For no reason other than interesting!


Strange Maps

Gravity

Help! My face has fallen and won't get up.

Human Rights Watch's annual "World Report" --Despots Masquerading as Democrats

Report Says Democracies Enable Despots By WILLIAM C. MANN Associated Press Writer

This AP report is surfacing all over and will be probably be the one that makes it in most of tomorrow's newspapers.

Too bad -- fluff as usual.

Here's a little more of what this report says from The Interpress Service
RIGHTS: West Gives False "Democracies" A Pass By Jim Lobe

and the Guardian Unlimited
Human rights group condemns western hypocrisy by Peter Walker



WASHINGTON, Jan 31 (IPS) - Western governments, eager to pursue their political or economic interests, too often reward self-proclaimed and flawed "democracies" that clearly abuse the political and civil rights of their citizens, according to the latest edition of Human Rights Watch's annual "World Report" released here Thursday.

The mere holding of elections does not make a state democratic, according to the report. Yet both the United States and the European Union (EU) have used such exercises to justify aid and closer ties to friendly or potentially useful governments, according to the report.

"It seems Washington and European governments will accept even the most dubious election so long as the 'victor' is a strategic or commercial ally," said HRW director Kenneth Roth, author of the report's introduction.

In doing so, they undermine the causes of both democracy and human rights, according to the 569-report.

"(I)f dictators can get away with calling themselves 'democrats,' they will have acquired a powerful tool for deflecting pressure to uphold human rights," Roth wrote. "It is time to stop selling democracy on the cheap and to start substituting a broader and more meaningful vision of the concept that incorporates all human rights."

One of the most dramatic examples in 2007 was U.S. President George W. Bush's endorsement of Pakistani President Gen. Pervez Musharraf as "somebody who believes in democracy" and his government as having put the country "on the road to democracy", even after the former army chief declared "emergency rule", fired the supreme court, and arrested thousands of opposition activists.

"(I)f, unlike human rights law, 'the road to democracy' permits locking up political opponents, dismissing independent judges, and silencing the independent press, it is easy to see why tyrants the world over are tempted to believe that they, too, might be eligible," according to Roth.



Both articles above give a "bit" more to the findings than the AP story.

Bombs Away

Who Cares?

According to this piece by Tom Engelhardt, the US dropped 45,000 kilograms or so of explosives in a small area south of Baghdad, Arab Jabour, a small Sunni farming community. This barely made the news. The Germans reportedly dropped 45,000 kilograms of explosives on on Guernica on April 27, 1937. It was seen as a tragedy. Engelhardt investigates US air power today and how it's reported. What would once have been deemed barbaric hardly merits a sentence in the news.

Meet the new boss. Same as the old boss.

My pissy mood continues because we don't have much of a choice come super Tuesday. A couple of states and the media decided for the vast vast vast majority of Americans who we get to vote for. So fuck it.

Prioritizing Resources and Organization for Intellectual Property ("PRO IP") Act of 2007 -- Speaks VOLUMES to our current "Intellectual State"

PRO IP Bill Slammed By Bloggers

This is a great summary byDavid Utter:

Though the report on the House Judiciary Committee website noted how the PRO IP Act helps labor unions and industry groups, there isn't any mention of how this legislation benefits anyone who isn't dumping campaign contributions on the bipartisan supporters of the bill.

"This legislation is an important and necessary step in the fight to maintain our competitive edge in a global marketplace," Chairman John Conyers said in the statement.

With all due respect, Chairman Conyers, and distinguished members of the Committee, it is not. Adding layers to US laws and bureaucracy matters not one whit to the counterfeiters who ply their trade in China, Russia, and a host of other countries.

It doesn't benefit the rights of any American with regards to fair use of intellectual property. The Act certainly does a hell of a job criminalizing alleged copyright and trademark infringement. Jeremy Toeman commented best on this, on his heavily linked open letter to House Majority Leader Nancy Pelosi:

Instead of protecting the wants and needs of the many by forcing big media firms to evolve and adapt to the new technologies, the laws sprung up to protect these companies and allow them to live in the older world. PRO IP is yet another example of such laws.
It is bad enough that we have so few major media companies. It is bad enough that they can exert financial pressure to dominate the movie theaters and the airwaves. It is bad enough that they control the enormous quantities of media we as Americans consume....individual creativity combined with the distribution power of the Internet is finally allowing people to slowly retake control of the media they consume.

