the defeatists!

Damn, damn, damn...where's the remote?

Tolerance is an end in itself. The elimination of violence, and the reduction of suppression to the extent required for protecting man and animals from cruelty and aggression are preconditions for the creation of a humane society. Such a society does not yet exist; progress toward it is perhaps more than before arrested by violence and suppression on a global scale. As deterrents against nuclear war, as police action against subversion, as technical aid in the fight against imperialism and communism, as methods of pacification in neo-colonial massacres, violence and suppression are promulgated, practiced, and defended by democratic and authoritarian governments alike, and the people subjected to these governments are educated to sustain such practices as necessary for the preservation of the status quo. Tolerance is extended to policies, conditions, and modes of behavior which should not be tolerated because they are impeding, if not destroying, the chances of creating an existence without fear and misery. This sort of tolerance strengthens the tyranny of the majority against which authentic liberals protested. The political locus of tolerance has changed: while it is more or less quietly and constitutionally withdrawn from the opposition, it is made compulsory behavior with respect to established policies. Tolerance is turned from an active into a passive state, from practice to non-practice: laissez-faire the constituted authorities. It is the people who tolerate the government, which in turn tolerates opposition within the framework determined by the constituted authorities.    Tolerance toward that which is radically evil now appears as good because it serves the cohesion of the whole on the road to affluence or more affluence.
                                                        Herbert Marcuse, Repressive Tolerance

A few weeks ago, I walked into my office and started working. Guy walks in and tells me I need to resign or they'll fire me. I then got to spend the next several hours telling people who worked with me that I'd resigned, I'd be fine and it wasn't their fault, and they'd be ok. I miss the folks, of course; but I don't miss GINORMOUS. At some point, sometime, I'll be working again doing something somewhere else. And, to quote Bokonon, so it goes

So, I have been busy. But, the Fort Hood thing and a few other things require comment. The voices in my head are getting louder, and I probably need to let them out.

First of all, the idea that the loonie in the hospital at Fort Hood was a terrorist is intriguing, and helps the demonization that will prevent reasonable discussion of the issues surrounding post traumatic stress and the issues of ethics, diversity and safety. Next, so much for the vaunted government email intrusion; appears they knew everything this guy was doing and corresponding with and so on. FBI and the Army concluded he was harmless; they got it wrong. Or, they were more interested in trying to trap Charlie Rangel in a bad deal with real estate developers in Harlem, and punted. Joe Livermann of Connecticut and the Homeland Security Committee don't need to look at this in a public forum; the FBI/DOJ IG and the Army IG need to look at it, and figure out what the fuck they're using for criteria for taking action when they have a commissioned officer sending mash notes to radical assholes of any stripe, let alone militant Islamists in Yemen.

Actually, I think this is another form of repressive tolerance, Herbert Marcuse's concept of liberalism's ultimate moral bankruptcy, as well as why the Tea-baggers don't get their own idea of untrammeled liberty. Maybe a better simile is the Arsenic and Old Lace moment; this guy's praying five times a day and passing out Korans is as harmless as taking in borders and giving them a hot cup of tea, laced with arsenic and then burying them in the basement. It's odd behavior, but until your recognize the bodies for what they are, the coin doesn't drop.

Eccentricity is as American as fried squash and rhubarb pie, and is something we should tolerate. But, we generally do not tolerate eccentricity in the workplace. The Army is not only a workplace, but also a home, an extended family. If weird cousin Hasan want's to sit in living room and jack off by rubbing  a Randall Fighting knife up and down his wee-wee while watching DVDs of Love Boat, it has crossed the line from eccentricity into "gee, maybe we ought to do something." There are indications that they didn't really want this guy treating soldiers...so, send him to Afghanistan? Exactly what purpose would that serve? Another loser to pass out basketballs? Be in charge of paperclips?

So, a tragedy of errors.  ready to be exploited by the world of the loonies on both sides. And, a crazy guy is going to go to court martial and be locked in a padded cell for a long time. And families will temporarily have a lot of money from the GI life insurance policies; and everyone will forget. Except those who were there, and the families, and the friends, and the obsessives and the historians. And me, and hopefully a few others.

And the whole thing is futile. The men and women who were killed were there as part of an effort to ensure that people have the right to think, and write, and feel the way they do. And most of the time, that's fine, everything works great. And sometimes, it doesn't work for shit. This is one of those cases. And so it goes...and so it goes...no damn cat and no damn cradle.

 

Fort Hood redux -- Or if you look into the abyss, the abyss looks into you

OK, we know more than we did the other day and we still don't know what the hell went on, except that a lot of soldiers did go to the sound of the gunfire and evacuate the wounded at risk, and that a brave DOD cop shot the fucker while getting shot herself. And yet, we still don't know...

Similarly, scientific views of what makes soldiers susceptible to stress disorders have waxed and waned. Some experts, in a modern echo of a view put forward in World War II, argue that soldiers who develop P.T.S.D. have longstanding vulnerabilities — psychological or physiological — that make them unable to withstand the pressures of combat. Others assert, in agreement with the military doctors of World War I, that every soldier simply has a breaking point, and that multiple deployments to Iraq and Afghanistan have contributed to the numbers who return to a second, psychological war at home.

It's my belief that anyone who served for any length of time has some level of PTSD. The number of service members who act out and either do something horrible to themselves or others is pretty small. However, there are a lot of timebombs running around out there. The military will never get its arms around the problem because they can't. It really is Catch 22 -- if you're scared, you're not crazy so you don't need any help. Only an insane person would not be scared under the circumstances. Hooah? Hooah!

Cops, fireman, priests and social workers have the same problems. The best explanation for what goes on in the victims of PTSD that I have seen was simple -- it results from sustained periods of being in intolerable situations and having to act as if that was normal. The longer it goes on, the worse the case; the more intense the insanity, the more serious the case.

So, Major Ragheaded Motherfucker may have experienced things vicariously and felt harassed. We don't know if any of that was real. I have felt harassed because I'm white, a man, a veteran, a soldier, a musician, and so on. Was it real? Who the fuck knows? It felt real. So,I can only imagine what this guy was thinking, and it scares me. It's not that different than what I'm thinking at times -- as the poet sang, if my real thoughts could be seen, they'd put my head in a guillotine, but it's all right Ma, it's life and life only.  However, before it appears that I excuse this dipshit, ALL OF THE PEOPLE HE HURT have the same issues to a greater or lesser extent. He killed his own brothers and sisters. He felt harassed because he was a Muslim -- yeah. He is an officer, highly educated and highly trained and here we go...he was a victim. We're all victims. Let's not blame the victim.

