structural violence.

Bernard makes an extremely important point. While everyone is freaking out about terrorism, the structure of society guarantees terrible results for far more people than are hurt by what is officially called terrorism. But it wouldn't do to mention that, would it?

an open challenge

FACT: If you pay taxes in the United States, you've made financial contributions to the following:

• Illegal wars of aggression that kill, maim, and displace millions of civilians.
• Illegal abduction and torture of people who have not been charged with any crime.
• Illegal surveillance of domestic communications.

FACT: If you refuse to pay taxes, men with guns will likely force you into a cage for an extended period of time.

THE CHALLENGE: Defend this system.

HINT: Offering "you're free to vote for people who will change these policies, or to run for office yourself" as a defense is the equivalent of saying "these policies are fine with me as long as a slim majority of the voting population supports candidates who say it is ok for the state to lock you in a cage for refusing to fund its illegal and immoral activities."

Truth is not important

I came across the video below, a compilation of a guy named Peter Schiff on various news talk shows in 2006 and 2007. It is 10 minutes of him being right forecasting the current economic collapse, while all the other talking heads literally laugh at him. It is kind of fun to watch. My first thought was that those idiots who mocked him while they predicted endless booming growth should never get a job again.

But that was very silly of me, a vestige of my naive former worldview. I was imagining a world in which news programs are in the business of getting things right, of telling the truth.

News television, like all television (and other media for that matter), is in the business of selling audiences to advertisers. As such, we expect the programming to reflect these interests. Also, the major television networks are owned by a small handful of wealthy conglomerate corporations. As such, we expect the programming to reflect the interests of those corporations and their owners. These two interests largely overlap, though there can be a few conflicts, as in all cases where the same parties have multiple interests. In those cases strategic decisions have to be made. But in the case at hand, it is pretty easy to see that an audience of people who believe that endless economic prosperity is always just around the corner is easier to sell to advertisers, and is better for the corporations who own the media.

The only thing truth has to do with it is if the audience figures out how unreliable the programs are and stops watching. The immense popularity of Fox "News" is a prominent, but certainly not isolated, demonstration of the appropriate level of concern TV networks need have for such a scenario. If their dishonesty becomes impossible for the audience to ignore, they have ways of handling that too. After US forces failed to find any WMDs in Iraq, what did the TV networks that credulously amplified the false WMD justification for war tell you? That everyone believed there were WMDs, and nobody could have predicted otherwise. There is ample documentation to prove otherwise, but that doesn't matter. They just lie after the fact to cover up their previous lies.

So the idea that the laughing fools in the video will never work again is foolish. They've shown that they're willing to say whatever needs to be said to advance their careers. Networks make good use of such people.



(By the way I know nothing about this Schiff guy. He may or may not be advancing his own interests here, which may or may not have anything to do with the truth. Maybe he just got lucky. I don't know and don't really care.)

you will respect my authoriteh

Man sentenced to 93 days in jail for sitting down too slowly while on trial for having a couch in his yard. Justice.

Fuck you, Keene, New Hampshire and "Judge" Burke.


other links about this:
http://anarchyinyourhead.com/2008/11/16/thank-you-mr-burke/
http://freekeene.com/
http://noiri.blogspot.com/2008/11/taste-of-ussa-united-socialist-states.html

nothin but love

I don't know, maybe this came off a bit harsh. Curiously, I don't even know if the directed sentiment expressed there applies to much of my audience. But I know there must be a few of you out there. The one or two I can think of, I love you guys and hopefully you know it ain't personal.

I suspect that was unnecessary for their sake. But I do a lot of anger here so I oughta balance it with some love sometimes, right?

Horus these days

Horus is doing pretty well these days, at least compared to where he started.

He spends a lot of time sleeping up on the perch near the windows.

From Cats Nov 2008

From Cats Nov 2008

When he's not as sleepy he'll dart over to hide under the kitchen table.

From Cats Nov 2008

And when he's feeling frisky and adventurous he might even play with me a little bit.

From Cats Nov 2008

But that gets tiring...

From Cats Nov 2008

He still freaks out if he sees me try to touch him, but if he's distracted I can scratch his back and he likes it until he realizes what is happening. As soon as he sees me touching him he recoils or swipes at me, but I'm convinced that some of the time he deliberately looks away so that he doesn't have to freak out. He'll still act like he's trying to investigate the source of this strange pleasurable sensation, but he'll look in a ridiculous direction, like straight up and from side to side, but not backwards.

Here are the other boys.

Hattori.

From Cats Nov 2008

Katsu.

From Cats Nov 2008

once again Obama is the same as Bush. but you don't care.

