Archive for December, 2010
A Time To Gift, Or A Time To Grift? It’$ Christmas Bonus Time For The Swells On Wall Street
Go, Wall Street, Go!
Never mind the rise in unemployment and foreclosures. Never mind the folks waiting to know if they will get the benefits they need before they are cut off. Never mind the growing gap between rich and poor, and the continuing spread of poverty. (Did you know that inequality in the US is at the highest level of any industrialized country?)
Does any of this matter? The idea of equality as a social goal is apparently passé.
Christmas has a special meaning on Wall Street: It’s bonus time. This brings to mind Peter Wolf singing with the J. Geils Band, “First I look at the Purse.” The context was different but the meaning is the same.
Just five “too big to fail” bankster companies have stashed $90 billion for payouts to prized employees. They know that the beat on The Street is fading, so it seems to be “take the money…
WikiLeaks Latest: Nobel Peace Prize For Assange? Social Networks Go Hostile
The single biggest story everywhere is the incredible saga surrounding WikiLeaks and larger than life leader Julian Assange, now languishing in a British jail. Among today’s headlines:
- Russia says Assange should be given the Nobel Peace Prize, with a source in President Medvedev’s office stating “”Public and non-governmental organisations should think of how to help him.”
- Glenn Beck calls a foul on the government actions against Assange:
I want you to know, I am not defending Assange. I think he is a dirt bag. I think he is a dirt bag. He obviously has no problem using his 15 minutes of fame to sleep with anyone who is crawling.
But I have to tell you something, if you look at the people who are all lining up in defense of Julian Assange, and you see that these two are uber-leftists as well and you know the case that we have laid out over especially the…
Read A WikiLeak: Lose Your Job
Aaron Cynic writes at Diatribe Media:
According to the U.S. Government and countless politicians and political commentators, Jullian Assage is a terrorist mastermind who needs to be jailed or executed and his website Wikileaks needs to be shut down because he and his associates are a terrorist cell.
Aside from answering the hyperbolic calls to do our patriotic duty and burn the leakers of this sensitive-but-not-new-or-explosive information at the stake, Good Real Americans might want to consider averting their eyes each time the offending website is mentioned, unless a G-Man has given the all clear.
Above the Law reports the Career Development department at Boston University’s School of Law circulated an email to students and alumni, warning them not to read anything from the WikiLeaks website if they want a job with the federal government. Part of the email reads:
“Two big factors in hiring for many federal government positions are determining if the applicants…
American Death Cult Part II*: Welcome To The House on Maiden Lane
I arrived at Siobhán’s new digs in late evening, after more than three hours of driving north through blustering gusts of cold air, along deserted Wisconsin state highways and country lanes, ringed with a seemingly endless succession of pale grey and weather-worn barns, silos and stubble fields of harvested corn, punctuated every 30–40 miles by the glistening plastic pillars of some shopping center, gas station or outlet mall.
And while the sterile fakeness of it all might seem utterly foreign on the surface, I was soon reminded just how integral a part of this place’s heritage Death worship is.
When I passed the familiar gloom of the Lac Butte des Morts fens, I recalled that this place used to be Winnebago country, supposedly the prehistoric stomping grounds of Red Horn, the Ho-Chunk culture hero who freed the land from the tyranny of monsters hunting his people like vermin, and the native…
The Lost Ads of “A Charlie Brown Christmas” Of Yesteryear
The first Peanuts TV special followed six years of animated advertisements selling Ford motor cars, and originally, even “A Charlie Brown Christmas” featured two scenes advertising Coca-Cola!
One of the deleted scenes still appears in a YouTube video, which shows Snoopy tossing Linus into a sign which reads “Danger.” (According to Wikipedia, that sign originally read: “Coca-Cola” — and the hymn at the end of the program was interrupted by a voice-over thanking “the people in your town who bottle Coca Cola.”)
Maybe “A Charlie Brown Christmas” was ultimately the cartoonist’s own silent protest against the commercialization of his work…
Does Science Need More Republicans?
Aaron Cynic writes at Diatribe Media:
Thanks to the President’s appearance on Mythbusters, Slate’s Daniel Sarewitz looked into a year and a half old survey from the Pew Research Center on the public’s perceptions of science and scientists and social perceptions of the science community.
