Showing posts with label Verrückt Wie Ein Ballon Voller Ratten. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Verrückt Wie Ein Ballon Voller Ratten. Show all posts

Saturday, October 15, 2011

Part Of The One Per Cent? Rich? Bored?


Once Only The Concern Of Porn Stars



If you're a woman, I'd like you to think, for just a moment, about the spectrum of challenges that the human species, male and female, currently faces -- ecological, economic; cultural and political. Think hard. Think about all the various requests for financial support that have moved you to give money this past year.

Now; instead of these concerns, think about focusing on this (as reported in the Guardian UK). Think about spending thousands of dollars and a significant amount of personal discomfort -- on buying a new vagina. Because someone (not you) thinks you should.
...This newish industry consists of doctors and their clients (clients, not patients, because these surgeries are cash-only elective procedures) who believe the female nether area can be improved upon or remediated. Procedures offered include labiaplasty (trimming or completely removing labia), vaginal rejuvenation (tightening), hymenoplasty ("revirgination") and clitoral "unhooding" – among others.

...Designer vagina surgery is big business: according to the American Society for Aesthetic Plastic Surgery, in 2009 female consumers spent an estimated $6.8m (£4.4m) on these procedures (the figure counts only plastic surgeons, not gynecologists). Its popularity is rising in the UK, too – in 2008, the NHS carried out 1,118 labiaplasty operations, an increase of 70% on the previous year. And figures released this year show that plastic surgery company the Harley Medical Group received more than 5,000 inquiries about cosmetic gynecology in 2010, 65% of them for labial reduction, the rest for tightening and reshaping.


You Must Work Hard To Keep Your Man; What Else Is There?

...In the US, cosmetic gynecology may have the official sanction of reality TV (doctors have performed it on the wildly popular plastic surgery makeover show "Dr. 90210") but the same cannot be said of the peer organizations.

The American Congress of Obstetricians and Gynecologists (ACOG) deems such procedures medically unnecessary, possibly unsafe, and is "concerned with the ethical issues"; while the accrediting body, the American Board of Obstetrics and Gynecology (ABOG), refuses to recognize cosmetic [gynecology] as a legitimate sub-speciality.

This means no entry barriers for the physicians, as there are no board-certification requirements. Consumers may not realize that it's a bit of a wild west out there, with doctors working out the kinks, as it were, as they go.



Try and save the Polar Bears; work to rein in Wall Street. Send your money to Progressive politicians -- or, have your already perfect privates remade in an image dreamt up by obese right-wing polticos or producers of fuck movies (there's little difference between the two; trust me), or Type-A, "I'm A Job-Creator" husbands who will leave you for Trophy Wife No. 2 anyway.

Your choice.


Tuesday, August 9, 2011

Grand TurtleBear Bachmann Graces Cover Of Newsweek; DJI Plummets Over 600 Points, $1 Trillion Lost

Love Jesus Or You Won't Know What Hit You

Bringing Love And Light. And Brotherhood. And Homophobia, And
An Abiding Hatred Of Science And The Wondrous Feeling You Get
From Condemning Others And Demanding They Believe As You Do,
Or Else (Photo: Newsweek ©, A Classy™ Publication)

There's not much to say about Little Michele Bachmann, Grand TurtleBear of the Church Of I Kill You, beyond the observation that every time she opens her mouth, she becomes classier and classier in every way; a true Poster Girl.

Ray Lizza, writing in The New Yorker, recently reported that the Grand TurtleBear likes to read, too -- and if you accept that what a person chooses to read reflects their interests, and assumptions about the world, this should be interesting to all of us.

(I came to Lizza's piece via an article in TPM by Benjy Sarlin, who quotes Lizza below.)
...Bachmann traces her conversion to evangelical Christianity to a series of films by theologian Frances Schaeffer entitled "How Should We Then Live?" condemning everything from the Italian Renaissance to modern day government conspiracies.

[Ray Lizza writes] The iconic image from the early episodes is Schaeffer standing on a raised platform next to Michelangelo's "David" and explaining why, for all its beauty, Renaissance art represented a dangerous turn away from a God-centered world and toward a blasphemous, human-centered world. But the film shifts in the second half.

In the sixth episode, a mysterious man in a fake mustache drives around in a white van and furtively pours chemicals into a city's water supply, while Schaeffer speculates about the possibility that the U.S. government is controlling its citizens by means of psychotropic drugs.


Bachmann also highlighted Schaeffer follower Nancy Pearce's recent book, "Total Truth: Liberating Christianity from Its Cultural Captivity," as a "wonderful" read. Per Lizza, the book urges readers to be skeptical of any non-Christian ideas, because even though they may be right some of the time "the overall systems of thought constructed by nonbelievers will be false" unless built on "Biblical truth."

I can't wait for the Grand TurtleBear to be appointed Queen of America; can you? We'd have the kind of fun few Western cultures [principally, in Europe and Russia] have experienced since the 1930's and 40's. Though Cambodia and Rwanda and the Sudan have come close.



Saturday, August 6, 2011

Future

Tin Foil Hats May Not Be Required

A Cartoon By Mr Fish (Image: Fish)
Want to know how much God loves the 'Bible Belt' and what all these evangelicals are preaching? Just look at the change in weather patterns over the South -- and Texas now has over one hundred days a year, with temperatures at or over 100 degrees? He loves them so much He's going to bake them first. Good eatin' that way.

-- El Rog The Magnificent
Governor Rick Perry of the independent nation state of Texas held a rally in Houston's Astrodome today; temperature inside the covered sports arena was approximately 70 degrees, and outside a partly cloudy 97. The New York Times reported that in the arena (capacity 71,500) approximately 20,000 people appeared for the Prayvagaza:
Mr. Perry came up with the idea for the event in December but did not make an announcement about it until June. In letters to his fellow governors and in other statements, Mr. Perry used Bible verses to describe the rally’s purpose: He wanted to humbly ask God to intervene on behalf of the troubled nation, to provide spiritual solutions to the country’s problems and to bless and transform the lives of Americans. The governor repeatedly stressed that the gathering would be apolitical and “open to any member of the public who wants to join with us in prayer,” as his letter to Gov. Robert Bentley of Alabama stated.
The rally was promoted and entitled "The Response" -- to what, exactly, wasn't said. Perry and the organizers of the event -- all evangelical christian leaders, some with their own money-making megachurches in the South and Midwest -- claimed it was for "people of all faiths" to attend.
But Christianity dominated the tone of the prayer service and the religious affiliations of the crowd. The event is shaping up to be one of the biggest tests of Mr. Perry’s political career, coming on the cusp of his decision about whether to seek the Republican nomination for president...

In addition to Mr. Perry, several influential Christian conservatives were scheduled to either lead prayers or read from the Bible, including Dr. James C. Dobson, a psychologist who founded Focus on the Family; Tony Perkins, the president of the Family Research Council in Washington; and Dr. Richard Land, the conservative president of the Southern Baptist Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission.

