"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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Greedhead conglomerates by Chris M. Tuesday, July 1, 2008 PERMANENT LINK Hot thin roofs
There's a reason why Congress won't put any money toward developing these kinds of energy solutions. They can't be monopolized by some fucking greedhead conglomerate like oil and coal and gas. You just buy the product and have it installed. Instead the Government will only back energy you constantly have to pay through the nose for to some damn corporate energy pusher.
Problem is, Charley... you are thinking "conventional war" and I guarantee you that is NOT what they are thinking. Rest assured these cluster fucks in Washington and Tel Aviv would hesitate for one nano-second to use nuclear weapons if Iran retaliated. Mark my words.
Gee... wonder how they would do that ??? Couldn't possibly guess.
I think I mentioned this a while ago. Israel has wanted to blow Iran totally away for years. If for not other reason than Iran's support of Hamas and Hizbollah. They are just itching for an excuse. Realistically, forgetting all the "Yes we can" claptrap, Obama's strongest selling point is pretty much the same as John Kerry's four years ago -- the other guy is much, much worse.Actually the other guy is much, much more senile. Which I guess makes him much, much worse. Why is it we generally get candidates that are brain damaged old farts, loonies, sociopaths or slick con artists running for office?? Are the American people that screwed up?? Oh never mind... silly question anyway. Chris M.  Junior G-man terror alert! by Hazel Burke Tuesday, July 1, 2008 PERMANENT LINK Solid analysis here in the preview Official anti-terrorism civilian snoop program to be expanded
Terror Watch uses locals to spot suspicious activity — 181 trained in Colorado
Hazel Burke Woke up in opposite world again by MonkeyMan Tuesday, July 1, 2008 PERMANENT LINK I don't understand why I have to call and register my phone number with a national "no call" registry. I don't want someone, to whom I didn't give my number, to call me. Simple. ... Click for more ... MonkeyMan Not to be difficult, but... by Sherri B. Tuesday, July 1, 2008 PERMANENT LINK Re The bleaker things seem, the closer to liberation we come Herb Ruhs writes... Increasingly I place my hope in the ever more likely event of high altitude nuclear explosions, resorted to by some nuclear armed regime that finds its back to the wall. North Korea, or perhaps an embattled Pakistan, or some stealth nuclear-armed small country could choose to set off a small number of primitive nuclear weapons in near space, and bring an abrupt end to advanced industrial culture by means of the worldwide destruction of microcircuitry and satellites in the ensuing electromagnetic pulse.Does he truly think that once one nuke is set off then that will be "it"? All weapons down everyone goes home? I don't think so. ESPECIALLY if someone attempts to nuke America. We'll nuke anyone and everyone we consider an enemy then have to breathe in the atmosphere sent spoils of war. The advantage from this sort of use of nuclear weapons is all to the weaker power, regardless of the magnitude of the effect, since the less technologically sophisticated the weapons system, the less vulnerable. Any such use would be a desperation move, after all, since the actual consequences are impossible to accurately predict. In any event, such use does serve as an equalizer in asymmetric warfare. An AK47 works no matter what and nuclear retaliation would be problematic because of blowback effects.Which is absolutely true. So what happens when we attack overseas and the attacked peoples cousins in this country break out THEIR AK-47's? (Go to a dark corner in East LA or Watts and you can get anything you need. Trust me on this.) Nobody likes nukes, but such a strike would help free the surviving populations from oppression by the industrialized nations. Local warlordism and banditry would replace organized oppression, but I like those odds better than what promises to be total destruction at the hands of those seeking global dominance. And I could still use my computer for a door stop.WHAT surviving populations? The ones with cancer, burnt off skin, blown up electrical grids, lack of pure air, water, and food sources? How well does he think he's going to get along with "Local warlordism and banditry that would replace organized oppression?" If he can't contribute he WILL be culled from the herd. No nukes. At all. Study: World gets happier Sherri B. No, by golly, she wasn't kidding by Xavier Onassis (and her friend Nigel) Tuesday, July 1, 2008 PERMANENT LINK Re Last attempt to give away the only key Dear H and H and 'Unknown News-ers'! It's a bit of an understatement to say I was surprised to hear in reply, after offering you the only no-downside solution to the world's great problems, that you "have to hope I am kidding" that I do really have the solution. Why