fun with facial hair

Because of an agreement with some of my male classmates, I haven't shaved in a long time.  I have a bushy red-blonde thing all over my face.  MAN BEARD BLOG would be proud.  (I think.)  But that agreement also stipulates that the new year brings Mustache January, which is going to be pretty scary.  Will I last a full month?  Hard to say.  Maybe I'll post some pictures.  Maybe.

tags

ima trim some of my tags.  i don't imagine anyone cares.

For now I just want to say that this Israel-Gaza shit pisses me the fuck off.  And makes me sad.

A Christmas Tale

There are lots of people who have no interest in religion but who will be going to church this week just to please family members. Others will decide not to attend church services but will feel guilty about causing tension by breaking with tradition. Both of these situations are unfortunate.

It is easy to lose sight of an important point: the tension isn't caused by you skipping a ceremony. It is caused by people who expect that you should feel obligated to do something you don't want to do. So you have nothing to feel guilty about.

But still, if you skip church, that might make someone feel bad, and you probably don't want that, even if the blame isn't on you.

It strikes me that two reasonable people who care about each other's feelings might come to an agreement. Tell Mom or whoever that you don't want to go to church, but you know that she wants you to go. Say that you thought that rather than go through the motions of showing up and daydreaming through the service just to please her and quietly wishing that you didn't have to spend your time this way, you were hoping that you could make a deal. If what is important to her is that you go, then you'll go and pay very close attention to everything. You'll even bring a pen and paper to take notes. And since you'd be giving up your time for her, in exchange you'd like her to spend an equal amount of time to a conversation about the service, where you can express things that bother you about it. That way you spend time doing something important to her, and she'll spend time doing something important to you.

It is pretty hard to imagine this actually going over well, probably because it is hard to imagine two reasonable people being in this situation in the first place.

JJ Wayne

It has been a while since J.J.'s fine work was featured here. Wait no longer!

J.J. loves Batman

Magic SG J.J. Redick may be in a no-man's land of sorts in the Magic rotation, but he is finding a way to kill the downtime.

Redick said recently that he has seen the newest Batman movie, The Dark Knight, about 10 times. Asked to expound on his obsession with the flick, Redick defended his viewing habits.

"It's deep," he said. "You have to pay attention to the dialogue."

hiber nation

Last few days have been high temperatures in the 20s or lower (F, although most people use C up here), and lots of snow. Forecasts call for more of the same. I've been drinking beer and sleeping a lot. Such is Canada, eh?

Here's the view out our back window:

the US role in the UN

America, FUCK YEAH:

On the right to food posted by lenin

In favour: Afghanistan, Albania, Algeria, Andorra, Angola, Antigua and Barbuda, Argentina, Armenia, Australia, Austria, Azerbaijan, Bahamas, Bahrain, Bangladesh, Barbados, Belarus, Belgium, Belize, Benin, Bhutan, Bolivia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Botswana, Brazil, Brunei Darussalam, Bulgaria, Burkina Faso, Burundi, Cambodia, Cameroon, Canada, Cape Verde, Chad, Chile, China, Colombia, Comoros, Congo, Costa Rica, Côte d’Ivoire, Croatia, Cuba, Cyprus, Czech Republic, Democratic People’s Republic of Korea, Denmark, Djibouti, Dominica, Dominican Republic, Ecuador, Egypt, El Salvador, Equatorial Guinea, Eritrea, Estonia, Ethiopia, Fiji, Finland, France, Gabon, Gambia, Georgia, Germany, Ghana, Greece, Grenada, Guinea, Guinea-Bissau, Guyana, Haiti, Honduras, Hungary, Iceland, India, Indonesia, Iran, Iraq, Ireland, Israel, Italy, Jamaica, Japan, Jordan, Kazakhstan, Kenya, Kuwait, Kyrgyzstan, Lao People’s Democratic Republic, Latvia, Lebanon, Lesotho, Liberia, Libya, Liechtenstein, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Madagascar, Malawi, Malaysia, Maldives, Mali, Malta, Mauritania, Mauritius, Mexico, Micronesia (Federated States of), Monaco, Mongolia, Montenegro, Morocco, Mozambique, Myanmar, Namibia, Nauru, Nepal, Netherlands, New Zealand, Nicaragua, Niger, Nigeria, Norway, Oman, Pakistan, Panama, Papua New Guinea, Paraguay, Peru, Philippines, Poland, Portugal, Qatar, Republic of Korea, Republic of Moldova, Romania, Russian Federation, Rwanda, Saint Lucia, Saint Vincent and the Grenadines, Samoa, San Marino, Saudi Arabia, Senegal, Serbia, Sierra Leone, Singapore, Slovakia, Slovenia, Solomon Islands, South Africa, Spain, Sri Lanka, Sudan, Suriname, Swaziland, Sweden, Switzerland, Syria, Tajikistan, Thailand, the former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia, Timor-Leste, Togo, Tonga, Trinidad and Tobago, Tunisia, Turkey, Turkmenistan, Uganda, Ukraine, United Arab Emirates, United Kingdom, United Republic of Tanzania, Uruguay, Uzbekistan, Vanuatu, Venezuela, Viet Nam, Yemen, Zambia, Zimbabwe.

Against: United States.

sad news

Carol Chomsky dead at 78. Hope the family does ok, and that her husband (of 59 years!) Noam keeps working for a long time.

Heros and Criminals, Shoe-Throwers and Presidents

In terms of the moral significance of the action, throwing a shoe at somebody is somewhere between calling him a motherfucker and punching him (the merciless beatings al-Zaidi has endured are far greater crimes than throwing shoes). It is basically like a hard slap in the face. The primary purpose is to humiliate the victim, but there is also the known risk, if not outright intention, of inflicting minor physical harm. Because of the slightly violent nature of the act, I wouldn't throw a shoe at Bush to make a political point. And I wouldn't call someone who did a hero.

If I accepted the criminal justice system as an appropriate avenue for dealing with these kinds of situations, I'd probably say throwing a shoe at a politician deserves a very minor sentence - a few nights in jail, a small fine, some community service, probation, or whatever. I'd definitely say that anyone who condemns Muntathar al-Zaidi even the slightest bit without noting that his minor transgression was an emotional reaction to a series of unspeakably horrific organized crimes committed by George Bush is so morally depraved as to be unworthy of commenting on such matters.

So I understand why many people consider al-Zaidi a hero. He bravely stood up to a powerful evil, knowing he would face severe consequences for doing so. There is something heroic about that, but I'd prefer to see heroic acts that don't involve even minor levels of violence.

That said, I'll add my powerless voice to those calling for al-Zaidi's immediate release. And I'll continue to call for real criminals like George Bush to face justice.

when science is really worth it

If you manage to make it to the 22nd page of this paper*, you'll read one of the most entertaining paragraphs in the history of science. (By the way MS is "mortality salience," which basically means being confronted with the inevitability of your own death.)

More recently, Solomon, Pyszczynski, Cohen and Ogilvie (in press) demonstrated that a reminder of death increased peoples’ reports of flying fantasies and desire to fly; a behavior that, for humans without mechanical assistance, clearly violates the laws of nature. As importantly, asking people to imagine themselves flying eliminated a widely replicated MS-induced worldview defense. Specifically, whereas MS increased affection for President Bush among American participants relative to controls (replicating Landau et al., 2004b), imagining oneself flying completely eliminated this effect. These results are shown in Figure 2.

Here is the amazing Figure 2:


Please share with me your favorite part about the paragraph or the figure. I think my favorite part is the implication that if you ever find yourself in the upsetting condition of feeling affectionate towards George Bush, just imagine yourself flying and you'll be cured.


* Landau, M. J., Solomon, S., Pyszczynski, T., & Greenberg, J. (2007). On the compatibility of terror management theory and perspectives on human evolution. Evolutionary Psychology, 5, 476-519.

man to possess a plant. men with guns will punish him.

Man renounces US Citizenship, becomes stateless

PRESS RELEASE

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Bratislava resident renounces American citizenship, becomes stateless person

BRATISLAVA, SLOVAKIA, 10 December 2008 – Citing US war, human rights abuses, rapacious state capitalism and hypocrisy, Bratislava resident Michael Gogulski announced today that he has renounced his United States citizenship and become a stateless person as a means of “political divorce”.

Gogulski, 36, renounced his citizenship on 8 December 2008 at the American embassy in Bratislava, surrendering his US passport and culminating a two-week process and months of personal preparations. He currently awaits a Certificate of Loss of Nationality of the United States confirming his loss of American citizenship. As Gogulski has no other citizenship, he is now a stateless person.