Preach It: Jesus Loves The Tea Partei (Julian Beck In Poltergeist II)

It's just one Dog's opinion, but since the intrusion of christian evangelism in American politics (beginning in the early 1980's with the so-called Moral Majority that became the 'Christian Coalition'), the push by these groups to eliminate any lines between church and state have increased.

The goals of these groups are no different from any other revolutionary organization in a quest for political domination of a society. It doesn't matter whether it's Marx, Lenin, Jesus, Mohammed, or some invented psycho-social theory -- each group demands their beliefs should shape, control and drive the world and the lives of individuals.

Personally, I believe in a multiplicity of views and opinions, beliefs and their free expression -- so long as no others are harmed in any way in the process. It's called "Democracy". I believe in observable facts, in the truth of data, and in scientific methodology.

I do not know what the Universe is. I do not know where it came from. I do not know what happens to us when we die. I do not know whether "God" as two of the three major religions of the world (i.e., Christianity; Islam; Buddhism) define that, exists or not.

The one thing I do know is that no other human being knows the answer to any of these questions, either. The ones who claim they do know, that faith and belief are superior to skepticism or doubt, are not being honest with themselves or anyone else. Case in point.

But the Robertsons, the Reeds, Fallwells, Swaggarts and Warrens, the Dobsons and Perkins and the Terrys, do claim to know. They know what is best for the United States and every person in it -- because, they claim, god has told them. They have faith and a structure of belief which, if everyone would just live from it and in it, all the Bad would go away -- and the Bad is Sin, which can only be removed by believing as they do.

Of course, along the way, these white men become wealthy. Churches are tax-exempt. They become powerful within the christian community -- only, now these groups are politically organized, and they want policy and political decisions to reflect their, uh, values. They want one belief leading the nation and all its people -- and because they believe a deity speaks through them, they will make the decisions for all.

Jonestown, Guyana; November 1978 (Photo: TIME.com)

This, incidentally, is not Democracy. It's Theocracy.

I don't know if these people will ever-- as Margaret Atwood saw in her 1984 novel, The Handmaid's Tale -- see the United States as so awash in sin, so 'in rebellion against god' that they will believe god (somebody's god, anyway) has directed them to overthrow the government in some fashion and purge the sin and the Bad from the country. In order to save it, and lead it in righteousness.

And in the process, the evil, personified in specific groups and individuals, must be purged and punished. And in human history, any truly radical shift from one social order to another is always, always, backed up by the threat of imprisonment or execution.

Where Revolutionary Intolerance Always Ends: UN War Crimes
Commission Investigators At Mass Grave Of Muslims Near
Sbrenicia, Serbia, 2007 (Photo: Dalje.com)

I don't know. But with the increasingly fractured and stalled nature of our two-and-a-half political-party process, the continuing deterioration of the global economy as Trillions of dollars in CDO and Credit-Default-Swap debt can no longer be swept under the carpet, the future looks more and more unstable. It's why I keep saying it could look more like the 1930's than we realize.

There have been ideas of coup d'etat in Ameica before -- during the Civil War, when Lincoln was looked upon as a virtual dictator; in 1933 and 34, when a group of our wealthiest citizens decided Franklin D. Roosevelt was destroying the country through New Deal economic policies that would lead to communism. There is some opinion that JFK's assassination (and later, RFK's) changed the political direction of America, abruptly.

There was a phrase people used to use in the 1930's, when discussing the rise of Fascism in Italy, then Germany, and Japan: It Can't Happen Here, the title of a book by Sinclair Lewis about an America where a Fascist ideology and leader does appear -- except, Lewis' novel was about politics.

He didn't envision the possibility that the deeply conservative, babbling-in-tongues, tent-revival religious leaders of Lewis' day could become the slick, well-dressed and organized religious leaders of air-conditioned megachurches -- or that they would begin to hunger after political power to lead all people toward god (well, somebody's god, anyway) -- whether they might want to or not.

'Dangerous' Not To Believe? (Screencapture: CNN online)

Lewis didn't see these same clever men of faith (someone's faith, anyway) might receive serious financial contributions from wealthy, non-religious conservatives, at the same time they raked in the donations of the faithful: Harold Camping's Oakland, California-based organization pulled in over $80 Million with the claim that god Camping had predicted the christian 'Rapture' and end of the world. Politics, now -- like so much else -- is about money, and 'christian' evangelical leaders are awash in it.

Can "It Happen Here"? I don't know. It depends upon how desperate our times become; on how delusional some people may be. It really depends upon how much we take for granted the freedom to act as wish under law, and to think and believe as we will; how much we cherish our individual selves and respect the same rights for others. This is the America I live in, and believe in.

Ultimately, Rick Perry's little roadshow probably says more about his "redefining his brand", about keeping his political viability alive among extremely conservative and evangelical christians. Texas -- or Oklahoma, or other parts of the American South -- is not the United States, and people like Perry or the other so-called christian leaders he invited to join him this morning are not a majority in this country.

My point is that we don't know what the future holds -- and history is full of difficult times, in which a very focused and organized minority has often taken political control of a society in turmoil.

The Tea Partei very much see themselves in the role of outsiders, bringing America back to fiscal sanity, to 'Greatness'; and it's most visible spokespeople are Little Sarah Palin, and Grand Turtlebear Michele Bachmann, both of whom are very open about leading America to -- somebody's god, anyway.

For our own good; of course.


Thursday, July 7, 2011

True Colors

Hopey-Changey: I'm Done

A Cartoon By Mr Fish (Harper's magazine online)

It isn't just his continuation of the Bush-era signing statements and expansion of Presidential power; his continuation of secret electronic surveillance programs very possibly in violation of the Constitution; his refusal to place additional stimulus (e.g., job creation) over giving the Banksters whatever they want; his refusal to use infrastructure rebuilding projects across the country as a means of jump-starting the economy by providing jobs; his continual giving in to the Rethugs, seeming determined never to stand up to them -- as if he were a caricature of a spineless, liberal politician.

America since December of 2000 has been little more than a string of failures, of manifest greed and judgement so poor as to be truly evil -- an anti-American dream, ending in poverty, inequality and the end of Law and Reason. Our Republic seems bound (our karma? Who knows) to continue spiraling down into a shadow of what we could have been: The beginning of the End Of Empire.

Instead of real leaders, we'll end up being led by a succession of squalid, vicious, anti-intellectual tools of of the Owner class, the Palins and Bachmanns, dreaming of "restoring our greatness" -- as the gulf between the fantastically wealthy and everyone else in America becomes more nakedly apparent than it has been since the late 19th century. Our laws will continue to be determined by men who are (like the blighted Clarence and the smug, rabid Tony) poor scholars and narrow ideologues.

