Til Tuesday 01/26/16

"Do you all come here from different places?"

"There are some here from Siberia, some from Lapland, and I can see one or two from Iceland."

"But don't they fight each other for the pasture?"

"Dear me, you are a silly," she said. "There are no boundaries among the geese. How can you have boundaries, if you fly? You humans would have to stop fighting, in the end, if you really took to the air."

"I like fighting," said the Wart. "It is knightly."

"Because," she said, "you're a baby."

—T. H. White, The Once And Future King

In the beginning, there were not going to be any Tuesdays in the weeks. Instead, the plan was to have six days in each week—Sunday, Monday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, and Saturday. No "Tuesday."

There would be five of these six-day weeks in each month, each month totaling 30 days. With 12 of those months in a year, for a total of 360 days. At the end of each year, there would be an additional five-day period, known as the Heemblow, during which everyone could laugh and dance and sing and drink and copulate and otherwise make merry, without restraint or care, before grinding into the next 360-day wheel.

Everyone was pretty much happy with this plan. It looked like a "go" project. Until the partisans of Mars pitched a fit.

The Mars boors shrieked and moaned that there were days named for the Sun, the Moon, Mercury, Venus, Saturn, and Jupiter. So why not Mars?

Because, the Sane people replied, Mars is a pissant little godling who is Bad and Mean and Rude, always making wars and otherwise killing and ruining people, places, and things. It was a mistake, all now realized, naming a planet after the nimrod, and, now, inserting a day, devoted to the dick, into the calendar, well, that would simply wreck it.

The Mars barbarians, they threatened to bomb the calendar, if they did not get a Mars-day. But the Sane people, they held firm. And so they sent the calendar off to the printer, with just the six days. No Mars day. No "Tuesday."
4393424568_cd318f15e0_m.jpg
However, a noseless Mars oaf (see above) waylaid the messenger who was bearing the calendar, bonked him on the head, took the calendar, and scrawled a "Tuesday" in between the "Monday" and "Wednesday." That then required making some of the months 31 days, and one of them 28, and also removing the Heemblow. This the Mars goon did. All the months were now stupid and uneven, and the vital respite period—the Heemblow—had been wholly eliminated.

The thieving noseless head-bonking Marsian vulgarian then delivered to the printer the calendar the brute had spindled, folded, and mutilated. The printer, she didn't know these hand-written changes were unauthorized. She thought the changes were deeply stupid, but, she figured, well, a job's a job. And so she ran up a shit-ton of calendars, with the illegal Tuesdays inscribed therein, and all the months mucked-up.

When the calendars were delivered to the Sane people, they saw what had been done, and they were not pleased. But they reckoned: well, we might as well go with it, since all the calendars are printed and delivered, and they cost a lot of money; we'll see how it works out.

As it happened, it didn't work out well at all. And, as a result, all the Sane people, they eventually became Unsane, and now most don't even remember the way it was supposed to be, at all.

And that is the true and full story of how I happen to be sitting here typing up an open thread for a Tuesday.

It's basically all a bad accident.

As that was a pretty bad accident down in the Colorado nuke-bomb-hole, where somebody dropped a wrench or something, and caused $1.8 million in damage to an intercontinental ballistic missile that has no business existing in the first place.

All the US military is saying is that a human "mistakenly performed an action not directed by the technical guidance," and as a result the missile then "became nonoperational."

We don't know if this means the guy pissed on it, chewed on it, tried wildly with a wrench to unscrew the nose-cone, pretended he was Major Kong and proceeded to ride the thing, or what. The military refuses to state whether any radiation spewed out the bomb, but claims there was No Danger. But then, every time the military ever says, or writes, anything, they lie like a dog in the sun. So, when the reports begin coming in from nearby Peetz, Colorado (population 227, rapidly dwindling), of the faces of the people, melting in the streets, we will know Why.

It was also kind of a bad accident when restoration workers knocked off King Tut's beard, and then didn't tell anybody, but instead four times covertly went at it with Elmer's Glue.

They tried to do their best, but they could not.

Eventually the workers, they were Found Out, and now they have to go be in the trial. Because pretty much everybody, is having to go be in the trial, in Egypt, these days.

