Error message

Deprecated function: Array and string offset access syntax with curly braces is deprecated in include_once() (line 20 of /home/caucusni/public_html/includes/file.phar.inc).

02/16 Open Thread - National Innovation Day

Submitted by enhydra lutris on Mon, 02/16/2026 - 5:00am

```

```

~~ Da Vinci Bike

It's National Innovaton Day There are, FWIW, flow charts and process outlines for innovating. How to have an idea, you betcha, but mostly not quite that silly. Hey! How about that new iPhone, eh? Nudge, nudge. Sloganovation is rampant as are new financial and notional principal contracts but it's mostly refining old gimmicks. Ai is bigly innovating, if that's what you choose to call its penchant from hallucinatory deviations from reality, often shading into surrealism, but I'm not going to go there.

Dare I suggest that we make some old things new again, perhaps with an extra ~~kink~~ wrinkle of two? How about evidence based reality? Not AI this and that, but Actual this and that supported by actual evidence (as opposed to claims that evidence exits but is being kept secret for "reasons". It seems to me that in today's world of where assertions and accusations are treated and reported as fact that a shift to evidence only based be taken seriously would be an enormous innovation, and a very useful one to boot. How about "because national security" no longer be accepted as a reason for anything without en explanation of just how and why national security is otherwise at risk? How about "classified" documents and information need to have their classification justified at leasst annually? How about FISA warrants and non-judicial warrants require (are you ready for this?) probable cause?

It seems that a vast amount of progress, especially social progress could be achieved by going back and redoing things but doing them right. This could be things like replacing energy grids with micro-grids or making consumer goods reparable. We could revisit the bill of rights with a blanket amendment to remove all the judicially created exceptions and prevent future ones. We could add an explicitly stated right to privacy. We could outlaw telephone spam.. We could alter the accepted rules of jurisprudence to require that no oral or written testimony of law enforcement personnel be in any way presumed to be more truthful that that of any random individual. We could outlaw bribes and corruption. Of course, doing very much of this would require one particularly massive innovation, making government somehow responsive to the desires of the governed on more than the smallest town hall scale. The parties and politicians should be competing on the basis of how closely they work to bring about the wishes of their constituents or the populace at large. Fat chance.

**********

On this day in history:

1796 – Colombo, Ceylon (now Sri Lanka) fell to the British, completing their invasion of Ceylon.

1881 – The Canadian Pacific Railway was incorporated by Act of Parliament at Ottawa

1923 – Howard Carter unsealed the burial chamber of Pharaoh Tutankhamun.

1936 – The Popular Front won the 1936 Spanish general election leading to the coup that installed Franco

1937 – Wallace H. Carothers received a United States patent for nylon.

1940 –The German tanker Altmark was boarded by sailors from the British destroyer HMS Cossack in Norweigan (neutral) waters. A total of 299 British prisoners were freed.

1942 – A German U-boat attacked oil infrastructure on Aruba, the first German shots fired zt a land based object in the Americas in WWII.

1943 – In the early phases of the Third Battle of Kharkov, Red Army troops re-entered the city.

1945 – The Alaska Equal Rights Act of 1945, the first anti-discrimination law in the US, was signed into law.

1959 – Fidel Castro became Premier of Cuba after dictator Fulgencio Batista was overthrown on January 1.

1960 – The U.S. Navy submarine USS Triton set sail from New London, Connecticut, to begin the first submerged circumnavigation of the globe.

1968 – In Haleyville, Alabama, the first 9-1-1 emergency telephone system went into service.

1978 – The first computer bulletin board system, CBBS, was created in Chicago.

1985 – Though it emerged in 1982 as a defensive response to the Israeli invasion of Lebanon, Hezbollah is widelty treated as having been founded with the publication of its manifesto on February 16, 1985.

1991 – Nicaraguan Contras leader Enrique Bermúdez was assassinated in Managua.

2005 – The Kyoto Protocol came into force following its ratification by Russia. The US , however, has still not ratified it

**********

Some people who were born on this day:

Disinterested intellectual curiosity is the life blood of real civilization.

