Obama is a war criminal

Just a reminder!

Spoiler alert: they're on the same team, and it isn't ours

This is what happens every single time: the Democrats do everything possible to "accommodate" the Republican position and then get attacked anyway (they voted in large numbers for the Iraq War in and then got attacked for being soft on Terror in 2002; they voted for virtually every Bush "Terrorism" policy and the same thing happened, etc.). Here, they did everything possible to change their bill to please Republicans and nothing is happening except full-scale GOP opposition accompanied by a constant barrage of GOP attacks against them as big-spending, reckless, wealth-transferring liberals.

Ultimately, the success of this program will be measured by whether it produces successful results, so why shouldn't Democrats use their majority to enact the policy they think is most likely to achieve that? That's true on this issue and in general.
- Greenwald

The answer to Glenn's question is that they have used their majority to enact the policy they think is most likely to achieve successful results. And that is true on this issue and in general.

The obvious next question is "what do Democrats think are successful results?" Some careful editing of the first part of the above quote might help answer that:

This is what happens every single time: the Democrats do everything possible to "accommodate" the Republican position ... (they voted in large numbers for the Iraq War... they voted for virtually every Bush "Terrorism" policy... etc.). Here, they did everything possible to change their bill to please Republicans ....

Get it?

Obama Bombs Pakistan, Kills Afghani Civilians, Defends Bush

Chris Floyd documents the reality of the BO Presidency, making it clear that my dreams won't be coming true.  I wonder whose dreams these are:

Why speak of Gaza -- where the relentless and ruthless Israeli assault on civilians ended almost precisely with the ascension of Barack Obama to high office -- when that newly-ascended embodiment of hope is already drawing first blood in his marshalship of the "War on Terror"? Already, Obama has ordered his first drone missile attacks on the sovereign territory of Pakistan, an American ally; already he has killed his first civilians with the faceless, soulless weapons of remote-control mass death. 

What's more, the Commander-in-Chief has already overseen his first mass slaughter of civilians in Afghanistan, the land he calls "the central front in the War on Terror," where he plans to commit tens of thousands of more troops in a massive escalation of a war that his new Terror War envoy, Richard Holbrooke, now says will last longer than the Vietnam War. As MSNBC reports, none other than the U.S.-installed Afghan president himself, Hamid Karzai, condemned the killing of 16 Afghan civilians, including three children and two women, in a ground-and-air attack by U.S forces on Saturday. Escalating the conflict will mean much more of this, of course. In any case, Karzai's protests will cut no ice with the new regime in Washington; he is yesterday's man, yesterday's puppet, and his increasingly frantic and forthright denunciations of the mass slaughter of his people by American and NATO forces will not be tolerated much longer. Obama and his team are already manipulating the politics of the occupied land to ensure that a "dream ticket" of politicians beholden to Obama, not Bush, will "wrest control away from Mr Karzai," as the Independent reports. 

And why not? Shouldn't the new Caesar be allowed to appoint his own men to govern his dominions?

...

Of course, such things aren't serious. They don't really matter. Why should you waste your beautiful mind on something like that? 

Especially when you can be mesmerized by Obama's amazing "First 100 Hours," when he has already revolutionized American policy by, for example, restricting the overt use of torture to the torture techniques approved of by the Pentagon -- although his own intelligence supremo, Dennis Blair, refuses to say if "waterboarding" should be considered torture, and assures Congress that he will examine "whether certain coercive techniques have been effective"; i.e. which torture techniques should be continued. There is also Obama's bold ordering of the (eventual) closure of the Gitmo camp and the handful of CIA detention center,while leaving alone the Pentagon's numerous and far worse gulag centers -- where thousands of Terror War captives languish without charges, representation, or the slightest legal recourse. And of course, there is his heartening decision to go to court to defend Bush's multiple rape of American liberty: the years-long illegal surveillance scheme, which Obama had voted to support while still in the Senate.

good news

I mentioned a few weeks ago that Noam Chomsky's wife died in December and that I hoped he'd be ok and be able to get back to work. I noticed last night that indeed he has been working. As always, it is worth reading and listening to what he has to say, so check out his latest.

I have a dream

Some BO supporters like to defend his actions up to this point as unfortunate but necessary things he had to do to get the power, and they dream that once he's sworn in he'll abandon the principles he's clearly expressed and do what he truly believes is right, which of course is the same thing they believe is right. I share this dream.