[video:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B_GaoU6BVPg]

Sometimes when people have an accident, they invent food.

One day in 1930, in the Toll House Inn in Whitman, Massachusetts, proprietress Ruth Graves Wakefield, she ran out of the baker's chocolate she used for her popular Butter Drop Do cookies. Guests were meanwhile loudly clamoring, wanting to stuff these cookies down their gobs. Wakefield, desperate, broke up a bar of Nestle's semisweet chocolate, and heaved fragments into her dough. She assumed the bits, they would melt and spread, as the cookies baked.

Wrong. The bits remained mostly firm and intact.

With trepidation, she fed the cookies to the fermenting yobs. Which pronounced the cookies divine. And thus, the chocolate-chip cookie was born.

Further back, in 1853, George Crum, chef at Moon's Lake House in Sarasota Springs, New York, he wanted to stab and shoot. Because a philistine in his dining room was bellowing that Crum's fried potaotes were thick, soggy, bland. The boob kept loudly demanding new, better, batches. Rather than stabbing or shooting, Crum, he sliced a potato paper-thin, fried the slices until a fork would shatter them, and then dumped aorta-blowing volumes of salt all over his creation. He served the resulting mess to the hollering rube. Who partook, and then proceeded to writhe in ecstasy. Crum's "Satagoa Chips," they quickly became all the rage. And are today what is known as "potato chips."

In these times, chocolate-chip cookies, they have remained relatively within the realm of reason. But potato chips, they are completely out of control. And they need, by someone, to be Stopped. For they are an accident, that is threatening to engulf the entire world. Like the accident of Ice 9.

It seems mostly to be the fault of the Lay's people. A company which has, since 1965, been owned by PepsiCo. A company which I think today owns most nations.

Probably they are lizard people.

For many years, there was just the "plain" variety of chips. Then, in 1958, came the Barbecue flavor. Lay's was content with just the two flavors, until the PepsiCo people arrived. And then came the Sour Cream & Onion variety. And then, soon, came flavors, without sense, or number.

Now, today, the flavors, they have metastasized into a realm literally beyond belief. Like the Ketchup flavor the Lay's people peddle in Saudi Arabia. Or the French Mayonnaise flavor they push in Thailand.

In recent years, in the US and Canada, the Lay's people have taken to churning out flavors first suggested, and then voted on, by the sort of people who suffer from a severe, probably incurable, potato-chip jones. The results have been horrors beyond the imaginings of even Colonel Kurtz. To wit: Maple Moose. Fries & Gravy and Roast Chicken. Cinnamon Bun. Cowboy BBQ Beans. Cheddar Bacon Mac & Cheese. Montreal Smoked Meat.

Just look, at what the Lay's "people," they will be foisting upon the palate, in this new year, 2016:
unnamed-2.jpg
When first the chip-addict-chosen Lay's flavors walked upon the land, I tried one. Because it was the flavor of Cheesy Garlic Bread. Which combines three of the essential food groups: cheese, garlic, bread. All that is really missing, is meat. And fire.

And because, for a couple years, way back then, I mostly lived on cheesy garlic bread. Served up, in massive slabs, for $1. Offering enough caloric sustenance to power even a wildly high-metabolism young adolescent male through to the next day. Courtesy a beer-and-bands joint called Canal Street. Which my brother, of course, instantly rechristened Anal Treat.

So, confronted with these chips, I knew what the motherfuckers were supposed to taste like.

I bought a small bag. I took it home. I opened it. I ate a couple.

No.

Below is a photo of one of the black men, trying to get into the bag. This I prevented. Because I was afraid. That if he would munch such a chip, he might transform into something like Mothra. And this fear, once I felt the effects of these chips on my own being, was fully justified.
nik-and-chipsii-1.jpg
I am remembering now a really bad accident that occurred with the nuke bombs back in Reagan-time.

A 32-cent computer-part failed, and this caused to flash on the big board, down there in the tomb of Colorado's Cheyenne Mountain, visions of Soviet ICBMs, streaking towards the US, set to detonate upon purple mountain majesties, across the fruited plain, from sea to shining sea.