What makes it even more bitter is the past two years of wasted opportunity to Do Right, when the Right was so clear. And Obama's stubborn, even enthusiastic, willingness to do Wrong, when the Wrong was so obvious.

Now, as a continuation of the same pattern of behavior, Obama has said publicly that Medicare and Social Security will be cut (though he doesn't use that word) in reaching a "compromise" with the Rethugs as they threaten to implode the American economy.

If that's so (and I have no reason to believe otherwise, given the evidence of his past behavior), he'll give the Thugs whatever they want, as he gave the Banksters -- but he'll do it without my vote.

(Cartoon: Mr Fish, Harper's)

From Brian Beutler, Talking Points Memo:
Multiple senior House Democratic aides tell TPM that caucus members were caught off guard by news stories about President Obama's push for deeper deficit and spending reductions -- and particularly about the White House's willingness to cut Social Security as part of a grand bargain to raise the debt limit.
Paul Krugman in the New York Times noted,
It’s getting harder and harder to trust Mr. Obama’s motives in the budget fight, given the way his economic rhetoric has veered to the right. In fact, if all you did was listen to his speeches, you might conclude that he basically shares the G.O.P.’s diagnosis of what ails our economy and what should be done to fix it. And maybe that’s not a false impression; maybe it’s the simple truth...

...it’s hard not to get the impression that he is now turning for advice to people who really believe that the deficit, not unemployment, is the top issue facing America right now, and who also believe that the great bulk of deficit reduction should come from spending cuts. It’s worth noting that even Republicans weren’t suggesting cuts to Social Security; this is something Mr. Obama and those he listens to apparently want for its own sake.
And, reposted from The Big Picture, by Barry Ritholtz:
On election night [in 2004], I wrote The Tragedy of the Bush Administration. In it, I despaired that:
Once in a generation, the stars align for a political leader. There is this perfect moment – too often based on some enormous danger of long-lasting consequences for generations to come.

Once every half century, the perfect combination of leadership and threat, of challenge and response meet. The leader – imperfect, fallible, yet ready to rise to the occasion – grabs the brass ring.

Think Winston Churchill fighting the global threat of the Nazis, Thomas Jefferson writing the Declaration of Independence, JFK’s dare to send a man to the Moon...
The rest of that piece went on to lament how George W. Bush was granted that rare opportunity to grab the brass ring, to rise to the occasion — and failed miserably.

Here we sit, not half a century later as originally surmised, but a mere six years later. I once again find myself lamenting the opportunities wasted by a US President in response to a great cataclysm. In the case of President Obama, it was his response to the financial crisis. The opportunity for greatness presented itself, and was ... ignored.

The President was swept into office on a wave of Anti-Bush sentiment. The stock market was in freefall, credit was frozen, the recession already 13 months old. As Rahm Emanuel said, “Never waste a good crisis.” A strong leader would have taken advantage of the moment, of the opportunity...

... as the finance sector got larger and more important, it was paradoxically under ever less scrutiny, supervision, and regulation. With that new found freedom from oversight, the banks promptly blew themselves, and the global economy, to smithereens.

What did [Obama] do in this scenario?

• He appointed two of the architects of the crisis to major White House economic positions: Lawrence Summers as CEA Chair, and Timothy Geithner as Treasury Secretary.

• He made the enormous tactical error of focusing on Health Care Reform, while the banking crisis was still in full flower.

• He failed to marshal adequate resources to respond to the worst economic recession since the Great Depression.

The first item damned him to a mediocre economic team, one that failed to respond strongly to the banks that created the crisis. The second error earned him the enmity of the opposing party. The third error was political, and likely cost him the House, and possibly the Senate.

(Cartoon: Mr Fish, Harper's)

The great irony is that the man who ran on the campaign slogan of Change failed to deliver it in any meaningful way — at least, where the public wanted it — in getting the reckless runaway banks under control, and in stimulating the moribund, post-credit crisis economy...

The opportunity existed to get the renegade banks under control — to reduce their leverage, their recklessness, and to get their hands out of the taxpayers pockets.

That opportunity was squandered, and Obama ended up as a defender of the banking status quo. It is where his presidency could have achieved lasting greatness, and instead was turned into just another elected official, who over promised and under delivered . . .


Sunday, May 22, 2011

Still Here



At 6:01PM (or, 12:01PM, depending on the news agency) PDST on May 21st, the world was supposed to end, and the Rapture of (depending on who you talk to, only about some 144,000) Faithful And True Xtians to their heavenly reward, leaving behind their clothing and appearing before god (or, somebody's god, anyway) in "the altogether". They will then spend eternity praising and communing and more praising and communing, and then more praising. In the nude. Forever. Not even a g-string.

The majority of humanity would be Left Behind, muddling through about five months of (as Dr. Peter Weckman told us in Ghostbusters) "Basically the worst parts of the Bible" and a return to a pre-Internet culture, before the Earth would be horribly destroyed. The Billions still on Earth who perish will be cast into a pit of eternal fire and damnation, where they will be damned and in the fire forever, and Lloyd Blankfein and Angelo Mozilo will try to sell other damned souls Ice water Futures. Forever.


One Of The Millions Of Handbills, Preaching The Bad News™:
You're Damned, Because You Did A Bad Thing God Knows About

All this was utterly made up prophesied by the Reverend Harold Camping of Oakland, CA, just across the Bay from where I have my rug and dog bowl. And, international media have already reported that this wasn't Camping's first attempt at predicting Judgement Day: He had done so in 1994. When The End didn't occur then, either, Camping went back to his drawing board and came up with May 21, 2011 (Professor Frink: "Ah, sorry; forgot to carry the '2'!") as the really correct and accurate it's-for-real-this-time date.


Harold Camping Says Even If Jesus Doesn't, Chtulu Loves You.

No one knows how many years Camping had asked for money before the 1994 Judgement Day did not happen -- but after coming up with the 2011 "for-real" date, he had seventeen years to sell this concept and obtain more money from his more easily influenced fundamentalist Xtian followers.

Through his network of Family Radio stations (it's FCC licenses alone are valued at approximately $50 Million), Camping broadcast his message of The End Times, and his (always) urgent request that the Faithful send money. Lots of it. To do the good work.


Julian Beck As That Wacky Reverend Kane In Poltergeist II (1986)
Do I Really Have To Spell It Out, Or Did You Make The Connection?

And, send it they did -- approximately $80 Million since 1994, a large amount spent on printing leaflets and billboards from sea to shining sea, announcing The Bad News that the world was ending and that after 6:01PM PDST on 5/21/11, there would be no possibility of salvation If you weren't Raptured, you were damned -- Jesus would turn a deaf ear to your plea for forgiveness. Harold said so.

