13 December 2011
Some reflections on Melancholia and Caprica
22 November 2011
19 November 2011
OWS and the UC Davis Incident
I saw some official telling reporters that the police pepper-sprayed the protesters because they were stuck in the circle and couldn't get out. What a bunch of BS. You see the police walking back and forth through the lines without any problem whatsoever. Why is the public being lied to?
4 November 2011
Revision ==> That should be the 99.9%
17 October 2011
Bringing crisis to the wealthy
16 October 2011
50/50 and Contagion
Making matters worse, I had to sit through an unbelievable number of ads, previews, and other crap prior to watching the movie. As much as I love watching movies in theaters, I've just about given up at this point. It's particularly disappointing when a half hour of ads are followed by a formulaic film that's no more entertaining than the previews.
13 October 2011
Zizek at Liberty Plaza
4 October 2011
Them that curse you
2 October 2011
Wall Street Protests
What is occurring on Wall Street right now is truly remarkable. For over 10 days, in the sanctum of the great cathedral of global capitalism, the dispossessed have liberated territory from the financial overlords and their police army. They have created a unique opportunity to shift the tides of history in the tradition of other great peaceful occupations from the sit-down strikes of the 1930s to the lunch-counter sit-ins of the 1960s to the democratic uprisings across the Arab world and Europe today.
While the Wall Street occupation is growing, it needs an all-out commitment from everyone who cheered the Egyptians in Tahrir Square, said “We are all Wisconsin,” and stood in solidarity with the Greeks and Spaniards. This is a movement for anyone who lacks a job, housing or healthcare, or thinks they have no future.
Our system is broken at every level. More than 25 million Americans are unemployed. More than 50 million live without health insurance. And perhaps 100 million Americans are mired in poverty, using realistic measures. Yet the fat cats continue to get tax breaks and reap billions while politicians compete to turn the austerity screws on all of us.
At some point the number of people occupying Wall Street – whether that’s five thousand, ten thousand or fifty thousand – will force the powers that be to offer concessions. No one can say how many people it will take or even how things will change exactly, but there is a real potential for bypassing a corrupt political process and to begin realizing a society based on human needs not hedge fund profits.
After all, who would have imagined a year ago that Tunisians and Egyptians would oust their dictators?
At Liberty Park, the nerve center of the occupation, more than a thousand people gather every day to debate, discuss and organize what to do about our failed system that has allowed the 400 richest Americans at the top to amass more wealth than the 180 million Americans at the bottom.
It’s astonishing that this self-organized festival of democracy has sprouted on the turf of the masters of the universe, the men who play the tune that both political parties and the media dance to. The New York Police Department, which has deployed hundreds of officers at a time to surround and intimidate protesters, is capable of arresting everyone and clearing Liberty Plaza in minutes. But they haven’t, which is also astonishing.
That’s because assaulting peaceful crowds in a public square demanding real democracy – economic and not just political – would remind the world of the brittle autocrats who brutalized their people demanding justice before they were swept away by the Arab Spring. And the state violence has already backfired. After police attacked a Saturday afternoon march that started from Liberty Park the crowds only got bigger and media interest grew.
The Wall Street occupation has already succeeded in revealing the bankruptcy of the dominant powers – the economic, the political, media and security forces. They have nothing positive to offer humanity, not that they ever did for the Global South, but now their quest for endless profits means deepening the misery with a thousand austerity cuts.
Even their solutions are cruel jokes. They tell us that the “Buffett Rule” would spread the pain by asking the penthouse set to sacrifice a tin of caviar, which is what the proposed tax increase would amount to. Meanwhile, the rest of us will have to sacrifice healthcare, food, education, housing, jobs and perhaps our lives to sate the ferocious appetite of capital.
That’s why more and more people are joining the Wall Street occupation. They can tell you about their homes being foreclosed upon, months of grinding unemployment or minimum-wage dead-end jobs, staggering student debt loads, or trying to live without decent healthcare. It’s a whole generation of Americans with no prospects, but who are told to believe in a system that can only offer them Dancing With The Stars and pepper spray to the face.
Yet against every description of a generation derided as narcissistic, apathetic and hopeless they are staking a claim to a better future for all of us.
