Boxing Your Ears Day

Yes, They Are

When anyone says to you, "Oh, the Tea Partei Republicans aren't crazy," hand them this letter from current Big Iowa Favorite™ Ron Paul (via his campaign for the Rethug presidential candidacy), soliciting donations:

I have unmasked the plot for world government, world money, and world central banking... officials... wholly owned subsidiaries of the Trilateral Commission and the Council on Foreign Relations. The FEMA plan to suspend the Constitution...

I’ve been told not to talk, but these stooges don’t scare me. Threats or no threats, I’ve laid bare the coming race war in big cities. The federal-homosexual cover-up on AIDS ... The Bohemian Grove — perverted, pagan playground of the powerful. Skull & Bones: the demonic fraternity that includes George Bush and leftist Senator John Kerry, Congress’s Mr. New Honey. The Israeli lobby, which plays Congress like a cheap harmonica. And the Soviet-style “smartcard” the Justice Department has in mind for you..

... That’s why I must send you Surviving the New Money, the Ron Paul Investment Letter, and the Ron Paul Political Report... What’s a middle-class American to do? Gold? Silver? Platinum? Rare coins? Real estate? Gemstones? ... Some investments will protect you. Others are like walking into the IRS and saying, “Take me; I’m yours."

I fear there will be welfare riots in the big cities. Massive unemployment. The destruction of wealth. The erosion of personal liberties. Vicious economic controls. The exaltation of envy. The suppression of privacy. Authoritarian clamp-downs. Bank and S&L closings on a massive scale. A world dollar crisis...

Trouble is coming, and you must be prepared. Surviving the New Money, the Ron Paul Investment Letter and the Ron Paul Political Report will be your survival kit, and if you act now, you can get this $224 value for just $99 — 55% off!… For just $99, get all this wealth-saving intelligence...

Astronomical professionals are discovering new planets circling distant stars every day; can we give these loons a planet of their own? There may not be as much air as there is on Earth, but the first forty million dollars is tax-free. Sure to please the mutant freakshow nutjob libertarian on your post-ExMass list.

(NOTE: Sudden increases in weight have been reporter with conservatism. An uncontrollable desire to beat children for their own good, and to tell complete strangers about a world-wide conspiracy involving reptilian aliens, black helicopters, the United Nations or the Tri-Bilderburg Commission, non-caucasians, and [eventually; always] Jews, have been observed. If you experience headaches, sensitivity to light and a desire to consume the flesh of the living, try and communicate this to your doctor, or simply attack and eat them. The ability to support views that have no basis whatsoever in scientific fact or common sense, spontaneous diarrhea and hair loss, speckles, and Bonzeiger's Syndrome are common side affects with conservatism. Just so you know.)

---

Ему тридцать лет, которые человек из МОЛДОВЫ

Don't Trust

We are reliably informed that I.Rabschinsky, occasional commenter here at Before Nine, has just turned 30, on the day before Hanukkah (which means he gets nine days of gifts, this guy, I guess).

As we say in my generation, "Don't Trust Anybody Over Thirty".

I say this to I.Rabschinsky -- and to Moldavish Guy; you, also.

---

Nadir

Bottom Of The Batting Order


This Chart Answers The Musical Question, "What Percentage Of
All U.S. Corporate Profits Is Generated By The Financial
Sector?" Answer? "Their Satanic Majesties Request", Or 26%


...And This One Tracks Financial 'Industry' Profit As Percentage
Of Overall GDP. (Source: Arbor Research, via Big Picture)

Tonight at sundown (aside from its being the second night of Hanukkah), the Winter Solstice will begin. This is physically the longest night of the solar year, the Nadir, the lowest point in a cycle of one orbit of the planet around the sun.

As a result, you'd expect the kind of mutant freakshow we're seeing these days.

• Republicans Continue Countdown To Self-Detonation: Bob Schaeffer, CBS News Washington correspondent since the Late Cretaceous Period, noted in last night's CBS Evening News that the current (i.e., most recent) impasse in Congress is a result of "both sides trying to undermine each other". On the BBC's American version of the evening news, Clinton-era Labor Secretary Robert Reich (and former BFF prior associate of Citicorp) commented in a segment on the effect to those living on unemployment of having benefits suddenly removed or slashed, "I try hard not to be partisan, but the Republican party seems to be the one" creating the current deadlock.
  
  Some Left Blogistan sites (e.g., TPM) report that, as a result of the refusal of the Rethug-dominated House to pass a Senate bill that would extend (by two months) both a Social Security payroll tax cut and unemployment benefits, President Obama's job approval ratings have become more positive. TPM reported 46.6% Approval vs. 48% Disapproval -- "There’s now a lot of evidence that the President’s approval numbers are rising after bottoming out at the end of the summer after the debt deal debacle," Josh Marshall wrote. "But they’re rising toward an almost total polarization. 50% for, 50% against. Very little middle ground."
  
  
  Your New Stratoliner: The One Per Cent, And Their Hats
  
  One interesting note: Little Rupert's Wall Street Journal, the "Tits 'n Tattle" scandal sheet of Rupert's empire for the financial class, ran an editorial criticizing Republicans for blocking the two-month extension in the House -- and mostly criticizing it as a poor tactic, rather than for the effect it would have on taxpayers and unemployed Americans.
  
  Heaven forbid that Little Rupert or Fat Roger would give a damn about the people they treat with such barely-disguised contempt.
  
  Rupert, that crafty ol' Aussie, is sending America's Rightist politicians a message: I Am Not Amused. Get Your Shit Together. But as much as he criticizes them, he has to support the Rethugs, and his NewsCorp will have to get behind whichever candidate, drooling, brain-dead and barking, it hoists for president in 2012.
  
