Mortgage Your Children's Future -- Literally!

The sad thing, of course, is that I know people who would do this at the drop of a hat. They don't like their children very much, you see.

Happy Midterm Election Day, America. You were a nice place, once.


(Graphic: This Modern World © 2010)

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Watching The Storm Front

Victorious, The Nation's Right Sits Down On With America
(Graphic: Mr Fish)

There are real disasters occurring in the world, right now -- notably, a volcano in Indonesia; a Tsunami in Indonesia; Cholera in Haiti; massacres in Iraq / Africa / A Wal-Mart Near You.

However, I'm predicting that after tomorrow the final chapter of the United States as we used to know it will begin. As Little Rupert's Fox likes to chitter, endlessly, tomorrow is predicted to be a 'victory' for the Republicans, Conservatives, Tea-Party "Morans", and White Power aficionados across the land. And, it will probably come to pass.

They are supposed to "Take Back" the House Of Representatives, and (possibly) the U.S. Senate, and return America to... something. Whatever it is, it will be unpleasant.

Just like the period from 2001 - 2009. But, so few people remember what that was like; and it was all so long ago. Right?

I predict that, within no less than five and not more than ten years, the United States will be a nation even more skewed towards those who already have wealth; are male and caucasian; are not immigrants or persons of color; and are not members of any Union.

In fact, the Rethugs have made it clear that unions -- of nurses, teachers; anyone who stands in the way of Business increasing its profits, are their special targets.

It will be, even more, a country where the Supreme Court finds that corporations are so people, too and can effectively buy elections, like the Koch brothers... like any respectable Banana Republic's upper classes. Or, a country where the Law simply bends over for money, even more than it does today.

Thanks to people like the O'Donnels, the Bachmans, the Rand Pauls and Tommy Tancredos, politics will become more and more an absurd sideshow -- Little Rupert's Fox will tell you, Who cares about politics? All politicians are corrupt; you can't fight city hall... Go to sleep, now...Go to sleep...

It will be a nation which continues to try and convince its citizens through illusion and images (commercials; Hollywood) that we are so awesome and prosperous; that we're the center of the world. That we have the highest standard of living and the finest of everything, where you can rise as high as your dreams and energy and faith will take you -- so you can enjoy exclusive cable access to sports, fast food, and Gossip Girl.

Lard Boy -- the "intellectual engine" of conservatism -- will vomit out the message of victory and revenge from his radio pulpit; Billy-O will dispense sage advice to token liberals (Shut up! Shut up! Shut up!), and Fat Karl will be paid large sums of money to make speeches at secret conclaves of the rich and powerful.

And Little Glenn Beck will cry, and cry, to see the beauty of his visions for a more godly, "better" America -- one where a socialist illegitimate anti-colonial Negro could never become leader and sit in the same rooms Saint Ronnie once graced with his senility.

For the jus'-plain-folks on the Right, what will follow after tomorrow will be packaged and sold as a resurgence of True American sentiment, a rebirth of Basic Values. A wonderland, and a Golden Time.

Meanwhile, the majority of people who live in America will be unemployed, underemployed, or working harder and longer for less money. There will be more rounds of mergers and selloffs, layoffs, and boom-and-bust. The majority of the people who live in America will become more cynical, less trusting, and angrier -- all while a small minority continues to grow wealthier and control more of politics, of law, and commerce.

America will become a... more 'godly' nation, in the way that the Sarah Palins, Mike Huckabees, Pat Robertsons and Smilin' Ralph Reeds practice their beliefs: That is to say, through intolerance, bigotry, avarice; the grasping for secular power as a means to force others to believe as they do; for discrimination masquerading as professions of faith. Eventually, the notions and whims of these people will find their way into law.

If you believe in equal pay for equal work; if you're LGBT, or practice an unspecified but foreign religion, or believe in a woman's right to choose -- well, don't expect the State to help you. Look instead for it to punish you.

There may even be another war -- just as Little Davey Broder, four years old, suggested in some screed he published yesterday; saying that war would bring more prosperity. We already have two wars, and nearly five thousand military dead of our own, not to mention hundreds of thousands of 'others'. And both wars were gifts from Lil' Boots and his handlers. Won't a third one be fun? Look out, Teheran!

