7/24/11

Obama's Big Leadership Moment is Coming

That is actually a pretty easy thing to say because it has not come yet, most would agree. My reading of the leaves as I write is that his instruction to the Congress to resolve this is not resulting in anything but the idiot Cantor taking the politics pejorative and trying to make it his own. Polarized as ever. The big leadership moment for the President is the time that he does Philadelphia 2. 

The Republicans are his second Reverend Wright.  Obama needs to treat them just the way he treated Wright in his Philly speech. In other words he has to talk about them and him. He has been the target all along. The GOP doesn't give squat for anything but throwing Obama out. Everyone knows it including the President. The leadership moment is not one of anger. It is a considered once in a century speech on what the last two years has shown us. I think it may come this week. Or later. When it does is the President's call.

Tweeters exercised

Tweeters rage against the D.C. machine - What's Trending - CBS News: "USRevolution_v2: ... You would rather collapse the global economy than reinstate the normal tax on the 1%"

These are pretty good Tweets and they reflect reasonable consensus about the need for compromise and attention to what the President has demanded.

Global Online Privacy

Google meets the anonymous virtual world and says I don't know you?

Google Plus Deleting Accounts En Masse: No Clear Answers - Digg: "zdnet.com — A number of Google+ accounts have been deleted in the last 24 hours as the new social network struggles with real name policy."

A while ago it was all about how well we were known, beyond all we might surmise. I think this calls for the use of the adjective Kafkaesque.

Global Online Privacy

Most travel is impossible these days

Time Travel Impossible, Say Scientists - Digg:

"news.discovery.com — By showing a single photon cannot travel faster than the speed of light, scientists prove time travel is impossible."

Really? Would this make it possible to focus a bit more on the only time we know for sure exists? Chronological time? Which has all the other times we might imagine within it, yet is relentless and moves forward inexorably regardless. We could travel within it much better than we do, enslaved by today's outmoded and generally lethal modes of transport.

A little slow on the uptake

Norway police arrive 90 minutes after firing began - Digg: "news.yahoo.com — Police arrived at an island massacre about an hour and a half after a gunman first opened fire, slowed because they didn't have quick access to a helicopter and then couldn't find a boat to make their way to the scene just several hundred yards (meters) offshore. The assailant surrendered when police finally reached him, but 82 people died before that."

My cyber-cities would have vastly better security than today's communities do. We are eons behind where we should be on conceptualizing the future. Christopher Alexander had it half-right decades ago but nobody listened.


Global Online Privacy

What is Good about Short

A good book with lots of pages is a pleasure. But much writing is filler. More words than needed. More information than necessary. 

Write at least 300 words! We have a standard length. 

The greatest texts are short. The Bard's soliloquies . Poems. Spiritual affirmations. Lyrics. 

The unsung American philosopher Charles Sanders Santiago Peirce left a lifetime of notes. Squibs. All pointing toward a magnificent unity.  Pierce is remarkable. He sees no ends. We are a continuity.  We are community whether we "know" or not. 

What's good about short is: it does not pretend to completion. It leaves room for the community. It is a building block.

Global Online Privacy

Heck of a way to show respect to a top dog

Strange Dog Overlord [PIC]

This is the strangest picture I have ever seen. It shows a circle of dogs prostrate faced away from a central dog with a guy looking on. I must assume he is a trainer and that this is a bid to become globally famous by viral means. But the composition is sufficiently weird to be somewhat reminiscent of the woman who rode the subway half-nude during our NYC heat wave videoed from the rear, presumably by an accomplice.

"Assange, to his credit, also kept his composure when Žižek called him a terrorist"

A life in writing: Slavoj Žižek | Culture | The Guardian: "Assange, to his credit, also kept his composure when Žižek called him a terrorist. 'You are a terrorist in the way that Gandhi was. In what sense was Gandhi a terrorist? He tried to stop the normal functioning of the British state in India. You are trying to stop the normal functioning of information circulation.'"

From a description of a joint appearance in UK.

Global Online Privacy

Things are not looking so rosy for DSK

"DSK Maid" Tells of Her Alleged Rape by Strauss-Kahn: Exclusive - Newsweek: "She was paid to clean up after the rich and powerful. Then she walked into Dominique Strauss-Kahn's room—and a global scandal. Now she tells her story."

