Ali Speaks

Ali was a hero for me.  It was difficult for me to hear him say these things because people around me were complaining about his politics, and I remember kinda going along with the thinking that he should just stick to boxing.  But there was (obviously) something else at work, and just as with Bill Russel and Jim Brown and Abdul-Jabbar, what I eventually came to realize was that these guys were even more amazing than I had tho't.  Because - how much greater could they have been if not for having to carry all that extra baggage?

http://deehenn.tumblr.com/post/128928717105/when-they-say-not-all-white-people

And btw, for anybody looking to turn this around and say it's a good example of "black racism" and "reverse discrimination" and "the same goes for a white guy having to face ten thousand black rattlesnakes" - that just boils down to Standard-Issue White Guilt Projection; you're voicing the fear that if you let up on him at all, the black guy would treat you just as shitty as you've been treating him, which means you're pretty much admitting to being the  bigot you're so afraid you're being accused of being. 

So try this instead - try to imagine what great things you could accomplish if you weren't having to carry all your extra baggage.  

Relaxed And Groovy

From Tiny Desk Concerts at NPR

hat tip = Little Green Footballs

Today's Gubmint Stoopid

From AP via TPM:

BIRMINGHAM, Ala. (AP) — Alabama's reigning Teacher of the Year says she has resigned after state officials told her she's unqualified to teach in her fifth-grade classroom because of certification issues.

Veteran teacher Ann Marie Corgill said Alabama Department of Education officials recently informed her that she was not qualified despite her well-documented accomplishments. She said she grew tired of trying to prove herself, prompting her to submit a letter of resignation, dated Tuesday and obtained by Al.com. In the letter, Corgill cites her confusion.

"After 21 years of teaching in grades 1-6, I have no answers as to why this is a problem now, so instead of paying more fees, taking more tests and proving once again that I am qualified to teach, I am resigning," Corgill wrote.

Corgill has Class A and B certifications to teach primary school through third grade, according to certification records provided by The Alabama Department of Education. Corgill said she started this school year at Birmingham's Oliver Elementary School teaching second grade, but shortly after the semester began, she was moved to a fifth-grade classroom.

In a news release Thursday, the state Department of Education said it "did not determine Ms. Corgill was not qualified. However, when an inquiry was made, the department reported that her current teaching certificate covers primary grades through Grade 3. This does not carry with it a requirement for resignation."

But Corgill — a 2015 National Teacher of the Year finalist — holds National Board Certification to teach children ages 7 to 12, a group that would include most fifth-graders. That certification is valid until November 2020, according to the National Board Certification directory.

Birmingham City Schools spokeswoman Chandra Temple said Thursday that the district is working on the matter and had no further comment.

Somebody like Ms Corgill should be pulling down 6 figures, and she should be working at a school that looks like a 5-star resort.  

If we're gonna demand layers of certification and years of continuing education - pretty much the same as we demand of various other professionals - then we can sure as fuck pay them like we pay those other professionals.  Cuz, btw, where do we think all those big-deal professionals get their start?  Anybody believe they just pop up outa the ground?  No - they all started out in some version of an elementary school where a Ms Corgill takes a room filled with potential future cell block slugs and turns them into solid citizens who might give us a shot at making this joint a slightly better world to live in if we can just get our national head out of our national ass long enough to think in terms of investment instead of always falling for the bullshit of "Gubmint's too big and costs too much".

Do This Now

Right now, dammit.

And be sure to go thru their Amazon link when you start your Xmas shopping.

The Raven

Christopher Walken reading Poe's The Raven



hat tip = BlueGal

This Is How You Cop

The officer told the crowd of teenagers to disperse after breaking up a scuffle. They didn't do exactly what she told them to do, and somehow she resisted the seemingly universal urge to fuck 'em up.  Obviously, she can't be considered for any future management position.  It's just such a shame to see a young officer with high potential succumb to her feelings of humanity like that.

hat tip = FB buddy VWE

Visual Aids

Happy Halloween

Last minute costume ideas

Big Change Maybe

The faintest of wry smiles comes across my face when I find something that even barely hints at the prospect of the death of Commodification coming sooner than expected.

From a short bit at NASDAQ earlier this month:

The critical natural gas transit country, Ukraine, reached a supply agreement in the last week of September with the EU’s largest fuel supply partner: Russia.

One could argue that this agreement could actually have come too late. Natural gas supply to Europe heading into winter 2015 seems more secure than ever before, a sharp contrast to the icy winters of 2006 and 2009, in which Russia cut off natural gas supply to Eastern Europe over a conflict with the Ukraine. The following factors have turned the European natural gas market from a ‘’beggars can’t be choosers” into a true “buyers’ market’’.