As the good people at Blazing Alcoholic Beverage point out,
Actor 212 said,

Revelation specifies that Jesus would choose 12,000 from each of the 12 tribes of Israel... so that's 144,000 people, all Jewish, presumably.

Now, while one might be tempted to go see if Israel... had an unusual spike in mysterious deaths yesterday, the Diaspora and subsequent immigrations has probably dispersed those Chosen over the entire planet. 144,000 deaths in a population of 7 billion wouldn't even show up in a statistical analysis of the third order.

So it could have happened.

I have the temerity to ask: Providing you believe in the possibility of a comic-book or Hollywood special-effects kind of religion; what kind of deity provides salvation for only 144,000 out of 6-plus billion people or provides no mechanisms or rules by which to increase that number; thereby ensuring that the majority of humans will perish in the everlasting lake, etc. Huh? What Kind?


Your Punishment For Buying Glenny's Line: In Hell, He's On Every Channel

Harold Camping's deity, apparently. Harold was reported as being "in seclusion" in his split-level home in Alameda, CA, and told the local ABC affiliate, KGO-7, that he was "honestly perplexed" and "doesn't understand why [the Rapture] didn't occur" as he had determined.

Possibly he will go back to the drawing board and come up with a new absolutely correct and for-real-this-time-we're-really-sure Rapture Date in, 2030, say. Another nineteen years of gathering the faithful, bringing in the sheaves and shearing the sheep. It's old-school banking, baby.

Camping will have passed away by then, but if his Family Radio is a Camping family business (as many evangelical schemes tend to be), then he'll be leaving a wonderful legacy of fund-raising for his children, along with attempts to raise some of the dead.


The Rapture: A Completely Believable Premise, With Flamingos



Noch Einmal:
Radio Host Who Predicted End of Days To Speak
"Flabbergasted" Harold Camping says he will make a statement on his radio station at some point today -- By GARANCE BURKE, Associated Press

Harold Camping declined Monday to immediately comment to The Associated Press at his home, but said he'll make a full statement in a radio broadcast later in the day... The 89-year-old Camping told the San Francisco Chronicle on Sunday he was "flabbergasted" his doomsday prophecy did not come true.

Some of Camping's followers say they are surprised they were not swept up to heaven... Along with the disappointment, believers who spent their savings to advertise the world's end are now facing more earthly concerns.

Noch Einmal, Mit Schwein:

The New York Times reports that Harold Camping says October 21st is the absolutely, definite, real and honest-to-somebody's-god true date for... something. Possibly, the emergence of a new form of Latte from the mind of Starbucks™.

Yesterday, Camping told his radio audience of six people and a Parakeet that still listen to him that May 21st had been an "invisible Judgement Day" -- just because you could not see it, you of little faith, doesn't mean it didn't happen.
What [Camping] decided, apparently, was that May 21 had been “an invisible judgment day,” of the spiritual variety, rather than his original vision of earthquakes and other disasters leading to five months of hell on earth, culminating in a spectacular doomsday on Oct. 21 — something he had repeatedly guaranteed.

On Monday, however, Mr. Camping seemed satisfied with his new interpretation, which apparently spared humankind its months of torture for a single day of destruction.

“The world has been warned,” said Mr. Camping, who said this would be his last interview... “We don’t have to talk about this anymore,” he said.

At the same time, it raised concerns that some believers might do themselves harm rather than face Mr. Camping’s promised apocalypse, something he refused to take responsibility for on Monday. “I am not the authority,” he said.

But Mr. Camping said his company — which is a nonprofit — would also not return donations given by his followers in advance of the May 21 prediction. “We’re not at the end,” he said, “Why would we return it?”

Why, Indeed.


Sunday, January 9, 2011

Future Crazy Rising

The Echo Chamber Rules


"We will forcefully resist people imposing their will on us":
Person Carrying Assault Rifle At Event In Phoenix, Arizona,
Where President Obama Touted Health Care Reform, 2009

David Kurtz writes at TPM that for newly-elected members of the House of Representatives, "their first week on the job will forever be marked by the attack on Gabrielle Giffords (D-AZ)". That another line had been crossed with that event, and how the new House reacts to it is anyone's guess.

"Beginning in August 2009 [Kurtz writes], when the tea party movement began disrupting congressional town halls in districts across the country", Democrats experienced a sudden, in-your-face attack by people with no anger management skills and every intent to intimidate the Democratic politician being 'targeted'.

I remember news coverage of various Democratic Senators and Representatives, in video clips showing them standing, trying to talk reasonably with people who had been sent to Town Hall meetings to be angry -- to "shout out", disrupt and dominate, any of the Democrat's Town Halls with the Righteous Anger of True American Patriots: the so-called tea party movement.

It was to provide a focus for Nightly News video, which everyone knows follows the loudest noise or shiniest object. Television news viewers across America and the world saw clips of angry people, shouting at a Democratic politician (on some occasions, even inches away from their face, as happened to Senator Arlen Specter), publicly accusing them of being a "Socialist" with "Washington's Socialist Agenda" for "Socialist Health Care".


'Rocking The Town Hall', 2009; Shown By Fox As Just "Concerned
Americans", Only Exercising Their First Amendment Freedoms

Spread out in the hall... towards the front, stated an organizing memo, "Rocking The Town Hall", written by one of the 'founders' of the Tea Party movement, Bob MacGuffie. The objective is to put the rep on the defensive with your questions and follow-up... The The rep should be made to feel that a majority... [of the] audience opposes the socialist agenda of Washington... The goal is to rattle him, move him off his prepared goal and statements... stand up and shout out... Look for opportunities...

This wasn't about promoting actual discussion of an important issue at the community level. It was a beer-hall tactic, to derail discussion and provide images to be spun over and over on television. It was to give an impression that a majority of people in America were angry over a "Socialist" Health Care reform plan. It was about silencing, not promoting, constructive debate.


(Right Principles PAC memo by Bob MacGuffie, a founder of the Tea
Party Nation, June 2009. Photo/Text: HistoryCommons.org)

Most people sighed, watching such clips (rebroadcast over, and over on CNN and the Little Rupert channel, which was exactly what the Rightist PACs wanted), and shrugged... it's all getting so crazy; but, what're ya gonna do....

At that same time in 2009, the number of violent threats against Democratic House members rose sharply. "Despite Republican claims that Democrats were milking the threats and exaggerating them for political gain," Kurtz writes, "the threats were deeply troubling to Democrats privately. They were forced to rethink holding town halls and to recalibrate the risks associated with being a public official."

Unlike the House leadership, regular Members do not receive security details -- and from that perspective, Democratic Representatives were shaken by the tea party crazies. They saw Rising Crazy on the Right as leading to some kind of an incident, where they were were targets vulnerable to physical harm.

"But things had calmed down for the most part since the passage of health care in the first part of 2010. As the ...midterm campaigns heated up, the political tenor grew sharply more volatile again," Kurtz wrote.