His reputation will suffer regardless of the progress of the case against him.

Global Online Privacy

We are throwing money, architecture, design and ecology down a black hole.

The notion of designing human settlements and their dwelling units on a scale that would permit their being more than superficially green is now viable to anyone who thinks realistically. This means green is not merely retrofitting, it is new designs and new notions of how to build "cyber-cities" that are self-sustaining. Environmentally self-sufficient.  I mean habitations less vulnerable than skyscrapers or sprawling detached units. Less subject to being washed or blown away. By continuing our automobile economy we are throwing money, architecture, design and ecology down a black hole.

Capitalism and communism are both losing their meaning

I have argued since March, 2008, that our current crisis is not economic. We are in the birth-throes of a global move beyond "capitalism", beyond "communism", beyond the fatalism of understandings based on ignorance, superstition and divisive belief systems (theories, ideologies). What's coming is not a new world order because there is still massive disorder and it won't be that new. We're talking about a beginning recognition that the world is in serious need of a polity that is global in fact. Global in operation. Global in consciousness.

Palin draws on exclusivist absolutist religion

Palin speaks from a  bilious heart
Filled with exceptionalism
Not a trace of contrition
Hers a god of division 

Global Online Privacy

History will record our prison society as a devastating sign of decline

Our prisons a reflection of society
Whose structure makes our prisons a necessity
Which justifies justifies the walls and gates we build
And stratifies us to the point of anomie
Global Online Privacy

Fighting corporate bullying is possible with laws and grass roots fortitude

Banning Corporate Personhood: How Communities Are Taking the Law Back from Big Companies | Water | AlterNet

This is part of the Democratic Revolution - the worldwide Democratic Revolution.

Global Online Privacy

Could Twitter evaporate in a Google+ wave

Elgan: Why Twitter is obsolete - Computerworld

The author of the linked piece thinks so.

My own observation is that people seem to have found ways of building followings that have nothing to do with actual interest or personal decisions. When I was building a following it was by hand step by step. It has been eclipsed by the users of various services. In this sense Facebook is the preferable option for social networking. There I at least know the people I see. I have no idea whether Google+ will eclipse either.



Global Online Privacy

I do

Heartwarming Pictures Of The First Gay Couple Getting Married In New York State: Pics, Videos, Links, News

NY is a can do place. We could be zapping a nuke plant soon.

Global Online Privacy

I like the second comment

Apple's $76 billion Problem: By the Numbers - Digg: "theweek.com — After having its best quarter ever, Apple's cash pile has grown to a whopping $76.2 billion as of the June quarter."

The one about Apple ending sweat shop China arrangements in favor of building new fair factories here.

Global Online Privacy

The gravest sin anyone can commit is to claim possession of a life-or-death truth

You all must die: Killer called us all together before calmly opening fire - Digg: "dailymail.co.uk — Witnesses to the Norwegian gun massacre have described the scenes of unimaginable horror as Anders Behring Breivik callously opened fire"

Only the values of Abba's Way are sufficient for a global future. They are tolerance, democracy, helpfuness and non-idolatry. The Norway killer claimed to act in defense of values. He did. They are the wrong values. These are the values of Jesus inferred from the earliest canonical account which is the Gospel of Mark.


Global Online Privacy

Egyptian unrest injures 140

Egyptian protest march descends into violent clashes | World news | guardian.co.uk: "The identity of the attackers could not immediately be determined. Similar groups of men have tried to break up other rallies, and Mubarak's regime often used hired civilians to attack protesters. Some witnesses said they might have been residents or shopkeepers angry at the loss of business as a result of the protests. Others said local residents threw water bottles to the protesters and helped them reach safety."

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Efficiency is never the issue

Until the "accident" ...

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Advanced rail is about as safe as nuclear plants

China Train Crash Kills 35 - The Daily Beast: "At least 35 people have now been confirmed dead after two bullet trains collided in eastern China on Saturday."

If it's not a 60 mile traffic jam it is this. We did once get to the moon, right?

Global Online Privacy

Norway's reactions would probably warm the Bard's heart

Norway vows to fight terror with 'more democracy' - The National: "The fact that the suspect is a Norwegian rather than a foreigner has had some interesting effects, said Mr Platou. 'Even the right-wing parties now say 'we are all Labour'.'"

