and free public who watch the watchers), was the arrest of Democracy Now! producers and reporter: Update: Democracy [...]
READ MORE »Police state getting good at preemptive strikes.
There’s been something of a noticeable difference between how the police have been handling the two political party conventions. At last week’s Democratic convention there was a little trouble noted at the site among protesters. Seems some got a little too physical and were summarily subdued and cordoned off by a questionably large force of [...]
READ MORE »Navarrette’s a tool.
Ruben Navarrette Jr. is almost as big a tool as Glenn Beck–although it takes a lot to be as big of a tool as Beck. Ruben posted a commentary on CNN.com: Commentary: Obama’s confusing blend of left-right economics in which he whines about not understanding Obama’s message that just as each of us need to [...]
READ MORE »The Invisible Hand needs some emergency room care.
The “invisible hand” to which I refer is the famous metaphor for the free market economy. The supposed magic hand that makes everything cheaper and more efficient. Feh! But more on that general topic later. Right now, here is some excellent information on how the free market health care system is f—d up. Here’s an [...]
READ MORE »“To hell with Democracy!”
This is a very, very scary time we live in right now. Jack Cafferty has a fantastic although disheartening commentary on CNN.com right now: Commentary: Is McCain another George W. Bush? He talks about how McCain was at the bottom of his class at the Naval Academy (likely got into the Navy through his Admiril [...]
READ MORE »Cory Doctorow puts the Singularity into perspective.
An interview recently released (but recorded a year ago) with writer and technoculture critic Cory Doctorow, on Reality Break podcast, has what I think is a brilliant observation about the subjectivity of contemporary issues and the concept of “the Singularity” specifically: Science fiction is about reflecting the present not the future, so, all science fiction [...]
READ MORE »Community responses to crime.
I really need to keep writing this weekend (OMG! I just touchtyped that last sentence! And most of this sentence! This is a big deal for me. I’ve been using a keyboard, sometimes 10+ hours a day, for 25 years, and I still can’t touchtype. Anywa….) so this should be reasonably brief. A couple of [...]
READ MORE »Exemplification of “the machine”.
This news item: Man whose US immigration notice was sent to the wrong address is detained with untreated spinal cancer until he dies, denied access to his wife and children I have no comment of my own that could add to the story itself. I’ll just post what some others have said: OM: …You know, [...]
READ MORE »The Big Oceana! Er, Big London? Ah, Big Apple. Oh Brother!
“Oceana” is a reference to the setting of George Orwell’s 1984, which is what the U.S./British empire has become. Where Big Brother monitors and watches and tracks everyone. “London” is a reference to…modern day London, which has careened full throttle toward Orwell’s hellscape of 1984 by, as Cory Doctorow puts it, installing a “CCTV camera [...]
READ MORE »Free market education: the fail.
Yesterday I posted a super-bloated overlong post: The failure of conservatism. (That’s what happens when I allow myself to write unedited in stream-of-consciousness–which is every time, really.) I railed against the ideas of free market capitalism and libertarian, objectivist anarchy in the modern world. I briefly mentioned public education as part of “the commons,” a [...]
READ MORE »The failure of conservatism.
Animal Farm revisited: There’s a chain email that’s being passed around conservative emailers that tells a story of a foreign freedom fighter describing to his American college professor how to capture wild pigs by feeding them free corn and slowly penning them in. The email ends with a quote: “A government big enough to give [...]
READ MORE »The People’s Encryption.
(Vital Update: Check out my comment at the bottom for some very important info on this post.) OK, remember that post I wrote not long ago: On the issue of privacy and protecting civil liberties? That got reprinted by Steganos security software site? (“Sheesh, you never freakin’ let us forget!”) Seems I have some people [...]
READ MORE »Many layers of stupidity regarding security and greed.
Not long ago I posted an article, “On the issue of privacy and protecting civil liberties“. Since then I’ve heard Cory Doctorow discuss more frequently how the underlying problem with the loss of personal data and thus a real threat to our lives (and livelihoods) goes beyond the loss of collected data into the wrong [...]
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