American humans, they were supposed to, instantaneously, robotically, fire off their own ICBMs, when presented with such a vision. But these humans, they, in this instance, became human. They simply didn't believe. What they saw on the big board. They left off. To check whether the vision, there on the big board, was Real.

Which, they determined, it was not.

And so, the nukes, they did not, that day, fly. And so, we are all here today. On Tuesday. Day of Mars. The pissant.

Eventually, they discovered the failed 32-cent computer part.

Bad part.
[video:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dfPkmY6HwuI]
Bad part. Vladimir Putin. Pictured. Prune-faced. In his expansive new nuke-bomb big-board room.

Just another nutbomb. Be he.
Putin-War-Room.jpg
And, despite his occasional crocodile tears, for such as Crimea, not at all a friend of self-determination.

Crying yesterday in Tass that Lenin had "planted an atom bomb under the building called Russia and that bomb went off a while later," said bomb the "right [to secession], the delayed action mine planted under our statehood. This is what caused the country's eventual breakup." Lenin's permitting, over the objection of Stalin, a mechanism by which the republics within the federation might exercise the right to secede: this, a form of madness, Putin decreed, and, the borders drawn, these were "delirious."

This following upon Putin's earlier weeping that the collapse of the Soviet Union was the "great tragedy of the 20th century," because "25 million of Russian people suddenly turned out to be outside the borders of the Russian Federation. They used to live in one state; the Soviet Union has traditionally been called Russia, the Soviet Russia, and it was the great Russia. They used to live in one country and suddenly found themselves abroad." Sure. "Great Russia." Because that was a freaking ravenous never-satisfied imperial state, that gobbled up even more square miles in lands and peoples than perfidious Albion.

Poor Putin. He is so old and in the way. A really small, small-minded man. Still subsumed in the phantasm of his version of the herrenvolk. Which died, in the minds of all decent people, in the rubble of Berlin, in April 1945.

His precious "Russians." What—as the geese would say—a baby.

Putin is of course not alone in this nonsense. Geert Wilders, the various Le Pens, Pegida, The Hairball, etc.—they all suffer from the same sort of old and over ur-human atavism.

But they're all finished now. The world is, everywhere, a gumbo—many peoples, many cultures, many flavors, all mixed together, all rolled, lip-smackingly, nourishing, into one. That's just the way it is. And the way it increasingly will be. Until, at last, all the colors/bleed into one. Through everyone fucking each other. Until all are some very fine shade of brown.

People like Putin and Pegida and The Hairball—they are like those soldiers that battlefield medics speak of, who are killed while running, but do not recognize that they are dead, until they stop.
Ikvm6CG.png
I keep trying to get the Starship Enterprise to fly by here, to beam Bones down, to pronounce the immortal words—"He's dead, Jim"—while one of these numbnuts is on stage, and speaking. Uhura patched in today to say she thinks maybe the craft can come by, if only briefly, for an upcoming Hairball appearance. Let us but fervently hope.

And speaking of nutbombs and The Hairball, a very astute anonymous tubular wit has intuited that The Hairball & Co. are most precisely the sort of demons who infest the Overlook Hotel.
[video:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ufeliruQBDg]
While attendees at an NYC Yiddish confab, having examined—with tweezers—the micro-schlong of The Hairball, did pronounce, concisely, the essential truth: "Everything he says is disgusting, and he intends it to be disgusting."

And Chauncey DeVega, again, perfectly nails The Hairball as an old white shriveled sadsack crying against the dying of the white-supremacist light. As The Hairball imagines himself "a street enforcer vigilante who uses his gun to 'stop the bad guys' while he kills the families of America's enemies, and tortures 'terrorists.'"

Which is why all the dim-bulb dying shriveled white people, they love The Hairball so. Their savior. Come to roll, all that is, in any way, black, all the way back. Starting with that goddam Kenyan. Dirtying every night, there in the White House, the white sheets, of the first bed, of the nation.

I like to tube through Snopes every now and again to check in on what people can bring themselves to believe. And the answer is, always: anything. For instance, and of recent vintage: Queen Elizabeth has decreed that if The Hairball is elected president she shall snatch the US back into the UK, thereby preventing his ascension to office; that the Kenyan has issued a full and complete pardon to Bill Cosby; and that Clinton I confessed to Tony Blair that he likes to punch big slabs of ham.