Historically it is this effort, individual creativity, that our government has helped protect and thrive. Not the demands of the rich and famous. It is in fact ironic that the major media companies of today were built on the shoulders of enabling laws, not crippling laws


Read Jeremy Toeman's entire letter and please copy and send this to your congress critter per Mr. Toeman
(you know, just in case sanity doesn't prevail with our elected "American Intellectual Mouth Pieces" we call our Congress)

Here's CHAIRMAN Conyers on the subject
"This legislation is an important and necessary step in the fight to maintain our competitive edge in a global marketplace," Chairman Conyers said. "By providing additional resources for enforcement of intellectual property, we ensure that innovation and creativity will continue to prosper in our society."


Jeremy Toeman really makes the point here:

Historically, Congress never used to side with major media companies. Throughout the 20th century, our leaders addressed new issues based on the wants and needs of the American people. Lawsuits have emerged over virtually every technology innovation as it pertained to media and content, from vinyl through compact disk. In virtually every case, Congress always put the pressure on the traditional companies to learn how to grow and change based on new technologies. That is, however, until the emergence of the broadband Internet and the MP3 music compression format.

For some reason, still not clear to me, these two technologies together caused the government to effectively switch teams. Instead of protecting the wants and needs of the many by forcing big media firms to evolve and adapt to the new technologies, the laws sprung up to protect these companies and allow them to live in the older world. PRO IP is yet another example of such laws.

(and just because I can't keep my 500lb. Hi-Fi; the $$spent on Vinyl through the years, then the 8-tracks, then the cassetts, then the CDs, now the ipod-tune library -- I HAVE NO PROBLEMO "sharing" a tune that I've bought 10 times already!!!-- gotta wonder how much of that money I spent went to the artist - and I gotta wonder what Apple's gonna do with their $15 billion cash hoard)


Here are some links to a few sites that have been covering this "Act" since December:

House Committee hears the Cons of the PRO-IP Act:

The House today held a hearing on the new PRO-IP Act that beefs up intellectual property enforcement. Rick Cotton, a top NBC lawyer and representative for the Coalition Against Counterfeiting and Piracy (CACP), called counterfeiting and piracy "a global pandemic" and "a dagger into the heart of America's future economic security." What the US needs, he said, is a "declaration of war." But not even the Department of Justice is convinced that PRO-IP, in its current form, is that sort of declaration.


Here's how Congress Proposes to Enhance IP Enforcement and Penalties:

the bill would establish an "Office of the U.S. Intellectual Property Enforcement Representative" in the White House. This office would coordinate IP enforcement activities through a number of government and international agencies. This office would also be charged with developing a "Joint Strategic Plan" to identify, disrupt, and/or eliminate persons and businesses involved in trafficking of counterfeit and pirated goods and sharing information among relevant agencies. The plan would also work with other countries to strengthen IP enforcement and reduce the number of countries that fail to enforce anti-counterfeit and piracy laws.

The bill would also create an Intellectual Property Enforcement Division within the Justice Department and would appoint IP attachés to work with foreign governments on anti-piracy efforts.


The Prioritizing Resources and Organization for Intellectual Property (PRO IP... groan) Act of 2007
has the backing of many of the most powerful politicians on the House Judiciary Committee, including John Conyers (D-MI), Lamar Smith (R-TX), and "Hollywood" Howard Berman (D-CA).

Gigi Sohn, president of Public Knowledge, said in a statement, "seizing expensive manufacturing equipment used for large-scale infringement from a commercial pirate may be appropriate. Seizing a family's general-purpose computer in a download case, as this bill would allow, is not appropriate."




Yesterday from ars technica:

Copy a CD, owe $1.5 million under "gluttonous" PRO-IP Act
By Nate Anderson

Both Patry and Sohn attended a Copyright Office roundtable on statutory damages a few days ago, and Public Knowledge's staff attorney Sherwin Siy has posted a fascinating writeup of the closed-door session: Roundtable on Copyright Damages: "What are we doing here?"

William Patry is Google's top copyright lawyer (and the man who wrote a seven-volume treatise on the subject of copyright law), called the bill the most "outrageously gluttonous IP bill ever introduced in the US."


AND FINALLY we hear from Attorney Patry (his own blog - nothing to do with google -- I even had to dig in a few pages to get an "update" on the PRO-IP happenings) -- I'll keep click click clicking away on your link Mr. Patry -- maybe you'll move up to page one on the google search by the end of the day!!



WELL SAID MR PATRY:
(Skip the first paragraph and the title of his post if you're sick of Reagan already)


The purpose of the amendment is not to clarify Congress's intent because Congress's intent is already clear; the purpose of the amendment is not to correct the courts, because the courts have done a pretty good job in interpreting the statute; the purpose of the amendment is not to provide needed flexibility in the award of damages because the current law already has tremendous flexibility; rather the purpose of the amendment is to hand a windfall to those who have too much already and who will never be satisfied with more.

Florida Fallout

Yes, I'll use the term Fallout, as if the Florida primary were a nuclear weapon whose glowing and hot to the touch debris and by-products rain down on any hapless target downwind from the site of the explosion.

