Friday, April 08, 2016
Thursday, April 07, 2016
Gosh, I love how even these cats seem a little starstruck by Lauren Bacall. pic.twitter.com/jocnD47cNe
— The Nitrate Diva (@NitrateDiva) March 25, 2016
Wednesday, April 06, 2016
On Obama's Historical Legacy
As I just commented at Hattie's Web, Obama was constrained by a number of things, but was never out to tear down the system to begin with. Still, he managed to effect changes which will become more apparent in the years to come. And, he has become much bolder in his second term. His demeanor is gentlemanly but he is no pushover.
"53 Historians Weigh In on Barack Obama’s Legacy."
"53 Historians Weigh In on Barack Obama’s Legacy."
Reading to children: Obamas: 1 - Cameron: 0 pic.twitter.com/EvhLtEjJTT
— ZoĆ« Brown (@ZBrownie) April 1, 2016
Tuesday, April 05, 2016
I finished breakfasts in Hawaii! pic.twitter.com/JxxBgoA5jS
— Ron MacFarlane (@DadMacFarlane) March 21, 2016
Monday, April 04, 2016
Kunstler: An Unfiltered Mind.
Kunstler: An Unfiltered Mind. In which he goes on some more about Trump, and grumbles a bit about the AARP. Read anyway. It's far from his best columns but short.
Sunday, April 03, 2016
Saturday, April 02, 2016
Various Links on Politics
"The wilful ignorance of a new generation of 'Liberals' shields the Congress from its culpability in the 1984 massacres" by Hartosh Singh Bal, Caravan Magazine, 2 April 2016.
This is the website of the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists.
A few reviews of Jane Mayer's book Dark Money:
National Review.
Dissent.
Kirkus Reviews.
------
Update:
If I had a trust fund I would donate millions to @intifada @Mondoweiss @TheRealNews and @AlterNet among others https://t.co/690HqdMsVv
— Max Blumenthal (@MaxBlumenthal) April 1, 2016
Former Pro Golfer Leaves Links to Pursue Promise of Greener Urban Farming Pastures https://t.co/664MmNMy8k (@buildresilience)
— Post Carbon Inst. (@postcarbon) March 31, 2016
Garfield is running for president too:
https://twitter.com/Garfield
Put a REAL fat cat in the White House! https://t.co/oF0dZDKJ51 #PresidentGarfield #YouCouldDoWorse pic.twitter.com/SCHlEs7WWN
— Garfield (@Garfield) March 24, 2016
Thursday, March 31, 2016
The Tsunami: Seventy Years Ago
Tomorrow is the seventieth anniversary of the tsunami. The two big tsunamis affected different parts of coastal Hilo. There used to be many buildings along the makai side of Kamehameha Avenue. When the 1946 wave hit, most of them were smashed up, but the mauka buildings largely escaped damage.
This is perhaps the most known photo from the tsunami, of people running up Ponahawai Street.
And this is one of many buildings along Kamehameha wrecked by the tsunami.
This is perhaps the most known photo from the tsunami, of people running up Ponahawai Street.
And this is one of many buildings along Kamehameha wrecked by the tsunami.
Tuesday, March 29, 2016
Crab Louie With Asparagus*
Louis "Louie" Buller (!) Gohmert, Jr., Republican congressman from the first congressional district of Texas.
"Louie Gohmert Begs For Donations To Fight Back Against Primary Attacks That He's A 'Clown' And An 'Embarrassment.'"
He didn't need the donations after all.
"Gohmert beats back challenges for nomination."
Now he can get back to business.
Watch Louie Gohmert bizarrely oppose bill for women scientists: MLK wouldn’t ‘leave little boys in the ditch.'"
(*The recipe. The comment.)
(We all know the Kingsmen's version, but Richard Berry was the song's composer and original performer.)
David Letterman Looks Like Socrates
Happiness. pic.twitter.com/EQXsrj83QP
— Will Sasso (@WillSasso) March 23, 2016
Monday, March 28, 2016
Saturday, March 26, 2016
Happy Easter!
I'll be busy today and tomorrow preparing for and celebrating Easter.
Easter Dates from 1600 to 2099.
Easter parade.
Easter Dates from 1600 to 2099.
Easter parade.
Friday, March 25, 2016
Getting Political Stuff Out of the Way Until After Easter Sunday
Obamacare is just a shitty version of Nixoncare, which would've passed but Ted Kennedy blocked it. Yay, liberals! https://t.co/KRyJKaQUn1
— Mark Ames (@MarkAmesExiled) March 25, 2016
‘No one told me I was going to be interviewed by a Muslim.’ - Is there a Nobel Prize for bigotry? https://t.co/CKXcSaYcsh
— Tony Karon (@TonyKaron) March 25, 2016
Her "halo has slipped", according to The Economist.
Wednesday, March 23, 2016
Monday, March 21, 2016
Kunstler on Politics and Peak Oil
Last week's Kunstler column, "Bull Run."
Kunstlercast 275: Art Berman Clarifies Whatever Happened to Peak Oil.
This week's Kunstler column, "The Uses of Disorder."
M any thoughtful and patriotic citizens entering the Kubler-Ross free-fire zone of desperate bargaining with reality are at work attempting to chart an orderly course around the Godzilla-like figure of Trump looming outside the desecrated once-shining city of American democracy. I doubt there is such an orderly way through this political bad weather. When storms hit, things break up.
It can be argued endlessly whether times produce the man or vice versa, but except in the most schematic and wishful sense, is there any question that Donald Trump is unfit for the office he’s seeking? Personally, I am tortured by the question: why him? Why this vulgarian who can’t string together two sequentially coherent thoughts? Are there in this land of 320 million-plus people no other men or women with comfortable fortunes and better minds bold enough to take on the matrix of mafias running our affairs into the ground? Apparently not.
Then there is the question — only nascently theoretical at this point — of where such an orderly course of decision and action might lead this country. For Trump, it seems to be a restoration of the 1950s, when armies of “breadwinner” factory workers churned out cornucopias of Maytag washers and Zenith black-and-white televisions, and the less numerous Wogs of the outside world busied themselves with basket-weaving, and Atoms For Peace would make electric power “too cheap to meter,” and popular entertainment came in the chaste form of Dinah Shore urging the upward-aspiring masses to “see the USA in your Chevrolet!”
That was, of course, the time of Trump’s childhood (and my own), and if there is anything more certain than night following day, it is that America is not going back to that sunny moment. Trump and I are way past done growing up as human organisms and America is done growing as a techno-industrial political economy. People decline and die and are replaced by new people, and political economies wither and morph into sets of new activities and relations.
The forces of history want to take us to this new disposition of things, and just about everything on the American scene these days is a manifestation of resistance to that journey. The destination is a much re-scaled and down-scaled edition of daily life in a de-globalized economy, with far fewer luxuries and a greater demand for earnestness, purposeful work, generosity-of-spirit, and plain dealing. These are not qualities exhibited by Trump, who represents only the poorly-articulated and grandiose wish to “make America great again.”
The institutional collapse of the Republican Party is in full swing now thanks to Trump. By the way, it could easily be matched by an equally brutal collapse of the Democratic Party if the head of the FBI makes any criminal referrals in the matter of the Clinton Foundation’s entanglements in official State Department business via an email slime trail. It would be an awesome and wondrous event if the nation landed on November 8 with both parties in complete disarray and more than a couple of rump factions posting candidates with dubious legitimate credentials to stand for election. In over two hundred years we have not seen a national election postponed, or canceled.
I’ll repeat my assertion that professional observers on the political scene appear oblivious to the financial shit-storm gathering out-of-sight of land, and how it might affect electoral events at landfall. There’s a fair chance that six months from now, the USA may be in some kind economic emergency, with the banks either disabled or shuttered, and businesses unable to transact with one another, and the just-in-time supply lines to America’s Big Box merchandise depots badly interrupted, with the shelves bare. Americans at large, lost in the their cell phone app raptures and Kardashian masturbation fantasies have no idea how fragile the systems they depend on are.
America is going to learn something about the uses of disorder before this year is out. One of these is to compel the construction of a coherent consensus as to what is actually happening in the world, apart from our wishes and fantasies. That is, if we are not torn apart in the process of getting to that.
Kunstlercast 275: Art Berman Clarifies Whatever Happened to Peak Oil.
This week's Kunstler column, "The Uses of Disorder."
M any thoughtful and patriotic citizens entering the Kubler-Ross free-fire zone of desperate bargaining with reality are at work attempting to chart an orderly course around the Godzilla-like figure of Trump looming outside the desecrated once-shining city of American democracy. I doubt there is such an orderly way through this political bad weather. When storms hit, things break up.
It can be argued endlessly whether times produce the man or vice versa, but except in the most schematic and wishful sense, is there any question that Donald Trump is unfit for the office he’s seeking? Personally, I am tortured by the question: why him? Why this vulgarian who can’t string together two sequentially coherent thoughts? Are there in this land of 320 million-plus people no other men or women with comfortable fortunes and better minds bold enough to take on the matrix of mafias running our affairs into the ground? Apparently not.
Then there is the question — only nascently theoretical at this point — of where such an orderly course of decision and action might lead this country. For Trump, it seems to be a restoration of the 1950s, when armies of “breadwinner” factory workers churned out cornucopias of Maytag washers and Zenith black-and-white televisions, and the less numerous Wogs of the outside world busied themselves with basket-weaving, and Atoms For Peace would make electric power “too cheap to meter,” and popular entertainment came in the chaste form of Dinah Shore urging the upward-aspiring masses to “see the USA in your Chevrolet!”
That was, of course, the time of Trump’s childhood (and my own), and if there is anything more certain than night following day, it is that America is not going back to that sunny moment. Trump and I are way past done growing up as human organisms and America is done growing as a techno-industrial political economy. People decline and die and are replaced by new people, and political economies wither and morph into sets of new activities and relations.
The forces of history want to take us to this new disposition of things, and just about everything on the American scene these days is a manifestation of resistance to that journey. The destination is a much re-scaled and down-scaled edition of daily life in a de-globalized economy, with far fewer luxuries and a greater demand for earnestness, purposeful work, generosity-of-spirit, and plain dealing. These are not qualities exhibited by Trump, who represents only the poorly-articulated and grandiose wish to “make America great again.”
The institutional collapse of the Republican Party is in full swing now thanks to Trump. By the way, it could easily be matched by an equally brutal collapse of the Democratic Party if the head of the FBI makes any criminal referrals in the matter of the Clinton Foundation’s entanglements in official State Department business via an email slime trail. It would be an awesome and wondrous event if the nation landed on November 8 with both parties in complete disarray and more than a couple of rump factions posting candidates with dubious legitimate credentials to stand for election. In over two hundred years we have not seen a national election postponed, or canceled.