“I was disgusted to be associated through citizenship with the most dangerous gang of criminals in the world, the United States government. Renouncing my citizenship is a means of achieving a political divorce with that vile institution,” Gogulski said. “American politicians extol their state in terms of liberty, human rights, free markets and the rule of law. Examination of the country’s history and present actions reveals nothing but lies and hypocrisy. The genocide of Native Americans, slavery, nuclear slaughter at Hiroshima and Nagasaki, support for brutal dictators, the torture of innocents at places like Guantánamo and Abu Ghraib, the massive robberies for the benefit of big business in the name of ‘rescuing’ the economy, the world’s biggest prison population, the growth of a domestic police state and the brutal wars of oppression underway in Iraq, Afghanistan and Somalia paint a rather different picture. America, via its government agents, is truly exceptional – exceptionally evil,” he stated.

Gogulski says that when he receives the Certificate of Loss of Nationality he will apply to the Slovak Interior Ministry for a Travel Document – similar to a passport – under the 1954 Convention on the Status of Stateless Persons, which Slovakia signed in 2000. He says that he has no plans to leave Bratislava until then, and that he recognizes that his life without citizenship will be more difficult, especially with respect to travel. But, “if the Schengen Zone is to be my cage,” Gogulski states, “I think it’s large enough for me. There’s enough to explore within Europe to last a lifetime.”

On his personal blog, Gogulski indicates that he works as a freelance translator and editor. He also writes about anarchism and supports the revolutionary theory called agorism, which posits that free-market service providers will compete with and eventually supplant states, giving rise to a voluntary society. “Governments pride themselves on notions of ‘equality’ and ‘rule of law’, but fail to apply the same standards to themselves that their subjects must endure,” he says, explaining his political philosophy. “The foundation of state power, taxation, is robbery. That the robbers have fancy uniforms, impressive titles and the sanction of law does not in the slightest way change the basic formula for extortion: pay us, or we will kill you.”

Michael Gogulski’s blog can be found at www.nostate.com.

###

Congratulations, Michael.

Pictures I like.

This picture was taken at The Phoenix, the graduate student pub on campus at McMaster.



It includes the following noteworthy storylines:

• David (2nd from left), a friend from Ohio, and Bailey (middle), my sister, came up to visit for...
  
• It was taken November 27, 2008, which was American Thanksgiving, and 2 days before my 28th birthday.
• It includes Dan's asymmetrical beard (far left), one of the more amusing results of a decision among the men in my class not to shave for a few months.
• It includes Kira's recent short haircut (2nd from right).
• It was taken by Leo, a visiting grad student from Brazil, who I really ought to have some pictures with.
• It is the only picture I've seen from a very fun night that featured a much larger crowd, including my supervisors, who I really ought to have some pictures with.

Here are other pictures I like.


Hanging with the bride (Kate... on the left), the night before her wedding. Canton, Ohio. October, 2007.


Last day over there: (left to right) Paolo, Ate Lady, Jakob, Ram, JJ, and Jam. Calamba, Laguna, Philippines. November, 2006.


Kira and I, in top shape clearly. Annapolis, MD. Christmas, 2006.


Left to right: Sarah, Dave, Phil's ass, Phil, Phil's hair, Zsaz, Kira. Ada, Ohio. May, 2008.



Left to right: Katsu, Hattori, Horus. Ada, Ohio. March, 2008.

slather yourself in change

Pres-elect BO and all of his awesome changes. Do you realize what a joke he's making of "progressives" who voted for him? Just look at that headline.

h/t: Strike the Root Blog

and 64% of prisoners break prison rules!

I gotta agree with the professor:

so 64% of american students cheat. let me say this: that would be bad if education were not compulsory. if i enter into a contest - a sporting event, a game of chess or poker - because i want to play, then to cheat is disgusting. but if you put a gun to my head and make me play, then i have no obligation to abide by the rules; no one should blame me if i do whatever i can get away with. indeed, under such circumstances, cheating would be a nice little act of resistance. i think it's deeply reprehensible when an author plagiarizes, but if writing books were compulsory, plagiarism would be understandable and at worst morally neutral. in other words, compulsory education abrogates anything we might think of as educational ethics: destroys it, vitiates it, suspends it. that's one reason (of many) why compulsory education is an absurd concept, or merely a contradiction in terms. our educational institutions teach that capitulation is the essence of honor, which of course is exactly the center of our moral training of young people. if they come out of that cheaters, you're getting what you deserve, what you're begging for.

structural violence.

Bernard makes an extremely important point. While everyone is freaking out about terrorism, the structure of society guarantees terrible results for far more people than are hurt by what is officially called terrorism. But it wouldn't do to mention that, would it?

an open challenge

FACT: If you pay taxes in the United States, you've made financial contributions to the following:

• Illegal wars of aggression that kill, maim, and displace millions of civilians.
• Illegal abduction and torture of people who have not been charged with any crime.
• Illegal surveillance of domestic communications.

FACT: If you refuse to pay taxes, men with guns will likely force you into a cage for an extended period of time.

THE CHALLENGE: Defend this system.

HINT: Offering "you're free to vote for people who will change these policies, or to run for office yourself" as a defense is the equivalent of saying "these policies are fine with me as long as a slim majority of the voting population supports candidates who say it is ok for the state to lock you in a cage for refusing to fund its illegal and immoral activities."

Truth is not important

I came across the video below, a compilation of a guy named Peter Schiff on various news talk shows in 2006 and 2007. It is 10 minutes of him being right forecasting the current economic collapse, while all the other talking heads literally laugh at him. It is kind of fun to watch. My first thought was that those idiots who mocked him while they predicted endless booming growth should never get a job again.

But that was very silly of me, a vestige of my naive former worldview. I was imagining a world in which news programs are in the business of getting things right, of telling the truth.

News television, like all television (and other media for that matter), is in the business of selling audiences to advertisers. As such, we expect the programming to reflect these interests. Also, the major television networks are owned by a small handful of wealthy conglomerate corporations. As such, we expect the programming to reflect the interests of those corporations and their owners. These two interests largely overlap, though there can be a few conflicts, as in all cases where the same parties have multiple interests. In those cases strategic decisions have to be made. But in the case at hand, it is pretty easy to see that an audience of people who believe that endless economic prosperity is always just around the corner is easier to sell to advertisers, and is better for the corporations who own the media.

The only thing truth has to do with it is if the audience figures out how unreliable the programs are and stops watching. The immense popularity of Fox "News" is a prominent, but certainly not isolated, demonstration of the appropriate level of concern TV networks need have for such a scenario. If their dishonesty becomes impossible for the audience to ignore, they have ways of handling that too. After US forces failed to find any WMDs in Iraq, what did the TV networks that credulously amplified the false WMD justification for war tell you? That everyone believed there were WMDs, and nobody could have predicted otherwise. There is ample documentation to prove otherwise, but that doesn't matter. They just lie after the fact to cover up their previous lies.

So the idea that the laughing fools in the video will never work again is foolish. They've shown that they're willing to say whatever needs to be said to advance their careers. Networks make good use of such people.



(By the way I know nothing about this Schiff guy. He may or may not be advancing his own interests here, which may or may not have anything to do with the truth. Maybe he just got lucky. I don't know and don't really care.)

you will respect my authoriteh

Man sentenced to 93 days in jail for sitting down too slowly while on trial for having a couch in his yard. Justice.

Fuck you, Keene, New Hampshire and "Judge" Burke.


other links about this:
http://anarchyinyourhead.com/2008/11/16/thank-you-mr-burke/
http://freekeene.com/
http://noiri.blogspot.com/2008/11/taste-of-ussa-united-socialist-states.html

nothin but love

I don't know, maybe this came off a bit harsh. Curiously, I don't even know if the directed sentiment expressed there applies to much of my audience. But I know there must be a few of you out there. The one or two I can think of, I love you guys and hopefully you know it ain't personal.

I suspect that was unnecessary for their sake. But I do a lot of anger here so I oughta balance it with some love sometimes, right?

Horus these days

Horus is doing pretty well these days, at least compared to where he started.

He spends a lot of time sleeping up on the perch near the windows.

From Cats Nov 2008

From Cats Nov 2008

When he's not as sleepy he'll dart over to hide under the kitchen table.

From Cats Nov 2008

And when he's feeling frisky and adventurous he might even play with me a little bit.

From Cats Nov 2008

But that gets tiring...

