You dare send a wood octopus to assassinate Dog King? Fools! pic.twitter.com/8GZf9EjxsW
— Johnny Normality (@Probgoblin) June 28, 2016
Wednesday, August 17, 2016
Tuesday, August 16, 2016
The Murder of Khalid Jabara
How is it possible the national media has completely ignored the heart shattering #KhalidJabara story? https://t.co/0LXuEwdyvM
— Anya Parampil (@anyaparampil) August 16, 2016
According to family the killer of Khalid Jabara referred to them as "Dirty Arabs."https://t.co/YXdD6wpNtS pic.twitter.com/nqGectpS3w
— Imraan Siddiqi (@imraansiddiqi) August 15, 2016
I learned of the murder yesterday while reading Nancy Nall. This is how she put it:
I SO wish Coozledad was still with us, so we could hear his colorful opinion about this feeb, charged with the homicide of his neighbor, upon whom he (the shooter) had regularly bestowed racial slurs and! Hit the neighbor’s mother with his car. Oh, and yeah, he was drunk. But you’re gonna love his mugshot, because that is the face of the master race.
With that, let’s hit second gear on this week.
----
There's more to the story, as Rania Khalek reports.
Monday, August 15, 2016
Kunstler: Burning Down the House
Kunstler: Burning Down the House.
There’s a new feature to the Anything-Goes-and-Nothing-Matters economy: Nothing-Adds-Up. The magicians who pretend to measure the growth of GDP (Gross Domestic Product — the monetary value of all the finished goods and services) came up with a second quarter “adjusted” figure of 1.2 percent. That would have to be construed by anyone acquainted with basic econ stats as perfectly dismal. And yet the Bureau of Labor Statistics put out a sparkly Nonfarm Payroll Report of 255,000 for July, way above the forecast 180,000.
There were so many ways to game the jobs number — between people forced to work more than one shit job and the notorious “birth/death model” used to just make up any old number for political purposes — that no one can take this information seriously. Anyway, the GDP number was instantly forgotten and the jobs number launched the stock markets to previously uncharted record altitude.
It’s that time of the year for the hedge fund boys, with their testosterone flowing, to start burning down their house rentals in the Hamptons. And it’s also the time of year for an ever more stressed financial system to go down in flames. And, of course, it’s a presidential election season. Even for one allergic to conspiracy theories, it’s not farfetched to imagine a coordinated effort by central banks — under government direction — to generate Money-Out-Of-Thin-Air (QE) for the purpose of allowing “liquidity” flows to end up in US equity and bond markets in order to paint a false picture of “recovery” so as to insure the election of Hillary Clinton. I think that is exactly behind the recent money-printing activities by the Japanese and European Central Banks, and the Bank of England.
Why would it end up in US markets? For bonds, because the Euro and Japanese bond sovereign yields are in sub-zero territory and the BOE just cut its prime rate lower than the US Federal Reserve’s prime rate; and for stocks, because the value of the other three currencies is sliding down and the dollar has been rising — so, dump your falling currency for the rising dollar and jam it into rising US stocks. It’ll work until it doesn’t.
Why do this for Hillary? Because she represents the continuity of all the current rackets being used to prop up belief in the foundering business model of western civilization. If she doesn’t get into the White House there may be no backstopping of the insolvent banks and bankrupt governments and a TILT message will appear in the sky. That TILT message is likely to appear anyway because, remember, the authorities are only pretending that they can manage events. In fact, all of their “management” strategies and shenanigans only insure the further distortion of the basic operating system, which is already so far out of whack from twenty years of previous management efforts that nothing in banking and markets really works anymore.
Companies don’t make money, despite rising share prices. No one in his right mind buys bonds with negative yields — that promise to pay back less over time — so governments have to pretend to buy them. (In fact, they don’t so much “buy” them as simply extinguish them by playing three-card-monte with national treasuries.) And, of course, the masses of people in all these nations — including the patsy USA — sink ever deeper into penury every month.
