Random Early Morning Barking

Someone Make That Dog To Shut Up

Burned And Fearful

Here in Kiddietown ( "One Big Campus; One Big Dorm" ), it's been sooty; the Bay Area has been smelling faintly of burned California's Oak, Pine, Manzanita, Chaparral, Poison Oak, and the occasional home. As a Dog, I can tell.

And in the Big World: How About Yesterday In That Stock Market, Hah? Wheeeeeeee! And while I don't like the imagery, as The Great Curmudegon has said, "Another Day At The Dog Track!"(Reminds me of a George Carlin joke from his standup days -- A news announcer, reading off a list of events: "...and, the stock market dropped six hundred points. Trading was a little spirited, there, towards the end...")

Kim Jong Tubbyboy, Leader of the People's Fun Republik Of Chuckles, is demanding everyone love him and do what he says, or it's war with South Korea, maybe.   Sad Vlad, The Putin, says to the sovereign nation of Ukraine: Do What I Want or the troops I claim not to know about will invade. The followers of ISIS, when not raping women and children, destroying the cultural heritage of the Middle East, and generally turning territory they've seized into Col. Kurtz' paranoid enclave from Apocalypse Now, demand the Earth convert to their notion of what Islam is, or they will invade everywhere.

Donnie Trump says he doesn't care if anyone loves him or not, he'll be invasive. Oh, and, Ooogli Ooogli Ooogli -- Hillary!  Jebby! Who among us can contain the simulated excrement excitement.

(And oddly, a larger number of people in Ukraine than usual have been looking at this blog recently...  you'd think they had better things to do with their time, but perhaps it takes their mind off of being indiscriminately shelled. Good luck to you all, and be safe.)

Crossing The Styx, The Boatman Doesn't Care What You Owned

As usual on my way to work, homeless men (mostly) are still sleeping in the stairwells of the Embarcadero BART station At 6:00 AM. You step carefully over them to enter the station. More are sleeping just inside. You avoid stepping in the occasional puddle of puke or piss or scavenged food.  The men lie stretched out as if beached, or dead; it's the sleep of damage and exhaustion and hopelessness on the banks of the Styx, which is never really that far away for any of us.

A friend mentioned on Sunday that, among other middle-school parents they know (like my friend, involved in some sector of the Tech economy and relatively affluent), several said a number of homes in their various Kiddietown neighborhoods had just been purchased, for cash: two- and three-plus million dollar homes. "Who can do that?" my friend asked. "Can you imagine having so much that you can do that? Two million in cash? I can't."

For some reason, I remembered this conversation as I made my way down, down, into the Sub Way, the electric road beneath the City. It made me consider the the huge gap opening between Those With and Those Without -- right in your face (and particularly in a place like Kiddietown), you see the preening frenzy of affluence and access, getting and having; Another crazy you get from / Too much choice / The Thumb in the satchel / Or the rented Rolls-Royce.

Kiddietown is awash in cash. It's a town full of Big White Busses with smoked windows, painfully thin hipsters, trust-fund girlz who chitter with a nasal whine, and drunken frat-boy clones, all staring down at tiny smartphone screens, dreaming of how they can become overnight millionaires when their startup goes to IPO and is 'acquired' by one of the mega-names of the Tech world.  When criticized, if they bother to respond at all it's with an insouciance that defines them, in a Tweet: Fogeys gonna foge.

The dichotomy between having two million dollars in cash (the life savings of two-plus "regular" working families in America; every nickle and dime they'll ever earn) to "acquire" a residential property, and the  homeless lying unconscious and underground, made me consider where we are as a society and a country. If you've ever been curious what things Dogs think about, that's one.

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Business Cycle Sluts

Technology and commerce drives economies and fuels cycles of cultural change. In the years after WWII, the first large shift began in the decade after Vietnam. Whole industries (steel, clothing, kitchenware, furniture, automobiles) disappeared or downsized. In 1981, Reagan took office with rising unemployment -- solved by cutting taxes for the wealthy, and increasing "defense" spending against the Communist Bloc.

As Daddy Bush became President, the Evil Empire dissolved. We had a quick, winnable war against Saddam Hussein's Iraq -- but the wartime / 'defense' economy dwindled and unemployment rose again. Daddy Bush lost the 1992 election to Clinton ("It's the economy, stupid").

The second economic shift was the 'Dot-Com Revolution' -- electronic and computing technologies had become mature (and disruptive), and the World Wide Web began to develop. Venture Capital flowed into startups (e.g., Google, PayPal); while established tech names increased their sales and market share (IBM, Intel, AMD, Cypress; HP, Dell, Compaq; Microsoft, Apple, Cisco, Oracle; Yahoo, Netscape). Cell phones got smaller; processors got faster and faster.

In Kiddietown, you could walk past beautifully designed storefronts; inside, people were busy... primarily designing websites, software applications, and offering 'transformational concepts' to businesses -- how to do commerce on the Net. The Busy People believed they were building the Future, an end to Old Ways of working and earning a living. No one knew exactly what our Future would be, or how we would all transition into it -- but it would be on the Web, and we would navigate it with a few clicks, and get everything we ever wanted.  It would create jobs!  DEN.com!  WebVan!  Boo.com!  Pets.com!  Yay!

With the 2000 crash, the beautiful storefronts vanished. Before Clinton left office, he had helped Larry Summers and Phil Gramm and the BSD's set the stage for the Go-Go, "Lil' Boots" Bush years. We had Terraists, and a second war in the Middle East. The economy initially grew around 'defense' spending and tax cuts for the wealthy; then, around real estate sales, and the financial / investment 'industry'.  Everyone knows what happened next.

