"News that's not known, or not known enough."
Helen & Harry Highwater's cranky weblog of news and opinion.
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"News that's not known, or not known enough." Helen & Harry Highwater's cranky weblog of news and opinion. |
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Into Ashkelon
Massing 500,000 people is a tall order to fill if Hamas is seriously willing to do this. Still, Ashkelon is a strategic Oil Storage Centre for Israel, so any threat of this magnitude must be causing Israelis some worry. Propaganda? I doubt it. I think they feel they have the upper hand at the moment and they are willing to sacrifice many to exploit it within the theater of world opinion. Imagine the spectacle, if even 50-100,000 unarmed Palestinians marched to and through the Israeli border arm-in-arm singing their version of "We shall overcome"! And the Israeli response……will determine the next course of Middle East history. And, history is always written by the winners.
Bush's "stimulus plan"
A key word is "rebate". Not sure what that means, but it appears to mean tax cut in advance for people who have jobs and pay Social Security taxes I know there are people who don't feel that $150,000 a year for a married couple is "wealthy", but it seems unbelievable that these people actually /need/ another $1200 or $2100 all that much. What, that covers the energy bill for the jacuzzi, or one month of the Jaguar lease? What about the needy?
Relative suck ratios of capitalism, communism, anarchism
Fraghdad says, "Just because everything sucked, that had the name "communism" painted on it in red letters..." That is really only accurate if you apply it to all state ideologies and deny relative suck ratios. States, in general are a bad thing, no matter what the ruling ideology, but the entire range from least worse to worst worse has examples of not-so-bad-by-comparison state governments. In general though, it seems that if the state supports a mixed economy with enforced civil and human rights then it is on the better end of the suck scale. Kerala's long-standing communist government is one such example. Sweden's democratic one is widely admired. Theocracy really has become a snake pit Most interesting to me is the fact that Anarchist organized governments, committed as they are to direct democracy and abjuring hierarchical structures, have always been paradoxically functional in practical terms until smashed by either left or right forces. The early Soviets seem to have been influenced by a then vital anarchist movement current in Europe, and then had their ranks extirpated by totalitarian communism. The anarchists of northern Spain that were part of the Republic managed to field an effective army (Homage to Catalonia by Orwell). The anarchists of the Ukraine (The Revolutionary Insurrectionary Army of Ukraine) managed to defeat many modern armies until the Red Army came to slaughter them. The best parts of all the ideologies, including American Republican ideals, are congruent, if not copied from anarchist thought. Anarchists sometimes claim Socrates, and I can't imagine he would mind. To my observation, people of good will can make a success out of any ideological bent, and those of ill will a mess out of any ideology they adopt. Ergo: my assertion that ideology is a largely meaningless affectation. I was just listening to Dr. Michael Hudson on the Guns and Butter show of Aug 15, 2007. This eminent economist and historian makes the assertion that Economic History is no longer taught in Economics Departments. Graduates these days, he says, only know mathematical theories and may have never heard of Ricardo, and have little, if any understanding of dialectical materialism, or Adam Smith, for that matter. But that's the way it is with slave cultures like ours. Keep the slaves ignorant to help ensure obedience and mix slaves of different origins so they have trouble communicating, making it difficult to organize resistance. Today's version has slaves indoctrinated into differing specialties of thought that are largely mutually exclusive and dependent on a specialized technical language.
Connecting the dots and finding bad cops
Rogue trader deals are business as usual
I will go to my grave convinced they are sending in their GOONSQUAD to play around with the market numbers, setting up fake deals paying people to make bogus trades. I'm sure Illegal activity has been going on 24/7. This will feed the pessimist's already paranoid freak out minds... More crooks and thieves will abandon the USS Titanic Leaving the third class citizens to drown. The R-U- Stimulated Yet show continues... Bush and PIGlosi talk of URGENCY, which turns out is another sick scam planned to con the people. SO URGENT that one finds out the BRIBE money won't be in the public's hands to be cashed until June and July. Leaves me wondering about use of words? STIMULUS PACKAGE sounds like a tittle of an XXX rated movie. Think about it!