~~ G. M. Trevelyan

1497 – Philip Melanchthon, astronomer, theologian, and academic
1514 – Georg Joachim Rheticus, cartographer and instrument maker
1698 – Pierre Bouguer, mathematician, geophysicist, and astronomer
1727 – Nikolaus Joseph von Jacquin, botanist, chemist, and mycologist
1774 – Pierre Rode, violinist and composer
1804 – Karl Theodor Ernst von Siebold, physiologist and zoologist
1821 – Heinrich Barth, explorer and scholar
1822 – Francis Galton, biologist and statistician
1830 – Lars Hertervig, painter
1831 – Nikolai Leskov, author, playwright, and journalist
1834 – Ernst Haeckel, biologist, physician, and philosopher
1841 – Armand Guillaumin, painter
1843 – Henry M. Leland, engineer and businessman, founded Cadillac and Lincoln
1848 – Hugo de Vries, botanist, geneticist, and academic
1876 – G. M. Trevelyan, historian and academic
1901 – Wayne King, singer, songwriter, and conductor
1914 – Jimmy Wakely, country music singer, songwriter, and actor
1916 – Bill Doggett, pianist and composer
1925 – Ed Emshwiller, illustrator and experimental film maker
1931 – Otis Blackwell, singer, songwriter ,and pianist (
1935 – Sonny Bono, actor, singer, and politician
1935 – Stephen Gaskin, activist, co-founded The Farm
1937 – Yuri Manin, mathematician and academic
1938 – John Corigliano, composer and academic
1952 – James Ingram, singer, songwriter and producer
1953 – John Bradbury, musician, songwriter, and producer
1953 – Roberta Williams, video game designer, co-founded Sierra Entertainment
1960 – Pete Willis, guitarist and songwriter
1961 – Andy Taylor, singer, songwriter, guitarist, and producer
1962 – John Balance, singer amd songwriter
1965 – Dave Lombardo, musician and songwriter
1976 – Kyo, singer, songwriter, and producer
1977 – Ian Clarke, computer scientist, founded Freenet
1979 – Eric Mun, Korean singer and actor
1980 – Longineu W. Parsons III, musician and songwriter
1990 – The Weeknd, singer, songwriter and producer
1994 – Ava Max, singer and songwriter
1999 – Marie Ulven Ringheim, singer, songwriter and music producer
2000 – Koffee, singer, songwriter and rapper

**********

Some people who died on this day:

The public needs art - and it is the responsibility of a 'self-proclaimed artist' to realize that the public needs art, and not to make bourgeois art for a few and ignore the masses.

~~ Keith Haring

N.B. Samizdat isn't bourgeois art

1531 – Johannes Stöffler, mathematician and astronomer
1754 – Richard Mead, physician
1957 – Josef Hofmann, pianist and composer
1967 – Smiley Burnette, singer, songwriter, and actor
1974 – John Garand, engineer, designed the M1 Garand Rifle
1977 – Rózsa Péter, mathematician
1980 – Erich Hückel, physicist and chemist
1990 – Keith Haring, painter and activist
1992 – Angela Carter, novelist, short story writer
1996 – Brownie McGhee, singer, songwriter, and guitarist
1997 – Chien-Shiung Wu, physicist and academic
1998 – Mary Amdur, toxicologist and public health researcher
2001 – William Masters, gynecologist and sexologist
2003 – Rusty Magee, actor and composer
2004 – Doris Troy, singer and songwriter
2013 – Tony Sheridan, singer, songwriter, and guitarist
2014 – Kralle Krawinkel, guitarist
2015 – Lesley Gore, singer and songwriter
2015 – Lorena Rojas, actress and singer

**********

Some Holidays, Holy Days, Festivals, Feast Days, Days of Recognition, and such:

International Syrah Day
National Innovation Day
Tim Tam Day

**********

Today's Tunes

Howard Carter

Pierre Rode

Wayne King

Jimmy Wakely

Bill Doggett

Otis Blackwell

Sonny Bono,

John Bradbury

div align="center">-

Brownie McGhee

Doris Troy

Tony Sheridan

Lesley Gore

Bonus

**********

Ok, it's an open thread, so it's up to you folks now. What's on your mind?

