January 11, 2011 archive

There will be no reasonable dialogue.

It should be clear by now that right-wing extremists, including most right-wing media and blog fora, are completely hardened in their shamelessness, unruly, unprincipled, and irreparable.  They cannot be managed by appeals to reason.    

Does anyone seriously think you have a snowball’s hope in Hell of having a coherent conversation with this woman who thinks repealing DADT caused recent mass die-offs?   She is gone, baby.  Bye, bye.  Never to return to the land of enlightenment.  

The only bumble bee left in the United States is the one buzzing inside the jar of her head.

Attempts at dialogue only make them more feverish and free from moral restraint.  They cannot be reformed by reason, nor do they want to be.  The rejection of modern liberalism is just that: the rejection of reason in favor of idiosyncratic, subjective truths, bugged-out bigotry, personal revelation, and headstrong “my-way-or-the-highway” domineering.  There is no independently verifiable touchstone they accept as an assay for the mutually agreeable truths.

Happy New Year, from Townhall:

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By Jove, whatever happened to America’s ethic of solidarity?

Jared Loughner, Post-Modern Assassin

Jared Loughner
Why is this man smiling?

Lee Harvey Oswald didn’t smile.

Sirhan Sirhan didn’t smile.

James Earl Ray didn’t smile.

But unlike all the others from Brutus to John Wilkes Booth to Lee Harvey Oswald…

Jared Loughner is a post-modern assassin, and for him…

It’s all just a joke.

..and that’s the essence of post-modernism.

Meanwhile, back at the White House, Barack and Michelle Obama were “expressing their grief” by standing on the White House lawn for a “moment of silence,” with their hands over their hearts, in front of a mob of photographers.

Obama

You’ll Love This- WH Sides With Big Pharma vs. Clinics on Prices

There are over 15,000 clinics and hospitals in this country, which get their drugs for poorer patients from a government discount – drug act which was created in 1992.   They spend over $6 billion, and they are supposed to get a discount of 30% to 50% off.

During the past 8 years, (that’s mostly during the Bush administration 2002 – , with some overlap into the 3rd Term of Bipartisanbamaship ) the inspector general for HHS noticed drug manufacturers were overcharging their customers, but not getting dinged for it and being motivated to be good contractors.


Ted Slafsky, executive director of Safety Net Hospitals for Pharmaceutical Access — which represents 600 hospitals in the program — said that “manufacturers have been able to overcharge covered entities with impunity.”

http://www.californiahealthlin…

Santa Clara County and Santa Cruz County in California sued Astra Zeneca USA.   This upset Big Pharma.

In Dec 2009, the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals of San Francisco ruled that clinics and hospitals could sue.

The Supreme Court is asked to rule next.

The U.S. Department of Justice, Eric Holder, Attorney General, under the Presidency of Barack Obama, is now siding with the Pharmaceutical companies to overturn that decision, and telling the Supreme Court they don’t want counties and clinics suing over drug price rip offs.   Per the DOJ, only the Federal Government (not meaning Congress, I guess, but the secret deal maker- in – chief) had the authority to enforce the law.

The next domino in Europe begins to wobble

  While America was distracted with issues of guns, political rhetoric, and domestic violence, the sovereign debt crisis in Europe reached its next tipping point.

 Alan Wilde, head of fixed income and currency at Baring Asset Management, said: “The crisis is reaching another key phase with debt auctions this week. It seems unlikely that Portugal can avoid a bail-out.”..

 In a further blow to Mr Sócrates, António Bagão Félix, a respected former finance minister and rightwing politician, said on Monday that it was no longer a question of “if” Portugal would have to turn to the European financial stability facility, the EU bail-out fund, for help, but “when”.

  The cost to the country of high bond yields was increasing every day, he said. “The situation is unsustainable.”

 The European Central Bank was forced to intervene on Portugal’s bond market on Monday when investors came close to abandoning the country’s debt entirely. The yield on 10-year bonds reached a near high of 7.18%, a rate similar to that which triggered the bailouts of Ireland and Greece.

Deepwater Horizon: Final Report (Released 01/11/2011)

A Press conference was held at the National Press Club on 11 January 2011 at 10AM and lasted a little over an hour with statements at the beginning and refreshingly, considering what we usually get in our so called political discourse and from the journalism profession, intelligent questions and answers following.

WikiLeaks’ Assange “happy about today’s outcome” After Extradition Hearing

Following his initial extradition hearing today in Belmarsh Magistrates Court, London, WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange said he was “happy about today’s outcome” and “said the skeleton argument he and his legal team hastily produced over Christmas will be made publicly available later” reports the UK Guardian in an article published this morning.

This outlines “some important issues which will be gone into in detail on 6 and 7 February”, he said, according to the Guardian.

