8/10/11

The Current Slide is the GOP's Doing

Stocks Slide 4.6%, Ending at 11-Month Low - WSJ.com

Few have the nerve to come out and say it. Fewer still have the nerve to say the solution is reelecting Barack Obama with a Congress that is not made up of bigots and and bribe-takers. The media's notion of fairness is to find the middle between the extremes. The middle keeps moving right as the extremism becomes more noxious. Most of those who have not are not in the market. So in a sense this may be about swelling the number of voters who understand where the real evil in this situation has been from the start.

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Stephen Carter's Inept Diss of The President

Standard & Poor’s Was Right to Downgrade U.S. Debt - The Daily Beast

Stephen Carter is not inept if he wishes to criticize the President for slamming S and P. I disagree with him but, hey, chacque un a son gout. Where he is truly inept is in suggesting that Obama could simply tell Congress to pass Simpson-Bowles. And in saying that Obama has not led an effort to create a grand bargain. Where has Stephen Carter been the past months? No. The past years? The issue is the criminal activity of the GOP from the beginning. Hillary was right. There is a vast right wing conspiracy. Its minions in Congress are capable of blocking anything Obama proposes. And the only solution is us - the electorate. Turn the GOP out. Make them a miniscule force. I am amazed that intelligent critics of Obama cannot see this and support the President with a measure of understanding. Instead they have criticized Obama from the start as he has achieved major change despite challenges. He will continue to lead so with no help from the Stephen Carters of the world. And he will prevail. Has Stephen Carter ever heard of rope-a-dope?




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This actually makes some sense

The Fed’s Impotence Would Be Funny If It Weren’t So Tragic | Swampland: "But the newsy statement from the Fed’s meeting on Wednesday, while full of the usual eyes-glaze-over econo-jargon about “investment in non-residential structures” and “low rates of resource utilization,” is actually kind of funny."

The subtext to my biased brain is that the structures of sprawl are not going to remain. That sprawl is awaiting the bulldozer. That finally people are going to understand the relationship between population density and a viable economy, that finally some capitalists will begin to consider that the money they might like to make is right here. Just not where Rachel and others think. It lies in recreating communities from scratch, from the ground up. Shoring up and replicating what we have and calling that recovery is a siren song that ends on the most bitter of notes.

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Yo Dylan, How about adding in the Supreme Court?

Dylan Ratigan rages against ‘bought’ Congress on MSNBC | Raw Replay: "Ratigan said President Barack Obama should not work with Congress. Instead, he should tell Americans that “their Congress is bought” and incapable of making legislation because they fear losing political funding."

Actually everything in America is bought and the ones who own it have little or no no respect for the rest of us. So reason falls on deaf ears. I am trying to think if this has ever been the case before and my little bird tells me it has been that way forever. But it is worse in cultures which cotton to a toxic blend of religion, violence and bullying behavior. The answer, hard as it may be, remains championing democracy. That we do not have it in large quantity now will be news to many but not to those with eyes to see and ears to hear.

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Competition against yourself is the worst thing of all

The scary trend of tweens with anorexia - CNN.com: "Shae also began to exercise obsessively. After meals, she would go up to her room to do crunches and jumping jacks for two hours straight. She couldn't watch TV without doing push-ups or running on the treadmill at the same time."

And perhaps the most common. The accept yourself mantra happens to be true. But it relates to the presence and grace of Abba and when competition in any area rules Abba is disregarded or misinterpreted.

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Salient psychology

Afraid to Rage? | Psychology Today: "If, finally, we are to evolve into better, more compassionate human beings, we need to develop for others precisely the empathy and understanding we ourselves never received in growing up."

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If you are contemplating a trip by bus, read these comments

Greyhound Bus Lines - Hell's Kitchen - New York, NY

I think this is a great window on reality. I am staying home.

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Pakistan Security Forces Win Human Rights Booby Prize

“We Can Torture, Kill, or Keep You for Years” | Human Rights Watch: "The 132-page report documents dozens of enforced disappearances, in which the authorities take people into custody and then deny all responsibility or knowledge of their fate or whereabouts. The report details 45 alleged cases of enforced disappearances, the majority in 2009 and 2010. While hundreds of people have been forcibly disappeared in Balochistan since 2005, dozens of new enforced disappearances have occurred since Pakistan returned to civilian rule in 2008."

I am hesitant to do more than point to human rights abuses for fear of being justly accused of not mentioning the complicity of the US in human rights abuses. So yes, we are not innocent either. The whole world needs to have a human rights congress and set new groundrules for a democratic world.