From Cats Nov 2008

He still freaks out if he sees me try to touch him, but if he's distracted I can scratch his back and he likes it until he realizes what is happening. As soon as he sees me touching him he recoils or swipes at me, but I'm convinced that some of the time he deliberately looks away so that he doesn't have to freak out. He'll still act like he's trying to investigate the source of this strange pleasurable sensation, but he'll look in a ridiculous direction, like straight up and from side to side, but not backwards.

Here are the other boys.

Hattori.

From Cats Nov 2008

Katsu.

From Cats Nov 2008

once again Obama is the same as Bush. but you don't care.

Jesus fucking Christ people, if this article doesn't show you what Barrack Obama is, nothing will. As Who Is IOZ? and Stop Me Before I Vote Again have pointed out:

Now, as Mr. Obama moves closer to assuming responsibility for Guantánamo, his pledge to close the detention center is bringing to the fore thorny questions under consideration by his advisers. They include where Guantánamo’s detainees could be held in this country, how many might be sent home and a matter that people with ties to the Obama transition team say is worrying them most: What if some detainees are acquitted or cannot be prosecuted at all?

The biggest worry among people BO has chosen to surround himself with is that they won't be able to continue to jail people who they can't prove have done anything wrong.

THIS IS EXACTLY THE SAME AS BUSH YOU FUCKING OBAMA SUPPORTING MORONS. THIS IS NOT CHANGE. THIS IS THE SAME FUCKING THING, MAYBE MOVED TO A NEW BUILDING.

But liberals don't care about the principles involved. They don't care about justice, human rights, any of that pussy shit. They never did. They just care that someone on their team is the one doing the jailing:

“You can’t be a purist and say there’s never any circumstance in which a democratic society can preventively detain someone,” said one civil liberties lawyer, David D. Cole, a Georgetown law professor who has been a critic of the Bush administration.

We're a democratic society? Oh, he must have meant "Democratic President."

But particularly inasmuch as the Bush administration invoked that authority as a basis for its much-criticized detention policies, a move by Mr. Obama to seek explicit authorization for indefinite detention without trial would be seen by some of his supporters as a betrayal.

Impossible! They're too covered in gooey change juice to perceive anything BO does as betrayal.

But human rights groups have been mounting arguments to counter pressure that they say is building on Mr. Obama to show toughness, perhaps by echoing the Bush administration’s insistence that some detainees may need to be held indefinitely.

How the flying fuck is this tough?

“I’m afraid of people getting released in the name of human rights and doing terrible things,” Mr. Wittes said in an interview.

I'm so tough that I'm going to lock up little boys who might have thrown rocks! And torture them! This shows my toughness! I won't be a pussy and release people who I can't prove have done anything wrong, because I'm scared that they might come back and hurt me. But I'm tough!



I fucking hate everyone.

can i get a piece of that action?

Why its almost as if they don't even give a fuck about the spirit of the terms they undemocratically rammed through the undemocratic system that controls our lives with money and guns. Bail outs for everyone! Funny money all around!

America: "Fuck you, Whales!"

The Supreme Court says it is very important that the US Navy be allowed to kill whales because maybe the imaginary submarine enemies might maybe theoretically possibly be coming for us. So for all you whales who don't want to suffer from "hemorrhaging around the brain and ears, acute spongiotic changes in the central nervous system, and lesions in vital organs" I guess you better move to someplace safer where American military delusion won't find you. Unfortunately there are no such places.

Egregious

Barack Obama will move swiftly to unpick many of what he sees as the most egregious acts of the Bush administration when he enters the White House in January, including restrictions on stem cell research and moves to allow oil drilling in wilderness areas, a leading member of his transition team said yesterday.

Three key words: "what he sees."

Notice how the list of "the most egregious violations" doesn't include domestic warrantless surveillance, indefinite detention, torture, extraordinary rendition, launching illegal wars of aggression and other war crimes, election fraud, politicizing the justice department, immunity for corporate crimes, bail-outs for banks, etc.

a silly challenge

I defy anyone to listen to Bela Fleck and the Flecktones play Big Country and not want to cry out of joy.

I want change too. This ain't it.

Infatuation with Obama is pervasive. I can't get away from it. People ask me about the election in class, in hallways, in the lab, at a bar. I try to read or watch basketball, but it is there too. I was just trying to read about beer and there he was.

It exhausts me and makes me sad. I'm glad that people everywhere recognize that Bush has been a complete disaster for the people of the US and for the world. That frustration is driving all this enthusiasm for change. But people don't understand why Bush was such a disaster, and thus don't know what real change would be.

Obama ain't it. He's a fresh face atop the same corporate-military empire. He's distraction, a sleight of hand. He'll do all the same things Bush did, only he won't be so brazen about it, which will make all of the operations go more smoothly. But those operations will have the exact same results: continual erosion of personal liberty, suppression of Democracy, bloody slaughter of impoverished brown people, enrichment of an elite few at the expense of the masses.

No, I'm not pleased with the outcome of the election. No, I'm not enthusiastic about an Obama presidency. No, I don't think change is coming. No, I don't care about the symbolism of a black man being the supreme warlord.

Eugene Debs said (and Dennis Perrin reminded me):

"I do not want you to follow me or anyone else; if you are looking for a Moses to lead you out of this capitalist wilderness, you will stay right where you are. I would not lead you into the promised land if I could, because if I led you in, some one else would lead you out. You must use your heads as well as your hands, and get yourself out of your present condition."

People who are excited about Obama are being led by their hands, not their heads. BO is not a savior, but he'll certainly foster that imagery for his own political benefit, and for the benefit of the elite interests he'll serve.

LA Poker, 2004

Some time in the summer of 2004 I took a trip to LA to play poker. (This was before I "went pro;" I was working for GeeEvil at the time.) I wrote up a trip recap to send to a bunch of friends who were interested. I just found the document in an obscure folder on my hard drive. It is fun to read. Here's an entry:

Sunday:

Sunday I remember very well, so I find it bizzare that I forget what happened Saturday. But Sunday did feature one of the most memorable characters of the trip: King Randall.

The day started out with a few hours playing $9/18. As I mentioned, this game is in the low-limit section, and it definitely plays like low-limit. Everyone is in til the river with the slightest draw. I can't fathom that this is basically the same limit as the $10/20 at the Taj, which is a fairly tough game to beat on weekdays. So I sat there for a while, played tight and won $60. Blah.

Oh, on the high limit side ($15/30 and up) they comp you free meals at the table. They have tons of little Mexican dudes running around and they bring you anything you want. You can order an appetizer, steak dinner and dessert and just give the waiter a $5 tip, and they bring it to the table. The only thing they don't comp is alcohol, which you actually have to pay for. But at the low limit side, they make you pay for everything. But I didn't know that when I sat down to play $9/18 because I had watched everyone ordering ridiculous meals in the other game and not pay for them. So I ordered something expensive and then the waiter asked for money. So that sucked. Off to $15/30 for dinner.

So after the afternoon in the crazy low limit game, I find a seat in the $15/30 must-move game, and buy in for my usual 2 racks ($1,000). (for those who don't know what "must-move" means, it is when they have a "main game" at one table that has been going for a while, but enough people on the waiting list to start another table. So they put them all at a 2nd table, but protect the main game by forcing people from the must-move to fill in seats at the main game as they open up.). I sit in the game for a while, and most of the table is playing predictable poker. I'm not going to crush this game, but I'm certainly not going to be outplayed by anyone, so I'm fairly comfortable and optimistic that I can win a few bucks.

And then Randall showed up.

This guy looks about 40 years old, and strongly resembles Woody Harrleson. He loudly announces to the table "MY NAME IS KING RANDALL, AND I AM AWESOME! BE AFRAID OF ME! I KNOW WHAT I'M DOING!"

Holy shit. This guy was drunk off his ass, maybe high too.

Every time it was his turn, he loudly called "TIME!" and looked at his cards for like 10 seconds. He usually followed this with "well, what can I do? Wait! I want to raise! How many chips?" Obviously, he usually lost the hand.

After every hand he would get up and walk over to the winner and shake their hand and tell them how well they played. He was the nicest drunk idiot ever. I managed to get involved with him in 1 hand with pocket queens and won a monster pot just before I had to move over to the main game. He came over and shook my hand 3 times, told me how strong I play, and that I am awesome, but not as awesome as him. I swear to God this is all true. I was obviously not happy to have to leave this game, and figure he'd either run out of money or get tired and leave before it was his turn to move.

Wrong.