What's that you say?
Oh that's easy... we'll just print some more up. What's that you say ?? The money some have something to back it up?? To give it some REAL value?? Picky... picky... picky. You just don't understand modern global economics, I guess.
Weary ritual
Why not just have the speech sent over to the Congress and have it read into the Congressional Record (it was done that way before) and save Congress the weary ritual and save the country the embarrassment of seeing the buffoon?
John Galt's scrotum
You and me, America. You and me and Dick Cheney.
Bruce Almighty in Colorado
And thankfully, from the record, neither does newly appointed GOP Representative Douglas Bruce, recently installed to represent Colorado Springs in Congress. Bruce just seems to feel that he is a *Very* Important Person(!!!) and is completely justified in kicking peons after morning prayers!!! He has not only refused to apologize, even after being censured by Congress, but he wants the "kickee" to apologize to him!
Yep! Read it for yourself here at Stupid Evil Bastard website! If you don't accept that as an unbiased report, here is the news from his home state, and his Wikipedia entry. This guy is a real Prince, esp. if Wikipedia is correct. And I would definitely like to find out what the odds are at Vegas on him actually getting elected by the religious voters of Colorado Springs. Not to hammer the guy too hard, I mean, who hasn't lost his or her temper and kicked someone working in the news industry immediately after morning prayers? It isn't as if they really report news anymore, they're just bitches, right?
It begins in your heart
Threatening national suicide
Lies endangered in England
"...not in the public interest..."? Can't wait for Bush's take on "The State of The Union" come Monday. Will it be "in the public interest" to tell the truth?
Coco banana magic stuff
There is no "Marxist/Communist system". Marxism isn't a system at all. The Capital 1-3 by Marx was essentially a response to Adam Smiths "Political Economy", that's also why the Capital had the subtitle "A critique of political economy" (duh) Just because everything sucked, that had the name "communism" painted on it in red letters, doesn't mean that Marx lacks valid points. His writings still are a must-read to any serious sociologist or philosophist. At least his works are scientific, while capitalism (or "the economy") is some coco banana magic stuff.
Rejoinder
Ah... but my karma ran over your dogmas.
Incapable
Both so-called political "parties" need to be formally disbanded This nation needs to be returned to its own people, and to the sense that comes from individuals that will question and decide their own futures. NO PARTY with it's hidden payrolls of professional concern should ever again be allowed to create the political-troughs, of hundreds of billions, which the swine will use to feed upon us all. We have passed from a nation of laws to a haven for Outlaws operating from Rogue States that recognize nothing but brute force, torture and murder, as their personal code of conduct. When men place themselves above all the laws, both national and international Since the public here is therefore not capable of thinking for itself, it is obvious that this "need" could not actually take place without a near-total-revolution.
It's happened already
And now that no baby boomers can retire thanks to this new mess they won't have to worry about touching Social Security which of course is all gone anyway because the bastards looted that too! Perfect timing, this here crash! My neighbor who drives a school bus for 29 years was told that the company that holds their pensions is in big trouble and that they would be getting far less then they thought... You see, it's happened already... Nothing is ever as SECURE as you think!!!
It's in the details
It's in the "details".
A long ways up
"a beautiful sacrifice on the alter of greed"?Only lately, before that our Prime Ministers actually had balls. Remember Trudeau's visit to Cuba after the US embargo? Remember Chretien's refusal to go to Iraq? Our current PM (Stephan Harper), however, has his head so far up your President's ass he can look out Bush's eyes! Oh well, at least we have real alternatives to vote for next election. Personally, I voted Green Party last time.
Nice try, sheik boy
Nice try, sheik boy, but Israel wants Arab territories a lot more than it wants Arab cooperation.
But it's all "off budget", so it doesn't show up in the deficit, it's not at all like spending real money, so it doesn't matter at all... or so the morons of this administration seem to believe.