That’s why we all need to join in. Not just by liking it on Facebook, signing a petition at change.org or retweeting protest photos, but by going down to the occupation itself.
There is great potential here. Sure, it’s a far cry from Tahrir Square or even Wisconsin. But there is the nucleus of a revolt that could shake America’s power structure as much as the Arab world has been upended.
Instead of one to two thousand people a day joining in the occupation there needs to be tens of thousands of people protesting the fat cats driving Bentleys and drinking thousand-dollar bottles of champagne with money they looted from the financial crisis and then from the bailouts while Americans literally die on the streets.
To be fair, the scene in Liberty Plaza seems messy and chaotic. But it’s also a laboratory of possibility, and that’s the beauty of democracy. As opposed to our monoculture world, where political life is flipping a lever every four years, social life is being a consumer and economic life is being a timid cog, the Wall Street occupation is creating a polyculture of ideas, expression and art.
Yet while many people support the occupation, they hesitate to fully join in and are quick to offer criticism. It’s clear that the biggest obstacles to building a powerful movement are not the police or capital – it’s our own cynicism and despair.
Perhaps their views were colored by the New York Times article deriding protestors for wishing to “pantomime progressivism” and “Gunning for Wall Street with faulty aim.” Many of the criticisms boil down to “a lack of clear messaging.”
But what’s wrong with that? A fully formed movement is not going to spring from the ground. It has to be created. And who can say what exactly needs to be done? We are not talking about ousting a dictator; though some say we want to oust the dictatorship of capital.
There are plenty of sophisticated ideas out there: end corporate personhood; institute a “Tobin Tax” on stock purchases and currency trading; nationalize banks; socialize medicine; fully fund government jobs and genuine Keynesian stimulus; lift restrictions on labor organizing; allow cities to turn foreclosed homes into public housing; build a green energy infrastructure.
But how can we get broad agreement on any of these? If the protesters came into the square with a pre-determined set of demands it would have only limited their potential. They would have either been dismissed as pie in the sky – such as socialized medicine or nationalize banks – or if they went for weak demands such as the Buffett Rule their efforts would immediately be absorbed by a failed political system, thus undermining the movement.
That’s why the building of the movement has to go hand in hand with common struggle, debate and radical democracy. It’s how we will create genuine solutions that have legitimacy. And that is what is occurring down at Wall Street.
Now, there are endless objections one can make. But if we focus on the possibilities, and shed our despair, our hesitancy and our cynicism, and collectively come to Wall Street with critical thinking, ideas and solidarity we can change the world.
How many times in your life do you get a chance to watch history unfold, to actively participate in building a better society, to come together with thousands of people where genuine democracy is the reality and not a fantasy?
For too long our minds have been chained by fear, by division, by impotence. The one thing the elite fear most is a great awakening. That day is here. Together we can seize it.
18 September 2011
12 September 2011
Another hot and humid day on HD85512b
30 August 2011
Robert Reich's Labor Day reflections
Labor Day is traditionally a time for picnics and parades. But this year is no picnic for American workers, and a protest march would be more appropriate than a parade. Not only are 25 million unemployed or underemployed, but American companies continue to cut wages and benefits. The median wage is still dropping, adjusted for inflation. High unemployment has given employers extra bargaining leverage to wring out wage concessions. All told, it’s been the worst decade for American workers in a century. According to Commerce Department data, private-sector wage gains over the last decade have even lagged behind wage gains during the decade of the Great Depression (4 percent over the last ten years, adjusted for inflation, versus 5 percent from 1929 to 1939).
Big American corporations are making more money, and creating more jobs, outside the United States than in it. If corporations are people, as the Supreme Court’s twisted logic now insists, most of the big ones headquartered here are rapidly losing their American identity.
CEO pay, meanwhile, has soared. The median value of salaries, bonuses and long-term incentive awards for CEOs at 350 big American companies surged 11 percent last year to $9.3 million (according to a study of proxy statements conducted for The Wall Street Journal by the management consultancy Hay Group.). Bonuses have surged 19.7 percent.