About an hour later, King Randall loudly annouced his presence at the main game. He drunkenly looked around the table, but his glazed-over eyes came into focus when he saw me. He gave a big smile, and yelled - "you're class, buddy! i want you!"

Over the next few hours these are some actual quotes from King Randall, randomly thrown in to any hand he played:

"I love Latino women!"

"Well I can't win but I raise anyway"

"Dammit I lose. That's ok, I know Halle Berry."

"You think I look like Woody Harrelson? I have his money."

"Do you know Kareem-Abdul Jabar?"

"I own so much real estate!! I'm a producer."

"Buy property, win at poker!!!"

After a fat guy won a pot, Randall looked over at him and went "Woah! that's a big boy. But can you run the mile? King Randall can run a half-marathon, a 10K, or a 5K!"

When a woman sat down next to him, after the table had been all male for a while, Randall looks at her and goes "ooooh Lady! We forgot about your race."


Randall kept ordering Heinekens every time a waitress walked by, regardless of if he was done with the one he was drinking. Everytime he ordered and everytime she brought one, he gave her $20. At one point he had 3 full beers on the table behind him, plus the one he was drinking. The first time he got up to use the bathroom, he got lost for 20 minutes, so from then on he had a floorman escort him to and from the facility. He tipped them $20 each time.

Randall took a liking to me. After every hand he won, he reached across the table and gave me a pound. After every hand I won, he reached across the table and gave me a pound. He pretty much gave me pounds any time I looked at him. In spite of his drunkeness he was actually fairly perceptive. Here are some actual quotes he said to me:


"You're class, man" (about 100 times)

"I want you" (about 100 time)

"Look at that guy, he's 23 years old, his financial position is SOLID (noting my large stacks), and he's got BIG BALLS!"

When I ordered dinner, he said "Don't order here man! Let me buy you dinner ANYWHERE you want. I'm just a white guy with a ton of money. Let me buy you dinner!" When I refused, he said "You're class, man!"

"You're the kind of guy that I want to marry my daughter. But gotta work hard! Everything has come easy for you your whole life. But not my daughter." I swear to God he actually said this.

"I dream of Mexican women. But I want you. Do you know why? Cause you're the best."

"You're the best!" then to the rest of the table: "do you know who this guy is? You don't, but I've been following him. He's one of the best poker players in the world!!"

Maybe it was random that he keyed in on me, but I was definitely by far the best player at the table. I was probably up about $1,200 at my peak, but a couple of bad beats toward the end of the night knocked me down a bit from there. I left as soon as King Randall stumbled out, which was around 3:15am. I would estimate that Randall lost $2,000 to $3,000 and tipped away another $300 to $400. I didn't see him the rest of the week.

Session: 2:45pm - 6:15pm
Game: 9/18 Hold'em
Result: + $60

Session: 6:45pm to 3:15am
Game: $15/30 Hold'em
Result: + $715

Trip total: 21.5 hrs, + $811

this is what you did

Can you say this?

Now I say that I will only vote for peace candidates. If I lived in Ohio, the swing state where I was born, I still would have voted for her. I will never again cast a vote for a war criminal. That conviction means I am disenfranchised. My vote will never count and I can only play the role of spoiler. I no longer care. I can't pretend that America's aggression around the world can be dismissed if it is carried out by the lesser of two evils.

Because if you voted for Obama or McCain you can't. You voted to support evil. Yes you did. And as long as you live, you'll have to remember that.

I know I do from 2004. I don't know if I'll ever get over it.

Voting for Symbols? Symbols of what exactly?

This all sounds nice. Until it gets to the part where Bernard is going to vote for BO because of this:

"My dad grew up being told a black person couldn't be a pilot, and my son is growing up knowing that a black person can be president," she said. "It's not that racism is gone, it's just that it's not about the idea that all black people are excluded on the basis of their race from any part of society or any particular job. That was the racism my parents grew up with."

Being the President of the United States is to be the most powerful gangster of all the gangsters. This isn't something to which little kids should aspire, or that parents should want for their children.

I guess maybe there's some race victory in seeing that a man with an African father can be the supreme leader of an international crime syndicate. In which case the victory is that the power structures that exist, however evil and flawed, at least aren't so racist as to disqualify an otherwise talented criminal from ascending to leadership.

Seems like kind of the same empty victory as gays in the military. Hooray, I'm now allowed to drop bombs on innocent children and suck cock on the weekend!

These are the great victories of our times? We congratulate ourselves on our non-discriminatory selection of death dealers? I guess if this is victory, I'm content to watch from the sidelines.

whatever dude

Shit, man. I can't even sit here and watch a pirated internet feed of a crappy NBA game without being subjected to idiots from the sports world pontificating about how we all should treasure and exercise our right to vote. Fucking sheep.

Suckers.

Here's the story.

This story encompasses some of the most important issues of what is wrong with America (and lots of the rest of the world), and illustrates how all of these issues feed upon each other:

• The "education" system is incapable of teaching anything other than how to conform.
• The health care system is inefficient and immoral.
• The population takes little active role in managing its own affairs, instead relying heavily on corrupt and/or incompetent authorities.
• A (government supported) cartel of predatory corporate mobsters controls the financial system and with huge influence over the entire economy.

I'll second this general reaction: What The Fucking Fuck?

When did America become this kind of country? Where little midwestern school boards think it's a fine idea to use their money allocated for scissors, paste and teacher pensions for speculating in the international bond insurance market? And where all the most prestigious colleges send a third of their graduating classes to Wall Street so they can learn how to fleece these little school boards most effectively?

It's horrifying. Fortunately, the current financial panic will eventually force the New York Times to eliminate this type of high-quality reporting. So while such catastrophes will continue to occur, at least we won't have to hear about it.

—Jonathan Schwarz

Don't worry though. Change is coming and BO will save us all and make everything perfect the way it used to be!

everything is totally changing!!!!!!!!

So Fox News is sticking up for the guy who wants to keep all options on the table when it comes to hawkish defense of Israel, wants to increase the size of the military, endorsed blanket immunity for telecom companies that illegally spied on Americans, refuses to consider impeachment of Bush, and who enthusiastically supported the Wall Street bail out fraud? Wow who would have believed it? This gives me so much hope that Fox News would defend a person like that. Such changes!

We all know the neocons are going to be "kicked out of power" and everything, and so it is almost like Fox News is starting to treat BO like one of their own the same as they did with those real neocons! Weird, huh? Next thing you'll be telling me that Fox News will approve of President-elect Obama's plan to retain Surge Petraeus and involve war criminal Colin Powell in his administration. What an upside down world!

2 years

You know what would be awesome?

If Obama gets elected and it turns out he really is a secret commie-Muslim-radical-terrorist or whatever. I hope he starts a black-power regime and sends millions of white Republicans to jail after taxing all of their money to give it to welfare moms and then invites his best friend Bin Laden to the White House for coffee. I can't wait!

Crazy X Insane X Lunacy

Since I'm talking about my family and politics, here's something else for y'all. I was about to blog about how this reminds me of a family political discussion and tell you about it, but then I remembered that I already did. So I'll just add some more commentary.

It is kind of funny/insane what happens when two separate propaganda campaigns collide, in this case 1) that socialism is inherently bad and 2) that whatever Democrat is running for office is a socialist. Both ideas are so detached from reality that I don't even know where to start. That old post I linked to is as good as anything I'd come up with now.

In the actual conversation mentioned, I simply asked for clarification as to what was so troubling about the policy ideas under discussion, and my followup questions on the meaningless replies made it obvious to everyone involved that the replies offered were meaningless. Which led to: "so you're a fan of Hillary, huh?" Which introduces another dimension of lunacy, which is that by passively implying that assertions should defensibly make sense, in the alternate reality we inhabit I was defending the ideas/person under attack. Of course in my own personal reality all I was doing is valuing intellectual honesty. But in America there's no such thing; there is only power. Through that lens I suppose I was indeed somehow defending Hillary Clinton and the power structures with which she is aligned simply by questioning a baseless attack against her.

If I wanted to I could probably come up with a few more levels of insanity but that seems like enough for now. I guess my point is that there are so many layers of bullshit operating simultaneously that is is almost impossible to break through them and make sense to people. These people I was talking to aren't stupid. They're actually pretty smart, but they've soaked up the bullshit that is forced upon them. In that regard, we're all victims of ... this...

who's next? looks like Syria

US troops killed civilians in Syria tonight, including women and children. Whoever is responsible will never be held accountable. What a great world.

banality of evil

I don't think I've ever recommended listening to one of these Greenwald audio interviews before, but I think this one is worth listening to. The reason I recommend it is because the of how casually evil the interviewee is. This guy is widely considered an "Iran expert" and served on a bipartisan task force that recently recommended a variety of aggressive actions towards Iran, which was given prominent display in the Washington Post. Both of the lunatics in contention for President of the US value the input of this guy, who is clearly fucking insane. Good work, America!

