Politics
Senator Boxer Wrote Me Back
Remember when there was some debate as to whether or not Congress should investigate whether Bush 2.0 was lying when he said that British Intelligence knew that Saddam Hussein had tried to purchase enriched uranium in Africa?
Well, it turns out that Bush was speaking falsely (and then tried to stick it on poor old George Tenet!) but I still wanted to see the legislative branch do something to assert its check on the, seemingly ever expanding, powers of the executive branch. I told one of my Senators, B. Boxer that I hoped she would support measures to get a full and accurate accounting.
Government v. Private Sector on Jobs
Discussed Today…
Getting more lawyers (or, any professional) into public service
Recall fever
The Donnas Said…“send her home on BART”
Getting more lawyers Hold the jokes, I know some lawyers and they’re not (all) money-grubbing, back-stabbing bastards (yet).
The ABA came out today and said that they have discovered that fewer and fewer students choosing to take careers in public service (public defense, prosecution) versus private practice.
Who can blame them?
With the average year’s tuition to a private university going from 7K to 25K a year (tack on an apartment, food, etc.), is it any wonder that these people find the austere yet socially rewarding charms of public work less than exciting?
A night of political fun — and fun in the Lower Haight
The candidate
Yesterday Arianna Huffington was in town and I got to meet her and hear her speak. Her presence is incredible, she’s definitely got that quality where you’re sort of hanging on her next word. She was in town to deliver her platform statement. She also autographed a copy of her book How To Overthrow the Government for me.
Unlike other candidates who’s web presence is a total joke (Arnold shows us he can photoshop a pic of he and Maria, but offers no substance - a bit like his candidacy), Arianna is willing to take a stand on the issues and post them.
Who exposed Valerie Plame as an operative
The top story on Google’s news index is about how Joe Wilson believes that someone in the White House exposed his wife, Valerie Plame, as a CIA operative.
First of all, whoever did this, shame on you. You are a treacherous lout who deserves to be strung up by your toes. These people sacrificed their lives figuratively, they don’t get Christmas with families, they don’t get normal nuclear families, they live a double life, mortgaging what you and I take for granted so that we can take it for granted. One other thing, they also know that if they are unmasked they will sacrifice their lives - in a very real fashion.
Miserable Failure
Go to http://www.google.com Enter “miserable failure” Click I’m feeling lucky Links to George W. Bush homepage Thanks to thousands of bloggers like yours truly entering miserable failure, Google’s engine is providing interesting results.
Karl Rove read this:
“Mission Accomplished!”
Steven on Same-Sex Marriage
First things first, let me say that I am an ardent supporter of the separation of church and state. This is one of the most fundamental beliefs I hold about the world around me.
It cheapens religion to put it in the State and the State has no business commenting or being involved with people’s faith (or lack thereof).
The intermingling of the two caused some of the most bitter wars in Europe that the West has ever known and even today this lack of partition is responsible for making sure that the mortars keep falling in Kashmir.
So, to address what my title speaks of.
Is conservatism incompatible with capitalism?
If the goal is to maximize take, eventually that will force those who take to compromise principles for the un-served tail of the market. This seems untenable. In the battle between ideals and capitalism, one will capitulate ideals (and post hoc rationalize it, possibly to extremism) or become a reactionary.
An example of the mendacity of the Bush Administration
People generally ask my why I take such a hostile view of the Bush administration. I’m not entirely against their goals…but their mendacity (which means lying) really gets my goat. That and their arrogance, insensitivity, the list goes on.
Here’s a vivid example of what irritates me:
http://www.moveon.org/censure/caughtonvideo/
Running low on bathroom supplies?
I suspect that instead of having to squeeze the Charmin, the “Roadmap for Peace” is now available for posterior cleaning.
http://www.cnn.com/2004/WORLD/meast/03/22/yassin/index.html
Here’s the thing, I recognize that Hamas has supported acts of terrorism, but historically the Israel / Palestine conflict centers on a vendetta see-saw. This seems like an ‘out of the clear blue we will shoot missiles at you’ thing.
Did I miss some provocation?
The myth of wunderwaffen
I am watching CSPAN2’s book TV where a panel is discussing the myth of warfare.
On the panel we have Anthony Swofford, author of Jarhead, and Chris Hedges, combat correspondent and author of War is a Force that Gives Us Meaning.
Hedges pointed out that most of the coverage of the accounts of the battles in Iraq describe the effectiveness of the weapons: they are precise, they are accurate, they are effective and thus by extension, so is the empire that produces them. Thus the coverage builds the success of the nation, it is an autocatalytic cycle that expands Nationalist Sentiment.
Evil women and eros
There was recently some furor about Lynndie England, a PFC in Iraq, having been party to shameful behavior towards POWs. There’s something particularly stunning about women being party to such things.
They have the ability to quicken life itself inside of them - isn’t that quintessentially male quality of torture - the slow, debasing, infliction of humiliation seem all the more shocking having come from a female?
Watching "Triumph of the Will"
“Triumph of the Will” is the film of note of Nazi propaganda and produced the fairly recently deceased Leni Riefenstahl.
The classic question of this film is, can a movie be good art if it proposes and celebrates the National Socialist and Labor Party’s achievements?
Can one say, Riefenstahl was an innovator, a master of the cinematic medium, and feel good about it when what you’re looking at is – Nazi Propaganda?
I was very much reminded of Paul Berman’s discussion of Death Cult. The Death Cult tells you the meaning of your life and the meaning of your death. Let us put it in a modern perspective - in the Islamist Death Cult your life’s purpose is to be as devout as possible and to undermine the evil work of Western society.
More thoughts on "Triumph of the Will"...
Interesting side fact: Hitler was one of the first politicians to use a plane as a means of conveyance.
Hitler actually cared (or seems to have actually cared?) about the youth of the Reich (for what end is unknowable) but I have never seen a politician in our era where actions with children did not seem entirely contrived and disingenuous.
Somehow the collaboration between Riefenstahl and Hitler makes it seem as if he genuinely cares about these youth. It’s really unnerving.
…
I can’t wait to ship this one back. I’m glad to have seen it though. One can’t guard against the present using these techniques if we don’t occasionally suffer uncomfortable exposure.
Dennis Miller’s Show on CNBC
It’s like “The Daily Show”…
with a Republican slant
with commentators from SNL versus The State
…but it is seriously not funny.
George W. Bush’s Magic Glasses
I believe that in the morning before George W. Bush hops out of bed, Dick Cheney must sneak in, like to tooth fairy, and put MAGIC GLASSES on the sleeping commander-in-chief.
It’s these MAGIC GLASSES that allow him to me so damn chipper all the time - despite the looming specter of facts coming to darken his day. When George and the MAGIC GLASSES see trouble coming they know just what to do - filter it out!
With his glasses on, GWB tells us great news like this from the campaign trail:
“This country [Iraq] is headed toward democracy.”
You see, with MAGIC GLASSES everyone in Iraq is sitting there wondering whether to frolick in place or to spontaneously erect a monument to Paul Wolfowitz.
Terrorists
I stand by my assertion that makes me hated by a certain person in Austin. I said, in November 2001, that I thought that, given that the goal of terrorism is to force a change in the way of life of the terrorized al-Qaeda etc. could be said to have “won”.
I was greeted by a harsh barrage of right-wing ideologue statements and an ad hominem for good measure, but I ask, how can it be otherwise? No terrorist organization has ever sought military victory (else they would be “an invading army” not “terrorists”, history gets written by the winners).
Soros has a blog
Currency speculator and managerial guru George Soros (who’d you expect, Warren Buffet?) has a blog now. Soros is a pretty smart cat.
Was Bush getting fed lines during 1st debate?
In Salon they are reporting that photos from the 1st debate show a rectangular something strapped to GW’s back.
Here’s the pic (from a CSPAN feed):
John F. Kerry for President
That’s my endorsement, here are my top 10 reasons
George Bush is not a moderate He is not a Republican of the Reagan, Schwarzenegger, Giuliani mold (as much as he likes them to parade during his pow-wows). He is an extreme right radical. I am a left-of-center moderate. I do things out of pragmatism, logic, and fact. He does things out of religiousity, ideology, and faith. This overarching complaint can be found several times throughout my post.
The Bush Administration is rife with right-wing ideologues of the “Neoconservative” movement (Wolfowitz, Perle, Rumsfeld, Libby)
This is a political perspective which singles out now, in the post-Soviet era, as an opportunity in which the US should assert its military might, change regimes and otherwise govern the world at the end of our very large stick.
Arch conservative Buchanan’s magazine endorses Kerry
I gotta give props to Patrick Buchanan. I’m not anywhere near as conservative as he is, but he’s been conservative when conservative wasn’t cool and he is ideologically consistent with Reaganite conservativism (not the Radical neo-conservative insanity proposed by Bush et. al.).
Here’s his magazine’s statement endorsing John Kerry for president:
Bush has behaved like a caricature of what a right-wing president is supposed to be, and his continuation in office will discredit any sort of conservatism for generations. The launching of an invasion against a country that posed no threat to the U.S., the doling out of war profits and concessions to politically favored corporations, the financing of the war by ballooning the deficit to be passed on to the nation?
Let’s make it two Massachusetts victories in a week
First the BoSox and then John F. Kerry!
Weddings during wartime...
Recently my co-worker was married in the Kashmir region of India.
Regrettably, one group of people who believe in a mysterious force that has political bidding but that no one can see and another group of people who believe in a mysterious force that has political bidding but that no one can see are currently launching mortars and bullets at each other for control of this region.