“I would also like to say that our work with WikiLeaks continues unabated and we are stepping up our publishing for matters relating to ‘cablegate’ and other materials. This will shortly be occurring through our newspaper partners around the world, big and small newspapers and some human rights organisations.”

In today’s 10-minute session, Assange’s QC, Geoffrey Robertson, said all legal preparations are in place for a full two-day extradition hearing next month.

District judge Nicholas Evans released Assange, who spoke only to confirm his name, age and address, on conditional bail. Assange, who wore a dark suit and light-coloured shirt, listented intently as he sat behind a glass screen at the top security court.

Judge Evans also modified the terms of his bail to allow him to stay at the Frontline Club in Paddington on February 6th and 7th so he will not have far to travel for the full two-day extradition hearing in February.

His bail terms had previously required him to stay at at the home of Vaughan Smith, founder of The FrontLine Club – the journalists’ club in London where Assange had stayed before his arrest in December – since he was originally granted bail on December 16, 2010.

Assange appeared outside the court today with a public statement and was videoed by Euronews:

Sleeping With the Enemy

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Well, that didn’t take long. Mouthpieces for the Rabid Right are already howling that the Left is mean and unfair to them for correctly pointing out the factual recent history of the use of violent language in context to the Tucson shootings.

I wrote the story up, trying to paint a broader view of violence as a result of a whole societal fabric fail, I was subjected to immediate and unwarranted attack by a Conservative:

“political hacks on the left try to bloody their opposition while the bodies are still warm.

And then they want the Right to be kind and nice. We are not kind and nice. Not to that kind of opposition.”

Perhaps the problem is the Left is too kind and nice – no matter what opposition we face. The right is ready to invoke 2nd Amendment solutions to anything or anyone who shows the slightest inclination to oppose anything they do.

Under 8 years of George W Bush’s regime, the Democrats were not allowed to even be in the room at any committee meeting, they were absolutely shut out at every level of governance. Under Barack Obama, they screamed for bipartisanship and were given full access. They rallied around Hate Speech, forming frothing Tea Party events and sending people openly carrying AK-47’s to Obama events.

Tine and again, the Left and its very weak representation in this Country curls up and plays nice, hoping to defuse the anger and violence of the Right. We concede the game with 16 pieces still on the chess board, trying to play nice to the Bullies.

We reach out, and are told to submit, we stand up, and are slapped down. We try and negotiate in good faith and are cowed by our own sense of propriety into giving them another chance, while they rail against us in the most scathing terms possible. We are told to reach out to them, since they are half the people in this nation, families of “good people” who are “just like us.” They are NOT like us… but perhaps we need to be more like them, willing to utterly crush and demonize any opposition.

Thus far, playing the codependent abused spouse routine has not worked very well for us, in fact our own complicity has destroyed any possibility of any Leftward movement in this nation, and cemented the march into Right-wing Fascism.

Six In The Morning

Don’t worry the media in the U.S. and its political leaders wwon’t allow this happen as they enjoy conflict too much  



Spirit of unity after Arizona slayings may be fleeting

Reporting from Washington and Phoenix – Silence fell in Washington on Monday as President Obama, members of Congress and hundreds of officials bowed their heads in the wake of Arizona’s mass shooting and promised a new spirit of comity that harkened back to the days after the terrorist attacks of 2001.

“Harsh words are offered from both sides,” said Rep. David Dreier (R-San Dimas). “I hope this tragedy will play a role in diminishing some of the strident statements that we have heard.”

Muse in the Morning

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Muse in the Morning

Time for a break from poetry…in order to create some art.

Has there ever been a society which has died of dissent? Several have died of conformity in our lifetime.

–Jacob Bronowski



Four Winds 2

Words do matter.

What is the media’s influence on diction and syntax e.g., do viewers adopt the diction and syntax of the medium they consume?  My naïve guess (I could, but won’t go there now) is hellz yes, (high-pitched) “mutha fuka.”  People, especially children, pick up verbal clauses often instantly and in their entirety (whereas by adulthood one’s linguistic and other acquisitive powers, relative to the children, that is, not relative to the rest of our bodies, wane).  The majority of children can easily replay “damn your fucking bullshit” after a single trial of learning, or exposure.  In comparison, here’s a short play from the adults:

(Taxi-cab.  Both men are drunk off their asses)

Gerry:  Norm, you’re a portrait of moderation.

Norm: heh.  That’s funny.  Heh.  Remember when we ran through the hotel naked at Jeff’s wedding?  “I’m a picture of moderation.”  H-h-wahaa!

Gerry: I said, “Portrait.”

The End.

Late Night Karaoke

Open Thread: La Bayadere

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