Teacher leave them kids alone

I have to read and grade/mark* about 250 short essays by Wednesday. I've never assigned grades/marks to people before. From the few I've glanced over, it is going to be ugly.

* - In Canada you don't "take" a test, you "write" a test, and then you receive a "mark" instead of a grade.

Chomsky on this election

Chomsky's case in favor of voting for Obama (in swing states, and "without illusions").

kill your TV!

I've mentioned this before, but I think it might be worth saying again. I love not having TV. Life is just better without it. If there's a show or two that you can't live without, you can always watch them on the internet, only on your own schedule and without (or at least with far fewer) commercials. And you avoid the giant time-suck that is TV, and probably save some money. If someone had suggested this to me 2 years ago I would have thought it sounded nice but I couldn't do it. But I would have been wrong. Consider it!

Colin Powell makes me wonder

The people who have dominated political conversations in my family are, as far as I can tell, paranoid reactionaries whose thought processes don't seem to be much deeper than "America is number one" and "abortion is bad because Jeebus told me so." They think of themselves as conservatives and loyally vote for Republicans. They also love the US Military and are racist against black people behind closed doors, which is why I thought of them right away when I heard about Colin Powell endorsing BO.

In a weird way it is a bit of a relief to think about something deeply personal in response to the orgy of insanity that is the US electoral season. If not for this family thing, I'd be thinking about how maddening it is that among the highest laws of Respectable Political Discourse enforced by the mainstream media is a bipartisan respect for the honor, integrity, and moderate sensibility of Colin Powell, all of it a huge lie. And I'd be thinking, like Chris Floyd, about how BO's acceptance of an endorsement from a blood-drenched war criminal like Powell is yet another disturbing revelation about who Obama really is.

Instead of all that, I'm wondering how they're resolving their cognitive dissonance back home. My initial assumption was that their heads must have exploded. They fucking love them some Colin Powell, and Colin Powell just endorsed a secret Muslim terrorist for President.... HEAD ASPLODE!!! Maybe they'll rationalize and figure that he knew Obama was going to win anyway, so he might as well give a meaningless endorsement to help himself somehow (which does seem like a pretty good explanation for his actions). So maybe they'll excuse him on those grounds.

But then I started to think about how the reason Colin Powell is so universally beloved is because he's black (at least by American one-drop-of-African-blood standards, cause really his actual skin tone is very light), because he's a highly-decorated military man, and because he tells people what they want to hear. Bipartisan respectable Americans love the military and are racist in the same back-room way as my family, so it gives them great pleasure to have a negro in a high place ("one of the good ones") telling them what they want to hear, especially a (4 star) general who can make us all feel like American use of force is something other than the industrial-scale imperial terrorism that it really is. So that's why Powell has such a counter-factual public image, and why my family loves him.

Now that Powell is off the Republican reservation, endorsing "the most liberal member of Congress" who has deep associations with known terrorists (as opposed to actually being a terrorist bomber like McCain was), now Powell isn't telling my family what they want to hear. So maybe they'll actually decide they never really loved him in the first place, never trusted him. Those blacks, you know how they always stick together. It is probably Powell's fault that we never caught Bin Laden and aren't doing so great in Iraq! He probably was secretly undermining Bush all along, as part of his secret liberal agenda. Now we know what he really is, an Arab-loving commie traitor who hates America and always has! I'm getting a bit loopy here, but I'm serious that I think this kind of retroactive denunciation might be how they'll respond. But who knows. Maybe I'll find out somehow.

Alright, well I'm hoping to go home for Christmas this year, and there's some (very small) chance that some people in my family might actually read this, so I should do some damage control. First of all, my level of frustration and outrage with this unending election is getting a bit out of control, so maybe that is messing with my head a bit. Second of all, all the non-speculative things I said about you* are true. Most notably for its potential controversy, you're racist. If you don't like it that I think that, maybe you should have given me a reason to think otherwise. But there's always a chance to change that. None of this means I don't love you guys. It just means that I have some very serious problems with some of what you say and do, and that these relate to the very serious problems I have with US politics.

I don't know if that was actually damage control or not, but apparently I've been needing to write something like this, so here it is.

*Note that by "you" I'm not really talking about a specific person, but kind of the average of a group of people. For example, if one or two people say or do overtly racist things, and nobody speaks up against it, everyone in that whole group gets the "you're racist" tag even if you yourself don't say racist things. By not resisting a culture of racism, "you" are racist. I think it is reasonable to see some people as more responsible for this than others, but everyone has a share. How you, the person reading this, specifically fit into all this is for you to decide I suppose. Feel free to talk to me about it.

Lastly, courtesy of Guys from Area 51:

This is you

Capitalism, it don't work

More goodies from Lenin:

EQUALS

I kind of like how his real middle name is put in quotes to make it sound as if it was actually his nickname. That's a nice touch. His turban and goofy grin look really sinister too. Definitely looks like someone we should be torturing down in Gitmo or bombing in Pakistan, not the one who should be ordering the torture or boming.

Personally, I'm looking forward to more dead fetuses, especially if they would have grown up into the kinds of people who put up this sign. And more gay weddings? That's just fun for everyone. Restricting firearms seems like a good self-preservation strategy for "Hussein."

Image via Lenin.

Another Columbus Day in the Land Without Shame

In Canada today is Thanksgiving, but back home in America I'm told it is Columbus Day. Americans should be deeply ashamed to live in a country that celebrates a national holiday in honor of a genocidal slave trader. But there are lots of things Americans should be ashamed of, like say the genocides we're unleashing right now or the slavery of the day that we not only condone, but applaud. We're a pretty shameless nation, so I don't expect anything to change.

Why I won't vote: Lesser Evilism is a sham

So I wrote a sprawling reply to a comment, only to realize that by the end I had written my way into a pretty good point that should have been more emphasized. I ought to rewrite it, but, let's face it, I'm just a lazy writer with a thinly-read blog whose audience disappeared when he stopped writing about poker. So I'll add some more thoughts here at the top.

Anyway, the point is this: if you accept the lesser-evil logic of voting for Democrats, you're basically saying that you'll support anything as long as you're convinced that the alternative is worse. And once you admit that, you become completely exploitable and hope is lost.

Given a choice between two evils, the lesser evil is better. That part of it isn't wrong. But the flaw in the lesser-evil argument in favor of supporting Democrats is that there are more than two choices. There's always another option for a better outcome, it just might be very unlikely to win. If you make it known that you'll always support the lesser evil and never opt for the risky 3rd choice, those two evils can get worse and worse, knowing that you'll have to support one of them. So at some point you have to make a stand with the third option.

When should you stop favoring the more likely lesser evil and opt for the unlikely 3rd (or 4th, etc) option*? Well I think that is a judgement everyone has to make for themselves, but I think we can agree on 2 things. First is that the more evil the two evil options are, the more we should favor the highly unlikely 3rd option. And second is that the more similar the two evils (i.e. the lesser evil isn't really that much less evil), the more we should favor the third. Much of the discussion below is about the second point, though I discuss the first as well.


* - equally important question is "what is that third option?" Here, as usual, I argue for boycotting the election. I think there is also honor in voting for 3rd party candidates, like Nader or the Green Party. My preference for boycott over that option is a topic for another time.
----
Some recent comments by David are worth considering.

Even if you recognize that both Democrats and Republicans are basically two factions of the same party, working together towards an authoritarian corporate police state domestically, and endless violent interventions internationally, all for the enrichment of an elite few at the expense of the vast majority of the rest of us, there is still the question as to whether one faction is preferable to the other because of their minor differences. And due to the tremendous amount of power and control wielded by various holders of public office, those minor differences can add up to be very meaningful for lots of people.

I've argued repeatedly that the best response to our sham democracy is to boycott the elections. I generally think that refusing as much as possible to interact with a system that is hopelessly rigged against my interests is the most effective and honorable way to dissent. That's my approach. But everyone has to make their own decisions, and maybe my moral calculus is different than yours.