Little Sarah, Plain And Tall, With A Treasured Friend

During the Health Care Reform debate in 2010, if an attack on a Democratic House member had occurred, Kurtz stated, "or [in] the run up to the elections, no one would have been shocked. But [after the midterm election] the heat of the moment seemed to have dissipated."

Kurtz noted that the kind of community meeting which Representative Giffords held yesterday in Tuscon is the "bread and butter" of a Member of the House when they are away from Washington. It's considered essential, a duty of elected office. However, the entire House of Representatives (including the 94 newly-elected Members) now knows from their first week on the job that unless they pay for their own security, they are vulnerable to The Crazy.That in the future, any one of them, or their staff, could be a target.

No one knows whether what happened in Tuscon will make Representatives without security less likely to meet, up close and personal, with their constituents in future -- and whether that makes the political process more, not less, centered on the insular little riverside village where America concentrates its politics.



Jared Lee Loughner, the 22-year-old gunman apprehended at the Tuscon shooting yesterday (indicted on charges of assault, murder, and attempted nurder today), is already being described in the Rightist blogosphere as a Leftist crazy -- primarily because the Tea Party wants to put as much distance between themselves and Loughner as possible.

Republican Senator Lamar Alexander of Tennessee made an unsolicited comment to the press today, saying, "What we know about [Loughner] is that he was reading Karl Marx, and reading Hitler, and burning the American flag. That's not the profile of a typical tea party member if that's the inference that's being made."

(It's a theme on the Right, by the way, that Hitler was a leftist -- that 'Mein Kampf' was a 'Socialist' tract, and that the National Socialist German Workers' Party was a leftist movement. It's true; they really want to believe that.)


Obligatory Cute Small Animal Photo In Middle Of Blog Rant

With all this a prologue, my prediction is, after some kind of interval (not necessarily decent) following yesterday's shooting of Gabrielle Giffords, that there will suddenly be a rise in announcements by Republican House Members -- all talking about threats against themselves and their families... from Leftist crazies.

It'll be the same type of claim the Right has made, falsely, for two decades: That the mainstream media is owned and dominated by liberals and the Left.

As if to prove that old claim a lie, Little Rupert's Fox will pick up this talk of New Threat From The Left, and broadcast it; spin, and repeat... Broadcast; spin, and repeat. Broadcast; spin, and repeat; the claim that the Right is more threatened by the possibility of an armed Left. And, it'll be picked up by Lard Boy, Bill-O, Drudge, Little Glen Beck, and the rest of the Echo Chamber: Broadcast; spin, and repeat. Broadcast; spin, and repeat.

By the Autumn of this year, Gabrielle Giffords will have become the new Rethug poster child for fears of violence -- from the Left, when none exists. It will be just another step in the Echo Chambers' process of demonizing anything Liberal or Progressive, confusing public understanding of the realities we're facing, and further polarizing American society when we can least afford it.

But as I've said, Little Rupert and the rest of the Echo Chamber could care less for all the harm they're doing by fabricating and escalating conflict and division. It's all about money and profit, for them; nothing more.

So; what're ya gonna do. Sometimes I think that as Americans, we deserve everything we're all going to end up getting. Collectively, we're that stupid.

But, I'm only a Dog, and no one listens to me.


Saturday, January 8, 2011

Crazy

New York Times January 8, 2011, By MARC LACEY and DAVID M. HERSZENHORN

TUCSONRepresentative Gabrielle Giffords, an Arizona Democrat, and 18 other people were shot just north of Tucson on Saturday morning when a gunman opened fire outside a supermarket where Ms. Giffords was meeting with constituents for a “Congress on Your Corner” event.

Ms. Giffords, 40, was described as being in very critical condition at the University Medical Center in Tucson, where she was operated on by a team of neurosurgeons. Dr. Peter Rhee, medical director of the hospital’s trauma and critical care unit, said that she had been shot once in the head, “through and through,” with the bullet going through her brain.

“I can tell you at this time, I am very optimistic about her recovery,” Dr. Rhee said in a news conference. “We cannot tell what kind of recovery but I’m as optimistic as it can get in this kind of situation.”


Truly shocking; a tragedy; a nine-year-old girl and a Federal Judge killed. Which, of course, the floating scum of the Rightist echo chamber will remind us, could not have been foreseen, and for which no one (aside from the gunman and any co-conspirators) can be blamed.


Commentary By Gummo At The Great Curmudgeon

At a press conference, Pima County Sheriff Clarence Dupnik said that
When you look at unbalanced people, how they respond to the vitriol that comes out of certain mouths about tearing down the government -- The anger, the hatred, the bigotry that goes on in this country is getting to be outrageous. And, unfortunately, Arizona I think has become sort of the Capital. We have become the Mecca for prejudice and bigotry... vitriol might be free speech, but it's not without consequences.

(NOTE: I originally thought ABC had reported that Gifford's husband, U.S. Navy Captain and Astronaut, Mark Kelley, had replied to a reporter's question that the Tea Party was to blame for the attack on his wife. That's what I believed I'd heard; I tried to find transcripts for both the ABC World News and CBS Evening News, but they haven't yet been released for today's broadcasts. After watching clips of both programs, I believe the reference was actually to the Pima County Sheriff.)

Unfortunately, Speaker Boner, President Sessions and President Cantor won't blame any of this, or of the increasingly violent rhetoric and acts in America, on the Rethug hate machine: Like Little Glenny Beck, Lard Boy; Bill-O; Little Mikey Weiner; Little Rupert, and Little Annie Coulter; I've written about it before.

Individually and collectively, for nearly twenty years, they and others who mimic them have all made a great deal of money by demonizing the Left, creating a public vomatorium of hatred -- because it sells (Lard Boy himself admitted that the controversy he creates with his hate speech "allows me to charge confiscatory ad[vertising] rates").

"Second Amendment solutions" "Tea Party Justice" "We didn't bring guns -- this time" [Handmade signs from photos of tea party rallies]; "Why don't [terrorists car-bomb] the New York Times" [Coulter]; "We are at war with this president" [Limbaugh]; "The Revolution is Now" [Beck]; "You fags should get AIDS and die" "Only ...resistance to this baby dictator, Barack Hussein Obama, can prevent the Khmer Rouge from appearing in this country" [Weiner]; "At what point do the people march down to their state legislator's house, pull him outside, and beat him to a bloody pulp?" [Erik Erikson, Red State]


Map Of Democratic 'Targets', From SARAHPAC Website, 2010
(Giffords' is third in the Arizona map, on the lower right)

Like the crosshairs on Little Sarah Palin's website map of Democrats "targeted" in the midterm elections. Giffords herself told CBS News in an interview (replayed on the CBS Evening News tonight) during the 2010 elections that Palin's use of "crosshairs... looks harmless, but can have real consequences".