As to the type of weapon, Florida was a neutron bomb, or enhanced radiation weapon. An ERW doesn't cause much physical damage; it just kills people.

But since we're talking elections, the Florida ERW killed campaigns.

The first victim of the radiation was (as you might expect) the oldest and weakest. Rudy Giuliani put all his chips on Florida with the idea of ignoring or bypassing the little contests and reaping a big crop of delegates. However, waiting for Godot in this fashion enabled a lot of people to finally sit back and critically examine the sordid past, fetid Mayoral administration, and strange shenanigans of the Rudy.

With perhaps predictable results. Poor Rudy.

He never won a single contest, in some cases actually losing to Ron Paul.

And today it's widely expected that Giuliani, corneas opaque, skin laced with suppurating lesions and losing what little hair he still has, will shamble up to a microphone and give up what many thought last year was a free ride straight into the White HOuse.

The second victim of the fine rain of fallout, descending as it does like fog, on little cat feet, was John Edwards. Edwards was the former Democratic #2 nominee back in 2004; he'd been in the fight before all the way to the end, which would give him some experience. He was a populist, having a deep empathy for the working poor and those who never saw any benefit from Bush's tax cuts and the rest of his imbecilic economic policies.

But I think that his message was blocked; first by Clinton's greater street cred, bigger reputation and campaign machinery; and by Obama's ability to reach out and touch a chord with people that made them want to join with him to make this country a better place.

As a result he never did better than second, if I recall aright. Even at the debates it was hard for him to get a word in over the two top candidates.

Sad, John.

And now it's being reported that Edwards, his once-mocked hair falling out haphazardly in scattered patches and pus dripping from his still-smiling lips, will go to New Orleans and give up his campaign. But being younger than Rudy, Edwards will revive himself and rally his strength by participating in Habitat for Humanity, helping to rebuild a neighborhood in New Orleans.

Who's next?

Ron Paul's a doctor, so his campaign might cling to life, buttressed by infusions of exotic and powerful drugs;

Alan Keyes - well, he's a walking corpse; he hasn't realized yet that the fallout has killed his chances.

What do you think?

Today's Readings

(and add your own in the comments)

How about this from Greg Palast's One Bush Left Behind?

Here’s your question, class:

In his State of the Union, the President asked Congress for $300 million for poor kids in the inner city. As there are, officially, 15 million children in America living in poverty, how much is that per child? Correct! $20.

Here’s your second question. The President also demanded that Congress extend his tax cuts. The cost: $4.3 trillion over ten years. The big recipients are millionaires. And the number of millionaires happens, not coincidentally, to equal the number of poor kids, roughly 15 million of them. OK class: what is the cost of the tax cut per millionaire? That’s right, Richie, $287,000 apiece.

Mr. Bush said, “In neighborhoods across our country, there are boys and girls with dreams. And a decent education is their only hope of achieving them.”

So how much educational dreaming will $20 buy?

The Palast investigative team went to urban America to see what they could score for $20. Indeed they found something. A "rock" of cocaine which would fill a kid's dream for about 15 minutes.

Paul Craig Roberts in "Your Papers, Please!" The End of American Liberty

Bush can do whatever he wants, because Congress has taken its only remaining power--impeachment--off the table.

The Democratic Party leadership thinks that the only problem is Bush, who will be gone in one year. Besides, the Israel Lobby doesn't want Israel's champion impeached, and neither do the corporate owners of the US media.

The Democrats are not adverse to inheriting the powers in Bush's precedents. The Democrats, of course, will use the elevated powers for good rather than for evil.

Instead of having a bad dictator, we'll have a good one.

Not so sure that any dictator is good.

This piece at the Onion, We Must All Do Our Part To Preserve This Climate Of Fear
reminds us

Fear has always made America strong. Were we ever more determined than during the Yellow Scare? When every Christian gentleman lived in mortal terror of his daughter being doped up on opium and raped by pagan, mustachioed Chinamen? What about the Red Scare, when citizens from all walks of life showed their pride by turning in their friends and associates to rabid anticommunists? Has America ever been more resolute?

Not so very long ago, we winced every time we saw someone with facial hair or a backpack. Average people were terrified of opening their mail for fear of getting a face full of anthrax. Those were perhaps our country's greatest days. Yet that once-phobic spirit that defined our times is drastically changing.

Naomi Klein explains Why the Right Loves a Disaster

More than a decade ago, economist Dani Rodrik, then at Columbia University, studied the circumstances in which governments adopted free-trade policies. His findings were striking: “No significant case of trade reform in a developing country in the 1980s took place outside the context of a serious economic crisis.” The 1990s proved him right in dramatic fashion. In Russia, an economic meltdown set the stage for fire-sale privatizations. Next, the Asian crisis in 1997-98 cracked open the “Asian tigers” to a frenzy of foreign takeovers, a process the New York Times dubbed “the world’s biggest going-out-of-business sale.”