Well, fuck that noise. I admit, and I'll stipulate this: The human soul is a fragile thing. For this guy's sake and all those whom he hurt, I hope he never comes back to consciousness. Then the tragedy will remain and perhaps those in power will do something about it. If we can demonize and blame Major Nidal, we will, and then avoid thinking about what we need to think about. How do we help these folks -- all these folks -- who are suffering still for us? Or, do we care? The way we treat those who are in pain for the sake of the rest of us describes who we are as a people. And, fail at that, and then expect less in the future from those from whom the safe and comfortable will need more.

I can't wait for the gun nuts to demand that soldiers go armed on base. If all those guys had guns, this wouldn't have happened. Do we want to live in a country where we go armed from fear? I guess for some, the answer is yes. Still, the Times editorial seems to end most approriately, celebrating heroism --

There may never be an explanation. And, certainly, there can never be a justification.

For now, all that can be said is that our hearts go out to the families of the 12 soldiers and one civilian killed. And we are hoping for the fast recovery of all those who were wounded, including Kimberly Munley, a civilian police officer stationed at the base, who shot Major Hasan and ended the killing.

In a place of courage, she showed extraordinary courage.

On the Truth Value of Mouthfeel (Or Why These Peppers Aren't Hot)

at any rate, i don't feel the necessity to pretend to believe what, if it were true, would make the world a little better. and indeed, if you know that you're doing that, you don't actually believe what you say you believe: believing p is taking p to be true, not taking it to help us all live as brothers.

- Capn Capitulation

our very own Capn Capitulation gets on about the violence done in the name of Islam in the linked to passage.  now, the talking heads in this country, for the most part, would like to Freedomize^tm the rest of the Middle East, such as we have done in Afghanistan and Iraq. Iran is next, and who knows what nation will also wind up on the list. now while the Eboo piece is dishonest, it is also combatting an American narrative that concludes with American interference in the Middle East, since (we all know) that is where Muslim terrorists come from, and (we all know) they want to get us. it is impossible to deny the truth of the matter, because you can't deny that there are some crazy fucking Muslims out there, but BUT BUT the case being made for the truth is being and has been used as the kernel of the entire American foreign policy for the past 9+ years.  you've seen where that has gotten us; note the body count, and how much better that makes you (and each and every American) feel about the world.  that is what the truth here has been used for, Capn.  sleep tight!  the choir in our American heaven harmonizes to the tune of benevolent and magnificent American influence wherever our C-40's may land.   

of course a more direct confrontation with the foreign policy of the past 9 years (and what lies before us), and with the realilty of the threat of terrorism and Muslim extremists would be welcomed, honest and admirable. and, unfortunately, you are not likely to find Eboo critical of any and all American military involvement in the Middle East.   

at any rate, I for one do not go seeking honest assessments in the Washington Post.

This Is Not A Blog Post

So, what the hell...

Lots of odd things have happened in the AXE's life lately, and at some point I'll write about them. However, let it suffice to say that I'm spending this evening in Fort Wayne, Indiana -- actually, a pretty nice town and home of my favorite musician's supply and equipment internet firm, Sweetwater.com. Best prices, best quality and probably best info if you call or chat. Reason I mention that is I may move here...maybe I can get a part time gig on their phones. Obviously, I'm tired. Very good and productive interview for another job.

Anyway, the Crossroads of Opportunity doesn't have a lot, and one of the things it doesn't have is a Crackerbarrel. If you're not familiar, drive south or east on the interstate until you find one. They started in Tennessee I believe, and conquered the south first. I recommend ordering a breakfast, although tonite I had a reuben (B+)and fries(C+), coleslaw (A+) and a slice of their double fudge coca cola chocolate cake with ice cream. I was struggling with that monster when I over heard a discussion about what had just gone down at Fort Hood.

Ok, at this point nobody really knows what the fuck went down. The shooter was an officer and a mental health professional with an Arabic name. Christ, I have no idea what could have happened. However, the HuffPO article asserts something to the effect that it's significant that this mass murder occurred at Fort Hood because the infamous Kileen massacre at a Luby's cafeteria in the 80s is right there, outside the gate. This is why the military gets pissed at liberals...and, let's not pretend that I am not more liberal than not, and that if anything, I find a lot of the HuffPo stuff too nuanced. Call a motherfucker, a motherfucker. Of, visit Vote Vets and sign the petition calling Tom Turkey Coburn an immoral motherfucker for blocking Vets Aid. Syphilitic dick weed...

The Luby's thing could result in some defeatist bad taste humor -- Luby's is several steps down from Golden Corral. However, that was one local nut ramming the cafeteria in his pickup truck and blowing away people for whatever tinfoil lining to his gimme cap reason the voices in his head gave him. This is a lot worse. The reports are pretty odd -- however, since the idea of two automatic pistols have sufficient rounds to kill and injure that many without reloading seems odd. The next thing is the idea that soldiers normally are packing heat. Good way to lose you freedom and career. Sorry, I do not recall ever putting a loaded magazine in a weapon while in the cantonment area. Doesn't happen. Now, if these were some sort of MAC10, then the question becomes how did a mental health worker get to be such a goddamn great shot with those incredibly hard to control weapons...but, they would have the fire power.

I can thing of few places that are supposed to seem and be safer than the soldier readiness center on an installation. While I'd like to think that soldiers would automatically move to the shooter and take him down, the odds are pretty good they couldn't process it. If you open your refrigerator to get a bottle of milk and a fucking Tyrannosaurus Rex chomps on your arm, you're probably not going to react well.

This is troubling. Regardless of faith or lack thereof, or point of view on the war, this is not good. If these goddamn silly wars have turned shrinks into mass murderers (one theory is he didn't want to deploy, which seems counterproductive -- don't want to deploy because I might get killed, have to kill someone, so I'll kill a bunch of people and then they'll kill me! --but I'm not inside the guy's head and wouldn't want to be.  