the hope I am KIDDING? Why the no-hope I am CORRECT? Why the no-hope I am getting this right? Are you certain the possibility does not exist that I could be getting this right? Is that not irrational — to think that that possibility does not exist? You are good people. We, my friend Nigel and I, certainly understand hope fatigue, but all this talking day in and day out of all the things that are so wrong in society is truly pointless if we stop hoping for a solution, isn't it? Here is a quick preview/summary of the elements of what we are saying, offered in hopes it helps you charge up your energies to read the fuller material. (It takes time to wear a new mental path, so give it time (days and weeks) to soak in?) This solution: is capitalist (it is justice capitalism as opposed to unlimited personal fortunes unjust capitalism), is free-er market (freer and realer than the actually subsidized businesses that CALL themselves free-market), is private property, small bureaucracy, economically gentle, pays every working person including housewives and students approximately one or two thousand US dollars a month, lifting 99% of people gently but firmly up towards the world average of $40 an hour, $100,000 a year, $200,000 per two-working-person unit (in 2007 USDollars, doubling every 18 years at 4% global inflation), is no-force, consensus (because we prove that it is very beneficial to everyone, from richest to poorest, starting with the benefit of non-extinction — we prove that extinction IS inevitable if we don't drastically reduce pay injustice), greatly increases productivity, entrepreneurship, business, vigor and stability of the market, dramatically reduces taxes, government, bureaucracy, warmongering and cannon-foddering, tyranny, undemocracy, crime, unfreedom, disorder, corruption. It goes to the root of almost all problems, so it makes most problems disappear. It doesn't even interfere with the macho game of besting the next guy, and getting overfortune in the person's lifetime. It just stops pay injustice and its reliably-generated violence (war, crime and weaponry) growing limitlessly. It changes social structure, social habits, very little, it is very non-invasive. The only visible effects are every working person getting one or two $1000 a month in an account, and the wealth in real terms of the overpaid slowly diminishing (which reduces their danger and social isolation, actually increases their happiness — explanations given). It is easy to set up, very easy to administer. It requires no group or organization, just creating a consensus by individuals learning the points, and, if they decide they agree with it (we show that everyone does already agree without recognizing they do), passing it on to two friends. More work than that is not necessary, but of course people can teach more than two others if they want to. If the solution is true, if people can come to see it in about a month, national consensus will arise quickly (within about two years) and, after that, what needs to be done can be done very easily. It is a little change that has very large effects. Strong proof is given that we can be literally, conservatively, incredibly, 100 times happier. (Pay justice causes happiness, we have super-extreme pay injustice, so we can be super-extremely happier. All this is explained.) Technological progress will be 100 times faster. All history and logic, and much wisdom, support this idea. Because 99% are underpaid, there is (after learning) a 99% majority.plus, not all of the currently overpaid are incapable of objective assessment of an idea. A 99+% majority who prefer non-extinction and 100-fold happiness leaves the remaining closed-minded overpaid no 'muscle' to impose their will. What is required is heroic mental re-viewing of accepted but incorrect ideas, heroic re-cognition of reality. Culture springs out of ideas: there is no change of culture without change of ideas, there is almost instant change of culture with change of ideas. It is bad, incorrect ideas that are the enemy and the problem. We live in a time when bad, incorrect ideas about economics makes bad economics kill everyone's every good thing very effectively. You'll find the fuller material (originally supplied to the Moyers thread) reprinted below. The 3 posts that I first sent you have, we submit, been importantly and helpfully further illuminated now. Warm regards, and happy reading, we hope, from, Xavier Onassis (and her friend Nigel) Today, according to my word processor's "word count" feature, you've sent 24,772 words (42 pages, the software estimates). That's not counting your letter; just the stuff you appended after your letter — your conversation from the comments section on the PBS website. I've trimmed away those 42 pages and instead I'll here present your links to that conversation, for anyone who wishes to dive in and follow along:OK, now this may seem blunt but I don't know how else to approach it so I'm just going to say it: With rare but wonderful exceptions, people who think they've worked out "the only key to happiness, peace, and safety" are nuts, and I'm just not seeing anything rare or wonderful in your "quick preview/summary". I've read it seven times and made very little sense of it. As a writer, your job is to make readers want to read, and this reader is just frustrated. Helen & Harry