This doesn’t even include all those stock options rewarded to CEOs at rock-bottom prices in 2008 and 2009. Stock prices have ballooned since then, the current downdraft notwithstanding. In March, 2009, for example, Ford CEO Alan Mulally received a grant of options and restricted shares worth an estimated $16 million at the time. But Ford is now showing large profits – in part because the UAW agreed to allow Ford to give its new hires roughly half the wages of older Ford workers – and its share prices have responded. Mulally’s 2009 grant is now worth over $200 million.
The ratio of corporate profits to wages is now higher than at any time since just before the Great Depression.
Meanwhile, the American economy has all but stopped growing – in large part because consumers (whose spending is 70 percent of GDP) are also workers whose jobs and wages are under assault.
Perhaps there would still be something to celebrate on Labor Day if government was coming to the rescue. But Washington is paralyzed, the President seems unwilling or unable to take on labor-bashing Republicans, and several Republican governors are mounting direct assaults on organized labor (see Indiana, Ohio, Maine, and Wisconsin, for example).
So let’s bag the picnics and parades this Labor Day. American workers should march in protest. They’re getting the worst deal they’ve had since before Labor Day was invented – and the economy is suffering as a result.
28 August 2011
11 August 2011
Stiglitz on inequality
Some people look at income inequality and shrug their shoulders. So what if this person gains and that person loses? What matters, they argue, is not how the pie is divided but the size of the pie. That argument is fundamentally wrong. An economy in which most citizens are doing worse year after year—an economy like America’s—is not likely to do well over the long haul. There are several reasons for this.
First, growing inequality is the flip side of something else: shrinking opportunity. Whenever we diminish equality of opportunity, it means that we are not using some of our most valuable assets—our people—in the most productive way possible. Second, many of the distortions that lead to inequality—such as those associated with monopoly power and preferential tax treatment for special interests—undermine the efficiency of the economy. This new inequality goes on to create new distortions, undermining efficiency even further. To give just one example, far too many of our most talented young people, seeing the astronomical rewards, have gone into finance rather than into fields that would lead to a more productive and healthy economy.
Third, and perhaps most important, a modern economy requires “collective action”—it needs government to invest in infrastructure, education, and technology. The United States and the world have benefited greatly from government-sponsored research that led to the Internet, to advances in public health, and so on. But America has long suffered from an under-investment in infrastructure (look at the condition of our highways and bridges, our railroads and airports), in basic research, and in education at all levels. Further cutbacks in these areas lie ahead.
None of this should come as a surprise—it is simply what happens when a society’s wealth distribution becomes lopsided. The more divided a society becomes in terms of wealth, the more reluctant the wealthy become to spend money on common needs. The rich don’t need to rely on government for parks or education or medical care or personal security—they can buy all these things for themselves. In the process, they become more distant from ordinary people, losing whatever empathy they may once have had. They also worry about strong government—one that could use its powers to adjust the balance, take some of their wealth, and invest it for the common good. The top 1 percent may complain about the kind of government we have in America, but in truth they like it just fine: too gridlocked to re-distribute, too divided to do anything but lower taxes.
3 August 2011
Looking out for those who count
[Excerpt] Obama surrendered for one overwhelming reason --because he wanted to; because he is not just in the game to win, but to win for Wall Street. The time is long past due for liberals to face that reality, and to deal with it not, not as Obama and his advisors expect, by acquiescing out of fear that the alternative is even worse, but in a constructive way. If a Dump Obama cannot get going now, then when?
2 August 2011
A war ceiling?
1 August 2011
Debt ceiling
15 July 2011
Radically Simple
13 July 2011
Longing for thems halcyon days of yesteryear...
Bachman and Santorum recently signed a conservative pledge whose leading item was a statement that black families were stronger under slavery. We might ask why such a bizarre--and entirely anti-historical--statement was chosen to lead a pledge that was supposedly pro-family. Any analysis runs up against the fact that the conservatives are talking in code here as they often do. The logical implications of such a statement is that African-Americans are genetically inferior and can only adhere to proper Christian values when enslaved by superior white owners. We've come to expect this from Republicans--especially from the Evangelicals and Tea Party. Virtually all their statements, at their core, are essential an attack on the "lazy" poor and praise for the virtues of the wealthy. And since African-Americans make up more of the poor, we don't need a weatherman to know which way the wind blows. In short, the conservatives have adopted an ideology that would look a lot like the Sermon on the Mount if you took every sentence and converted to its opposite.