  So, whatever scribbles are published on the editorial page of the WSJ tabloid don't really matter. Little Rupert is as much a hostage of a self-destructing political party as the Rethugs are hostage to their addictive love for Little Rupert's propaganda.
  
  MEHR: Not that long ago, the House Minority Whip, Stenny Hoyer walked to the floor of the House Of Representatives, and asked the Speaker Pro Temp, Michael Fitzpatrick of Pennsylvania (standing in for President Boner), to grant "unanimous consent" for an up-or-down vote on the Senate bill the Rethugs deep-sixed yesterday.
  
  House Republicans on the Hill were with Speaker Boner at a photo-op. Meanwhile, as Hoyer made his request to the Speaker's chair on the House floor, Fitzpatrick simply ignored Hoyer and walked away... all broadcast on CSPAN.
  
  "As you walk off the floor, Mr. Speaker," Hoyer said to Fitzgerald's back, "You’re walking away, just as so many Republicans have walked away from middle-class tax payers, the unemployed, and very frankly as well from those who will be seeking medical assistance from their doctors — 48 million senior citizens.”
  
  In and of itself, business as usual in the United States Congress. But, providing the Democratic party with a telling image of Rethugs who don't give two hoots about The People, and which can be rebroadcast over and over and over? Priceless.



• Global Banking Structure Aims Free Money Nozzle At European Banks: The European Central Bank has loaned a massive 489 billion Euros ($639 billion US) to over five hundred European banks, at one per cent interest, for what the War Criminal Post reported as "an exceptionally long period of three years" in the ongoing attempt to keep the EU from dissolving into a bad fusion between "Apocalypse Now" and "Mr. Hulot Opens A Hedge Fund".
  
  It was the biggest infusion of credit by the European Central Bank in the 13-year history of the Euro; in a response I think is best termed 'irrational exuberance', the DJIA rose over 330 points. The ECB's move allows its client banks to borrow money, essentially, for free: 1 Billion Euros borrowed can become loans, and any interest charged on those loans above one per cent is pure profit.
  
  The problem is, these loans will act as life support for some financial players whose books are sagging with toxic debts that these ECB credit lines can't repair; the amounts of debt are too huge. It's just another means of postponing the Day O' Reckoning, kicking the can down a road paved with good intentions.
  
  But, hey; Little Angela's happy. So, s'all good. Right?



• Rethugs Say, VOTE FOR PLAYER TO BE NAMED LATER! Replicating the internal epic battles within the Rethug, Red-State World (something like Rodan vs. Monster Zero), it appears that Thugs will nominate Mitzy Perry Grand TurtleBear Ru Paul Mitzy Randyman Perry Ru Paul "Somebody Else" as their candidate for president in 2012.
  
  No kidding; a poll recently reported by CBS showed Republicans pretty evenly split between three potential candidates, so far: Romney and Gingrich, and "Somebody Else". It's a ringing, star-spangled endorsement of -- well, somebody. A write-in candidate who embodies true, conservative principles, like Lil' Bernie Madoff, or William Stafford, or the Zombified Ronald Wilson Rayguns-ah.
  
  The ever-tasteful Alicublog reports that the Special Bus Kidz at RedState are enthusiastically arguing in favor of... a Rick Perry candidacy.

  Fellas, there's probably a robot somewhere that would govern in the most consistently conservative fashion -- it wouldn't be hard to program; just get it to yell "More tax breaks for the wealthy!" and "I hates me a faggot!" at intervals, and to fart loudly when France or higher education is mentioned -- but it doesn't mean anything unless you can get people to vote for it.
  
  
  
  ...Perry makes George W. Bush look like Pericles. Nobody, but nobody, is praying, "Oh Lord, send us someone just like George W. Bush, only stupider." Just the other day... Perry misread Kim Jong Il as "Kim Jong the Second". That's like something out of a Cheech and Chong movie. Most observers... have moved on to wondering if Perry can tie a shoelace without coaching.

  I enjoy flailing, particularly when it reinforces stereotypes I have of conservatives as retrograde, Troglodyte morons, beating each other bloody with Wal-Mart shopping bags filled with The Collected Works Of Ronald Rayguns: "They fought so fiercely because the stakes were so small". Keep it up!



• Tubby Twentysomething Becomes New Leader Of Starving, Heavily Armed North Korea: A few days ago, this short, pudgy guy with weird hair and glasses died -- some say on a train: Kim Jong Il, ruler of the upper half of the Korean peninsula and a leader of a totalitarian, repressive state... and was reportedly someone who loved dogs and western porn, and really in his heart was kinda, sort of, a good guy. "The Kim Nobody Knew".
  
  His twenty-something son, Kim Jong Well, a short, pudgy guy with a very bad haircut who reportedly likes dogs, food and western porn, and in his heart is kind a good guy, replaced him. The CIA apparently had no idea that Kim Jong 2 had passed away until it was announced by North Korea's official media (there is no other kind).
  
  There immediately commenced massive (and in the last Stalinst, cult-of-personality culture on the planet, we mean massive) shows of public grieving. Thousands gathered publicly to cry and cry and rend their hair and fall weeping on the pavement, each attempting to outdo everyone else to show how sad they are that a totalitarian freak, who wore shoes with three-inch lifts and created policies resulting in starvation of his people and nuclear weapons, was dead.
  
  Kim Jong Well went to see his father lying in state, bowed without much expression, then reportedly went for pizza and some XBox action.

There's one other thing about The Winter solstice to keep in mind. This is the last of the old solar year, the bottom of the wheel, the Appogeian farthest point out in Earth's orbital motion. The planetary pole is tilted back; this is the longest period of darkness in a full turn around the sun.