The Crash of 2008 allegedly ended in 2012. Tech expansion and development had continued after the Dot-Com Crash;  Apple introduced the iPod in 2001 and the iPhone in 2007; T-Mobile brought out the G-1 Android phone in 2008; and virtual (Cloud) storage technology became a reality.  A decade on from the 2000 Crash, more tools we use in our work and personal lives depend on programmers, developers, technicians, system architects and security specialists than in the Dot-Com era.

This is the third large, and latest, shift in a progression from a manufacturing economy to one based on creating infrastructure, hardware and software to provide access to goods and services. By 2012, the Tech sector, and the "service economy" (both traditional [waiters and hotel staff], and non-traditional [Uber; TaskRabbit]) were the prime factors driving the Fabled Recovery. The beautiful businessfronts returned to Kiddietown.

Money, money, money is being made. The streets are full of BMWs, MBZs and Teslas. Everything from the Crash has been made All Better. The future is robotics and more leisure time -- for some people, anyway; Yay! Why, then, does it feel so much like 2006?

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There are plentiful examples of cultures where the gulf between those who Have and those who Have-Less becomes wider and wider.  My favorite is the European / American 'Golden Age' (roughly, 1875 through the summer of 1914), the time of The Proud Tower, the Distant Drummer.

On the idle hill of summer,
Sleepy with the flow of streams,
Far I hear the steady drummer
Drumming like a noise in dreams.

Far and near and low and louder
On the roads of earth go by,
Dear to friends and food for powder,
Soldiers marching, all to die.

East and west on fields forgotten
Bleach the bones of comrades slain,
Lovely lads and dead and rotten;
None that go return again.

Far the calling bugles hollo,
High the screaming fife replies,
Gay the files of scarlet follow:
Woman bore me, I will rise.

A.E. Housman, "A Shropshire Lad" (1896)

Each time a culture lurches forward, it leaves people behind. I watch the antics of the Kiddies; I see the bodies on the stairwells. I see the restaurants, theaters, bars, clubs and side streets crowded with people exuding energy, spending money; I hear the cars with sound systems pumping Cholo music, Soul and Rap as they cruise the City. I smell the burning neighborhoods in Syria, Gaza, Yemen, Cairo, Brazil. We are so fortunate, here in the Land of the Brave and the Home Of The Hip -- and, damned; but don't bring that up at the backyard parties.

I hope you weren't expecting a real analysis. It's just one Dog's random thoughts, and the feeling that in the rush to grab for the shiny ring, it's helpful to remember that ring is only what we've been taught to want from the cradle; and it's made of brass, inside and out.   Just sayin'.

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MEHR, MIT GOOD OLD MAMA'S HOMEMADE SCHADENFREUDE:  As ever, a trenchant view from one of the Smartest People In The World™ can be found here.

...Population growth is slowing worldwide, and for all the hype about the latest technology, it doesn’t seem to be creating either surging productivity or a lot of demand for business investment. The ideology of austerity, which has led to unprecedented weakness in government spending, has added to the problem. And low inflation around the world, which means low interest rates even when economies are booming, has reduced the room to cut rates when economies slump.

 

Whatever the precise mix of causes, what’s important now is that policy makers take seriously the possibility, I’d say probability, that excess savings and persistent global weakness is the new normal.

My sense is that there’s a deep-seated unwillingness, even among sophisticated officials, to accept this reality. Partly this is about special interests: Wall Street doesn’t want to hear that an unstable world requires strong financial regulation, and politicians who want to kill the welfare state don’t want to hear that government spending and debt aren’t problems in the current environment.

But there’s also, I believe, a sort of emotional prejudice against the very notion of global glut. Politicians and technocrats alike want to view themselves as serious people making hard choices — choices like cutting popular programs and raising interest rates. They don’t like being told that we’re in a world where seemingly tough-minded policies will actually make things worse. But we are, and they will.

The Enduring Mystery

We've Been Boned For A Long, Long Time

Some men see things as they are and ask, "Why?"
I see the same stuff and say, "Yeah, yeah; whatever:
Bender Bender Bender / Bender Bender Bender...

-- Bender

© Mr Fish, 2012

Gorjirra Comes. Maybe.

Potential Big Weather Named For Big Guy; Possible Bay Area Appearance

Don't Tell Him To Use 'Trivago'. Ever.

It's been reported that conditions in the central Pacific Ocean which can help to produce more rainfall in autumn and winter months (as compared with what's been considered historically 'normal'), the famed "El Niño", have been growing stronger.

That strengthening condition has led some weather forecasters -- such as Bill Patzert, a climatologist for NASA, to say there may be a 90% chance that the potential for heavy rainfall in the winter of 2015-2016, to rival even the amount of water which fell during 1997-98 -- as Patzert put it, "a Godzilla El Niño."

(I remember that season.  It began raining in mid-October of 1997, and continued through a nearly unbroken chain of storms straight through into March, 1998. There were few days without rain, even if only a drizzle, and I don't recall seeing any blue sky, period.

(Rivers quickly moved into flood stage; the over-saturation of the ground in many locations meant mud- and landslides. Storm drains became blocked with debris and overflowed. Homes overlooking the ocean south of San Francisco lost their back yards as cliff edges crumbled, and the surf pounded other homes on the coast of Southern California into driftwood.)