11 July 2011
Ersland deserves an award, not life in prison!
7 July 2011
Rereading 1984
1984 society has obvious parallels to North Korea where every social and material good appears to be devoted to preservation of the state and the ruling hierarchy. But similar elements of intentional misinformation are also found closer to home. A good example is the assumption, often voiced in both rightwing and "liberal" media, that the nation's misguided policies are the result of ignorance. Omitted is the more insightful analysis that the policies are all carefully designed to preserve a specific class and further its interests. To get a hold of such analysis, a person would have to look at the works of the traditional left or perhaps peruse some academic or pragmatic treatises of the extreme right wing (where the elite are so comfortable that they don't bother talking in code).
On a macro-level, the modern experiment--for want of a better term--involving industrial "solutions" that bring about problems that require increasingly complicated technological fixes ("solutions" like fracking that essentially create wealth by creating poverty) could be viewed as a great example of Orwellian "double-think"--the acquired ability to accept propositions that are obviously contradictory.
Anyway, I'd suggests rereading the book. Like all great books, it's a gift that just keeps on giving.
23 June 2011
War is peace; freedom is slavery...
As Rachel Maddow pointed out in her show last night, the headlines about Obama's troop "pullout" are deceptive since we're only talking about removing some of the troops added during the latest surge. We're now left with the Orwellian situation where we'll draw down to DOUBLE THE NUMBER OF TROOPS THAT WERE THERE WHEN OBAMA TOOK OFFICE. It's as if we're calling the slight ebbing of flood waters a drought.
22 June 2011
Ocean's in shocking decline
the trends are such that it is likely to happen, they say - and far faster than any of the previous five. "What we're seeing at the moment is unprecedented in the fossil record - the environmental changes are much more rapid," Professor Rogers told BBC News. "We've still got most of the world's biodiversity, but the actual rate of extinction is much higher [than in past events] - and what we face is certainly a globally significant extinction event.' The report also notes that previous mass extinction events have been associated with trends being observed now - disturbances of the carbon cycle, and acidification and hypoxia (depletion of oxygen) of seawater. Levels of CO2 being absorbed by the oceans are already far greater than during the great extinction of marine species 55 million years ago (during the Paleocene-Eocene Thermal Maximum), it concludes.
This is disconcerting to say the least. Much of the world relies on wild-caught fish from the ocean for protein.
20 June 2011
17 June 2011
Sex, violence, and news we'll never read
13 June 2011
A few thoughts on the coming eugenics movement
11 June 2011
What we all now know (but shan't say) about U.S. healthcare
10 June 2011
Super 8: Two thumbs down
7 June 2011
Giving people food: An offense against the state?
6 June 2011
Ousting the potato
While I'm sure that there are fairly healthy ways to eat potatoes--for example, eating them with nothing added but a little olive oil and cut up leaks--American school kids probably won't go for this since potatoes tend to be pretty bland. As someone who eats a lot of sweet potatoes (which are much healthier), I hope that they make it onto more kids' plates. I simply plop a sweet potato in the microwave and then eat it as is--often with the skin. It's a great fast-food snack! My guess is that the administration will have a battle on its hands as it takes on the food lobbies which would prefer that we live off potatoes and corn in dishes full of corn sweeteners and poor-quality oils.
5 June 2011
Enemy warned by secret horse ride...hmmm
2 June 2011
Latest food-lobby recommendations
As with the food pyramid, the recommendations are patently ridiculous and probably owe more to corporate lobbying than sound nutritional science. The veggies and protein are all fine, but do people need a significant amount of fruit in their diet. Maybe (assuming that we aren't talking about just bananas and oranges). And grains? For most Americans, this is Wonder bread or perhaps a cupcake at Starbucks. How many people eat healthy grains (for example, whole-grain wild rice) as their main staple? And even if they did, how much grain do overweight Americans really need? The inclusion of "dairy" is also stupefying. Nobody except baby cows really needs dairy. Of course, excluding it would piss off a farming lobby in some key states, so it's in there.