I’ll repeat my assertion that professional observers on the political scene appear oblivious to the financial shit-storm gathering out-of-sight of land, and how it might affect electoral events at landfall. There’s a fair chance that six months from now, the USA may be in some kind economic emergency, with the banks either disabled or shuttered, and businesses unable to transact with one another, and the just-in-time supply lines to America’s Big Box merchandise depots badly interrupted, with the shelves bare. Americans at large, lost in the their cell phone app raptures and Kardashian masturbation fantasies have no idea how fragile the systems they depend on are.
America is going to learn something about the uses of disorder before this year is out. One of these is to compel the construction of a coherent consensus as to what is actually happening in the world, apart from our wishes and fantasies. That is, if we are not torn apart in the process of getting to that.
Thursday, March 17, 2016
tired of minimalism being considered cool. waiting for maximalism to get back at it again. pic.twitter.com/TvB7RruATZ
— Ariel Hart (@arielhart) March 15, 2016
Tuesday, March 15, 2016
Marco Rubio Out
When Marco Rubio was seen as the Republican "savior."
If he throws a baseball the way he did this football, it's just as well he dropped out.
Rubio catches footballs better than he throws them. (The first part shows him catching a pass from Dan Marino on the floor of the Florida House. Kids can point to that when their parents admonish them not to throw balls in the house.)
How things change in just three years.
In other developments:
17 March update:
Heckler accuses Marco of stealing girlfriend.
An Exhausted Marco Rubio Returns to Senate, Vows Not to Accept VP or Run for Governor." "Rubio Back in the Senate Just in Time for Recess."
And it looks as if he's not even going to run for a second Senate term. That's just as well, given his abysmal voting record.
Beeson acting like a yob, punching Yob.
If he throws a baseball the way he did this football, it's just as well he dropped out.
Rubio catches footballs better than he throws them. (The first part shows him catching a pass from Dan Marino on the floor of the Florida House. Kids can point to that when their parents admonish them not to throw balls in the house.)
How things change in just three years.
In other developments:
They who went and got slaves and Native land https://t.co/52P4F232YI
— Max Blumenthal (@MaxBlumenthal) March 16, 2016
#MarcoRubio now condemns exploiting irrational fears of Republican base pic.twitter.com/QH5Z7U8G5a
— Max Blumenthal (@MaxBlumenthal) March 16, 2016
"Descendants of go-getters" Good riddance!
— armond white (@3xchair) March 16, 2016
Most talented, star-favored GOP politician of a generation has sacrificed his career arc on a cross of amnesty. Any other takers? #hari3/1
— Mickey Kaus (@kausmickey) March 16, 2016
Joel & Victoria Osteen Endorse Donald J. Trump #Trump #TrumpTrain pic.twitter.com/Z2dOuxFVt9
— Sandra Schneider (@sandyaschneider) March 15, 2016
17 March update:
Heckler accuses Marco of stealing girlfriend.
An Exhausted Marco Rubio Returns to Senate, Vows Not to Accept VP or Run for Governor." "Rubio Back in the Senate Just in Time for Recess."
And it looks as if he's not even going to run for a second Senate term. That's just as well, given his abysmal voting record.
Florida Man Can't Convince Own Neighbors to Vote for Him pic.twitter.com/MCnDxdENLA
— Luke Brinker (@LukeBrinker) March 16, 2016
Beeson acting like a yob, punching Yob.
SAA welcomes a new student chapter at University of Hawai'i at MÄnoa - our 40th student chapter since 1993!
— Soc Amer Archivists (@archivists_org) March 15, 2016
Monday, March 14, 2016
Ten Years
Today is the tenth anniversary of the founding of Poppa Zao. Sometime in the afternoon of 14 March 2006 I posted a simple welcome to this blog, which has come this far. When I started, the issue of peak oil was widely discussed. James Kunstler's The Long Emergency laid out a future where oil scarcity changed every aspect of American life. Since then he has explored the post-oil world in another book Too Much Magic, and a series of novels, World Made by Hand. Fracking and other techniques for extracting unconventional fossil fuels have fostered the illusion of a superabundance of natural gas and oil. I've never bought into that.
YouTube, Facebook, and Twitter have soared, sometimes to the detriment of blogs and traditional websites. I've used YouTube as a source of music, and I have shared a variety of music videos. What all these music videos have in common, whether they're old favorites, or songs I've heard of for the first time, is that they interest me. You might be interested in them too, or not. I also embed tweets in my posts. I'm not on Twitter and don't see going on Twitter anytime soon, but I look at various Twitters, sometimes out of reflex (even if they're beating a dead horse). Blogs are still vital and afford ways to share material that social media can preclude.
I've never explained the name of my blog but might as well do so now. At the time, Britney Spears's then-boyfriend Kevin Federline released a Brazilian-flavored dance song, "PopoZĆ£o." I've never heard it until today. As you'd expect, it's pretty lousy. But I liked the sound of the song title. More importantly, there was a character named Zao from Die Another Day, the last James Bond movie with Pierce Brosnan. Thinking it over, I came up with Poppa Zao as my name and the title of this blog.
One of the blogs I avidly follow is Hattie's Web. I know Hattie in real life and often comment on her blog, sometimes as Poppa Zao, sometimes under my given name. She began her blog a few months before I did, and it followed from a traditional website she maintained for years before that.
The last three years have been busier than ever for me but I post something at least every other day, even if it's a YouTube video or some tweets. There's a lot I have to say about what's going on now, but I want those posts to be considered. I've known people who started blogging with a bang, then tail off. The important thing is regularity.
YouTube, Facebook, and Twitter have soared, sometimes to the detriment of blogs and traditional websites. I've used YouTube as a source of music, and I have shared a variety of music videos. What all these music videos have in common, whether they're old favorites, or songs I've heard of for the first time, is that they interest me. You might be interested in them too, or not. I also embed tweets in my posts. I'm not on Twitter and don't see going on Twitter anytime soon, but I look at various Twitters, sometimes out of reflex (even if they're beating a dead horse). Blogs are still vital and afford ways to share material that social media can preclude.
I've never explained the name of my blog but might as well do so now. At the time, Britney Spears's then-boyfriend Kevin Federline released a Brazilian-flavored dance song, "PopoZĆ£o." I've never heard it until today. As you'd expect, it's pretty lousy. But I liked the sound of the song title. More importantly, there was a character named Zao from Die Another Day, the last James Bond movie with Pierce Brosnan. Thinking it over, I came up with Poppa Zao as my name and the title of this blog.
One of the blogs I avidly follow is Hattie's Web. I know Hattie in real life and often comment on her blog, sometimes as Poppa Zao, sometimes under my given name. She began her blog a few months before I did, and it followed from a traditional website she maintained for years before that.
The last three years have been busier than ever for me but I post something at least every other day, even if it's a YouTube video or some tweets. There's a lot I have to say about what's going on now, but I want those posts to be considered. I've known people who started blogging with a bang, then tail off. The important thing is regularity.
Sunday, March 13, 2016
Saturday, March 12, 2016
R.I.P., Kathryn Altman
Variety.com: "Kathryn Altman, Widow of Director Robert Altman, Dies at 91."
"She also assisted in the establishment of the University of Michigan’s Robert Altman Collection, one of the largest archives of a major film director.
“ 'While Kathryn Altman’s name does not appear in the credits of any of her husband’s films, the Altman collection is as much a tribute to her as it is to Bob himself,' said University of Michigan librarian Phillip Hallman. 'Her presence led directly to her stewardship of his legacy, which she worked on tirelessly until the end.' ”
A link to a finding aid for the Unfinished or Suspended Projects section of the Robert Altman Archive.
"She also assisted in the establishment of the University of Michigan’s Robert Altman Collection, one of the largest archives of a major film director.
“ 'While Kathryn Altman’s name does not appear in the credits of any of her husband’s films, the Altman collection is as much a tribute to her as it is to Bob himself,' said University of Michigan librarian Phillip Hallman. 'Her presence led directly to her stewardship of his legacy, which she worked on tirelessly until the end.' ”
A link to a finding aid for the Unfinished or Suspended Projects section of the Robert Altman Archive.
You do know that Kathryn Altman advised Leonard Cohen songs for McCabe & Mrs. Miller. God bless her soul. pic.twitter.com/aSLIdVSxcf
— armond white (@3xchair) March 11, 2016
Friday, March 11, 2016
Ilind.net: On the Collapse of the News Industry.
Ilind.net: Another Perspective on the Collapse of the News Industry.
Former KGMB anchor Bob Jones notes that he and other journalists co-founded The Hawaii Journalism Review.
"...I and some Advertiser and Star-Bulletin journalists started the Hawaii Journalism Review, which detailed some of the failings of local print and TV journalism and also gave kudos where due. But mainly a newsletter of criticism. Our bosses were not happy but our criticisms were accurate and they could not argue with that."
It's not online and print copies aren't at the UH-Hilo library so I hope Ian Lind will share what he finds in the State or UH-Manoa libraries.
Former KGMB anchor Bob Jones notes that he and other journalists co-founded The Hawaii Journalism Review.
"...I and some Advertiser and Star-Bulletin journalists started the Hawaii Journalism Review, which detailed some of the failings of local print and TV journalism and also gave kudos where due. But mainly a newsletter of criticism. Our bosses were not happy but our criticisms were accurate and they could not argue with that."
It's not online and print copies aren't at the UH-Hilo library so I hope Ian Lind will share what he finds in the State or UH-Manoa libraries.
Wednesday, March 09, 2016
The Effectiveness of Civility
Civil discourse leads to positive change; insults do not https://t.co/5h0g2RXGnw (@buildresilience)
— Post Carbon Inst. (@postcarbon) March 7, 2016
"Ride on Time."
ćć©ćGOODLUCK!!äø»é”ę RIDE ON TIME
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---------------
I was looking to play Black Box's "Ride on Time." I thought this was a cover of the song but it's completely different. Because I don't read Japanese I pasted the characters above into a search engine, and figured out the song is by Tatsuro Yamashita, and was featured over the ending credits of Good Luck!!, which appears to be a Japanese drama.
Monday, March 07, 2016
Tomorrow: The Hawaii GOP Presidential Caucus
Whom will get the most votes?
Found and added this on 17 March:
Found and added this on 17 March:
Aloha Hawaii: We would be honored to have your vote! Find your caucus https://t.co/iNgQS80mxX #TrumpWaikiki #Mahalo pic.twitter.com/ggTwDLbSG7
— Eric Trump (@EricTrump) March 8, 2016
When Alice Walker Came to Kohala
Hattie's discussion of Alice Walker and her relationship with her daughter Rebecca reminded me of the time Alice Walker held a reading at Kohala Used Books, the now-defunct bookstore renowned for its extensive collection of Hawaiiana.
It's easy to think this island is out of the way. But all kinds of people from around the world visit, pass through, and even come to live here. And Alice Walker is one of them.
More later.
It's easy to think this island is out of the way. But all kinds of people from around the world visit, pass through, and even come to live here. And Alice Walker is one of them.
More later.
Kunstler: Mistakes Were Made.
Kunstler: Mistakes Were Made.
