Oct 2, 2014
Oct 1, 2014
As Worlds Collide
We have beautiful music because it's built in to us. We came from the stars, and so did everything else.
Just Passing It Along
The Rude Pundit's in great form:
9/30/2014
In Brief: A Few Things You're Thinking (in Convenient List Form)
1. How much you wanna bet that there are members of the Secret Service who want Barack Obama dead?
2. Khorasan Group? Yeah, right. Prove it.
3. Any motherfucking politician or pundit who had no problem with Attorney General Alberto Gonzales needs to shut their lying whore mouth about resigning AG Eric Holder. But if you thought Gonzales was a cockknob, then, fine, have at Eric "Prosecute a Banker? Me?" Holder.
4. Yeah, well, shit, Bridgegate probably was something but those creepy Christie cronies made sure they protected their boss like he was a Sicilian godfather in the wrong pasta joint. So fuck us all for being hopeful that it would do the governor in.
4a. Don't fret, though. There's a ton of other shit that'll sink Christie before his sausage-greased fingers ever touch the presidency.
5. This sense of a forced march to the Hillary Clinton nomination is what Republicans must have felt in 2008 when it was McCain's "turn." (Yeah, yeah, shut the fuck up. We'll all vote for her.)
6. When Ebola is gonna make us all shit out our organs, why should we worry about ISIS?
7. It's impossible to get rid of that sinking feeling that we've created an untenable, almost wholly unregulated capitalist system that is going to collapse on itself if it doesn't end up killing us through poison, climate change, or sleeping semi-drivers.
8. It's like playing a game of 3-card monte with the Devil in Hell. You know you're gonna lose, but what the fuck else is there to do?
9/30/2014
In Brief: A Few Things You're Thinking (in Convenient List Form)
1. How much you wanna bet that there are members of the Secret Service who want Barack Obama dead?
2. Khorasan Group? Yeah, right. Prove it.
3. Any motherfucking politician or pundit who had no problem with Attorney General Alberto Gonzales needs to shut their lying whore mouth about resigning AG Eric Holder. But if you thought Gonzales was a cockknob, then, fine, have at Eric "Prosecute a Banker? Me?" Holder.
4. Yeah, well, shit, Bridgegate probably was something but those creepy Christie cronies made sure they protected their boss like he was a Sicilian godfather in the wrong pasta joint. So fuck us all for being hopeful that it would do the governor in.
4a. Don't fret, though. There's a ton of other shit that'll sink Christie before his sausage-greased fingers ever touch the presidency.
5. This sense of a forced march to the Hillary Clinton nomination is what Republicans must have felt in 2008 when it was McCain's "turn." (Yeah, yeah, shut the fuck up. We'll all vote for her.)
6. When Ebola is gonna make us all shit out our organs, why should we worry about ISIS?
7. It's impossible to get rid of that sinking feeling that we've created an untenable, almost wholly unregulated capitalist system that is going to collapse on itself if it doesn't end up killing us through poison, climate change, or sleeping semi-drivers.
8. It's like playing a game of 3-card monte with the Devil in Hell. You know you're gonna lose, but what the fuck else is there to do?
Sep 30, 2014
Sep 29, 2014
In Case Ya Hadn't Noticed
...lately, most of my posts are kinda crappy. I gotta walk away for a bit.
Back later.
Back later.
A Question Of Power
Sometimes we all stand around wondering what the hell's wrong with the world, and why does it seem like so many people aren't willing to do what they need to do to make things work anymore.
Through the paradigm of broken windows policing (also known as quality of life policing), "We have come to identify certain acts - graffiti spraying, litter, panhandling, turnstile jumping, and prostitution - and not others - police brutality, accounting scams, and tax evasion - as disorderly and connected to broader patterns of serious crime," writes Bernard Harcourt in Policing Disorder. Harcourt is one of the few academics that has been shouting in the dark for 20 years, but now that broken windows is back in the headlines, his work seems more prescient than ever.
"Why does broken windows focus on the dollar-fifty turnstile jump," Harcourt writes, "rather than on the hundred-million dollar accounting scam?"