And from midnight tonight, the Days will become incrementally longer, the nights shorter. From this long night we will all enter what I like to think of as The Season Of Rising Light -- from one point of view, the darkness being reduced a degree at a time, each day forward, until the top of the wheel, the Apex, next June.

And while waiting for someone to start singing "Here Comes The Sun", in the meantime, we'll still have the unfolding, everlasting clown show to watch.

---

More Reprint Heaven:Is The Wonderful Is This Life

By I. Rabschinsky

[Hoo boy; you are being lucky today. Also from a year before, we have The Good film history for you. And as Great-Uncle Yehudi always saying, "Don't Stand In Way Of The History!"]


George Bailey Guy Making The Panik

So always in the America there is at this time the fooding, and also the Sports Produkt on the television. Many people filling themselves with Holiday as if they about to be told, "Next year, you cannot eat!". I am thinking they are the hostage of their Hindbrain, which is still Neanderthal and wishes to fight with Mastodon. But, still.

And, I am noticing specific films which is only appearing on Amerikanyets television at these months between like maybe September and the time of your New Year.

My examples: At Passover, some of the television is showing The Ten Super Big Mitzvah Rules, with Charlton Heston Guy -- you know, movie where Moses stop making fooling around to pretend he is Big Guy of the Egypt, and decides to get real job saving People Of Israel.

This requires lots of people walking around, always saying "Oh, Moses, Moses, Moses" -- like, if they say this three times, they will be teleported by magik into better movie. Navarone Kind Of Big Guns, maybe, or Socialist-Colored Panther.


Place Which Is Gone Forever: Amerikanyets Driving To Movies:
"Moses, Moses, Moses -- What is happening with our Drive-Ins?"

At another time in year, they are showing same Heston Guy what is Moses in Big Mitzvah Rules in another movie, Ben Of Her. However this is basically film of Jewish guy who becomes like early Jesus guy, but by accident.

Movie is good; he is Number Forty-One guy in slave ship, rowing like animator for the Disney; there are becoming big boat battle, and he gets to be some kind of honorary Goyim. Later, there is an exciting thing with horses and carts -- but it is not the porn film, so too bad for you. Go to web sites where they have not blocked you.


Charlton Ben Heston Making The Ramming Speed, 1959

At finally, with the Christmas, every year since somebody discover the Secret Of Fire there is this broadcasting this movie, It Is Wonderful This Life, made by Frank Capra Guy in 1947, showing the kind of place which everybody wanted to believe was the Amerika. Small town, everybody knows everybody; values is good and everybody work hard and knows their places.

Just like village in the Moldova, except animals do not leave defecation in the street, everyone is speaking English, and most people have job. Plus concrete used in apartment buildings is better quality.

Every single year they are showing this film. It is now a classic also, like Wizard Of Odd and Potemkin Kind Of Battleship and Mister Hulot Goes To Beach Place. It is as big movie as The Tanks Know The Truth (Very popular Great Patriotic War movie made in the Russia. My Great-Uncle Yehudi claims he is in this film as Extra, but still we love him).


Big Scene From Tanks Knowing The Truth: Are They Knowing?
Well, They Are Tank; You Are Person. You Want To Be That Sure?

It Is Wonderful This Life story is maybe simple: Guy, George Bailey Guy, living in small town wants to die, because he thinks his life is shit. And there are the angels, who show us life of this Guy in the little town, and how he is The Good, and there is the Rich Guy who is The Bad. And George Bailey Guy never gets to do things in the Life because the Fate is not for him.

Then there is mistake with money (a problem made from the Rich Bad Guy), for which he is blamed, and he runs from family and goes to place of Publik Alkohol; finally he goes to bridge to jump in freezing water so his family will get small piece of Insurance money. Very Sad (There is also squirrel in another scene which is sad, but never mind). Also very Petit-Bourgeois.

So, Angel Guy comes to the Earth and shows this George Bailey Guy his life is maybe kind of okay, not so much the shit; and boom boom boom, problem with the money goes away in big scene at end when everyone gives him their money, and everyone sings. So happy, little bells on tree and big bells of church ring; America wins the World War Two and future is filled with television and freeway. The End.

But this is too simple, my friend. No way is actual life like this. So, maybe some of me thinks this is kind of the Propaganda about America, to keep us from seeing the Truth of the Things.

And, there is forbidden version of this film, which is other kind of the Propaganda. Please -- allow me to introduce.

---

борьбе за построение социализма во время Угнетение
(также называется "Любовь и революция" после 1991)
("Love And Revolution", Directed By Frank Kapronovich [1949]; Starring Pytor Chost, Gravnik Bolodorin, Irina Valutin. Special appearances by the Spirit Of Revolution, also Che Guevara, Samuel Beckett, and entire 12th Guards Motorized Infantry Regiment)

SO, movie opens with Guy, Georgi Edwardovich Bailey Guy, at the Bridge. He is unhappy, this Guy; boy oh boy he is like making the panic. He goes to public alkohol place and tries to think, but he only finds himself between the forces of dissent and confusion!


TROTSKYITE GUY: River not so bad, after five minutes.
EXISTENTIAL GUY: Wait, but no one comes. No one cares.

Hoo boy; Georgi is in big fix. This guy has family with SmallChilds, and tiny Policy Insuring The Life -- and he is believing everybody would be better off if he would jump and get it over with, already.


GEORGI: My life is steaming pile of animal things,
because the Rich Guy will always win. Now I am jumping.

But, Georgi is being watched at Bridge. Not by some angel Guy (none of this reliance on things which cannot be proven by good Socialist science!) -- but even better -- is Spirit Of Revolutsya!


(Spirit Of The Revolution Watches Georgi)

And, The Spirit saves Georgi! He takes him to place where they can speak of things, of the Truth -- and slowly, Georgi's eyes are opened to not only the forces of historical determinism, but the inevitability of struggle against the oppressor classes!