Anyway; To Rightist, Tea Party America: You believe you're about to see the dawn of a wondrous, new time. Enjoy it -- Eat Your Pie. You Eat Every Bite.

You're about to get screwed, right along with the rest of us -- only, you claim it will be proof of love. We know what's coming is nothing but rape. The future of this country is about to belong to people you wouldn't leave your children with, alone, for five minutes.


(Graphic: Mr Fish)

For me, No Parasan.

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Just Because, That's Why

14th Dalai Lama (Photo: Reuters / UK Telegraph, 2009)

I once had the opportunity to see and hear the 14th Dalai Lama at Davies Symphony Hall in the Summer of 2003 at a talk he gave to support the restoration and understanding of sacred Buddhist architecture.

The woman I was dating at the time had hired a Tibetan woman to provide child care while the mom worked as a Therapist -- the husband of the Tibetan woman had been a Buddhist monk in Nepal, and had worked directly with the Lama, and was able to wrangle seats for us at his appearance.

The Lama spoke primarily in Tibetan, using an interpreter, but when the mood struck him would break into English. In one of those moments, discussing the reactions of humans to life in These Times, the Lama said

Modern life -- everywhere, people moving, running; always running. And everything is so fast. Always fast, fast fast. And so we experience this, every day; and finally it becomes so much that you just have to say -- 'Fuck it!'

There was a moment of utter silence. You could have heard angels farting. And suddenly the entire audience, over 2,700 people (myself included), erupted in applause. It was incredible.

People were cheering, not just because one of the great spiritual leaders of this or any other century 'said a bad word', but because for an instant, by juxtaposing the idea of The Holy Man with A Profane Exclamation, the Lama brought his listeners to a state of attention (Hey! Dude! The Lama just said 'fuck', man!).

A true Human Being. I'm glad I was there.

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Trick Or Traif

Okay. I admit -- humbly -- that I missed the Memo, or the Tweet, or the 800 number flashed subliminaly between frames of Inside Hollywood, or that part in the bible, where we were told it was okay to offer pork 'treats' to children at Halloween.

At Salon (a site I support with money), I found an article by their Cooking Guru, Francis Lam, with a recipe for "Candied Bacon To Get You Ready For Halloween".


Obligatory Small Animal Photograph In Middle Of Bacon Rant
(Courtesy Of Shilling For Bilderberg)

The idea is simple: You cook bacon and then melt sugar onto it, which cools into a sweet, brittle shell... Cooking bacon relatively slowly renders away much of the fat but keeps the meat pliable until you actually candy it, and sugar does crazy things when it gets hot... once sugar hits 310 degrees Fahrenheit, it cools into glass. How will you know when it's gotten that hot? Well, at about 340 it starts to turn to caramel, so once its color becomes golden and then brown, it'll be fine.

As a cooking Dog, I think Francis Lam's writing about cooking is fun, and the recipes he passes along are great. You can read the article here -- but I take handing out candied bacon at Halloween as another sign of the coming of 2012 and the final days of the human race.


Translation Of Mayan Pictographs At Great Temple Of Lompoc

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All Twitter. Bad. Bad And Bad For You. And You Know You Want It. You Want It -- Bad.

A Horror Which Has No End

I'm reposting this because the site it refers to is still operating -- which is barely comprehensible. However, it's also funny, and I'm desperate for a laugh. Maybe you are, too. Enjoy.

UPDATE: I'm actually beginning to monitor the stats of this Blog, and am trying a little experiment: 'All Twitter' has been added to the title of this post, and we'll watch the hijinks and merry mix-ups or whatever happens from here. Just so you know.

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Chicken: Tasty; Breaded -- Spicy... The Kind Men Like.

I don't know what to say about this. Really. It isn't like I haven't gone to those sites, you know. Just about everyone has; whether they'll admit it is another question.

Now, Burger King -- the people who gave you the Plastic King Who Looks Like Lil' Boots Bush, Only With A Beard, present the "Chicken The Way You Want It", Objectivization-Of-Women Chicken, porn-site parody. You navigate from BK's main website by clicking a button, labeled "Subservient Chicken".