Beyond the Kubler-Ross maelstrom of denial, anger, depression, etc., besetting this spavined republic, lies the actual grief provoking it all — especially the shocking loss of national purpose embodied by the muppets and puppets onstage nightly vying to bring out the worst in us in an election season far from just silly. Judging from their demeanor in the so-called debates, the candidates seem not only sick of their opponents but of themselves, a fitting outcome perhaps in a nation that hates what it has become.
The moment that got me in Sunday night’s Democratic boasting contest, hosted by CNN, was Hillary crowing about the great achievement of Obamacare — getting thirty million uninsured Americans on some kind of health plan! The part she left out, of course, is that most of those plans have “deductable” ceilings in the multiple thousands of dollars, guaranteeing that the policy holder goes bankrupt if he/she seeks medical help. Who does she think she’s fooling, anyway? This sort of arrant lying is what drives millions into the camp of Trump.
Even valiant old Bernie muffs every opportunity to explain the death-grip that Wall Street crony politics has on this land: the US Department of Justice did nothing under six-plus years of Attorney General Eric Holder to prosecute criminal misconduct in banking. And then President Obama, who is ultimately responsible, did absolutely nothing to prompt that Attorney General into action or replace him with somebody who would act. Obama’s lame excuse back in the days when informed people were still wondering about this, was that the bankers had done nothing patently illegal enough to warrant investigation — a claim that was absurd on its face.
Obama didn’t do any better with the regulating agencies that are supposed to make criminal referrals to the Department of Justice, especially the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) charged with keeping financial markets honest. There was nothing that difficult about those criminal matters now fading in the nation’s memory: for instance, the bundled bonds (CDOs) of “non-performing” mortgages designed to pay off the issuers handsomely when they failed. A child of ten could have unpacked the Goldman Sachs Timberwolf bond caper. Eventually Goldman and others were slapped with mere fines that could be (and were) written off as the cost of doing business. What a difference it would have made if Lloyd Blankfein and a few hundred other bank executives were personally held accountable and sent to cool their heels in federal prison.
As the politicians are fond of saying, make no mistake: this was Barack Obama’s failure to act. Likewise, regarding the Citizens United Supreme Court’s decision that equated arrant corporate bribery of public officials with “free speech;” Mr. Obama (a constitutional lawyer by training) had a range of remedies at his disposal, foremostly working with the then-majority Democratic congressional leadership to legislate a new and clearer definition of so-far-alleged corporate “personhood,” its duties, obligations, and responsibilities to the public interest — and its limits! Not only did Mr. Obama fail to act then, but nobody in his own party even coughed into his-or-her sleeve when he so failed. And now, of course, nobody remembers any of that.
The effects of all this fundamental dishonesty have thundered through our national life to the degree that American society is now divided into the swindlers and the swindled, loosing the monster of collective Id known as Trump on the public. This is what comes of attempting to divorce truth from reality, which has been the principal business of American life for several decades now. When truth and reality become de-linked, a society literally doesn’t know what it is doing. With that goes the collective sense of purpose, replaced with bromides and platitudes such as Trump’s “make America great again,” and Hillary’s “In America, every family should feel like they belong.”
Unbeknownst to the cable news hustlers, events are in the driver’s seat, not the personalities of the puppets and muppets in the spotlight. Come July, there may not be anything that could be called the Republican Party. And Hillary is the first leading contender for the highest office with a possible indictment looming over her. Yes, it’s really there percolating on the FBI’s front burner. Even if the machinery of justice trips over itself again on that, imagine how the questions behind it will color the final battle for the general election. We also fail to appreciate how, if there is just a little more trouble in banking and financial markets before November 8, we can’t even be certain of holding the general election.
Beyond the Kubler-Ross maelstrom of denial, anger, depression, etc., besetting this spavined republic, lies the actual grief provoking it all — especially the shocking loss of national purpose embodied by the muppets and puppets onstage nightly vying to bring out the worst in us in an election season far from just silly. Judging from their demeanor in the so-called debates, the candidates seem not only sick of their opponents but of themselves, a fitting outcome perhaps in a nation that hates what it has become.
The moment that got me in Sunday night’s Democratic boasting contest, hosted by CNN, was Hillary crowing about the great achievement of Obamacare — getting thirty million uninsured Americans on some kind of health plan! The part she left out, of course, is that most of those plans have “deductable” ceilings in the multiple thousands of dollars, guaranteeing that the policy holder goes bankrupt if he/she seeks medical help. Who does she think she’s fooling, anyway? This sort of arrant lying is what drives millions into the camp of Trump.
Even valiant old Bernie muffs every opportunity to explain the death-grip that Wall Street crony politics has on this land: the US Department of Justice did nothing under six-plus years of Attorney General Eric Holder to prosecute criminal misconduct in banking. And then President Obama, who is ultimately responsible, did absolutely nothing to prompt that Attorney General into action or replace him with somebody who would act. Obama’s lame excuse back in the days when informed people were still wondering about this, was that the bankers had done nothing patently illegal enough to warrant investigation — a claim that was absurd on its face.
Obama didn’t do any better with the regulating agencies that are supposed to make criminal referrals to the Department of Justice, especially the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) charged with keeping financial markets honest. There was nothing that difficult about those criminal matters now fading in the nation’s memory: for instance, the bundled bonds (CDOs) of “non-performing” mortgages designed to pay off the issuers handsomely when they failed. A child of ten could have unpacked the Goldman Sachs Timberwolf bond caper. Eventually Goldman and others were slapped with mere fines that could be (and were) written off as the cost of doing business. What a difference it would have made if Lloyd Blankfein and a few hundred other bank executives were personally held accountable and sent to cool their heels in federal prison.
As the politicians are fond of saying, make no mistake: this was Barack Obama’s failure to act. Likewise, regarding the Citizens United Supreme Court’s decision that equated arrant corporate bribery of public officials with “free speech;” Mr. Obama (a constitutional lawyer by training) had a range of remedies at his disposal, foremostly working with the then-majority Democratic congressional leadership to legislate a new and clearer definition of so-far-alleged corporate “personhood,” its duties, obligations, and responsibilities to the public interest — and its limits! Not only did Mr. Obama fail to act then, but nobody in his own party even coughed into his-or-her sleeve when he so failed. And now, of course, nobody remembers any of that.
The effects of all this fundamental dishonesty have thundered through our national life to the degree that American society is now divided into the swindlers and the swindled, loosing the monster of collective Id known as Trump on the public. This is what comes of attempting to divorce truth from reality, which has been the principal business of American life for several decades now. When truth and reality become de-linked, a society literally doesn’t know what it is doing. With that goes the collective sense of purpose, replaced with bromides and platitudes such as Trump’s “make America great again,” and Hillary’s “In America, every family should feel like they belong.”
Unbeknownst to the cable news hustlers, events are in the driver’s seat, not the personalities of the puppets and muppets in the spotlight. Come July, there may not be anything that could be called the Republican Party. And Hillary is the first leading contender for the highest office with a possible indictment looming over her. Yes, it’s really there percolating on the FBI’s front burner. Even if the machinery of justice trips over itself again on that, imagine how the questions behind it will color the final battle for the general election. We also fail to appreciate how, if there is just a little more trouble in banking and financial markets before November 8, we can’t even be certain of holding the general election.
Sunday, March 06, 2016
A Clinton/Trump general election will produce a record low turnout for the major parties & record highs for 3rd parties. A very good thing.
— Thaddeus Russell (@ThaddeusRussell) February 29, 2016
Saturday, March 05, 2016
Why should Africans back #Brexit?The EU's CFP has caused misery for communities in West Africa, says @rantakukka https://t.co/XDdqcr1txw
— AfricansForBritain (@Africa4Britain) March 3, 2016
Friday, March 04, 2016
Thursday, March 03, 2016
Tuesday, March 01, 2016
Peak Oil Review and Fracking Updates
Top Drillers Shut Down U.S. Fracking Operations as Oil Prices Continue to Tank https://t.co/GkYvosWKcN (@buildresilience)
— Post Carbon Inst. (@postcarbon) February 29, 2016
Peak Oil Review - Feb 29 https://t.co/9Bxkj3D22c (@buildresilience)
— Post Carbon Inst. (@postcarbon) February 29, 2016
From the above link:
Florida has never been considered part of the agitated battle over fracking as a technology for extracting oil and gas. But that began to change two years ago when a Texas-based oil and gas company was found to have been using hydraulic fracturing and matrix acidizing, a fracking-like method that dissolves rocks with acid instead of fracturing them with pressurized liquid. (2/24)
[This is the first time I've heard of matrix acidizing.--P.Z.]
Monday, February 29, 2016
Kunstler: Going Full Whig.
As usual, take Kunstler with a grain of salt (esp. parag. 2), enjoy his ultra-gonzo prose, and realize his main point: Both parties are fracturing, maybe irreparably.--P.Z.
Kunstler: Going Full Whig.
Hillary’s dumb riposte to Trump’s dumb slogan — make America great again! — was “…America never stopped being great.” I guess she’s been traveling around the strip-mall wastelands of Carolina failing to notice the carnage that lays upon this land like a mortal scrofula. America has been committing suicide by bad choices for decades.
We took the collateral winnings of World War II and poured it into a suburban sprawl alt-universe so depressing that our citizens are the most over-medicated people in the world. That alone might help to explain how Hillary and Trump lumber inevitably toward their respective nominations. The cheering “folks” marshaled out in the Piggly Wiggly parking lots are so buzzed on Klonopin and Zoloft that they can’t tell how these two odious celebrities epitomize the very forces behind their pharmaceutically-masked despair.
A nation sunk in such falsity is sure to suffer life-threatening blowback and it looks like the first thing to go will be the life of the political parties. Both Democrats and Republicans have gone full Whig, riding into the 2016 election on the garbage barge of history. Hillary went on hyper-gloat after last week’s South Carolina primary, where she stuffed her pander-bag with black votes reaped on empty promises to re-boot the Civil Rights era. It was painful to watch that get-me-outa-here smile stretched across her face as she hugged the last selfie-snapper and slouched toward the ordeal of Super-Tuesday.
I don’t care how many primary victories Trump racks up, the GOP poobahs will not support him going into the convention. They will crack the party up into warring factions before they let him hoist the gonfalon of Lincoln and the Gipper. Be warned: plans are already afoot to shove Trump aside, to derail him with some scandal easily excavated from a life spent greasing other pols and playing ball with the mob-riddled construction industry in New York, Jersey, and Nevada. Failing that, they’ll leave him with a gutted shell of the party apparatus and by-hook-or-crook get some other figure to make a well-funded run under a slightly altered banner: Paul Ryan, Bloomberg [he's planning to run independently--P.Z.], Romney, just maybe Kasich. The Koch brothers will organize the money mojo. Failing that, there is always the mysterious magic of the Deep State for winning friends and influencing history.
This is not to endorse the old Republican establishment, just saying that they are increasingly desperate to derail this monster of their own creation, and will go to institutionally suicidal lengths to get it done. It will be more than another election cycle, if ever, before the right-of-center portion of the US political spectrum can realign itself into something resembling a party.