GEORGI: So you are saying that when the consciousness
of the People is raised sufficiently, that armed struggle
is not only necessary but inevitable?
SPIRIT: You got it, Comrade.

So, Georgi, now with eyes opened thanks to the words of the kindly Spirit, is seeing that the world is filled with inequality and criminal things so big your head feels like kicked soccer ball. It is like understanding that, not only are you living as Dog, lapping up the vomit of the Rich Guy, but you work in factory to make guns to force others to live like this (Also, the Rich Guy pays you in fake dog vomit and those X-Ray glasses which do not work).

For Georgi, this is whole bunch of dried fish to eat in one night (Like story by that Guy, Dickens Guy, Carol Burnett Christmas, or something). This is the Life? He is asking himself.


A World Of Things For Them, But Not Food For Children


Economy And Bad Fate For Peoples Means Nothing To Them


For Them, The World Is Something To Carve Up, Like Beef


While The Many People Lose Everything To The Illegal Foreclosure

So now Georgi is filled with indignant and bad feeling for The State Of These Things. He feels the pain of the oppressed, working masses, and is being filled with Revolutionary Fervor -- and he goes to talk with the People in his little village, to tell them what the Spirit had revealed to him -- and the Spirit sends along friend, Che Guevara Guy, to help.



GEORGI: We don't have to live under the heel of Potter's boot!
He's just some, bloodsucking animal! Feeding on all of us -- and I'm
tired of living on fake dog vomit! We have to run things!
CHE GUEVARA SPIRIT GUY: Ay, Yi Yi! You listen to this guy.

The People, moved by Georgi's words, march with him to the place of the Bad Rich Guy, to demand Justice, the chance to make something other than guns, and to be paid in actual money instead of rubber dog vomit and X-Ray glasses which do not work.



BAD RICH GUY: You realize that the manufacture and sale of
weapons around the globe is the backbone of our nation's industry?
GEORGI: You don't understand -- the days of taking your rubber
dog barf are over, Potter! We're going to run things!
MOB: No fake dog barf!! No fake dog barf!!


BAD RICH GUY: My family has run this town for fifty generations.
All I have to do is close the factories. How long will it be before
your little rag-tag mob starts to starve? They'll come crawling back
to work -- and for half the rubber dog barf I gave you before!

Then, Georgi takes the Big Step -- the one which all oppressed people are taking in these movies when faced with Oppressors who pay them with rubber dog vomit: He crosses line from intellectualizing his oppression to active revolutionary.

Otherwise, we would have no resolution of all this rising action; and only ending for this film possible is that everyone would go for Pizza. This is unsatisfying from view of the Socialist imperative.


GEORGI: You're wrong, Potter -- you, and people of your
class are finished. Now you're going to face Justice for your
crimes -- because the People own the means of production!

And so The Bad Rich Guy is taken away by the People; his house later becomes hospital, day-care center, and place where revolutionary theater troupes practice before going into the streets.



And, of course, there is a proper celebration at the Georgi Bailey house, with the Revolutsia Spirit and the SmallChilds.


GEORGI: Gosh, Spirit, I don't know how we can thank you.
SMALLCHILD 01: Spirit, can't you stay and have some Fair
Trade™ coffee with homemade whiskey with us?
SPIRIT: No, SmallChild; I must go. There are so many oppressed
peoples in a world beset by unspeakable monsters of Capital.
But I will take a shot of that whiskey -- neat, please.

Finally, after long discussion between Rich Bad Guy and the Organs Of State Security, he faces Revolutionary Justice and the verdict of The People.


RICH BAD GUY: Long live International Capitalism!
PEOPLE'S MILITIA LEADER: Fire!

And, of course, Georgi and his lovely wife are pausing in their labor to build a New Socialist Future to share a moment's reflection on the plight of The Peoples, and also to suggest some hygienic sexual activity between them which may occur later.



...and in the background, The Internationale swells on the soundtrack, sung by the Sad Vlad Orphans Choir Of Greater Moscow! Please to show the credits!

This film has not been shown since its original release; big shame, also, because it is at least as good as movie with Bert Landcaster in it but of the name, just now, is escaping me.

Great-Uncle Yehudi likes Revolutionary Love. He thinks it is wonderful comedy, but still we love him. If you can find this film on DVD, then okay. If not, well then it is big world out there! Be That Guy -- go find!

I, Rabschinsky, say this -- to Moldavish Guy; you also.

---

Reprint Heaven: Желая Каждый Хорошее Ханука

A Note Being Brief By I. Rabschinski

[Originally, this appeared a year ago. But we are to be using all of the animal, yes? Even Dog. So.]

So, it is time for the first night of the Hanukkah, where we are celebrating lights and days of gifts for SmallChild 01 and SmallChild 02, and for Spouse, who plots to kill the Dog who makes this blog -- though we are trying to talk her out of this extreme of position, usually with distractions ("Hey! Spouse -- Be looking up there!"), and chocolate -- but, the Good from the Switzerland, not krumbly Amerikanyets шоколад which tastes like animal has wiped its back part across your shagging carpet, and then you must lick it.

Hey; you notice how Cyrillic for 'chocolate' -- шоколад -- looks little like "Wonka", maybe? Is deep with the irony, yes? No? Oh, Пожалуйста - получите жизни.

We also enjoy to make the celebration with my Great-Uncle Yehudi, who was wounded in the fight in Great Patriotic War, where he had to have his sense of humor amputated.

This is the actual okay, however: We got him another one many years ago (they are like big grafting of the skin), and so he can watch now the reruns of The Mister Ed and make laughing.