Kashmir is hotly contested between Pakistan and India. Thus my surprise when my co-worker told me she was going there to be married (you hear about weddings getting blown up in Afghanistan - I was anxious for her safety) could not be contained.
Trying not to look at exit polls
I am trying, desperately, to not start looking at the exit polls.
If i start, how can I pull myself away?
I remember that when I was taking my SATs my grandmother said that she was praying for my success. My dad also heard from her that she was praying for my success after I had turned in the exam. To dad, and me, this felt like divine cheating. Divine cheating is not OK. We should hope for His helpful hand gently guiding me and relaxing me during the test, but His Hand erasing my D and making it an A seemed a bit foul.
Occasionally, I think Republicans are decent folks
OK, more than just occasionaly, most of the time.
Except for Wolfowitz and Perle, who are evil. Very evil.
Quick Reference:
Evil
Giuliani, OK!
Schwarzenegger, OK!
Ronald Reagan, mostly OK.
John McCain, OK!
Dwight Eisenhower, hella OK!
Abraham Lincoln (how the party has fallen!), super duper OK!
O the irony
I realized I just posted a pic of master of darkness Paul Wolfowitz on Armistice Day.
If you want to have a successful tech company in the future..
You must understand the power of a creative workplace and basing your workplace in a creative epicentre (hint, most of them were blue shaded in the last election…)
9/11 Strike on Pentagon a Missile or Military aircraft
I"m a sucker for a good conspiracy….
http://www.pentagonstrike.co.uk/flash.htm
Can any of the smart masses out there help me either debunk this or admit that maybe we should be allowed to see some of the footage?
Update: Update:
Read your memoes
It’s not only just polite, but it might help you avoid national tragedy.
White House seeds audience to toss softballs, run gay porn site?
Well it’s been quite the news story of late. I’m not interested in re-hashing it here, I didn’t break the story and it has been summed up elsewhere more succintly….but here’s a quick synopsis:
A guy named “Jeff Gannon” has a press pass (after being cleared by FBI, Secret Service) to attend the president’s briefings Gannon tosses softball questions to president (i’m paraphrasing here) “How can you plan to work with congressional Democrats when they are clearly out of touch with reality?” In the blogosphere the liberal guys go: “Huh, that guy sounds like a real troll, who the hell is he.
Ah, the follies of youth...
From the AP…
On the tapes, recorded over the course of the two years before Bush became the Republican presidential nominee in 2000, Bush discusses strategy for his first presidential run and appears to acknowledge past drug use. He says he would refuse to answer questions about using LSD, cocaine and marijuana because “I don’t want any kid doing what I tried to do 30 years ago.”
Leigh, and others, if you want to send me mail me
If you click on the ‘mail me’ link it says:
‘webmaster @ this domain '
You see I didn’t put webmaster@stevengh@rms.com (substitute ‘a’ for @) because a spam-bot could harvest that and start spamming me.
That would be very annoying. Therefore I don’t have a direct mail-to link off of the top.
RIP, DEA
You know, it baffles me that we, as a government have the temerity to judge athletes’ drug use, and fund programs like DARE in schools telling kids to stay off drugs when in any given newscast the majority of ads are for pills.
Pills for your upstairs Pills for your downstairs Pills to help you sleep Pills to help you perk up Awkward at a party? Take a pill. Not quite satisfied with your life, take a pill. Too fat? Take a pill. Too thin? Take a pill.
I can think of a few scheduled substances that are far less side-effect ridden and far cheaper - but I guess that’s the catch - they would cut Big Pharma’s bottom line.
The FCC and ‘decency’
I’m not a big fan of the “decency” standards. On the first level, I’ve not found anyone that could really define what is indecent and what is not.
I guess I spent long enough in Europe and Australia to realize that showing breasts or saying bad words don’t really seem undermine society.
I grant that there should be zones of family content (Superbowls, through the early parts of prime time) but after a certain time adults should feel free to watch and hear adults express themselves as adults express themselves. If the adults don’t like that type of content they can always change the channel.
When Tivo goes bad
Tivo, based on my recording of McLaughlin group and watching Charlie Rose seems to conclude that I would also like The Blow’Reilly Factor.
More thoughts on Stem Cell and the Culture of Life
Before Bush vetoes the stem-cell bill, maybe he should explain how his comments about stem cells in the left column below square with his comments about capital punishment in the right column.
slate.com
The Downing Street Memo
A story that major american media is not covering.
Read for yourself:
Hillary Clinton: Republicans do pop-culture idiocy, close-mindedness, indignation better.
“The disturbing material in ‘Grand Theft Auto’ and other games like it is stealing the innocence of our children.” –Hillary Clinton
See, Hillary that’s silly. What is a kid is doing playing an “M”-rated game in the first place? Whether or not they can get to the explicit scenes “hidden” in the game really need not even enter the picture.
Thinking like this is better from the mouths of Republicans:
Santorum Equates Gay Sex with ?Man-On-Dog?
Mythos
“There is something about this land (Iraq) which invites mythical storytelling.”
Intelligent Falling
KANSAS CITY, KS?As the debate over the teaching of evolution in public schools continues, a new controversy over the science curriculum arose Monday in this embattled Midwestern state. Scientists from the Evangelical Center For Faith-Based Reasoning are now asserting that the long-held “theory of gravity” is flawed, and they have responded to it with a new theory of Intelligent Falling.
Reality Check: War on Drugs
Newsflash from the front: Drugs have kicked our ass.
Hooray for George Bush Republicanism
Grover Norquist (Liason between Bush administration and arch-conservative movements):
“My goal is to cut government in half in twenty-five years,” he says, “to get it down to the size where we can drown it in the bathtub.”
Paul Krugman:
“The federal government’s lethal ineptitude wasn’t just a consequence of Mr. Bush’s personal inadequacy; it was a consequence of ideological hostility to the very idea of using government to serve the public good.”
Result: Drowning people in a city shaped like a bathtub are wondering what would have happened if governmental resources had been halved.
I guess when you have an entrenched attitude of entitlement you can not but think about the poor with impunity.
Some people think, great God will come from the sky...
Condoleeza Rice:
“The Lord is going to come on time ? if we just wait,” she said
Does that mean I don’t have to pay any more taxes if The Lord will be handling the work of running the land? Have we outsourced stewarding this planet back to sanity to the On High?
Most of Continental philosophy’s complaint against Christianity is that it discourages living in the now, for the promise of a hypothetical hereafter.
“Just you wait you rich people, I’ll get mine in the hereafter”
“Just you wait you thin people, I’m obese now, but in the hereafter I’ll be purty as a lark!
Some things must be left behind, New Orleans is one of them
The “Washington Post” suggests that we make peace with leaving New Orleans behind. I’m not ready for that, but climate apocalypse might mean that beloved things like NO and Venice won’t endure.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/09/09/AR2005090902448.html
The Children of the Gulf Coast look Homeward (Angel)
We’re in the final countdown to Rita’s landfall and while I am here in sunny Northern California, a number of my friends are in the greater Houston area and - it seems, in for quite a few hours of rain.
I was originally slated to go to Austin this weekend, but as the city will be full of evacuees and cumulonimbus clouds, I decided to postpone for another week. Elle, being of the Southern California state of mind finds the prospect of facing a hurricane particularly scary (not that I can blame her after the Katrina coverage). I had to explain to her that, for me, facing a hurricane (or 2-5) a summer is just the way things were.
George W. Bush – Today Show Weatherman
Said Maureen Dowd on “Meet the Press”:
He’s running around acting like a “Today” show weatherman. I think he’s looking for a photo-op. He doesn’t realize Americans are in an identity crisis..
Political map...
You are a
Social Liberal
(73% permissive)
and an…
Economic Moderate
(43% permissive)
You are best described as a:
Truth in Advertising
One of the hallmarks of George W. Bush’s inarticulatenessspeech-giving has been the presence of a key phrase behind his simian head whilst speaking so that the audience, in lieu of having their eardrums grated by a the cheese rasp that is his rhetorical skill, can get the talking point phrase that he was going to repeat over and over again anyway.
Continuing to display that countries with a free press don’t really care...
A group of Israeli cartoonists is having an anti-Semitic cartoon drawing contest in efforts to take schadefreude out of an Iranian newspaper’s contest to fund anti-Semitic cartoons.
Link (via boingboing)
Are the sands shifting underneath our feet?
“To announce that there must be no criticism of the President, or that we are to stand by the President, right or wrong, is not only unpatriotic and servile, but is morally treasonable to the American public.” - Theodore Roosevelt
“One can’t doubt that the American objective in Iraq has failed.” - William F. Buckley
When Buckley speaks movement conservatives listen. Will Bush hoist his own petard and “cut and run”.
….in time for the mid-term elections?
Tick…..tick….
Thinking about the boondocks...
Imperialism is the policy of an empire, and an empire is a nation embracing different people living under different forms of government. The Republican party has never dared to admit its imperialistic purpose and yet it is administering a colonial policy upon a theory utterly opposed to the theory of self-government. The Democratic party has for nine years parted out the evils of colonialism. It has for nine years challenged the Republican party to discuss the governmental principles which underlie colonialism. And it opposes colonialism today as it has from the beginning. The platform adopted at Denver condemns the experiment in imperialism as an inexcusable blunder, which has involved us in enormous expense, brought us weakness instead of strength, and laid our nation open to the charge of abandoning the fundamental principles of a republic.
Avoid wars with someone who believes in re-incarnation
Vietnam: The VC believe in re-incarnation, Joe doesn’t. Who has more to lose?
Iraq: The fundamentalists believe in martyrdom providing bliss, Joe doesn’t. Who has more to lose?