To be sure, desperate countries will generally do what it takes to get a bailout. An atmosphere of panic also frees the hands of politicians to quickly push through radical changes that would otherwise be too unpopular, such as privatization of essential services, weakening of worker protections and free-trade deals. In a crisis, debate and democratic process can be handily dismissed as unaffordable luxuries.

Oh and it doesn't matter to the ideologues whether or not disaster capitalism actually fixes the crisis.

An open thread on the Republicans:

Romney is the champion flip-flopper.

Huckabee wants an inquisition society.

McCain pretends moderation.

The media doesn’t like McCain.

The media thinks McCain/Huckabee will be the ticket.

The media thinks McCain/Huckabee will beat Hillary or Obama.

On MSNBC, Timmy is looking for a Kleenex when he talks about McCain.

All of a sudden, it’s in vogue for the Republicans to be “moderate.”

All of a sudden the Republicans want fiscal responsibility.

Thoughts?

The Evolution of Mathematics:

(Subtitle): Oh God! Not another "remember when" post!

1. Teaching Math In 1950s:
A logger sells a truckload of lumber for $100. His cost of production is 4/5 of the price. What is his profit?

2. Teaching Math In 1960s:
A logger sells a truckload of lumber for $100. His cost of production is 4/5 of the price, or $80. What is his profit?

3. Teaching Math In 1970s:
A logger sells a truckload of lumber for $100. His cost of production is $80. Did he make a profit?

4. Teaching Math In 1980s:
A logger sells a truckload of lumber for $100. His cost of production is $80 and his profit is $20. Your assignment: Underline the number 20.

5. Teaching Math In 1990s:
A logger cuts down a beautiful forest because he is selfish and inconsiderate and cares nothing for the habitat of animals or the preservation of our woodlands. He does this so he can make a profit of $20. What do you think of this way of making a living? Topic for class participation after answering the question: How did the birds and squirrels feel as the logger cut down their homes? (There are no wrong answers, and if you feel like crying, it's ok.)

Florida Primary Day - Verbum Sap. Time

Here are a few eminently quotable quotes from that fount of ancient wisdom (har har), Lazarus Long (with a nod to his creator, the noted SF author Robert A. Heinlein):

Certainly the game is rigged. Don't let that stop you; if you don't bet, you can't win.

If you are part of a society that votes, then do so. There may be no candidates and no measures you want to vote for...but there are certain to be ones you want to vote against. In case of doubt, vote against. By this rule you will rarely go wrong. If this is too blind for your taste, consult some well-meaning fool (there is always one around) and ask his advice. Then vote the other way. This enables you to be a good citizen (if such is your wish) without spending the enormous amount of time on it that truly intelligent exercise of franchise requires.



And my personal favorite:

Writing is not necessarily something to be ashamed of---but do it in private and wash your hands afterwards.

Odd Science Corner

From Yahoo! News comes this amazing article about one of the ugliest creatures on our planet (in my opinion).

"As vulnerable as naked mole rats seem, researchers now find the hairless, bucktoothed rodents are invulnerable to the pain of acid and the sting of chili peppers.
A better understanding of pain resistance in these sausage-like creatures could lead to new drugs for people with chronic pain, scientists added.
Naked mole rats live in cramped, oxygen-starved burrows some six feet underground in central East Africa. Unusually, they are cold-blooded — which, as far as anyone knows, is unique among mammals.

-snip-

Scientists knew the mole rats were quite sensitive to touch — perhaps to help replace their almost useless eyes. After probing their skin, Park and his colleagues unexpectedly discovered the rodents lacked the chemical Substance P, which causes the feeling of burning pain in mammals."


Neat stuff, eh?

The Masquerade... the masquerade

When ever some unappetizing political event takes place, Blondesense Liz asks me to write a report on it. I guess I have a better stomach to deal with it. Well, scotch on the rocks really helps.

I watched the State of The Union (the last one) of the "incompetent in chief". It was, as always, predictable. I read this guy. Whenever there is a major political or national decision to make, he will take the opposite action of what the people of this country demand or desire. It's so easy, to figure it out.

All members of the Congress sat at opposite sides of the isle. Occasionally, the pod-people (the body snatchers) sitting on the right side would robotically jump up from their seats, with open mouths and point their index fingers to the other side of the isle, shrieking their usual sounds at the non-pod-people, while the pod-father in chief sitting behind the speaker, never blinking, with his lips white like a morgue patient, approving of the cut-tax-fest, "fuck the poor" calls of the speaker.