The release of tension is being felt in the ground game of politics where outsider candidates here and abroad are rising on a tide of rage and resentment. The fecklessness and stupidity of the elites has been epic, sacrificing everything to maintain the illusion of normality. Nothing is normal and “the people” are finally onto it. Sadly, it looks as if both politics and finance are veering toward crack-up simultaneously. The daisy-chained Too-Big-To-Fail banks are already choking on the suicide bolus of derivatives. The equity markets are one algo accident away from cratering. The bond markets are a sick joke. And Hillary may win the booby prize of presiding over the smoldering wreckage of it all. When it happens, she will have no idea what to do.
Sunday, August 14, 2016
LIVE conversation next week on the future of #tech in a post #fossilfuel world: ttp://bit.ly/ORFtech-signup pic.twitter.com/LgvsCVOEQz
— Post Carbon Inst. (@postcarbon) August 11, 2016
God bless Mayor Ken Taylor for demanding English as a single language for USA!!!
— El Toro Loco (@ToroLocoNC) August 12, 2016
says a guy whose Twitter handle means "crazy bull" in Spanish.
Mayor Ken Taylor hates Spanish yet his office in on a street named Gonzales in a city named Huachuca #fail #KenTaylor
— JaymeLee (@mantra101) August 12, 2016
Enough said.
Saturday, August 13, 2016
The biggest city on Earth in 1200AD? Merv, in Turkmenistan, razed by Mongols, now totally uninhabited: https://t.co/aFOfWoLDAc
— Charles C. Mann (@CharlesCMann) August 12, 2016
Friday, August 12, 2016
About Longs (a post in progress)
There've been things about Longs the past few years that I've noticed. Some are gradual changes, some have to do with the ambience of the stores and how they're different. I'll add to this soon.
Longs (Kilauea Avenue)
Longs (Prince Kuhio Plaza): Do you get the feeling that this location has changed (not for the better), especially after Safeway next door vacated?
Longs (Kilauea Avenue)
Longs (Prince Kuhio Plaza): Do you get the feeling that this location has changed (not for the better), especially after Safeway next door vacated?
Thursday, August 11, 2016
Followers of news and NYC. The @nytimes reports it's giving up on local news for global trends. https://t.co/59o3oQIhZk Your thoughts?
— Murray Weiss (@weiss_murray) August 9, 2016
A Map of the United States Adjusted for Population
Here, @FiveThirtyEight's graphic of what the US map would look like adjusting for population (and if bees built it). pic.twitter.com/VYcj0ZGR5S
— Mark Harris (@MarkHarrisNYC) August 9, 2016
Monday, August 08, 2016
Thursday, August 04, 2016
The Angry Man Boys: A Subset of the Precariat
Kunstler has described this kind of angry young man years ago. From a comment at NancyNall.com:
A follow-up.
I worry, in my area, about the Angry Man Boys. AMBs to save me some typing. They are visually recognizable from across the parking lot of the big box store or the mall entrance for the 24plex. They generally have close cropped hair or shaven heads, but a jutting beard. They tend to stick to leg tats, because many of them work tech or support or somewhere that neck tats create issues; many have sleeve ink that’s “in process.”
The AMBs wear loose t-shirts, usually with some kind of tribal or techy theme, and long floppy shorts, and shoes that are velcro strapped usually — because the AMBs are almost without exception very, very large. Not strong, though I’d be nervous about having to get into any kind of physical conflict with them, but wide and getting wider the further down you go from the shoulders.
They have the angriest car stickers. Pee boy is passé, theirs are everything from “Molon Labe” (in Greek) to stick figures having intercourse, but Trump bumper wear is becoming common. These are not the vehicles with the NRA Life Member decals, but they do have Texian flags with M-16 outlines in place of the Gonzales cannon; they sport the Gadsden flag in bright yellow and a spitting rattler; they are now showing “This is MY family” stickers with different size and type guns lined up in family groups like the stick figure and Mickey/Minnie or zombie motifs you more often see.
