November 6, 2009 archive

My First Glenn Beck Post

I’ve never typed Glenn Beck’s name before except to point out how irrelevant he is. I actually think Beck and the tea party stunts are all part of an elaborate PR psyop. I have been researching that story for months and will write about it when it’s ready.

But right now, I want to bring to your attention, those of you who missed it, last night’s Daily Show performance by Jon Stewart. It truly transcends comedy to the level of performance art. It is one of the funniest things I’ve seen in a long time.

Feast.

The Daily Show With Jon Stewart Mon – Thurs 11p / 10c
The 11/3 Project
www.thedailyshow.com
Daily Show
Full Episodes
Political Humor Health Care Crisis

Covering up the Cover up.

They’re trying to cover up the cover up.

Bury it under many layers of words.  

How absurd.

You’d have to bury a whole world of people too

before you push that bill through.

This thing in Afghanistan

Why are we there again?

To catch Osama bin Laden

But hell he’s all over the globe

(and even sometimes on TV)

But where the hell can he be?

He’s one bad lone motherfucker

against all this sophisticated machinery

one little man can’t be found?

Before he’s found, we’ll burn the whole world down.

Forget climate claims and other strange things.

Speaking of, why are we celebrating that China ‘made’ it snow?

I sure as hell don’t know.

But back to Afghanistan

has become back to Iraq

As well.  Also.  Therefore.

What is it that we’re fighting for?

I’m already leaving this war behind in my mind.

The powers fucked up.

America’s run amuck and

is in a rut,

Trying to remember the 9/11 Alamo

And the status quo

Not wanting to let go

Of yesterday

When it’s already tomorrow.

Wild Wild Left Radio #42 Douchebags, Dictators & Despots

Join WWL Radio cohosts Diane Gee and Michael Gottlieb tonight on BTR at 6PM Eastern Time.

The human time bombs are exploding, the Malkineers are screeching and Healthcare is getting absolutely nowhere.

The US is still torturing and they are still denying it, while covering up their closest partner in perma-war machine’s war crimes as well.

Europe and the UN stand stunned at our insistence on fighting a war with no reason, propping up yet another puppet Triple-D* (Douchebags, Dictators & Despots *) in Afghanistan.

Israel is playing Pirate at sea, and sending their goons to join ours interfering in the People’s Movements in South America.

It is all Douchebags, Dictators and Despots here and abroad, and we plan on Dissecting, Dismantling, and Debunking their asses.

There is one way to fight them, and it certainly is not keeping quiet about it. Join us tonight and be HEARD!

It should be a Wild Ride!

See you there! As always, respectful questions and commentary are welcomed.

Join Gottlieb and Diane tonight at 6pm EDT on Wild Wild Left Radio, via BlogtalkRadio, for an interesting hour of Political Reporting and Commentary.

WWL Radio: Free Speech in Practice.

The call in number is 646-929-1264

Listen to The Wild Wild Left on internet talk radio

The live chat link will go live around 5:15.

CHAT LINK:

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Afternoon Edition

Afternoon Edition is an Open Thread

Now with World and U.S. News.  50 Story Final.

From Yahoo News Top Stories

1 US jobless rate hit 10.2 percent; Obama eyes new steps

by Rob Lever, AFP

7 mins ago

WASHINGTON (AFP) – US unemployment jumped to double digits in October for the first time since 1983, reaching 10.2 percent, prompting renewed talk of additional stimulus for an economy struggling to emerge from recession.

Friday’s Labor Department report, seen as one of the best indicators of economic momentum, showed job losses narrowed last month to 190,000.

The improvement was not enough however to prevent the jobless rate from surging to the first double-digit level for more than 26 years, from 9.8 percent in September.

It Is What It Is

Home.

Jury Duty was interesting. I did not get “picked”, in fact I was not even culled into a “To Be Picked” Pool at all. Thank goodness for Friday. Weather is gorgeous,too. Great day for riding the bus. lol.