Witches want my semen!

Well, the only thing this doesn't explain is why anyone ever liked any of his stuff...

Bowie told the author, "I'd stay up for weeks. Even people like Keith Richards were floored by it. And there were pieces of me all over the floor. I paid with the worst manic depression of my life. My psyche went through the roof, it just fractured into pieces. I was hallucinating 24 hours a day."

If your weirdness can scare Keith Richards, then you're pretty weird.
 

8 Year Olds, Dude.

Blub. Those kids look about the age I was when I first started paying attention to politics and the news. (Although, back then, it was all about Reagan and THE BOMB!!!) I can just imagine how exciting this must have been for them.

- Lemmissa McEeeewwwewwwwewwwwan, Shakenfartville

the kids look like they're 10-12 or so.  maybe 8-12.

who the fuck was into politics at that age?  I remember in 4th grade doing a fake class vote for President, and Bush 1 winning over Dukakis.  2 kids voted for Dukakis, and we all looked around and wondered who the fuck voted for THAT guy.  all I knew at the time was that my parents were voting for the Bush guy, Dukakis was from Massachusetts and looked kind of mean on television, and I'd rather be outside working on my tree fort.  and also: Massachusetts, especially their drivers, sucked (we were living in southern New Hampshire at the time).  I voted how my parents voted anyway.

the only thing I recall from politics over my childhood or whatever is signs on front yards with lots of leaves and going to the school to watch my parents vote. all those stupid signs and their colors and the names and how important signs seemed to be to everyone left an impression.  it wasn't until college that I started to form an opinion, or rather, was pressed into having to have one.  like I was equipped to do such a thing.  like I've improved over the years.  not!  I'm still a oddball asshole.  kind of a jerk.  so on and so forth.  I put a circle A on my Converse all stars in the 7th grade.  nobody thought that I could actually mean THAT.  "rebellion."  LOL.  

I was too young to vote in the 1996 election while I was in high school.  some of my friends could but I wasn't of age until April of 1997.  I think one of my friends voted for Dole because he said that Dole seemed like a cold angry bastard. . .can't get better than an old angry man as President.  besides, he wanted to reduce taxes!  because Fuck the Man.  whichever Man you set in your sights, right?  we also made fun of Dole around that time.  something about the pen in his hand.  and I mean, we knew it and were right back then: who cares?  these people aren't real to us.  they're physical representations of our collective delusion.  ugh.  ick.  why do we have these people in our society?

when pressed though, I voted for Nader in 2000 because he made sense and Bush and Gore just seemed to not say anything of any import.  I think the Internet actually may have played a role in this.  I remember signing up for a Nader email list or some such thing on the Internet.  both Bore and Gush were skilled at the art of saying absolutely nothing.  what Nader said made sense; he seemed real and prescient.  Nader seemed like a viable alternative to the same stupid shit.  only now do I realize that the same stupid shit is what the majority of the people in this country want.  we don't really vote to change anything functional.  taxes creep along no matter who is in charge.  wars go on indefinitely somewhere.  environmental regulations get slightly more strict until we don't recognize that things aren't as bad as they were, and have no basis for our fears.  we only vote to change the talking heads and face of the government.  Nader was and is delusional.  you're better off not taking part in the process.  I don't go to church to believe in something that doesn't exist, so why should I participate in or talk about something else that doesn't exist?  

I need another tree fort to work on.  

You're Killing your Father, Larry!

first of all, I never have any idea what the fuck Axe is talking about.  right wing lunatics?  left wing hobbits?  there are still racist asshats in this country?  no way!  Axe was going on about this all the while I was glued to the news watching a boy in a balloon.

I was rooting for high tension lines, personally.

imagine though: tens of millions of people in this country were drawn into the story, and awed by the young daring-do of the boy that escaped by himself in a hot air balloon. escape! to freedom and worlds beyond knowing, into the realms and cavernous displays of imagination. we envied the little fucker.  Friday at work I'd imagined myself floating away in a hot air balloon to. . .somewhere else.  anywhere, really.  now I'm back in the cube and craving. . .self-immolation.  what a perfectly futile act it would be to set myself alight here in my cubicle.  

now imagine the individual and respective disappointments of tens of millions of people that watchedballoon boy when they learned it was a hoax.  tens of millions of my fellow countrymen had their heart strings and imaginations and sense of wonder and belief plucked out of thin air, like a pigeon sucked into an engine on the tarmac at JFK. sounds like a win to me!

the Spectacle always wins.

Conspiracy theories in the Republican base? I'm shocked, shocked, shocked.

Dolores O Riordan go your own way
by Zitounet

Damn, it's a shame to waste a song that good and performed that well -- fuck Lindsay Buckingham and Fleetwood Mac! Delores and the Cranberries rule! -- but it oddly makes a point. Not so flashy may be better...but you can really get it wrong as well. I guess I see the current Republican-T-baggers as a cover band on Ross Perot. Who was kind of a cover band for FDR. Keep that in mind...

It's hard for me to feel sorry for Bill "Fisting" Frist and Lindsay Graham. Although, Fist did decide that the nonsense that was being the Republican leader was enough to get him to retire from politics and go back to medicine and Graham is more libertarian and reasonable than most Republicans from South Carolina. There is some content to their character.

Still, Frist is kinda sorta calling out the elected leadership of the party to goddamn do their jobs and provide leadership as opposed to standing on the sidelines, cheering on the incompetent, the crazed, the insane and the blindly ambitious. Noble of him, but I suspect futile. Hell, he then promises he's not running for office. There mofos wouldn't listen to the reincarnation of Barry Goldwater. Hell, Goldwater and Jesus could appear at a Tea Party, and they'd get shouted down. Jesus would probably get stoned...with stones.

So, saying stuff like this is silly on Graham's part.

This past week, the South Carolina Republican was shouted down by town hall protesters for his position on climate change legislation. "We're not going to be the party of angry white guys," Graham responded. "If you don't like it, you can leave."

Ok, Senator, when did you join NORMAL? I know you cringe whenever someone says "Palin" or "Joe the Dickhead" within earshot, but since NIXON!fucking NIXON! the party has come and stayed in power on the backs of a core of ANGRY WHITE GUYS! That's your thing; to quote you ersatz, erstwhile leader, "That's the way we roll..."