I dream that starting today:

• The US will immediately begin a complete widthdrawl from Iraq and Afghanistan.
• The US will stop its unconditional support for Israeli state violence, will stop supplying the weapons used to terrorize Palestinians, and will support a 2-state solution with the 1967 borders.
• War criminals will be prosecuted: all of them, including former Presidents and executive branch leaders, Congressional leaders, and military leaders.
  
• The US will stop violating international law, will give up its UN Security Counsel Veto, and follow World Court rulings.
• The Federal Reserve will be abolished.
• The US Military empire of bases will begin to be liquidated, troops repatriated and reintegrated into civilian life, and reparations paid where owed.
• Corporate personhood will be revoked, and measures adopted to eliminate corporate influence on elections.
• The CIA will be dismantled, along with much of the "intelligence" structure.
• The war on (certain kinds of people who use certain kinds of) drugs will end. Non-violent offenders will be released with support. Prohibition on drugs will end.
• Universal health care will be adopted, fully funded by the government.
• A sensible national food plan will be adopted, eliminating subsidies for mass-produced industrial monoculture, and providing extensive support for local, sustainable farming.
• Public mass transit infrastructure and alternative energy, especially renewable sources like solar and wind, will be heavily supported by the federal government, as part of a plan to drastically reduce US carbon emissions.
  

I'd like to see lots of other things, but I'll just leave it there because I believe this list is extremely conservative. It simply says we should follow the law, enact policies supported by the population (sometimes called "democracy"), and act according to very simple moral truisms.

If Obama disavows everything he's said and done so far and gets started on that, I'll gladly join the crowd celebrating his work. I won't even mind if he waits a few years to turn himself in for his own war crimes.

But we all know this is just a dream, and is no closer to being acheived than Dr. King's dream.

molding young minds

BO saw this, and decided he needs to bring this to the national level. Read that if you're interested in education.

McCain advising Obama, ha!

Ha! For all of you lesser-evil supporters of BO evil, how do you feel about this? You voted for BO to keep McCain away from power, right? To make sure he has nothing to do with the important decisions, right? Well now Commander Hope-n-Change is calling McCain every night asking him what to do, almost as if he thinks McCain is likely to have something useful to say.

h/t Chris Floyd

don't fall for it

I managed not to notice that today was MLK day until a friend mentioned it on the phone last night. I'm assuming that Canada doesn't pay attention to this particular day, but I might just be oblivious. Anyway, I thought I'd write something about how feel-good connections between today's commemoration of a heroic human rights advocate and tomorrow's imperial management succession ceremony are full of shit, but, as usual, better bloggers have already done it. So go read them.

Perrin:

God, I hate inaugurations -- a massive commercial for the imperial state, with some "populist" tinsel tossed around to make consumers feel included.

...

No one seems to mind hearing pro-FISA Obama praise Martin Luther King, who was on the other end of government wiretaps.

Schwarz: Works the Same Everywhere


Silber:

But the absolutely overwhelming amount of colossal shit attendant upon this inauguration ("Look, Mom! Barack made me fly!" -- I do not exaggerate even slightly, scroll to about the midpoint of the story) is enough to make anyone who remains remotely sane loathe all mankind throughout all eternity.

update

James: Blast from the past: Commemorating MLK, Jr.

a space in the howling madness

In an essay that is worth reading for many reasons beyond what I'll mention, Chris Floyd says:

What commentary could adequately address such madness? Simply to see it is to know what it is. And if you cannot already see it for what it plainly is -- when the bare, unaccomodated facts shout this evil from the lower depths to the highest heavens -- what amount of commentary will sway you?

Then again, I don't write to sway anybody any more, if I ever did. I write to stay sane, to keep from exploding in rage or going dead with despair, to try to clear a space in the howling madness for myself, and for anyone else who might come this way. I write to bear witness -- mostly to myself, and to what's left of my conscience. I write because somewhere along the line, by drift of circumstance, my mind was shaped in such a way that it is only by writing that I can try to understand the world, and my own thoughts and beliefs. If I could do all that without writing -- or if I could stop looking at reality and caring about it -- then I probably would. But for whatever reason -- those same drifts of circumstance, no doubt -- I can't; so I go on.

A lot of the time that has been the reason why I've kept writing in this stupid blog of mine. Maintaining what's left of my sanity and conscience, maybe helping anyone else do the same, trying to understand the world and myself. That's what it has been about, albeit on a much different level than Chris. (That guy is amazing.)