The survey spends a few pages dissecting the general politics of scientists and finds (SHOCKING… wait for it) that a meager 6% of those surveyed identify as Republicans…
Daniel Ellsberg: “Every Attack Now Made on WikiLeaks and Julian Assange Was Made Against Me and The Release of the Pentagon Papers at the Time”
Daniel Ellsberg in 2006. Photo: Jacob Appelbaum (CC)
Via Daniel Ellsberg’s Website:
Ex-Intelligence Officers, Others See Plusses in WikiLeaks Disclosures
WikiLeaks has teased the genie of transparency out of a very opaque bottle, and powerful forces in America, who thrive on secrecy, are trying desperately to stuff the genie back in. The people listed below this release would be pleased to shed light on these exciting new developments.
How far down the U.S. has slid can be seen, ironically enough, in a recent commentary in Pravda (that’s right, Russia’s Pravda): “What WikiLeaks has done is make people understand why so many Americans are politically apathetic … After all, the evils committed by those in power can be suffocating, and the sense of powerlessness that erupts can be paralyzing, especially when … government evildoers almost always get away with their crimes. …”
So shame on Barack Obama, Eric Holder, and all those who spew platitudes about integrity,…
Obama To Appear On Mythbusters For A ‘Viewer’s Challenge’
President Obama discussing his appearance on the upcoming episode of "Mythbusters" with co-hosts Jamie Hyneman and Adam Sawage
President Barack Obama has never been shy about his use of television and social media to reach his younger audience. Tonight, Obama will be appearing on Discovery Channel’s “Mythbusters,” for a ‘viewers challenge’ special about Archimedes’ legendary solar ray, an experiment that has been attempted and failed two previous times on the show. The Los Angeles Times reports:
On Wednesday, Barack Obama, the president of the United States, will appear on “Mythbusters,” the long-running Discovery Channel series that tests the truth of common wisdom, received notions, popular legends and stuff you see in the movies. On a more basic level, it is a show about building and blowing things up, and that, as the president himself will say here, “is always cool.”
Obama has been criticized at times for the seeming alacrity with which he will go…
Ten Strange Consequences Of Evolution
The human body in itself is a powerful piece of evidence in favor of evolution — many of our physical traits make little sense other than as leftovers from back when we were fishy or four-legged. Smithsonian Magazine examines some of the oddest and most troublesome quirks:
Hiccups: The first air-breathing fish and amphibians extracted oxygen using gills when in the water and primitive lungs when on land — and to do so, they had to be able to close the glottis, or entryway to the lungs, when underwater. We descendants of these animals were left with vestiges of their history, including the hiccup. In hiccupping, we use ancient muscles to quickly close the glottis while sucking in (albeit air, not water). One of the reasons it is so difficult to stop hiccupping is that the entire process is controlled by a part of our brain that evolved long before consciousness, and so…
Video: Han Rosling’s Mortality/Wealth History
Han Rosling describes over 200 years of morality/wealth progress of 200 countries in four minutes. Pinning life expectancy against income for every country since 1810, Rosling describes a new perspective on the world we live in.
The Economy of The Crow: Bird Brains Want to Throw Away $116 Billion A Year to Benefit The Richest 1.3% ‘Small’ Business Owners
There is an old folk saying that comes down from the Irish tradition: “The economy of the crow”. It’s uttered whenever some old wag wishes to describe, in a dryly pithy manner, a short-sighted and foolish resource management strategy. It supposedly is derived from the habit of scavenger birds like crows who, upon noticing an unharvested bit of carrion ripe for the picking, tend to drop whatever goodies they may currently have in their clutches in order to go in pusuit. Basically the saying is a ridicule, a chastisement of stupid waste.
While that kind of bird-brained buffoonery may be understandable in a creature with the cranial capacity of a thimble, it’s not the type of responsible management practice we expect from our elected representatives. Certainly not from the members of the party that claim in one breath to be both the party of fiscal responsibility and the party of deep business…
Tea Party Plutocrat Lets The Mask of “Libertarianism” Slip
Tea Party Nation President Judson Phillips has suggested that only property owners be allowed to vote. What’s next, workhouses, child labor, or indentured servitude?
Is Twitter Suppressing Discussion Of WikiLeaks?
Ah the irony: social networking sites were heralded as the savior of democracy, transparency, and change — but perhaps that’s only the case when the villain is conveniently a U.S. enemy such as Iran.
Today, there are growing grumblings that Twitter is attempting to suppress the spread of WikiLeaks discussion by removing it from “trending topics” lists. Starting with a volcanic surge in popularity on November 28, the hashtag #WikiLeaks has been white-hot on Twitter. And yet, it hasn’t made a blip on Twitter’s Trends list, which has been occupied by far less popular topics. Has Twitter caved to anti-WikiLeaks pressure à la PayPal and Mastercard? There’s a full explanation at Student Analysis.