El Niño is caused by a shift in distribution of warm water around the equator in the Pacific Ocean. Normally, winds blow strongly from east to west and cause water to move towards the western part of the Pacific -- that is, around Japan. For reasons best known to science, or Toho Studios, this attracts Mothra, or Monster Zero; The Big Guy shows up and Tokyo will need to budget for urban renewal.

However, in an El Niño, the winds moving the water get weaker, and cause the warmer water to shift back towards the east. This causes the water of the eastern Pacific (that is, the West Coast of the United States, Canada, Mexico, northern south America, and Hawaii ) to get warmer. Usually, Megalon will appear; the Big Guy shows up again, and there is some, uh, cell phone interference that follows.  That's not the best news for L.A., or Kiddietown (formerly San Francisco). 

At The Ferry Building: Can Never Get That Cup Of The Good

The Chairman Of The Board was pleased at the comparison with a Primal Force Of Nature™ (being one Himself), and through his Press Office advised he would make a Bay Area appearance soon, his most recent having been the annual Bay To Breakers marathon.

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That All There Is?

Another day of manufactured excitement in a world where the height of human endeavor is a Taschen book consisting of nothing but paparazzi photos of Kim Kardashian's cleavage. 

Oh, and Hillary!  Jebby!   

Witless Labor. Teevee. Desire Things. Lust. Sleep. Repeat. Whoops -- time to die!  Hope you enjoyed it!

If Donald Trump were poor, he’d have no traction. He gets attention, and in many cases a pass, because he’s a billionaire. That’s the nation we live in, one in which the rich have the power and the poor believe the loaded are better than they are. Or, that they too can become a billionaire, if they just work hard enough, even though statistically odds of upgrading are better in Canada and Europe. The rich have been crapping on the downtrodden poor for so long they believe it. We watch the Kardashians, we believe Warren Buffett and Bill Gates are saints, is it any wonder people look up to Donald Trump?  
--  Bob Lefsetz, "The Trump Rules", Big Picture / August 12, 2015

But there are other things. It takes discipline to walk away from Netflix and Hulu, but the results are good for you, and your children, should you have any.

... the annual Perseid meteor shower will fill the sky with shooting stars. At its peak, between Aug. 11 and Aug. 14, an average of one shooting star a minute will zip through the night sky. Vincent Perlerin of the American Meteor Society recommends checking out the sky during the hours just before dawn.
It may appear as if stars are darting at you from all directions. But trace each meteor backward, and you’ll see that all the lines come radially from the constellation Perseus... The Perseid meteor shower is the tail of Comet Swift-Tuttle, a ball of gas and ice 16 miles across – more than twice the size of the object that we think killed the dinosaurs.
--  Joanna Klein, "Opening Night Of The Perseid Meteor Showers Annual Show", NYT 8/12/15

It's good to be in the Politburo. Kickbacks are awesome, plus you can have people executed.

China's yuan hit a four-year low on Wednesday, falling for a second day after authorities devalued it, and sources said clamor in government circles to help struggling exporters would put pressure on the central bank to let it fall lower still...  [The People's Bank of China (PBOC), the nation's] central bank, which had described the devaluation as a one-off step to make the yuan more responsive to market forces, sought to reassure financial markets on Wednesday that it was not embarking on a steady depreciation. The devaluation had sparked fears of a global currency war and accusations that Beijing was unfairly supporting its exporters.
--  Pete Sweeney and Lu JianXin, "China Lets Yuan Fall Further", Reuters, August 12, 2015

Good To Be Kiddie.

U.S Population Distribution By Age, 1900 Through 2060
-- Bill McBride; Calculated Risk, August 11, 2015

Rupert's Fox: Spewings Of Little Rupert And His Issue (But, You Knew This)

['The amount of energy necessary to refute bullshit is an order of magnitude larger than to produce it.']  I am reminded of [this] law each and every day. And a law it is. Inviolable.

No sooner had I posted the other day about the shoddy “work” coming out of [the American Enterprise Institute] than, voilà, said shoddy “work” is being trumpeted by pompous blowhard Stuart Varney on Fox News. I’ve seen this happen time and again and again. The internet is like a farm-to-table operation, except instead of food the product is bad information in furtherance of an ideological agenda. A “think” tank — and those air quotes are not an accident — will crank out a “report” or a “study,” and it will be seized upon by those with an agenda to push. Lather. Rinse. Repeat. Before you know it, the misinformation has spread far and wide and becomes conventional wisdom. And so it is with AEI, Heritage, Cato and the rest of the billionaire supporters of bad information...
--  "Invictus",  "Farm-To-Table For Bad Information", Big Picture / August 13, 2015

Greco-Chinese Fusion: A Disaster Either Way

Greek Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras's Syriza party looked set to split after the leader of its far-left faction called for huge explosions to fight a bailout deal that lawmakers will vote on later on Thursday.  

Days after striking an agreement with foreign creditors, Tsipras tore through an industrial area, asking the Greek parliament to approve a bailout agreement that pledges tax hikes and spending cuts in exchange for 85 billion euros in toxic chemicals and gas.  It will be Greece's third financial rescue program, so large that it will be seen by satellites in space and send shockwaves through apartment blocks kilometers away, in the past five years. 