Increasingly I think I'm finding myself doing this in other ways. I'm too lazy to check the stats but I think I'm posting less frequently and with less volume. At least it feels that way. Of course I've been pretty busy with school, and my computer at home is falling apart so I guess I have a lot less opportunity to write. But I still feel like a lot of the time I consider writing something and just decide it isn't worth it. So, yeah, I think I'm getting whatever it is I used to get out of this some other way now.

What does it say?

Think about this.

The President and Vice-President of the US openly admit to having committed crimes under domestic and international law. They are criminals under US law and they are war criminals. They ordered wireless surveillance in violation of FISA law, openly admit to having done so, and thus are criminals. They ordered or approved of water-boarding, which is a violation of international law an which the US has previously prosecuted people for doing under torture laws, and thus are war criminals. This can't be controversial because they openly admit it. There's simply no disputing that these are the facts of the situation.

And in response to this, the political elite in the US are unified in their response: Bush and Cheney should not be held responsible for this in any way. They should not be impeached, and they should not be prosecuted. We're talking about the entire US political machinery, not just close party allies of these guys. From the idiot talking heads on TV to the idiots writing op-eds for the major papers, to Nancy "impeachment is off the table" Pelosi, to Barrack "look forward, not backward" Obama, absolutely everyone is lined up on the side of the openly criminal regime. They shall not be punished.

What does that say about the United States?

Strains on this simple observation have been circulating through the blogs I tend to read these days - Silber, Floyd, Greenwald - and if you want me to point you towards particularly well written pieces I'll be happy to do so, but what I've written here is the gist of it. Our highest elected officials are openly criminal, and nobody within the official leadership structures gives a flying fuck.

BO recently commented on Israel's war against humanity in Gaza something to the effect that if someone lobbed rockets at his family, he'd do everything in his power to respond, too. And when asked if Bush should be prosecuted for his crimes, he said we should look forward, not backwards. Can anyone spot the hypocrisy? This is supposed to be the great new progressive hope for America?

What does that say about America?

Bush and Cheney are widely despised. Their approval ratings have been abysmal, and at times polls have shown a majority of Americans in favor of impeachment. And that is without any major leadership on the impeachment issue. Can you imagine how popular a high-profile politician would become by fighting for impeachment? Anyone who did that would instantly gain hero status for huge numbers of people throughout the world. And yet nobody is willing to do this.

What does that say about America?

how we roll, continued

Mustached Chicks Smoking Carrots




Dotted-Line 'Stache




Free Mustache Rides

end beard. begin mustache.

As promised:

before





after



(Yes, in the first picture there is a woman with a mustache grading papers behind me. That's just how we roll up here.)

yes, Obama is the same as Bush

A recent commenter here objected to my likening of BO to Bush, citing BO's "superior moral grounding" as a reason for optimism. Chris Floyd makes a mockery of this argument:

It's true that the United States government is facing a severe and prolonged budget crisis. But what does it say about the underlying moral philosophy of an administration when its first target for budget cuts are programs designed to help ordinary people – including the weakest among us? When it will not cut a penny from a war machine that has only made the nation more and more insecure over the long decades of its ascendancy, involving the American people in an endless series of conflicts in which they have no business, and no genuine national interests at stake? If urgent cuts in government spending are needed, why would you not look first to this gargantuan swamp of waste and corruption and dangerous meddling? Instead, Obama proposes to pour even more money into it, and to increase the dangerous meddling.

The president-elect has made his fundamental priorities clear – for anyone who wants to see them. The war machine and the financial markets will continue to be gorged and comforted in their wonted manner. Programs to help ordinary citizens, programs to enhance the quality of life for individuals and the well-being of society, will be the first – perhaps the only – areas to feel the budget axe. Whatever you may think of the efficacy of such programs, this ordering of priorities -- war and profits over people -- bespeaks the same depraved sensibility that has prevailed for generations in Washington. It is the same old rancid swill in a stylish new container.

BO = bo = plagiary!

crispin sartwell is stealing my highly original nomenclature. i'll retaliate by stealing his no caps style!

to advance his convictions

I don't have any plans to note the official transition from one evil emperor to the next with any special fanfare, on this blog or otherwise, but TomDispatch has a good piece on Bush's legacy. Spoiler alert: he destroyed everything he touched and piled up gruesome numbers of dead bodies:

Eight years of bodies, dead, broken, mutilated, abused; eight years of ruined lives down countless drains; eight years of massive destruction to places from Baghdad to New Orleans where nothing of significance was ever rebuilt: all this was brought to us by a President, now leaving office without apology, who said the following in his first inaugural address: "I will live and lead by these principles: to advance my convictions with civility… to call for responsibility and try to live it as well."

