Josh

In your opinion, is it better to take meds to suppress fever when it isn't very bad, or do you believe it's better not to? Support your opinion with medical knowledge, personal experience or in any other way.

Is it my imagination, or are stories in liberal and "progressive" news sources purposefully ignoring the forced private medical insurance purchasing provisions of all those version of health care reform that they are championing?

A friend and I who read it in school at age 14 thought it was funny and we enjoyed spouting words and phrases from it at each other.

I didn't realize that Charles Murray, co-author of the scientific racist book The Bell Curve was so accepted by mainstream media:

Charles Alan Murray (born 1943) is an American libertarian political scientist, author, and columnist currently[update] working as a fellow at the American Enterprise Institute, a conservative think tank in Washington, DC.[4] He is best known for his controversial book The Bell Curve, co-authored with the late Richard Herrnstein in 1994, which discusses the role of IQ in American society.[4] He first became well-known for his Losing Ground: American Social Policy 1950–1980 in 1984, which discussed the American welfare system.[4] Murray has also written In Pursuit: Of Happiness and Good Government in 1988, What It Means to be a Libertarian: A Personal Interpretation in 1996, Human Accomplishment: The Pursuit of Excellence in the Arts and Sciences, 800 B.C. to 1950 in 2003, and In Our Hands: A Plan to Replace the Welfare State 2006. He published Real Education: Four Simple Truths for Bringing America's Schools Back to Reality on August 19, 2008.[4] His articles have appeared in Commentary Magazine, The New Criterion, The Weekly Standard, The Washington Post, Wall Street Journal, and The New York Times.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charles_Murray_%28author%29

I'm a little surprised that the conservative media are so into him too, but just a little. Ugh.

The second to last.

The Prometheus Project, by Steve White.

Just in the first seven pages establish how clownish Mr. White is in his reactionary prose. It promises to be quite entertaining.

Microsoft.

I think you're being overly harsh on Obama on the subject of Afghanistan and Iraq. I think he's trying to get out of Iraq as soon as possible

Nope. Official US policy is to keep tens of thousands of troops there indefinitely, in a series of bases all across the country. They're scaling back the "active occupation", sure, but have no plans for leaving the country.

It's been known for years that "we" (the U.S.) built four "superbases" in Iraq, at great expense even for the U.S. military and with the kind of care that goes into something that's expected to last a while. "Our" plan is to pull "our" military back from the cities and areas where they're obvious to the four bases. We would then supposedly rub the Iraqis the wrong way to a lesser degree but be available "just in case".

It seems to me, though, that in order for this to work, at least with something like a pro-U.S. government continuing in power, the U.S. military and intelligences agencies would have to really kick the shit out of the anti-occupation resistance first. Otherwise, I can see the superbases becoming increasingly isolated by resistance action unless U.S. forces strike out from them a lot. Some version of a longterm Dien Bien Phu strategy against the inland bases would be attractive to the resistance otherwise.

The headquarters superbase, Camp Anaconda, is designed around its airfield, which I think is in Baquba. I recall reading two or three years ago that that airforce base has a level of daily air traffic second only to Heathrow. That doesn't sound like the kind of place that's going to just be walked away from and left by the U.S. military.

Given the superbase strategy, I can't help but think that things will probably have to get a lot worse there before "we" are convinced to leave Iraq completely. I would not be surprised if the Obama admin is committed to the superbase strategy by some kind of back room dealing that they don't intend on letting us know about. I'm convinced that there had to be something like bipartisan agreement before funds were appropriated for them and they were built.

He's negotiating with Iran, he's talking to the muslim world (instead of telling them how it's going to be). Sure, nothing has worked out yet, but I think he's doing what he can, and that is a marked improvement over the previous dude (rather easy, I know).

Agreed. Doesn't seem enough to justify handing out a peace prize, but it is promising.

Whatever the case with Obama, I think we need to drop the idea that there's something holy about the Nobel peace prize. My recollection is that the Nobel family were ultra-rich reactionary white Russians and that their peace prize is ALWAYS very politically chosen, and has had a great deal of sleaze to those decisions from the beginning. I'm going solely from recollection there, but I thought that the Nobel crew handed a peace prize to someone, some organization or to Germany itself in the early 1920s that was associated with a big explosion at a plant in Germany, that was pretty clearly evidence of covert, munitions development that was illegal according to international agreement, obviously intended for the rearming of Germany. Of course the Nobel crowd would be happy with that, since a rearmed Germany would be in a good position to go after the evil private property expropriating Soviet Union.