And this from CNBC today:

Kilduff said gas was being hit by expectations a record amount of natural gas will soon be in storage. Weekly data show gas storage at 3.81 trillion cubic feet, and the record is 3.929 trillion cubic feet in November 2012.

The Energy Information Agency predicts a peak of 3.956 trillion this November, said Kilduff, who projects it to reach more than 4 trillion. He said the most recent weather report shows above-normal temperatures for the eastern region, a significant user of heating fuels

The oversupply is also causing problems. "The producing region is at a record storage level," said McGillian. He said if more gas is forced into the spot market, the price will drop even more.

But then again, I can't ignore that this is part of the little political game we love to play.  So instead of taking any real steps toward understanding that resources are limited and we have to figure out how to move ourselves past the self-destructive nonsense of Chop-It-Down-Burn-It-Up-Dig-It-Up-Burn-It-Down, here's what I think is most likely to happen.

Nothing.

Not much that's different anyway.  And prob'ly nothing but the usual and customary crap of tax-payers gettin' stuck with the check.  We more or less bank-rolled the drive for all this "energy" - sweetheart tax incentives and access to public land; roads and utilities; and sometimes direct subsidies; not to mention having the watchdogs conveniently look the other way while Halliburton (eg) gets to poison the living fuck outa everything.  Plus, we get to pay for some pretty high-priced consultants and PR pricks to make the products of USAmerica Inc more palatable to "foreign markets" etc etc etc.  And now that those markets are reacting to a supply glut (that we manufactured btw), guess what all those high-rollin' entrepreneurial self-made macho assholes are gonna do next.  I think we can pretty much count on 'em to go crying to "their" congress critters that the sugar bowl's empty now and they just can't possibly be expected to take it all on their-own-poor-selfless-selves to clean up the ginormous fucking mess they made while soaking the last dime's worth of life from one more patch of a dying planet.

We can bumper-sticker-ize it: Privatized profits and Socialized costs, but here's the kicker - since they did it on our dime (and because nobody's complaining about 2-dollar gas), they can make a lot of us believe they did it all because we asked them to do it.

And they can make it stick - shit, we'll pay 'em to do it.

And they can do it all over again next time.

No soul and no honor.

Today's Pix

So, I Guess It's Monday(?)

Sunday Funnies

A Special Logic

EXPOSED: Paul Ryan helps his donors block family leave bill, then demands Congress give him personal family time https://t.co/3DY2O4AA3G

— David Sirota (@davidsirota) October 23, 2015

Here's how I think it plays out in Paul Ryan's "brain": I'm against family leave, and you're against me for being against it.  So then, when I demand family leave, you don't get to be against me now that I'm for family leave for myself - because if you're against my being against it, then you being against me now for being for it makes you a typically hypocritical Libtard.

It's entirely possible guys like Ryan (and GOP operatives in general) do that kinda shit on purpose - not so much the Etch-A-Sketch thing (although there's plenty of that to it too) - but more like, "these blockheaded rubes who make up the GOP base aren't exactly deep thinkers anyway, so we can throw a buncha smoke and eventually they'll get confused and tired and they'll just leave it all to us like they always do.

'swhat it looks like from here right now anyway.

Yeah, About That

My main contention about Politics In Public is that nothing is ever about what the pols are willing to tell us it's about.

So I'm wondering - the Repubs might be trying really really hard to make Benghazi about Hillary because they desperately need us not to be thinking of the obvious connection between The Bush Doctrine and what an even bigger total cluster fuck "The Arab World" has become since we started swinging the big USAmerica Inc dick around knockin' shit over late in 2001 - which, btw, every "liberal" tried to warn us was likely to happen, while every "conservative" kept telling us it couldn't possibly happen because after all, inside every stoopid mooslim is a clean-cut Methodist-wanna-be with a burning desire to open up a shoe store in Topeka and join the local JCs.

How often do we hafta make the same fucking mistake before we get with the fucking program here?

Another great tweet:

How @TheDemocrats have felt about the GOP for the last 30 years in one picture. #p2 pic.twitter.com/6YrfUmwpVn

— Jason Hitchcock (@JasonHitchcock) October 22, 2015

And one more thing - I've been watching the Benghazi Circus today, and I've been hearing HRC trying mightily not to end every sentence with "Silly Goose" or "Sonny" or "you scabrous fucking twat-waffle".

Wow, Maybe?

Yeah, OK - it's Vermont.  But when was the last time anybody running at the national level as a Democrat managed to score with farmers of any stripe or region?