To this, I ask, should we not be a bit worried about an apocalyptic evangelical leading war in the mid-east and trying to force God’s timetable (apparently God doesn’t believe in setting timetables, like the Pentagon, evidently)?
With these questions rattling around in my head, Arianna Huffington wrote the following piece:
It came during the Q & A session following his speech on Iraq. The first question came from a woman who asked: “[Author Kevin Phillips] makes the point that members of your administration have reached out to prophetic Christians who see the war in Iraq and the rise of terrorism as signs of the apocalypse.
Colbert calls Bush Arsenio, to his face.
Well I feel like I would be horribly behind on the news of the internet if I didn’t comment on Stephen Colbert calling G.W. Bush “Arsenio” at the White House Correspondents dinner.
Colbert’s vicious use of irony served to show what a chummy, buddy-buddy, insular, self-congratulatory un-virtuous cycle the press’ relationship to the White House has become. He clowned the President, clowned the press, and basically dared say what about two-thirds of the country has come to realize.
Incidentally, it’s a really rough thing to watch. The jaw-dropping from the correspondents and the “is he really saying this?” look from the roastee is priceless; painful, but priceless.
Freedom is on the move in Iraq
Why just look at these before and after shots.
Nietzsche would be proud
In researching the religious opinions of the youth of England, the hoary CoE found that the youth are largely non-religious and don’t seem particularly bothered by the idea of there not being a spiritual life at all.
Their creed could be defined as: “This world, and all life in it, is meaningful as it is,” translated as: “There is no need to posit ultimate significance elsewhere beyond the immediate experience of everyday life.” The goal in life of young people was happiness achieved primarily through the family.
[ EXCLUSIVE ] Content of Ahmadinejad’s letter to Bush
Dear PrezTexNo1,
Please unblock me from on your MySpace account! <3 <3 <3
ReFinahJihad02
It’s getting warm in here, and this handbasket is awfully uncomfortable
I totally stole the title from sobblog
Doug McIntyre, conservative radio personality is currently apologizing for voting for Bush.
In this essay McIntyre reflects the way I have largely felt under the leadership, stewardship, years with this guy as President. He was a plain folks guy who was going to do a lot of nothing until the world put him in a position of having to make real decisions. Since that time he’s been spun around by ideolologues, Neoconservatives, Dick, Karl, Mommy’s estrangement, and Daddy’s expectations like an A&W; bottle at a 13 year old’s spin-the-bottle party.
Like a guy fresh out of a tilt a whirl trying to piss off of a balcony into a bottle (differerent one than used for kissing games) he’s made a damn poor mess of it.
Henry Rollins is hee-hi-larious
If you’re not prone to accidentally bumping into the FoxNews Channel (what the hell was that i tripped over, oh it’s Alan Colmes’ sense of being a craven puppet!) you might have missed the news that kneecap-with-hair, Ann Coulter has a new rrriiight rrrrriot book out (Uh, why are you angry, Ann, your guys have all three branches of government in the bag, a compliant congress, and no one seems to mind too much when the Constitution gets used as toilet paper, what’s to bitch about?) claiming that liberalism is a church.
Uh, yeah. A church is where people worship a diety, liberalism is an attitude about human dignity.
Paging Herr Doktor Zyklon
I hate torture. It so quickly mutilates us from human to barbarian.
What hath the Bush administration wrought?
Why I hate Kim Jong-Il
…the missile causing the most concern, the Taepodong-2,
With this phrase I thought of “Tae Bo’s” inventor Billy Blanks and uh, well.
Thoughts...
"Never has so much military and economic and diplomatic power been used so ineffectively, and if after all of this time, and all of this sacrifice, and all of this support, there is still no end in sight, then I say the time has come for the American people to turn to new leadership not tied to the mistakes and policies of the past." Richard Nixon, 1968
It’s only really worth having if you can give it away...
I found a quote at Slate which I have chosen to abstract from the particular and which I invite readers to think upon. The words in red indicate where I have elided some text so as to make the message more generalized.
They were flattered by the opinion, that they alone were the heirs of the truth, and they were apprehensive of diminishing the value of their knowledge, by sharing it too easily with the strangers of the earth.
Open source software and yoga came to mind. The great wealth of great teaching or great discovery is not what you hold inside once it’s been learnt.
Hitler’s rise to power
Fear, fear, fear, and fear.
Oh the difference a percent makes
In his heralded new book, “The One Percent Doctrine,” Ron Suskind writes that Vice President Dick Cheney forcefully stated that the war on terror empowered the Bush administration to act without the need for evidence or extensive analysis.
Suskind describes the Cheney doctrine as follows: “Even if there’s just a 1 percent chance of the unimaginable coming due, act as if it is a certainty. It’s not about ‘our analysis,’ as Cheney said. It’s about ‘our response.’ … Justified or not, fact-based or not, ‘our response’ is what matters. As to ’evidence,’ the bar was set so low that the word itself almost didn’t apply.
Is the war on terror over, barring a much bigger can of worms?
Pakistan announces arrangement with Taliban in Waziristan.
So, let’s see. The Taliban was in Afghanistan. We went in (rightly) and destroyed their infrastructure, we then let Osama and the other bastards escape ( so it is thought ) to Waziristan, Pakistan.
Pakistan is a sovreign nation-state whom we will not invade ( not to mention, they’ve got a couple dozen atomic weapons ).
Arguments about politics
I once argued with people who said there was a 9/11 and Iraq link.
I argued until my carpals ached. Here, in direct quotes, Mark Fiore shares with you:
Five years later...
Why waste money in further terror strikes when the victims terrorize themselves far worse than you could ever do.
Your cost? 1 VHS tape and postage to Al-Jazeera.
The man in black for president
Johnny Cash Owns Chuck Norris
Reason 7. Chuck is a republican. Johnny was close with every president except for GWB. It was said he just didn’t trust that son of a bitch. When Johnny didn’t trust someone, you just knew something foul was going on.
Reason 8.
Visting the Scientology street fair
Check out this footage! Mark goes to visit the Scientology street fair with a camera and this is how the congregation greets him.
Is America learning cabaret?
Cabaret Restaurant that serves liquor and offers light musical entertainment. The cabaret probably originated in France in the 1880s as a small club that presented amateur acts and satiric skits lampooning bourgeois conventions. The first German Kabarett was opened in Berlin c. 1900 by Baron Ernst von Wolzogen and accompanied its musical acts with biting political satire. By the 1920s it had become the centre for underground political and literary expression and a showcase for the works of social critics such as Bertolt Brecht and Kurt Weill; this decadent but fertile artistic milieu was later portrayed in the musical Cabaret (1966; film, 1972).
Suicide
No, there will be no goth poetry in this post.
After watching Reform School Girls you’d have to be an un-curious person to not want to go and find out more about the life and times of Wendy O(rlean) Williams.
This lady was absolutely fearless.
In her death scene, she moves taut sinews and flesh like a wounded animal. In those few seconds she communicates more animal domination and charisma than any pop star Idolette I’ve ever seen.
If you watch a bit of her videos with The Damned on youtube you see the macho, the preening, the presence, you can feel the way she tells you about the car crash that’s coming, crashes the car, and leaves you gaping at what she just made you see.
The handbasket is cramped, but it’s not getting hotter at that regular interval
It appears that the American electorate has decided that enough is enough from the looney bin of George W. Bush and is interested in seeing if he can learn to quack like a duck as quickly as he undermined habeas corpus, let his Pentagon tank the war in Iraq, and let ideology override pragmatism.
I read some of his commentary from before last night from the Washington Post:
President Bush said terrorists will win if Democrats win and impose their policies on Iraq, as he and Vice President Cheney escalated their rhetoric Monday in an effort to turn out Republican voters in next week’s midterm elections.
Let me put it succinctly
Is today effing great or what?
...and it just keeps getting better
Democrats grab the senate.
From the UK’s "Guardian" paper.
Too good not to share.
Evolution of a President
George, The Sorcerer’s Apprentice and The Freudian Oedipal "Vision Thing"
I love the way the opinion writers are examining the fall of the Bush presidency in these grand Greek tragedy arcs.
Maureen Dowd of the New York Times sees the theme of a spoiled son of privilege wrecking Daddy’s Porsche:.
Poppy Bush and James Baker gave Sonny the presidency to play with and he broke it. So now they’re taking it back.
They are dragging W. away from those reckless older guys who have been such a bad influence and getting him some new minders who are a lot more practical.
I see much more the theme of the sorcerer’s apprentice.
Something’s very, very wrong in this country
Donald Vance, a 29-year-old Navy veteran from Chicago, was a whistle-blower who prompted the raid by tipping off the F.B.I. to suspicious activity at the company where he worked, including possible weapons trafficking. He was arrested and held for 97 days — shackled and blindfolded, prevented from sleeping by blaring music and round-the-clock lights. In other words, he was subjected to the same mistreatment that thousands of non-Americans have been subjected to since the 2003 invasion.
Even after the military learned who Mr. Vance was, they continued to hold him in these abusive conditions for weeks more. He was not allowed to defend himself at the Potemkin hearing held to justify his detention.
I caught the end of "War of the Worlds"
All I can say is I know how this country would respond.
No comment required: Bam-boozled
“You know better than I do that many Americans feel that your administration has not been straight with the country, has not been honest. To those people you say what?” Pelley asks.
“On what issue?” the president replies. “Like the weapons of mass destruction?”
“No weapons of mass destruction,” Pelley says.
“Yeah,” Bush says.
“No credible connection between 9/11 and Iraq,” Pelley says.
“Yeah,” the president replies.
“The Office of Management and Budget said this war would cost somewhere between $50 billion and $60 billion and now we’re over 400,” Pelley says.