Jesus fucking Christ people, if this article doesn't show you what Barrack Obama is, nothing will. As Who Is IOZ? and Stop Me Before I Vote Again have pointed out:

Now, as Mr. Obama moves closer to assuming responsibility for Guantánamo, his pledge to close the detention center is bringing to the fore thorny questions under consideration by his advisers. They include where Guantánamo’s detainees could be held in this country, how many might be sent home and a matter that people with ties to the Obama transition team say is worrying them most: What if some detainees are acquitted or cannot be prosecuted at all?

The biggest worry among people BO has chosen to surround himself with is that they won't be able to continue to jail people who they can't prove have done anything wrong.

THIS IS EXACTLY THE SAME AS BUSH YOU FUCKING OBAMA SUPPORTING MORONS. THIS IS NOT CHANGE. THIS IS THE SAME FUCKING THING, MAYBE MOVED TO A NEW BUILDING.

But liberals don't care about the principles involved. They don't care about justice, human rights, any of that pussy shit. They never did. They just care that someone on their team is the one doing the jailing:

“You can’t be a purist and say there’s never any circumstance in which a democratic society can preventively detain someone,” said one civil liberties lawyer, David D. Cole, a Georgetown law professor who has been a critic of the Bush administration.

We're a democratic society? Oh, he must have meant "Democratic President."

But particularly inasmuch as the Bush administration invoked that authority as a basis for its much-criticized detention policies, a move by Mr. Obama to seek explicit authorization for indefinite detention without trial would be seen by some of his supporters as a betrayal.

Impossible! They're too covered in gooey change juice to perceive anything BO does as betrayal.

But human rights groups have been mounting arguments to counter pressure that they say is building on Mr. Obama to show toughness, perhaps by echoing the Bush administration’s insistence that some detainees may need to be held indefinitely.

How the flying fuck is this tough?

“I’m afraid of people getting released in the name of human rights and doing terrible things,” Mr. Wittes said in an interview.

I'm so tough that I'm going to lock up little boys who might have thrown rocks! And torture them! This shows my toughness! I won't be a pussy and release people who I can't prove have done anything wrong, because I'm scared that they might come back and hurt me. But I'm tough!



I fucking hate everyone.

can i get a piece of that action?

Why its almost as if they don't even give a fuck about the spirit of the terms they undemocratically rammed through the undemocratic system that controls our lives with money and guns. Bail outs for everyone! Funny money all around!

America: "Fuck you, Whales!"

The Supreme Court says it is very important that the US Navy be allowed to kill whales because maybe the imaginary submarine enemies might maybe theoretically possibly be coming for us. So for all you whales who don't want to suffer from "hemorrhaging around the brain and ears, acute spongiotic changes in the central nervous system, and lesions in vital organs" I guess you better move to someplace safer where American military delusion won't find you. Unfortunately there are no such places.

Egregious

Barack Obama will move swiftly to unpick many of what he sees as the most egregious acts of the Bush administration when he enters the White House in January, including restrictions on stem cell research and moves to allow oil drilling in wilderness areas, a leading member of his transition team said yesterday.

Three key words: "what he sees."

Notice how the list of "the most egregious violations" doesn't include domestic warrantless surveillance, indefinite detention, torture, extraordinary rendition, launching illegal wars of aggression and other war crimes, election fraud, politicizing the justice department, immunity for corporate crimes, bail-outs for banks, etc.

a silly challenge

I defy anyone to listen to Bela Fleck and the Flecktones play Big Country and not want to cry out of joy.

I want change too. This ain't it.

Infatuation with Obama is pervasive. I can't get away from it. People ask me about the election in class, in hallways, in the lab, at a bar. I try to read or watch basketball, but it is there too. I was just trying to read about beer and there he was.

It exhausts me and makes me sad. I'm glad that people everywhere recognize that Bush has been a complete disaster for the people of the US and for the world. That frustration is driving all this enthusiasm for change. But people don't understand why Bush was such a disaster, and thus don't know what real change would be.

Obama ain't it. He's a fresh face atop the same corporate-military empire. He's distraction, a sleight of hand. He'll do all the same things Bush did, only he won't be so brazen about it, which will make all of the operations go more smoothly. But those operations will have the exact same results: continual erosion of personal liberty, suppression of Democracy, bloody slaughter of impoverished brown people, enrichment of an elite few at the expense of the masses.

No, I'm not pleased with the outcome of the election. No, I'm not enthusiastic about an Obama presidency. No, I don't think change is coming. No, I don't care about the symbolism of a black man being the supreme warlord.

Eugene Debs said (and Dennis Perrin reminded me):

"I do not want you to follow me or anyone else; if you are looking for a Moses to lead you out of this capitalist wilderness, you will stay right where you are. I would not lead you into the promised land if I could, because if I led you in, some one else would lead you out. You must use your heads as well as your hands, and get yourself out of your present condition."

People who are excited about Obama are being led by their hands, not their heads. BO is not a savior, but he'll certainly foster that imagery for his own political benefit, and for the benefit of the elite interests he'll serve.