Cable claptrap by JR Mooneyham Tuesday, July 1, 2008 PERMANENT LINK An 'ominous trend' for Fox News' ratings I suspect the writer of this article doesn't watch much CNN himself. For the main way CNN may have 'eroded' Fox News ratings is by turning themselves into a Fox News clone. To confirm this, all you have to do is listen to the claptrap which flows from Wolf Blitzer's mouth daily, or look at CNN Headline News' own Bill O'Reilly: Glenn Beck. (ARGH!) JR Mooneyham (www.jrmooneyham.com/) Laws, rules, regulations and controls by Satanist Tuesday, July 1, 2008 PERMANENT LINK Re We know who did this to America (sigh) Where to even begin? This whole anti-capitalist rant is bent on focusing anger against capitalists, and the author claims to know who the targets of that wrath are. However, nowhere in the article is any specific group or individual identified. This is just a non-specific rant against greed, it seems. It reads much like a high school essay, and has about as much relevance as your average newspaper article. The simple fact of the matter is that capitalism is not responsible for the acts of government. Capitalism isn't printing money as fast as possible. Capitalism isn't dragging us into pointless wars. Capitalism isn't jailing people for using drugs. Capitalism isn't dumbing down our public school textbooks. Capitalism isn't bailing out financial institutions. Anyone who mindlessly blames capitalism for any of those things is just another ignorant knee-jerk socialist, crying out for more rules and regulations and controls, just as explicitly as this author is in this article. What such people fail to realize is that the laws, rules, regulations and controls that got us into our current mess are created by governments, not by capitalism. If you don't like the results, please don't blame the only economic philosophy that explicitly recognizes your inherent right to the value of your labor. Don't confuse our current fiat currency with actual hard currency and don't blame capitalism for the crimes committed against your human rights when the true criminals are still in office, preparing to start another war we can't afford. If you truly want to slam capitalism, then at least consider the alternatives. Socialism is currently turning England into a police state where CCTV is everywhere. Fascism is starving people to death in North Korea. Religious fundamentalism is murdering women in broad daylight in the middle east. Study your history and hopefully catch a clue; only capitalism explicitly proclaims your personal right to the products of your own labor. Throw away capitalism, and your other options are so much worse that it staggers the imagination. The countries with the most personal freedom on this planet are those with economies closest to the essentials of capitalism. Satanist Why do you assume the author is critiquing your pie-in-the-sky abstract notions of capitalism? I assume Leon is writing about the real world we live in, where 'capitalism' means corporate capitalism, the system that runs and ruins America and the world. Anyone who reads the word 'capitalism' and assumes that it means libertarian-style pure Ayn Rand capitalism is, well, to borrow your phrase, another ignorant knee-jerk libertarian. Helen & Harry
Speculative fiction by Pure Echinacea Tuesday, July 1, 2008 PERMANENT LINK I found StrangeHorizons at boingboing.net. There are strange fund-raisings going on A nice feature: their archives really work well and you can select from a huge corpus going back to the beginning of the century... I coded up a search link selecting just sci-fi fiction stories: Strange Horizons — sci-fi fiction archive. Word is, sci-fi short stories are commercially dead, hence the rise of free literature — the authors *must* write, and short stories are the beginning, building skillsets for novels. For example: http://www.helixsf.com/ http://www.darkermatter.com/ Pure Echinacea The DarkerMatter link isn't working, at least not for me. Helen & Harry
Boggles and strangles by Angry Annie Tuesday, July 1, 2008 PERMANENT LINK Congress passes another $162B for ongoing Iraq/Afghanistan occupation and slaughter They gave Bush more money than he asked for. It boggles the mind and strangles the conscience. Angry Annie How can we miss him if he won't go away? by Mscsrrr Prog Tuesday, July 1, 2008 PERMANENT LINK Re Zimbabwe, a no-win situation? Mscsrrr Prog replies President Mugabe should not need world pressure to step down and let a younger person run the country. Why is he still there? Mscsrrr Prog |
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