Or perhaps this is America’s true imperial moment, when all party politics surrenders to the pre-tsunami undertow of events. None of the idiot network commentators or Wash-Po or NY Times columnists seem to notice that the global economy is sinking into a coma, and in so doing is igniting cluster-bombs of default through the financial system. That so far insidious destruction should effloresce exactly around the time of the nominating conventions. The tide will have visibly gone miles out just as Hillary mounts the podium like some bad joke of a national mommy and Trump sits fretting in his Cleveland hotel room wondering how his rococo dreams of glory turned into a shit sandwich from room service. Yeats’s widening gyre is upon us. The biggest surprise of all yet-to-come is that television will fail to explain it. The second coming will not be the reappearance of the celebrity known as Jesus Christ, but rather of the event called the American Civil War.
Kunstler: Going Full Whig.
Hillary’s dumb riposte to Trump’s dumb slogan — make America great again! — was “…America never stopped being great.” I guess she’s been traveling around the strip-mall wastelands of Carolina failing to notice the carnage that lays upon this land like a mortal scrofula. America has been committing suicide by bad choices for decades.
We took the collateral winnings of World War II and poured it into a suburban sprawl alt-universe so depressing that our citizens are the most over-medicated people in the world. That alone might help to explain how Hillary and Trump lumber inevitably toward their respective nominations. The cheering “folks” marshaled out in the Piggly Wiggly parking lots are so buzzed on Klonopin and Zoloft that they can’t tell how these two odious celebrities epitomize the very forces behind their pharmaceutically-masked despair.
A nation sunk in such falsity is sure to suffer life-threatening blowback and it looks like the first thing to go will be the life of the political parties. Both Democrats and Republicans have gone full Whig, riding into the 2016 election on the garbage barge of history. Hillary went on hyper-gloat after last week’s South Carolina primary, where she stuffed her pander-bag with black votes reaped on empty promises to re-boot the Civil Rights era. It was painful to watch that get-me-outa-here smile stretched across her face as she hugged the last selfie-snapper and slouched toward the ordeal of Super-Tuesday.
I don’t care how many primary victories Trump racks up, the GOP poobahs will not support him going into the convention. They will crack the party up into warring factions before they let him hoist the gonfalon of Lincoln and the Gipper. Be warned: plans are already afoot to shove Trump aside, to derail him with some scandal easily excavated from a life spent greasing other pols and playing ball with the mob-riddled construction industry in New York, Jersey, and Nevada. Failing that, they’ll leave him with a gutted shell of the party apparatus and by-hook-or-crook get some other figure to make a well-funded run under a slightly altered banner: Paul Ryan, Bloomberg [he's planning to run independently--P.Z.], Romney, just maybe Kasich. The Koch brothers will organize the money mojo. Failing that, there is always the mysterious magic of the Deep State for winning friends and influencing history.
This is not to endorse the old Republican establishment, just saying that they are increasingly desperate to derail this monster of their own creation, and will go to institutionally suicidal lengths to get it done. It will be more than another election cycle, if ever, before the right-of-center portion of the US political spectrum can realign itself into something resembling a party.
Or perhaps this is America’s true imperial moment, when all party politics surrenders to the pre-tsunami undertow of events. None of the idiot network commentators or Wash-Po or NY Times columnists seem to notice that the global economy is sinking into a coma, and in so doing is igniting cluster-bombs of default through the financial system. That so far insidious destruction should effloresce exactly around the time of the nominating conventions. The tide will have visibly gone miles out just as Hillary mounts the podium like some bad joke of a national mommy and Trump sits fretting in his Cleveland hotel room wondering how his rococo dreams of glory turned into a shit sandwich from room service. Yeats’s widening gyre is upon us. The biggest surprise of all yet-to-come is that television will fail to explain it. The second coming will not be the reappearance of the celebrity known as Jesus Christ, but rather of the event called the American Civil War.
Sunday, February 28, 2016
Fox News Channel's Reputation Declines With Republicans
"Trump Effect: Fox News Channel's Brand Takes 50% Hit Among Republicans."
According to a YouGov Brand Index survey, the perception of Fox News among Republicans has hit a three-year low, “has declined by approximately 50% since January of this year.”
"Basically, perception of Fox News has returned to those bad old Dick Morris days after President Obama won re-election. Much of the fall has come in the last few months. There is no question that this precipitous drop is the result of Fox’s ongoing war with Donald Trump. ...
"MSNBC is left-wing. CNN is even more left-wing. If every Democrat tuned into either, the ratings would crush Fox. Democrats don’t tune in, though, because even Democrats hate bias.
Fox’s ratings are still through the roof, but the people that have kept the “Fair and Balanced” network a juggernaut for more than a decade are losing respect for it. That could mean trouble when the excitement of the presidential campaign fades away. That could also give an upstart an opening."
"Here is something I never thought I would write in my lifetime: CNN’s handling of the Republican debates has been infinitely more professional, unbiased, and fair than Fox News. It’s not even close. If you go back and look at the debates, CNN’s Jake Tapper and Wolf Blitzer have out-classed Megyn Kelly, Chris Wallace, and Bret Baier by a wide margin."
According to a YouGov Brand Index survey, the perception of Fox News among Republicans has hit a three-year low, “has declined by approximately 50% since January of this year.”
"Basically, perception of Fox News has returned to those bad old Dick Morris days after President Obama won re-election. Much of the fall has come in the last few months. There is no question that this precipitous drop is the result of Fox’s ongoing war with Donald Trump. ...
"MSNBC is left-wing. CNN is even more left-wing. If every Democrat tuned into either, the ratings would crush Fox. Democrats don’t tune in, though, because even Democrats hate bias.
Fox’s ratings are still through the roof, but the people that have kept the “Fair and Balanced” network a juggernaut for more than a decade are losing respect for it. That could mean trouble when the excitement of the presidential campaign fades away. That could also give an upstart an opening."
"Here is something I never thought I would write in my lifetime: CNN’s handling of the Republican debates has been infinitely more professional, unbiased, and fair than Fox News. It’s not even close. If you go back and look at the debates, CNN’s Jake Tapper and Wolf Blitzer have out-classed Megyn Kelly, Chris Wallace, and Bret Baier by a wide margin."
Saturday, February 27, 2016
"Does Donald Trump Pose a Fascist Threat?"
Answering in the negative is Unrepentant Marxist Louis Proyect.
As I just wrote at Hattie's Web, whether or not Trump is a fascist in the classic sense, he has focused anger the way a magnifying glass focuses a sun-ray. Eventually, a fire will start.
As I just wrote at Hattie's Web, whether or not Trump is a fascist in the classic sense, he has focused anger the way a magnifying glass focuses a sun-ray. Eventually, a fire will start.
Friday, February 26, 2016
Thursday, February 25, 2016
Foreshadowed by Kunstler
I can't tell if I'm overtired from too much travel, but feels like the country is in the midst of a pretty terrifyingly reactionary moment
— Christopher Hayes (@chrislhayes) February 24, 2016
The economic, political, and cultural phenomena we're seeing now was described in Kunstler's The Long Emergency. It holds up even a decade after it was written.
Wednesday, February 24, 2016
Tuesday, February 23, 2016
Monday, February 22, 2016
Various Tweets
Just back from a dinner in West Hollywood: shocked the majority of the table was voting for Trump but they would never admit it publicly.
— Bret Easton Ellis (@BretEastonEllis) February 21, 2016
Well this is just... surprising. No words! @BellCV https://t.co/e5zOKixaUB
— Leah Wright Rigueur (@LeahRigueur) February 23, 2016
Peak Oil Review - Feb 22 https://t.co/qZzYPjfwAw (@buildresilience)
— Post Carbon Inst. (@postcarbon) February 22, 2016
Chutzpah award winner ->Magazine whose editor said "nuke Mecca" https://t.co/Oti8dsTy9B calls Trump a "global bully" https://t.co/zBjfJqxrCF
— Justin Raimondo (@JustinRaimondo) February 22, 2016
#TBT to the Ladies Auxiliary to the VFW Bethea-Welch Post who were flawless before Beyonce https://t.co/hzBOZHFGd2 pic.twitter.com/1fbOWe8vAj
— DC Africana Archives (@DCAAP1) February 18, 2016
Bavaria. @JebBush pic.twitter.com/Qevief7i3Z
— BR24 (@BR24) February 17, 2016
Kunstler: Between the Loathsome and the Unspeakable.
Kunstler: Between the Loathsome and the Unspeakable.
How reassuring is it to Hillary, exactly, that she won what amounted to a straw poll totaling less than 11,000 votes among the various Nevada hotel employees unions? You could tell from her pained, artificial smile at the victory podium that there is something booby prize-ish about that narrow triumph. And what was with the metallic red outfit that had her looking like a previously-owned Christmas tree ornament? Maybe her handlers put her in Kevlar for the occasion.
She’ll need it as this fretful election campaign moves into the middle innings. That trademark unconvincing smile masks the embarrassing truth that the fix is in for Hillary inside the dark machine that is the Democratic Party hierarchy, hijacked by chairperson Debbie Wasserman-Schultz’s league of crones. The so-called “super-delegates” have all been rounded up and branded with a big smoking “H” on their hindquarters, leaving poor Bernie in the alkali basin of dashed hopes.
Readers have noticed (and complained loudly) lo these many months that I couldn’t get on-board for Bernie. I’m glad that someone opposed Mz It’s-My-Turn, but the Vermonter-from-Brooklyn lacks the juice to drive the necessary wooden stake into her grifter’s heart. The Goldman Sachs speaking fees ($200-K-plus each) should have been enough to send her to the donkey’s graveyard but, like so many awful truths in our over-amped and under-brained world, it got sucked into the TMZ alternative universe of discarded realities.
The latest simpleton’s political theory floating around the ether says that Hillary is guaranteed to get the overwhelming support of black voters. Why is that exactly? And what does it mean? Is she going to re-run the civil rights era? Is she going take up the banner for “safe spaces” on campus? Is she going to join the Oscars boycott? And, honestly, what has Mr. Obama done for black America, besides provide a model for how you can get somewhere in this society by learning how to speak English intelligibly?
So, the simpleton’s theory goes: Hillary wins the black and Hispanic vote and a big majority of womens’ votes. What does that mean? That America is now split into an ethnic-and-womens’ party (Dems) against a white mens’ party (Repubs)? Isn’t that a nice recipe for a multi-dimensional civil war?
Actually, it would be the mere seasoning in a stew of civilizational crisis simmering on the margins of the stupidest election contest in American history that could literally blow the country to pieces. The news media is, for instance, perfectly oblivious to the awful instabilities blossoming on the financial scene. In fact, the banks and markets are behaving in a way that suggests shocking disruptions to everyday life before the general election is even held. How would the Hillary-versus-Trump match-up go in a September of bank bail-ins and empty supermarket shelves due to the inability of businesses to service one another?