I won't be here when this posts
Cross posted from http://caucus99percent.com

open thread, Innovation Day, Howard Carter, Bill Doggett, Otis Blackwell, Sonny Bono, Brownie McGhee, Doris Troy, Lesley Gore, Tony Sheridan

Tags:

Open Thread

Innovation Day

Howard Carter

Bill Doggett

Vote

Comments

Submitted by QMS on Mon, 02/16/2026 - 7:16am

Truly good innovative ideas

If the innovators could get beyond the marketing
departments with their 'focus groups' and ad managers,
we might see a slight uptick in new ideas for public
consumption? One could imagine.

Thanks for the OT.

—

Zionism is a social disease

Submitted by Lookout on Mon, 02/16/2026 - 7:28am

Good morning...

There's so much we could accomplish if we wanted. However, the system is in self preservation mode and will not allow reform...especially major reform. Round and round and down we go, it seems.

Oh well enjoy the trip. Glad I can hide here in the holler.

Thanks for all the music and the OT!

—

“Until justice rolls down like water and righteousness like a mighty stream.”

Submitted by fire with fire on Mon, 02/16/2026 - 7:52am

Crypto Opponent

Stephen A. Smith Offers Strongest Hint Yet at White House Bid

You can read the article to see how seriously he is being taken as a potential Leader of the Free World. There is even a quote from Trump stating the Presidential opinion that Steven A. would be formidable politician.

The ruling class is turning government into a sitcom. Leave it to Trumpy.

Followed by Steven A. Knows Best.

MY argument remains -- it is all a show to keep us distracted from the reality of Latest Capitalism and the Crypto Society.

—

I cried when I wrote this song. Sue me if I play too long.

Submitted by Cassiodorus on Mon, 02/16/2026 - 12:57pm

Innovation in "The Retreat From Autonomy"

I've recommended this piece several times before here at c99$. Here I'm going to lay out some interpretations that I've not made explicit.

https://site011.wordpress.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/05/castoriadis_pos...

The important paragraph is this one:

After the movements of the 1960s, the project of autonomy seems totally eclipsed. One may take this to be a very short-term, conjunctural development. But the growing weight, in contemporary societies, of privacy, depoliticisatio n and ‘individualism’ makes such an interpretation most unlikely. A grave concomitant and related symptom is the complete atrophy of political imagination. The intellectual pauperisation of ‘socialists’ and conservatives alike is staggering. ‘Socialists’ have nothing to say and the intellectual quality of the output of the advocates of economic liberalism over the last 15 years would have made Smith, Constant and Mill turn in their graves. Ronald Reagan was a chef d’œuvre of historical symbolism.

Here one remembers that Castoriadis put this out at the end of the Eighties. Castoriadis discusses how "the project of autonomy seems totally eclipsed." What he means, more or less, is that people-power is basically dead, and that oligarchic rule will from here on in be unchallenged. "Oh but this may be temporary," he offers -- he is offering this argument only to dismiss it as "most unlikely."

So, no, we are, from this perspective, in a new period of history, beginning in earnest in 1980: I would call it neoliberal dystopia. From then on in, your participation in reality will be filtered through "markets," as your actual participation in markets slowly shrinks to zero. Eventually, then, you will become irrelevant, and you will be sent to one of the new concentration camps or maybe just executed outright. AI will take your job. Trump 2.0 is what the elites of our society want, just as they wanted declining Biden. War with Iran is what they want. From this gloomy perspective, World War III is a mere consequence of the decline of the average rate of profit, the real driver of political action in this era. Divisions within the ruling class are basically theater. All resistance will be co-opted.

So, in fact, the problem has gotten far, far worse since Castoriadis wrote or spoke those words quoted above. Innovation? What the elites want is AI innovating in new ways to take your job.