I listened to something else Frist had to say on CSPAN, and it was reasonable, rational and something I actually agree with, and about health care. He began by saying that the Obama plan is not socialized medicine; socialized medicine involves the government owning the hospitals and paying all the salaries. He then raves about the overall quality of care in the UK, as a guy who did a year's cardiac surgical residency in the UK. Where was this guy when his doppelganger was diagnosing Terry Schiavo based on TV pictures and threatening the "nuclear" option on filibusters

Could we be seeing a rebirth of principled conservatism based on the ideas of Abraham Lincoln and Teddy Roosevelt and Eisenhower and, shudder to say it, Nixon. ( On most things, Nixon was substantively to the left of Bill Clinton. ) 

Well, as  left-liberal-anarcho-Defeatist, I can always trust bad to drive out good in politics; I think the right is pretty well fucked. Between Steele and his lost love, Sarah Fey, we can count on lots of good times ahead. And, it keeps getting better all the time. Up in the far reaches of upstate New York, the conservative Republicans are struggling against the Teabaggers who seem to be channelling Lindsay Buckingham instead of Graham.

Plattsburg is not Manhattan, and frankly, since the Irish-Indian part of the mix that is I comes from there, I'm not sure it isn't really in Northern Quebec. It's colder than Viking hell in the winter, humid and mosquito infested when it's not under eight or so feet of snow and people get married in Wool Shirts with Elmer Fudd hats. And, that's the women. If there's a safe Republican seat, I think this would be it.

Republicans, worried a winnable seat is slipping away, are scrambling. Mr. Boehner, the House Minority leader, promised to support Ms. Scozzafava for a seat on the House Armed Services Committee -- important in a district that's home to Fort Drum, an army base.The Scozzafava campaign issued a flier headlined: "What conservatives need to know about Dede," including such points as "Dede believes government spending is out of control." She's touted her conservative credentials, including an endorsement by the National Rifle Association. Former House Speaker Newt Gingrich is endorsing her, according to a letter provided by her campaign.

Now given this gal's background, in Lindsay Graham-land she'd probably be a moderate Democrat. However, in upstate, that's not enough for the pure of heart these days. And, there are some oddball quirks..."Even before the forum began, it was clear which candidate had the audience's heart. "I've never met the man, and he's got my vote," Gary Barber, 69, a retired schoolteacher from nearby Au Sable Forks, said of Mr. Hoffman. "He's conservative and he's not a lawyer.'" Well, she's a conservative and doesn't appear to be lawyer either.

In the Journal article cited above, former congressman and current Republican strategist Vin Weber compares the Tea Baggers to the followers of Ross Perot. Well, I find that an interesting comparison. I had a number of moderate right-libertarian friends during the Perot days who were followers; and, I have to admit that his common sense was refreshing and right on. Crazier than hell, of course; and, a cantankerous old coot who would never have been able to effectively govern, but very bright, charismatic and understandably so, with a career based on solid accomplishment. He and his followers had an effect that wasn't all negative and their appeal was populist. These guys, not so much. No hero-philosopher-warrior like Admiral Stockdale has joined the movement; Sarah Palin's soldier son supposedly says he's not a Republican. Compare Palin's "pitbull with lipstick" self-definition with this from the late Admiral, via Wiki:

As his introduction to the large segment of American voters who had not previously heard of him, the debate was disastrous for Stockdale. He was portrayed in the media as elderly and confused, and his reputation never recovered. In a 1999 interview with Jim Lehrer, Stockdale explained that the statements were intended as an introduction of him and his record to the television audience:

It was terribly frustrating because I remember I started with, "Who am I? Why am I here?" and I never got back to that because there was never an opportunity for me to explain my life to people. It was so different from Quayle and Gore. The four years in solitary confinement in Vietnam, seven-and-a-half years in prisons, drop the first bomb that started the ... American bombing raid in the North Vietnam. We blew the oil storage tanks of them off the map. And I never—I couldn't approach—I don't say it just to brag, but, I mean, my sensitivities are completely different.

Perot and Stockdale received 19 percent of the vote in the 1992 presidential election, one of the best showings by an independent ticket in US electoral history, although they did not carry any States.

So, let me be the first to praise the new  hidden, high order Reptillian overlords of the Republican party, and wish them well. Crusader AXE has already endorse Palin-Steele as the Republican ticket in 2012, but I really think that she and Michelle Bachman need to really align themselves with the guys who figure Lindsay Graham is a Democrat and that Bill Frist has been bought out by big money to do Obama's bidding. Sincerity without sense is more than a little disturbing. And, there is a fine line imitation as flattery, and imitation as farce. Given the choice, HANG IN THERE T-BAGS!

Go Your Own Way

Fleetwood Bac | MySpace Music Videos

Read more at: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/10/16/frist-addresses-tennessee_n_323639.html

Breaking news!

The Defeatists are definitely in favor of climate change. We wholeheartedly endorse it as the way to achieve the ultimate goal of mass extinction. Seriously, humanity contributes not a lot to Gaia, old gal that she is. If there was a little switch in all our humanoid brains that would just automatically reset to worm food simultaneously, world-wide, it would be cool. Baring that, floods, famine and fires caused by our own stupidity will do just fine.

So, turn on your ACs, run your car for 20 minutes or so to warm it up, get bigger engines, use lots of plastics and don't recycle. Time is definitely on the side of climate change and, dare we dream, the end of this farce. Get on the bus! Not under it.


- Watch the best video clips here

"Church leaders did not respond to Raw Story's requests for comment, but the website notes they will be providing "bar-b-que chicken, fried chicken and all the sides" at the book burning."

Banner day for religious right wingnuts over at the Faith-based community.

Church leaders deem Good News for Modern Man, the Evidence Bible, the New International Version Bible, the Green Bible and the Message Bible, as well as at least seven other versions of the Bible as "Satan's Bibles," according to the website. Attendees will also set fire to "Satan's popular books" such as the work of "heretics" including the Pope, Mother Teresa, Billy Graham and Rick Warren."I believe the King James version is God's preserved, inspired, inerrant and infallible word of God," Pastor Marc Grizzard told a local news station of his 14-member parish.