I do believe that it is possible to construct good arguments in favor of participating in these elections. I think that if they exist, they'd look something like what David said: that these small differences add up enough to justify supporting one side over the other. But here's the thing. I think there's a huge burden of proof to be met, and I'm not at all convinced that David or people who make similar arguments have met them. For his reasoning to stand up, I'd need to be strongly convinced that these differences actually exist, considering not just the immediate short-term impact of the minor policy changes, but also the long run consequences of various decisions. By going out and voting for BO, you're casting a vote in support of a candidate who has repeatedly lied about matters of extreme importance, who fully supports the framework of the US using lethal military force around the globe in the so-called "War on Terror," who fully supports domestic lawlessness for the executive branch, who fully supports using taxpayer money to bail out Wall Street lunatics, and so on and so on. In order to actively support such monstrous evil, you need to be very very sure that what you're doing really does somehow lead to a better result than your other choices.

David lists 3 commonly-cited reasons to think Democrats are preferable. (1)They make better judicial appointments. (2)They are less influenced by irrational factions (specifically Christians), and (3) there is better treatment of persecuted groups of people under Democratic leadership. First I'll make a few scattered rebuttals to these notions, then I'll argue that even if he's right, that isn't a convincing case in favor of supporting Democrats.

In regards to the first point, it seems to me that the pattern of judicial appointments is roughly like this. Under Republican leadership, the most radically far-right judges that can possibly be taken seriously are pushed through the system with little obstruction from Democrats. Under Democratic leadership, highly conservative judges are appointed, but called "moderate" by Democrats to make them sound reasonable and responsible, and yet fiercely opposed by Republicans who push for even more conservative jurists. There is no force for a genuinely liberal judiciary, just a two-pronged approach towards an ever more conservative one , that moves a little more slowly to the right under Democrats. I should note that this is 'measured' relative to public sentiment, meaning perhaps overall the courts could become more liberal on an absolute scale, but the force of the political process is to move them as far right as the public at large can stomach.

Do women and gays and minorities receive better treatment under Democrats? Well, not the ones in Iraq or Afghanistan or Pakistan or Somalia. They'll keep getting slaughtered at roughly the same rate under BO or McCain. And it seems to me that plenty of Democrat leaders would be quite willing to give up on abortion, or to turn the other way on gay-bashing. They'll maintain the policies that keep black people at a disadvantage, and keep locking up black men who turn to the underground pharmeceutical economy as an inevitable response to that disadvantage. Cause, I mean, what are the black people going to do, vote for Republicans?
Last is that under Democrats, the insane Christian Right won't have the President's ear as much. But Democrats have plenty of other insane people pulling their strings. Like who? Well how about the lunatics who got us into this economic meltdown in the first place? The insanity and influence of the Christian Right is benign compared to the murderous pyschopathy of corporate influence. And it isn't like the rabid Christian Right is powerless under Democrat rule. In fact they might work themself into such an outrage about being ruled by a terrorist Muslim nigger with a funny name that they become even more of a political force.

Real political change doesn't happen from the top down, but from the bottom up. The President doesn't dictate how gays are treated, the people do, and the President responds. BO might treat them better than McCain, but how do we know that the further outrages under McCain wouldn't be some kind of tipping point to drive people towards some kind of social revolution (the reverse of the Muslim-nigger effect on the racist Christians)? Just because the government might be more officially hostile under Republican executives or judges doesn't necessarily mean the public will be.

So those are my scattered rebutals, and you might point out that all of these objections can still be consistent with Democrats being a relatively lesser evil. The conservative Democrat judges are better than the ultra-right Republican ones, right? The Republicans and Democrats are both run by corporations, but at least the Christians are more ignored under Democrats, right? And the Democrats might be a bit less willing to stomp the queers, right?

Say that is the case. Does that actually justify supporting a blood-drenched criminal for President? Does more support for gay marriage merit participating in a system that guarantees perpetual war and suffering on a monumental scale? Does the slightly lower chance of Roe v Wade being overturned make it worth it to lend the appearance of legitimate democracy to a ruling class who privatize profits to an elite few while making risk and losses public? Does having fewer Liberty University graduates in the Justice Department make it ok to vote for a party that passed retroactive immunity for companies that spied on us, a party that passed laws to make torture legal, that has refused to impeach Bush?

David says we should support a murderous criminal party because their crimes aren't quite as bad as the crimes of their partner. But the obvious fact of their partnership means that by supporting one, you're supporting the other. Not a lot can happen in the USG if one of the parties doesn't want it to happen. Everything that we've seen happen under Bush is fully the responsibility of Democrats as well. There's not the slightest reason to think that BO will set any of those things right, and there's ample reason to think that he'll continue on largely the same path.

But David and many others want to support this whirlwind of bipartisan destruction, in the name of a few very marginal differences that may or may not even really exist. What are the long term consequences of this? It tells the ruling class that you'll accept anything, as long as you're convinced that the only alternative is something slightly worse. Stop and think about that. Say it over and over. Think about how easy this can be exploited. And think about whether a ruling class who has slaughtered a million Iraqis and stolen trillions of your dollars would be willing and able to exploit you in such a way.

Chomsky makes the important point that genuine freedom and democracy means that the use of power should be assumed to be illegitimate unless proven otherwise, and that the burden of proof should be very high. Participation in a national election to decide the holders of offices is certainly a use of power. And I don't see that David's argument has met the burden of proof for the exercise of such power, especially considering the strategic consequences of demonstrating your willingness to support evil out of a fear of slightly greater evil. It isn't clear to me that there is going to be much, if any, difference in real-world results under either option, and it is clear to me that both options are evil. So I'm not voting. Are you?

voting for democrats is ironic and funny hahahhaha

Ha, isn't it funny how Democrats have no interest in democracy at all? But that Palin woman has no experience overturning democratically elected governments, so we can't take her seriously! We must support Obama/Biden! They don't talk funny like she does.

on profanity

I'm finally getting around to starting to read Pinker's newest book, which had some introductory remarks on profanity, and then I think he will return to the subject eventually. I don't know how long it will take me to get to that part, so I'll just blurg along on that topic for a while here.

Profanity is an interesting phenomenon. Everybody knows that everybody else knows that these words exist and have meanings that can be useful, and yet we all understand that we're supposed to use various synonyms for them instead. Often there are no polite direct substitutions (for instance you can't sub in any replacement for something like "John fucked his girlfriend last night") and you have to rephrase the entire though into something more polite ("John had sexual intercourse with her"). Other times you're allowed to substitute the anatomically correct term or a less vulgar term, or whatever. And forbidden words are always about sex and excretion and religion. ("Cock! Crap! Jesus titty-fucking Christ!")

Why the hell is all of this going on? Pinker seems to be saying that it is part of the elaborate system whereby we're all acknowledging social systems and our relative places in society or something. We'll see when I get there. I'll let you know. Until then...

Myself, I'm fairly profane. If you could do a word count on this blog, I'd bet profanity levels are pretty damn high. I think I just don't have any respect for arbitrary taboo, and I derive some enjoyment from flaunting that. I said shit in class the other day, which was fairly enjoyable, and yet its stupid that I should even make a note of such, but I do. Why? Fucking profanity, that's why. Also, I like it that my advisers are loose with profanity. I pretty much like anyone who is loose with profanity. So for me, profanity is a code that gives me cues that you might be cool. For others, profanity is a cue that you're probably a terrible person.

Also, profanity can be really funny sometimes. George Carlin and whatnot. Good for a cheap laugh at least. Tickles you somewhere you're not allowed to be tickled. The Aristocrats.

This post doesn't have a point, just rambling thoughts. No end either.

The book:

The Stuff of Thought: Language as a Window into Human Nature

Killer of Innocents Denounces (Other) Killers of Innocents, Runs for President

Jonathan Schwarz notes:

MR. STEPHANOPOULOS: Do you have any doubt that Barack Obama shares your sense of patriotism?

SEN. MCCAIN: I'm sure he's very patriotic, but his relationship with Mr. Ayers is open to question...how can you countenance someone who was engaged in bombings which could have or did kill innocent people?

MR. STEPHANOPOULOS: Senator Obama says he was eight years old when that was happening.

SEN. MCCAIN: But he became friends with him and spent time with him while the guy was unrepentant over his activities...

I'd like to make some jokes here, but I don't have the heart. What a country this is.

Via today's cretinous NY Times story about Obama & William Ayers, which mentions McCain's statement while betraying no awareness of its significance.