4Chan, Anonymous Wreak Revenge On MasterCard, PayPal, Banks
The Faces of Anonymous. Photo: Vincent Diamante (CC)
I’ve not thought too highly of the hordes at 4Chan until now, but Julian Assange needs some help and they’re doing what they do best, making massive coordinated attacks on Assange’s various foes, as reported by ArsTechnica (since that report was posted MasterCard has also come under attack):
The forces of Anonymous have taken aim at several companies who are refusing to do business with WikiLeaks. 4chan’s hordes have launched distributed denial-of-service attacks against PayPal, Swiss bank PostFinance, and other sites that have hindered the whistleblowing site’s operations.
A self-styled spokesman for the group calling himself “Coldblood” has said that any website that’s “bowing down to government pressure” is a target. PayPal ceased processing donations to the site, and PostFinance froze WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange’s account. The attacks are being performed under the Operation: Payback banner; Operation: Payback is the name the group is using in its long-running…
ET Is Real?
Seth Borenstein writes a very positive story for AP in which he suggests that all signs point to extraterrestrial life:
Lately, a handful of new discoveries make it seem more likely that we are not alone – that there is life somewhere else in the universe.
In the past several days, scientists have reported there are three times as many stars as they previously thought. Another group of researchers discovered a microbe can live on arsenic, expanding our understanding of how life can thrive under the harshest environments. And earlier this year, astronomers for the first time said they’d found a potentially habitable planet.
“The evidence is just getting stronger and stronger,” said Carl Pilcher, director of NASA’s Astrobiology Institute, which studies the origins, evolution and possibilities of life in the universe. “I think anybody looking at this evidence is going to say, ‘There’s got to be life out there.’”
A caveat: Since much of…
Martial Law Comes to the Suburbs: Spike Jonze and Arcade Fire
From Alex Jones’s InfoWars:
Filmmaker Spike Jonze has collaborated with the band Arcade Fire on a short film, Scenes from the Suburbs. The video below is a music video from the film, which was shot in Austin, Texas. The short film appears to portray the country under martial law…
Atheists Assaulted for Objecting to Prayer (Video)
On April 29, 2010, activists Mitch Kahle and Kevin Hughes were assaulted by Ben Villaflor, the Senate Sergeant-At-Arms, and State Sheriff’s Deputies, for objecting to unconstitutional Christian prayers used to begin each session of the Hawaii State Legislature. Hughes was injured in the attack and was taken to the hospital for x-rays and treatment. Kahle was arrested and prosecuted, but was ultimately vindicated when Judge Leslie Hayashi found Kahle “NOT GUILTY” and ruled that: “The Senate’s [Christian] prayers violate the constitutional separation of church and state.”
Robert Baer Says WikiLeaks Is ‘A Catastrophe’
The Deadbolt’s Reg Seeton interviews Bob Baer, immortalized on the silver screen by George Clooney in Syriana, about his new film Car Bomb, but equally interesting are Baer’s comments on WikiLeaks:
BAER: WikiLeaks, I think it’s a catastrophe. I mean, here our most sensitive diplomatic sources are all being exposed and it’s the trustworthiness and creditability of the United States – I mean, in terms of what it’s done to our national security is much worse than any car bomb that could possibly go off.
THE DEADBOLT: As a former spy yourself, how would you deal with your cover being blown in a leak like that?
BAER: You tighten up security. There are certain communications that are protected. The New York Times doesn’t put its sources out on the net, so why should the government? I mean, I believe in openness, too, but not in all cases. Does everyone want their medical records out on the…
The Bankster Paintings
Henry Paulson by Michelle Montany
Garret Heaney interviews artist Michelle Montany about her series of “Bankster” paintings fearuring Alan Greenspan, Ben Bernanke, Henry Paulson, Tim Geithner and Lloyd Blankfein, at Wishtank:
What prompted you to paint these guys? Do you remember when the idea sparked? Did you know it was going to be a series when you started?
I was helping out at a Sundance event last January, converting a Main Street bar into a screening room. I’d had banksters and bailouts filling my brain for quite a long time at that point. The bar we were using had these big paintings of rock icons- you know, Hendrix, Jim Morrison, Bob Dylan, etc. They were original paintings but copies of the two or three tone posters from the 60s, which look a whole lot like the old communist propaganda posters. We had to move them off the walls for the event, and as I…