So. I found the whole experience to be very interesting, monitoring my own thoughts and reactions to things. For starters, I brought along my book… Bob Thurman, Inner Revolution… so I read this Buddhism stuff basically, while sitting there all morning. And listened to their usual schpeal they give.. its a duty and a privilege to serve. Well, I happen to agree but I know I’m weird, I also find it quite interesting, the times before when I’ve sat through Voir Dire and all. In Texas, they say: “voy dyer”. Is that just here? Cuz I say “vwah deer”. And the TV… funny. The guy rambled on and told the story of the various channels they’ve tried only to “vote them off the island”, i.e. CNN, Fox, C-SPAN, and another one. They’ve settled on now the Travel Channel.

Anyway. It’s no big deal, no real inconvenience, for me to go to Jury Duty. I never try to “get out of it” as friends always seem to urge you to do. My biggest thing is my fear of being selected to serve on some big scary important case. Or even a small important case. Lot of responsibility. I mean, that could be OPOL up there. Or Meteor Blades. Or you, or you. Or me. Fortunately, I was not required to confront those fears today.

As I sat there this morning, listening to their pep talk pitch and thinking of all the citizenship things that have been floating around my head lately, and mostly hoping to NOT get picked, I landed on: It is what it is.

Anthony Weiner lived up to his name today.

http://weiner.house.gov/news_d…

Weiner just lived up to his name by withdrawing his amendment, which would have substituted single-payer for the House bill favored by Democratic leaders.  That coward sickens me right now even more than Obama, Pelosi, Emanuel, Hoyer, and Reid put together.

Friday Hours of Action against Rupert Murdoch’s Newscorp

Burning the Midnight Oil for Breaking the Silicon Cage

This is week 3 of the Hours of Action against bootleg streaming by servers from inside Rupert Murdoch’s NewsCorp media empire.

Act on Friday, 4pm and 10pm Eastern, 1pm and 7pm Pacific.

Part of the point here is to Call Out Rupert and NewsCorp on their institutionalized Hypocrisy, as Rupert goes around lecturing countries on Copyright Piracy while various crevices of his media empire are passively streaming bootlegs in competition against serious and audience-friendly efforts to adapt to the New Media economy.

Part of the point is just to attack Rupert and and the senior executive management of Newscorp for being a bunch of dirtbags.

Part of the point is an experiment in whether the blogosphere can be of use for more than a talkshop and campaign season ATM machine for politicians claiming to be “progressive”.

And part of it is curiosity – I am, after all, one of the minority of economists with an interest in how the real world economy works and evolves, beyond the blinkered confines of calculus-based models of non-evolving mechanical systems.

If you want to know more, there’s a remote chance I’ve already said it, so check out the “story so far” links below.

Taliban = 9/11?? Afghanistan by Hypnosis

by Greg Palast

On September 11, 2001, my office building, the World Trade Center, was attacked by al Qaeda, a murder cult of Saudi Arabians, funded by Saudi Arabians. And so, in response to the Saudis’ attack, America invaded … Afghanistan.

And here we go again. The New York Times (print edition) headline last Friday was: “Pakistani Army, In Its Campaign In Taliban Stronghold, Finds A Hint Of 9/11.”

Google it and you’ll find the Times report repeated and amplified 5,785 times more.

Taliban = 9/11. Taliban = 9/11. Taliban = 9/11.

Your eyelids are getting heavy. Taliban = 9/11. Taliban = 9/11.

It’s the latest hit from the same crew that brought you Saddam = 9/11 and its twin chant, Saddam = WMD, Dick Cheney’s chimerical tropes which the New York Times’ Judith Miller happily channeled to the paper’s front page.

And they’re at it again.

Every war begins with a lie.

Every war begins with a lie. In addition to Saddam = WMD, I’m old enough to remember the Gulf of Tonkin resolution authorizing the war in Vietnam, based on a fictional Vietnamese gunboat attack on our Navy. (White House recordings have Lyndon Johnson gloating privately, “Hell, those damn stupid [US] sailors were just shooting at flying fish.”)