This portion of Castoriadis' conclusion is also an important thing to understand:

But insofar as the development of capitalism has been decisively conditioned by the simultaneous deployment of the project of social and individual autonomy, modernity is finished. Capitalism developing while forced to face a continuous struggle against the status quo, on the floor of the factory as well as in the sphere of ideas or of art, and capitalism expanding without any effective internal opposition are two different social–historical animals. The project of autonomy itself is certainly not finished. But its trajectory during the last two centuries has proved the radical inadequacy, to say the least, of the programmes in which it had been embodied—be it the liberal republic or Marxist–Leninist ‘socialism’.

When Castoriadis means that modernity is finished, what he means (among other things) is that real progress can no longer be experienced through capitalism as it consumes our lives. "Progress" as it stands could be achieved if we were simply to use the tools of technology to do good things, rather than, for instance, to indulge Elon Musk's fantasies of space travel and wind up, instead, polluting near-Earth orbit with space junk.

The obvious conclusion to be drawn from such a reading of Castoriadis is that we should be developing a meaningful alternative to capitalism that isn't conditioned by liberalism or by Marxist-Leninism. Here one recalls that Castoriadis' opinino of Marxist-Leninism was conditioned by his brief participation, as a youth, in the run-up to the Greek Civil War, which he escaped by moving from Athens to Paris in 1945. He, in short, didn't like it, not at all. For our purposes, we might consider that Marxist-Leninism was basically an oh-so-limited deployment of "Communism" (a concept pregnant with wondrous possibilities) toward the much, much narrower end of the technological development of Russia and, beginning later, of China, on the basis of "war Communism." When that technological development was finished, so, too, was the Soviet Union. The Chinese leadership, on the other hand, appreciated the prospect of its doom at the beginning of the neoliberal era, and adapted accordingly. Here readers will notice that the Chinese government has undergone a series of recent purges, suggesting that even the Chinese model may not be the best we can do.

—

"I don't think the United States of America will last much longer than 2030." -- Indrajit Samarajiva

Submitted by ovals49 on Mon, 02/16/2026 - 2:12pm

The problem with Capitalism is

@Cassiodorus @Cassiodorus
that it is currently governed by an oligarchy of died-in-the-wool Capitalists. If it is to properly serve the common interests of the populace Profit can not be allowed to be King, as it now stands. Our militias as described in our Constitution required it to be “well regulated”, lest it run amok. Likewise, the three houses of government were designed to have each be in a position to temper or restrain the other two.
Lincoln’s Regulated Banking System was enacted in 1862 & 63.

The measures included:

-a nationally regulated private banking system, which would issue cheap credit to build industry;
-the issuance of government legal tender paper currency (the greenbacks);
-the sale of long-term, low-interest bonds (“5:20s”) to the general public and to the nationally chartered banks;
-the increase of tariffs until industry was running at full tilt (the Morrill Tariff);
-government construction of railroads into the middle South, promoting industrialism over the southern plantation system—what Carey called a “peace-winning program” to industrialize the South.

By the time of The Meeting at Jekyll Island The Greedhead Bankers were back running ~~our~~ their very own Federal Reserve Banking system, which now seems to be standing on a precipice.

Capitalism is a tool and a process. It is intrinsically neither good nor bad. It needs to be regulated by prudent, able and honest people, of which we seem to be sorely lacking.