Speaking for myself strictly, a television programme with talking horse ("Oh; Vilbur! Do Not Be Touching Me There!") is like something made by demons. Or Polish people. But, as Uncle Yehudi reminds us, he make the fighting at Kursk and Berlin and we did not ("I did not see you there!") -- so that he could watch 'The Mister Ed' and 'Leaving All To The Beaver' and 'My Three Suns', which Yehudi tells me is science-fiction show. Why he like them, I have not a guess. But still we love him.

So, to all the Mankind, we are wishing is Goot season, Nize season for you and your own SmallChilds, and pets, and the home appliances also. Treat them well -- they watch you when you are not looking and really holding the grudge. So says Uncle Yehudi, and as war hero we must listen to him.

This is same reason why John McCain is, I think, occasionally the popular guy, still.

I, Rabschinski, say this -- to Moldavish Guy; you also.

---

Dog Dog Dog

Random Barking


Hoo Hoo Hoo; Cute Pooch: The Japanese Raccoon Dog (Wikipedia)

The world we inhabit is, to a great degree, a creation of human minds; and predictably, with a few exceptions (Klimt, Sargent; Strauss, Herrmann; Pierre Franey; Furst, Fowles and Flaubert; and probably all of those each of us hold dear), the world is one bloody mess and I'm a little tired, in these 'holiday' times, of commenting about it.

However, there is also the world that is not confabulated by humans.

I present for your edification, (we don't need your approval; we're here, we're Canine; get used to it) a Dog -- the Japanese Raccoon Dog, native only to Japan and so (fortunately) protected and not on anybody's endangered species list -- though, when you consider what humans have been up to, we're all endangered species; don't you think?

The Japanese raccoon dog, also known as tanuki (狸 or タヌキ) in Japanese, is conventionally considered as two subspecies of the raccoon dog, hondo-tanuki (Nyctereutes procyonoides viverrinus), and ezo-tanuki (Nyctereutes procyonoides albus).

Their common Japanese name is often mistakenly translated into English as "badger" or "raccoon". Despite these mistranslations, the tanuki is not related to raccoons or badgers; the "raccoon-dog" is part of the evolutionary family that includes foxes, wolves, and dogs.

There is some debate in the scientific community regarding speciation between the other subspecies of raccoon dog and the Japanese subspecies in that due to chromosome, behavioral and weight differences, the Japanese raccoon dog should be considered a separate species from the other subspecies.

The International Union for Conservation of Nature Canid Group's Canid Biology and Conservation Conference in September 2001 rejected the classification of the Japanese raccoon dog as a separate species, but its status is still disputed, based on its elastic genome.

And, the Raccoon Dog has it's own Facebook page, Dude!

Awesome Pooch. Happy Holidays.

---

Just So You Know

2012 Is Coming

Recent scholarship involving Mayan pictographs tell us many things about the end of the Mayan "Long Count" calendar, and it's connection to current and future events.

Or, you know, not. But we here at Before Nine like to keep all four, and the superintelligent parakeet of our readers up to date on all the cutting-edge stuff in science, and culture, and Dog Rugs.


Translation Of Mayan Pictographs At Great Temple Of Lompoc

---

No-Brainer

The Randy Man, Resurgent



Watching the Rethug debate Live! From Iowa! with George Stephanopolis and The Lovely Diane Sawyer moderating. I've been in and out; surfed to watch La Povira ("The Octopus") on MHz Networks' 'International Mystery' for a while (Mafia soap-opera, in Italian), and went down the hall for a bag of M&M's (Tasty), and then came back to Ames, Iowa, and an audience of people who want, most of all, to turn America back -- to the values of Ronald Reagan, Ward Cleaver, and Cornelius Vanderbilt.

By the end of the debate, what I witnessed has essentially been what I expected: An overly-intellectual Newt versus a rambling, flustered Mittster.

There were a few odd comments from Raving Loon© Ron Paul, and Mssr. Le Gouvernour Placard Perry ("We need a part-time Congress"), with Crazy Lady telling us her family "are coupon-clippers, even today" -- proving she is in touch with the pain and uncertainty of "ordinary" Americans.

Why, even Newt said he lived above a gas station as a boy, and that his Tiffany-jewelery wearing spouse runs Gingrich Productions ("a small business"), and they both know how hard running a small business is, which puts them in touch with the ordinary simple working people of these United States, too.

Right.

I didn't see it, but heard later that the question was put to Newt about his past 'infidelities', and he took it head-on, saying, "I've made mistakes at times -- I'm also a 68-year-old grandfather and I think people have to measure what I do now."

Rrrrright.

That's Jenga™

I did see Stephanopolis hit Newt with another question, and he raised it with Raving Loon© Ron Paul first: Was Gingrich's comment yesterday, that the Palestinians were 'an invented people', incendiary?

When George got to Newt and asked the question, Gingrich took that head-on, too: No, he wasn't sorry; further, he said, "Somebody ought to have the courage to tell the truth. These people are terrorists." (Stephanopolis stared at Newt, mouth open, as if he'd just admitted being a nazi).

"Is [his statement] historically correct? Yes," The Randy Man said. "... the current administration tries to pressure the Israelis into a peace process. Hamas does not admit the right of Israel to exist and says publicly, 'not a single Jew will remain'... It's fundamentally time for somebody to have the guts to stand up and say, 'Enough lying about the Middle East.' "

Romney called Gingrich's comment about the Palestinians "reckless"; Mittster and The Randy-Man traded barbs for two minutes or so, and ABC let them -- this is, after all, what people came to their teevees to see.

This could have been Romney's moment to stop Gingrich's rise. You would expect that Mittzy's handlers had taken him through practice sessions in anticipation of such an opportunity -- and given his slipping in Rethug polls, that Romney should seize it with both hands. But to have done so, he would have had to be a completely different person.