Well, Mr Bush, this is all about your legacy, the legacy of the pod-people taking over this earth.
You should go into the sunset with your platitudes, incompetency, class warfare, enriching your friends, leader of the world.

History will judge you properly and I will sleep better that there was no new "axis of evil" in your speech. I will hold my breath while you expire and be forgotten.

Other than that there is nothing to report. If you missed it, you missed nothing.

Days of Future Past

This appeared on my screen last night. It’s from my great-great granddaughter. It was delivered by HoloTyme, a service she started in 2076. After researching (quaint notion, this reading thing, she says) through some remaining historical works on the early days of the Internets, (most literature was destroyed in the Religious Wars of the early 21^st Century) she found Peter’s post on something called “Blondesense” about the good old days of the mid 20^th Century. Finding such barbarism hard to believe, she thought I might find it interesting what the kids of today (late 21^st Century) heard from their grandparents remembered about the beginnings of the 21^st Century so she Tymed© this piece to me from 2092. She wasn’t sure how much was true.

Remember when: 2008

How many of you remember back at the turn of the century? Remember when:

There were still occasional blue skies and clouds were white.

There were birds everywhere.

Rivers used to have living things called fish in them.

There were hundreds of species of animals that lived in the wilds instead of zoos

You could jog (an archaic form of exercise by running along roads or in parks) for long periods of time without having to take an Oxygen pill.

They had drinking fountains in parks.

You ONLY needed SPF 150 to block the Sun’s UV Rays.

There were large containers of water that people cooled off in and lounged around while getting what they called a “tan” from the sun. (Why?)

Some people spent time in the outdoors; days at a time - and survived!

You could see stars at night from almost anywhere when you were outside.

Antarctica was frozen over all year.

There were Icebergs in the oceans.

You could live in Miami and New Orleans and other coastal cities before they were flooded.

People owned their own homes and other property.

Most of America wore heavy coats from November to March.

People watched 2 dimensional videos on things called Flat Screen TVs.

You listened to music through small speakers that went in or over your ears.

Movies were on 12 cm discs that only held 4 hours of video.

You could walk for miles in our remaining forest without seeing a logger or oil derrick.

You could travel from state to state without permission.

People read printed words on paper pages in objects called “books.”

It took hours to fly across the country.

Roads had things called “potholes” in them.

People used things called “Cell Phones” to communicate.

Electricity was provided by overhead wires on poles attached to your house.

Almost everyone had a lawn and there were small machines called Lawn Mowers for cutting its grass.

You went to a building called a school to learn things.

An education only cost a hundred thousand dollars.

Computers were external devices.

People worked as much as 8 hours a day, 5 days a week. (Must have been slave labor!)

They were paid “money” (some kind of paper) to work for others.

You could buy a decent vehicle for less than 30,000 pieces of that "money"(?)

Vehicles used fossil fuels and polluted the air.

They actually used fossil fuel for cooking and heating.

Most food came from the flesh of animals.

There were things called hospitals and doctors.

George W. Bush really did live and was a president of the U.S.

She said there was more but it was pretty hard to believe…and pretty sad.

HoloTyme Inc. rules prohibit her from telling me anything about the future but she did say the period from 2009 to 2048 would be very interesting, but thanks for everything we tried to do anyway!

(Thanx FLS)

Better than fiction.

The UK Sunday Times performs investigative journalism, Tip-off thwarted nuclear spy ring probe, the kind that you will never see in the US media (because they are all in on it or asleep at the wheel or scared or all of the above) and reports that Sibel Edmonds,(the Farsi translator hired by the FBI after 9/11, then fired and stifled,) knew that senior State Department official, Marc Grossman outed Valerie Plame's cover, Brewster Jennings, to Turkish agents working with Israelis by planting moles in "military and academic institutions to acquire nuclear secrets." The State Department vehemently denies this. Natch.

See these related stories in the Times
For sale: West’s deadly nuclear secrets
FBI denies file exposing nuclear secrets theft

I'm thinking that this makes for one whopper of a spy novel and gigantic conspiracy theory, the likes of which we haven't seen since the Cold War. Not only that, if this story broke in the US, I think it could bring down the government, its agencies, the administration, the judiciary and the House (that is of course, if the same government in question wasn't doing the investigating.)

Now check out this story from the Guardian yesterday: A Criminal Idea

27/01/08 "The Guardian" -- -- Five former Nato generals, including the former chairman of the US Joint Chiefs of Staff, John Shalikashvili, have written a "radical manifesto" which states that "the West must be ready to resort to a pre-emptive nuclear attack to try to halt the 'imminent' spread of nuclear and other weapons of mass destruction."