The AMBs usually don’t have family, they don’t tend to have girlfriends, and when they do they are large and equally discontented looking. But usually it’s a solo or pair of AMBs you see, peering about with a distinct air of unhappiness, their natural squint reinforced and emphasized by a variety of triggers in their environment. [...]
A follow-up.
Wednesday, August 03, 2016
Beyond the Tea Party
Tea party is irrelevant- it's the TRUMP Party. https://t.co/PGL7BatWIv
— Ann Coulter (@AnnCoulter) August 3, 2016
Tea Party Pushed to the Side by Trump Juggernaut."
Tea Party Conservative to Run as Democrat Against Shuster.
Paul Ryan Faces Tea Party Forces That He Helped Unleash.
There's a good chance Paul Ryan might be defeated in Wisconsin's primary on August 9.
Nothing like watching a madras-clad Grosse Pointer picking out some jarred gravy to make you see why WASPS are not known for their cooking.
— Nancy Nall Derringer (@nnall) July 30, 2016
The last s should be lowercase.
The WASP Cookbook, by Alexandra Wentworth.
Tuesday, August 02, 2016
Various Links
Peak Oil Review: Aug. 1, 2016
E.g., "India’s government is considering launching talks to merge 13 state-held oil companies into one giant conglomerate that could rival some of the industry’s global giants. Such a new giant would be able to compete with the likes of Rosneft and BP in terms of size."
Judge Refuses Bonuses for Executives at Bankrupt Sports Authority.
Donald Trump Signs First-Ever Presidential Anti-Porn Pledge.
Khmer Rouge Principles Were ‘Amazingly Good,’ Witness Says.
Himmler Diaries Found in Russia Reveal Daily Nazi Horrors.
Notorious B.I.G. Series in Development at TBS.
Rush Limbaugh Signs Multi-Year Extension With iHeart Media, Premiere Networks.
Why I Decided to Keep Doing This Show.
MTV Classic is Now a Thing. The 90s are Back.
E.g., "India’s government is considering launching talks to merge 13 state-held oil companies into one giant conglomerate that could rival some of the industry’s global giants. Such a new giant would be able to compete with the likes of Rosneft and BP in terms of size."
Judge Refuses Bonuses for Executives at Bankrupt Sports Authority.
Donald Trump Signs First-Ever Presidential Anti-Porn Pledge.
Khmer Rouge Principles Were ‘Amazingly Good,’ Witness Says.
Himmler Diaries Found in Russia Reveal Daily Nazi Horrors.
Notorious B.I.G. Series in Development at TBS.
Rush Limbaugh Signs Multi-Year Extension With iHeart Media, Premiere Networks.
Why I Decided to Keep Doing This Show.
MTV Classic is Now a Thing. The 90s are Back.
UP Diksiyonaryong Filipino
UP Diksiyonaryong Filipino.
"[A] monolingual Filipino dictionary [...] maintained by the University of the Philippines Center for Filipino Language (Sentro ng Wikang Filipino; UP-SWF) [...]. The first edition of the UPDF was released in 2001, while the second edition was released on July 29, 2010, coinciding with the centennial of the University of the Philippines. [...] In planning since 1996,[1] the UPDF has been likened to a Filipino version of the Oxford English Dictionary.[2]"
Cf. Diccionario de la Lengua Española, Dictionnaire de l'Académie Française, Nihon Kokugo Daijiten, Deutsches Wörterbuch.
Monday, August 01, 2016
Kunstler: Let the Games Begin!
Kunstler: Let the Games Begin!