Fair and Balanced

And to point out the insanity of the other side, I turn to IOZ:

To me the most despairing moment of the whole debate was the discussion of when it is appropriate to use military force, and Joe Biden laid out two points, the first of which was is it feasible, which sounds reasonable after the last eight years until you pause and consider just how monstrous it is. It is, in fact, one of the most explicit rejections I've heard of the quaint and never-practiced doctrine of war as an instrument of the utmost last resort, a point at which feasibility becomes a meaningless rubric because the only other choices are death and subjugation. It affirms violence as a basic tool of statecraft--of course, we all know this to be historically and almost universally the case, but it still rankles to hear it spoken without even the Cold-War-current nods to "the peace-loving American people." In the question just prior, asked if Americans had "the stomach" for Biden's expansive view of acceptable foreign military intervention, Biden was even plainer: "The American people have a stomach for success." This too is a basic truth--that people love peace only until promised triumph--rarely publicly expressed. In a sense, I suppose we owe Senator Joe thanks for his honesty.

Because I'm above it all, this is funny instead of sad.

is there a single sentence here that doesn't sound stupid?

In regards to the way I respond to what passes for politics in the USA, I'm hoping that I can make the transition from quivering rage to bemused above-it-all condescension. In that spirit, I note the following statement by Sarah Palin (pointed out by the 51 fellas):

I'm thankful the Constitution would allow a bit more authority given to the vice president if that vice president so chose to exert it in working with the Senate and making sure that we are supportive of the president's policies and making sure too that our president understands what our strengths are...

Well, our founding fathers were very wise there in allowing through the Constitution much flexibility there in the office of the vice president. And we will do what is best for the American people in tapping into that position and ushering in an agenda that is supportive and cooperative with the president's agenda in that position.

Yeah, so I do agree with him that we have a lot of flexibility in there, and we'll do what we have to do to administer very appropriately the plans that are needed for this nation. And it is my executive experience that is partly to be attributed to my pick as V.P. with McCain, not only as a governor, but earlier on as a mayor, as an oil and gas regulator, as a business owner. It is those years of experience on an executive level that will be put to good use in the White House also.

What's with the GOP and idiots who can't talk good?

they both support this plan!

The US treasury secretary, former head of Goldman Sachs, who by playing both of those roles is doubly responsible for the current economic meltdown, decides to let Lehman, a Goldman competitor sink, but then bails out AIG, which, coincidentally, owes Goldman $20 billion, and he made that decision while the current Goldman CEO was in the room, coincidentally. (I get bonus points for how much punctuation that sentence had.) Then he demands to pour more gasoline on the fire, to the tune of $700 billion of taxpayer money that he gets to unconditionally pass out to his former colleagues. And everyone who doesn't understand how brilliant his plan is, they're all shit-eating retard monkeys who need to let the responsible people make the decisions. Because if we don't go along with this mature wise plan, everyone is going to fucking die a painful death in their beds. But if you just cough up a few hundred extra every tax season until you die, we'll all be safe and the Wall Street boys will be able to keep providing us with the valuable services that we desperately need from them.

Bow before your betters, America, and thank them for liberating you from your money.

This is what they do. Both of those clown running for imperial manager support this swindle. And you're going to go vote for one of them aren't you?

Who's the lesser evil now, bitches?

Republicans are good for something after all!

update: by the way that article is a fucking goldmine of information about how pathetic congress is. like:

A third Texan, Lloyd Doggett, a Democrat, said the negotiators had “never seriously considered any alternative” to the administration’s plan, and had only barely modified what they were given. He criticized the plan for handing over sweeping new powers to an administration that he said was to blame for allowing the crisis to develop in the first place.

duh.

and:

Supporters of the bill had argued that it was necessary to avoid a collapse of the economic system, a calamity that would drag down not just Wall Street investment houses but possibly the savings and portfolios of millions of Americans. Moreover, supporters argued, a lingering crisis in America could choke off business and consumer loans to a degree that could prompt bank failures in Europe and slow down the global economy.

right, and if we don't invade iraq we'll all be speaking arabic if we aren't nuked first. fear fear fear!!

The former Treasury Department official who predicted another House vote this week said that before there could be another vote, he would expect Speaker Nancy Pelosi, the California Democrat, and Representative John A. Boehner of Ohio, the Republican minority leader, to approach members with seats in safe districts and tell them, in effect: “You’ve got to do this. The fate of the country hangs on your vote.”

fear fear fear!!! also, fuck you nancy and john. fuck you and whatever dirty tricks you pull out of your sleeve to stop your stupid little minions from accidentally doing the right thing for once in their pathetic lives.

rant with no capital letters

so congress is all set to work together and sing kumbaya and fuck the country out of a gagillion dollars. the poor will be forced to pay this to the rich, while the government fucks laugh at everyone and pretend that they aren't laughing at everyone. same shit as iraq - make up a bunch of scary monsters that will kill everyone unless you do something that seems incredibly stupid on its claimed merits, and nobody can say shit about it cause then they're evil terrorists that hate america, a nation of poor fucking saps who richly would deserve hatred if they weren't so fucking stupid and pathetic. and so they're just sad, and they'll be paying out their asses until they die, which will be pretty soon cause none of them have healthcare coverage because the government won't provide it because they only have trillions of dollars for war and wall street, not for regular sick people. up here in canada i just sit and get angry and rant about it, and wonder when everything will fall apart.

Nader

I saw this video at Dennis Perrin's blog and figured my little sister would appreciate if I posted it here. I'm not posting this to support Nader's candidacy, though the basic critique is a message that really needs to be spread.

Just a reminder

The United States Government is the world's most deadly and powerful terrorist organization. Keep that in mind whenever you read anything said or written by an agent of the USG.

Juan Dixon signs with the Wizards

To note an NBA story that doesn't piss me off, my boy Juan is going home.

I don't know how well Juan fits in with that team, but he's a local hero so it makes sense for the Wizards to sign a proven contributor at a modest price tag. And he can definitely put some points on the board, filling in as a starter or off the bench. With Gilbert's health a perpetual question mark, guard depth is a good thing for the Wiz, and Juan should get some opportunities to play.

Best of luck to Juan!

ballers and blood-drenched tyrants

So, yeah, I'm pretty disgusted with how stupid sports coverage is. And pro sports in general. This doesn't help.

I fucking hate this shit

I fucking well knew better than to keep following this inanely stupid story. From the first post I said I didn't want to, but I did it anyway like an idiot, to the point where yesterday I was trading emails with Mark Cuban trying to figure out how he can justify what he said. This article by Stephen A. Smith is about the dumbest thing yet. Blame the victims!!

Whether or not Howard is sensitive to whatever plights exist regarding African-Americans is not for me or anyone else to say definitively, because none of us are flies on his wall. In Howard's world, he may think he's being sensitive to black people and what plagues this community, and that may have been what he was aiming for in spewing his rhetoric.

But what Howard doesn't seem to get -- and he's joined in this by some members of the hip-hop and entertainment community, or anyone black willing to disseminate and perpetuate perspectives devoid of facts -- is the damage their moments of exasperating expression ultimately costs the very people they believe they're looking out for.

In other words, even if Howard feels oppressed, he isn't allowed to say it. Why? Because somehow saying it will hurt black people, presumably from a backlash of idiocy. And everyone is content to blame Howard for this, instead of blaming the people who do the oppressing. Why? Because our simplistic idiotic mindset is that America is good. No matter what you cannot question this. Anyone who says otherwise is bad, evil, probably a terrorist. Howard said America isn't good, so Howard is bad. This asinine mentality has infected just about everyone, at least any idiot that Walt Disney owned ESPN would hire. Anyone that implies America is racist is most certainly bad, to be silenced and denounced.

And so we have the ridiculous spectacle of condemnation of Josh Howard, a modern version of a lynching. I fucking hate every single person who participates in this bullshit, who justifies it in one way or another. These fuckers who write racist emails to Cuban telling him to "fire that nigger", Cuban who says that what Howard did was wrong, Abbott who calls it an abuse of free speech, Smith who tells Howard to shut the fuck up. I hate them all. Fuck, no, I don't hate them. I hate what they're doing and I hate the fucking system that has conditioned them to act this way, but they're victims of it too. I can't stand this shit.

Mark Cuban on Josh Howard (updated)

Josh realizes his comments were wrong, he understands why people are upset. He knows he has made a mistake, has apologized and will work with us.