If you follow  Harold Goddard who interprets Hamlet's resolution as the tragedy and Hamlet as the one who was beyond it.


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Inching back to some detente with North Korea

News from The Associated Press: "North Korean Vice Foreign Minister Kim Kye Gwan will travel to New York at Clinton's invitation, though the exact days were unclear"

Global Online Privacy

It all has to do with the name

Etsy's Unofficial Music Scene Takes Off: "Etsy, the online marketplace for handmade goods, hosted a sale of posters inspired by the album. The pop star commissioned three Etsy artists to design the posters and then signed each one, giving the profits to VH1 Save the Music."

Take it from one who knows/knew.

Silicon reality

The Winklevosses Vs. Silicon Valley | LinkedIn "Sorkin’s masterful 'If you guys were the inventors of Facebook, you’d have invented Facebook,' line pretty much sums up the collective ethos of an industry that’s seen Friendster replaced by Myspace replaced by Facebook and lived through “RIP Good Times” to only see more good times. Welcome to Northern California, we don’t like old money and we don’t like patent trolls. “Hustle over entitlement” should be our state motto."

Larry Summers would look better in a hoodie.

Hitchens and Dawkins

Hitchens
And Dawkins
Are half-right half-wrong
No one can know
What lies beyond no one
But everyone who disses
Speculation speculates as
Well half-right
Half-wrong
Global Online Privacy

Ken Wilber Raw (Audio)

Got an email with permission to download Ken talking and figured I would share it. Assume that is OK.

Global Online Privacy

Stevie Wonder to Fundamentalists (Video)


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Obama is keeping his powder dry

What I mean is that the President operates this way. If he doesn't have to, he doesn't. You would have thought he should have treated Boehner's little scene as an occasion for a second Philadelphia speech exposing GOP perfidy. If you do not believe that Obama understands what has been going on, you are as deluded as Boehner and company. He will not use the tell all option unless he has to. And then it will be a game changer. That is, if he needs one. As of now things are going his way on Capitol Hill so he doesn't have to do anything but wait for the victory he will eventually declare. This is by way of apology for my own violation of this rule.

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Democratic revolution will overcome the GOP in states where voter suppression is rife

11 States Trying Really Hard to Keep Black, Poor, and Student Voters From Voting - Digg: "alternet.org — The 2012 election is closer than you think--and just in time, states are passing a host of new bills aimed at making it harder to vote. "

Believe me. The early warning system is working. The campaign to suppress voting will have the opposite effect in 2012. Republicans are blue ribbon grave diggers for their own party if they think they can stop people from throwing them out of office.



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Why three or four trillion the ignored fact

The ignored fact is that the rating agencies (Moody's, etc.) will accept nothing less. We won't pass muster with a puny deal and everyone knows it. Even the Teeps who will blow hard as the two parties provide them with a bit of cover and shake their heads. 

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More confirmation of a bipartisan big deal

Leaders in Congress scramble toward deal on nation’s debt - The Boston Globe: "Despite the shortness of time, and the high-stakes involved, both Democrats and Republicans pushed for a complex, comprehensive, and long-term deal rather than settle for a stop-gap measure."

Michelle to Barack: Don't fret, dear. It's going to work out just fine.

Global Online Privacy

Things are not going well in Grand Prairie, Texas

Gunman kills self, 5 others at Texas roller rink | Top AP Stories | Chron.com - Houston Chronicle: "GRAND PRAIRIE, Texas — A gunman opened fire at a child's birthday celebration at a Texas roller rink, killing five people, wounding four others and then killing himself as the private party turned to panic and some fled screaming in their skates, police and witnesses say."

What is common to Norway and Grand Prairie? Multiple killings with easily available weapons. Which we assiduously defend as the carnage around the world appears to become progressively worse.

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It's coming just as I said

Congress scrambles for debt deal - politics - Capitol Hill - msnbc.com: "Republican leaders want 'to show progress' by 4 p.m. ET Sunday, before financial market trading gets under way in Asia, and have legislation to unveil Monday."