LA Poker, 2004

Some time in the summer of 2004 I took a trip to LA to play poker. (This was before I "went pro;" I was working for GeeEvil at the time.) I wrote up a trip recap to send to a bunch of friends who were interested. I just found the document in an obscure folder on my hard drive. It is fun to read. Here's an entry:

Sunday:

Sunday I remember very well, so I find it bizzare that I forget what happened Saturday. But Sunday did feature one of the most memorable characters of the trip: King Randall.

The day started out with a few hours playing $9/18. As I mentioned, this game is in the low-limit section, and it definitely plays like low-limit. Everyone is in til the river with the slightest draw. I can't fathom that this is basically the same limit as the $10/20 at the Taj, which is a fairly tough game to beat on weekdays. So I sat there for a while, played tight and won $60. Blah.

Oh, on the high limit side ($15/30 and up) they comp you free meals at the table. They have tons of little Mexican dudes running around and they bring you anything you want. You can order an appetizer, steak dinner and dessert and just give the waiter a $5 tip, and they bring it to the table. The only thing they don't comp is alcohol, which you actually have to pay for. But at the low limit side, they make you pay for everything. But I didn't know that when I sat down to play $9/18 because I had watched everyone ordering ridiculous meals in the other game and not pay for them. So I ordered something expensive and then the waiter asked for money. So that sucked. Off to $15/30 for dinner.

So after the afternoon in the crazy low limit game, I find a seat in the $15/30 must-move game, and buy in for my usual 2 racks ($1,000). (for those who don't know what "must-move" means, it is when they have a "main game" at one table that has been going for a while, but enough people on the waiting list to start another table. So they put them all at a 2nd table, but protect the main game by forcing people from the must-move to fill in seats at the main game as they open up.). I sit in the game for a while, and most of the table is playing predictable poker. I'm not going to crush this game, but I'm certainly not going to be outplayed by anyone, so I'm fairly comfortable and optimistic that I can win a few bucks.

And then Randall showed up.

This guy looks about 40 years old, and strongly resembles Woody Harrleson. He loudly announces to the table "MY NAME IS KING RANDALL, AND I AM AWESOME! BE AFRAID OF ME! I KNOW WHAT I'M DOING!"

Holy shit. This guy was drunk off his ass, maybe high too.

Every time it was his turn, he loudly called "TIME!" and looked at his cards for like 10 seconds. He usually followed this with "well, what can I do? Wait! I want to raise! How many chips?" Obviously, he usually lost the hand.

After every hand he would get up and walk over to the winner and shake their hand and tell them how well they played. He was the nicest drunk idiot ever. I managed to get involved with him in 1 hand with pocket queens and won a monster pot just before I had to move over to the main game. He came over and shook my hand 3 times, told me how strong I play, and that I am awesome, but not as awesome as him. I swear to God this is all true. I was obviously not happy to have to leave this game, and figure he'd either run out of money or get tired and leave before it was his turn to move.

Wrong.

About an hour later, King Randall loudly annouced his presence at the main game. He drunkenly looked around the table, but his glazed-over eyes came into focus when he saw me. He gave a big smile, and yelled - "you're class, buddy! i want you!"

Over the next few hours these are some actual quotes from King Randall, randomly thrown in to any hand he played:

"I love Latino women!"

"Well I can't win but I raise anyway"

"Dammit I lose. That's ok, I know Halle Berry."

"You think I look like Woody Harrelson? I have his money."

"Do you know Kareem-Abdul Jabar?"

"I own so much real estate!! I'm a producer."

"Buy property, win at poker!!!"

After a fat guy won a pot, Randall looked over at him and went "Woah! that's a big boy. But can you run the mile? King Randall can run a half-marathon, a 10K, or a 5K!"

When a woman sat down next to him, after the table had been all male for a while, Randall looks at her and goes "ooooh Lady! We forgot about your race."


Randall kept ordering Heinekens every time a waitress walked by, regardless of if he was done with the one he was drinking. Everytime he ordered and everytime she brought one, he gave her $20. At one point he had 3 full beers on the table behind him, plus the one he was drinking. The first time he got up to use the bathroom, he got lost for 20 minutes, so from then on he had a floorman escort him to and from the facility. He tipped them $20 each time.

Randall took a liking to me. After every hand he won, he reached across the table and gave me a pound. After every hand I won, he reached across the table and gave me a pound. He pretty much gave me pounds any time I looked at him. In spite of his drunkeness he was actually fairly perceptive. Here are some actual quotes he said to me:


"You're class, man" (about 100 times)

"I want you" (about 100 time)

"Look at that guy, he's 23 years old, his financial position is SOLID (noting my large stacks), and he's got BIG BALLS!"