Ummm

 

 

I see that you do realise I found it appalling, so hope/guess you are reading it in a sort of "chortle at the ravings" sort of way. I truly do hate to think of you reading it because you might have wrongly guessed something like "The actual writing craft must be really good for tony to carry on reading it in the face of the appalling philosophy". Because, no, really it is only a gnats whisker above pedestrian in style and accomplishment. And hateful, you can easily picture the man frothing at the mouth while he was proof reading his own words, angry and full of bile.

In fact, I came across two lines amongst the many that really made me want to pistol whip Mr White repeatedly, I wonder if you are going to be able to tell me which they are.

Plus one of its most detailed and defined characters, present almost from word go, is nothing more than one long diatribe against an aspect of modern society that grates morethan somewhat on our rightwing male friends.

I will be interested in your take Josh.

(One of the reviewers likens him to Heinlein. In a good way )

If I'm not misreading my local library's website, the book may already be at Interlibrary Loan there. I'm looking forward to getting into it. :)

Meanwhile I'm working on these:

Hope in the Dark: Untold Histories, Wild Possibilities by Rebecca Solnit. This book puts forward alternative viewpoints to the dominant failure, gloom and doom mindset of the current American Left (or "progressives" as Solnit describes them).

Crank by Ellen Hopkins, apparently a story of a young women "with great promise" who fell afoul of crystal meth/speed, written in poems entirely. It was a bestseller for a while.

I've been having a frustrating time lately in that whenever I pass by the new/recent political books display, all I see about Reagan are things that look laudatory, or carefully neutral in tone. I'm not sure what's driving this big blush of literary interest in Reagan or how long it's been going on (since his presidency??), but given the large minority of Americans who hated Reagan and what he was doing to this country, and the high level of intelligence and articulateness within that minority, there have to be good anti-Reagan books coming out to challenge the Reagan-worship and debunk all of the pro-Reagan BS around. And give us a break, I live in San Francisco for Gods' sakes, which defeated Reagan by over 2 to 1 in the 1984 presidential. So our library of all places would be where you'd expect to see every kind of delicious Reagan-hate.

To my delight, a few days ago I spotted Tear This Myth Down: How the Reagan Legacy Has Distorted Our Politics and Haunts Our Future by Will Bunch. I'm just working my way into this one, but it appears it might be satisfyingly hostile to Reagan while actually looking at what he did calmly. Already after a chapter or so, Bunch seems to be highly perceptive and has made some remarks that indicate this will not be a "one-eyed" liberal/"progressive" shouter book. One review snippet writer (James K. Galbraith) claims that this book would be of interest to both Reagan opponents and supporters. Aside from that, it reads easily.

Looks like he got the award for being Anyone But Bush.

Ooooooh, this sound just too horrendous to miss. I just used one of my precious remaining reserve queue spots to reserve a copy of The Prometheus Project.

Funny thing, the evil ultraleftist San Francisco Public Library didn't have a copy of this. So I had to borrow it from one of the three brave library systems in California that carry this important book. Thanks for the recommendation, Avaunt! :)

By the way, if you found that book appalling, also check out Unintended Consequences by John Ross.

I got a good night's sleep last night.

I dislike office politics greatly.

I dislike greatly those that don't.

I could have posted this in the webcomic or editorial comic thread, but I really think it speaks to a problem with just about all conservative humor.

It seems as though a great deal of it is so angry that it just isn't funny.

One exception, one of the few, is the Day by Day webcomic. It's creator Chris Muir has a light touch. Okay, a few of his attacks on liberals are a little heavy-handed, but it IS a political strip, so attacking the other side is an intrinsic part of what it's about.

However, the problem I was referring to in the first paragraph was the tendency of just about all conservative humorists to sooner or later express bigotry toward one or another of the traditional targets. Most of the time one doesn't see this kind of thing in Day by Day, but when it does occur, it's against one particular group. It's oh so subtle here, but see if you can figure out which group that might be:

http://www.daybydaycartoon.com/2009/10/08/

Edit - This (from the point of view of someone who evidently thinks like him) is what prompted Muir's enlightened witticism:

http://www.humanevents.com/article.php?id=32472

My fellow geeks and geekettes, presenting one of Obama's most vociferous detractors:

 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=csZRr8tMONM

 

so Patriotic, he's prone to tears during his televised rants...real tears! Oh, wait...oops.