Dear singularity, where to begin. Since Catholicism pre-dates Protestantism, it's hard for Ratzinger to be branded a heretic, especially since in his pre-Pope role he was the equivalent of the Witch-hunter Profundis, charged with keeping heresy at bay. Mother Teresa was certainly oriented towards works righteousness, but heretic is kinda harsh. Billy Graham a heretic...ok. He was a conservative Baptist, and if you use chronology as a basis for going forth, he's a heretic. From Catholicism. Rick Warren? Really? Mr. GottahaveGodtohavePurposeinYourLife Rick Warren? Makes this Irishman wonder what they put in their barbecue sauce.

Ok, these are snake-handling troglodytes. Notice no barbecued (or barb-be-cued) (barbi-cued would just be crass) snake on the menu. There are other logical problems; besides the whole bookburning thing that makes me think of both Nazis and Disco Inferno Night at Comiskey Park, the King James Bible? Hey, the King James Bible is the best-written poetry amongst the various versions, but, yea verily, that doesn't make it the most authentic. Hardly. The bible is a collection of texts that were in Aramaic, Hebrew, Greek and who knows what dialectical variations thereof. It's a translation, and probably from a lot of Latin texts. Translations of translations of translations. Confusion of vernacular over centuries by scribes recording stuff, at least from the old testament, handed down from a verbal tradition to a proto-literate civilization. Translated by scholars influenced by the Reformation, the Renaissance and traditions. Under the rule and guidance of the wisest fool in Christendom...who was bi-sexual. Go for it. If you're going to be wrong, be all wrong.

I wonder how Boner Bohener looks at that one, in the light of this one ...

You were born a Christian, not born gay. Religion is not a choice. Or so the spokesman for House Minority Leader John Boehner (R-OH) would have you believe. Questioned about why the House's top Republican opposes a hate crimes bill penalizing violence against gays, his spokesman said he "supports existing federal protections (based on race, religion, gender, etc) based on immutable characteristics," just not protections for things like being gay -- which conservatives occasionally claim is a choice.

Seriously, do these idiots listen to themselves? Mary Cheney is about to have her second child with her partner who sure appears to be a woman, the child conceived how? Adultery? In vitro? Turkey baster? Is Mr. Spray Tan even marginally aware of his surroundings? Most guys in my own limited, straight experience, cringe at the thought of sexual contact with another man. We're not wired that way. Most women I've talked to who aren't gay have a similar reaction about lesbians. (Interestingly, women don't get the male fascination with lesbians, the Elaine-equipment episode aside.) It isn't like rooting for the Cleveland Browns instead of the Cincinnati Bengals.. . And, how exactly is the practice of religion not a choice? The significant other used to complain that I was too Catholic...except for the whole God, religion, Jesus thing. This is just stupid...What really bothers me is that the guy was educated at Jesuit Schools during the day when logic was part of the curriculum. He kinda doesn't get that that the syllogism doesn't work in this case. Or, and this wouldn't bother me so much as confirm what I really think, the logic or correctness or honesty of his opinion doesn't matter.

And, of course, this piece...from a crazy canary in the coal mine...

"The scary thing is that there are a number of pastors on record as saying they are praying for the President’s death. Can you imagine what some gun-toting paranoid who hears that in a sermon is thinking and might do? And to them the fact that 'the world' likes this black man is reason enough to hate him. You wait. The reaction to Obama winning the Nobel Prize will be entirely negative from the far Religious Right. 'See the world, all those socialists like him that just proves he’s a -- fill in the blank -- communist, secret Muslim, the Antichrist, whatever.'"

Well, we have a well-known and documented history of what Marcuse called repressive tolerance in this country. Except it isn't exactly inclusive. We tolerate violence and insanity, not debate and discussion. I wonder if the gun-toting paranoid succeeds, will Boehner and Cheney and Bush and Steele and Limbaugh and Beck crow or cower? My guess is crow, cower and incite more of the same...in the name of true Americanism...eine Volk, eine Vaterland und eine Gott. Then when the Mary Cheneys and the Michael Steeles and the Becks are being dragged to the pits for execution, maybe they'll remember Pastor Niemoller...probably not.

Fuck people. Incrementally.

Nothing says false comfort like a minimum wage rule. Tying a minimum wage rule to inflation seems like the way to keep it helpful to the average employee who is at the minimum wage, but it really is not. So, the Colorado decision to knock three cents an hour off the minimum wage is kinda, sorta a gratuitous insult. Legally it is definitely what they have to do, but as that great legal scholar, Charles Dickens, had a character put it in the UK version of The Federalist Papers, "The Law is an ass..."

Assuming a 40 hour week, which is more than a lot of minimum wagers get, the decrease will amount to  a roaring $1.20 a week. Roughly $64 a year Before taxes, which are probably irrelevant, except payroll taxes like FICA and Medicare. The impact on income in real terms, a can of coke a week from the vending machine down the hall next to the furnace where they shovel the coal to drive the engines of industry.

Merle Haggard - Mama's Hungry Eyes

Jeffery Allen Cropper - ( Personal Friend Page )|MySpace Videos
Now, I have been privately speculating about salary freezes and rollbacks for a while. This particular issue is probably a sign of something, and not being Paul Krugman , I'm not sure what. (By the way, the post I've linked to is pretty arcane, but take the time to do the math and think. Not a bad motto...) However, if wages drop then demand drops for shit because people have less to spend on shit; if demand drops, production drops; if production drops, people get laid off. Getting that flushed down the toilet of economics feeling yet?

Here's my thought: Mandate a living wage which will be based on the local median minus 20%. The only way to get out of this downward spiral is to sell stuff; the only way to sell stuff besides food and minimal housing is getting more, not less money into disposable income which largely comes from wages in the spending as opposed to the investment class. Bill Gates net worth decreases by 10%, he's still fucking wealthy; increases by 10%, he's still fucking wealthy, and I doubt that it'll have that much of an impact on his spending patterns. Give me a 10% negative swing, and I slow down and do little except pay down debt; increase it by 10%, and some of that will go to spending. Granted, some of that will go to paying down debt, but if I increase my after tax income by $5K, I probably won't buy another car, but I might buy a new Amp and maybe a better layout of office furniture for my home office. Just a thought; but, that would keep struggling musicians, the Line 6 company, furniture stores and Weyerhauser going a bit longer. Just doing my part...