I've recommended this piece several times before here at c99$. Here I'm going to lay out some interpretations that I've not made explicit. https://site011.wordpress.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/05/castoriadis_pos... The important paragraph is this one: After the movements of the 1960s, the project of autonomy seems totally eclipsed. One may take this to be a very short-term, conjunctural development. But the growing weight, in contemporary societies, of privacy, depoliticisatio n and ‘individualism’ makes such an interpretation most unlikely. A grave concomitant and related symptom is the complete atrophy of political imagination. The intellectual pauperisation of ‘socialists’ and conservatives alike is staggering. ‘Socialists’ have nothing to say and the intellectual quality of the output of the advocates of economic liberalism over the last 15 years would have made Smith, Constant and Mill turn in their graves. Ronald Reagan was a chef d’œuvre of historical symbolism. Here one remembers that Castoriadis put this out at the end of the Eighties. Castoriadis discusses how "the project of autonomy seems totally eclipsed." What he means, more or less, is that people-power is basically dead, and that oligarchic rule will from here on in be unchallenged. "Oh but this may be temporary," he offers -- he is offering this argument only to dismiss it as "most unlikely." So, no, we are, from this perspective, in a new period of history, beginning in earnest in 1980: I would call it neoliberal dystopia. From then on in, your participation in reality will be filtered through "markets," as your actual participation in markets slowly shrinks to zero. Eventually, then, you will become irrelevant, and you will be sent to one of the new concentration camps or maybe just executed outright. AI will take your job. Trump 2.0 is what the elites of our society want, just as they wanted declining Biden. War with Iran is what they want. From this gloomy perspective, World War III is a mere consequence of the decline of the average rate of profit, the real driver of political action in this era. Divisions within the ruling class are basically theater. All resistance will be co-opted. So, in fact, the problem has gotten far, far worse since Castoriadis wrote or spoke those words quoted above. Innovation? What the elites want is AI innovating in new ways to take your job. This portion of Castoriadis' conclusion is also an important thing to understand: But insofar as the development of capitalism has been decisively conditioned by the simultaneous deployment of the project of social and individual autonomy, modernity is finished. Capitalism developing while forced to face a continuous struggle against the status quo, on the floor of the factory as well as in the sphere of ideas or of art, and capitalism expanding without any effective internal opposition are two different social–historical animals. The project of autonomy itself is certainly not finished. But its trajectory during the last two centuries has proved the radical inadequacy, to say the least, of the programmes in which it had been embodied—be it the liberal republic or Marxist–Leninist ‘socialism’. When Castoriadis means that modernity is finished, what he means (among other things) is that real progress can no longer be experienced through capitalism as it consumes our lives. "Progress" as it stands could be achieved if we were simply to use the tools of technology to do good things, rather than, for instance, to indulge Elon Musk's fantasies of space travel and wind up, instead, polluting near-Earth orbit with space junk. The obvious conclusion to be drawn from such a reading of Castoriadis is that we should be developing a meaningful alternative to capitalism that isn't conditioned by liberalism or by Marxist-Leninism. Here one recalls that Castoriadis' opinino of Marxist-Leninism was conditioned by his brief participation, as a youth, in the run-up to the Greek Civil War, which he escaped by moving from Athens to Paris in 1945. He, in short, didn't like it, not at all. For our purposes, we might consider that Marxist-Leninism was basically an oh-so-limited deployment of "Communism" (a concept pregnant with wondrous possibilities) toward the much, much narrower end of the technological development of Russia and, beginning later, of China, on the basis of "war Communism." When that technological development was finished, so, too, was the Soviet Union. The Chinese leadership, on the other hand, appreciated the prospect of its doom at the beginning of the neoliberal era, and adapted accordingly. Here readers will notice that the Chinese government has undergone a series of recent purges, suggesting that even the Chinese model may not be the best we can do.

—

“Even in science, falsehood can not live for too long.”
- Immanuel Velikovski - Bonds of the Past (1972) https://youtu.be/kkS-jDzxnrU ]

Submitted by Cassiodorus on Mon, 02/16/2026 - 5:20pm

Thank you for responding.

@ovals49 The distinction Castoriadis is making between different capitalist regimes is not between regulated and unregulated. Rather, Castoriadis was concerned about whether or not the capitalist regime in any particular time or place was either opposed or unopposed:

Capitalism developing while forced to face a continuous struggle against the status quo, on the floor of the factory as well as in the sphere of ideas or of art, and capitalism expanding without any effective internal opposition are two different social–historical animals.

The key difference, for me as well as for Castoriadis, is one of whether or not you can conceive of our society being anything other than a capitalist society.

—

"I don't think the United States of America will last much longer than 2030." -- Indrajit Samarajiva

Submitted by ovals49 on Mon, 02/16/2026 - 7:48pm

Honestly, in reference to THIS particular society,

@Cassiodorus
I can not conceive of a viable path to transition to a non-capitalist society.