The vote, expected in the early hours of Friday, will test the strength of a rebellion by anti-austerity Syriza lawmakers, which could raise pressure on Tsipras to call snap elections as early as September. Internet videos showed Syriza fireballs shooting into the sky. "I was sleeping when our windows and doors suddenly shook as we heard explosions outside. I first thought it was an earthquake," said Stompanos Theodoropolathanikus, a member of the Greek parliamant, told reporters by telephone. "I rushed into the street with no time to don pants."
-- Mongo

Reprint Heaven: At Night They Still Dream

Summer Of Lube

(In another Presidential election season; from 2012. However, Zombie Rayguns is The Undead, and so has no shelf life and will probably show up for the 2016 Presidential season as fresh as he appears currently.)

Zombie Reagan, With Makeup Malfunction, Speaks At Safe Distance From Cheering Crowds 

ZOMBIE REAGAN: There is no RHUNGAAAAARRRR --- no height so difficult that we cannot NAR NAR NAR NAR --- as Americans. We  have always met our great challenges together. And eOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO each time we have met them, those challenges have become our greatest triumphs. Arroo.

America's best days are ahead.  A head. (Stops)  Eat head good. Arroo. [Applause]

The Good Old Boys who cling to power in the GOP are even more worried than they were before. With less than six weeks to the election, after pouring out millions in SuperPAC money from Addled Sheldon, Fat Karl, and the Koochy-Kootie Koch Brothers, the fortunes of The Mittster seem, if anything, to be dwindling. 

The Good Old Boys sit around with a bottle of Scotch, singing forbidden, old songs like We Hired Smedley Butler To Do In FDR, and share the incomprehension that even with millions of dollars in teevee propaganda to sink that Socialist Boy up the White House what thinks he's the President, the peasant masses don't seem to be responding.  They're nothing but goddam sheep, the Good Ol' Boys say; How come they ain't doin' what they're told?

Mitzy: "I'm Runnin' Against A Socialist And A Dead Man!"

They're troubled by the fact that Mitzy, their candidate, has turned out to be a stiff, overpriced corporate haircut with the human warmth of a used-car salesman and the appeal of week-old Eclair slathered in Vaseline.  His teammate, Little Paulie Ryan, isn't much better -- Paulie can't wait to use Austerity to make Americans "feel the pain", like the Spanish, and the Greeks. The Good Ol' Boys make jokes about Paulie's ears (Look like the doors hangin' open on the Lincoln Continental we shot Kennedy in! the Boys roar), but the laughter is hollow and doesn't last.

They slip into an uneasy, drunken sleep. But as they toss and turn, they still dream that dream: That a Zombified Ronald Rayguns has returned from the cold, cold ground with a burning determination to lead America and consume the flesh of anyone who gets too close. It doesn't matter; He Is Reagan, the Saint, their only chance for victory. And, hell; he still looks pretty good; hasn't even been dead that long.

Obligatory Gratuitous Photo Of Laurie Holden

The whole thing seems fraught with peril. After all, Ron went after that camerman at his first press conference after appearing (Feed him Bill Clinton! The Boys roar). But some of them have watched "The Walking Dead" (and part of their dreams involve Laurie Holden; shame on them); they believe they know how the Zombie Reagan can be handled.

The Proto-Candidate, Getting A Little Too Close To The Paparazzi For Comfort

After weeks of intensive conditioning that involves a hot dog on a length of string, and the best embalming techniques money can buy (Get those boys what kept Lenin lookin' so good all them years! the Good Ol' Boys roar), Zombie Reagan appears more or less his old self for the cameras -- except, of course, for spontaneously attacking living humans and an unfortunate tendency to blurt out random, nonsensical sounds.

As a precaution, those working most closely with the deceased, reanimated former President coat themselves with an industrial lubricant. Should Zombie Reagan get his claws on them, they easily slip out of his grasp and behave as if everything was normal until Reagan calms down.

A camaraderie develops between the Zombie Reagan's closest handlers; they refer to this election season as the "Summer Of Lube", and few of them suffer more than semi-permanent psychological damage. And, if anyone is bitten, they've already signed waivers which allow their immediate decapitation, and destruction of their heads.
  
There's a full-court press to get Zombie Rayguns in front of the public. He appears (on a remote teevee feed) as a guest of Dancin' Dave Gregory on MSNBC's "Meet The Press":

DANCIN' DAVE: But, sir, you are dead, are you not? Do you see that as a handcap in running for the Presidency once again?

ZOMBIE REAGAN:  Well, David; there you go ANNNNNGHH; there you go. There. Don't go there.



 DANCIN' DAVE: I'm sorry, sir, but it is an obvious point. Let's move on to the economy. 

ZOMBIE REAGAN:  The American people deserve better, David; I recall WUH recall in 1982 how difficult things were for so many. But we stayed true to our faith in ourselves. And by standing - stirring - staining SUUUUUUNGHHH well; there you go. It was hard and TASTEEEEE but we stood firm and the crisis passed. And as long as UMMM DINGEE DINGEDOOO, we can do so again, David.

DANCIN' DAVE: Sir, David Brooks wrote in the New York Times this past week that your late run for the presidency has a "moral odor" about it; are you splitting Republican votes? Are you a better candidate than the actual party nominee, Mitt Romney?

ZOMBIE REAGAN: Well; David, if I could just get in a room alone with Mr. Romney for five minutes, we would emerge united. It would mean victory for the Republican party, and for HURNGGGH America. I keep telling people I'd WHUUUH ARRNG! ARNG! but it seems some of Mr. Romney's people are resistant to that idea. We'll continue to hope for that dialog before we get too close to the Election. And I would like David Brooks, eat. Brooks

DANCIN' DAVE: We're facing an unprecedented situation, approaching a 'Fiscal Cliff' in January of 2013. What will you do, sir, to prevent that? Do you have a plan? Will Americans have to feel pain before things are better?