Instead, like a man slipping on ice, arms cartwheeling for balance, Romney fumbled through a semi-coherent string of remarks. "As President, I will exercise sobriety," Romney sputtered (Newt replied in his trademark faux-academic manner that when he called the Palestinians an 'invented people', "I was speaking as a historian").

At at one point, Romney even said that Newt would agree that he (Gingrich) was wrong. Newt stood looking at the moderators, shaking his head (at one point in the exchange, ABC's camera's caught him winking at the audience -- presumably at his wife, or possibly at the next Mrs. Gingrich).

All he had to do to win was appear the more collected and reasonable, respond calmly but firmly, and Romney would come off looking like a chump. I'm paraphrasing, but Gingrich ended the exchange with something like, "It's time we told the truth about the situation in the Middle East," with a riposte to Romney, "And leave other explanations for the timid".

Ah; Mitt? That's Jenga.

No-Brainer

So far, there have been no other major 'incidents' from Des Moines, but it's been amazingly painful, watching Romney flounder no matter what he's been asked. This was the "Newt Debate"; it was his to lose -- all he had to do was hold his own in a field of inconsequential, delusional, or religiously-fueled idiots. It's a no-brainer, in this line-up at the Cretin's Ball, who appeared the most 'Presidential'.

Barring some unforeseen occurrence, Gingrich very probably will be the Rethug candidate for President. He isn't the best they have; he's the only candidate they have.

Newt is a corrupt, serial adulterer who was once as tightly wired into the Washington power structure as a Speaker of the House can be. He whored as a lobbyist because there was money in it for him. He's lied about being a "historian"; wrote a turgid, unreadable novel about the Civil War (However, better than the dribbling, putrescent excuse for a "book" that was ghostwritten for Little Glenn Beck. Just two monkeys in a room with a typewriter could have crafted a better work than Glenny's 'The Overton Whatever').

Newt, rejected by the Mensa Society, wasn't smart enough to know that he couldn't screw whomever he wanted in Washington and not have it used against him: His previous political career was done in by his own Randy Antics, and his committing a breach of Congressional ethics; malfesance.

He is just smart enough to know what the Presidency is for Republicans -- and he wants it. It's a figurehead position, possessing certain kinds of power; in the end you're an elder statesman and set for life. Name in the history books; no matter what they said about you in Newsweek and rolling Stone, you were President Of The United States and will be called 'Mr. President' by everyone as an honorific from the moment you leave office -- all this, what Newt believes he should be destined for.

Newt always reminds me of a certain kind of smart kid in grade school -- the one who always sounds like he knows all the answers. The kid who expects to be appointed Hall Monitor, because Teacher lets him polish her apple. He gets the job, turns you in for some infraction and smirks at you when the teacher isn't looking -- and he never, ever seems to get a comeuppance, no matter what nasty shit he pulls. He's a manipulative, self-satisfied little prick, and always will be.

2012: The Talking Pestidental Candidate

But that isn't what frightens me about Gingrich. It's that he can talk. And talk. And talk. And talk. He sounds as if he has all the answers. In politics, that's often all it takes.

Obama is intelligent, too; he speaks well. His background is in Constitutional law, and can probably hold his own in debates with Ol' Newt. But if the economy takes a nose-dive because Little Angela wants her Austerity, past a certain point no one will listen to what Obama says. People will tune him out; in their minds, he got it wrong, and is to blame, which will only be half true.

And, as I don't feel most Americans give a rat's ass about whether they live in a Democratic Republic or Corporate Fascist state so long as they have ESPN and their cars, I'm concerned that who talks good will be all they'll care about rolling into the 2012 election. That, and the Democrats just seem too hesitant, too namby-pamby, too much the Victim, to really want to win, compromised by feeding from the same trough of money as the Republicans.

It won't matter if Obama dredges up bin Laden and orders him killed, again. It won't matter that he tried to reach a Grand Budget/Debt Bargain and the Rethugs are the bad guys. In the public's tiny mind, Newt won't have Obama's baggage -- and suddenly (after Little Rupert's idiot factory repeats things over and over and over and over...), Newt will begin to sound so smart; Ahhh; let's give him a chance, people will say. They're all crooks; we don't have any power, anyway; who cares... doesn't matter...

The End

As their final statement, Stephanopolis asked the candidates to answer the question Is it possible for all of you on stage to work together? And who on stage tonight can you compliment and why? Newt thanked a role-model governor, and tipped his hat to Ron Paul's supporters ("They're always there with signs...freezing in the cold"). Crazy Lady, living up to her name, talked about Herman Cain. Ricky Santorum talked about Newt, remembering that he listened in the 1990's to a set of cassette tapes of Gingrich's speeches (sold by selfsame Gingrich productions, no doubt).

Romney just answered it by saying we'reatacrossroads and Americaneedsintegrity and that I'mthebestchoice -- and ignored Stephanopolis' question entirely. That, and the expression on his face while he was doing it; brain shorting out, his language wandering, convoluted -- a man rising to the level of his own incompetence, on national television.

It was another painful moment, like watching someone soil themselves in public, knowing they are only dimly aware they have boo-booed in their shorts in front of a live audience. In a panic, already fading in Rethug polls going into this debate, Romney repeated whatever closing speech he'd memorized because, unlike Gingrich, Romney is almost incapable of thinking on his feet.

ABC's commentators, post-debate, are giving Gingrich a win; "He's the one to beat", says Jake Tapper -- so, it has to be true.

Oh, and after final statements, there was a commercial ABC aired for some company selling "reverse mortgages" for "Persons 62 and older". Former Rethug candidate Fred Thompson was the pitchman; how fitting for a right-wing presidential debate.