You're presented with what looks like the standard, Internet-porn 'Live-Hot-Cam-Action' setup: A cheesy living room, bad furniture, tract-home ceilings with sparkly bits in the spray-stucco... and a giant Chicken wearing a garter belt and stockings.

You type in a 'request', enter it, and the Chicken, uh... does what you want it to do. I'm all yours, baby; oh yeah... Just tell me what you want, sugar; oh, uh-huh; like this...?

You get the drift. What this has to do with the sale of Chicken Bosom sandwiches is anyone's guess, but it's clear Burger King isn't trying to solicit Camille Paglia's business.

And, If you go to their companion parody on Star Trek, you can attend Starfleet training to prevent Klingons (the Plastic Bush-With-A-Beard Burger King) physically attacking trainees to steal their Star Trek™ collector's glasses. I got as far as watching the Burger Klingon, attempting to give an unsuspecting Starfleet cadet an Atomic Wedgie by putting his hand down the back of the dude's pants, before becoming creeped out in a way I can only describe to my therapist, once I get one.

I've tried to imagine the mind that would dream up this kind of stuff, and have decided it would be -- well, me, given slightly different Life Choices. My other guess is that four, 22-year-old guys ("Creative Directors") thought these sites up after doing Tequila body shots off Scarlett Johannsen (hey; she's easy that way. I do that whenever I see her, along with half the guys I know), reminiscing about how great things were at their Frat during their, um, six years as undergraduates. Maybe seven.

Funny? Well, ha ha; yes. But, together with things like Little Bernie Madoff, it's one more proof that Western Civilization™ as we know it is over. It's Over.

No, no; don't fight it -- just... just turn out the lights, man; we're done. And just leave the bucket of KFC extra-crispy. Okay? Bye.

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Life On Earth Too

Torben NOW: Thought We Were Kidding About This, Did You?

We're inaugurating a new category here at Before Nine, entitled Stuff Not Launched with Voyager 1.

You may recall (or not) that when the Pioneer and Voyager series of spacecraft were sent out to observe various planets in our Solar System (which isn't "ours", by the way), it was understood that they would eventually sail into deep space and just keep going until captured by Lrr of Omicron Persei 8, or something.

People at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California, though it might be nice to include a message to potential extraterrestrial civilizations which might encounter a Probe -- kind of an advertisement: A "Hello, We are Friendly And Can Be Contacted And Are Possibly Good To Enslave Or Eat" kind of thing.


Pioneer 10 Plaque: Religious Conservatives Criticized NASA
As The Images Showed Human Genitalia (Photo: Wikipedia)

The tenth Pioneer probe, launched on March 2, 1972, carried a plaque designed by Carl Sagan and Frank Drake, picturing male and female humans and other graphic indications of who we are and how to find us (I've seen Alien and Starship Troopers and District 9 and the old "V" series, and presume time will tell as to how smart Frank and Carl actually were).

Five years later, the Voyager 1 probe was launched -- this time, Drake and Sagan had included an even more ambitious addition: A gold-plated disc (Stereo LP technology, because 1977 was a pre-iPod era, my friends) which contained recordings of music, spoken words and songs, and the a message of greetings, spoken in each language of the people of the Earth.


The Voyager 1 Golden Disc (Photo: The World Almanac)

Unfortunately, the voice chosen to speak the English greeting was Kurt Waldheim, the Austrian then-UN Secretary General, and unindicted war criminal, though whether aliens will eventually appreciate the irony of this fact is uncertain.

There were also pictures of people smiling and beaches and puppies and flowers and colorful things. Pictograph instructions on how to access the images and the sound recordings were engraved on the face of the disc.

What wasn't included are things like this, or like this, or even things like this, which aliens will have to learn about on their own when they finally get here -- which also assumes we will still be here when they do, and the percentage chances that we will not appears to rise every day.

But, until then, let's all enjoy our Shiny New Blog Category.

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Benoît Mandelbrot, 1924 - 2010

Mandelbrot: Mathematician, Teacher, Mensch
(Photo from a University Of Umeå, Sweden, website
[Whose owner enjoys photographing the famous while
holding a large, stuffed Peeps], 2006. Go figure.)

Benoît Mandelbrot, the mathematician who coined the term “fractal” for mathematical shapes whose uneven contours could mimic irregularities found in nature, died today in Cambridge, Massachusetts at age 85.