“I gotcha. I gotcha. I gotcha,” Bush replies.
Just echoing but...
At a farewell reception at Blair House for the retiring chief of protocol, Don Ensenat, who was President Bush’s Yale roommate, the president shook hands with Washington Life Magazine’s Soroush Shehabi. “I’m the grandson of one of the late Shah’s ministers,” said Soroush, “and I simply want to say one U.S. bomb on Iran and the regime we all despise will remain in power for another 20 or 30 years and 70 million Iranians will become radicalized.”
“I know,” President Bush answered.
“But does Vice President Cheney know?” asked Soroush.
Rrroon Paul
My blog-friend Daniel has posted numerous times citations, references, quotes, speeches of the representative of the 14th district of The Lone Star State: Ron Paul.
Yet I can recall being a freshman with The Social Bobcat during one of Mr. Paul’s re-election cycles. The ad was the typical attack ad; judging by Paul’s attendance record, it didn’t do much to derail his career.
In any case the ads were along the lines of
“Rrrron Paul, mumbledy mumble badda badda. " or
“Who approved mumbledy mumble, blah blah? Rrrron Paul.” There was the implication of a rolling “Rr” and when it was said the picture on the screen would inverse expose ( look like a film negative ) and it became clear that Paul was the negative (ho-ho!
Don’t wanna be an American idiot
Wow.
Adam riding a saddled dinosaur. WMD’s actually being found in Iraq. Evolution being denied for the sake of creationism, er, “Intelligent Design”. Welcome to Idiot America. Where intellectuals are mocked and expertise is suspicious. The organ of wisdom is the gut, the organ of elimination.
We must be living through the end of our Empire
This is a popular sentiment, but as I sit here reading and translating my Latin homework I’m always struck by how applicable these lines are ( I think my translation is right, but you may want to go to the source for yourself, I’m also reading a watered-down version for beginners but…)
Livy:
Nec vitia nostra nec remedia tolerare possumus.
“We are able to tolerate neither our vice nor its remedy.”
Cicero:
Ubi l?g?s valent, ibi populus l?ber potest val?re.
“Where the laws are strong, there the free population thrives.”
Why I think Barama has a secret weapon
I was listening to this bit of political discussion from “Meet The Press”.
Obama said something along the lines of “Reagan put America on an entirely new track, the Republicans had once been the party of ideas etc.”
At the end of that clip, it was natural to show Hillary and Edwards pillorying ( Hillary - Pillory, I like rhymes ) Obama for saying that Reagan had changed the game, had moved into new directions, had presaged a change in the zeitgeist. As Edwards wound up for his swing I mentally muted him. I didn’t care. Hillary then did the same thing winding up about, well hell, honestly, I don’t even remember anymore.
Seeing Richard Dawkins
Using special cameras, Getty photographs the president’s usually-invisible advisor
If you’ve been paying to the ongoing return of the Enlightenment, you know the name Richard Dawkins. Dawkins is a famous evolutionary biologist who, of late, has been spreading the message of atheism.
Dawkins’ primary book that has been the subject of a great many counter-opinions is “The God Delusion”. Lauren and I both noticed that RD was doing a book-signing at BookPeople downtown ( although I’m very thankful to live in a town where BookPeople exists ) and we resolved to attend…but then we found out there would be an ancillary lecture that evening at my alma mater.
Wisdom from "I, Claudius"
“A small mind and unlimited ambition without scruple can destroy a country of clever men.”
Most qualified candidate possible...
I was born in Texas, I currently reside in Texas.
My entire life there’s been been one woman, and fellow Longhorn, who has made public service a core part of her life ( and getting rich in banking or oil, or both; about par for the course for Texipublican candidates ): Kay Baily Hutchinson.
I disagree with her on a great many topics, but I agree with her on more than just a few. Keep in mind that this woman served in the Texas legislature before I was born and has been a serving senator since 1993. Now she certainly had a bit of trouble here in Travis county about some misconduct around state resources used for her campaign, but these were not substantiated in a court of law.
Claims we are a purely capitalist country seem inaccurate
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/10/09/business/economy/09econ.html
When the state funds industry, how is it anything but communism, by definition?
Hey, Sarah Palin
Tainting the Cops' Food
http://www.statesman.com/news/content/gen/ap/TX_Chief_Tainted_Food.html
Do not f*ck with the people who prepare your food. Even if you are a sheriff. Wait, especially if you are the sheriff.
The Economist endorses Obama
http://www.economist.com/world/unitedstates/displayStory.cfm?story_id=12516666&source=features_box1&mode=comment&intent=readBottom
The best periodical in modern, Western civilization says “Obama thysleves, colonials.”
My Kennedy Moment: Obama is President
My colleague, Kev, from the Midlands of UK said to me, as we had dinner last night, while watching the CNN coverage:
“It’s your Kennedy moment”.
When asked to expand he continued: “You know, that place in history and time that you’re always going to remember where you were and what you were doing.”
I shall always remember yesterday evening: the repudiation of the insanity of the Bush debacle, the fresh air of hope, the sense that an old way of doing things had come to an end. It was a wonderful day.
As i have cringed for the last 8 years every time the president started talking, as a promisory not on the mellifluous rhetoric that we shall enjoy for the next 4 years:
Abomination / Obamanation
http://www.funnyordie.com/videos/c0cf508ff8/prop-8-the-musical-starring-jack-black-john-c-reilly-and-many-more-from-fod-team-jack-black-craig-robinson-john-c-reilly-and-rashida-jones
CONSERVATIVE: Abomination! WOMAN: Obama-nation!
We have the coolest world leader
I really think Barack, excuse me, The President is really the coolest world leader.
Previously, my list was:
King of Thailand Carla Bruni Angela Merkel of Germany, for freaking out so stylishly when she got the Bush back-rub treatment Now it is
Barack Hussein Obama, POTUS King of all Cosmos Carla Bruni King of Thailand It was a hard choice…
versus
In all seriousness, I recall my mom once saying that in her childhood, the Kennedy era, they thought that the government were “cool” guys. I remember her saying this to me and thinking, this is somewhere in the Bush I era, “you’ve got to be joking.
Obama's executive order: It's time for some accountability
A democracy requires accountability, and accountability requires transparency. As Justice Louis Brandeis wrote, “sunlight is said to be the best of disinfectants.” In our democracy, the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA), which encourages accountability through transparency, is the most prominent expression of a profound national commitment to ensuring an open Government. At the heart of that commitment is the idea that accountability is in the interest of the Government and the citizenry alike.
Heh, everyone always quotes Brandeis.
The Freedom of Information Act should be administered with a clear presumption: In the face of doubt, openness prevails. The Government should not keep information confidential merely because public officials might be embarrassed by disclosure, because errors and failures might be revealed, or because of speculative or abstract fears.
Separation of church and state
I am a strong proponent of the separation of church and state. Occasionally, I have met those who have appealed to the founding fathers and asserted that owing to their Christianity, God blessed these United States, and thus we are a Christian nation.
I shall let those who founded the country speak for themselves:
“The government of the United States is in no sense founded on the Christian Religion.”
~ George Washington
“I do not find in Christianity one redeeming feature.”
~ Thomas Jefferson
“The Bible is not my book, nor Christianity my religion.”
~ Abraham Lincoln
“A just government has no need for the clergy or the church.
Follies of Tom Friedman, columnist
http://www.vanityfair.com/online/politics/2009/03/friedmans-follies.html?printable=true¤tPage=all
Friedman, you’re on probation.
Republican Governor antics
I’m used to Republican governors and congressmen getting caught in “grave errors in judgment” or “seeking God’s favor in this time of difficulty” or “experiencing moral fault.” Of late, these have been in the homosexual sector.
{ Incidentally, having spent time in Holland it’s funny that in that country there is nothing that proscribes being both far-right and gay, as the late Pim Fortuyn exemplified }
When I heard that Governor Mark Sanford (R) of South Carolina had returned after an emotionally-tormented powder spent visiting his South American mistress, I took it merely as another opportunity to gloat about not being a member of the party that thinks it should dictate the moral terms of the nation’s life – least of all the while its members act to the contrary.
Brooks Supports Obama on Community Colleges
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/07/17/opinion/17brooks.html?em
David Brooks is positively an Obama love fest! But he’s right, bolstering community colleges will unleash a productivity dynamo that can actually get us in the business of making wealth, versus slicing up paper securities and reselling them to a bigger sucker down the line.
Sarah Palin's Speech, Annotated by Vanity Fair
http://www.vanityfair.com/politics/features/2009/07/palin-speech-edit-200907?printable=true¤tPage=all
Copy-editing as a tool of political skewering:
Not Listening
My local newspaper had this article as the front page story:
“Obama speech causes nationwide stir”
Apparently, parents are contemplating keeping kids at home so that they will not be exposed to the president’s address.
What?
It’s not like Mr. Obama is saying “You should tell your parents to support the inclusion of the public option.” He’s going to talk to the boys and girls of this, the nation in which he functions as the chief executive officer, and tell them that education is important and that being part of the 30% of the high school population that doesn’t make it to graduation is a less-than-stellar idea.
Why Capitalism Fails
Since the global financial system started unraveling in dramatic fashion two years ago, distinguished economists have suffered a crisis of their own. Ivy League professors who had trumpeted the dawn of a new era of stability have scrambled to explain how, exactly, the worst financial crisis since the Great Depression had ambushed their entire profession.
http://www.boston.com/bostonglobe/ideas/articles/2009/09/13/why_capitalism_fails/?page=full
What the Democrats need is, uhm, erh, Tom Friedman(?)