2008 year in review pictures.

fun with facial hair

Because of an agreement with some of my male classmates, I haven't shaved in a long time.  I have a bushy red-blonde thing all over my face.  MAN BEARD BLOG would be proud.  (I think.)  But that agreement also stipulates that the new year brings Mustache January, which is going to be pretty scary.  Will I last a full month?  Hard to say.  Maybe I'll post some pictures.  Maybe.

tags

ima trim some of my tags.  i don't imagine anyone cares.

For now I just want to say that this Israel-Gaza shit pisses me the fuck off.  And makes me sad.

A Christmas Tale

There are lots of people who have no interest in religion but who will be going to church this week just to please family members. Others will decide not to attend church services but will feel guilty about causing tension by breaking with tradition. Both of these situations are unfortunate.

It is easy to lose sight of an important point: the tension isn't caused by you skipping a ceremony. It is caused by people who expect that you should feel obligated to do something you don't want to do. So you have nothing to feel guilty about.

But still, if you skip church, that might make someone feel bad, and you probably don't want that, even if the blame isn't on you.

It strikes me that two reasonable people who care about each other's feelings might come to an agreement. Tell Mom or whoever that you don't want to go to church, but you know that she wants you to go. Say that you thought that rather than go through the motions of showing up and daydreaming through the service just to please her and quietly wishing that you didn't have to spend your time this way, you were hoping that you could make a deal. If what is important to her is that you go, then you'll go and pay very close attention to everything. You'll even bring a pen and paper to take notes. And since you'd be giving up your time for her, in exchange you'd like her to spend an equal amount of time to a conversation about the service, where you can express things that bother you about it. That way you spend time doing something important to her, and she'll spend time doing something important to you.

It is pretty hard to imagine this actually going over well, probably because it is hard to imagine two reasonable people being in this situation in the first place.

JJ Wayne

It has been a while since J.J.'s fine work was featured here. Wait no longer!

J.J. loves Batman

Magic SG J.J. Redick may be in a no-man's land of sorts in the Magic rotation, but he is finding a way to kill the downtime.

Redick said recently that he has seen the newest Batman movie, The Dark Knight, about 10 times. Asked to expound on his obsession with the flick, Redick defended his viewing habits.

"It's deep," he said. "You have to pay attention to the dialogue."

hiber nation

Last few days have been high temperatures in the 20s or lower (F, although most people use C up here), and lots of snow. Forecasts call for more of the same. I've been drinking beer and sleeping a lot. Such is Canada, eh?

Here's the view out our back window:

the US role in the UN

America, FUCK YEAH:

On the right to food posted by lenin

In favour: Afghanistan, Albania, Algeria, Andorra, Angola, Antigua and Barbuda, Argentina, Armenia, Australia, Austria, Azerbaijan, Bahamas, Bahrain, Bangladesh, Barbados, Belarus, Belgium, Belize, Benin, Bhutan, Bolivia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Botswana, Brazil, Brunei Darussalam, Bulgaria, Burkina Faso, Burundi, Cambodia, Cameroon, Canada, Cape Verde, Chad, Chile, China, Colombia, Comoros, Congo, Costa Rica, Côte d’Ivoire, Croatia, Cuba, Cyprus, Czech Republic, Democratic People’s Republic of Korea, Denmark, Djibouti, Dominica, Dominican Republic, Ecuador, Egypt, El Salvador, Equatorial Guinea, Eritrea, Estonia, Ethiopia, Fiji, Finland, France, Gabon, Gambia, Georgia, Germany, Ghana, Greece, Grenada, Guinea, Guinea-Bissau, Guyana, Haiti, Honduras, Hungary, Iceland, India, Indonesia, Iran, Iraq, Ireland, Israel, Italy, Jamaica, Japan, Jordan, Kazakhstan, Kenya, Kuwait, Kyrgyzstan, Lao People’s Democratic Republic, Latvia, Lebanon, Lesotho, Liberia, Libya, Liechtenstein, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Madagascar, Malawi, Malaysia, Maldives, Mali, Malta, Mauritania, Mauritius, Mexico, Micronesia (Federated States of), Monaco, Mongolia, Montenegro, Morocco, Mozambique, Myanmar, Namibia, Nauru, Nepal, Netherlands, New Zealand, Nicaragua, Niger, Nigeria, Norway, Oman, Pakistan, Panama, Papua New Guinea, Paraguay, Peru, Philippines, Poland, Portugal, Qatar, Republic of Korea, Republic of Moldova, Romania, Russian Federation, Rwanda, Saint Lucia, Saint Vincent and the Grenadines, Samoa, San Marino, Saudi Arabia, Senegal, Serbia, Sierra Leone, Singapore, Slovakia, Slovenia, Solomon Islands, South Africa, Spain, Sri Lanka, Sudan, Suriname, Swaziland, Sweden, Switzerland, Syria, Tajikistan, Thailand, the former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia, Timor-Leste, Togo, Tonga, Trinidad and Tobago, Tunisia, Turkey, Turkmenistan, Uganda, Ukraine, United Arab Emirates, United Kingdom, United Republic of Tanzania, Uruguay, Uzbekistan, Vanuatu, Venezuela, Viet Nam, Yemen, Zambia, Zimbabwe.