Conceptually, the plate doesn't really make sense. Protein is a biochemical constituent of food that occurs in the other groups--particularly dairy. The plate would be a lot better if we moved grains, fruit, and dairy into the separate dish and labeled it "occasional foods" and added a "nuts and other healthy fats" category (to include only healthy nuts like walnuts and almonds). The protein category could be replaced with one labeled "fish, eggs, beans, and other healthy proteins." In its present state, the categories are so vague that they're useless. Does a bag of french fries or popcorn satisfy the "veggie' requirement for the day? Most of the fried and overcooked veggies that Americans eat have virtually no virtues. If the old pyramid got an "F", this one gets a "D-".
26 May 2011
The Ryan plan: Robin Hood for the rich
One can only hope that Kathy Hochul's upset in NY is an indication that Americans won't stand for this.
25 May 2011
Fracking our food
19 May 2011
Dancing as the world ends
18 May 2011
Please pass the freedom whine
I like the first reader's comment to the online NY Post article:
17 May 2011
Six cups of joe
Abstract
Methods We conducted a prospective analysis of 47 911 men in the Health Professionals Follow-up Study who reported intake of regular and decaffeinated coffee in 1986 and every 4 years thereafter. From 1986 to 2006, 5035 patients with prostate cancer were identified, including 642 patients with lethal prostate cancers, defined as fatal or metastatic. We used Cox proportional hazards models to assess the association between coffee and prostate cancer, adjusting for potential confounding by smoking, obesity, and other variables. All P values were from two-sided tests.
Results The average intake of coffee in 1986 was 1.9 cups per day. Men who consumed six or more cups per day had a lower adjusted relative risk for overall prostate cancer compared with nondrinkers (RR = 0.82, 95% confidence interval [CI] = 0.68 to 0.98, Ptrend = .10). The association was stronger for lethal prostate cancer (consumers of more than six cups of coffee per day: RR = 0.40, 95% CI = 0.22 to 0.75, Ptrend = .03). Coffee consumption was not associated with the risk of nonadvanced or low-grade cancers and was only weakly inversely associated with high-grade cancer. The inverse association with lethal cancer was similar for regular and decaffeinated coffee (each one cup per day increment: RR = 0.94, 95% CI = 0.88 to 1.01, P = .08 for regular coffee and RR = 0.91, 95% CI = 0.83 to 1.00, P = .05 for decaffeinated coffee). The age-adjusted incidence rates for men who had the highest (≥6 cups per day) and lowest (no coffee) coffee consumption were 425 and 519 total prostate cancers, respectively, per 100 000 person-years and 34 and 79 lethal prostate cancers, respectively, per 100 000 person-years.
Conclusions We observed a strong inverse association between coffee consumption and risk of lethal prostate cancer. The association appears to be related to non-caffeine components of coffee.
15 May 2011
Unamerican elimination of tax breaks
14 May 2011
Insuring the insurer
12 May 2011
The forever war continues
The 2012 National Defense Authorization Act (Section 1034) repeats this language. I rack my mind trying to imagine the U.S. president appearing on TV at some point to declare that the war is over and we'll never have to worry about the possibility of terrorism again. Section 1034 also contains the following grant of authority to the president to carry out war with vague objectives:
"The committee notes that as the United States nears the tenth anniversary of the attacks on September 11, 2001, the terrorist threat has evolved as a result of intense military and diplomatic pressure from the United States and its coalition partners. However, Al Qaeda, the Taliban, and associated forces still pose a grave threat to U.S. national security. The Authorization for Use of Military Force necessarily includes the authority to address the continuing and evolving threat posed by these groups."
Would this also allow the use of the military against Americans in the U.S.?
8 May 2011
Julia Howe's first Mother's Day Proclamation
Arise, then, women of this day!
Arise all women who have hearts.
Whether your baptism be that of water or of tears!
Say firmly:
We will not have questions decided by irrelevant agencies.
Our husbands shall not come to us reeking with carnage,
For caresses and applause.