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Who me?

Michele Bachmann Repeatedly Sought Stimulus, EPA, Other Government Funds

I am not sure whether hypocrisy is not the default for almost everything visible in this society. Which means everything is act and deception. Sanity is a wonder.

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Gov. Walker's Fate Is Still Unknown

Wisconsin Dems stand by plan to recall Gov. Walker - San Jose Mercury News

Methinks this Wisconsin thing is not quite over yet. Funny thing is that Walker's anti-union efforts have cost the people more money than compromise would have cost. And that does not include fuss, bother and stomach-turning actions.

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A Twitters-eye view from the Arab world

Arab World: Watching London “Burn” in Social Media · Global Voices

Sad performance in UK if the goals are similar.

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You would think in a democracy Congress would heed the people

Americans Want New Debt Supercommittee to Compromise: "Six in 10 Americans say members of the new bipartisan 'supercommittee' mandated to find new ways of reducing the federal budget deficit should compromise, even if the agreement reached is one they personally disagree with."

We have no evidence that democracy works when people are ignorant enough to elect true believers to office. Well that is a little extreme. We have frequent elections to enable amendment of electoral ways.

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Setting an example for the nation

NYC to mandate sex education in public schools - Yahoo! News

Home on the addiction range

Daily Kos: Addiction, Part 2: "Ibogaine is illegal for the same reason we have private prisons and more people in prison than anywhere else. It's not the fault of the workers, but of the owners of the system. I am not condemning what your wife does. I do condemn the illegality of a substance which has saved thousands from addiction."

Hell of an empire we have for being on the edge of depression

Drone Strike Kills 20 in Pakistan - The Daily Beast

Of course we can have both, right? We already have a 20x differential between middle class white and median Black and Latino worth and income and we hide our casualties while the young play and gadgetize. Meanwhile, we are droning with impunity as though it was legal. And this is where my taxes go. I am killing folk right and left against my will. The most ironical line in that horrendous Greenwood song is "At least I know I'm free." The sad thing is we are more free than most but we use our freedom terribly as if karma did not exist.

Bashar al-Assad war criminal and shame of his nation

Sources: U.S. is moving toward calling for Syrian leader to step down - CNN.com: "Washington (CNN) -- The United States is moving toward issuing an explicit call for Syrian President Bashar al-Assad to step down, U.S. government sources told CNN Tuesday."

And possibly ex-President too.

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The ambulatory are spending

Flash Crash: Markets No Longer Reflect Economic Reality - The Daily Beast: "Ad revenue and theme parks don’t see those trends unless domestic consumers are spending money; companies don’t increase advertising budgets on slumping sales, and theme parks don’t fill with bodies if people can’t spend."

It all depends where you look. Most urban lively areas are as lively as ever if not more so.

My guess is it is big ticket items like cars and houses that will account for a continued "recession". They are being toasted by progress.

The market will move toward a randomized effort to make do in a social milieu that is becoming more and more iffy.

Shall we go to London now? I don't think so?

How about the Phoenix airport?

And so forth.

First draft for a 2012 campaign song


All the money you can throw ain't gonna stop me
You can even bring your dogs or try to pop me
I will vote for Democrats
To replace the dirty rats
Who only want to hijack my democracy

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Wisconsin's Silver Lining

Wisconsin Recalls Replace Two Republican Senators in a Rebuke to Governor's Anti-Labor Agenda | Common Dreams

The tune is going through my head as we speak. Is there a melody yet for Bring It On?

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Luck Uggla MLB

Braves' Dan Uggla can thank better luck for hitting streak - Cliff Corcoran - SI.com: "Dreadful, tiki-necklace-curse-level bad luck, perhaps, but still just bad luck. Put in baseball terms, the hits just didn't fall in for three months."

There is something reassuring to every human being on the planet in this little fable. There are times when things simply do not fall through no fault of your own. Just the way things are.

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When will we stop using the word recovery?

Fed's interest-rate move wows Dow, but is also sign of plodding recovery - CSMonitor.com

Recovery is not what we need. It was sickness that got us where we are. We need an infusion of health which has more to do with a spiritual change than with a return to consumer sprawl car-centric life replete with drug wars and ground wars and the politics of nihilism. Health would be an honest recognition that we are folded over on our values, that is to say that beneath our current values lies helpfulness and democracy as universal rights and tolerance as strength not weakness. But keeping these universals down are the values of personal success, me first and freedom as the right to crush anyone who gets in the way. The universal values never go away and they fester when folded over upon. Health is letting the lesser values go, an act which anyone is free to perform in a nanosecond.