Gotta give Bernie some props here.

hat tip = Democratic Underground

Today's Tweet

From driftglass (aka @mr_electrico on Twitter):

via @mr_electrico CC: @GottaLaff @lafloran pic.twitter.com/1qO7gVLSTm

— Blue Gal/Fran (@bluegal) October 22, 2015

Nobody does the Photoshop thing better.  Catch his blog here: driftglass.blogspot.com

Today's Takedown

Haven't seen a better hunk of satire in quite a while.  Copied whole from The New Yorker:

I was shooting heroin and reading “The Fountainhead” in the front seat of my privately owned police cruiser when a call came in. I put a quarter in the radio to activate it. It was the chief.

“Bad news, detective. We got a situation.”

“What? Is the mayor trying to ban trans fats again?”

“Worse. Somebody just stole four hundred and forty-seven million dollars’ worth of bitcoins.”

The heroin needle practically fell out of my arm. “What kind of monster would do something like that? Bitcoins are the ultimate currency: virtual, anonymous, stateless. They represent true economic freedom, not subject to arbitrary manipulation by any government. Do we have any leads?”

“Not yet. But mark my words: we’re going to figure out who did this and we’re going to take them down … provided someone pays us a fair market rate to do so.”

“Easy, chief,” I said. “Any rate the market offers is, by definition, fair.”

He laughed. “That’s why you’re the best I got, Lisowski. Now you get out there and find those bitcoins.”

“Don’t worry,” I said. “I’m on it.”

I put a quarter in the siren. Ten minutes later, I was on the scene. It was a normal office building, strangled on all sides by public sidewalks. I hopped over them and went inside.
“Home Depot™ Presents the Police!®” I said, flashing my badge and my gun and a small picture of Ron Paul. “Nobody move unless you want to!” They didn’t.
“Now, which one of you punks is going to pay me to investigate this crime?” No one spoke up.

“Come on,” I said. “Don’t you all understand that the protection of private property is the foundation of all personal liberty?”

It didn’t seem like they did.

“Seriously, guys. Without a strong economic motivator, I’m just going to stand here and not solve this case. Cash is fine, but I prefer being paid in gold bullion or autographed Penn Jillette posters.”

Nothing. These people were stonewalling me. It almost seemed like they didn’t care that a fortune in computer money invented to buy drugs was missing.
I figured I could wait them out. I lit several cigarettes indoors. A pregnant lady coughed, and I told her that secondhand smoke is a myth. Just then, a man in glasses made a break for it.

“Subway™ Eat Fresh and Freeze, Scumbag!®” I yelled.

Too late. He was already out the front door. I went after him.

“Stop right there!” I yelled as I ran. He was faster than me because I always try to avoid stepping on public sidewalks. Our country needs a private-sidewalk voucher system, but, thanks to the incestuous interplay between our corrupt federal government and the public-sidewalk lobby, it will never happen.

I was losing him. “Listen, I’ll pay you to stop!” I yelled. “What would you consider an appropriate price point for stopping? I’ll offer you a thirteenth of an ounce of gold and a gently worn ‘Bob Barr ‘08’ extra-large long-sleeved men’s T-shirt!”
He turned. In his hand was a revolver that the Constitution said he had every right to own. He fired at me and missed. I pulled my own gun, put a quarter in it, and fired back. The bullet lodged in a U.S.P.S. mailbox less than a foot from his head. I shot the mailbox again, on purpose.

“All right, all right!” the man yelled, throwing down his weapon. “I give up, cop! I confess: I took the bitcoins.”

“Why’d you do it?” I asked, as I slapped a pair of Oikos™ Greek Yogurt Presents Handcuffs® on the guy.

“Because I was afraid.”

“Afraid?”

“Afraid of an economic future free from the pernicious meddling of central bankers,” he said. “I’m a central banker.”

I wanted to coldcock the guy. Years ago, a central banker killed my partner. Instead, I shook my head.

“Let this be a message to all your central-banker friends out on the street,” I said. “No matter how many bitcoins you steal, you’ll never take away the dream of an open society based on the principles of personal and economic freedom.”

He nodded, because he knew I was right. Then he swiped his credit card to pay me for arresting him.

Tom O’Donnell’s children’s novel, “Space Rocks!” is out now.

Happy Day, Nerds

It's Back To The Future Day!

But alas, no flying cars.

Today's Pix

Today's Tweet

Martin Shkreli got rolled on the internet because - well because he's a top-shelf douchenozzle.

We may be super divided politically right now, but at least we can all come together to laugh at @MartinShkreli pic.twitter.com/mFZsbxO6Zu

— Cassandra Fairbanks (@CassandraRules) October 19, 2015