Now, for gratuitous, unwarranted optimism...


Were that it were so, but as former Rosicrucian adept and car salesman Crispin Sartwell once plagarized, "Life is 60/40 against."

At last, a holiday I can get behind!

September 30 was Blasphemy Day and we missed it.   Originally conceived as a day of solidarity with teh Danish Mohammed as a nut cartoons, the UN shot it down in the Security Council because it was offensive to a helluva lot of the people in the UN because they are as nutty as John Bolton. On Acid. Being screwed by Michelle Malkin with a strap-on while doing crack.  Or, something.

As Penn Jillette says, we should all say something blasphemous; he recommends that if you are religious, you should say something to mock your own god, but then, maybe you're not that religious. Problem there -- while he says fuck god! what is a defeatist to say? Fuck Tiffany? Of the Medusa-haired cunt? Not with Rick Santorum...sorry. (Being a goddess, Rick's dick wouldn't suffice for her...)

Damn, now we can be sure the fucking thing won't work right!

Remember the Swiss supercollider? We were building one up in North Texas and somebody cancelled the project but the EU stepped right up to the challenge of building a big hole in a big tunnel and speeding atoms through it as fast as the little fuckers can speed in the hopes of causing collisions and thus ending the world while the Euro is worth more than the dollar. Or something. Or Nothing. Remember, it's largely French. . Solving the problem of the origin of the universe; spending megaEuros on a stimulus project. Well, among the people doing this was a French guy, of course, who appears to be an al Queida terrorist, of course. Being of Algerian descent, of course. Like Camus. Except he's a Muslim, so he'd be more like the guy Camus' antihero in The Stranger wasted because it was Tuesday. Of course. Obviously, If he was a deconstructionist, it would have been too ironic...So, he must be a Sartian Maoist existentialist. Or something...ideologically speaking.

A French physicist with the European atomic research centre at Geneva was charged with terrorism offences by a Paris judge tonight after investigators alleged that he had offered to work with the north African wing of al-Qaeda. Adlene Hicheur, 32, who is of Algerian origin, was arrested last week with his younger brother after intelligence agents intercepted his alleged contacts on the internet with al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM).

Oh well, we keep being disappointed by these people. Now, for a gratuitous New Jersey bad ass Stevie Nicks/Tom Petty cover...

When pressed, he acknowledged that he actually had no idea that the day even existed.

From Oslo or some such place, here are the Raveonettes doing Ghost Rider...Because, well...Sometimes, irony is just ironic. Thus the proclamation of days...

The Raveonettes - Attack Of The Ghost Riders

MooPix | MySpace Videos

Presidents, of course, spend no time composing or thinking about these proclamations. They leave it to some Boswell in the White House press, correspondence or speech-writing offices to reflect on, say, Fire Prevention Week and pen documents that begin with topic sentences like this: “As powerful as any force in the natural world, fire deserves our utmost attention.”Indeed, fire does, just as Nordic-Americans deserve our utmost attention, too — or at least the attention of some low-level White House staff member. Who is charged with this duty in the Obama White House? An administration spokesman declined to say. “I see this going nowhere but mocking,” said the spokesman, Tommy Vietor.

We missed Leif Erickson Day. Well, since they got the proclamation wrong --it calls him a grandson of Norway and a son of Iceland when Norway's puff piece indicates he was probably a son of Greenland, a grandson of Iceland, and a great-grandson of Norway, at best. Or, not. Accuracy in proclamations of days is probably a bit of a stretch, anyway.

Now, from all the sagas and tales I've read, Leif's dad was a total asshole. Appears that most of the Norse in early Iceland were, shall we say, overly pugnacious. He was exiled from Iceland and took the family west to Greenland. Which is a fuckova (note the Norse-tribute spelling!) lot nastier than Greenland; the Vikings were spinmeisters, I'm sure. They called the old boy Eric the Red-assed since he was one of those guys who had to be right, particularly if he had a keg or two of that moonshine Everclear-Aquavit in him. Leif was a trader, bringing fish and furs and I assume Ice and rocks to places they were needed like...Iceland and Norway. (I think that when they were looking at mercantilism, the Vikings had a socialist approach even then. "Oh Sigurd, look. A boulder from Greenland; and look at the Ice sculpture! It'll look lovely on the mantle back home in Oslo!)He either was looking for something or the winds blew him and his band of entrepreneurs off course. And, he ended up in Labrador? Seriously? Or Nova Scotia? Maybe Maine? Of course, this was before the great climate change of 1333, so the climate in all these places was sub-tropical. (One could, in a pinch, argue that since sub-tropical means both lower than and less than tropical, you could say that they are subtropical still!) Thus, the great Viking cities of the eastern United States and Canada were established...or, not.

So in honor of a day that nobody knew about and that probably means nothing, here we go with a touching piece of Viking rock and roll done by those Norse heroes...err, Interpol. Here is "Leif Erikson" ...

Appears that Oprah and HH got it going on...Fisting and drug use while bystanders cheer

Both got entourages and both got stuff happening...only a matter of time til it all comes out in The Enquirer or the News of the World... Or, was Richard "Gervais" Gere says being the highly incensed type he is, "I can't believe you're asking me that,' the Hollywood actor said brusquely."

Fuck at a funeral...

You know, the concept of shooting fish in a barrel implies that even an idiot can do it. So, when you lob questions to John Cleese...it's sort of like putting the world's greatest trap shooter in Seattle's Pike's Place Market with the world's greatest shotgun and having the said WGTS stand appropriately and then shoot at the fish thrown by the fish throwers...hilarity can ensure, but it's just too fucking easy for the shooter...

As politics gets more childish, does satire get harder for you?
Yes. Take Sarah Palin — so many Republicans love her. I suddenly realized that in order to actually understand that someone is not very bright — or to be brutal, that they’re rather stupid — you really have to be more intelligent than them. Most Republicans aren’t smarter than Sarah Palin. It’s true.

It's Nobel, not Noble, People

Well dang if it ain't a good day to be a  gangsta.

See also:

Henley

IOZ

Captain Capitulation

So I'm driving across the desert and am reminded of Lordi...