Little Sarah, Plain and Tall, posted a brief comment on her Facebook site, My sincere condolences are offered to the family of Rep. Gabrielle Giffords and the other victims of today's tragic shooting in Arizona... we all pray for the victims and their families, and for peace and justice.

Peace? No. Like a person who provides the weapon, The Little Sarahs of the world thrive on fear and conflict to make a profit. When someone uses the weapon for a violent attack, the Little Sarahs and Glennys, Lard Boys and Mikey Weiners say Hey; we're not responsible for what some nut case does!

Justice? No. They won't be blamed.

A commentator at The Great Curmudgeon's site noted that in Weimar Germany, violent right-wing rhetoric, and actual violence including political assassination defined that pre-Hitler era, adding, "What we're seeing is nothing new".

The Right in this country -- like the Right in Europe of the 20's and 30's -- can't be divorced from its pustulent rhetoric. They rely on it to define themselves; by contrast, the Left in America doesn't respond in kind. And violent words lead to progressively more violent acts. Only a fool will refuse to see that.

Only a fool believes that currents in history never repeat themselves. But the Right, which eagerly laps up the vomit of the Becks and Limbaughs and O'Reillys, aren't much concerned with History. And ignoring the past is to walk down an incline which is almost impossible to climb up again, without paying a heavy price. Ask the Germans. Ask the Spanish.

But, I'm only a Dog, and no one listens to me.


Wednesday, December 8, 2010

New Normal



The New Normal (NYT, 12/08/10)

The 'deal' orchestrated by President Obama and his 'team' with the Rethugs is already being debated. Last night, Charlie Rose had four commentators in round-table discussion (more or less; only one was actually in the studio): U.S. Representatives Jan Schakowsky (D - Illinois) and Anthony Weiner (D - NY), Kenneth Rogoff (Thomas D. Cabot Professor of Public Policy, and Professor of Economics at Harvard University), and Al Hunt, the Managing Editor for Bloomberg News.

Rogoff and Hunt were the Center-Right guests; Schakowsky and Weiner (who is one of the Democrats' most articulate and energetic spokespersons) were Progressive-Left. While Rogoff pooh-poohed it all with a well-so-what? attitude, Schakowsky and Weiner were absolutely clear: This 'compromise' adds hundreds of billions of dollars to the National Debt in order to provide tax breaks for billionaires (That, nearly a direct quote from Weiner).

Hunt noted that his reporters tell him the Republicans were willing to make more compromises, if the President and his administration had made a harder fight -- and were amazed when they received everything they wanted, allowing them to give Obama only one real concession: Extension of unemployment benefits.

Hunt related that the Republicans had instructions to give ground on everything except provisions in the Bush Tax Cuts involving the Estate Tax (of most benefit to only the wealthiest Americans with extremely large personal fortunes) -- that they would give Obama everything except that.

Rogoff concluded that there were many provisions in the deal that assisted the working poor and families; Representative Weiner responded that this was important, and that compromise in Washington is expected -- but, he asked, where was the President we voted for? He didn't define the debate for the country, allowing the Rethugs to do that.

Weiner asked, "People expected that [Obama] was going to roll up his sleeves and fight for America's middle-class working families." Why didn't he do that? Why does he say now this deal was the "best" he and his team could do -- when that is so obviously not true?

In the end, Weiner added, the people who benefited the most from the 'deal' were the 10,000 or so members of America's First Families, the top two per cent of the population. Legislation which allows them to protect their billions is long-lasting -- as befits the Rethug perspective that this is the "Owner" Class, the true source of jobs and prosperity in a trickle-down world.

For the rest of us, the 'deal' will provide short-term benefits; they are supposed to be a second 'Stimulus Package' without being openly labeled as such. But 'stimulus' is just that -- a short pulse, like using a defibrillator to restart the heart of a dying patient. Unlike the continuing fortunes of the First Families, it's disposable; it isn't meant to last.

Representative Schakowsky added that other Rethugs are now appearing in the media, crowing, on the strength of having gotten the Democrats to cave so easily -- and that now, they're announcing next year in Congress, we're going to vote on spending cuts. "They're going to take this momentum and go after programs like school tuition and help for families; programs that benefit the middle class."

This has always been their agenda, she added, and the President has given them every indication he won't stand up to them.

In looking at the New York Times this morning, what caught my eye was not the analysis in their main article about the deal: It was the caption below a photo accompanying the article: ...The unemployment rate, now at 9.8 per cent, is expected to be near 8 per cent by the end of 2012.

Please look at the job seekers in the accompanying photograph -- young and middle-aged black women, and an older white man. In most places in America, this is predominantly the face of unemployment: Young and black, or older and white.

8 per cent unemployment. With televisions blaring advertisements about luxury cars and vacations, sports and images of upward mobility for all; telling us everything is fine; just go back to sleep...

This is the 'new normal we're being asked to swallow. And this is acceptable?

Monday, September 20, 2010

Recession Ends; No One Notices

WASHINGTON D.C. The National Bureau Of Economic Research (NBER)'s Business Cycle Dating Committee held a meeting yesterday, and agreed that the Great Recession, which started in the Fall of 2007, actually ended in June of 2009, or the end of Second Quarter.

There was little hoopla. The news was greeted with silence and laconic stares from passersby (a neat trick, as the meeting was conducted by phone).

"It was over a year ago?" Said Anna Loftgren, a mother of three who has been unemployed for 87 weeks and currently living in a friends' lawn mower shed. "I don't see there's any difference." Ms. Loftgren recently sold her children as test subjects in the cosmetics industry to pay down her credit card debt.

At the conclusion of the meeting, Robert Hall, Stanford University economist and Chairman of the NBER's Business Cycle Dating Committee, announced to the other members that he was very sorry, but that the NBER had considered various consolidation and reduction-in-force plans, and determined that they would all have to be let go.


Sunday, August 15, 2010

Anchored

"First and foremost, I’m a businessman. My first goal is to attract the largest audience possible so I can charge confiscatory ad rates. I happen to have great entertainment skills, but that enables me to sell airtime.” Then he added -- as if he had to after a rare moment of honesty -- "But in my heart and soul, I know I have become the intellectual engine of the conservative movement."
John McManus, "The Flap Over Limbaugh", New American, April 2009


(Photo: Courtesy Knowledge Rush.com -- No Joke)

Lard Boy, 63, racist homophobic misogynistic junkie and self-described shill "intellectual engine" for America's Rightist movement, was reeled in and moored over the weekend to wed 33-year-old Kathryn Rogers in a 'Hawaiian Themed' celebration at a Miami Beach hotel.

This the Blimp's fourth time into the Swine Unit mating chute, and the first for Ms. Rogers.