Rumblings out of the banking system ought to inform us that trust in mutual obligations is dwindling to the same zero-peg (and under) as world-wide interest rates. Something’s got to give and something will give (perhaps starting with something that has the initials “DB”) and then a whole lot of other things will give — beating a path swiftly to disrupting the normal complex operations of daily life that put food in your microwave and gasoline in the convenience store pumps. At that point, of course, all bets are off. Without being too cute about it, we ought to have reason to worry that America will be too disorderly later this year to even hold the 2016 general election.
As for Mr. Trump, he remains what I said at the campaign’s outset: worse than Hitler, lacking the brains, charm, and savoir faire of the Ol’ Fuhrer, and with his darkness even more plainly visible. Even Adolf could manage to get his necktie on so that it didn’t dangle around his nutsack. [Too glib.--P.Z.] I don’t mean to trivialize the difference between these two psychopaths, except to say that America will be very very sorry to follow the tune of the so-far leading Republican candidate’s pied-pipings.
Frankly, if Mr. Trump actually manages to technically snag the party’s nomination, I can imagine several consequences. One, that he will indeed succeed in destroying the party. The other leaders at the dark heart of its hierarchy will never stand for Trump. In that case, they will form a breakaway rump GOP and throw their support to Michael Bloomberg, if he decides to jump in — and he might be enough of a true patriot to do that. The less appetizing alternative consequences involve the apparatus of the runaway Deep State (NSA and the military) either bumping off Trump, or staging a coup d’Ć©tat against him in the event that he manages to get elected. I’m not advocating for those outcomes, but you ought to be prepared for the possibilities.
Most of all, don’t underestimate the power of events to outrun personalities this year.
How reassuring is it to Hillary, exactly, that she won what amounted to a straw poll totaling less than 11,000 votes among the various Nevada hotel employees unions? You could tell from her pained, artificial smile at the victory podium that there is something booby prize-ish about that narrow triumph. And what was with the metallic red outfit that had her looking like a previously-owned Christmas tree ornament? Maybe her handlers put her in Kevlar for the occasion.
She’ll need it as this fretful election campaign moves into the middle innings. That trademark unconvincing smile masks the embarrassing truth that the fix is in for Hillary inside the dark machine that is the Democratic Party hierarchy, hijacked by chairperson Debbie Wasserman-Schultz’s league of crones. The so-called “super-delegates” have all been rounded up and branded with a big smoking “H” on their hindquarters, leaving poor Bernie in the alkali basin of dashed hopes.
Readers have noticed (and complained loudly) lo these many months that I couldn’t get on-board for Bernie. I’m glad that someone opposed Mz It’s-My-Turn, but the Vermonter-from-Brooklyn lacks the juice to drive the necessary wooden stake into her grifter’s heart. The Goldman Sachs speaking fees ($200-K-plus each) should have been enough to send her to the donkey’s graveyard but, like so many awful truths in our over-amped and under-brained world, it got sucked into the TMZ alternative universe of discarded realities.
The latest simpleton’s political theory floating around the ether says that Hillary is guaranteed to get the overwhelming support of black voters. Why is that exactly? And what does it mean? Is she going to re-run the civil rights era? Is she going take up the banner for “safe spaces” on campus? Is she going to join the Oscars boycott? And, honestly, what has Mr. Obama done for black America, besides provide a model for how you can get somewhere in this society by learning how to speak English intelligibly?
So, the simpleton’s theory goes: Hillary wins the black and Hispanic vote and a big majority of womens’ votes. What does that mean? That America is now split into an ethnic-and-womens’ party (Dems) against a white mens’ party (Repubs)? Isn’t that a nice recipe for a multi-dimensional civil war?
Actually, it would be the mere seasoning in a stew of civilizational crisis simmering on the margins of the stupidest election contest in American history that could literally blow the country to pieces. The news media is, for instance, perfectly oblivious to the awful instabilities blossoming on the financial scene. In fact, the banks and markets are behaving in a way that suggests shocking disruptions to everyday life before the general election is even held. How would the Hillary-versus-Trump match-up go in a September of bank bail-ins and empty supermarket shelves due to the inability of businesses to service one another?
Rumblings out of the banking system ought to inform us that trust in mutual obligations is dwindling to the same zero-peg (and under) as world-wide interest rates. Something’s got to give and something will give (perhaps starting with something that has the initials “DB”) and then a whole lot of other things will give — beating a path swiftly to disrupting the normal complex operations of daily life that put food in your microwave and gasoline in the convenience store pumps. At that point, of course, all bets are off. Without being too cute about it, we ought to have reason to worry that America will be too disorderly later this year to even hold the 2016 general election.
As for Mr. Trump, he remains what I said at the campaign’s outset: worse than Hitler, lacking the brains, charm, and savoir faire of the Ol’ Fuhrer, and with his darkness even more plainly visible. Even Adolf could manage to get his necktie on so that it didn’t dangle around his nutsack. [Too glib.--P.Z.] I don’t mean to trivialize the difference between these two psychopaths, except to say that America will be very very sorry to follow the tune of the so-far leading Republican candidate’s pied-pipings.
Frankly, if Mr. Trump actually manages to technically snag the party’s nomination, I can imagine several consequences. One, that he will indeed succeed in destroying the party. The other leaders at the dark heart of its hierarchy will never stand for Trump. In that case, they will form a breakaway rump GOP and throw their support to Michael Bloomberg, if he decides to jump in — and he might be enough of a true patriot to do that. The less appetizing alternative consequences involve the apparatus of the runaway Deep State (NSA and the military) either bumping off Trump, or staging a coup d’Ć©tat against him in the event that he manages to get elected. I’m not advocating for those outcomes, but you ought to be prepared for the possibilities.
Most of all, don’t underestimate the power of events to outrun personalities this year.
Sunday, February 21, 2016
Moldova
“Most important thing is that in Moldova there is a strong pro-European government"—why Nuland supports oligarchy https://t.co/hhIHaDTTf4
— Mark Ames (@MarkAmesExiled) February 20, 2016
Saturday, February 20, 2016
Jeb Drops Out
Not even Lindsey Graham's endorsement was enough to save his campaign.
.@LindseyGrahamSC has a message for our #SCPrimary voters. WATCH:https://t.co/ydErpMrAvv
— Jeb Bush (@JebBush) February 20, 2016
Tuesday, February 16, 2016
Monday, February 15, 2016
Kunstler: Repricing Reality.
Kunstler: Repricing Reality.
It ought to be a foregone conclusion that Mr. Obama’s replacement starting January 20, 2017 will preside over conditions of disorder in everyday life and economy never seen before. For the supposedly thinking class in America, the end of reality-optional politics will come as the surprise of their lives.
Where has that hypothetical thinking class been, by the way, the past eight years? Don’t look for it in what used to be called “the newspapers.” The New York Times has become so reality-averse that the editors traded in their blue pencils for Federal Reserve cheerleader pompoms after the Lehman incident of 2008. Every information-dispensing organ has followed their lede: The Recovery Continues! It’s a sturdy plank for promoting the impaired asset known as Hillary.
Don’t look for the thinking class in the universities. They’ve surrendered their traditional duties to a new hybrid persecution campaign that is equal parts Mao Zedong, the Witches of Loudon, and the Asylum at Charenton. For instance the President of Princeton, Mr. Eisgruber, was confronted with a list of demands that included 1) erasure of arch-segregationist Woodrow Wilson’s name from everything on campus, and 2) creation of a new all-black (i.e. segregated) student center. He didn’t blink. Note: nobody in the media asked him about this apparent contradiction. That’s how we roll these days.
Don’t look for the thinking class in business. The C-suites are jammed with people still busy buying back stock in their own companies at outlandish prices with borrowed money. Why? To artificially boost share price and thus their salaries and bonuses. Does it do anything for the fitness of enterprise? No, in fact it makes future failure more likely. Why is there no governance of their insane behavior? Because they’ve also bought and paid for boards of directors composed of a rotating cast of praetorian shills, with fresh recruits entering the scene weekly through the fabled “revolving door” between business and government regulators.
Oh, and then there’s government. Anyone viewing the boasting-and-defamation contests that the cable TV networks call “debates” knows that these spectacles are based on the opposite of thinking. They are not only reality-optional, they’re thought-optional. Hence, it appears for now that America is fixing to elect either a primal screamer or a road-tested grifter to preside over the epochal collapse of our hobbled, exhausted, way of life.
The recent carnage in the stock markets will probably see a retracement after the President’s Day hiatus. They’re bouncing up in other parts of the world today, the triumph of hope over all the available evidence that something fatal has happened out there in Tom Friedman’s supposedly permanent global economy. Some observers suspect that it has something to do with the price of oil, because the oil futures market and the stock indexes seem to go up and down in tandem. But they don’t really get it.
How hard is it to understand that A) that something adverse happens to oil companies when it costs them $70-a-barrel to hoist the product out of the ground and then sell it for $30-a-barrel? And B) that all of the infrastructure of techno-industrial civilization was designed to run on oil under $30-a-barrel and founders when the price goes higher? That’s how it is. That’s your basic reality.
We’ve been trying to work around this vexing problem — the non-linear manifestation of the supposedly bygone predicament called “peak oil” — since the early part of this century. Mainly, we worked around it by borrowing money that wasn’t there. Having created this matrix of borrowed money, we’ve also created an expectation in market obligations that it must be paid back. In fact, the process of paying back money owed is the only thing that supports confidence in a system based on that essential trust — even if that expectation was unreal to begin with. When it is violated, terrible things happen in markets and economies.
Those terrible things are underway. We’re going to be a much-distressed and poorer so-called republic when this year is done with us. The markets will crack and the trade relations that comprise globalism will fall apart as nations and regions of nations struggle to survive. We’ll move inexorably to a very possibly disastrous election. We’ll face the basic choices, as distressed societies always do, of freaking-and-acting-out (usually in the form of war), or opting for a reunion with reality and its mandates. So far, it’s not looking good for the better option.
If you are a thinking person, the months ahead might be your last chance to protect whatever wealth you have and to move to some part of the country where, at least, you can grow some of your own food and become a useful part of a social and economic network that might be called a community.
It ought to be a foregone conclusion that Mr. Obama’s replacement starting January 20, 2017 will preside over conditions of disorder in everyday life and economy never seen before. For the supposedly thinking class in America, the end of reality-optional politics will come as the surprise of their lives.
Where has that hypothetical thinking class been, by the way, the past eight years? Don’t look for it in what used to be called “the newspapers.” The New York Times has become so reality-averse that the editors traded in their blue pencils for Federal Reserve cheerleader pompoms after the Lehman incident of 2008. Every information-dispensing organ has followed their lede: The Recovery Continues! It’s a sturdy plank for promoting the impaired asset known as Hillary.