Our sons shall not be taken from us to unlearn all
that we have been able to teach them of charity, mercy, and patience.
We women of one country will be too tender
of those of another country
To allow our sons to be trained to injure theirs.
From the bosom of the devastated earth
a voice goes up with our own.
It says “Disarm, Disarm!”
The sword of murder is not the balance of Justice!
Blood does not wipe out dishonor
Nor violence indicate possession.
As men have often forsaken the plow and the anvil
at the summons of war,
let women now leave all that may be left of home
for a great and earnest day of counsel.
Let them meet first, as women,
to bewail and commemorate the dead.
Let them then solemnly take counsel
with each other as to the means
whereby the great human family can live in peace,
Each bearing after their own time the sacred impress, not of Caesar, but of God –
In the name of womanhood and of humanity, I earnestly ask
That a general congress of women without limit of nationality
may be appointed and held
at some place deemed most convenient
and at the earliest period consistent with its objects,
to promote the alliance of the different nationalities,
the amicable settlement of international questions,
the great and general interests of peace.
6 May 2011
4 May 2011
The One Percent
The film includes a few more noble types such as Bill Gates, Sr., who has pushed for the government to maintain the estate tax. Milton Friedman comes off as quite an idiot, insisting at one point that money from the wealthy or corporations doesn't influence the U.S. government at all and that the government does exactly what the public wants. As a pointed counter-argument, the documentary chronicles U.S. government's support for the sugar industry--a policy that costs jobs, costs both tax-payers and consumers a lot of money, damages the environment, and further enriches billionaires. The documentary's worth seeing. While short on definitive answers, it certainly asks the right questions.
Link: Another review of the film
1 May 2011
Happy International Workers Day!
This May Day has special relevance at a time when unions and the working class are under a concerted and relentless attack. It's time to organize.
27 April 2011
The BoA constrictor of information
26 April 2011
World's largest economy no more
Wisdom from a Organic Garden Supply Co-op
22 April 2011
Ja basta! (Warning: Birther rant may be offensive to the reality-challenged.)
19 April 2011
Where are all the great healers?
Medicine is a science and good science works a bit like good magic. When the magician does something, it's impressive because the onlookers don't understand it--and can't understand it because of their faulty way of looking at things. Good science is the same--the scientist has a methodology that enables him to peer into a reality that normally remains invisible. A good doctor should be able to tell me things about myself that I, as a complete lay-person, can't know. But the truth is--if you give me a little time with Wikipedia and a few basic medical articles (perhaps a few metastudies from Yahoo Scholar) and give me the ability to order tests, I'm pretty sure that I could do everything my doctors do with same level of error. For some reason, American medicine (or at least, the medicine available to median wage-earners like myself) is producing few scientists and few healers. On the bright side, America's exorbitantly priced and low-quality medical system is giving me plenty of motivation to take care of my own health.
17 April 2011
Some tax season reflections
1. The latest reduction in government spending hashed out with much fanfare is just about completely offset by growth (yes, growth!) in military spending.
2. The Internal Revenue Service tracks the tax returns with the 400 highest adjusted gross incomes each year. The average income on those returns in 2007, the latest year for IRS data, was nearly $345 million. Their average federal income tax rate was 17 percent, down from 26 percent in 1992 [link to news story]. Yet, the Republicans and the Republican Lite Party (formerly known as the Democrats) have vowed to give the wealthy ever-more generous breaks.
9 April 2011
Let...the sun shine
6 April 2011
Tough times for the highly qualified

One explanation for this is that companies are now hiring cheap workers--not a great sign for the shrinking middle class.