Also, there is no more evidence that the Cranky Brooklyn Deli Man is in this picture:
bernie-sanders-selma.jpg
than there is that he is in this one:
63545427.jpg

And no, the milk of the hippopotamus, it is not pink.

Neither is it accurate that red foxes scream when they find their perfect soulmate. Instead, this is a belief based on "just a random comment made by a random Tumblr user."

The claim that a red fox screams when it finds its soulmate was not based on any scientific research. It was completely made up by a Tumblr user after watching a three second Vine video.

And that pretty much sums up the current age. People wander around with their cabezas crammed with "knowledge," that they obtained, from random comments, from random tube users, comments emitted, after said users, have, maybe, viewed a three-second video.

Brains, that are, basically, accident scenes. Too often produced and directed, by some form of Mars.
[video:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4JZO69hhHeE]

In the calendar as you and I originally designed it, before the Mars bunglers stole it all away, and sucked out most all our brains: every night, it was something, like Christmas Eve, and every day, it was something, like Christmas Day.
12390825_1102357746461644_7300792832496614839_n.jpg

[video:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0eDtvJLJxkw]

Share
up
0 users have voted.

Comments

hecate's picture

up
0 users have voted.

no wonder I can't keep up!

no fan of Putin but he pulled off a win in Syria - from Juan Cole
Top 5 Ways Putin has won big in Syria and why Europe is embracing him

Russia is so far winning big in Syria, and making Moscow’s projection of force in the Middle East a reality that the other great powers have to recognize. As Russia has emerged as a major combatant against Syrian al-Qaeda and against Daesh (ISIS, ISIL), it is being accepted back into a Europe traumatized by two major attacks on Paris. France is signalling that it hopes to end sanctions on Russia over Ukraine by this summer. While the Minsk peace process is going all right, the motivation here is to ally more closely with Moscow against Muslim radicals in the wake of Russia’s successes against them in Syria.

Russia’s intervention in Syria last October was in many ways a desperate measure and a gamble. It is said that in mid-summer of 2015, Iranian special forces commander Qasem Soleimani flew to Moscow with a blunt message. The Syrian regime was going to fall if things went on the way they were going and Iran did not have the resources to stop it.

our foreign policy, our war policy, is so screwed up that it now threatens to break up the European Union

and we hunker down to fight the biggest threat in the history of the world, ISIS

while the youth have figured out that the climate is the real issue

interesting to see how dailykos is becoming relevant BECAUSE OF BERNIE!

it was not the democratic party that made the site relevant again

is is Bernie who has made politics relevant

up
0 users have voted.
hecate's picture

fail to see how Putin is "winning" anything. He is killing people.

Are the bodies he snuffs into death worth less than those that others kill?

If so, by what measurement?

Let's pull their dead heads out of the sand, and ask them:

"Is it way-okay that you're dead, dude, because it was a Russian plane that blew all your brains out onto the dirt? Whereas the dude, the one with no guts, lying next to you, killed by the USA, his death, in contrast, is Bad and Wrong?"

up
0 users have voted.

interesting to see how dailykos is becoming relevant BECAUSE OF BERNIE!

it was not the democratic party that made the site relevant again

is is Bernie who has made politics relevant

I just said the same thing to you over there. I think your comment about her and Kissinger show what's in store for the world if this awful woman beats Bernie.

up
0 users have voted.

"Religion is what keeps the poor from murdering the rich."--Napoleon

detroitmechworks's picture

Because so many Hillary fans are accusing Bernie supporters of "Whitesplaining"...

Hillsplaining: To condescendingly explain that all of your points are invalid because you are a Racist/Sexist.

up
0 users have voted.

I do not pretend I know what I do not know.

hecate's picture

here is how the Cranky Brooklyn Deli Man is making "politics relevant."
CXac3T8VAAALxWc.jpg
Milking a cow.

Sucking at teats.

Like any other politician. Sucking at teats. For votes.

up
0 users have voted.

Votes sound pretty democratic to me.

up
0 users have voted.