Against: United States.

sad news

Carol Chomsky dead at 78. Hope the family does ok, and that her husband (of 59 years!) Noam keeps working for a long time.

Heros and Criminals, Shoe-Throwers and Presidents

In terms of the moral significance of the action, throwing a shoe at somebody is somewhere between calling him a motherfucker and punching him (the merciless beatings al-Zaidi has endured are far greater crimes than throwing shoes). It is basically like a hard slap in the face. The primary purpose is to humiliate the victim, but there is also the known risk, if not outright intention, of inflicting minor physical harm. Because of the slightly violent nature of the act, I wouldn't throw a shoe at Bush to make a political point. And I wouldn't call someone who did a hero.

If I accepted the criminal justice system as an appropriate avenue for dealing with these kinds of situations, I'd probably say throwing a shoe at a politician deserves a very minor sentence - a few nights in jail, a small fine, some community service, probation, or whatever. I'd definitely say that anyone who condemns Muntathar al-Zaidi even the slightest bit without noting that his minor transgression was an emotional reaction to a series of unspeakably horrific organized crimes committed by George Bush is so morally depraved as to be unworthy of commenting on such matters.

So I understand why many people consider al-Zaidi a hero. He bravely stood up to a powerful evil, knowing he would face severe consequences for doing so. There is something heroic about that, but I'd prefer to see heroic acts that don't involve even minor levels of violence.

That said, I'll add my powerless voice to those calling for al-Zaidi's immediate release. And I'll continue to call for real criminals like George Bush to face justice.

when science is really worth it

If you manage to make it to the 22nd page of this paper*, you'll read one of the most entertaining paragraphs in the history of science. (By the way MS is "mortality salience," which basically means being confronted with the inevitability of your own death.)

More recently, Solomon, Pyszczynski, Cohen and Ogilvie (in press) demonstrated that a reminder of death increased peoples’ reports of flying fantasies and desire to fly; a behavior that, for humans without mechanical assistance, clearly violates the laws of nature. As importantly, asking people to imagine themselves flying eliminated a widely replicated MS-induced worldview defense. Specifically, whereas MS increased affection for President Bush among American participants relative to controls (replicating Landau et al., 2004b), imagining oneself flying completely eliminated this effect. These results are shown in Figure 2.

Here is the amazing Figure 2:


Please share with me your favorite part about the paragraph or the figure. I think my favorite part is the implication that if you ever find yourself in the upsetting condition of feeling affectionate towards George Bush, just imagine yourself flying and you'll be cured.


* Landau, M. J., Solomon, S., Pyszczynski, T., & Greenberg, J. (2007). On the compatibility of terror management theory and perspectives on human evolution. Evolutionary Psychology, 5, 476-519.

man to possess a plant. men with guns will punish him.

Man renounces US Citizenship, becomes stateless

PRESS RELEASE

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Bratislava resident renounces American citizenship, becomes stateless person

BRATISLAVA, SLOVAKIA, 10 December 2008 – Citing US war, human rights abuses, rapacious state capitalism and hypocrisy, Bratislava resident Michael Gogulski announced today that he has renounced his United States citizenship and become a stateless person as a means of “political divorce”.

Gogulski, 36, renounced his citizenship on 8 December 2008 at the American embassy in Bratislava, surrendering his US passport and culminating a two-week process and months of personal preparations. He currently awaits a Certificate of Loss of Nationality of the United States confirming his loss of American citizenship. As Gogulski has no other citizenship, he is now a stateless person.