Whatever happened to Lordi and Finnish Metal? Who cares -- frankly, they were terrible and from a musical point of view, we had some fun. So this evening, as I'm driving across the desert, just outside of Barstow waiting for the Zoloft and caffeine to kick in while listening to Handsome Dick Manitoba on Little Steven's underground garage, he decides to spin this band. Announcing it as another Finnish band, I was a bit hesitant, finger hovering over the channel changer. However, while this isn't the song (the one we were listening to was called "I'm a demon and I love rock and roll!") I thought the band was not horrible. Oddly enough, there appear to be a lot of great garage bands in Scandinavia. Not my style, but possibly might have something to say...although Sweatmaster is an odd name. Are the sweatmasters the guys who clean up saunas in Helsinki?

Tripping over facts while drinking your own Kool-Aid...

I've watched a lot of great ideas go south as a result of reality. The eight years between January 2001 and January 2009 are an example; Cold Fusion is another. Tom DeLay's lame imitation of Fred Astair; the Yugo; the Michael Richards' TV show. I think you're getting the picture.

Add the Barrack Obama administration.  A lot of the facts come from the Bush Administration, but still -- very disappointing. And, ironic -- I've been preaching in various forums available to me that the jobs data was totally whack, for example. People out of work getting MBAs -- does anyone sense the irony besides me? Sending people back to school who were loggers before to get degrees and certificates in Computer Graphics? Really...the idea that the future of America is virtual is vapor. Pure vapor -- hell, virtual vapor. I was preaching that in 1998! Today, The Times announces that the Bureau of Labor Statistics has consistently gotten in wrong. Hooorah! Defeatists 1, Government Bureaucracy -10000. It's a Pyrrhic victory, of course.

When the United States economy fell into recession at the beginning of 2008, many economists, including those at the Federal Reserve, refused to believe it was happening. They pointed to the employment numbers, which showed only mild job losses for the first half of that year...Recessions, they said, do not come with such mild job losses. ( AXE Comment: If the gas gauge says full, and the car won't move, accept that some goddamn thing is wrong. And, I'd don't know how to make this clearer -- if you've driven your Bugatti Veron flat out for the last hour and suddenly lose power and coast to a stop and the engine won't turn over, bet the gauge is fucked first. The measurement is usually wrong. )They were right. Unfortunately, it was the job numbers that were wrong. (AXE Commentary: Great, I was right. BFD. I'm not Obama, I have no leverage to fix this clusterfuck. Not that he does, but he can bitch about it from the bully pulpit. I have the Defeatists. ) On Friday, the Bureau of Labor Statistics delivered its latest revelation that the jobs picture was far worse than it had previously reported. Using newly available data, the bureau now estimates that during the 12 months ended last March, the economy lost 5.6 million jobs, 824,000 more than the 4.8 million previously reported...(AXE Snark: What's a 824,000 job error to an accountant or a statistician? A rounding error. What is it to a human being? Tragedy.) It now appears that during the first half of 2008, when the recession was getting under way, job losses averaged 146,000 per month. That is nearly three times the average of 49,000 jobs shown in the initial estimates. How did the government get it so wrong?

They got it wrong because they are fucking Hobbits who obtained their positions during the last 30 years, 20 of which were in the control of Reagan and Bush2 and their various advisers. Remember faith-based governance? Laffler Curve? Supply Side Economics? Ketchup is a vegetable? Karl Jaspers Karl Jaspers, the German Existentialist besides Heidigger, the one who wasn't a Nazi, provided an explanation as did Morris Massey, the OD guru about generations and learning. (Only one of these guys is dead, I think. In the 70s, Massey would show up at conferences and people would come up to him and say, "I thought you were dead." He ultimately theorized that they were confused because two important cultural  figures had in fact joined the Norwegian Blue in permanently pining for the Fjords...Maurice the Cat, star of 9 Lives Cat Food Commercials and the actor Raymond Massey.) It's actually a pretty straight forward proposition -- everything you do is influenced by everything you've ever done. If for 30 years you've been calling red ambergris, guess what -- to you, red is ambergris.

Going back to my gauge analogy, the measurement can be accurate, reliable and repeatable, but if it isn't measuring the right thing, well, the measurements aren't just meaningless, they are absolutely dangerous. Real people will make decisions on this stuff, and GIGOGIGOGIGO!

Now usually some twinge of optimism sneaks in at this point, but I'm out of it. I don't believe that we can do the fundamental things necessary to fix this mess. I'm enough of a Marxist to believe that systems collapse based on their own internal contradictions. What we observe in so many ways is the triumph of what Teddy Roosevelt called the "malefactors of great wealth." The system can't be changed until we can elect Philosopher-Kings whose only reason for running for office is to do good and do right. Power, ego, and all the perks have no place in governance. Unfortunately, Christ, Socrates and Jefferson aren't available.

Now, I do have some ideas -- confiscatory income taxes, government financing of all campaigns down through junior high student council, execution or exile for corrupt politicians or bureaucrats, mandatory IQ and basic skills tests for government employees and elected officials, and a series of constitutional amendments to "fix" some systemic problems. Little things like mandating marginal tax rates necessary to pay the government's way within 20 years of the expenditure; taxing corporations that lay-off workers; requiring severance, blah blah blah. Not going to happen anymore than the ascendancy of the philosopher kings...time for a defeatist old favorite -- a little Yeats, I think, is appropriate for the moment.

THE SECOND COMING

    Turning and turning in the widening gyre
    The falcon cannot hear the falconer;
    Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold;
    Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world,
    The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere
    The ceremony of innocence is drowned;
    The best lack all conviction, while the worst
    Are full of passionate intensity.

    Surely some revelation is at hand;
    Surely the Second Coming is at hand.
    The Second Coming! Hardly are those words out
    When a vast image out of Spiritus Mundi
    Troubles my sight: a waste of desert sand;
    A shape with lion body and the head of a man,
    A gaze blank and pitiless as the sun,
    Is moving its slow thighs, while all about it
    Wind shadows of the indignant desert birds.
    The darkness drops again but now I know
    That twenty centuries of stony sleep
    Were vexed to nightmare by a rocking cradle,
    And what rough beast, its hour come round at last,
    Slouches towards Bethlehem to be born?

Well, the Ignobels are probably a lot more fun than the other one...

Read about this one on Paul Krugman's blog, Intellectual Sex Toys for the Brilliant but Misunderstood amongst us...