 

Douchebag!

Contemptible.

It's good to see publicizing of his fakery.

Gee, what other rightwinger was famous for breaking into tears during speeches? I'm trying to remember.... Kinda thinking maybe it was this German politician who was active in the first half of the twentieth century, can't think of his name right now.

But our body politic has itself to blame to some extent, for taking people like Beck seriously. Michael Steele, chairman of the Republican National Committee is correct, Limbaugh basically really is just an entertainer -- and by extension so are the rest of these conservative media "political commentators".

This article lists a whole wad of new "crowd control" technologies that will supposedly be available to and operational for the authorities during the Pittsburgh globalization conference after the excerpt below:

Robocops Come to Pittsburgh

 

Tuesday 29 September 2009

 

by: Mike Ferner, t r u t h o u t | Perspective

 

No longer the stuff of disturbing futuristic fantasies, an arsenal of "crowd control munitions," including one that reportedly made its debut in the US, was deployed with a massive, overpowering police presence in Pittsburgh during last week's G-20 protests.

 

[ . . . ]

 

I saw the LRAD, mounted in the turret of an Armored Personnel Carrier (APC), in action twice in the area of 25th, Penn and Liberty Streets of Lawrenceville, an old Pittsburgh neighborhood. Blasting a shrill, piercing noise like a high-pitched police siren on steroids, it quickly swept streets and sidewalks of pedestrians, merchants and journalists, and drove residents into their homes, but in neither case were any demonstrators present. The APC, oversized and sinister for a city street, together with lines of police in full riot gear looking like darkly threatening Michelin Men, made for a scene out of a movie you didn't want to be in.

 

As intimidating as this massive show of armed force and technology was, the good burghers of Pittsburgh and their fellow citizens in the Land of the Brave and Home of the Free ain't seen nothin' yet. Tear gas and pepper spray are nothing to sniff at and, indeed, have proven fatal a surprising number of times, but they have now become the old standbys compared to the list below that's already at or coming soon to a police station or National Guard headquarters near you. Proving that "what goes around, comes around," some of the new Property Protection Devices were developed by a network of federally funded, university-based research institutes like one in Pittsburgh itself, Penn State's Institute for Non-Lethal Defense Technologies.

http://www.truthout.org/092909U

This is fearsome stuff, but the littlest bit of skepticism is in order. Descriptions of new high-tech "law enforcement" technology that sound like they were revamped only slightly from their manufacturers' marketing literature that is somehow conveniently released just in time to intimidate the masses aren't the same as reportage on technology that actually works in a practical setting and that the repressive parts of government actually use.

Still, this stuff is grotesque as described. I'm wondering what's wrong with current crowd control technology which has shown itself practical for actual operations and which has not engendered overwhelming public opposition or an unbearable number of successful lawsuits? What's the problem these new technologies are intended to solve? Or is that question too far from the thought processes involved in choosing and paying for these I'm sure pricey, poorly understood devices?

An article about the origins of the present conservative political hegemony:

The Powell Memo and the Teaching Machines of Right-Wing Extremists

 

Thursday 01 October 2009

by: Henry A. Giroux, t r u t h o u t | Perspective

 

Part of the answer to the enduring quality of such a destructive politics can be found in the lethal combination of money, power and education that the right wing has had a stranglehold on since the early 1970's and how it has used its influence to develop an institutional infrastructure and ideological apparatus to produce its own intellectuals, disseminate ideas, and eventually control most of the commanding heights and institutions in which knowledge is produced, circulated and legitimated. This is not simply a story about the rise of mean-spirited buffoons such as Glenn Beck, Bill O'Reilly and Michael Savage. Nor is it simply a story about the loss of language, a growing anti-intellectualism in the larger culture, or the spread of what some have called a new illiteracy endlessly being produced in popular culture. As important as these tendencies are, there is something more at stake here which points to a combination of power, money and education in the service of creating an almost lethal restriction of what can be heard, said, learned and debated in the public sphere. And one starting point for understanding this problem is what has been called the Powell Memo, released on August 23, 1971, and written by Lewis F. Powell, who would later be appointed as a member of the Supreme Court of the United States. Powell sent the memo to the US Chamber of Commerce with the title "Attack on the American Free Enterprise System."

http://www.truthout.org/100109A

Stupid and/or obnoxious words, word usages and phrases that have become popular, especially if it's due to media promotion.