Don’t look for the thinking class in the universities. They’ve surrendered their traditional duties to a new hybrid persecution campaign that is equal parts Mao Zedong, the Witches of Loudon, and the Asylum at Charenton. For instance the President of Princeton, Mr. Eisgruber, was confronted with a list of demands that included 1) erasure of arch-segregationist Woodrow Wilson’s name from everything on campus, and 2) creation of a new all-black (i.e. segregated) student center. He didn’t blink. Note: nobody in the media asked him about this apparent contradiction. That’s how we roll these days.
Don’t look for the thinking class in business. The C-suites are jammed with people still busy buying back stock in their own companies at outlandish prices with borrowed money. Why? To artificially boost share price and thus their salaries and bonuses. Does it do anything for the fitness of enterprise? No, in fact it makes future failure more likely. Why is there no governance of their insane behavior? Because they’ve also bought and paid for boards of directors composed of a rotating cast of praetorian shills, with fresh recruits entering the scene weekly through the fabled “revolving door” between business and government regulators.
Oh, and then there’s government. Anyone viewing the boasting-and-defamation contests that the cable TV networks call “debates” knows that these spectacles are based on the opposite of thinking. They are not only reality-optional, they’re thought-optional. Hence, it appears for now that America is fixing to elect either a primal screamer or a road-tested grifter to preside over the epochal collapse of our hobbled, exhausted, way of life.
The recent carnage in the stock markets will probably see a retracement after the President’s Day hiatus. They’re bouncing up in other parts of the world today, the triumph of hope over all the available evidence that something fatal has happened out there in Tom Friedman’s supposedly permanent global economy. Some observers suspect that it has something to do with the price of oil, because the oil futures market and the stock indexes seem to go up and down in tandem. But they don’t really get it.
How hard is it to understand that A) that something adverse happens to oil companies when it costs them $70-a-barrel to hoist the product out of the ground and then sell it for $30-a-barrel? And B) that all of the infrastructure of techno-industrial civilization was designed to run on oil under $30-a-barrel and founders when the price goes higher? That’s how it is. That’s your basic reality.
We’ve been trying to work around this vexing problem — the non-linear manifestation of the supposedly bygone predicament called “peak oil” — since the early part of this century. Mainly, we worked around it by borrowing money that wasn’t there. Having created this matrix of borrowed money, we’ve also created an expectation in market obligations that it must be paid back. In fact, the process of paying back money owed is the only thing that supports confidence in a system based on that essential trust — even if that expectation was unreal to begin with. When it is violated, terrible things happen in markets and economies.
Those terrible things are underway. We’re going to be a much-distressed and poorer so-called republic when this year is done with us. The markets will crack and the trade relations that comprise globalism will fall apart as nations and regions of nations struggle to survive. We’ll move inexorably to a very possibly disastrous election. We’ll face the basic choices, as distressed societies always do, of freaking-and-acting-out (usually in the form of war), or opting for a reunion with reality and its mandates. So far, it’s not looking good for the better option.
If you are a thinking person, the months ahead might be your last chance to protect whatever wealth you have and to move to some part of the country where, at least, you can grow some of your own food and become a useful part of a social and economic network that might be called a community.
Saturday, February 13, 2016
Ty Ziegel
Trump scores at #GOPDebate because countless ordinary people died and suffered immensely for Bush's Iraq war lies. pic.twitter.com/72tcLoLZt2
— Max Blumenthal (@MaxBlumenthal) February 14, 2016
The story of Tyler Ziegel.
Friday, February 12, 2016
Some Current Articles
"Whither Wheaton: An Evangelical College Ponders Its Future."
Friend of Hattie Taboris wondering how to preserve old home movies and photographs. I'm not a professional but I suggested seeking the help of a local museum or historical society. I further suggested donating or lending photos and films which might be of historical, but not sentimental, value. Organizing the photos/films and grouping them according to priority is the first step. Just now, a quick online search brought up this, "Tips on Preserving Family Films and Photos."--The New York Times.
Rand Paul Out But Libertarianism Now Mainstream. (I found this article through a dis by Roy Edroso. Mahalo.)
Friend of Hattie Taboris wondering how to preserve old home movies and photographs. I'm not a professional but I suggested seeking the help of a local museum or historical society. I further suggested donating or lending photos and films which might be of historical, but not sentimental, value. Organizing the photos/films and grouping them according to priority is the first step. Just now, a quick online search brought up this, "Tips on Preserving Family Films and Photos."--The New York Times.
Rand Paul Out But Libertarianism Now Mainstream. (I found this article through a dis by Roy Edroso. Mahalo.)
The Cramps' Concert
Cramps weren't punk. but awesome concert https://t.co/zH00Xp7fRs
— Mark Ames (@MarkAmesExiled) February 12, 2016
The Cramps were punk, but not only punk.
Wednesday, February 10, 2016
"Get Me Rewrite!"
Chris Matthews just interviewed Donald Trump in a manner similar to the way a cat cleans themselves.
— Dave Zirin (@EdgeofSports) February 10, 2016
Chris Matthews just interviewed [Donald] Trump the way a cat grooms itself.
Tuesday, February 09, 2016
Shrove Tuesday (a.k.a.Fat Tuesday/Mardi Gras)
Hattie on the contest between Clinton and Sanders, and among their supporters. Hawaii will go for whomever is the Democratic nominee, and Hillary enjoys more support locally anyway. Bernie isn't all he's cracked up to be as a peacenik.
Lent commences tomorrow, so I'll prepare some food ahead of time. I see using up the various beans, spices, and similar things over the next forty days (excluding Sundays).
Lent commences tomorrow, so I'll prepare some food ahead of time. I see using up the various beans, spices, and similar things over the next forty days (excluding Sundays).
Monday, February 08, 2016
Kunstler: "Notes From the Locked Ward."/Impression of the Super Bowl
Kunstler: Notes From the Locked Ward.
----
I watched Super Bowl L, but also another program, so I missed the halftime show. BeyoncƩ (accent mark automatically appears when I type it) is who she is, Coldplay was out of place, and Bruno Mars (local boy) was the true star. More later.
----
I watched Super Bowl L, but also another program, so I missed the halftime show. BeyoncƩ (accent mark automatically appears when I type it) is who she is, Coldplay was out of place, and Bruno Mars (local boy) was the true star. More later.
Saturday, February 06, 2016
Promising Movies in February
A review by "crazy hack" Armond White:
Will Eisenstein in Guanajuato at least come to the Palace? I hope so.
Read more at: http://www.nationalreview.com/article/430815/hail-ceasar-coen-brothers-movie-review-cultural-satire
Other movies:
Zoolander 2 (What will Bret say?)
Pride and Prejudice and Zombies
What a movie week. #CoenBrothers vs. #Eisenstein. Pop vs. Art. It's a title card. https://t.co/iDrgWgoMbp pic.twitter.com/oIjNRdPObq
— armond white (@3xchair) February 5, 2016
Will Eisenstein in Guanajuato at least come to the Palace? I hope so.
Read more at: http://www.nationalreview.com/article/430815/hail-ceasar-coen-brothers-movie-review-cultural-satire
Other movies:
Zoolander 2 (What will Bret say?)
Pride and Prejudice and Zombies
Friday, February 05, 2016
Wednesday, February 03, 2016
TenNine and Two
Rand Paul drops out. It wasn't his year.
Update: Rick Santorum out too.
Love him but he can't win. He's our Sanders. https://t.co/GVD0QkaBv0
— Gavin McInnes (@Gavin_McInnes) February 2, 2016
Update: Rick Santorum out too.
Monday, February 01, 2016
Peak Oil Review, February 1, 2016
Peak Oil Review - Feb 1 https://t.co/NHQGNVmA7u (@buildresilience)
— Post Carbon Inst. (@postcarbon) February 1, 2016
Kunstler: "Ground Control to Captain Zhou Xiaochuan."
Kunstler: "Ground Control to Captain Zhou Xiaochuan."
Why would anybody suppose that the Peoples Bank of China might want to tell the truth about anything that was within their power to lie about? Especially the soundness of any loan portfolio vested unto the grasp of its tentacles? Of course, most of what China has done in speeding toward the wall of financial crack-up, it learned from watching US bankers slime their way into Too Big To Fail nirvana — most particularly the array of swindles, dodges, and frauds constructed in the half-light of shadow banking to hedge the sudden, catastrophic appearance of reality-based price discovery.
When so many loans end up networked as collateral in some kind of bet against previous bets against other previous bets, you can be sure that cascading contagion will follow. And so that is exactly what’s happening as China’s rocket ride into Modernity falls back to earth. Like most historical fiascos, it seemed like a good idea at the time: take a nation of about a billion people living in the equivalent of the Twelfth Century, introduce the magic of money printing, spend a gazillion of it on CAT and Kubota earth-moving machines, build the biggest cement industry the world has ever seen, purchase whole factory set-ups, and flood the rest of the world with stuff. Then the trouble starts when you try to defeat the business cycles associated with over-production and saturated markets.
Poor China and poor us. Escape velocity has failed. Which raises the question: escape from what, exactly? Answer: the implacable limits of life on earth. The metaphor for all this, of course, is the old journey-into-space idea, which still persists in the salesmanship of Elon Musk, the ragged remnants of NASA, and even the nightmares of Stephen Hawking. Get off this messed-up home planet and light out of the territories, say Mars. Of course, this is a vain and stupid idea, since we already have a planet engineered to perfection for all the life systems associated with the human project. We just can’t respect its limits.
So now, that dynamic duo, Nature and Reality, the actual owners of the planet, have showed up to read the riot act to the renters throwing a wild party. The fourth and perhaps ultimate financial crisis of the last twenty years begins to express itself in terms that only the raptors and vultures can see from on high. George Soros, Kyle Bass, and the other flocking shadow banking scavengers prepare to short the living shit out of the old Middle Kingdom. The immortal words of G.W. Bush ring in their ears: “This sucker is going down,” and they are sure to win big by betting on the obvious. Trouble is, this sucker could go down so much further than they imagined, that whatever fortunes they gain from its descent will be foiled by the destruction of the very economic system needed for them to enjoy their gains.
For instance, when banking systems go down, governments usually follow, and when governments go down, societies often unravel. It doesn’t take a great effort of imagination to see China’s one party politburo leadership machine lose the respect of its governed masses, and then its control of events, followed by a Great Struggle among the regions and factions to restore some kind of order. And when the smoke clears there will a whole lot of nearly worthless concrete and steel, and a vast loss of notional wealth, and China will be lucky to land back in some approximation of the Twelfth Century.
It must be interesting for China to watch the horrifying disintegration of America’s political party structure currently on view, with the mad bull called Trump rampaging across the land and the designated inevitable Mz It’s-My-Turn hijacking her collective for the greater glory of Goldman Sachs. The last time China got the vapors politically — the so-called Cultural Revolution of the 1960s — the country went batshit crazy. Surely some of the ruling party remembers that with requisite terror.
Or maybe this is China and the USA’s Thelma and Louise moment. Pedal to the metal, they drive into the abyss of history holding hands. Remember, audiences loved that!