"Religion is what keeps the poor from murdering the rich."--Napoleon

hecate's picture

the Cranky Brooklyn Deli Man. I hope he gets to be the president. Though I think he would then disappoint people here. As did the Kenyan.

up
0 users have voted.
shaharazade's picture

over Bernie's brand of 'leadership' over having the evil fucks that rule the world, giving this mad woman the power to enforce their insane agenda. Obomer did not disappoint me by the time he got elected I had figured out he was a con man. He did surprise me with the scope of his nastiness which like Hillary came shining through regardless of his rhetorical and marketing skills. Can't blame the people for trying to pry the blood sucking vampire squid off humanities face. I quit working for Obama's primary campaign when he voted for FISA. When I called my district boss, a young woman, to tell her I could no longer hack selling his lying double speak she said i understand but remember it's not about Obama, it's the movement of the people who support change that's important they will still be there even if he is a ringer.

I have faith in the people who have not given up and come back again to support some damn change they can believe in after being bitten in the ass by Obomer. So I do support Bernie with eyes wide open as regardless of the outcome if he wins or loses ordinary people do not like what's going down. I don't think any pol at this point can turn this global mess around but it's a good thing that humans are waking up. People can and do stop these want to rule the world greedy bastards that always say they are inevitable. If unchecked they always go too far. I would prefer a political revolution rather then a bloody one as they seem to work better for one thing. Violent overthrows seem to lead back to another set of psycho's running the show. It's an ongoing ancient game and this is just one move forward in the progress of human consciousness. Disappointment because of a pol's performance once given token power seems silly given that the wheels of power just keep turning.

Big wheel just a keep on turning
And the fire just a keep on burning
Big boat just keep on rocking
Opportunuity just keep on knocking

Oh we got love....

up
0 users have voted.

He got whip lash he flip-flopped so fast after his inauguration. He is a liar. The way he treated our youth, he makes me feel like I need to take shower. As charming as he is, I think he's a sleazebucket.

If Bernie has to disappoint us, it will be because he "has" to; and he will tell us why. I can understand how fed up with the politicians and political process we all are, but Bernie is one of the last slivers of decent out there. If not him, who? I don't see any alternatives, do you? Jill Stein is nice, but she's got as much chance as O'Malley. As a protest vote, fine. What else is there?

If I sound snippy - I don't mean to. I'm at dkos and that place so pisses me off. I am hostesing and defending my diary on the rec. list. If it gets totally nuts, I'll just leave. I can't stand all the squabbling. Why do they think if they repeat the same thing for 100 times, I'll change my mind on 101?

up
0 users have voted.

"Religion is what keeps the poor from murdering the rich."--Napoleon

shaharazade's picture

It seems to be getting totally nuts but that's what happens if you dare to denigrate the 'progress' the Democratic party has made since Clinton and the Third Wayer's (formerly known as the DLC) have made. It's amazing how stupid and illoogical the blind royalist Democratic followers are. It's like arguing with a dining room table as some bent (now a lobbyist) pol said about the tea party.

up
0 users have voted.

When the rec list gets too right wing, I like to see it shaken up. I don't normally have the umpf to get a diary up there, but sometimes it does happen. Why would we appoint anyone to the FDA who knows something about public health.

up
0 users have voted.

"Religion is what keeps the poor from murdering the rich."--Napoleon

cybrestrike's picture

Couch. I laughed so bloody hard at that. I must admit--I love Lays potato chips (they're my favorite salty snack, cholesterol and high blood pressure be damned). The plain ones are the best, of course, but I've had a ton of other flavors. Even Ketchup. It sounds weird, but they're actually surprisingly tasty. And yeah, I remember the simpler time of only having two flavors of Lays. Those were simpler times. Then Sour Cream & Onion came along and things went crazy after that. Hell, look at Doritos.

Ta-Nehisi Coates is getting lots of backlash on his reparations critique of Sanders. Lots of people questioning the timing of his piece, and the fact that he didn't target Clinton or O'Malley on this.

I skipped the forum last night--watched some of the highlights though. Nothing changed my mind or is going to change anyone else's minds at this point. I hope Sanders' ground game in Iowa is on point. If he takes the majority of delegates and is declared the winner, things will become very interesting. Oh, hold up--Chris Cuomo was terrible as a moderator. Guess he's trying to get a promotion in the Village with his false choices and weighted questions towards Sanders.