“I was disgusted to be associated through citizenship with the most dangerous gang of criminals in the world, the United States government. Renouncing my citizenship is a means of achieving a political divorce with that vile institution,” Gogulski said. “American politicians extol their state in terms of liberty, human rights, free markets and the rule of law. Examination of the country’s history and present actions reveals nothing but lies and hypocrisy. The genocide of Native Americans, slavery, nuclear slaughter at Hiroshima and Nagasaki, support for brutal dictators, the torture of innocents at places like Guantánamo and Abu Ghraib, the massive robberies for the benefit of big business in the name of ‘rescuing’ the economy, the world’s biggest prison population, the growth of a domestic police state and the brutal wars of oppression underway in Iraq, Afghanistan and Somalia paint a rather different picture. America, via its government agents, is truly exceptional – exceptionally evil,” he stated.

Gogulski says that when he receives the Certificate of Loss of Nationality he will apply to the Slovak Interior Ministry for a Travel Document – similar to a passport – under the 1954 Convention on the Status of Stateless Persons, which Slovakia signed in 2000. He says that he has no plans to leave Bratislava until then, and that he recognizes that his life without citizenship will be more difficult, especially with respect to travel. But, “if the Schengen Zone is to be my cage,” Gogulski states, “I think it’s large enough for me. There’s enough to explore within Europe to last a lifetime.”

On his personal blog, Gogulski indicates that he works as a freelance translator and editor. He also writes about anarchism and supports the revolutionary theory called agorism, which posits that free-market service providers will compete with and eventually supplant states, giving rise to a voluntary society. “Governments pride themselves on notions of ‘equality’ and ‘rule of law’, but fail to apply the same standards to themselves that their subjects must endure,” he says, explaining his political philosophy. “The foundation of state power, taxation, is robbery. That the robbers have fancy uniforms, impressive titles and the sanction of law does not in the slightest way change the basic formula for extortion: pay us, or we will kill you.”

Michael Gogulski’s blog can be found at www.nostate.com.

###

Congratulations, Michael.

Pictures I like.

This picture was taken at The Phoenix, the graduate student pub on campus at McMaster.



It includes the following noteworthy storylines:

• David (2nd from left), a friend from Ohio, and Bailey (middle), my sister, came up to visit for...
  
• It was taken November 27, 2008, which was American Thanksgiving, and 2 days before my 28th birthday.
• It includes Dan's asymmetrical beard (far left), one of the more amusing results of a decision among the men in my class not to shave for a few months.
• It includes Kira's recent short haircut (2nd from right).
• It was taken by Leo, a visiting grad student from Brazil, who I really ought to have some pictures with.
• It is the only picture I've seen from a very fun night that featured a much larger crowd, including my supervisors, who I really ought to have some pictures with.

Here are other pictures I like.


Hanging with the bride (Kate... on the left), the night before her wedding. Canton, Ohio. October, 2007.


Last day over there: (left to right) Paolo, Ate Lady, Jakob, Ram, JJ, and Jam. Calamba, Laguna, Philippines. November, 2006.


Kira and I, in top shape clearly. Annapolis, MD. Christmas, 2006.


Left to right: Sarah, Dave, Phil's ass, Phil, Phil's hair, Zsaz, Kira. Ada, Ohio. May, 2008.



Left to right: Katsu, Hattori, Horus. Ada, Ohio. March, 2008.

slather yourself in change

Pres-elect BO and all of his awesome changes. Do you realize what a joke he's making of "progressives" who voted for him? Just look at that headline.

h/t: Strike the Root Blog

and 64% of prisoners break prison rules!

I gotta agree with the professor:

so 64% of american students cheat. let me say this: that would be bad if education were not compulsory. if i enter into a contest - a sporting event, a game of chess or poker - because i want to play, then to cheat is disgusting. but if you put a gun to my head and make me play, then i have no obligation to abide by the rules; no one should blame me if i do whatever i can get away with. indeed, under such circumstances, cheating would be a nice little act of resistance. i think it's deeply reprehensible when an author plagiarizes, but if writing books were compulsory, plagiarism would be understandable and at worst morally neutral. in other words, compulsory education abrogates anything we might think of as educational ethics: destroys it, vitiates it, suspends it. that's one reason (of many) why compulsory education is an absurd concept, or merely a contradiction in terms. our educational institutions teach that capitulation is the essence of honor, which of course is exactly the center of our moral training of young people. if they come out of that cheaters, you're getting what you deserve, what you're begging for.

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