OK, I'm naturally looking for confirmation. But I have always said that this would be above two trillion, bipartisan and that the revenue side would be closing loopholes and other savings. Obama was right to send them home to get the job done. The one thing I don't think is that anything will be final today. The drama addicts will not permit that. Just enough hope to avert a crash.

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Ron Paul scores well versus Obama in LA Times Poll

Ron Paul Brings Down Obama in the Polls - Topix

Full story: latimesblogs.latimes.com

"Rep. Ron Paul , among the most conservative members of the House would be only a 4-point underdog against President Obama at this time, according to a poll released Friday."

"Brings down" is a mite hyperbolic.

I have a passport and love Las Vegas and am on Facebook

More Americans Are On Facebook Than Have A Passport - Digg: "techcrunch.com — Most shocking statistic: 50% of all Americans are on Facebook (155 million) while only 37% of Americans have a passport (115 million). Most ridiculous: The city of Las Vegas has more than 446K likes on Facebook, beating out every other city and giving new meaning to the phrase “What happens in Vegas stays on Facebook."

And, yes, I am completely ridiculous.

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The Marvelous Plasticity of Childhood

Here is Charles Sanders Peirce delivering a sermon every Christian should hear: "Perfect readiness to assimilate new associations implies perfect readiness to drop old ones. It is the plasticity of childhood...To be a philosopher, or a scientific (person), you must be a little child, with all the simple-mindedness of the child's vision, with all the plasticity of the child's mental habits." From Peirce, Reasoning and the Logic of Things, Lecture Five

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Where is Mark Twain when we need him?

Christian Jihad? Why We Should Worry About Right-Wing Terror Attacks Like Norway's in the US | Tea Party and the Right | AlterNet: "There is a growing movement in America that equates godliness with hatred of our government in fact hatred of our country."

If one is "dead serious" about one's faith, watch out. It is an early warning. Jesus did not require dead seriousness. He said the only folk who end up in heaven are like children. In my next post I shall describe exactly what that means.

Global Online Privacy

Global Values Conflict Articulated

There is indeed a global values conflict and it tends to divide all groups and thus to be identified with no group. On the one hand we have values of exclusion. On the other values of inclusion. On the one side values of particularity. On the other values of universality. When we speak of Christian or American values we stumble because of this profound fissure. In truth, the universal is the preferable starting point. 
 
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And what might those values be, Bibi

Christians join Jews to express support for Israel - Topix: "“Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, Pastor John Hagee and radio personality Glenn Beck all spoke to Israel's Christian supporters during the sixth annual "Christians United for Israel" summit at the Convention Center in Washington, D.C

"We need to defend the truth that Israel is the only reliable ally the U.S. has in the Middle East,” said Netanyahu via satellite. “When you support Israel, you don’t have to choose between your interests and your values; you get both."

Were one to posit a global values conflict in Charles Sanders Peirce terms, it might go like this. First: Gosh, Hagee Beck and Netanyahu (Excitation) Second: Wait a minute, this is Christians and Jews? (Brute fact implied) Third: Test to see to what extent these three represent the entire class of Christians and Jews.

Never shun a successful formula

Steven Spielberg announces Jurassic Park 4 "in the next two or three years" - Digg: "io9.com — One of the most exciting announcements at Comic-Con today? Steven Spielberg said that a fourth chapter of his famous dinosaur epic Jurassic Park is finally in the works."

I can honestly say that I have never seen one of these. I do not like noise and there are better ways to appreciate the odd and majestic sweep of our ancestry.

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Department of odd theories

3quarksdaily: Attitudes Towards Women, The Plough and the Hoe: "Women descended from plough-users are less likely to work outside the home, to be elected to parliament or to run businesses than their counterparts in countries at similar levels of development who happen to be descended from hoe-users. The research reinforces the ideas of Ester Boserup, an economist who argued in the 1970s that cultural norms about the economic roles of the sexes can be traced back to traditional farming practices."

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Winehouse, Joplin, Morrison, Hendrix

Amy Winehouse, Janis Joplin, Jim Morrison and Jimi Hendrix All Gone at 27 - Associated Content from Yahoo! - associatedcontent.com

I will say it once and then again
Life stages mean far less than often claimed
My hardest years 25-33
I think the ones not here agree

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The Slow as Molasses Press