Tom Friedman, the walrus-mustachio’d NY Times columnist and pundit, that frequent guest of the void of Charlie Rose’s studio, the author of the World is Flat, The Olive Branch and the Lexus, and countless – if my friend Alfredo Garcia IV is to be believed – howlers of rhetoric, reminded me in his article this Sunday of an acute talent of his. He has the ability to distill the political payload of a complex topic fit it in a single construct of a subject, verb, and a concluding period.
](/posts/2010-01-24-what-the-democrats-need-is-uhm-erh-tom-friedman/images/friedman-300x225.jpg)
It has been a long established problem with the communications plans of the Democrats that, unlike the Republicans, their nuanced messages simply do not distill succinctly to a bumper-sticker platform.
Bush Years: No Support to Conservativism
http://andrewsullivan.theatlantic.com/the_daily_dish/2010/02/footnote-28.html#more
Bush administration was no friend to the tenets of conservative principles. Suspension of the 1st and the 4th? Embarrassing.
South Park versus Religion, again
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/04/26/opinion/26douthat.html
Winning Quote: “…if a violent fringe is capable of inspiring so much cowardice and self-censorship, it suggests that there’s enough rot in our institutions that a stronger foe might be able to bring them crashing down.”
Atlantic Coast Republicans: Be Careful What You Wish For
As I look at the bleeding oil drilling operation that’s currently contaminating the Gulf of Mexico, the body of water against which I spent most of my childhood, I have to wonder what those Republican advocates, those chanting “Drill, Baby Drill” in October of 2008 in waxy chorus to Madame YouBetcha herself are thinking now.
Looking at Louisiana, where the $1bln recreation fishing industry and $1.8bln seafood industry are greivously imperiled, I wonder if those Atlantic, Southern, Republican states and their Republican voters are now, thanks to restriction removal by President Obama, re-thinking if that’s a gift they really want. Is the drilling tax revenue greater than the annuity of the yearly beach revenue?
Disney Propaganda
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oqMVpcbhpqw
Thoughts:
The US government encouraging the citizens to “save” versus “spend” in crisis; contra GW Bush post-9/11 (“go shopping”). I can only assume this is because of a reservation from printing money and wanting citizens to put more money in banks so that banks could lend to finance the war effort. Times have changed. The tax bit aside, the industrial manufacturing porn rivals only something out of Ayn Rand for the last 40% of the clip. A Scots disney character sans brogue….no me digas.
Attack Ads: 18th Century Edition
It doesn’t get any more negative than this…
The Beautiful Nobel Acceptance Speech of Liu Xiaobo:
Liu Xiaobo, Chinese dissident and anti-party activist received the Nobel Peace Prize on the 10th of this month.
In his acceptance address, Liu espouses the usual high-minded views that one would associate with a Nobel-winning dissident: free expression is a right of all men, democratic reform is coming to China, social diversity is better than a master-planned autocracy, etc.
What was most surprising to me was the poetic description of his love for his wife:
I am serving my sentence in a tangible prison, while you wait in the intangible prison of the heart. Your love is the sunlight that leaps over high walls and penetrates the iron bars of my prison window, stroking every inch of my skin, warming every cell of my body, allowing me to always keep peace, openness, and brightness in my heart, and filling every minute of my time in prison with meaning.
Birtherism
Birtherism is a strange assault on democracy
Reich on stagnating economy
http://pragcap.com/the-truth-about-the-economy-in-2-minutes
Are we living in a kleptocracy?
Regulation
Republicanism
Urban Planning and 50 Shades of Gray
I’ve been reading Jane Jacobs’ mangnum opus “The Death and Life of Great American Citites (1961)” which predicts ennui, relationship strife, social estrangement, and children run amok as side effects of adopting Le Corbusier’s “Radiant City” model i.e. suburbanization and its concomitant social isolation. I was reading it on the plane next to a woman reading “50 Shades of Gray” and it got me thinking: could urban planning explain the wildfire outbreak of “stay at home moms” buying erotica en masse to the tune of “selling in Harry Potter-grade quantities?”
One of the interesting parts quotes child-rearing mothers in suburbs speaking with Jacobs lamenting that the sanctioned park in the master-planned “fun zone” is dull, there’s nowhere to warm up or grab coffee with a stranger save the sanctum sanctorum of one’s own home, so the “park” is left empty and in time becomes a haven for underage drinking, graffiti and vandalism.
Chris Rock for Obama
A message to white people about Barack Obama.
Why is it OK to threaten Presidents?!
http://mashable.com/2012/11/10/racist-threat-obama/
Un. Believable.
I don’t get what’s so threatening about him that people are froth-mouthed to say horrible things like this.
External Link: War-on-Drugs-Defying Weed Cannon
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2013/feb/27/marijuana-cannon-us-border-seized-mexico
Yes, that’s right, a portable weed cannon.
Can we just admit the drug war has failed, like pets.com or so many other bad ideas?
Us stopping weed from coming over the border is like stopping the Wehrmacht from hopping the border into France: it’s too big a border to defend against asymmetrically-effective technology. And here’s the thing: (most of) France didn’t want the Wehrmacht to make it to Paris, the same can’t be said of American drug demand.
US / Eastern European Expectations on Privacy
In the US we’re slow to to countenance the idea that we’re in a surveillance state of our own construction.
http://fredlybrand.com/2013/06/23/an-apology-to-my-european-it-team/
Considering the Insurgent Group ISIS
The Islamic State, also known as the Islamic State of Iraq and al-Sham (ISIS), follows a distinctive variety of Islam whose beliefs about the path to the Day of Judgment matter to its strategy, and can help the West know its enemy and predict its behavior. Its rise to power is less like the triumph of the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt (a group whose leaders the Islamic State considers apostates) than like the realization of a dystopian alternate reality in which David Koresh or Jim Jones survived to wield absolute power over not just a few hundred people, but some 8 million
Fascinating Tale of Data Exfiltration
The Snowden case is intensely complex and difficult to understand. I don’t know how to contextualize the work he did or the means he used to do it. Regardless, the story of how independent signal escapes constraints here is fascinating.
http://www.vogue.com/11122973/sarah-harrison-edward-snowden-wikileaks-nsa/
Edward Snowden Story Continues
http://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/politics/2015/02/edward_snowden_citizenfour_the_former_contractor_sparked_a_movement_that.html"
In 1995 I downloaded my first copy of PGP.EXE and promptly started encrypting everything. Regrettably, I didn’t have anything worth saving (fan poetry about Gillian Anderson aside) much less encrypting. Now that Snowden has pointed out what’s actually happening hopefully:
There will be other cypherpunks (from my 1995 guide to web lingo courtesy of “Mondo 2000”) The UX for encryption features won’t be so goddam awful
Southern Disinformation
I think about how many times I heard stories that the Civil War was about states’ rights or Northern Aggression.
All of those are lies rooted in the “Lost Cause” narrative that is designed to pitch the Confederacy as a nobler institution than a means of organization designed to help people retain humans as chattel by force of arms.
For me the question stops and ends swiftly at:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cornerstone_Speech
Mobile Upload: Where can I buy put options on the Republic?
Where can I buy put options on the Republic?
Crypto on Ice
While the chumps are making noise about “our Freedom” and the “Patriotic Duty to Defend the Constitution,” keep in mind that the NSA’s black budget is sufficient for making sure the government can ice decrypt your conversations and store them for nigh-forever.
https://freedom-to-tinker.com/blog/haldermanheninger/how-is-nsa-breaking-so-much-crypto/
Ted Cruz Really Is the Worst
Ted Cruz on ‘New York Values’ is gross, ignorant, cultural triangulation. He’s class signaling and its unseemly in a would-be leader of this land. That leader should never denigrate one of his would-be constituents over another.
NYC is the ultimate American city. There are more people here than LA and Chicago combined. The NYPD is larger than many standing armies. NYC has faced and conquered scale larger than many planners will ever imagine. Washington was inaugurated here. The Federalist was born here.
Americans were made here. My great grandfather registered to fight his father’s countrymen. My grandfather fought against those same former brethren because he had become an American in heart and mind.
Bernie Sanders
I’m not here to pop anyone’s bubble, but I think “Vox” enumerates 5 WONDERFUL things Bernie Sanders pitches that he really needs to come up with a comprehensive accounting for. On the other hand, it’s clear that the status quo is insufficient and a counter-proposal is lacking.
http://www.vox.com/2016/1/18/10784774/bernie-sanders-serious
The Curious Linguistics of Sarah Palin
http://takingnote.blogs.nytimes.com/2016/02/02/sarah-palins-english/
The linguistic head-screw that is Sarah Palin.
Jewish Socialism is a Relevant Factor
http://www.politicsplus.org/blog/wp-content/uploads/2015/09/Bernie-Sanders_Jesus_Jew-Socialist.jpg
Mitt Romney Lays Out the Facts on Donald Trump
On the other hand, if we make improvident choices, the bright horizon I’ve described will not materialize. And let me put it very plainly. If we Republicans choose Donald Trump as our nominee, the prospects for a safe and prosperous future are greatly diminished.
I heard you liked dis tracks. Turn off the Meek Mill and get on with Mitt Romney: https://t.co/MRzGHMK4AA
Brooks: Anti-Trump
http://www.nytimes.com/2016/03/18/opinion/no-not-trump-not-ever.html?smprod=nytcore-iphone&smid=nytcore-iphone-share
David Brooks puts Trump on blast.