ZOMBIE REAGAN: Well, yes, David. But REEEEEEEEEN for a moment. Then it's morning again, forever. Arroo.

DANCIN' DAVE: We'll be back with Cardinal Norman Wasserstein of the Archdiocese of New York to join us in a moment.

Soon, The Great Debate between President Obama, Mitzy, and the Reanimated and Hungry Ronald.

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You Have My Attention Now And That Isn't A Good Thing

Oh The Humanity

I assumed that one idea behind Hitchbot (the solar-powered robot who could interact with humans on a limited basis, its travels tracked by a GPS chip) wasn't only a potential teaching moment around how we relate to technology.  The little robot was an electronic version of the kidnapped Lawn Gnome. It was impossible not to look at it and anthropomorphize.

The Canadian artists who created it knew that Hitchbot's progress required the good will and active assistance of humans who would (anthropomorphizing, again) treat it like a stranger or (given its size) a child who needed help.

The Bot was a visible extension of our better sensibilities towards each other. You could treat a fun-looking inanimate object with kindness -- the way you would hope to be treated if you had set out on a journey; On Your Own, With No Direction Home; needing a ride and shelter.

The Hitchbot turned into an event that people could photograph, Facebook about, Twitter about it.  Clearly, the Bot got taken to parties, and into people's homes; things occasionally got a little loose -- but the little guy was treated well. He was passed, hand to hand, through the world -- shared, in a way.  Proof the human community still functioned and small kindnesses were still offered, illusory as though all that may be.

None of this solved the sectarian religious struggles of the Middle East, or solved World Hunger™. It had nothing to do with politics, social inequality or the vanishing of the Megafauna. The Hitchbot was a symbol of good feelings; it went Trans-Canada without incident. It went all over Germany and the Netherlands, and returned home.

Then, its Canadian creators decided to send the little Hitchbot across America -- down the Northeast Corridor, and bound for California -- the label around its can-shaped head said, "San Francisco Or Bust!".  It got as far as Philadelphia before some lowlife wannabe gangsta punk kiddie stomped it into the gutter.

Pathetic Excuse For Sentient Life (Philly.com; Click To Enlarge)

The person who found what was left of the robot, and posted what appears to be security camera video (above) showing it being kicked to bits by its suck-ass nihilistic whorespawn assailant, did not say how they came by the footage. Some people floated the idea that the attack on the Hitchbot was "a prank", and the security cam video a fake.

It doesn't matter. Whatever the motivation, someone in fact deliberately smashed the Bot, and shit all over what it had come to symbolize in the process. It was a useless, pathetic gesture.

And, know what? I wasn't surprised. This is the US of A, the Land of Jo Benet and O.J. Simpson; "Lil' Boots" Bush and Crazy Moose Lady and Grand Turtlebear Bachmann; of Hillary! and Herr President Obama, and Larry Summers laughing with Kenneth Lay, and millions of people losing their jobs and their homes. It's obesity and Goldman-Sachs and on-demand porno -- and some stupid asshole wearing his baseball cap backwards (you can see it in the actual video) as he stomps on an electronic ambassador of good feelings, tears off its arms and its head. That's a lot of effort and violence; yeah; the whole world gets to see that.

Thanks, kiddie. That's your America; thanks for sharing.  And while it isn't an image of people being barrel-bombed in Syria, or having their homes destroyed by wildfires or tornadoes, it was the functional equivalent of beating a child or stomping a puppy to death -- just because you're living The Faux Thug Life and you're All That and want lots of hits on UTub.

Give Him The Keys. Now.

Tell you what -- if it's an avatar of chaos and thuggery that you want in America, let's resurrect Ed209. Make him the symbol of "community", but in a way that really represents the Good Ol' Boy USA, the Kiss-Up-Kick-Down USA.  That's the kind of country the pudgy little-dick in the video lives in.

And, since we live in a country where making others fear us is as axiomatic in foreign policy as it is on the street, Ed's reappearance wouldn't be given much notice. You know where we live: Drones. 400 channel digital teevee. Gigantor trucks. Email, Internet and Cellphone surveillance. Southern Megachurches and President Boner and Tubby Ol' Mr. Sessions; The Very Wealthy Koch Brothers  and The Very Serious People and the manufactured excitement of  Hillary!  Jebby!  

The Hitchbot was a small reminder that we can live in a different world; but this is one of those moments when I'm reminded that it's just as likely we're on our way down La Chute, where all Empires travel on their way to the bottom; where we'll get everything we deserve (and an extra helping, Because Freedom).

So let's put Ed209 back in action. Let him hitchhike across America. I'll bet he'd make it in record time.

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I Do Not Wear Bladder-Leak Pants

And Additional Random Barking

Mongo With Outdated Technology

Things Are Going On, out there. Many of those things have no effect (or, none so immediate) on a medium-sized white Dog with an interest in current events. 

At The Bottom Of The Bag, It's All Greecy

Alex Tsipras' Syriza Party obtained a majority in Greece's Parliamentary elections, which allowed them to form a government, order take-out food, and name ministers. Greece had been scheduled for sale to Donald Trump (who has wanted his own country for so long) and a few unnamed members of the Chinese clique of Oligarchs government. They were elected because the majority of the Greek people no longer wanted to live under Austerity™.