The key difference, for me as well as for Castoriadis, is one of whether or not you can conceive of our society being anything other than a capitalist society.

It’s simply too late to pivot to anything else. Our population is as divided in many frightened and hateful factions. We have been thoroughly tenderized by social engineering and what can only be called propaganda, from all directions. Where will we find the consensus from which to birth any new nation?

Why, the very notion of having a multitude of nations co-inhabiting this planet could very shortly become prohibited.

—

“Even in science, falsehood can not live for too long.”
- Immanuel Velikovski - Bonds of the Past (1972) https://youtu.be/kkS-jDzxnrU ]

Submitted by Cassiodorus on Tue, 02/17/2026 - 12:24am

It would appear that --

@ovals49 -- that's the difference between our time and theirs -- our time is characterized by what Mark Fisher called "capitalist realism."

—

"I don't think the United States of America will last much longer than 2030." -- Indrajit Samarajiva

Submitted by ovals49 on Tue, 02/17/2026 - 6:32am

Mark Fisher and I stand at antipodes.

@Cassiodorus
if the Wiki version of Capitalist Realism is accurate:

Capitalist realism is loosely defined as the predominant conception that capitalism is the only viable economic system

My position is that Capitalism can be a very effective economic engine, but is most dangerous and destructive when it is not effectively regulated. In the current situation the Capitalists are running the asylum, having captured those who govern with their largess.

I have no problem imagining an alternate economic systems that are less dangerous, but I cannot imagine the current Capitalist usurpation of our government yielding to effective regulation.

—

“Even in science, falsehood can not live for too long.”
- Immanuel Velikovski - Bonds of the Past (1972) https://youtu.be/kkS-jDzxnrU ]

Submitted by Cassiodorus on Tue, 02/17/2026 - 8:44am

Which one is it?

@ovals49 Is it:

I have no problem imagining an alternate economic systems that are less dangerous

Or is it

It’s simply too late to pivot to anything else

Or do you resolve this contradiction by thinking that you can imagine an alternative economic system, but that your imagination is of no consequence since it will never happen? Because if that's the way you resolve it, then you do not "stand at antipodes" with the late Mark Fisher.

(Please keep in mind that the idea of capitalist realism is that of something pervasive, not an attitude that is to be blamed upon someone.)

—

"I don't think the United States of America will last much longer than 2030." -- Indrajit Samarajiva

Submitted by QMS on Mon, 02/16/2026 - 10:52am

Methinks there will always exist room

.
for improvement in the social realm.
Perhaps not in our lifetime but you may
be surprised at the basic resilience of our
species. The trick is to frame the challenges
in a surmountable way.

—

Zionism is a social disease

Submitted by on the cusp on Mon, 02/16/2026 - 11:45am

5 minutes of humorous

Bondi Bashing. Well done and well deserved!

https://x.com/AwakenWithJP/status/2022400407721644119?ref_src=twsrc%5Etf...

—

"We'll know our disinformation program is complete when everything the American public believes is false." ---- William Casey, CIA Director, 1981

Submitted by on the cusp on Mon, 02/16/2026 - 12:05pm

Now, something frightening

—

"We'll know our disinformation program is complete when everything the American public believes is false." ---- William Casey, CIA Director, 1981

Submitted by on the cusp on Mon, 02/16/2026 - 2:17pm

A reaction to Rubio's Bring Back Colonialism speech

—

"We'll know our disinformation program is complete when everything the American public believes is false." ---- William Casey, CIA Director, 1981

Submitted by QMS on Mon, 02/16/2026 - 3:57pm

Today's line-up in the NOLA parades

8am Zulu - Uptown
7am Half-Fast Walking Club - start at Commander's Palace
7:30am Mondo Kayo Social and Marching Club - start at Third & Magazine
10:30am Rex - Uptown
followed by Krewe of Elks Orleans
followed by Krewe of Crescent City
Morning - Societé de Sainte Anne - Marigny/French Quarter

The Zulus' signature souvenir is tossing out the rare golden
coconut. Have seen them, but never caught one. Throw me something
mista!

—

Zionism is a social disease