In the Glorious War against the Taliban in Afghanistan, the lie is thus: al Qaeda is “based” in Taliban-controlled Afghanistan. If we don’t fight the wily Taliban, as the British once fought the wily Pathan, al Qaeda will attack America again from Talibanistan.

The latest Taliban=9/11 fantasy is a yarn spun wildly outward from the finding of a passport of an al Qaeda flunky who worked with suicide pilot Mohammed Atta in the same mountain area where, years later, a Taliban group operated. It’s a stretch, but when you want to sell a war, it will do.

Read the whole thing…

Prime Minister Rudd (Australia) Spanks Global Warming Deniers (incl Republicans)

Australian Prime Minister Kevin Rudd spoke at the Lowy Institute. Entitled Check Against Delivery, this is one of the strongest statements seen from a Head of Government of a ‘developed’ nation on climate change and, more specifically, contains very strong denunciation of those deniers and delayers and self-proclaimed “skeptics” who are obstructing movement to mitigate climate change in Australia … and, even more so, the United States.

The full speech is highly (HIGHLY) recommended reading.  This is one of those cases where each read drives one to differing ideas as to which part to quote, which item merits the most attention.

But, as is sometimes best, let us start with the end and what might be termed as a beginning toward strong governmental confrontation of those so ready to mislead and deceive:

My message to the climate change skeptics, to the big betters and the big risk takers is this:

You are betting our children’s future and the future of our grandchildren.

You are betting our jobs, our houses, our farms, our reefs, our economy and our future on an intuition – on a gut feeling; on a political prejudice you have about science.

That is too big a risk, too radical a departure from the basic conservative principles of public policy.

Malcolm, Barnaby, Andrew, Janet – stop gambling with our future.

You’ve got to know when to fold ’em – and for the skeptics, that time has come.

The Government I lead will act.

Rudd has chosen a quite direct challenge to those fighting against action, ready and willing to disseminate falsehoods and deception in their efforts to guard their current fiscal and other interests even at the cost of creating grave risks for all humanity.

What Are We Waiting For?



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Okay. Okay. Lessee. Karzai is declared the winner in Afghanistan through fraud and Obama says its necessary to die for him because he’s Empire’s guy. Karzai runs one of the most corrupt, disrespected governments on the planet and he just won an election through massive cheating. He’s the titular head, his brother is the hands-on manager, of the world’s largets drug cartel (with a big slice going to the CIA). He is hated and despised throughout the country and can’t walk the streets of the capital without being torn to shreds by the common Afghani peasant.

Re-evaluating War and Its Lasting Effects

When lone gunmen brutally slaughter innocent citizens on our shores, the first thing everyone runs to diagnose is motive.  Wild speculation rages as the first few confused details trickle out, which eventually are firmed up as substantive information becomes public.  The media framing implies, but can’t bring itself to mention directly, whether the psychological cost of warfare might be a deeply destructive force that erodes the emotional health of those who serve.  That, in turn, points a finger at our reliance on war as an economic tool and a political necessity.  Politicians and military contractors both push a robust military option and insist upon on the existence of many triggers eager to be squeezed.  Socialist might be the right-wing insult of the hour, but pacifist follows closely behind on the scale of damning conservative indictments.  

New meme: The GOP is Sabotaging America’s recovery for political gain. They hope WE fail

Crossposted at Daily Kos

    They don’t just hope HE (President Obama) FAILS, they hope America fails, and they (The Republican party) are helping it happen by obstructing reform and fighting job growing legislation that will help America recover.

    They hope you lose your job and go broke so that you are pissed off and miserable, and they hope this lasts until 2010 and 2012 so you can take it out on the incumbents who are in office, and when we “throw the bums out” Republicans will finally get back the political power that they crave so much.

    The Republican party is sabotaging America’s recovery for political gain.

    This is the new meme that we as Democrats should push in order to expose the elected Republicans for what they are, fake patriots who put politics above the best interests of their own nation.

    More below the fold.

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