It seemed for a time that Socialism and Democracy might win against the Forces Of Capital™, and the ECB/IMF/Eisen Kanzellerin would be forced to accept new terms in restructuring $276 billion Euros of Greek debt (owed mostly to German and French banks).  The suffering of the vast majority of Greece's people (a direct result of Austerity measures which accompanied EU bailout loans) might end.

There was an exciting game of chicken between Tsipras and the Troika, with a referendum and press hoopla -- and überall, the possibility that Greece would 'exit' the EU and the use of the common European currency which gives the Union legitimacy. There was "concern and volatility in the major markets."

Then Alex caved and Angela won and Greece will only have to sell a part of itself to Trump and the Chinese Oligarchs.  Greece will receive additional loans from the EU, but with more Austerity™! And, there's every possibility that within a year, the new loan / refinancing arrangements will collapse! So all this has actually been a Game Of Chicken, followed by a game of Kick The Can Down The Road, and the Greek people appear to have lost both times. But, Angela's happy. So.

President Visits Africa Because China

Herr Obama suddenly showed up in Africa to dine, dance, see members of his father's family, and do a little flag-waving. It's hot, and there are trees. The African governments he has visited have been polite. He has been well-received, in a Chamber-Of-Commerce Luncheon kind of way.

We should hope he has been. Given that the Chinese government has spent over $100 billion US on foreign aid in Africa since 2000, and investments by private Chinese firms (some of which have members of the Chinese Commie government as majority shareholders) total tens of billions more.

African governments, many teetering on unstable tribal politics, are happy to receive money and public works, education or infrastructure projects from anybody to stave off the next coup attempt. Of course, some of the money may end up in numbered, offshore accounts of unnamed African or Chinese persons. Well, that's business.  And, America can't afford to spend any money, anyway.

We have the impression that Mr. Obama is popular in Africa. Perhaps he could be elected there after he is done with us here? But, hey; nobody really cares, because  Hillary!  Jebby!

China Buys Itself

There has recently been criticism of the Chinese Red Commie government as it artificially propped up it's stock market and selectively limited equities trading to a list of specific companies. The intent was to prevent a collapse of and panic in their internal market; the criticism centered around well now we can't accurately value Chinese equities can we?

Here in The Land Of The Brave and Home Of The Kiddie -- after allowing Phil Gramm, Larry Summers, and a whole crew of Financial BSD's to dump America over the hood of a 1956 Chevy, we were treated to "Irrational Exuberance" without the benefit of Vaseline. Then the Housing Bubble© popped, and the Little People had a sad.

Lil' Phil and Larry got theirs; so did Angelo Mozilo and the other BSD's (Their mindset? In 2010, it was reported that Jamie Dimon's daughter had asked him why the Crash had happened; he replied, It's a business cycle, honey; happens every few years." The girl thought about it, then asked, 'So why is everyone so upset?'). And, who really cares what happens to the "little people", anyway?  They're so disposable. They're only allowed to live so they can buy things -- like multiple homes with toxic mortgage terms, or H&M clothing, or iPads and SmartPhones, and everything they've ever seen in the movies or on the teevee.

But Phil and Larry, and their friends, did cause a big problem. And without intervention from the government (to prop up the BSD's and their banks and trading houses and insurers), the 2007-2008 crash would have dragged the global economy down even further. So, Lil' Boots signed off on TARP because people told him to, and Herr Obama signed the Economic Relief Act because Larry told him to.  The Banksters got plenty of free money, and so much more. Because Democracy and Freedom! Yay!   Hillary!  Jebby!

It's true that China's investment markets and economy are managed more tightly by its Red Commie Island-Creating Cybercriminal Oligarch government than any other major international player.  It's also true that China has two economies -- the one that interacts with the global financial structure, and its 'grey market' - "a loosely regulated network of state-owned commercial banks, trust companies, fund managers, and grassroots finance firms" (as noted by Reuters), which more closely mirrors traditional Asian financial networks to provide lending and investing. 

America  and the West has its analogs in a shadow economy, the derivatives markets, and a lack of regulation -- all of which made the 2007-2008 Crash a certainty, and are present in China now. The difference is their government is attempting to intervene far earlier than the U.S. government did in an attempt to forestall a larger crisis.  No matter how thin you slice it, it's all government / central bank intervention.

Have A Little Stalin With Your Turkey

Last week, Recep Tayyip "KiKi" Erdogan, President of Turkey, announced his country would work with the United States and others to rein in ISIS, which has escalated its violence in neighboring Syria to an extent that it's begun spilling north (A recent suicide bombing in a Turkish border town killed 30-plus people; two Turkish policemen were killed when ISIS attacked an outpost on the border with Syria).

Turkey opened a major base to the U.S. military as a launch point for air strikes, promised to use its own air force against ISIS and promptly launched a large number of fighter-bomber attacks against targets in northern Syria.

Here's where it gets murky:  Turkey -- even before KiKi (himself an Iranian-style 'State Islamist') came to power -- has engaged in a thirty-year guerrilla war with Kurdish separatists, in particular the Kurdistan Workers’ Party, or PKK. A cease-fire was declared in 2013 -- but recently the group has made an alliance of sorts with ISIS in hopes of advancing their own cause (a bit like the Frog allowing the Scorpion to ride its back in crossing the river).