A Different Political Map
http://www.nytimes.com/2016/04/17/opinion/sunday/a-new-map-for-america.html
Here’s the reality of our geography. From Westcoastia to Yankeestan we need a more realistic map of how we are magnetized to our urban cities. Once the realignment in the political parties happens (fear and small world vs. connected and big world) happens this model will be even more sound.
Remixing Political Parties
For political observers, 2016 feels like an earthquake — a once-in-a-generation event that will remake American politics. The Republican party is fracturing around support for Donald Trump. An avowed socialist has made an insurgent challenge for the Democratic Party’s nomination. On left and right, it feels as though a new era is beginning
The two parties constituent halves are due for a remix.
https://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2016/05/2016-election-realignment-partisan-political-party-policy-democrats-republicans-politics-213909/
The Bitch America Needs
“The Bitch America Needs,” suggests that a woman who is ambitious and driven might be the right next step for the executive office. She’s always been in a no-win solution and she’s got her eye on the top office.
Obama and Doris Kearns Goodwin
http://www.vanityfair.com/news/2016/09/barack-obama-doris-kearns-goodwin-interview
He the president; she, the distinguished historian. Obama’s thoughts on ambition and aging and making lasting impact really hit home. Whatever you think of the man as a president, his gift for crafting English prose is nearly Jeffersonian.
Stop Pretending You Don’t Know Why People Hate Hillary Clinton
I’ve not read the article yet but I’m guessing…
SEXISM
Foreign Policy Mag Endorses Hillary
https://t.co/NioNzExzVo
The FP endorsing a Democrat. Never thought I’d see the day.
Even Conservative Pundit Glenn Beck Supports Hillary
It is not acceptable to ask a moral, dignified man to cast his vote to help elect an immoral man who is absent decency or dignity.
If the consequence of standing against Trump and for principles is indeed the election of Hillary Clinton, so be it. At least it is a moral, ethical choice.
http://uproxx.com/news/glenn-beck-endorses-hillary-clinton/
...a candidate for president of the United States has actually bragged about sexually assaulting women...
http://www.latimes.com/politics/la-na-pol-michelle-obama-trump-20161013-snap-story.html
I don’t care your politics. If you have a daughter you might think this is for her, but It’s for your sons too.
It’s for boys that live in cultures of toxic masculinity that subscribe them to an omerta of silence around bullying, sexual behavior boundaries, understanding consent…and shames them for not “knowing what to do” and tells them that “real men” get it or take it (which is what women really want anyway). Toss in some Abrahamaic superstition and you have a sauce of self-loathing that you dump in this toxic soup.
I had good parents, but toxic culture stunted me in many ways that left real damage that I regret.
Violence and the Way of Trump
There’s a coarsening to our discourse post-Trump. The man has many, many faults. Many of them have been documented in image or sound. It’s reasonable that an ethical conservative publication or being might not support him.
Yet his followers, seem to be particularly prone to use violence as a means of silencing. It’s particularly troubling for the future.
http://www.azcentral.com/story/opinion/2016/10/16/publisher-response-to-threats-after-republic-endorsement-clinton-trump/92058964/"
Whither the Conservative Intellectual?
As a former right moderate whose been pushed leftward over the last two decades it hinges on the fact that Republican or Conservative thought leaders, and the party behind it, have been swallowed by their own tumor of Trump-lead authoritarian populism and know-nothingism.
https://freebeacon.com/columns/crisis-conservative-intellectual/
Mobile Upload: Is He Really Such a Control Freak
Smells of dictator
Post-Trump: Grab 'Em By the Cryptography
http://edition.cnn.com/2016/06/14/politics/newt-gingrich-house-un-american-activities-committee/index.html
At the risk of going full tinfoil hat here I’m going to work on building a suite of tools for being cryptographically safe.
With First Amendment protections under assault we have to get armed. Bush and Obama have built an information collection solution I utterly fear. Gotta teach the unsavvy but brave how to be safe.
Trump Leads Backward
Sunset over America: it’s time for the next superpower
Part of the reason I never thought the Rust Belt would take Trump seriously is because of the factors in this article. He can say what he likes but the economics don’t match the reality he promises. The Midwestern hope is COAL? Are you kidding me? Is the future of medicine leeches? This is a “who moved my cheese” moment, we need to scamper and scurry for solutions -not- romanticize past economic performance.
Autonomous vehicles, drone repair, more of that. To say this workforce can’t do those jobs is disrespectful and only requires some training centers.
US Propaganda Against Authoritarians
https://ia800201.us.archive.org/32/items/DontBeaS1947/DontBeaS1947.mp4
It’s upsetting when the would-be propagandist sounds a lot like the president-elect.
Seduced and Betrayed by Donald Trump
Krugman:
Donald Trump won the Electoral College (though not the popular vote) on the strength of overwhelming support from working-class whites, who feel left behind by a changing economy and society. And they’re about to get their reward — the same reward that, throughout Mr. Trump’s career, has come to everyone who trusted his good intentions. Think Trump University.
Yes, the white working class is about to be betrayed.
Let’s see where these voters are in four years? Will they be materially better? Or will they be brainwashed and battered into accepting that, absence evidence, they are to think they are better off?
Trump Does Not Prepare for the Future: He Nurses Grievance
http://qz.com/854257/brace-yourself-the-most-disruptive-phase-of-globalization-is-just-beginning/
I said, I couldn’t believe the Trump-for-jobs voters thought this wouldn’t stop after electing him. But this is roughly my model for reality and the future. Fuck, it’s not just going to be White Men who need to face the music that their “right” to a comfortable life is gone. The Human Race is on notice. We can either live with this disquilibrium in wealth distribution with revolution, taxation (secular or religious), or warfare. Every society has dealt with such inequality by one of those few means /only/.
Key Quote: “…globalization takes shape in three distinct stages: the ability to move goods, then ideas, and finally people.
Mobile Upload: Trump Earns My Distrust
Train wreck president
After the election I said I’d at least give the man a chance (whether warranted or no). Based on my granting a clean slate, apropos of no-one else and no-thing else, President-Elect Trump is currently showing a dangerous willingness to lie or knowingly promulgate falsehoods.
The attached tweet is factually false. Entirely, provably, knowably false.
It doesn’t even make common sense! Think about it, as you open Facebook in a browser, your browser has to ASK Facebook for the content, Facebook has to know to whom the content should be routed. Do you suppose that there’s no possible record of that conversation such that you have to be “caught in the act.
Keybase.io Against Authoritarians
Given the ascent of an authoritarian to the presidency, now is the time to put privacy controls in place.
https://t.co/YCroFnsf5Q
Verifying myself: I am sgharms on Keybase.io. On8E7qswnY1pKixwBiI6612vyxAnU8tX-uTi / https://t.co/YCroFnsf5Q
Early Reports Suggest Russian Election Interference
https://www.nytimes.com/2016/12/14/opinion/putin-is-waging-information-warfare-heres-how-to-fight-back.html
Peter Ryan’s illustration is delightful. The content is horrifying though.
Totalitarianism
Candidate Trump has shown a certain sympathy for strongman politics. It’s probably worth a reconsideration of Hannah Arendt’s Origins of Totalitarianism.
https://t.co/4GgPzcMTuQ
Cheated
Re: “I’m going to make Mexico pay for the wall.” – Donald Trump
Cryptography Against Dictators
I’ve finished a guide to setting up PGP keys under Tails. Would love review / feedback: https://t.co/roni7czRHc
Guess What, We're Going to Pay for the Wall
http://www.nationalreview.com/article/424879/immigration-fighting-last-war-mark-krikorian
Wait, so we’re going to have to pay for the wall after all? If I’m going to foot the bill, then I want something that works. Based on data from National Review, since “the majority of new illegal aliens are actually visa overstayers,” can’t we just as well not be forced to pay for something that’s not going to fix the problem. It’s like making sure the sails are optimal as a means for fixing a hole in the boat.
I suspect this is just the start of Trump failing to deliver what he promised just like he failed to deliver with Trump University, the Taj Mahal Casino, the list goes on and on.
Was Francis Fukuyama the First Man to See Trump Coming?
If the last men went this way, they would become bored by what Fukuyama called “masterless slavery – the life of rational consumption”. The spread of egalitarian values that went along with secular democratic politics would open up spaces of severe resentment – especially, we might now postulate, among those who had lost their traditional places at the top of social hierarchies, and felt cheated of the recognition that they believed they were owed.
Fukuyama did a lovely synthesis of Hegel and Nietzsche and predicted many elements of 2016. A solid read:
https://aeon.co/essays/was-francis-fukuyama-the-first-man-to-see-trump-coming
Admitting People Need Health Care
Health care may not be a human right, but the lack of universal health coverage in a wealthy democracy is a severe, unjustifiable, and unnecessary human wrong. As Americans lift this worry from their fellow citizens, they’ll discover that they have addressed some other important problems too. They’ll find that they have removed one of the most important barriers to entrepreneurship, because people with bright ideas will fear less to quit the jobs through which they get their health care. They’ll find they have improved the troubled lives of the white working class succumbing at earlier ages from preventable deaths of despair.
Trump is So Full of It
https://mobile.twitter.com/nowthisnews/status/845422234869018625
When someone gaslights you, check the receipts:
More Arby's Sauce, Less Coal
Bozo Trump is out bending over backwards to bring back coal, yes, the black rocks from the 19th century back and is making a big yay-is-me noise about it.
… but it’s an industry that employs fewer people than Arby’s. Missing the target, missing the goal, just a moron.
Make Economic Fixes Delusional Again
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/wonk/wp/2017/03/31/8-surprisingly-small-industries-that-employ-more-people-than-coal/
How the Republicans Sold Your Privacy To Internet Providers
On Tuesday afternoon, while most people were focused on the latest news from the House Intelligence Committee, the House quietly voted to undo rules that keep internet service providers — the companies like Comcast, Verizon and Charter that you pay for online access — from selling your personal information.