And that's the Republican party: Cretins, pols, and former candidates hawking financial products benefiting private business (Why hang on to that big house? Get cash now, the financial security that you need in uncertain times!).

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Afterword

(I want to repeat a few points I'd made in a post about The Randy Man from August, 2010:)

Please pay attention to this part, because it will be on the final: If, despite plentiful evidence about his character, Newt still becomes one of the GOP front-runners (if not their candidate) for President in 2012 -- then I would become very, very afraid.

Look: ... The "recovery" has stalled. The Republicans in Congress will do nothing, and the Democrats can't seem to do the right thing because they've sold their soul to the Fed and the Banksters. Communities are laying off teachers, firefighters, police; roads are being plowed back to gravel; they're talking about doing away with Social Security and Medicare -- and [As of August, 2010, when I wrote this] no one is out in the streets raising their voices about any of it.

The possibility of a Gingrich Presidency would be as bad as Lil' Boots Bush (the only difference is, Gingrich has a better command of spoken English) -- but if such a thing ever becomes possible, it will be because -- even with clear evidence of what kind of man he is -- it would not matter to voters.

It would be more proof (if you needed it, that is) that the game is rigged; the fix is in; that it's Chinatown -- and that Americans will prefer government by sociopaths; and proof that the lowest common denominator in this country will have suddenly fallen to depths unimaginable even twenty years ago.

If you want to stop and consider that for a moment, it's what many thinking Germans must have felt when their country mutated into something clearly and unmistakably malignant, right in front of their eyes.

And That's Jenga.

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Immerhin

Berlin Bleibt Berlin


The Wall At Potsdamer Platz; March, 2009 (Wikimedia Commons)

Because it isn't all about Angela, you know.


Sunset, 2009, Looking Southwest

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Too Little

More Deck Chairs To Starboard


Chancellor Angela Merkel, President Nicolas Sarkozy (AAP)

Leaders of all 27 member governments of the European Union gathered in Brussels today for a summit conference, which was supposed to provide either a final, concrete plan to stabilize the Euro through unified member action, or the beginning of the end for a common currency and ultimately the EU.

There had been plenty of jockeying for position before the meeting. Angela Merkel and Nicolas Sarkozy have been pressing EU governments hard to vote on reopening the Treaty of Lisbon, the legal basis of the European Union, and allow it to be amended.

The suggested treaty changes would force the lowering of national debts through EU governments' ruthlessly cutting their own spending, reducing support for public programs and services. As reported by the UK Guardian, the treaty changes would "[confer] intrusive rights on European institutions [i.e., the European Central Bank and Financial Stability Facility] to enforce budgetary policy in countries breaking the [E]uro's debt and deficit rules, as well as quasi-automatic penalties for delinquents".

The New York Times reported that the treaty amendments "would allow the European Court of Justice to strike down [an EU] member’s laws if they violate fiscal discipline" -- in short, individual EU governments would have to agree to give up some national sovereignty over their economies to save the Euro, and the Union. The amendment would have to be ratified by the parliaments of EU member states, which would have to take the opinions of their respective voters into account -- but, if and when it was done, the Austerity Hawks would have the backing of European law.


Odd Man Out: Cameron In Brussels (Reuters - Francois Lenoir)

Their efforts to amend the Treaty of Lisbon failed. Britain's Tory Prime Minister, David Cameron, blocked the effort with a veto. He wouldn't accept his nation's financial center (known colloquially to the British as the 'City Of London', in the same way we use the term 'Wall Street') being dictated to by the ECB / EFSF. As quoted in the Guardian, Cameron said "... if I couldn't get adequate safeguards for Britain in a new European treaty then I wouldn't agree to it. What is on offer isn't in Britain's interests so I didn't agree to it." He could not allow a "treaty within a treaty" that reduced the UK's position in the EU's single market.

Apparently, Cameron had conferred with leaders of the Labor party (who dislike Cameron intensely, but "We're all Britons, after all")

EU leaders [reported the Guardian] promptly agreed to bypass Britain and establish a new accord on the [E]uro among themselves by March. The EU appeared poised to line up 26-1 against Cameron in support of the Franco-German blueprint, leaving Britain utterly isolated.

Cameron's bombshell came at what was billed as the most important EU summit in years, with the fate of the single currency hanging in the balance. The veto was unexpected and was being seen as a watershed in Britain's fractious relationship with the rest of Europe. Cameron insisted on securing concessions on, and exemptions from, EU financial markets regulation as the price of his assent to the German-led euro salvation blueprint.

Merkel and Sarkozy dismissed Cameron's performance with a wave ("Mr. Cameron was never with us at the table," Merkel quipped to the press) and immediately moved to Plan B -- a "fiscal compact" which would have to be ratified by each EU members' parliaments, and with the same Austerity elements as were in the treaty amendments, all to be in place by March of 2012.

As the New York Times noted, "Sarkozy also said he was tired of British criticism of the handling of the crisis. 'I am sick of hearing every day David criticizing us,' Mr. Sarkozy said, according to one official briefed on the discussions. On Friday, as the summit meeting was breaking up, Mr. Sarkozy snubbed Mr. Cameron, brushing past his outstretched hand."

[The result of the summit] is viewed as unlikely to calm fears that Europe is unwilling to muster the financial firepower to defend the sovereign debts of big member states, including Italy and Spain, that have little or no economic growth and have big debt bills coming due soon.

At the meeting, member governments agreed to raise up to $270 billion that could be used by the International Monetary Fund to aid indebted European governments, and they moved up the date that a European rescue fund [EFSF] would come into operation. But the sums involved fell well short of what many investors and some Obama administration officials have argued are needed to ensure the survival of the euro. Administration officials on Friday welcomed the long-term overhaul of the euro zone’s rules, but argued that stronger measures were needed in the short run.