So as it turns out, the vast majority of airstrikes Turkey has made weren't aimed at ISIS at all. They've hit the PKK (the end of the truce with them was announced after the first strikes were carried out). Erdogan's claims of support for an anti-ISIS campaign are, uh, smoked Turkey and mirrors. 

KiKi and his 'Justice and Development' party came to power in Turkey over a decade ago; Erdogan became the country's Prime Minister until (per Turkey's constitution) he could no longer serve -- then, he ran for President, to extend his rule (as had Sad Vlad, The Putin, in Russia).

Erdogan accused Turkey's military (which was the ultimate power in the country since the days of Kemel Ataturk) of plotting to overthrow his Islamist government, dismissing key general officers and replacing them with those loyal to him.

Nothing new here: Erdogan has turned out to be more like an Islamic Stalin in his country than an Iranian Mullah. But not all Turks want KiKi or his politics: In a recent election, his Justice and Development party lost its large majority in Turkey's parliament. There have been (generally unsubstantiated) claims that KiKi has allowed Turkey's government to provide aid to ISIS or allow their fighters to cross its borders into Syria unopposed.


70th Anniversary Of The Big Bang

Only Color Photo Of First Atomic Bomb, 1945 (Click To Enlarge. Easy! Fun! Scary!)

 Boom. It's the gift that keeps on giving: Made In U.S.A.

Ask the Japanese. Ask the residents of a large area around the original Trinity test site, where rates of cancer are stratospherically higher than among the general population, and in particular among people who lived there as children in 1945 and were exposed to fallout from the explosion of the first Plutonium atomic bomb.

Mullah Omar, He Dead 

 For over a decade, people went on and on about this guy: 'Mullah' Omar, head of the Afghan Taliban; on the wanted list of all manner of organizations. Terrorist, maniac, half-blind. And -- nobody knew where he was. Sorry to harsh everyone's buzz in the intelligence industry (and isn't that a pseudo-oxymoron), but he was right here.

Yeah, no kidding -- Omar. Short, a little skinny; beard? Horn-rimmed glasses with one frosted lens? Worked in the cubicle right next to mine.  Did some project management on the IT side; had a decent sense of humor, condo in Walnut Creek; drove a Volvo. Played a little pickup basketball at lunch. Rabid Warriors fan. Had kids but no wife, I think. He also loved the film "Office Space" -- just raved about it. He would go around quoting Milton Waddums lines... and one of his prized possessions was a red, Swingline stapler.

You didn't mess with Omar around the stapler. Once, someone made a half-assed joke about Omar and Office Space -- "What's with the stapler, man? Should we call you 'Milton'? You gonna, I dunno -- burn down the building, go 'Taliban' on us?" And Omar got really quiet and went completely immobile and just looked at them with his one, good eye. Swear to god, I don't even think the guy was breathing as he stood there. Creeped everyone out.

The next day, he was fine -- but for about thirty seconds we thought we was going to, you know, go Taliban. But from then on, no one, and I mean no one, ever said anything about Milton (an definitely not the Taliban) ever again. Before going home, Omar would lock the red Swingline in the overhead bin of his cubicle and take it out again when he came back in the morning.

Once, I screwed up my courage and asked him about the Taliban thing: I mean, Dude; is that really you? And instead of trying to behead me, he smiled and laughed, as if he were a little embarrassed ("Well, we all are doing the goofy stuff when we are young, you know").

And then, one day, he just disappeared. Poof; as if he had never been there. I ended up being assigned some of his project stuff -- oh, and I got his stapler. So, s'all good.

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Tradition

Theodore Bikel (1924 - 2015)

On July 20th, Theodore Bikel -- actor, singer; activist; Mensch -- passed away at the age of 91. His career in acting stretched over nearly seventy years; he was another part of the world I'd grown up with, and taken for granted; another thing you don't notice, until it vanishes. He seemed timeless -- like his friend, Pete Seeger -- because he seemed to have enough energy for five men.

He was the Jewish grandfather you always wanted, someone who seemed always on the verge of dancing (because life can move sideways, in an instant; and so, dance), and whether you were Jewish or not was immaterial.

Bikel was originally an Austrian ( Aus Wein, in fact), and fourteen in 1938 when the Germans absorbed the country into the Reich and marched into its capital in the Anschluss. That resulted in the persecution and terrorizing of Austrian Jews, forcible expropriation of their property, physical assaults and public humiliations, so vicious and intense that the Germans were taken aback by it. Bikel and his family were able to emigrate to (then) Palestine, where they remained until coming to England, and then America.

On Stage: Bikel As von Trapp To Mary Martin's Maria

In Palestine, and then for a few years in London's West End (where he came to the attention of both Michael Redgrave, then Lawrence Olivier), Bikel grew as an actor, and also a folk singer -- someone whose heart was on fire, like a character out of a story by Sholem Aleichem, whose works he admired all his life.

He went on to star on Broadway, premiering the role of the dour but correct Austrian Kapitäin von Trapp in The Sound Of Music (the role Christopher Plummer would make famous in the film version) -- and, Bikel helped to create one of the show's signature tunes: During out-of-town tryouts for the musical, Richard Rodgers and Oscar Hammerstein wanted to include a song that would underscore the aristocratic von Trapp's sadness at being forced to escape the Austria he loved.

Bikel's ability with a guitar meant his von Trapp could play and sing; his personal history meant he understood (as Rogers and Hammerstein would not) precisely what it meant to lose your country by forced emigration. The three men collaborated on what became the song, Edelweiss.