Dr. Elena N. Bodnar couldn't be more serious about her research. The trauma and risk management specialist was in her native Ukraine during the Chernobyl nuclear disaster and helped children cope with its aftermath. Tonight, as she accepts the 2009 Ig Nobel Prize for public health, she won't mind laughter when she demonstrates "in a very elegant way, without removing any clothes," how an ordinary brassiere can be transformed into a pair of gas masks."I think the Ig Nobel is not just a funny thing," she said in an interview this afternoon. "If it makes people first laugh and then think, my discovery fits perfectly."

 I think the laugh, then think mantra is something that as a Defeatist, I can completely endorse. Unfortunately, most either don't think or think, then laugh. Or, we laugh bitterly and think about how it was all supposed to work. And didn't -- here is Professor Krugman's contribution to the festivities which he explains, demonstrates and gets the accounting wrong.

But last night I participated in the Ig Nobels, where I gave one of the 24/7 lectures. These are 24 seconds of impenetrable jargon, followed by a 7-word explanation of your field.

24: Given decentralized constrained optimization by maximizing agents with well-defined convex objective functions and/or convex production functions, engaging in exchange and production with free disposal, leads, in the absence of externalities, market power, and other distortions, there exists an equilibrium characterized by Pareto optimality.

7:Greedy people, competing, make the world go round.

Glenn Beck is Gilbert Gottfreid!

Glenn Beck has gone to Switzerland to close down an anti-Glenn Beck website. He has appealed to the New World Order and the Black Helicopters and the Illuminati to shut down a website. Talk about shock and awe! Read the post and then read the legal pleading. Cresca is right; I can't imagine another legal pleading with the words "Dr. Spock ate my balls..." or where such phrasing is more relevant. 

Baby Juice All Over The Street

So the Culture Ghost has been going through some rough times lately, putting it lightly, and I figured I'd cheer him up by sharing an email story about a recent vacation to Northern California which included Mrs.Fun and several of her hometown, longtime, friends.  we were basically in Napa Valley (hoity toity) boozing it up for 4 days.  

the dude that one of my wife's bff is dating is an American, whereas I am a Defeatist, and at one stop we were talking wines across the globe, looking at a map, and I mentioned coyly, knowing my audience, how Syrah originated in Iran (which is false!).  from this, the dude then goes and tries to correlate the black plague with the ottoman empire or some shit.  it was like he was trying to teach me a lesson.  "well ya know"  "them Muslims is bad.  they're not even human!  they caused the black plague!"  and he was trying to test me to see if I was catching his drift.  like I'd give him the ignorant white guy secret handshake.  we're on vacation and we're supposed to be having fun and instead half of us are trying to dismiss and/or one up the other half over shit none of us have any control over.  lucky for him the bff he is dating has the same opinion as the wife and I: our opinions don't really matter and it is no use arguing.  maybe it will rub off.

if America were a swaddled baby left on my doorstep I'd stomp on it in public.  baby juice all over the street.

Even better...

So let me see if I've got this right...If you have a job, you'll probably lose it. If you lose it, you'll probably never find another. If you quit your job, you will never find another. If you move, you won't be able to sell your house. If you get forced out of your house, you'll never be able to buy another. If you can't see the house you are about to be forced out of, you'll never get a job because you're a bad credit risk. And, if you never had a job and just joined the workforce, you're totally fucked. Think it's time for a visit from Doctor Leary...
 

And then, there's this bit of joy...the old people who aren't so old are stealing my money! Goddamn the widow Doonesbury.

"A lot of people who in better times would have continued working are opting to retire," said Alan J. Auerbach, an economics and law professor at the University of California, Berkeley. "If they were younger, we would call them unemployed. "Job losses are forcing more retirements even though an increasing number of older people want to keep working. Many can't afford to retire, especially after the financial collapse demolished their nest eggs.

Weimar Republic, anyone? Little gratuitous  Liza and Joel?

Read more at: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/09/27/early-retirements-strain-_n_301118.html

 

Dithering idiots...Plague, anyone?

Somehow, this simple explanation of why anyone with any sense is terrified of their financial future if they are not in the top 1 percent of the nation's wealthy has fallen off the top of the leader board and is ranked on HuffPost by the sad tale of Roman Polanski's arrest and pending extradition to the US for having sex with a minor 32 years ago. In the face of the recent spate of the Charles Manson family reunion tour, I gotta say, we are a vapid, moronic race, us human beings. Shovel-ready jobs? Shit. Normally, even in recessions, the delta (MBA talk for difference...drop it in conversation with the boss and then argue for a raise once things get a lot better) is really small, and based largely on location of talent and incorrect allocation of talent. I need computer programmers, but they're in New England and I'm in Arkansas; I need welders, but I'm in New England, and they're in Idaho. Or, I need engineers and welders and computer programmers, but I'm in New England and everybody who comes to see me has a degree in Etruscan studies or something. Some realignment, and whee...jobless rates go down.

Not happening this time; and that's worth some consideration. The work is not there; until someone starts buying stuff, the work will not be there. Until someone starts making stuff, the work of stocking and selling stuff is not going to be there. At some point, there has to be tangible increase in economic value, or as my old man explained to me when I was a young, inexperienced and optimistic sort, "nothing happens until somebody does some goddamn thing!"

Well, we have one political party that is intent on not doing a goddamn thing that Cotton Mather and Alexander Hamilton wouldn't have been on board for, and one that seems to be soul-less, rudderless and directionless. I kinda like Nancy Pelosi, but nobody is going to mistake her for Tip O'Neil or Sam Rayburn. Harry Reid is not Lyndon Johnson. Barrack Obama needs a Bobby Kennedy, somebody with a fucking conscious conscience. Instead, his enforcer turns out to be gutless. Just because you can swear doesn't make you tough. As the great Gilbert Roland says frequently in Bandido, "Aye, Chihuahua!"

Note: The AXE just spent a week on his back recovering from a bout of Walking Pneumonia. Every where I turn, people are sick. The flu season isn't usually at this point for months -- maybe Tiffany is going to cull the herd this year. We can make up the job delta (Jobs needed-jobs available) by reduction in job seekers while increasing the number of people involved in burying the dead.

Speaking of Cotton Mather --