We all might disagree on some of those phrases and sayings. Some of these just aren't clever enough to be used as often as they are, and some were moronic or grating the first time you hear them.

One that I have a special contempt for is "all hot and bothered" for horny. It makes sexuality seem unpleasant and ugly. It sounds like it comes originally from rednecks, specifically suburban rednecks, delivered with a shit-eating grin (another favorite phrase of theirs), as though sex is always something dirty.

"Goes all pear shaped", as in, "stop [something that's occurring] before it goes all pear-shaped." The implicit but unavoidable assumption here is that pear-shaped = bad. Well, I've seen way too many hot "pear-shaped" women to accept that. This one is just annoying.

"Whining" for complaining, protesting or disagreeing in any way with the status quo. This now-common misuse of the word became popular during the Reagan years, not surprisingly. The psychology behind it completely Reaganite too, that you're cool if you run with the biggest bullies and sneer at "losers" -- and if you don't like that, you're a "whiner".

"Islamists" for the most dangerous, hateful, kookie fringe groups of Muslims. This little construction makes all of Islam sound ultra-fundamentalist and terrorist. Because of that, I heartily approve of referring to the most bigoted, reactionary, fundamentalist Christians as "Christianists" -- knowing just how upset they'll be, since they know full well that putting "ist" at the end of a word tars the original word with the new construction's meaning.

Here's Newsweek's contribution to America's healthcare debate. Look at the cover on the right. I could only this small graphic of it, but believe its worse if you see if full-sized:

http://blogs.westword.com/latestword/2009/09/from_is_your_baby_racist_to_th.php

Today: olives.

 

That is all.

Olives are great. I will usually gobble down as many as I'm allowed to.

(Okay, I mean black olives. I'm not such a fan of the green type, which generally seemed to be used for mixed drinks here in the U.S.)

Hog-riders who intentionally accelerate their bikes in a high rise city (San Francisco) more than they need to to go the one or two blocks its traffic lights and signs will allow them to without stopping again, solely in order to cause what should (and may) be illegal decibel levels of sound to come out of their "high performance", inadequately-muffling exhaust systems.

Note that I am not talking about all bikers, but those invariably fat, invariable male pieces of shit who ride Harleys through my fair city.

When judging the progress of people's economic welfare from administration's beginning to end, the Bush administration was the worst since, perhaps, the Hoover administration?

Politics with Marc Ambinder

 

Sep 11 2009, 10:41 am by Ronald Brownstein

Closing The Book On The Bush Legacy

 

Thursday's annual Census Bureau report on income, poverty and access to health care-the Bureau's principal report card on the well-being of average Americans-closes the books on the economic record of George W. Bush.

 

It's not a record many Republicans are likely to point to with pride.

 

On every major measurement, the Census Bureau report shows that the country lost ground during Bush's two terms. While Bush was in office, the median household income declined, poverty increased, childhood poverty increased even more, and the number of Americans without health insurance spiked.

http://politics.theatlantic.com/2009/09/closing_the_book_on_the_bush_legacy.php

There's a fair amount to chew on in this one, more than any few paragraphs might indicate.

God damn it! It looks like Clinton's old health plan might pass....

This is going to help the poor who COULDN'T FUCKING AFFORD HEALTH CARE!

 

We've got Workfare and Wealthcare now!

 

Americans would be fined up to $3,800 for failing to buy health insurance under a plan that circulated in Congress on Tuesday as divisions among Democrats undercut President Barack Obama's effort to regain traction on his health care overhaul.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20090909/ap_on_go_pr_wh/us_health_care_overhaul

I wonder how much contention in Congress there is over the provision to force people to buy private medical insurance? The article doesn't make that clear, but it seems like something that would piss off a lot of people. Ah yes, fine the working poor thousands of dollars, that will help them to not go under!

Thank you Balthazar.

Right.

Hence my (...).

I think the Black Panthers had disbanded before this guy was even born.

Most people in the American mainstream wouldn't even understand what the Black Panthers actually were anyway.

 

I can see the connection, Dog.

Lincoln sided with industry to fight against slavery of African-Americans.

Reagan sided with rich whites to reenact slavery by trying to jail all poor African-Americans.

Or reduce their numbers by lowering their average life expectancy.