31 March 2011
Buursma article
[Excerpt] Remember the Reagan standard? Are you better off today than you were a decade ago? Two decades? Three? Unless you make more than $380,000 a year, the answer is no. In fact, your standard of living over the last quarter century has actually decreased while millionaires have added 30 percent to their net wealth. Why? Two reasons. First, hundreds of thousands of manufacturing jobs went overseas while the politicians you elected did nothing to stop them. Yet you continue to elect leaders who offer nothing but tax cuts, as if that would stem the flow of disappearing jobs. Did you demand your leaders address America’s trade imbalance or continuous outsourcing of jobs? Did you demand your leaders require foreign countries to buy a dollar’s worth of American goods for every dollar of goods they sell here? No and no. You didn’t bother. You simply crossed your fingers and prayed, “I hope my job’s not next.” You made concessions to your employer and hoped that would stem the exodus of jobs, or at least yours. How’d that work for you? Second, you bought into the myth that unions are the cause of America’s demise. You didn’t bother to learn America became a world power when union membership was at its peak. You didn’t bother to learn America became the envy of the world while 1 of every 3 Americans was a union member. So, how are things going for you? How do your benefits compare to a quarter century ago? Are you paying a higher or lower percentage of your income for health insurance? Does your company offer a pension plan, or do you now fund your own 401(k)? Maybe you’re thinking, “I’m not a union worker, so this doesn’t affect me.” Stop being stupid. Union benefits provide a standard other companies have to match, or at least come close to. When those benefits are cut, yours are, too. Or do you think you operate in your own little employment vacuum? To make matters worse, you’re again being played for a chump. The same puppets who did nothing while your standard of living decreased are now using the oldest gimmick in the book — jealousy — to continue their assault on American workers. Rather than protect Americans’ jobs, they deflect your attention through jealousy. “Cut the pay of government workers,” they cry. “Increase their health premiums. Decrease their pensions. Break their unions. After all, you’ve suffered so they should suffer too.” And in your misery, you buy their argument while more jobs head oversees. Pretty stupid, eh? If their antics weren’t so pathetic, if the consequences weren’t so dire, if they didn’t prey on your stupidity, and if you didn’t buy into their convoluted reasoning, this whole situation would be laughable. But of course it’s not. I warned you I’d likely offend you, and I suspect I did. But once you overcome your anger, consider my analysis. Then, either wise up and do something about it, or resign yourself to a lower standard of living for the next decade.
Kobon
28 March 2011
Recent flix
Barney's Version: A sappy crass comedy that may be worth watching eventually on Netflix if you're a bit lit up and there's really nothing more to watch. On the bright side, this time the Canadians are responsible for churning out this formulaic crapulum.
Limitless: Just as everyone says, this is a lot of fun. Not a great philosophical treatise, but continuous fun nevertheless. Cooper is very well-cast here and De Niro (who doesn't really appear that often) is great as well.
The Adjustment Bureau: For the romantics who can wrap their heads around Christian cosmology, this is watchable. Personally, angels and shallow debates about free-will don't do much for me, but I'm willing to admit this is a personal bias. It's hard to make a completely unwatchable film with Matt Damon.
21 February 2011
Reading the alien mind
19 February 2011
30 January 2011
Egypt
23 January 2011
Throwing caution to the wind
This game shows one of those wild attacks that works out. I know I shouldn't pat myself on the back too much for such an undisciplined blitz, but there is, I think, a clever move here (knight takes bishop g7) that sets up the sequence leading to mate. After that point, the black queen is exposed and white has great freedom to maneuver. Black does make a few grevious errors here, such as boxing in his own king.
17 January 2011
Mote the pillars fall
Rudolf M. Elmer, the former head of the Cayman Islands office of the prominent Swiss bank Julius Baer, said on Monday that he had given Julian Assange (Wikileaks founder) details of more than 2,000 prominent individuals and companies that he contends engaged in tax evasion and other criminal activity. Although he refused to name any of the individuals or companies, he did tell reporters that about 40 politicians and “pillars of society” worldwide are among them and that they come from “the U.S., Britain, Germany, Austria and Asia — from all over,” and include “business people, politicians, people who have made their living in the arts and multinational conglomerates — from both sides of the Atlantic.”
15 January 2011
Looking for common ground
I wholeheartedly agree with VS's comment on the graph: "I can find common ground with people who recognize that plutocracy and democracy don't mix."
10 January 2011
The fine art of scrambling
My opponent (listening to the loud sound of the ticking clock) made a few errors such as putting the queen on the 8th rank instead of forcing a trade to fend off the perpetual check which resulted in a draw. For that matter, I should have brought the e7 knight up into the attack. But anyway, the lesson here is never give up in 5-minute chess where anything is possible.