Why would anybody suppose that the Peoples Bank of China might want to tell the truth about anything that was within their power to lie about? Especially the soundness of any loan portfolio vested unto the grasp of its tentacles? Of course, most of what China has done in speeding toward the wall of financial crack-up, it learned from watching US bankers slime their way into Too Big To Fail nirvana — most particularly the array of swindles, dodges, and frauds constructed in the half-light of shadow banking to hedge the sudden, catastrophic appearance of reality-based price discovery.
When so many loans end up networked as collateral in some kind of bet against previous bets against other previous bets, you can be sure that cascading contagion will follow. And so that is exactly what’s happening as China’s rocket ride into Modernity falls back to earth. Like most historical fiascos, it seemed like a good idea at the time: take a nation of about a billion people living in the equivalent of the Twelfth Century, introduce the magic of money printing, spend a gazillion of it on CAT and Kubota earth-moving machines, build the biggest cement industry the world has ever seen, purchase whole factory set-ups, and flood the rest of the world with stuff. Then the trouble starts when you try to defeat the business cycles associated with over-production and saturated markets.
Poor China and poor us. Escape velocity has failed. Which raises the question: escape from what, exactly? Answer: the implacable limits of life on earth. The metaphor for all this, of course, is the old journey-into-space idea, which still persists in the salesmanship of Elon Musk, the ragged remnants of NASA, and even the nightmares of Stephen Hawking. Get off this messed-up home planet and light out of the territories, say Mars. Of course, this is a vain and stupid idea, since we already have a planet engineered to perfection for all the life systems associated with the human project. We just can’t respect its limits.
So now, that dynamic duo, Nature and Reality, the actual owners of the planet, have showed up to read the riot act to the renters throwing a wild party. The fourth and perhaps ultimate financial crisis of the last twenty years begins to express itself in terms that only the raptors and vultures can see from on high. George Soros, Kyle Bass, and the other flocking shadow banking scavengers prepare to short the living shit out of the old Middle Kingdom. The immortal words of G.W. Bush ring in their ears: “This sucker is going down,” and they are sure to win big by betting on the obvious. Trouble is, this sucker could go down so much further than they imagined, that whatever fortunes they gain from its descent will be foiled by the destruction of the very economic system needed for them to enjoy their gains.
For instance, when banking systems go down, governments usually follow, and when governments go down, societies often unravel. It doesn’t take a great effort of imagination to see China’s one party politburo leadership machine lose the respect of its governed masses, and then its control of events, followed by a Great Struggle among the regions and factions to restore some kind of order. And when the smoke clears there will a whole lot of nearly worthless concrete and steel, and a vast loss of notional wealth, and China will be lucky to land back in some approximation of the Twelfth Century.
It must be interesting for China to watch the horrifying disintegration of America’s political party structure currently on view, with the mad bull called Trump rampaging across the land and the designated inevitable Mz It’s-My-Turn hijacking her collective for the greater glory of Goldman Sachs. The last time China got the vapors politically — the so-called Cultural Revolution of the 1960s — the country went batshit crazy. Surely some of the ruling party remembers that with requisite terror.
Or maybe this is China and the USA’s Thelma and Louise moment. Pedal to the metal, they drive into the abyss of history holding hands. Remember, audiences loved that!
Sunday, January 31, 2016
Politics
This is the wildest campaign season I can remember. And though I have a sense of the infighting, the shifting alliances, etc. I have to take some time to sum it up. In the meantime,
Saturday, January 30, 2016
Maja Sidzinska on how libertarian municipalism may help modern political institutions to function more ethically. https://t.co/u5Hf99QdRp
— Telos Press (@TelosPress) January 28, 2016An American Slowdown https://t.co/RTaBG4bkSc An interview with the author of The Rise and Fall of American Growth
— Princeton Univ Press (@PrincetonUPress) January 29, 2016Wednesday, January 27, 2016
@Freedland @RyanLizza And we all know who is going to stop him in the end ;) pic.twitter.com/Ng1HbY4AAl
— Myles Dyer (@MylesDyer) January 23, 2016Tuesday, January 26, 2016
Dr. Jill Stein takes direct aim at the lesser evil lie with Joshua Scheer on KPFK! Share! https://t.co/0EEmom1LVY pic.twitter.com/1NtjG3fOQU
— Dr. Jill Stein (@DrJillStein) January 16, 2016Monday, January 25, 2016
Kunstler: The Agonies of Sensible People.
Kunstler: The Agonies of Sensible People.
Much as many people-who-ought-to-know-better have been enjoying the disruptive antics of Donald Trump, surely other cohorts and coteries have endured dark nights of the soul as they witness the 2016 election spin into a perfect storm of rebellion, corruption, and idiocy. Imagine the scenes in Michael Bloomberg’s drawing room the past eight months, the agonies of sensible people! And so after the close of business Friday comes news that the former three-time mayor of New York City is laying concrete plans to run for president on a third-party ticket. Extreme times call for extreme moves by non-extremists.
The Trump phenomenon is pretty well-understood: a politically paralyzed nation hostage to malign forces, mired in racketeering, captive to PC witch-hunters, and pitching into bankruptcy, turns to a TV clown with no filter on his angry brain and he acts out all the discontents of our time. Does anybody doubt that the perfidies of the day beg to be opposed? But those shadowy figures in Bloomberg’s drawing room must be saying, “is this the best we can do?” And so an honorable man steps forward. Someone had to.
Couple of gigantic problems. First, what about Bloomberg being Wall Street’s pet politician? To many, I suppose, Bloomberg is exactly that. I’m not so sure. While he made his multi-billion dollar fortune building a computerized information service for Wall Street, with a news service and some other apps pinned on, he was not a bankster. He consorted with them all the livelong day, day in and day out, for decades. Maybe that was bad enough. Maybe it also puts him at a very special advantage, since other public figures can only pretend to understand the esoteric rackets lately engineered in lower Manhattan.
For instance, Bloomberg must know what a CDO is, and how outfits like JP Morgan and Goldman Sachs used them to swindle the taxpayers. I’m not convinced that Donald Trump could explain that to an audience if given an hour of airtime. He rarely speaks in two consecutive coherent sentences, for all his entertainment value. The next president will be on duty during the gravest and most powerful financial unwind in history, and it might be a good thing if he understood how it worked. He will probably be blamed for it in any case, but at least he will be a true mariner in a storm, not just a bigmouth passenger on the ship. Anyway, the salient question is whether the voters could ever accept him as something besides a tool of the banks?
The public that Bloomberg would have to appeal to has become a weird amalgam of cultural mutants, zombies, and special pleaders — Duck Dynasty and Straight Out of Compton [sic] meet The House of Wax. Worse, they are inflamed, not exactly disposed to weigh political fine points. They’re just out for blood against a system that has been bleeding them badly. Did I leave out some big wad of voters between the extremes who retain a few shreds of critical thought? I’m not sure they exist anymore. We’re about to find out in the months ahead. The group in Bloomberg’s drawing room may be deluding itself that there is any thread of clear thinking on the street outside. It would be very sad, if so.
I think it is fair to say that Michael Bloomberg’s success as the three-term mayor of New York City (2002 – 2013) was due almost completely to the financialization of the economy. A Niagara of money flowed into the city as banking ballooned from 5 percent to 40 percent of the US economy. As all the formerly skeezy neighborhoods of New York — the Bowery, the Meatpacking District, etc —got buffed up, the desolation in places like Utica, Dayton, Gary, and Memphis got worse. You might say New York City benefited hugely from all the assets stripped out of the flyover states. All of which is to say that that recent revival of New York City was not necessarily due to Michael Bloomberg’s genius. He presided over a very special moment in history when money was flowing in a particular way, and he went with flow.
For all that, it seems likely that he was also an able administrator as this occurred. A lot of out-front elements of city life improved visibly while he was around. Crime went down, the subways ran better, public spaces were improved. What would he be able to do in the compressive deflationary depression that I call the long emergency? Could he restore faith in authority? Could he comfort a battered public on the airwaves? Could he begin the awful task of politically deconstructing the matrix of rackets that has made it impossible for this country to move where history is taking us (smaller, finer, more local)?
Finally, on top of his Wall Street connection, Bloomberg is Jewish. (As I am.) Is the country now crazed enough to see the emergence of a Jewish Wall Streeter as the incarnation of all their hobgoblin-infested nightmares? Very possibly so, since the old left wing Progressives have adopted the Palestinians as their new pet oppressed minority du jour and have been inveighing against Israel incessantly. Well, that would be a darn shame. But that’s what you might get in a shameless land where anything goes and nothing matters.
For now, anyway, the real disrupter is turning out to be Michael Bloomberg. Finally a serious man enters the stage.
Much as many people-who-ought-to-know-better have been enjoying the disruptive antics of Donald Trump, surely other cohorts and coteries have endured dark nights of the soul as they witness the 2016 election spin into a perfect storm of rebellion, corruption, and idiocy. Imagine the scenes in Michael Bloomberg’s drawing room the past eight months, the agonies of sensible people! And so after the close of business Friday comes news that the former three-time mayor of New York City is laying concrete plans to run for president on a third-party ticket. Extreme times call for extreme moves by non-extremists.
The Trump phenomenon is pretty well-understood: a politically paralyzed nation hostage to malign forces, mired in racketeering, captive to PC witch-hunters, and pitching into bankruptcy, turns to a TV clown with no filter on his angry brain and he acts out all the discontents of our time. Does anybody doubt that the perfidies of the day beg to be opposed? But those shadowy figures in Bloomberg’s drawing room must be saying, “is this the best we can do?” And so an honorable man steps forward. Someone had to.
Couple of gigantic problems. First, what about Bloomberg being Wall Street’s pet politician? To many, I suppose, Bloomberg is exactly that. I’m not so sure. While he made his multi-billion dollar fortune building a computerized information service for Wall Street, with a news service and some other apps pinned on, he was not a bankster. He consorted with them all the livelong day, day in and day out, for decades. Maybe that was bad enough. Maybe it also puts him at a very special advantage, since other public figures can only pretend to understand the esoteric rackets lately engineered in lower Manhattan.
For instance, Bloomberg must know what a CDO is, and how outfits like JP Morgan and Goldman Sachs used them to swindle the taxpayers. I’m not convinced that Donald Trump could explain that to an audience if given an hour of airtime. He rarely speaks in two consecutive coherent sentences, for all his entertainment value. The next president will be on duty during the gravest and most powerful financial unwind in history, and it might be a good thing if he understood how it worked. He will probably be blamed for it in any case, but at least he will be a true mariner in a storm, not just a bigmouth passenger on the ship. Anyway, the salient question is whether the voters could ever accept him as something besides a tool of the banks?
The public that Bloomberg would have to appeal to has become a weird amalgam of cultural mutants, zombies, and special pleaders — Duck Dynasty and Straight Out of Compton [sic] meet The House of Wax. Worse, they are inflamed, not exactly disposed to weigh political fine points. They’re just out for blood against a system that has been bleeding them badly. Did I leave out some big wad of voters between the extremes who retain a few shreds of critical thought? I’m not sure they exist anymore. We’re about to find out in the months ahead. The group in Bloomberg’s drawing room may be deluding itself that there is any thread of clear thinking on the street outside. It would be very sad, if so.