When I ordered dinner, he said "Don't order here man! Let me buy you dinner ANYWHERE you want. I'm just a white guy with a ton of money. Let me buy you dinner!" When I refused, he said "You're class, man!"

"You're the kind of guy that I want to marry my daughter. But gotta work hard! Everything has come easy for you your whole life. But not my daughter." I swear to God he actually said this.

"I dream of Mexican women. But I want you. Do you know why? Cause you're the best."

"You're the best!" then to the rest of the table: "do you know who this guy is? You don't, but I've been following him. He's one of the best poker players in the world!!"

Maybe it was random that he keyed in on me, but I was definitely by far the best player at the table. I was probably up about $1,200 at my peak, but a couple of bad beats toward the end of the night knocked me down a bit from there. I left as soon as King Randall stumbled out, which was around 3:15am. I would estimate that Randall lost $2,000 to $3,000 and tipped away another $300 to $400. I didn't see him the rest of the week.

Session: 2:45pm - 6:15pm
Game: 9/18 Hold'em
Result: + $60

Session: 6:45pm to 3:15am
Game: $15/30 Hold'em
Result: + $715

Trip total: 21.5 hrs, + $811

this is what you did

Can you say this?

Now I say that I will only vote for peace candidates. If I lived in Ohio, the swing state where I was born, I still would have voted for her. I will never again cast a vote for a war criminal. That conviction means I am disenfranchised. My vote will never count and I can only play the role of spoiler. I no longer care. I can't pretend that America's aggression around the world can be dismissed if it is carried out by the lesser of two evils.

Because if you voted for Obama or McCain you can't. You voted to support evil. Yes you did. And as long as you live, you'll have to remember that.

I know I do from 2004. I don't know if I'll ever get over it.

Voting for Symbols? Symbols of what exactly?

This all sounds nice. Until it gets to the part where Bernard is going to vote for BO because of this:

"My dad grew up being told a black person couldn't be a pilot, and my son is growing up knowing that a black person can be president," she said. "It's not that racism is gone, it's just that it's not about the idea that all black people are excluded on the basis of their race from any part of society or any particular job. That was the racism my parents grew up with."

Being the President of the United States is to be the most powerful gangster of all the gangsters. This isn't something to which little kids should aspire, or that parents should want for their children.

I guess maybe there's some race victory in seeing that a man with an African father can be the supreme leader of an international crime syndicate. In which case the victory is that the power structures that exist, however evil and flawed, at least aren't so racist as to disqualify an otherwise talented criminal from ascending to leadership.

Seems like kind of the same empty victory as gays in the military. Hooray, I'm now allowed to drop bombs on innocent children and suck cock on the weekend!

These are the great victories of our times? We congratulate ourselves on our non-discriminatory selection of death dealers? I guess if this is victory, I'm content to watch from the sidelines.

whatever dude

Shit, man. I can't even sit here and watch a pirated internet feed of a crappy NBA game without being subjected to idiots from the sports world pontificating about how we all should treasure and exercise our right to vote. Fucking sheep.

Suckers.

Here's the story.

This story encompasses some of the most important issues of what is wrong with America (and lots of the rest of the world), and illustrates how all of these issues feed upon each other:

• The "education" system is incapable of teaching anything other than how to conform.
• The health care system is inefficient and immoral.
• The population takes little active role in managing its own affairs, instead relying heavily on corrupt and/or incompetent authorities.
• A (government supported) cartel of predatory corporate mobsters controls the financial system and with huge influence over the entire economy.

I'll second this general reaction: What The Fucking Fuck?

When did America become this kind of country? Where little midwestern school boards think it's a fine idea to use their money allocated for scissors, paste and teacher pensions for speculating in the international bond insurance market? And where all the most prestigious colleges send a third of their graduating classes to Wall Street so they can learn how to fleece these little school boards most effectively?

It's horrifying. Fortunately, the current financial panic will eventually force the New York Times to eliminate this type of high-quality reporting. So while such catastrophes will continue to occur, at least we won't have to hear about it.

—Jonathan Schwarz

Don't worry though. Change is coming and BO will save us all and make everything perfect the way it used to be!

everything is totally changing!!!!!!!!

So Fox News is sticking up for the guy who wants to keep all options on the table when it comes to hawkish defense of Israel, wants to increase the size of the military, endorsed blanket immunity for telecom companies that illegally spied on Americans, refuses to consider impeachment of Bush, and who enthusiastically supported the Wall Street bail out fraud? Wow who would have believed it? This gives me so much hope that Fox News would defend a person like that. Such changes!

We all know the neocons are going to be "kicked out of power" and everything, and so it is almost like Fox News is starting to treat BO like one of their own the same as they did with those real neocons! Weird, huh? Next thing you'll be telling me that Fox News will approve of President-elect Obama's plan to retain Surge Petraeus and involve war criminal Colin Powell in his administration. What an upside down world!

2 years