In other words, the generals argue that "the west" - meaning the nuclear powers including the United States, France and Britain - should prepare to use nuclear weapons, not to deter a nuclear attack, not to retaliate following such an attack, and not even to pre-empt an imminent nuclear attack. Rather, they should use them to prevent the acquisition of nuclear weapons by a non-nuclear state. And not only that, they should use them to prevent the acquisition of biological or chemical weapons by such a state.

It's a world gone mad. Completely mad.

What's it take to get people to vote?

It must take a long time for many Americans to understand the basic goings on in life. Most of us knew in 2000 that George Bush would be bad for America. We knew he already was a liar, conniver, deceitful thing that should have been flushed with the condom his daddy should have used.

Incidents over the next 3 years added to the remarkably epidemic apathy of more and more Americans. Our cost of living sky rocketed while our standard of living plummeted. We were told that shortages and price increases were to be expected because of terrorism or rather what terrorism MIGHT do in the future.

In 2004 people everywhere were upset with the direction this country was headed. But not that upset because we were told happy bedtime stories again by our ethnic grandfather. He would always finish with, “And they lived happily after ever… and you will too as long as you listen to me and do what I say because no matter how bad you think it is, it could always be worse. That’s why you must sacrifice. But remember, I’m always here to protect you from things that might happen.” Then we’d shut off the TV and stop listening to those crazy left wingers and turn off the light and go to sleep secure in the knowledge that Grandpa W was protecting us from the Boogeyman; or his Boogeyman.

So we gave old Grandpa a vote of confidence and let him tuck us in for 4 more years – by staying home election day. I guess it was easier to stay home and watch TV than go out and vote. No sense in changing things when they’re going so well or rather when things aren’t really affecting most of us; so the TV says. And things are getting better with the war, the economy is doing real well, jobs are up; why change; why vote for someone else; why vote at all?

But deep down inside we knew he wasn’t telling everything to us yet we thought that if things were really bad the newspapers and people on TV News surely would let us know the truth.

By 2006, many more of us became aware that things weren’t as swell as Bush said they were. Sure there would be some changes in Congress and those new people would help out by correcting things we didn’t know about or care about. Still, no reason to get out and vote. Lots of others will vote in the right people; someone else will take care of it; just sit on the couch and watch TV. Hey, American Idol is on!

Its 2008: When did things get so bad? Why are prices so high? How come my town is losing jobs and what’s with the rising LOCAL taxes? Just how long has this been going on and why hasn’t anyone told us about this? I heard that Miss Julie died because she couldn't afford health care. What's up with that? Maybe we better get out there and vote these guys out of office. We need change and we need it now.

Who’s running against the jerk responsible for this? I guess it’s time we all voted. Probably should have voted last time!

Anybody know what (this guy) stands for?

Yay for progress!

I don't have much to comment on the SC primary yesterday. Just read all the headlines and some of the stories over at Hinessight.com to get the full picture of what the corporate media wants you to think about it. I think I am really disappointed with the Clintons for playing the race card, however, it could be that the media is playing the race card in their name for I cannot trust what I read. Personally, I was happy to see young people and minority people engaged in the political process. This is indeed progress. I hope it serves as inspiration for the rest of the states even though most of the rest of us won't meet any candidates.

I'm also really happy that Rudy is tanking in Florida. For a while there, I was concerned that Americans were lapping up his nonsensical spew. Oh god, you didn't want NY's former mayor to be your president. Talk about a police state. He would have made bush look compassionate.

I've been thinking about these Tuesday primaries coming up and it disturbs me that they take place on days when most people have to work or go to school. If the country and the states really cared about a government by and for the people, wouldn't election days be state holidays? Think about it. Don't accept it. Write some letters. Kick some ass.

What's it like to live in Geezerville?

"Hey Dad," one of my kids asked the other day, " What was your favorite fast food when you were growing up?"
"We didn't have fast food when I was growing up," I informed him. "All the food was slow."
"C'mon, seriously. Where did you eat?"
"It was a place called at home," I explained. "Grandma cooked every day and when Grandpa got home from work, we sat down together at the dining room table, and if I didn't like what she put on my plate I was allowed to sit there until I did like it."
By this time, the kid was laughing so hard I was afraid he was going to suffer serious internal damage, so I didn't tell him the part about how I had to have permission to leave the table. But here are some other things I would have told him about my childhood if I figured his system could have handled it:

Some parents NEVER owned their own house, wore Levis, set foot on a golf course, traveled out of the country or had a credit card. In their later years they had something called a revolving charge card. The card was good only at Sears Roebuck. Or maybe it was Sears AND Roebuck. Either way, there is no Roebuck anymore. Maybe he died.
My parents never drove me to soccer practice. This was mostly because we never had heard of soccer. I had a bicycle that weighed probably 50 pounds, and only had one speed, (slow). We didn't have a television in our house until I was 11, but my grandparents had one before that. It was, of course, black and white, but they bought a piece of colored plastic to cover the screen. The top third was blue, like the sky, and the bottom third was green, like grass. The middle third was red. It was perfect for programs that had scenes of fire trucks riding across someone's lawn on a sunny day. Some people had a lens taped to the front of the TV to make the picture look larger.
I was 13 before I tasted my first pizza, it was called "pizza pie." When I bit into it, I burned the roof of my mouth and the cheese slid off, swung down, plastered itself against my chin and burned that, too. It's still the best pizza I ever had.
We didn't have a car until I was 15. Before that, the only car in our family was my grandfather's Ford. He called it a "machine."
I never had a telephone in my room. The only phone in the house was in the living room and it was on a party line. Before you could dial, you had to listen and make sure some people you didn't know weren't already using the line.
Pizzas were not delivered to our home. But milk was.
All newspapers were delivered by boys and all boys delivered newspapers. I delivered a newspaper, six days a week. It cost 7 cents a paper, of which I got to keep 2 cents. I had to get up at 4 AM every morning. On Saturday, I had to collect the 42 cents from my customers. My favorite customers were the ones who gave me 50 cents and told me to keep the change. My least favorite customers were the ones who seemed to never be home on collection day.
Movie stars kissed with their mouths shut. At least, they did in the movies. Touching someone else's tongue with yours was called French kissing and they didn't do that in movies. I don't know what they did in French movies. French movies were dirty and we weren't allowed to see them.

If you grew up in a generation before there was fast food, you may want to share some of these memories with your children or grandchildren. Just don't blame me if they bust a gut laughing.

Growing up isn't what it used to be, is it?

More memories from a friend:
My Dad is cleaning out my grandmother's house (she died in December) and he brought me an old Royal Crown Cola bottle. In the bottle top was a stopper with a bunch of holes in it. I knew immediately what it was, but my daughter had no idea. She thought they had tried to make it a salt shaker or something. I knew it as the bottle that sat on the end of the ironing board to "sprinkle" clothes with because we didn't have steam irons. Man, I am old.

How many do you remember?
Head lights dimmer switches on the floor.
Ignition switches on the dashboard.
Heaters mounted on the inside of the fire wall.
Real ice boxes.
Pant leg clips for bicycles without chain guards.
Soldering irons you heat on a gas burner.
Using hand signals for cars without turn signals.

Older Than Dirt Quiz: Count all the ones that you remember not the ones you were told about. Ratings at the bottom.

1. Blackjack chewing gum
2. Wax Coke-shaped bottles with colored sugar water
3. Candy cigarettes
4. Soda pop machines that dispensed glass bottles
5. Coffee shops or diners with tableside juke boxes
6. Home milk delivery in glass bottles with cardboard stoppers
7. Party lines
8. Newsreels before the movie
9. P.F. Flyers
10. Butch wax
11. Telephone numbers with a word prefix (YOrk 4931)
12. Peashooters
13. Howdy Doody
14. 45 RPM records
15. S&H Green Stamps
16. Hi-fi's
17. Metal ice trays with lever
18. Mimeograph paper
19. Blue flashbulbs
20. Packards
21. Roller skate keys
22. Cork popguns
23. Drive-ins
24. Studebakers
25. Wash tub wringers

If you remembered 0-5 = You're still young
If you remembered 6-10 = You are getting older
If you remembered 11-15 = Don't tell your age,
If you remembered 16-25 = You're older than dirt!

I might be older than dirt but those memories are the best part of my life.

Senility Prayer: "God grant me...
The senility to forget the people I never liked
The good fortune to run into the ones that I do
And the eyesight to tell the difference."

Creative Capitalism - Bill Gates - Speech delivered at the World Economic Forum, Davos, Switzerland, January 24, 2008

St Gates
Well, thank you for that kind introduction and for the privilege of speaking to this forum.

Continue reading at Candide's Notebooks

(I haven't read much of it yet. I'm still trying to plow through the Gandhi headlines. Indigo posted
this piece that Pierre posted on his website):



“Gandhi vs. Terrorism,” by Mark Juergensmeyer
(A MUST READ and very timely considering the post below)

Arun Gandhi - President and co-founder of the M.K. Gandhi Institute for Nonviolence......

(actually the post should read: PAST President)....
resigned from the peace institute he co-founded after condemnation of his comments that Israel and the Jews are the biggest players in a culture of violence that "is eventually going to destroy humanity."