Hot air balloons may be crashing in Texas, but in Philadelphia last week sainted Hillary, draped in spotless white privilege robes, floated through the glassiest ceiling of all on mighty gusts of saccharine gas. The good wife… the good mother… tireless fighter for the rainbow outcasts and gender martyrs of this patriarch-plagued republic, she pledged both continuity and change to the credulous faithful as history yanked her above the gurgling cesspits of allegation, suspicion, and distrust that lo, these many months, had come to be her natural haunt.
The cameras cut to poor brooding Bernie seated just above the delirious groundlings, frowny-faced, arms crossed, brow beetled beneath his white Corinthian curls, perhaps suffering the effects of cheese-steak poisoning. He’d endorsed Saint Hillary with all the passion of a Seventh Avenue soft goods jobber hawking last-year’s resort-wear, and the next day he would up-and-quit the Democratic Party — as if that was not sending a message to the true believers.
Yet another email maelstrom almost spoiled the gala, this one revealing the strings and levers pulled by the DNC chair Debbie Wasserman Schultz in violation of the Party fairness charter. She was axed in a New York minute, and the whole country — including the ADD-afflicted news media — dropped the story to behold the awesome ascension of She-Whose-Turn-It-Is. All except the arch-boor Trump who cracked that maybe Russia could find those 20,000 emails missing from I’m-With-Her’s fabled server. The entire nation, including the aforementioned Special Needs news media, actually missed the point of the gag — which was: how lame are the US security agencies if they couldn’t find those emails but Russia could? And how come nobody raised that question?
Julian Assange then appeared, Jacob Marley-like, to warn the minions of Hillary that he had portfolios full of interesting material yet to dump, and would take his sweet time choosing the opportune moment to do it. How Hillary must wish she could send a Navy SEAL team into Ecuador’s London embassy to ventilate that hacker-rat! It will be fun waiting for Julian to make his move, and to see how much Xanax Hillary will require in the meantime. The DNC coronation show will prove to be only temporary relief from the phantoms and revenants of misdeeds past.
The distraction du jour is whether Trump has become an agent of Russia. Notice that this line of intel comes direct from the neo-con central agitprop desk. This unofficial US War Party representing the amalgamated war industries has been busy demonizing Russia throughout the current presidential term. Not all Americans are so easily gulled, though. Those who know history understand, for instance, that the Crimea has been a province of Russia almost continually for hundreds of years — except the brief interval when the ur-Ukrainian Soviet leader, Nikita Khrushchev one drunken evening gave it away to the then-Soviet region of Ukraine in a fit of sentimentality, assuming it would remain a virtual property of Greater Russia forever. [More about the 1954 transfer of Crimea here.--P.Z.] Notice, too, that since Russia annexed it in 2014 (being the site of its only warm water port and major naval stations) not even the US neo-con war party has been able to make a credible case for fighting over it. Instead, they’ve resorted to name-calling: Putin the “thug,” Putin the “worst political gangster in the world.” This is exactly the brand of foreign policy that Hillary will bring to the Oval Office.
Not that Donald Trump offers a coherent alternative. The reasonable suspicion persists that he doesn’t know his ass from a hole in the ground vis-Ã -vis how the affairs of the world actually work. For him it’s all same as tough-talking the sheet-rocker’s union. Then, of course, Trump had to immediately step in dog-shit by bad-mouthing the mother of an American army hero who-just-happened-to-be of the Mohammedan persuasion. Trump for practical purposes is a child and a reasonable case is not hard to make for denying him presidential power.
And so the great disaster movie of 2016 commences: Godzilla Versus Rodan the Flying Reptile. Which one will survive to completely destroy the sclerotic remains of our nation? The good news is that voters are moving to the Third and Fourth party nominees, Gary Johnson (Libertarian) and Jill Stein (Green) in droves, herds, flocks, porpoise pods, and stampedes. Perhaps both of these relatively sane candidates will show enough polling strength to make it into the Great Debates. Won’t that be fun?