Over at the GOS, Brainwrap is lamenting the fact that people called him out on misrepresenting Sanders' health care plan, while not even looking at the fact that Clinton doesn't even have one, or that the ACA was flawed. He'll eventually learn about Silly Season. Or one would hope he would figure it out. Even Teacherken got criticized heavily for his vacuous and rambling endorsement of Clinton months ago. No one is above criticism.

Okay, busy day at work. Ought to get back to it...

up
0 users have voted.

Maybe if he updates his diary five or six more times, he'll get enough extra clicks to keep him on the rec list for another 20 minutes. I watched brainwrap in action at NN in Detroit. He was promoting himself non-stop and truly sucking up everywhere. Eclectablog oth was a genuine and gracious contributor to the event taking place in his backyard. After that, I wouldn't give you 2 cents for brainwrap. He's definitely the kind of guy you don't want to turn your back to. Krugman got insulted back - big fucking deal. If Hillary and her supporters aren't hugging Kissinger, they're hanging themselves from a cross.

up
0 users have voted.

"Religion is what keeps the poor from murdering the rich."--Napoleon

hecate's picture

has a very fine and elegant response to those who would try to evade his critique by shaking the fetish of Clinton II.

Yes. Doritos. They are beyond control, too. ; )

up
0 users have voted.
JayRaye's picture

for Brainwrap.

I'll save the big violin for the many many people who got the Bronze plan in order to fulfill the mandate that they purchase insurance and then have no money left over to the pay the high-dollar co-pay for, you know, actual health care.

Time was when progressives would unite against a corrupt industry with blood on its hands, but now so-called progressive go all out to defend a law, written by that industry, which mandates citizens to pay a tribute each and every month to that industry whose purpose is make a profit by denying health care.

What could possibly go wrong with a law which puts the insurance racket in charge of the nation's health care system?

up
0 users have voted.

Never be deceived that the rich will allow you to vote away their wealth.-Lucy Parsons

I miss what was and really have my fingers crossed that my grandsons will be able to say the same.

up
0 users have voted.

"Religion is what keeps the poor from murdering the rich."--Napoleon

shaharazade's picture

Healthcare for profit is an oxymoron. It's just a mind blow that we have to keep fighting the same fight over and over. It's even weirder we're battling the Dem. party that claims to be better then. They are way more dangerous in my opinion as they bill themselves as better then and refuse to deliver due to unbelievable bogus excuses. The viscous RW dog ate my homework and obstructed progress, Victories for Compromise, 60 out of 100 is the new majority, CEO's are people too my friends, and the ever popular 'I'm really good at killing people'. this D administration's achievement list is pure unadulterated double speak. It requires everyone to use double think and insist that this is progress. It isn't even progress compared to the Bushies who reversed all human progress here and in the world at large.

up
0 users have voted.
enhydra lutris's picture

I have 2 cents worth to interject. I am a birder. I have birded in North, Central and South America, Europe, Africa, the Pacific, Caribbean and coastal Atlantic, the tropics and the arctic, mountains, plains and deserts. I have learned, among other things, that birds do fight, even in my own yard. They do not, it seems, make war as tribes and nations do, though those who have appeared to threaten a murder of crows' roosting or nesting tree might argue otherwise. This in no way diminishes your glorious intro, however, because the willing suspension of disbelief is strong regarding such things.

Somebody was punished for a missile mishap that took a missile offline, it is well and widely known, but WTF? Damage of $1.8 million at Pentagon prices, what's that, a broken bolt? The Pentagon doesn't even try to account for paltry millions, especially in quantities of less than tens. They routinely lose billions, magikal mystery money that simply vanished unaccounted for. It is a miracle that the people on the ground could even tally such a small sum as $1.8 million. How serious could this really be, except that we can't fire the damn thing at the evil hordes should they swarm at us within the next week or two. Round it up, 2 million. There are a shitload of houses not all that far from me in almost any direction that cost more than that, and they aren't even Pentagon priced.

Now, about that inventing food by accident. Since I first heard the query posed as a youth, I have been unable to stop wondering how the person who invented cottage cheese knew that it was done. Also, how did they know that it was food? Look at it. It looks like the product of an upset stomach.