Guests at the wedding included Karl Rove, Rudy Giuliani, Lard Boy's personal anesthesiologist, and the reanimated corpse of Dean Acheson, who caused a moment of dismay when, as he stood up during the ceremony, his lower jaw fell off.


Lard Boy Salutes The Crowd With Bride And Undead Acheson

When the classic question was raised, If anyone here present knows of any reason why these two may not be joined in holy matrimony, the nose of Rove and a number of other conservatives who sat quietly grew in length by approximately 200 per cent.


Embraced By The Horror: The Couple At A Celebration Of Scotch

The most-remarked part of the celebration in the media was the evening's premiere entertainer, Sir Elton John.

After years of applauding Lard Boy's gay-bashing on-air -- just as they applaud his racist remarks and incitements to defy the government bordering on sedition, even revealing anti-semitism -- many conservatives and evangelicals were "dismayed" that Sir Elton's appearance at the wedding seemed hypocritical.


A Color Guard At The Wedding: Official Photo

However, Zav Chafets, the official biographer of the Michelin Man, hurried to defend his meal ticket remind us that not many people knew it, but Slobodan Milosevic was a deeply sentimental man; and that in his heart, Nikolai Chaucescu really loved dogs and children. A whole a lot.



In an interview last summer [Limbaugh] told me that he regards homosexuality as most likely determined by biology, considers other people’s sex lives to be none of his business and supports gay civil unions. I’m pretty sure that Elton John’s sexual orientation never even crossed Limbaugh’s mind.

I'm sure these samples of the Blimp's comments are proof of his deeply-held personal beliefs.

The new couple have made pleas for privacy. "We try to live our lives as normal people," Lard Boy said in a message on his website. We do not seek media attention. We do not want it, especially for this."


This government is governing against its own citizens.
This president and his party are governing against us.
We are at war with our own President, we are at war with
our own government.

Voice Of The Blimp, January 9, 2010

The media is, aber natürlich, all a-gog and a-twitter. The New York Daily News (competitor to Little Rupert's New York Post) reported "Rush Limbaugh marries gal pal Kathryn Rogers"; USA Today, always insightful, asks "But Will She Love His Cars Too?"

And, everyone, just everyone, wanted to see photos of the event. The Blimp allowed a controlled release, each with his tasteful trademark "Excellence In Broadcasting" stamp.


Excellence In Broadcasting Man Will Save Us From The Scary Awful
Evil Illegitimate Negro Leader, For Ten Gallons Of Fudge Ripple

Psychology Today also weighed in on the event:

Rush Limbaugh's multiple marriages is a 21st century American story... we Americans are crazy about both pair bonding and breaking up...

In his public comments about his marriages, Limbaugh seems to fall right into this conventional pattern of explanation for marital failure... Real insight into a divorce involves understanding one’s own role. Limbaugh at one time did show potentially deeper insight into why he was not good love material.

“I’m too much in love with myself,” he said once between marriages. I wonder if his new wife saw that quote, or this one: "If you want a successful marriage, let your husband do what he wants to do," he once said.

What seared me at the end of a troubling week is the public story line that it’s wonderful to keep trying to find a lifelong mate despite any evidence that the newlyweds have learned squat from past divorces.


Unless she's a brainless, Inflate-o Love Doll with no sense of self, taste, or personal hygiene, I sentence the happy couple to no less than two, and an absolute maximum of four, years.

Take a look at Rogers' body language in photographs of Limbaugh and herself; you could read her body tension as discomfort with the unfamiliarity of being a 'public person' and the focus of photographers. But when in that situation, the tendency would be to relax or lean closer to someone loved and yearned for; where you would feel safe. And -- sorry to harsh your extreme buzz, Rush -- I don't see that in Rogers' posture. Quite the opposite.


Blimp's End: 'Tucked In With A Spade' ; Or, A Large Crane

All I look forward to is seeing the Zeppelin's obituary in Little Rupert's papers ("Giant Of The Age Passes - And The World Mourns"). And (depending upon the language in the inevitable pre-nuptial she will have to sign), in my opinion, Rogers may be keeping that day in mind as she, uh, 'experiences' the connubial embrace of The Blimp. Over and over and over.

But, who cares? I'm much more interested in this.


Friday, May 21, 2010

The Fire Next Time

I clothe my naked villainy with old, odd ends, stolen forth from holy writ -- and thus I seem a saint when most I play the villain. William Shakespear, Richard III


Glenny Tells Us To Revolt Against Scary Socialist Black Man --
Oh, And Buy Lots Of Bullion -- Through Goldline...

Little Glenn Beck, one of America's Taliban, went on the air today in his ClearChannel-syndicated raido program to say he wants people to know "the good news" that "a blaze is coming [that will] burn everything down" (Want to listen to this drivel? Go here).

Beck also said he believed we were about to enter into a time like Steven King's novel, "The Stand" -- in which an influenza virus, created as a bioweapon, escapes from its containment lab to destroy 99% of humanity; and puts the survivors in two camps: On the side of God and a 100-plus-year-old woman as His spokesperson; or with the devil, acting through a grinning psychopath named Randall Flagg.

At the same time, Beck is losing viewers on his Little Rupert Network program: Huffington Post reports "Beck's Fox News program saw its worst ratings of 2010 on May 14th, averaging just 1.776 million total viewers."

This is more than his competition pulls in on MSNBC, CNN, and HLN combined, but represents a continuation of a deterioration in Beck's marketshare that began in April. Beck's May 14th number of viewers was "50% off [his] peak audience of 3.4 million" total viewers, said Politicususa's Jason Easley.

That decline in viewers coincides, strangely enough, with Beck's shift in April toward more religion and more religious references in his broadcasts, and a statement that he is delivering a message inspired directly from god about current events.

And, god's message just seems to tie in with the political agenda of the American Far Right -- and with Goldline, a business which sells bullion and gold stocks, and for whom Beck is a spokesman. In today's broadcast, Beck said flatly that "Goldline is the escape" from the coming economic collapse he predicts.

Sigh.


Anthony Hopkins Gets Life Plus 51


Not This One -- But Wouldn't It Be Weird If It Were?

My personal opinion is that often, fervent and public professions of religious faith are only an excuse for an abuse of power, personally, or on a broader scale. Ask the Office of the Holy Inquisition. Ask any of the local 'pastors' who participated in lynchings in the American South. Ask the Taliban, or their U.S. equivalents. And ask the families of people like Anthony Hopkins (no, not that one).

In Jackson, Alabama, a 37-year-old evangelical 'pastor' and "model church-goer and worship leader" named Anthony Hopkins was arrested for the murder of his wife. Herr Hopkins had kept his wife's corpse in a freezer, for four years -- thoughtfully preserving evidence for forensic and homicide investigators.