Hot air balloons may be crashing in Texas, but in Philadelphia last week sainted Hillary, draped in spotless white privilege robes, floated through the glassiest ceiling of all on mighty gusts of saccharine gas. The good wife… the good mother… tireless fighter for the rainbow outcasts and gender martyrs of this patriarch-plagued republic, she pledged both continuity and change to the credulous faithful as history yanked her above the gurgling cesspits of allegation, suspicion, and distrust that lo, these many months, had come to be her natural haunt.
The cameras cut to poor brooding Bernie seated just above the delirious groundlings, frowny-faced, arms crossed, brow beetled beneath his white Corinthian curls, perhaps suffering the effects of cheese-steak poisoning. He’d endorsed Saint Hillary with all the passion of a Seventh Avenue soft goods jobber hawking last-year’s resort-wear, and the next day he would up-and-quit the Democratic Party — as if that was not sending a message to the true believers.
Yet another email maelstrom almost spoiled the gala, this one revealing the strings and levers pulled by the DNC chair Debbie Wasserman Schultz in violation of the Party fairness charter. She was axed in a New York minute, and the whole country — including the ADD-afflicted news media — dropped the story to behold the awesome ascension of She-Whose-Turn-It-Is. All except the arch-boor Trump who cracked that maybe Russia could find those 20,000 emails missing from I’m-With-Her’s fabled server. The entire nation, including the aforementioned Special Needs news media, actually missed the point of the gag — which was: how lame are the US security agencies if they couldn’t find those emails but Russia could? And how come nobody raised that question?
Julian Assange then appeared, Jacob Marley-like, to warn the minions of Hillary that he had portfolios full of interesting material yet to dump, and would take his sweet time choosing the opportune moment to do it. How Hillary must wish she could send a Navy SEAL team into Ecuador’s London embassy to ventilate that hacker-rat! It will be fun waiting for Julian to make his move, and to see how much Xanax Hillary will require in the meantime. The DNC coronation show will prove to be only temporary relief from the phantoms and revenants of misdeeds past.
The distraction du jour is whether Trump has become an agent of Russia. Notice that this line of intel comes direct from the neo-con central agitprop desk. This unofficial US War Party representing the amalgamated war industries has been busy demonizing Russia throughout the current presidential term. Not all Americans are so easily gulled, though. Those who know history understand, for instance, that the Crimea has been a province of Russia almost continually for hundreds of years — except the brief interval when the ur-Ukrainian Soviet leader, Nikita Khrushchev one drunken evening gave it away to the then-Soviet region of Ukraine in a fit of sentimentality, assuming it would remain a virtual property of Greater Russia forever. [More about the 1954 transfer of Crimea here.--P.Z.] Notice, too, that since Russia annexed it in 2014 (being the site of its only warm water port and major naval stations) not even the US neo-con war party has been able to make a credible case for fighting over it. Instead, they’ve resorted to name-calling: Putin the “thug,” Putin the “worst political gangster in the world.” This is exactly the brand of foreign policy that Hillary will bring to the Oval Office.
Not that Donald Trump offers a coherent alternative. The reasonable suspicion persists that he doesn’t know his ass from a hole in the ground vis-Ã -vis how the affairs of the world actually work. For him it’s all same as tough-talking the sheet-rocker’s union. Then, of course, Trump had to immediately step in dog-shit by bad-mouthing the mother of an American army hero who-just-happened-to-be of the Mohammedan persuasion. Trump for practical purposes is a child and a reasonable case is not hard to make for denying him presidential power.
And so the great disaster movie of 2016 commences: Godzilla Versus Rodan the Flying Reptile. Which one will survive to completely destroy the sclerotic remains of our nation? The good news is that voters are moving to the Third and Fourth party nominees, Gary Johnson (Libertarian) and Jill Stein (Green) in droves, herds, flocks, porpoise pods, and stampedes. Perhaps both of these relatively sane candidates will show enough polling strength to make it into the Great Debates. Won’t that be fun?
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