Here is the full commentary from earlier this month that got him in hot water.

and

here's the story I picked to tell us about the backlash(from Indian Muslim News and Information - Arun Gandhi's resignation from non-violence institute accepted)

I best throw in WaPo's headline too (Gandhi's Grandson Quits Nonviolence Center)

JerseyCynic Comment to Arun Gandhi: I couldn't have said it better myself.

Danken sie Gott fur heimatsicherheitleiter!!!*

Barcelona plot fuels U.S. security concerns


*Thank God for our Homeland Security Chief

At Davos, Mothra versus Godzilla

by Terence Corcoran, Financial Post:
It must be tough being a leader, but surely the power players who populate the Davos event, an annual monument to self-aggrandizing business leaders, can do better than this report yesterday from Reuters: "Business leaders appeal for crisis leadership." Isn't that great: Just as the going gets rough, with markets falling and economic prospects looking grim, business leaders head for the exits and call on others to clean up the mess.



The Agenda:
Rich, Powerful Gather in Davos, Switzerland for World Economic Forum

CNN news on Davos:
Bill Gates calls for 'creative capitalism'

Here's the chinaview report "we don't know - we have to wait to see"

The Brits see no problems - business is holding up

take your pick of news stories - 6,500 to choose from and rising -
World Economic Forum - Davos

Here's some "funny" ha, ha, commentary from 2 delusional CEO's about their trip to "The Forum"
The Secret of Davos

and

The Working Night Cap


Here's what George Soros says:
The worst market crisis in 60 years

Hey.....

anybody want to move to Italy with me?

John Gibson: Lowering the level of public discourse in America

I read in the paper this morning that John Gibson HAD to apologize for his nasty comments about Heath Ledger that he made on his radio show which you can see here at Think Progress. His comments sparked outrage and he apologized on his Fox News TV show.

I don't get why the heck he had to pick on poor Keith Ledger. The young man had family and friends who loved him and don't deserve to have their loved one dragged through the mud. How rude to kick him on public airwaves with jokes about a character he played in the movies and ridicule a whole group of people who don't hurt civilization at large (homosexuals, depressed people, etc). I watched Brokeback Mountain two times and I saw something which I know must have freaked a lot of men out because it revealed something that they didn't want me to know about. It sure must have unnerved old John Gibson. Tough titties. Now I know.

And yes, I believe in the first amendment. But you know, this is the kind of spew one would expect from a shock jock and not from someone who anchors a news show on television. It only proves that television news guys have no integrity anymore and that they will stoop to any depth to get a laugh out of a frat boy. How can you trust hearing the news from the likes of this clown? Could you imagine Walter Cronkite spewing such garbage? Newspeople with integrity ought to speak out against Gibson because he is making the industry a laughing stock.

Furthermore, just because someone enjoys politics and economics to the right of center doesn't mean that they are hateful towards women, homosexuals, Mexicans, and whatever group the neocon's place the blame for everything on du jour. You most certainly don't have to be a pig to be a capitalist.

I can't believe I am going to defend conservatives, but they are not all like John Gibson nor do they even know who he is. In fact I think Gibson is pandering to redneck wannabees. Traditional conservatives ought to wake up and take their label back. The world would be a better place without allowing such jerks represent your position.

If I were a conservative I wouldn't tolerate what passes for talk radio and news in my political and economic world view. I'd take on on the neocons for dragging conservatives down into the depths of crudeness and incivility. I grew up with conservatives and I never witnessed or heard such prejudice. Ever. Sure, they were mostly oblivious people and never said what they what they were actually thinking (if they were actually thinking about anything other than their portfolio and golf handicap), but they weren't deliberately mean nor would they condone such comments by the likes of those neocon shills on Fox News or "conservative" talk radio... or any shock jocks.

Bank On California

California governor wants more Californians to open bank accounts
LOS ANGELES, Jan. 24 (Xinhua) -- California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger announced on Thursday that California will be the first state in the United States to launch an effort to help working Californians without bank accounts open starter accounts.

ok. nice I guess, if you have a buck left after paying your bills.

"Through 'Bank on California' we will help working families save money by accessing basic financial services others may take for granted -- putting them in the financial mainstream," said Schwarzenegger. "This simple, innovative idea won't cost taxpayers a dime, helps working families get ahead and grows our economy at the same time."

uh huh. Seems the working people aren't growing our economy enough.

Americans each year spend 8 billion U.S. dollars for basic financial services through alternative financial institutions such as check cashing outlets, payday lenders and pawnshops, according to a new Brookings Institution report.

This translates into 40,000 dollars over the course of a career for the average full-time worker. In addition, families without bank accounts may not have a safe place to keep their money and can become a magnet for crime.

Oh!! I get it now. Get the poor people to save the banks. Silly me.




I like how this story is in the Chinese news.