Going into this summit, Merkel, Sarkozy and their allies had only one choice -- to take amazingly bold financial and (for them) politically dangerous positions. This would have involved a near blank check from the ECB to banks in at-risk EU nations (Portugal, Spain, Greece) for bailout funds; the announcement of a creation of a "Eurozone Bond"; and the formation of an EU "fiscal union".

Anything less would only kick the can further down the road, trying to buy more time for a long-term solution. And, that's what's happened. Pushing the beginnings of that solution out until March of next year, without taking drastic action to provide sufficient backstopping of EU banks, or speed up the creation of the EFSF, leaves Europe at risk to another debt crisis -- another Greece, another Italy; another key bank which implodes.

Felix Salmon, a commenter at Reuter's online, summed it up pretty succinctly today:

Here’s how the [London Financial Times] put it on Wednesday: "... The stakes are therefore very high at Friday’s summit. The world cannot afford another half-baked solution."

And yet, inevitably, another half-baked solution is exactly what we got. Which means, I fear, that it is now, officially, too late to save the Eurozone: the collapse of the entire edifice is now not a matter of if but rather of when.

For one thing, fracture is being built into today’s deal: [R]ather than find something acceptable to all 27 members of the European Union, the deal being done is getting negotiated only between the 17 members of the Euro zone. Where does that leave EU members like Britain which don’t use the euro? Out in the cold, with no leverage...

... It seems that German chancellor Angela Merkel is insisting on a fully-fledged treaty change... Europe, whatever its other faults, is still a democracy, and it’s clear that any deal is going to be hugely unpopular among most of Europe’s population. There’s simply no chance that a new treaty will get the unanimous ratification it needs, and in the meantime the EU’s crisis-management tools are just not up to dealing with the magnitude of the current crisis.

The fundamental problem is that there isn’t enough money to go around. The current bailout fund, the European Financial Stability Facility, is barely big enough to cope with Greece; it doesn’t have a chance of being able to bail out a big economy like Italy or Spain. So it needs to beef up: it needs to be able to borrow money from the one entity which is actually capable of printing money, the European Central Bank.

But the ECB’s president, Mario Draghi, has made it clear that’s not going to happen... a former vice chairman and managing director of Goldman Sachs, he’s perfectly comfortable delivering Italy the bad news that he’s not going to lend her the money she needs...

... All of Europe’s hopes right now are being placed in something called the European Stability Mechanism — a permanent successor to the temporary EFSF. Since it’s permanent, the ESM is going to have to be constructed with the ability to put out fires of any conceivable size. And as such, it’s going to have to be able to borrow enormous amounts of money, and lend them on to countries which have found themselves in trouble.

But that would make the ESM, essentially, a bank. And the European leaders seem determined, today, to prevent the ESM from operating as a bank at all. Which means it will never get the firepower it needs to be taken seriously... the ESM seems set to be capped at a mere €500 billion euros ... compare [that] to Italy’s total debt of roughly €2 trillion. And that isn’t even counting Spain, or Portugal, or Ireland, or whatever money Greece might yet still need.

...The European Banking Authority, with exquisite timing, informed the world on Thursday that the continent’s banks need to raise €115 billion in new capital, including more than €15 billion for Spain’s Banco Santander alone ...

Europe’s leaders have set a course which leads directly to a gruesome global recession, before we’ve even recovered from the last one. Europe can’t afford that; America can’t afford that; the world can’t afford that. But the hopes of arriving anywhere else have never been dimmer.

Any questions?

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MEHR: Paul Krugman notes:

Let me return for a minute to Kevin O’Rourke’s recent piece on the European summit. Aside from pointing out just how bad an idea the new super-stability pact is, O’Rourke makes an important observation about what the European experience teaches us about macroeconomics:

One lesson that the world has learned since the financial crisis of 2008 is that a contractionary fiscal policy means what it says: contraction. Since 2010, a Europe-wide experiment has conclusively falsified the idea that fiscal contractions are expansionary. August 2011 saw the largest monthly decrease in eurozone industrial production since September 2009, German exports fell sharply in October, and now-casting.com is predicting declines in eurozone GDP for late 2011 and early 2012.

A second, related lesson is that it is difficult to cut nominal wages, and that they are certainly not flexible enough to eliminate unemployment. That is true even in a country as flexible, small, and open as Ireland, where unemployment increased last month to 14.5%, emigration notwithstanding, and where tax revenues in November ran 1.6% below target as a result... how does the EU expect [cutting wages] to work across the entire eurozone periphery?

The world nowadays looks very much like the theoretical world that economists have traditionally used to examine the costs and benefits of monetary unions. The eurozone members’ loss of ability to devalue their exchange rates is a major cost. Governments’ efforts to promote wage cuts, or to engineer them by driving their countries into recession, cannot substitute for exchange-rate devaluation [between different currencies]. Placing the entire burden of adjustment on deficit countries is a recipe for disaster.

Basically, European experience is very consistent with a Keynesian view of the world, and radically inconsistent with various anti-Keynesian notions of expansionary austerity and flexible prices.

The point about nominal wages is especially telling. Ireland has clearly — clearly — faced a massive demand shock; maybe Casey Mulligan will find some way to insist that 14.5 percent of the Irish work force has voluntarily decided to refuse employment, but it’s just not true.

It is really, really hard to cut nominal wages, which is why reliance on “internal devaluation” is a recipe for stagnation and disaster.

The crisis really has settled some major issues in economics. Unfortunately, too many people — including many economists — won’t accept the answers.

Buckle up. This ride's just beginning; I'd pick out your cardboard box now. Don't wait. Make sure you have the capacity learn to love a Prestident Gingrich ("Historian" and Randyman), with all your heart. Or else.

Not kidding.

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