The literal-minded would answer that it's because of jurisdiction. Police don't handle massive accounting scams; that's the job of the Securities and Exchange Commission. But Harcourt's question is rhetorical and speaks to a deeper issue of perception: Why are habits borne of material deprivation - begging for money, evading a train fare, dancing for tips on the subway, or selling untaxed cigarettes - more criminalized, in our laws and minds, then things that hurt more people and fundamentally undermine the institutions that make up an orderly society?--and--
The hedge-fund industry oversaw a record $2.8 trillion in assets at the end of the second quarter, according to industry tracker HFR Inc. That marked the eighth consecutive quarterly record for industrywide assets under management, up from $2.7 trillion at the end of the first quarter.--and--
Sens. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) and Sherrod Brown (D-Ohio) are both calling for Congress to investigate the New York Federal Reserve Bank after recently releasedsecret recordings show the central bank allegedly going light on firms it was supposed to regulate.Unfortunately, the inoculation process has been successful - Gubmint is bad; investigations are just political theater (see Whitewater and Benghazi); politicians are all the same; both sides do it; all we need is for Congress to get out of the way; etc etc etc.
Warren and Brown, both members of the Senate Banking Committee, called for an investigation of the New York Fed after Carmen Segarra, a former examiner at the bank, released secretly recorded tapes that she claims show her superiors telling her to go easy on private banks. Segarra says that she was fired from her job in 2012 for refusing to overlook Goldman’s lack of a conflict of interest policy and other questionable practices that should have brought tougher regulatory scrutiny.
Generally, we act and react according to the examples we see every day. If the people with all the power and money get to behave like they're not bound by the rules, and they can make money on the work of others, and they can use the money to buy the power they need to close the circle and make that big bamboozle go 'round again - then why should it be any different for everybody else?
Unfortunately, on the political side of things, that translates to a widening refusal to participate, so we don't vote. And it just gets a little worse.
But mostly, it seems to come down to the hostage metaphor. We want somebody to do something, but the hostage-takers won't allow anybody to do the things that have helped in the past - infrastructure improvements, and education, and wage support; all that Keanesian stuff that actually works. Unfortunately, we've got a pretty bad pathology going on that centers around self-loathing and punishment and austerity, and we're being conditioned to believe that if we can just get our minds right, we can be happy with our crappy little lives because at least the masters aren't beating us with sticks quite as often.
Stop wondering why so many people just wanna see it all burn.
Sep 28, 2014
Sep 27, 2014
Today's Joke
Doctor: "The good news is that your lab results are back, and your crabs are dead."
Patient: "And is there bad news too?"
Doctor: "Yes - we don't know what killed them."
Patient: "And is there bad news too?"
Doctor: "Yes - we don't know what killed them."
Sep 26, 2014
Gotta Love The Onion
Woman Worried Student Loans Could Prevent Her From One Day Owning Entirely Different Kind Of Crippling Debt
PHILADELPHIA—Lamenting that she will spend the foreseeable future paying off her college expenses, local 23-year-old digital marketing assistant Ashley Orlinsky expressed concern Wednesday that her student loans will prevent her from ever owning an entirely different type of utterly crippling debt. “Realistically, it’ll take years or even decades to fully repay $50,000 of loans, which makes me worried that I’ll never qualify for a backbreaking mortgage on a house that I can in no way afford,” said Orlinsky, adding that with $350 in monthly student loan payments, she will likely struggle to even borrow money to purchase a new car that will destroy her credit rating and may one day be repossessed by the bank. “I have dreams of starting my own company at some point in the future, but I just don’t see how I’ll have the opportunity to be saddled for my entire adult life with a suffocating high-interest small business loan if my student debt is following me wherever I go. It’s awful.” Orlinsky was reportedly encouraged, however, after coming to the mistaken conclusion that she could just default on her student loans and have them discharged in a bankruptcy filing.
Funky Friday
Bullets --Bob Schneider
Round And Round --Bob Scheider
Big Blue Sea --Bob Schneider
Tarantula --Bob Schneider
Round And Round --Bob Scheider
Big Blue Sea --Bob Schneider
Tarantula --Bob Schneider
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)