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Kid Hunt

Dougherty siblings believed to be in Colorado - CBS News: "A nationwide manhunt for the siblings began Aug. 2. The three are suspected of firing at least 20 shots at a Florida officer who tried to pull them over for speeding in a chase at speeds up to 100 mph."

Hmmm. Seems that the love affair we have with fire arms is at least giving an accent to to the mayhem perpetrated by the young, We need a mental makeover of significant proportions. Say at least half way to where Jesus was which would be more or less on the peaceful side of things. Ah but with our good Christian Charlton Heston-infused culture of permitted violence, can we be so naive?

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13 Odd Ways to Deal With Our Social Watershed


1. Think beyond oil
2. Think beyond nominalism
3. Think beyond the primacy of today's construction methods
4. Think car free
5. Think part time
6. Think post schools as we know them
7. Think ending our prison industrial complex
8. Think beyond green
9. Think cyber cities
10 Think beyond sprawl
11. Think beyond binary and toward triadic
12. Think beyond addiction as an explanation for behavior
13. Think beyond creed and toward spirituality

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When the Market Is God (Image)

The Almighty Market — BagNews: "Oh, the redundancy of those trading floor crisis images. This one from Tuesday, after the nosedive, was actually pretty good, though. Witnessing the power of Wall Street these past few weeks, the photo is spot-on. It really is the American Almighty."

Awe. Devotion. Fear. Apprehension. No hint of pleasure or reward or irony.

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How we think we have it all together and lose it rapidly

Adam Moves from Therapy to Engagement 1959, 1960 - Associated Content from Yahoo! - associatedcontent.com: "He established to his own satisfaction that he was not predestined either to salvation or damnation. He was, within limits, a free agent. What he did mattered. What he did had consequences. What he did meant the difference between a life of some contentment and one of considerable misery. He wasn't in the hands of the gods. He was his own person."

Just a little memoir in the sea of poetry and prose that is all of us.

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The Louvre was porous in 1911

Who stole the Mona Lisa? - FT.com

And Mona wasn't the only work of art that was stolen. What has remained constant are the right wing and the nature of blame.

Are British Riots England's Tahrir?

British Riots: Elites "Shocked" The Poor Are Rising Up Against Brutal Austerity Measures | World | AlterNet: "Angry young people with nothing to do and little to lose are turning on their own communities, and they cannot be stopped, and they know it."

English cinema has some of the gems of youth alienation and one has only to ride a bus almost anywhere on the island to be aware, in the back, of the welling anger. It is a conundrum that will not be stanched by Mr. Cameron, probably happy that the Murdoch thing is bumped from the front page, and his law and order talk. A better approach would be to see democracy as a legitimate and universal value and to understand that, however distasteful anger's expression may be, the answer is always the extension of democracy and not what looks like a serious overreaction. Of course when others perceive this, the entire government could fall in a trice.

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Club for Growth, ALEC and others on the Winning Side in Wisconsin Recall

6 Shady Right-Wing Groups Pouring Money Into Today's Wisconsin Recall | Tea Party and the Right | AlterNet: "As Wisconsin progressives fight to recall Scott Walker's allies in the state senate, here are some of the conservative groups funding their right-wing agenda."

It's all over but the crying. The GOP won. The post above simply tells you the six GOP groups whose money was afficacious. Maybe the people spoke maybe the money did. The funny thing is: If the Dems had won, all they could have done is ground everything to a halt. The status quo now is not divided government, it is divided period.

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Charles Sanders Peirce on Immortality

"In "Immortality in the Light of Synechism" (1893, retitled "Immortality and Synechism" by the CP editors), Peirce says.
CP 7.576. Nor is this, by any means, all. A man is capable of a spiritual consciousness, which constitutes him one of the eternal verities, which is embodied in the universe as a whole. This as an archetypal idea can never fail; and in the world to come is destined to a special spiritual embodiment.
CP 7.577 [....] In the same manner, when the carnal consciousness passes away in death, we shall at once perceive that we have had all along a lively spiritual consciousness which we have been confusing with something different.
But it's clear as all of you point out, that in 1906 (in CP 6.520-21), Peirce was much less sure about immortality."

Cap tip Benjamin

RECCMENDATION Richard Gordon Quantum Touch

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