Signpost up ahead
Cash and carry
This story feels incomplete. There is too much left out. Like the part where the customer complained bitterly and somehow they obtained his phone number to call him back. I don't think people should let this story dissuade them from paying cash for their purchases. The reason to pay cash isn't just fear of identity theft I am totally convinced that a high percentage of Americans impulse shop with credit cards and buy crap they don't really, really need. It is better to be humiliated in Idaho paying cash than to squander tens of thousands of dollars buying useless crap, eh? The best reason to pay cash is psychological. If I were in the habit of wandering around stores with my credit card in its holster I would probably buy tons of stuff I don't /really/ need. My policy is to buy what I need but only if I am so persuaded of my need that I am willing to make a trip to the bank first. There is a big difference in psychology there between just buying something I see and planning a purchase carefully. For a while I have really wanted a down jacket. But not enough to go to the bank and withdraw $200 or whatever it would cost to make the buy. Right now I am wearing a t-shirt, a turtleneck, and two sweaters. And I am comfortable enough. Maybe I'll buy a down jacket in the Spring, after they go on sale. Or maybe not.
P.S. The Apple Store accepts cash for iMacs Archfoe
But my wondering goes past that, to the ground-setting claim of that first sentence that Iran is Israel's "archfoe." I guess I'd direct this question to The Canadian, who seems to know a lot about foreign affairs and sh*t, or to anyone else who can answer it with some common sense: Is there some real-world sense in which Iran is Israel's "archfoe"? The nutty President of Iran has said But is there anything more to this "archfoe" 007 nonsense than that? What exactly makes Iran an "archfoe" of Israel? There are two nations between them, so there can't be any border skirmishes, so what has Iran done to earn its "archfoe" status? Do Iranian spies make mayhem in Israel? Is there any truth to the Bush claims that Iran "sponsors state terrorism" targeting Israel? I trust American mass media less and less, so I don't know the honest answers to such questions, but nobody outside of comic books seriously uses terms like "archfoe" ...
Evil moreso
Try reading "The Black Book of Communism", "The Harvest of Sorrow: Soviet Collectivization and the Terror-Famine", "Education of a True Believer" and "Democide" The 60 million killed in the USSR and the 100 million killed by Mao in China are the natural consequence of the Marxist/Communist system established by Vladimir Lenin. The Imperialism that Communism sought to defeat was evil, yet Communism was moreso.
Deep crap
Welfare is another good way to keep the economy humming. It takes nothing from local economies and puts millions into it. Welfare creates jobs in the form of support services. The same can be said of a 100% Free Government supported National Healthcare system. The economy would boom from it. Handing out checks to people who already have money is no way to prop up this economy. It has to be propped up from the bottom up. These are the people who need the new cars and TV's.
Mismanaged and lackadaisical
Yikes! Now it appears being poisoned only ONCE can have a long term health impact as bad as smoking for decades! This would seem to put a new emphasis on America's mismanaged and lackadaisical FDA, wouldn't it?
Cappies and Commies
My opinion is that any government would work on a small scale. Marxist anarchy could be quite idyllic, in a commune-type form. I think the problem of Communism, as with Capitalism, is consolidation of power. I think that's easier to avoid in Capitalism, though.
It seems inevitable
Along with a debt holiday, I would add a rent and mortgage holiday as well. When Caesar was appointed Dictator by a government mired in similar problems that arose, as ours have, from speculative excess, one of his first emergency measures was to invoke a rent holiday for Rome. Next thing you know the landlords assassinated him. The inconceivability of effective measures being instituted by our political leaders, marinated as they virtually all are in speculative pseudo-wealth, is the same situation Republican Rome faced at the time of Caesar. It seems inevitable that our Republic will fail in the same fashion, only much, much more rapidly and extravagantly. Take home lesson: turning the running of a nation over to speculators never works in the long run. Teacher: "Johnny, you didn't turn in your homework on evolution." Student: "Sorry Miss Green, my dogmas hate my homework."
Tea party
They think no one will get hurt if the elevator goes down the shaft a little slower, Once people get down to the bottom they'll still lie and tell the people to catch all the bargain basement sales.