The Senate already approved the bill, on a party-line vote, last week, which means that in the coming days President Trump will be able to sign legislation that will strike a significant blow against online privacy protection.
https://www.nytimes.com/2017/03/29/opinion/how-the-republicans-sold-your-privacy-to-internet-providers.html
Four years of unwinding of protection proceeds.
Coal Sabotages the Future
http://www.ecowatch.com/coal-mine-hydroelectric-2321724350.html
In some countries we’re rolling back environmental protections so we can get back to energy sources Taft would have understood. In others they’re locking up expertise for the next centuries’ profit streams. So. Dumb.
Stem Cells Return Sight
http://www.nature.com/news/japanese-man-is-first-to-receive-reprogrammed-stem-cells-from-another-person-1.21730
In Japan they’re testing using stem cells to repair eyeballs. In America we’re making coal great again.
Trump Remains a Predator
A man is being publicly grilled about why he was alone in a room with someone he felt was threatening him. Why didn’t he simply resign if he felt uncomfortable with what his boss was asking him to do? Why did he keep taking calls from that boss, even if he thought they were inappropriate? Why didn’t he just come out and say he would not do what the boss was asking for?
Sound familiar? As dozens of people noted immediately on Twitter, if you switch genders, that is the experience of many women in sexual harassment cases. James Comey, the former director of the F.
Pity Which Nation?
Pity which nation?
5 cab drivers in Beirut have asked me how Trump became president. When the Lebanese are amazed by a politician’s incompetence, time to panic
https://twitter.com/SulomeAnderson/status/890918643290320897
Donald Trump Can't Close Deal: Failing Salesman
Possibly the greatest article on Trump: written on conservative hallowed ground at the “National Review” and quoting Cicero and Rush, it is the perfect dressing down of the petulant faker that is the persona of the huckster in chief.
http://amp.nationalreview.com/article/449988/donald-trump-cant-close-deal-failing-salesman
Charlottesville Is What Trump Promised
https://www.gq.com/story/charlottesville-is-what-trump-promised
We said it was a monster you were being sold and it’s now demonstrably true: someone who can’t even call Nazism by its hooded face when it claims American blood.
Charlottesville Rally
Then think about the Charlottesville rally. Whose aesthetic did they copy? Whose behavior do they emulate? Whose language do they repackage?
A Moment for Stoicism
Stoicism has given me so much. This particular document covers the beauty of philosophy to purge a special kind of ignorance and why “free speech,” when it comes to Nazis, is a ruse they’re willingly using to trap the good-hearted middle into arguing about the wrong thing. So much goodness in this:
There’s nothing deep about it [the ignorance] — nothing demonic! There’s simply the reluctance ever to imagine what the other person is experiencing…
https://howtobeastoic.wordpress.com/2016/01/19/one-crucial-word/
Politics of Partition
Time to partition bitterly divided brexit Britain, says India pic.twitter.com/XYTLHZKalK
— Eoin Kelleher (@eoinyk) September 2, 2017 Troll level: de-colonial!
Infowars "reporter" Mocked by Young Girl
Her look of incredulity and casual saunter topped by an ‘85-vintage bird are epic.
And let this make clear what a problem misogyny is. The moment the guy gets owned by this girl he immediately drops into pulling patriarchal tropes out to put her in her place.
Grace in the Face of Hatred
Woman assumes Sikh politician is Muslim, angrily attacks him for supporting sharia.
He responds with grace and love.pic.twitter.com/SC72wc0OI6
— Simran Jeet Singh (@simran) September 9, 2017 Jagmeet for Un Secretary General https://t.co/xohetaj72Q
Nine Rounds a Second
Rate and reach
Nine Rounds a Second: Why the Las Vegas Shooting Was Differenthttps://t.co/z6wJ1hkKr3
— Adam Pearce (@adamrpearce) October 3, 2017
Smuggled White Nationalism
https://www.buzzfeed.com/josephbernstein/heres-how-breitbart-and-milo-smuggled-white-nationalism
I feel like I can’t concentrate today.
After Las Vegas Read about the heavy representation in the tech sector of Seattle in White Supremacist conventions (https://www.thestranger.com/news/2017/10/04/25451102/we-snuck-into-seattles-super-secret-white-nationalist-convention) Buzzfeed drops their article explaining the mechanics by which Steve Bannon / Breitbart / Milo Yiannopolous work and filter white supremacist messages (For the record, pictured is Milo, former employee of Brietbart Media, formerly and recently re-helmed by Steve Bannon, former advisor to the sitting President in Dallas, in my home state, doing karaoke to which Richard Spencer, out-and-proud white supremacists, responds enthusiastically with a Nazi salute.
https://www.buzzfeed.com/josephbernstein/heres-how-breitbart-and-milo-smuggled-white-nationalism
Bravo to Buzzfeed and “The Stranger” on getting these.
Mobile Upload: If they were laughing at us before...
If they were laughing at us before…
Mobile Upload: Oddly, there's a correlation between NRA donations and the superstition that #thoughtsandprayers fix a thing.
Oddly, there’s a correlation between NRA donations and the superstition that #thoughtsandprayers fix a thing.
Preview of American Fascism
The event was attended by a crowd of roughly 20,000 people, nearly all of them Americans sympathetic to Kuhn’s cause. With its swastikas and unapologetically racist rhetoric, cheering crowds and barefaced appeals to US patriotism – including a massive, stage-centre portrait of George Washington – the footage from the event is jarring and surreal to watch today.
https://aeon.co/videos/what-would-american-fascism-look-like-a-1939-new-york-rally-offered-more-than-a-hint
Proof you're awful: Elephant Hunting
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/us-politics/trump-elephant-trophy-policy-on-hold-latest-twitter-facts-lions-africa-hunting-a8061911.html
That anyone could do anything to promote the death of these creatures. Asshole.
Mobile Upload: The 45th President of these United States: secure in his identity, steady in his leadership.
The 45th President of these United States: secure in his identity, steady in his leadership.
Changing Mores on Psychedelics
[https://www.inverse.com/article/38980-psilocybin-mushroom-playlist-research][1]
It’s interesting. With cannabis moving to decriminalization if not legalization, advocates will next be moving for plant-based enthogenic compounds for depression medication. Interesting times.
FCC Sellout by Ajit Pai
https://motherboard.vice.com/en_us/article/xwvg34/ajit-pai-net-neutrality-heist
They’re selling us out for their enrichment.
Mobile Upload: I made a MAGA-themed Christmas cookie.
I made a MAGA-themed Christmas cookie as part of an installation I call: “Eating my Feelings.” #resist
Dressing for Sexual Harassment Hearings
I never wear makeup, so I also didn’t wear makeup. Later, of course, I would wear makeup. I was on my way to deliver an 11-page account of sexual harassment by my former graduate school adviser. I wanted to look good. I also wanted to look credible.
Sending your daughters into the world, be sure to teach her how to dress for sexual harassment hearings!
https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2018/01/03/style/dressing-for-sexual-harassment-hearings.html
Mobile Upload: It’s really odd to say this
Like being a good leader, dynamite in the sack, or having normal-sized hands, it’s really odd to say this.
Absent a President with Eloquence or Tact...
We are grieving with Parkland. But we are not powerless. Caring for our kids is our first job. And until we can honestly say that we're doing enough to keep them safe from harm, including long overdue, common-sense gun safety laws that most Americans want, then we have to change.
— Barack Obama (@BarackObama) February 15, 2018 What a President sounds like.
Year of the Purdue Wonderpill
Americans consume about 81 percent of the global supply of oxycodone products, the active ingredient in OxyContin, and nearly 100 percent of hydrocodone, the active ingredient used in brands such as Vicodin. https://t.co/jty4mrzxat
— The Intercept (@theintercept) February 23, 2018 Year of the Purdue Wonderpill
Lockdown
This should not be hanging in my soon-to-be-kindergartener’s classroom. pic.twitter.com/mWiJVdddpH
— Georgy Cohen wears a mask (@radiofreegeorgy) June 6, 2018 Welcome to Hell.
Ripping Babes from Arms
We've just published secretly recorded audio from inside a govt facility where children are being separated from their parents.
You can hear them screaming.https://t.co/cEUspwzJR2
by @gingerthomp1
— Eric Umansky (@ericuman) June 18, 2018 One of the most painful pieces of art ever made is Lou Reeds Berlin which features a song where children scream (for seemingly-endless minutes) for their mother.
This facility surely resounds with the keening of the choir of the damnation of the indifferent.
So Much Blood Spilled
We Natives can’t believe it when we see the media publicly lament, “this is not America,” or “not the America I know.” Really? Well this is the ONLY America we Natives have ever known. Stolen babies? Been there. Family separation? Done that. Trump’s rebooting racist anachronisms. pic.twitter.com/dnIim7bHz7
— Lakota Man (@LakotaMan1) June 24, 2018 I cant handle how much blood was spilled to make this country sometimes. The enormity is so staggering. Where would anyone start to repay the blood debt?
The Psychosis of Truth
Paul Ryan says Russia interfered with our elections. Trump will deny because he can’t stand the idea that he’s not the god-king he needs you to believe he is.
https://t.co/U6KqnrXLeT
Rot
He rots the soul of a nation — he works secretly and unknown in the night to undermine the pillars of a city — he infects the body politic so that it can no longer resist. A murderer is less to be feared.” – Cicero
Quo usque tandem abutere, Orangina, patientia nostra?
Mobile Upload: Some of you did this.