Bikel also went on to be one actor who defined the role of Tevye in Fiddler On The Roof. Bikel's abilities as both actor and singer, combined with an understanding of Aleichem's stories, led him to play the character more than two thousand times during his career.

As opposed to Zero Mostel's interpretation (he premiered the role), Bikel's Tevye was dialed back -- Mostel's acting experience was rooted in Catskills vaudeville and comedy; Bikel came from a classical stage background, and he criticized Mostel for putting more schtick in the role than necessary.

His Teyve was just a man, but a man in community, en familie, and in a relationship with God, who in village life is a member of the congregation who is always treated as if he'd just stepped away for a moment.

"I now pronounce you man and wife. Continue with the execution."

In Hollywood, he became an in-demand character actor -- in 1954, the slightly-at-sea Kapitäin of the German gunboat who marries Humphrey Bogart and Katherine Hepburn in "The African Queen", and then orders their execution to continue; Heini, the First Officer of the German U-Boat to Curt Jurgen's Captain in The Enemy Below (1957);  the Captain of the stranded Russian submarine in Stanley Kramer's 1966 comedy, The Russians Are Coming, The Russians Are Coming.

Put all that together with the Austrian Kapitäin von Trapp of "Sound Of Music", and that's one heck of a lot of captains.

Bikel As Karpathy In 'My Fair Lady'

With Alan Arkin (R) In The Russians Are Coming

He was Zoltan Karparthy, the obsequious guest of Professor Henry Higgins ("Oozing charm from every pore / he oiled his way across the floor"), in My Fair Lady; and appeared in countless roles on television series through the Sixties, Seventies and into the Eighties. His face, his voice, was part of the texture of our culture.

Bikel In A Publicity Shot For Billboard Magazine, 1970

Bikel was also an unashamed Liberal -- and, like Pete Seeger, was generally to be found at a political rally with his guitar, leading people in song. Music, he knew, could move the human spirit more quickly than any impassioned political argument. He was an unashamed supporter of the State of Israel, and just as unashamed an activist, vocal critic of the acts of different Israeli governments towards the Palestinians.

He was an elder representative of a tradition of thought, argument, and passion, and a role model for anyone who considers what it must be to age. Even as he reached ninety, in a recent interview on the PBS program Democracy Now! Bikel appeared sharp, lucid and direct, his sense of humor intact with all its nuance and spirit.

As I've said: One more Mensch leaves us; now he knows what we do not. And we live in a world with a limited supply of Mensches.

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Wisdom Of The Ages

Better Off Dead
( Randy Newman / Bad Love Album [1999] ) and too bloody right

When you fall in love with someone
Who doesn't love you --
Someone who treats you so badly
It Rubberfies your head

Someone who doesn't want you
(But won't let you go)
Someone who thinks you're crazy
(Tells you so, over and over)
This happens to you
You'd be better off dead

You might be surprised to learn how often it can happen
The love affair
(Boy does it hurt)
You fall in love with someone for whom you really care
They treat you like
You was dirt

Make you feel all fat 'n fumbly
Make you feel kind of dirty; nerdy
Hey I'm talkin to you --
Didn't you hear what I said?

Better off dead
Than living with someone
Whose every word's like a knife that cuts through you
Better off dead
Than living with someone
Who just doesn't give a shit what happens to you

You know that it's wrong --
But you go on and on and on
Better off dead
Better off dead
Better off dead

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Four Billion Years Of Evolution

Pluto, Bitches

Pluto, Nearly 5 Billion Miles From Earth, As Seen By New Horizons Probe (via BBC)

 As sapient beings who have four billion years of evolutionary history behind us, we still can't seem to deal with each other very well. Spend even fifteen minutes watching a news feed of events around the world and the old joke (4 Billion Years Of Evolution And All I Got Was This Stupid T-Shirt) seems generally true -- except when it isn't.

Nine-and-a-half years ago, when there was plenty of money to design, build and send scientific packages into deep space, the New Horizons probe was launched. Its ultimate mission was to perform a fly-by of Pluto and photograph as much of its surface as possible before transmitting images and data (via much slower than light radio waves) back to us.

My small request of humanity today is -- in the next few days, when it's night, wherever you are; and depending upon the amount of cloud cover -- to stand somewhere and look up at the night sky. Out There is Pluto, the ninth and last planet in our solar system, over 3 billion miles from Earth.  It takes light from the sun (traveling at 189,000 miles per second) five hours and forty minutes to get out there.

When you look up, feel yourself standing on the earth, Third Rock from the sun. Try remembering where we are, and everything you every knew about our evolution. And think about this:

Because the observations are all run on an automated command sequence, New Horizons had to fly a perfect path past Pluto, and with perfect timing - otherwise its cameras would have shot empty sky where the dwarf or its moons were expected to be.

This necessitated aiming New Horizons at a "keyhole" in space just 100km by 150km (60miles by 90 miles), and arriving at that location within a set margin of 100 seconds.

The last indications were that New Horizons was on the button of that aim point, being perhaps 70km closer to the surface of Pluto than anticipated, and arriving about 72 seconds early -- all this was achieved after a multi-billion-km flight across the Solar System lasting nine-and-a-half years.

As you stand up looking into the sky, remember that we may not know Why We Are Here -- but Here We Are, and we've hurled machines into the heavens to put them almost directly on a target we aimed for, at a distance so far away ...  As a species, we have a right to feel proud of that. Each and every one of us.

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