And Lays(tm). They made the best corn chip on the planet, the original, regular old plain Doritos. Now they have some god-awful accumulation of flavors of Doritos, but nary a bag of good old fashioned plain Doritos can be found. I blame PepsiCo, Inc, but I also fault the management of the Lays division for not holding out and threatening a company wide strike or something.

OK, that's more like 3 cent's worth, but what's a penny or two when we're talking millyuns.

up
0 users have voted.

That, in its essence, is fascism--ownership of government by an individual, by a group, or by any other controlling private power. -- Franklin D. Roosevelt --

hecate's picture

with you that cottage cheese is not food. It is anathema nearly as ungodly as mayonnaise.

I think bags of Lay's potato chips should be emptied into all the nuke holes until all the missiles are covered over. Then all the button-pushers can strip off their stripes and go work in animal shelters.

Birds will, on occasion, fight with one another. But they will never break all our brains by quarreling without sense or surcease over some nonsense like "Ukraine."

up
0 users have voted.

link

Ask any economist what issue they agree on, and the first answer you’re likely to hear is “free trade is good.” The general public disagrees vehemently, but economists are almost unanimous on this point.

But look at actual economics research, and you will find a very different picture. The most recent example is a paper by celebrated labor economists David Autor, David Dorn and Gordon Hanson, titled “The China Shock: Learning from Labor Market Adjustment to Large Changes in Trade.” The study shows that increased trade with China caused severe and permanent harm to many American workers:

Adjustment in local labor markets is remarkably slow, with wages and labor-force participation rates remaining depressed and unemployment rates remaining elevated for at least a full decade after the China trade shock commences. Exposed workers experience greater job churning and reduced lifetime income. At the national level, employment has fallen in U.S. industries more exposed to import competition...but offsetting employment gains in other industries have yet to materialize.

Autor, et al. show powerful evidence that industries and regions that have been more exposed to Chinese import competition since 2000 -- the year China joined the World Trade Organization -- have been hit hard and have not recovered. Workers in these industries and regions don't go on to better jobs, or even similar jobs in different industries. Instead, they shuffle from low-paid job to low-paid job, never recovering the prosperity they had before Chinese competition hit. Many of them end up on welfare. This is very different from earlier decades, when workers who lost their jobs to import competition usually went into higher-productivity industries, to the benefit of almost everyone.

In other words, the public might have been wrong about free trade in the 1980s and 1990s, but things have changed. Popular opinion seems to be exactly right about the effect of trade with China -- it has killed jobs and damaged the lives of many, many Americans. Economists may blithely declare that free trade is wonderful, but our best researchers have now shown that public misgivings about these smooth assurances have been completely justified.

up
0 users have voted.

Just an innocent gift

Saudi Arabia's royal family gave Malaysian Prime Minister Najib Razak a $681 million gift, an investigation revealed Tuesday — but officials ruled there was no corruption involved.

Malaysian Attorney General Mohamed Apandi Ali told reporters that he was satisfied that the funds in Najib's account were "not a form of graft or bribery" and that "no criminal offence" had been committed in relation to the funds, according to Reuters reports.

"There was no reason given as to why the donation was made to PM Najib, that is between him and the Saudi family," Reuters reported the attorney general as saying.

Dow Jones reported that the AG also told the press conference that Najib returned $620 million of the cash to his Saudi donor as it "wasn't utilized."

According to Reuters, Apandi told the press conference that there was no need for Malaysia to seek "legal assistance" from any other country in order to investigate the funds, because he had found that no offence had been committed.

OK. Three things:
1) What happened to the other $61 million?
2) No one, not even Saudi royalty gives away 2/3rd of a Billion dollars without expecting something in return. So what was it?
3) Who gave him the money?

Oh, wait. We don't need to know.

At the height of the scandal in mid-2015, Attorney-General Abdul Gani Patail — who had led probes into 1MDB — was suddenly replaced by Apandi, a former federal court judge with strong ties to UMNO, which has held power in Malaysia since 1957.

On Tuesday, Lim Kit Siang, the parliamentary leader of the opposition Democratic Action Party, said that it was inappropriate for Apandi to make a decision on whether offences were committed in the cases because the attorney general was appointed by Najib himself.