Benoît B. Mandelbrot (oddly, the middle initial was something he adopted; he had no middle name, and the 'B' doesn't stand for anything known publicly) was born on November 20, 1924, to a Lithuanian Jewish family in Warsaw. In 1936, his family emigrated to France, living first in Paris and then fleeing to the south after the German invasion in 1940. Unoccupied Vichy was a bit slower (but not by much) to follow the anti-Jewish ordinances of the occupied north; as a teenager, Mandelbrot tended horses and fixed tools.

The Germans moved to occupy the south of France after the American invasion of North Africa in the winter of 1942. It's not known how he and his family survived in the south until the Allied invasions in the summer of 1944; luckily, they did.


Fractals Exist In Nature, And Our Mimicking It: Book Of Kells

In an obituary by Jascha Hoffmann of the New York Times, " 'Applied mathematics had been concentrating for a century on phenomena which were smooth, but many things were not like that: the more you blew them up with a microscope the more complexity you found,' said David Mumford, a professor of mathematics at Brown University. '[Mandelbrot] was one of the primary people who realized these were legitimate objects of study.'


Fractals: Not Just For Acid Trips Any More

"In a seminal book, The Fractal Geometry of Nature, published in 1982, Dr. Mandelbrot defended mathematical objects that he said others had dismissed as 'monstrous' and 'pathological.' Using fractal geometry, he argued, the complex outlines of clouds and coastlines, once considered unmeasurable, could now 'be approached in rigorous and vigorous quantitative fashion.' "

Use of fractals is now common in too many branches of study to count, and its practical effect on engineering and manufacturing processes, on understanding the world we live in, has been immense.

Mandelbrot was known as a polymath, a lecturer and teacher for whom every conversation or class was an opportunity to "talk about something different", with an infectious sense of humor; broadly human, passionate about his work (which expanded the frontiers of human knowledge), and willing to allow himself to be photographed while holding a ridiculous stuffed duck.

Another Mensch leaves us. I'm only a Dog, but I have a good enough nose to understand that the supply of Mensches in this world is limited.

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Random Barking

This year, John F. Kennedy would be 92, if he had lived.

Robert F Kennedy would be 85, if he had lived.

Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., would have been 81, if he had lived.

Thousands of Americans killed in various wars would also be alive, if they had lived -- not to mention hundreds of thousands of Iraqis, and millions of Southeast Asians; and plenty of Russians, Afghans, Pakistanis, Israelis, Palestinians, and several thousand people in the World Trade Center towers, hundreds of suicide-bomb sites around the world, and other forms of 'collateral damage' that have followed on the malicious leadership of major actors on the world stage.

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

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Rudderless, And Zombies In The Crew

In Our Current Crisis, the hopey-changey Democratic leadership ran to assist the Banksters. Because politicians never like to make Big Money unhappy, even if the Banksters were caught red-handed in the functional equivalent of selling Blow by the metric ton, while having sex with twelve-year-old cheerleaders.

As a result, nothing has been done to address the nation's teensy unemployment issue. And for their part, the Rethugs are happy to do everything possible to obstruct the Obama administration -- their theory being that if they can make everything worse, and then blame it all on the awful evil secret Muslim Kenyan scary Negro leader...

Well (as 'Babs' Bush says,) it will work out "very well for them (chuckle)". And then the 'Real Americans' can "Take Back The Country". As if all this is all about a yacht-racing trophy or Superbowl championship, or something. You know how the Right be lovin' them sports metaphors.

Barron's online reports today:

The official unemployment rate held steady at 9.6%, but the so-called underemployment rate, which includes labor-force dropouts and part-timers who would rather have a full-time job, surged to 17.1% from 16.7%. John Williams of Shadow Government Statistics ... further adjusts the underemployment rate to count folks who have been out of the labor force a year, who don’t get counted among “discouraged workers” by the government. By his tally, true underemployment hit 22.5% in September, up from 22% in August, and a new high...

The country feels becalmed. Our elected leadership appears hesitant, gobsmacked, unable to comprehend the damage done by the Banksters, much less know what to do.