Some of you did this.
External Link: https://youtu.be/n12lyKTAa50
Was America ever so optimistic?
Mobile Upload: Quick Reminder: The US Government sponsored over two decades of psychic warfare research
Quick Reminder: The US Government sponsored over two decades of psychic warfare research. Ford, Reagan, Bush, Clinton
Are Finns Better at Dealing With a Disninformation Society?
A really interesting article that explains, with nod to historical belligerence, why the Finns are so adept at fake news and media propaganda training. This capability is a plug-in to their top-tier education and literacy standard. Oh and with a not-entirely-cold-war with Russia on their land-border, it pays to be prepared to handle all levels of warfare: cyber, psychological, economic, etc.
https://edition.cnn.com/interactive/2019/05/europe/finland-fake-news-intl/
In countries with underperforming literacy levels, media savvy is also impaired. Where does the US rank in literacy?
https://www.nytimes.com/2019/12/07/opinion/sunday/finland-socialism-capitalism.html
Hint: It’s not anywhere near the top.
Another Trump Bankruptcy
Infection rates of COVID versus Trump bullshit
Donnie, youre doing a heckofa job.
Who would have guessed that a game show host and a serial bankrupt couldn’t organize a response to a slow moving glacier of an international problem whose scope, scale, and threat has been delivered daily in 1080p for months now.
He’s awful, incompetent, and odious. It’s time to vote this fucker out.
Mobile Upload: After all this finishes - or if it goes on for 6 months more - we all might need this referendum.
After all this finishes - or if it goes on for 6 months more - we all might need this referendum.
Huh, Trump Rally is a Superspreader Event. Imagine that.
https://www.foxnews.com/us/health-official-trump-rally-likely-source-virus-surge
Feeeeed your lives into his bottomless gaping maw!
QAnon, “Plandemic.” Conspiracy Thinking Likely to Shape the Election
https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2020/06/qanon-nothing-can-stop-what-is-coming/610567/
Conspiracy Thinking Likely to Shape the Election
Trump Versus Philly
A love letter to her home town:
…the city that throws a parade every New Years Day to celebrate free booze and getting rowdy; where a Muppet-like agent of chaos is an icon; where trash-talking is the purest display of affection there is; where Smokin Joe Frazier perfected the left hook that would take down Muhammad Ali; where the stadiums have jails and people pay good money to smash things.
This is the city whose mob bosses laugh when they get arrested; where you can get a tattoo of Benjamin Franklin eating a cheesesteak and flipping somebody off; where heroically catching a baby tossed from a burning building is an opportunity to diss an Eagles wide receiver.
Fox News Calls It: Biden Wins
On behalf of a city left to fend for itself, a coronavirus survivor, and a nation facing A QUARTER MILLION UNNEEDED DEATHS. Let the incompetence end.
You're Delusional and Dangerous, Donnie
Says the douchenozzle who proclaimed himself winner on Wednesday morning.
No Dogs in Trump White House
I don’t trust people who dont like dogs.
I don’t like people my dog doesnt like.
https://www.npr.org/sections/live-updates-2020-election-results/2020/11/07/932624210/major-and-champ-are-major-champs-in-this-election-dogs-return-to-the-white-house
If you lack the empathy for a dog, you’re not fit to run an Arby’s, let alone a nation.
Trump Recount Requests Continue Confirming Biden Won
Biden Gains 87 Net Votes In Partial Wisconsin Recount Requested By Trump
https://www.npr.org/sections/biden-transition-updates/2020/11/28/939645865/biden-gains-votes-in-recount-of-milwaukee-county-requested-by-trump
So after re-tapping the donor network to fight the completely unsubstantiated fraud allegations, the Trump money is beautifully illustrating the integrity of Wisconsin’s elections and proving his loss.
Also, what a snowflake.
Mobile Upload: Where. Is. The. President?
Where. Is. The. President?
Can he not attempt to subvert democracy while still still doing his job?
Mobile Upload: Can this abominably Ill-run coup be called over now?
Can this abominably Ill-run coup be called over now?
Mobile Upload: Anyone heard from the nominal president on this? Poor performance.
Anyone heard from the nominal president on this? Poor performance.
Did he just get senioritis and tune out?
He's Worse Than I Could Have Imagined
Republicans must distance themselves from the president, and join their colleagues in ending his tenure.
https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2021/01/remove-trump-tonight/617576/
He’s a clear and present danger and his rhetoric and support for a completely unfounded, fictitious, divisive Big Lie has only served to clarify the ignominy due him in the annals of history.
We Told You So
TO: Every person I talked to in 2016 about what a complete moron and closet fascist he is.
Many Republicans are shell-shocked over the horrific scenes at the Capitol and seem to be trying to come to grips with their role in the disaster.
The mob that hit the Capitol was filled with people who believed Trump’s claims of a rigged election despite a lack of any serious evidence. It served as a symbol of the fact that many Americans are now moving through a reality no longer based on real facts — or the truth.
http://hill.cm/3WgNapP
Seditionist Arrested
The ego. The gall. The cheek. The indecency.
Defiler of Democracy
https://www.wfla.com/news/pinellas-county/authorities-arrest-tampa-bay-man-seen-carrying-lectern-during-riot-at-u-s-capitol/
Florida: not sending their best and brightest
And at hearing he has the gall to ask for leniency because he has kids at home.
Lock ’em up. Lock ’em up. Lock ’em up.
Seditionist Senators
Cruz and Hawley gave material comfort to the Big Lie that the election had been stolen
Beyond the pale. Get gone.
Blaming the Insurrection on "Antifa" Agent Provocateurs
Occam’s Razor, assholes
Trumpism Loves Violence
Sterling went viral for holding a press conference in which he called out the president for stoking false and pernicious conspiracy theories that have created an atmosphere of online harassment and threats of physical violence. “It has to stop!” Sterling shouted.
https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2020/12/gabe-sterling-georgia-republican-trump/617295/
Remember when Gabe Sterling asked Trump to tone down rhetoric since good civil servants were receiving violent threats?
If you’re still supporting this man, you’re complicit in abetting a monster. Hes a narcissist who wants to set the country on fire if he cant be the center of attention.
Conspiracy-Deranged Finally Realize They Were Horribly Wrong
As Joe Biden was sworn in as president, QAnon followers finally saw their hope for the “storm”—when President Donald Trump would bring down the “deep state” and expose a far-reaching child-sex-trafficking ring—disappear, leaving followers of the unhinged conspiracy theory in despair and searching for answers, while one of the most prominent adherents gave up.
https://www.forbes.com/sites/jackbrewster/2021/01/20/we-all-got-played-qanon-followers-implode-after-big-moment-never-comes/
What blows my mind is that they literally saw someone do the exact same thing with pizzagate. So they literally repeated the exact same action but in a place where the consequences are an order of magnitude more dire.
Hearing "Red Right Hand" Anew
During my evening dog walks in the quarantine quiet, I’ve been enjoying doing some deep listening to songs: thinking about the poetry, the themes, the mechanics, and my historical relationship to the song. Recently, I listened to Nick Cave and The Bad Seeds’ recording of “Red Right Hand” (1996) in this manner and, to my surprise, heard it in an entirely new way. My imagination had always held the seducer described in the song to be sinewy, handsome, and Byronic like Stephen King’s Randall Flagg from The Stand. But a new thought came to me:
The seducer can also be the intentionally-rumpled, cynical, ill-tailored, faux-populist, manipulative, unpolished, yuckster-huckster Trump archetype as well.
In the climax of the song, the narrator warns us:
You’ll see him in your nightmares
You’ll see him in your dreams
He’ll appear out of nowhere but
He ain’t what he seems
You’ll see him in your head
On the TV screen
Hey buddy, I’m warning
You to turn it off
He’s a ghost, he’s a god
He’s a man, he’s a guru
You’re one microscopic cog
In his catastrophic plan
Designed and directed by
His red right hand
Mask Discipline Variance Considered Harmful
Note: Title inspired by famous computer science paper by Edsger Dijkstra:
“goto Considered Harmful.”
Recently, Mike sent along news about a woman in Galveston, Texas who refused to wear a mask when she entered a local Bank of America. The body-cam footage from the officers suggests that both the management of the bank and the police explained to her how Governor Abbot’s abnegation of state-directed mask-wearing policy still allows businesses to enforce whatever behavior they expect on their premises. She woman flips out. She calls the other customers “sheep.” She seems to expect a revolution to protect her right to flout the standards of behavior expected by a private business under legal directive.
While, philosophically, I grant that a Governor-directed mandate should trigger alarm bells of executive overreach (and did in 2020), I think this interaction demonstrates why Gov. Abbot should not have rescinded the order yet. Lacking a uniform source of appeal (e.g. statute, executive order), variance in custom requires per-interaction negotiation. This negotiation puts undue additional pressure on local peace officers and business owners and serves as coercive pressure on proprietors.
HOT UPDATE: Per Mike, apparently this woman pulled the same stunt at another business.
Constitutional Carry Morning and Carnage Afternoon
As a person who lost a friend to gun violence and domestic abuse, I’ll always be uneasy with the ease with which access to firearms is given. After the recent actions in Atlanta and my former town of Austin, I couldn’t believe that the reasonable (if not slightly light, in my opinion) strictures were up for additional loosening;
I read this in the morning
But a few hours later…
I read this in the afternoon
"Dark Souls" and How Bad Leaders End Great Kingdoms
Universally regarded as a masterpiece of the fantasy video game genre, Dark Souls not only features deep reflections on the nature of mankind, but also provides instruction on the proper character of a leader in a way that recalls The Republic or The Prince.