"It was very controversial circumstances when Gani Patail was sacked. It is a conflict of interest," he said.

It's all innocent. Just $700 million between politically-connected friends.

up
0 users have voted.

link

China’s benchmark index plunged more than 6% Tuesday, after a renewed slump in oil prices kept investors on edge about the global economy.​
The Shanghai composite index dived 6.4% to 2749.79 — its lowest close since Dec.1, 2014 — continuing weeks of volatility for Chinese stocks.

HangSeng.jpg
Between this and $1 Trillion fleeing China this past year, we might be close to a tipping point.

up
0 users have voted.

perfectly acceptable

(Reuters) - Denmark's parliament passed measures on Tuesday aimed at deterring refugees from seeking asylum, including confiscating valuables to pay for their stay, despite protests from international human rights organizations.

The measures, which also include extending family reunification among refugees from one year to three years, are the latest sign that the Nordic welcome for refugees is waning as large numbers flee war in Africa and Middle East for a better life in Europe.

The "jewelry bill" is the latest attempt by Denmark's minority center-right government to curb immigration to a country that took in a record 20,000 refugees last year.

Under the bill, refugees could keep possessions amounting to 10,000 Danish crowns ($1,450), raised from 3,000 crowns after criticism from human rights organizations. Valuables of special emotional value such as wedding rings will be exempt.

up
0 users have voted.

up
0 users have voted.

Cubans

HIDALGO – At least 7,000 Cuban refugees are expected to come to the border in the next coming days.

The activity at the Hidalgo International Bridge continues. For 40 years, Jose Angel Rodriguez has made his living driving a cab.

He said he’s seeing more Cubans crossing the port of entry. “They get here every night, in the morning, and at night they get here. They go to Laredo, too,” Rodriguez said.

I've been watching this. The opening of relations with Cuba has meant a flood of refugees from Cuba going to central and south america on their way to the USA.

up
0 users have voted.
mimi's picture

only question at the moment:

But they're all finished now. The world is, everywhere, a gumbo—many peoples, many cultures, many flavors, all mixed together, all rolled, lip-smackingly, nourishing, into one. That's just the way it is. And the way it increasingly will be. Until, at last, all the colors/bleed into one. Through everyone fucking each other. Until all are some very fine shade of brown.

I clicked on the link in there and it lead to the book of Color me English - by Carol Phyllips - Migration and Belonging before and after 9/11.
Totally un-read and not knowing with what kind of book I would be dealing with, if I were to read it (I should), that "hypothesis" that we made all end up in a "very fine shade of brown" by "everyone fucking each other", that hypothesis I intend to research thoroughly one day, because I hesitate to believe in it. May be I can find enough fact based and /or scientific arguments to challenge the hypothesis one day.

[redacted the rest of the former comment]
Ok, after thinking it over, I believe that the time has not come for this kind of comment and may be will never come. So, I can as well redact it and live without it. It's just a personal pet thingy of an idea and not for further public consumption.

In fact I hope that the hypothesis stated would have some positive effects and might come through, but then I have already another thought in my mind, which I won't post. How relieving to be able to think freely. My thoughts are mine.
Smile
Thanks for your patience.

up
0 users have voted.
hecate's picture

was meant only to reference that book's invocation of the film Bulworth, which is where the "fucking" quote comes from, and is the page of the book where the link lands. I know nothing about the book as a whole. I linked that page because the tubes does not offer a film clip from the movie itself.

up
0 users have voted.
lotlizard's picture

June—moon—noon—spoon
Ever—never
Blue—true—you
Love—dove—above

A. We are more numerous than they are, therefore we have a right to their mash.
B. They are more numerous than we are, therefore they are wickedly trying to steal our mash.
C. We are a mighty race and have a natural right to subjugate their puny one.
D. They are a mighty race and are unnaturally trying to subjugate our inoffensive one.
E. We must attack them in self-defense.
F. They are attacking us by defending themselves.
G. If we do not attack them today, they will attack us tomorrow.
H. In any case we are not attacking them at all. We are offering them incalculable benefits.

up
0 users have voted.