I think it is fair to say that Michael Bloomberg’s success as the three-term mayor of New York City (2002 – 2013) was due almost completely to the financialization of the economy. A Niagara of money flowed into the city as banking ballooned from 5 percent to 40 percent of the US economy. As all the formerly skeezy neighborhoods of New York — the Bowery, the Meatpacking District, etc —got buffed up, the desolation in places like Utica, Dayton, Gary, and Memphis got worse. You might say New York City benefited hugely from all the assets stripped out of the flyover states. All of which is to say that that recent revival of New York City was not necessarily due to Michael Bloomberg’s genius. He presided over a very special moment in history when money was flowing in a particular way, and he went with flow.
For all that, it seems likely that he was also an able administrator as this occurred. A lot of out-front elements of city life improved visibly while he was around. Crime went down, the subways ran better, public spaces were improved. What would he be able to do in the compressive deflationary depression that I call the long emergency? Could he restore faith in authority? Could he comfort a battered public on the airwaves? Could he begin the awful task of politically deconstructing the matrix of rackets that has made it impossible for this country to move where history is taking us (smaller, finer, more local)?
Finally, on top of his Wall Street connection, Bloomberg is Jewish. (As I am.) Is the country now crazed enough to see the emergence of a Jewish Wall Streeter as the incarnation of all their hobgoblin-infested nightmares? Very possibly so, since the old left wing Progressives have adopted the Palestinians as their new pet oppressed minority du jour and have been inveighing against Israel incessantly. Well, that would be a darn shame. But that’s what you might get in a shameless land where anything goes and nothing matters.
For now, anyway, the real disrupter is turning out to be Michael Bloomberg. Finally a serious man enters the stage.
Saturday, January 23, 2016
National Review vs. Trump.
National Review vs. Trump.
"Here are the names of the conservative leaders trying to stop Trump:
•Thomas Sowell, economist.
•Brent Bozell, president of the Media Research Center.
•Glenn Beck, founder of The Blaze.
•Edwin Meese and Michael Mukasey, former U.S. attorney generals.
•Dana Loesch and Michael Medved, syndicated radio hosts.
•Cal Thomas and Mona Charen, syndicated columnists.
•William Kristol, editor of The Weekly Standard.
•R. R. Reno, editor of First Things.
•John Podhoretz, editor of Commentary.
•Yuval Levin, editor of National Affairs.
•Mark Helprin, novelist.
•Andrew C. McCarthy, contributing editor, National Review.
•Erick Erickson, founder of The Resurgent.
•David McIntosh, president of the Club for Growth.
•Steven F. Hayward, author and presidential scholar.
•Ben Domenech, publisher of The Federalist.
•David Boaz, executive vice president of the Cato Institute.
•Katie Pavlich, editor of Townhall.com editor.
•Russell Moore, president of the Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission of the Southern Baptist Convention."
Update:
"Here are the names of the conservative leaders trying to stop Trump:
•Thomas Sowell, economist.
•Brent Bozell, president of the Media Research Center.
•Glenn Beck, founder of The Blaze.
•Edwin Meese and Michael Mukasey, former U.S. attorney generals.
•Dana Loesch and Michael Medved, syndicated radio hosts.
•Cal Thomas and Mona Charen, syndicated columnists.
•William Kristol, editor of The Weekly Standard.
•R. R. Reno, editor of First Things.
•John Podhoretz, editor of Commentary.
•Yuval Levin, editor of National Affairs.
•Mark Helprin, novelist.
•Andrew C. McCarthy, contributing editor, National Review.
•Erick Erickson, founder of The Resurgent.
•David McIntosh, president of the Club for Growth.
•Steven F. Hayward, author and presidential scholar.
•Ben Domenech, publisher of The Federalist.
•David Boaz, executive vice president of the Cato Institute.
•Katie Pavlich, editor of Townhall.com editor.
•Russell Moore, president of the Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission of the Southern Baptist Convention."
Update:
Does it matter that National Review violated IRS nonprofit rules in urging voters to oppose Trump? https://t.co/3o3efRMf1B @KatrinaPierson
— Justin Raimondo (@JustinRaimondo) January 24, 2016
Wednesday, January 20, 2016
Monday, January 18, 2016
Sunday, January 17, 2016
Various Links
At least 3 cable news startups are eyeing the cable channel spot @ajam is about to give up. https://t.co/ViOuauKKl2
— CNN Breaking News (@cnnbrk) January 14, 2016I never noticed them till I read this tweet and its comments.
"Here's something I'm not going to do. I'm not going to have reasonably-sized ears." -Rubio
— Gavin McInnes (@Gavin_McInnes) January 15, 2016BUSTED: Emails prove Carly Fiorina campaign has been illegally coordinating with super PAC https://t.co/9qBtN1GiVz pic.twitter.com/v2AajZXHLt
— Raw Story (@RawStory) January 15, 2016Thursday, January 14, 2016
No.
I endorse this pioneering work. Get with it, people. https://t.co/Agf0xVLRJH
— Nancy Nall Derringer (@nnall) January 1, 2016Tuesday, January 12, 2016
"Subprime Oil Collapse."
Subprime oil collapse https://t.co/i3tvhiQjCK
— Mark Ames (@MarkAmesExiled) January 12, 201613 January update: Oil Price Could Crash to $10 a Barrel.
Oil Could Become Cheaper Than Bottled Water.
$3.2 Trillion of Global Stock Value Wiped Out Since Year Began.
The sell-off this year, driven by renewed jitters over China's economy and a slump in energy prices, has pushed the S&P 500 index in correction territory, with the benchmark now down 11.29 percent from its May 21 closing high.
According to the veteran market commentator, U.S. stocks are now off $1.77 trillion, while overseas stocks are down $1.4 trillion.
Al Jazeera America (digital channel 123 in Hilo) will go off the air on 30 April. The network's demise is partly due to plummeting oil prices ($100+/barrel vs. $30/barrel).
Monday, January 11, 2016
The New Republic For Sale--Again
Chris Hughes explains why he's selling it.
A Vox article from 2014 when the magazine was first up for sale, with a 2016 update.
A Vox article from 2014 when the magazine was first up for sale, with a 2016 update.
Snark aside: TNR has some wonderful writers who I hope will be fine despite the idiocy of Chris Hughes and Guy Vidra.
— daveweigel (@daveweigel) January 11, 2016Imagine if Chris Hughes had spent the last few yrs handing out $20M in cash to people on the street & left TNR alone https://t.co/1jQzJoC9kN
— Elissa Goldstein (@Book_Moth) January 11, 2016TNR was bound to fail with its strident focus on identity. How many Vox like media outlets can a country support?
— EdAsante (@EdAsante77) January 11, 2016oh god we're going to get a whole new round of old white men giving us hot TNR takes, aren't we?
— Kevin Robillard (@PoliticoKevin) January 11, 2016Sunday, January 10, 2016
SilentĆ³: "Watch Me (Whip/Nae Nae)"
I don’t wanna watch you whip.
Or nay nay, for that matter.
— Tim Hawkins (@timhawkinscomic) September 12, 2015I do. And it's spelled nae nae.
Friday, January 08, 2016
My Birthday
Yesterday I went at the last minute to Dragon Mama and Lucy's Taqueria to use up gift certificates I got for my last birthday. Dragon Mama was going to close in forty-five minutes when I went. I found a big coffee table book, a pair of chopsticks, a fan, a ceramic plate, and a four-piece set of sushi molds or cookie cutters, I'm not sure.
At Lucy's, I bought a torta con lengua, a giant fish burrito, fish tacos, a horchata, and got a basketful of free tortilla chips. Both places were kind enough to carry the remainder on the gift certificates.
January is the month for looking forward and backward, so that's what I'm doing. And I hope to have a nice, relaxing birthday.
At Lucy's, I bought a torta con lengua, a giant fish burrito, fish tacos, a horchata, and got a basketful of free tortilla chips. Both places were kind enough to carry the remainder on the gift certificates.
January is the month for looking forward and backward, so that's what I'm doing. And I hope to have a nice, relaxing birthday.
Thursday, January 07, 2016
Some Political News and Views
Neocons go birther. https://t.co/gK5V4ae7so
— Justin Raimondo (@JustinRaimondo) January 7, 2016Maureen Kyalya, running for President of Uganda.
Wednesday, January 06, 2016
Some Tweets
NYT: Cruz was born outside the U.S. to 1 American parent: "Under the Constitution this makes him a 'natural born citizen.'” Absolutely false
— Ann Coulter (@AnnCoulter) January 6, 2016Rubio is complaining about Obama's gun policies while he's working to turn more states into California, which has Obama's gun policies.
— Ann Coulter (@AnnCoulter) January 5, 2016...... https://t.co/wNdb3fTZpe
— Rania Khalek (@RaniaKhalek) January 6, 2016The militia members should learn to raise crops, not cows—allowing the refuge's wild animals to thrive & sparing cattle their lives.
— PETA (@peta) January 6, 2016The effects of illegal marijuana cultivation in national parks.
Today: PETA is hand-delivering #vegan jerky to Oregon cattle-ranching Militia https://t.co/CVE8rU9yNl #OregonMilitia pic.twitter.com/cZFGFECiOM
— PETA (@peta) January 6, 2016The militant ranchers have appealed for snacks & PETA is bringing vegan jerky—beef w/o cholesterol, cruelty, or environmental destruction.
— PETA (@peta) January 6, 2016Tuesday, January 05, 2016
O'Death: "Travelin' Man."
This afternoon I was going through the radio stations in the car and heard this song on the university radio station. I've never heard it before. Googling the lyrics, I found out who sang it.
Michael Moore Stuff
"Sown."
In case you were wondering, as I was, who were those guys on the poster of Michael Moore's upcoming movie, Where to Invade Next.
Electorate is 81% female, people of color or young adults 18-35. The GOP has sewn its own demise. FoxNews grows dark pic.twitter.com/wrsY4THonz
— Michael Moore (@MMFlint) January 2, 2016In case you were wondering, as I was, who were those guys on the poster of Michael Moore's upcoming movie, Where to Invade Next.
We spoke to Ammon Bundy last night, not in support of him but to further understanding the roots of his armed action https://t.co/wLdt9eUKVf
— Jacobin (@jacobinmag) January 5, 2016Jacobin interviews Ammon Bundy, the militia man behind the Oregon armed standoff.
Monday, January 04, 2016
Movies
We watched Daddy's Home yesterday. I found out about several movies from the trailers: How to Be Single, Eddie the Eagle, and The Boss. And Zoolander 2 is coming soon.
(I realized last night that Will Ferrell and Mark Wahlberg were in The Other Guys.)
(I realized last night that Will Ferrell and Mark Wahlberg were in The Other Guys.)
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