Fuck you, Cuban. There was nothing wrong with Josh's comments, and he shouldn't apologize. Its just a fucking song, and someone refusing to mindlessly respect nationalistic symbols is actually refreshing. And there are a million tragic reasons why black people especially wouldn't be swelling with American pride. But I guess the uppity negro must be silenced.

update: In an email, Cuban told me that Howard was just messing around with friends and wasn't being serious. He seemed to imply that if Howard had meant those comments to express a serious political opinion, he'd be supportive of him. Since he wasn't serious, his "mistake" was saying something highly inflammatory without thinking about it. This is the same point Abbott made to me in emails as well. I think it might be worth going back and looking at what they said and seeing if they criticized the message itself, which I think they did. Hopefully they're backtracking on that. Too tired now to think more about it, but figured I ought to make that update since I've come down pretty hard on these guys.

more Josh Howard (updated)

Alright well I still kind of don't want to get too much into this, but I can't help making a few more comments about Josh Howard. Specifically, it seems to me that this is the exact same thing as Jeremiah Wright. A black man (or woman too I assume) in America is not allowed to be angry about the abuses black people face. If such anger comes out, it must be attacked. He is running his mouth off! He's an angry black man! Denounce him!

Henry Abbott, NBA blogger for ESPN.com called Howard's comments "mishandling of his freedom of speech." He went on to explain why his comments were so bad with this gem:

And we know Josh Howard speaks his own version of the truth (which is admirable) even if the timing and general lack of coherence undermine his cause (which is not). By being a celebrity, and addressing incendiary issues of civil rights around a microphone, fair or not he risks presenting himself as an actual civil rights leader. Like the 2008 Nelson Mandela or Martin Luther King Jr. He's a really nice guy, and his heart is in the right place, but he must not let himself get confused with a civil rights leader.

Are you kidding me? Every black person with an opinion about prejudice that isn't a civil rights leader needs to shut up so they don't get confused for a civil rights leader? What the fuck kind of logic is this? And what is the lack of coherence of saying he doesn't celebrate the national anthem because he's black? That makes perfect sense to me, and I'm sure I'm not the only one. Speaking the truth is only "admirable" if it is the officially-sanctioned truth that America is great and wonderful. Expressing something else is irresponsible, especially for a black man, who we all know are already prone to irresponsibilities like smoking marijuana (but, hey, grab me another beer while you're up).

The only "danger" of being mistaken for MLK that I can think of is that if dishonest asshats go on to paint everyone who criticizes the system from a black civil rights perspective as a some goofy weed-smoking jackass like that one NBA player. But the proper response to this "threat" isn't to make every celebrity with an opinion shut up. It is to address the dishonesty when it arises. Or, like Abbott, you can demand that people just shut up and not express their non-jingoistic opinion unless they have a doctoral thesis they're ready to present to back it up. That puts a gigantic burden of proof on oppressed people to prove their oppression, and gives the oppressers a free pass. (I've pointed all of this out to Abbott in a email exchange much more politely worded than this bluurg post and I hope he considers revising his statements.)

In the comments to the last post, David points out that a CNN poll says a majority of voters think Howard should be punished for expressing his opinion, and goes on to say that he should love America because he couldn't make as much money elsewhere. So I guess the uppity nigger should just shut the fuck up and be glad for the freedom that we gave to him.

Fuck you, America. Fuck you.

update: Abbott posted a link to this, which I suppose is a good start.

In support of Josh Howard

Josh Howard, a very good NBA player for the Dallas Mavericks, has caught some shit recently because he openly admitted to smoking weed. This is supposed to be a scandal or something. Then recently, this happened. Basically he was "caught" on tape saying something to the effect that he doesn't celebrate the national anthem because he's black, and then seemed to make a disparaging remark about Obama (not sure about that part, it might have actually been a pro-Obama comment, where his support for Obama came from anger).

I don't intend to follow this story closely or anything, but it is pretty typical of what a fucked up retarded place America is. Drinking is perfectly fine but smoking a joint is some major transgression. The realities of racism and the disadvantages black people have always faced in America are undeniable, but when a black man actually acknowledges this in front of a camera, he's "running his mouth" or something.

I've often thought that a high-profile athlete could be a great advocate for important political issues, since they have the attention and respect of so many young people. Of course they're all millionaires with endorsement deals from corporations, and they benefit hugely from the existing social structures, so it is hard to expect them to do much to meaningfully change things. Sure they'll give money to charitable causes and take field trips to Africa to see the poverty, but they never address the structural characteristics that cause the poverty. You never hear Michael Jordan speak out on political issues do you? He's making too much money from sweatshop-manufactured apparel to worry about that stuff.

So, I'd love to see Josh Howard stand up and defend his lack of patriotism. Why should a black man celebrate the national anthem? Fuck the national anthem! Fuck Obama! Say it again, Josh. Why should the government have the right to tell me what I'm not allowed to smoke? Why would I celebrate a government that does that? But, he'll be under pressure to just say the politically expedient lies and hope people forget about the rare glimmer of truth that crept out.

Happy Anniversary, now wake the fuck up

If 9/11/2001 changed anything, it seems to me that it was that the US Government realized it no longer had to be subtle about its atrocities.

Today you should read this from Chris Floyd, which I'll copy here in its entirety. Then you should watch the video at the end and think about it.

There is, apparently, to be no end to our falling. No bottom to the pit of moral nullity through which we keep plunging, no act of evil which we will not accept, and countenance, and even cheer.

At one time, it required great lies -- elaborate, monstrous deceits, wrapped in myths of goodness and light -- to disguise the brutal machinations of raw power. Otherwise, it was thought, the people might rise up in anger at the crimes being committed in their name, thus threatening the primacy and privilege of the elite.

But this proved to be unnecessary in the end. The foulest deeds could be done in broad daylight, in full view of the world, before the eyes of our children, without the slightest consequence for the perpetrators. The crowd would applaud, or, at worst, simply shrug and move on.

Actions and policies drawn from the horror stories of history -- things which the people had been taught to abominate from the day they were born -- were freely and openly embraced.

The Nazis launched unprovoked wars of aggression and despoiled whole nations. So do we now; who cares? The Gestapo and the KGB snatched people from the street and held them without charges in secret prisons, tortured them with brute force and with exquisitely calibrated techniques approved by the highest authorities. So do we now; who cares? The Soviets spied without qualm or restraint on their own people, no warrants needed, no evidence required, just a nod from some faceless official in the security organs. So do we now; who cares? The Nazis believed that the national leader is beyond the law, that any order he gives is rightful and just and cannot be punished, simply because he has given it. So do we now; who cares? The Soviets and the Nazis treated protests against the established order as security threats and acts of terror, and repressed them with mass arrests and police violence. So do we now; who cares?

All of these things, and many more besides, have been done and are being done by the government of the United States today, with either the full-throated approval or the meek acquiescence of the political opposition and the nation's institutions. The people too seem largely in agreement, or completely indifferent. We have just finished a primary campaign in which tens of millions of people voted for candidates who support the system described above in almost every particular -- quibbling about some of the details and tactics perhaps, but expressing absolutely no dissent from its basic premises.

The two major candidates left standing after this appalling process are as similar in policy and philosophy as it is possible to be and still maintain a semblance of "choice" in the election. Both support the continuance and expansion of the "War on Terror." Both pledge to use massive, lethal, violent force, at any time, anywhere in the world -- with no options, not even the nuclear one, taken "off the table" -- in the service of ever-nebulous and self-defined "national security" interests. Both support the warrantless surveillance of American citizens, and immunity for vast conglomerates that collaborate with the state in blatantly illegal activity. Both believe that even those who have not committed murder can be executed by the state. (And neither has said a single word about the shame of America's prison system: more than 2 million people behind bars, more than any other nation on earth, in both sheer numbers and proportionately, and rivalled historically in those numbers only by the Stalin's gulag at the height of the purges.)

Both support a continuing American military presence in Iraq, under one euphemism or another. Both mouth pieties about opposing torture and upholding the rule of law, but neither of them applied their considerable powers as senators -- or their great personal popularity -- to make the slightest move to bring the perpetrators of the White House-approved torture regime to justice. (McCain has even voted explicitly to allow the CIA to torture captives.) Both have just finished conventions at which American citizens seeking to exercise their constitutional rights of free speech and free assembly were herded by armed police into wire pens (dubbed, with sinister irony, "free speech zones"), harassed, arrested, in cases beaten, invaded, and charged with thought crime and terrorism. Both support, and are supported by, the same corporate interests whose predations and corruptions have shredded the social and civic fabric of the nation and are now leading millions into penury.

Where are the hands, as in Rilke's poem, that can hold up all this falling? There are none. And so we keep falling, down and down and still farther down.