Anthony Hopkins of Jackson, Alabama, 2008

Hopkins' wife, Arletha, had not been seen since 2004; he had told friends that she had died in childbirth and was buried in Georgia. As it was later reconstructed by investigators, Hopkins' wife arrived home one day in 2004 to find him in flagrante with a young girl; after the girl fled, Hopkins killed his wife and stored her in a large freezer.

Plainly, not an individual who stops to ask himself, "What would Jesus do?"

Details emerged during his trial that Hopkins had terrorized his family for nearly a decade with alternating threats of heavenly punishment -- and sexual and physical abuse, which intensified after murdering his wife.

Hopkins was arrested in 2008 after one of his oldest children apparently approached police with a statement that their mother was stored with the Christmas ham and bags of Ore-Idas ("Timmeh, get me that bag of frozen peas" "Where, Daddy?" "Don't know -- lift your Ma's feet and look around under there, or god will strike you").


Portion Of 2004 Announcement From Hopkins' Church,
Reporting His Wife's Alleged Death In Childbirth

As I used to say in another job role, this guy's a real solid citizen.

Hopkins was convicted, primarily on the basis of physical evidence he had preserved and his own family's testimony. This week, he was sentenced to life imprisonment plus fifty-one years for the murder, and additional counts of rape, sodomy, child abuse, and poor sanitation in food storage.

As someone who committed acts of child molestation in addition to murder, he should have an interesting time in the Joint. Hope you enjoy being locked down 23 out of 24 hours a day, segregated in population, Tony! Otherwise -- hoo boy; you're dead, greymeat.


Wednesday, March 17, 2010

Bitte; Schiessen Sie Mich

You Won't Hear This Discussed On 'Charlie Rose'



In college, someone once handed me a small glass of milk. I put it in my coffee. It wasn't bad. Then, they told me that they'd gotten it by milking a dog, which had been nursing puppies.

You know this shtick. Idiot screenwriters have built entire films around it: Lets-Get-This-Guy-To-[Fill In The Blank], Then Tell-Him-What's-Really-Happening, afterwards... Because witnessing that moment of dawning awareness, when their hand goes into the bag and touches the dead rat or fresh animal dung, really is the point, isn't it?



Well, I wasn't that upset. I finished my coffee. I am a Dog, after all. And, it was very good coffee.

But, this? This freaks me out, man. I mean, you can do this; and you could make cheese out of dog's milk, too -- though I wouldn't vouch for its quality when stacked up against even Safeway, vat-created, mass-processed "Monterey Jack" cheese.

Then, there's the question of methodology: How many dogs would you have to milk in order to obtain enough to actually make the cheese? And, how many breasts... well, you get the idea.

Man; that's Psycho Cheese, Qu'est Que C'est? / Fa fa fa fa / fa fa fa fa / better / Run run run run run run / run away...


Janet Leigh Brie: Don't Eat It In The Shower


Sunday, February 21, 2010

Stuff Out There

Dude; Where's My Spacecraft


Extraterrestrial Pere Ubu; Or, The Klan In Space
(Alien Captured On Someone's Cell Phone Video)

I rant and rave about the world's hereditary wealthy and that The Fix Is In ©; but, that's nothing. In an attempt to put our fingers on the truth behind how the world operates; to answer The Big Questions, many people are drawn to varying degrees of conspiracy theories. You go down the rabbit hole of the Intertubes, and don't be surprised at what you find.

For example: Did you know that we are all "soul cattle", and that Grey Aliens and "The Nordics" ( ! ) are battling it out in the skies above, over whether to guide us as carriers of souls, or harvest us for what we're dragging around?

Or, that 'The Elites' are preparing for a round of nuclear exchanges and bioweapon releases to eliminate 50% of the world's population, and ensure the worldwide rule of Caucasians of Northern European extraction?

And This is just the tip of the scary events coming. There are tons of things you need to know. Like how all kinds of ancient cultures have always known. Polar shift has happened before and so has global destruction. We aren't bigger than the universe! If Planet X Nibiru is going to come, they can't control what the solar system does to Earth.

Because ... it's all perfectly clear now - after being up all night thinking about it: Everyone is nothing more than a small captured 'piece of Light Being' in a bag of skin and bones. And, since light has both wave and particle functions, the expression of this duality in real life must be exemplified in the air conditioning conundrum. I hope this helps. Have a snick and think about it.

My God; if it wasn't "stayin in denial by being co-oppted by the Power Struktur", I'd say it's probably better that people be employed full-time.


Wednesday, February 17, 2010

How The World Works

Daring Anyone To Be Surprised By This



Salon's Andrew Leonard posted a short piece in the vein of one of my favorite rants -- that America's extremely wealthy have done so very, very well, while the rest of us can live on Alpo -- if we can afford it -- for all they care.

Or, not: This useless level of human traif "doesn't give two fucks" (as Bela Lugosi [Martin Landau] in the film 'Ed Wood', noted) whether we live or die.



Leonard's post was prompted by another article, Tax Rates for Top 400 Earners Fall as Income Soars, from Tax.com, by David Cay Johnston (former tax reporter for the New York Times and a member of the faculty at Syracuse University College of Law). Apparently, Johnston noted, the top 400 families in America, "who boasted an average income of $344.8 million, paid an effective tax rate of 16.2 percent".

The long-term data show [Johnston said] that under current tax and economic rules, the incomes of the top earners rise when the economy expands and contract during recessions, only to rise again.

Their effective income tax rate fell to 16.62 percent, down more than half a percentage point from 17.17 percent in 2006, the new data show. That rate is lower than the typical effective income tax rate paid by Americans with incomes in the low six figures...


(An amount in the low six figures, incidentally, "is what each taxpayer in the top group earned in the first three hours of 2007. [emphasis added])

What this means is, on an annual income of $345,000,000 (rounded up, this was the median earnings of Our Elders And Betters), these, uh, people paid roughly $37,000,000 in taxes. Leaving them with Three Hundred and Eight Million Dollars (about $26,000,000 a month, or a net $162,500 per hour @ 20 working days/month).

Now, let's look at another income: A family of two, earning $71,000 in straight, wage income, will pay a roughly 33% tax rate -- or, about $23,400. Leaving them with roughly $47,500 (about $3,964 a month, or a net $24.77 per hour @ 20 working days/month).

What would be fairer; a Flat Tax? No; not at all. A progressive tax, with a 50% upper limit for the useless, parasitical, inbred scum? Well... that would be a good start...

But, all that wasn't the really fun part of the Salon article:

The annual top 400 report was first made public by the Clinton administration, but the George W. Bush administration shut down access to the report. Its release was resumed a year ago when President Obama took office.

Because you know
[Leonard said], if you are going to reward the richest Americans with tax cuts, it's best if you keep the rest of us in the dark as to just how much money they're making, and how little they are paying Uncle Sam.

This is an impressive crowd of the haves, and -- have mores.
[laughter] Some people call you the elite; I call ya my base.
-- George W. Bush, 2002