And wherever you turn, there are crew members, or passengers -- President Boner, or President Sessions; or a Pat Robertson or a Glenn Beck, or a Newt Gingrich or Rand Paul -- who suggest the Ship Of State would sail so much better if we cut down some of those cumbersome, pesky masts, and open the petcocks in the holds to allow seawater in.

This would lower operating costs for the Ship, and provided needed ballast (because the Ship Of State's been a little, uh, uppity since that New Captain With Such A Tan took the helm). After all, they say, it's what the original shipwrights who built Her intended. And people like Little Newt and Michelle Bachmann and Little Billy Kristol are never, ever wrong. Little Rupert Murdoch tells us so.

In today's New York Times Op-Ed Columnist section, Bob Herbert made the opening observation (and quoted by The Great Curmudgeon) that

We can go to war in Iraq and Afghanistan, and threaten to blow Iran off the face of the planet. We can conduct a nonstop campaign of drone and helicopter attacks in Pakistan and run a network of secret prisons around the world. We are the mightiest nation mankind has ever seen.

But we can’t seem to build a railroad tunnel to carry commuters between New Jersey and New York.

The United States is not just losing its capacity to do great things. It’s losing its soul. It’s speeding down an increasingly rubble-strewn path to a region where being second rate is good enough.

It's Okay If You're A Republican, though. And if you're part of the Ruling Classes © -- as long as events don't interrupt your lifestyle, you don't give a fuck what happens to a bunch of peasants.

And you don't give a good goddamn what happens to the United States; if the roads are bumpy or the lights flicker, you can call and complain: How dare those persons interrupt our lives! Don't they know who we are??

And if that doesn't magically make the roads smooth and the power dependable, you can just take an extended vacation at your property at Cap Nez, or in Passy, or Kensington Square or the Grünwald; and after a wonderful meal prepared by your cook, with friends who live as you do, you can think about having sex with the maid and the pool boy.

Just so you all get it: People like that are who we're all working for. They own us; we're here for their convenience -- or, so they believe...

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Across The Universe -- Freda People

John Lennon, 1940-1980



Words are flowing out like endless rain into a paper cup,
They slither while they pass; they slip away across the universe
Pools of sorrow, waves of joy are drifting through my open mind,
Possessing and caressing me
Jai guru de va om
Nothing's gonna change my world,
Nothing's gonna change my world

Images of broken light which dance before me like a million eyes,
That call me on and on across the universe;
Thoughts meander like a restless wind inside a letter box
They tumble blindly as they make their way,
Across the universe
Jai guru de va om
Nothing's gonna change my world,
Nothing's gonna change my world.

Sounds of laughter shades of earth are ringing
Through my open views; inviting and inciting me
Limitless undying love which shines around me
Like a million suns; it calls me on and on
Across the universe
Jai guru de va om
Nothing's gonna change my world,
Nothing's gonna change my world.

Across The Universe (Lennon / McCartney, 1969)

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We don't care what flag you're waving,
We don't even want to know your name,
We don't care where you're from or where you're going,
All we know is that you came;

You're making all our decisions,
We have just one request of you,
That while you're thinking things over,
Here's something you just better do:

Free the people, now,
Do it do it do it do it do it now.
Free the people, now,
Do it do it do it do it do it now.

Well we were caught with our hands in the air,
Don't despair paranoia is everywhere,
We can shake it with love when we're scared,
So let's shout it aloud like a prayer:

Free the people, now,
Do it do it do it do it do it now.
Free the people now,
Do it do it do it do it do it now

We understand your paranoia,
But we don't want to play your game;
You think you're cool and know what you are doing,
666 is your name;
So while your jerking off each other,
You better bear this thought in mind:
Your time is up you better know it,
But maybe you don't read the signs

Free the people now,
Do it do it do it do it do it now.
Free the people now,
Do it do it do it do it do it now.

Well you were caught with your hands in the kill,
And you still got to swallow your pill,
As you slip and you slide down the hill,
On the blood of the people you killed

Stop the killing now,
Do it do it do it do it do it now.
Stop the killing now,
Do it do it do it do it do it now.
Free the people now,
Do it do it do it do it do it now...

Bring On The Lucie (Freda People) (John Lennon, 1973)

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Happy Birthday, John. You're missed.

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