Conditioned, complacent and apathetic
Excellent article. Bush has all the legislation he needs to become Supreme Chancellor for life. And, if there were to be another false-flag "terrorist" attack - America would once again fall asleep and follow the President because most people don't want to even believe that 9/11 was orchestrated by our own government and the Mossad. I see another false-flag attack and Bush blaming it on Iran and/or "homegrown terrorists" (see: 9/11 Truth Movement, Tax Honesty Movement, Friends of the Article V Convention, Lone Lantern Society, We Are Change), etc. And millions of Americans will gladly see innocent, Patriotic dissidents be thrown in jail and/or tortured. It happened in Nazi Germany - and our populace is WAY MORE conditioned, complacent and apathetic than our German counterparts. Yup, we're fucked. :(
Gazans
Armageddon anyone? Tax cuts-Tax cuts-Tax cuts. Bush's answer to budgetary problems will bring the Iraqis to reconciliation ala the U.S. and all will be right with the world. Wonder if we could get Bush/Cheney to resign here and go to Iraq and show them how it's done.
In all fairness
Thanks for your time. Keep up the good work.
Coherent conspiracies
When a currency system, or other system of power exchange, has been stripped of most of its extractable leverage, then it's a good time to break it. Subsequently, it can be replaced with a fresh, but mostly identical system, and the process of sifting social influence can begin again. Then again, I don't accept the possibility of coherent conspiracies. People just don't live long enough to engage rationally in big schemes. It's adequate merely to count on consistent, short sighted self-interest to bring about that which is both familiar yet inane.
Makes sense
All true. Especially the part about "Democrats" Pelosi, Reid, et al. being Bushies. There is no other explanation.
And America pays the bill
America perpetually sides with Israel, no matter how inhumane Israel's policies and acts. And America pays the bill, in dollars and lives ...
Using Dunkin Donuts as an office
We went to DDs to get a coffee and there's a man in there refinancing his house. The woman doing the paperwork (taking up two tables) was using DDs as an office. The guy is piss drunk talking loud, I could hear the whole deal going down, and he actually asked the manager to turn the music down. The world is truly mad! I actually thought it might have been a gag for a TV show, but no, it was for real!
Oh Canada
A bumper sticker for the Canadian: Canada: a beautiful sacrifice on the altar of greed.
A long line
Just another in a long line of corruption disasters "we the people" have been forced to endure, thanks to Caesar's court jesters....
Ameriquestion
The powers that be went after Ameriquest and won a huge settlement for the people that had been ripped off by them by the same practices that the rest of the mortgage companies and banks use and are using still, so could someone tell me why the same is not done to the other company's that was done to Ameriquest? Here is the link for the Ameriquest settlement web site
A picture says a thousand words
Seem to remember the Nazis used to employ the tactic of punishing the whole for the deeds of a faction. And all they accomplished was more hatred. why isn't history learned? But then Barack is a member of a faction. Obama's mixed record on Iran
Of course, I guess, a U.S. policy of adhering to what is in the best interests of the U.S. regardless of Israeli desires is utterly ridiculous.
America's going out of business sale
I've been attempting to tell people this very fact for a while now. I usually get the same response as the author. I'm sure the average Russian would have responded the same way in, say, 1989, when informed that the Soviet Union was being plundered by banking and political pirates. What we're witnessing is nothing less that America's going out of business sale. Come get it before it's all sold out!
One-party system
The powers that be wouldn't risk something like this because all the war-mongering democrats work for them too.
No system of laws
To read this, you would think that the Justice Department has just now figured out that contractor-mercenaries in Iraq are subject to no system of laws. As if people haven't been pointing it out to them for the past six years. As if that lawlessness and lack of accountability weren't exactly the point of hiring mercenaries in the first place.
The truth hurts
America, a beautiful lie.
Quick question
Turn over our civil liberties
I believe it's just more of the drumbeat for generating fear. Basically steadily bombarding us with 'proof' that we better turn over all our civil liberties to the government, for that's the only way they can protect us
No-one forces you to buy junk
All he had ever done was teach |
