Am I sensitive person? Sure, I am. I think it's better to be sensitive than to be insensitive. There are too many impolite, insensitive people in the world.
Talk about missing the log in one's own eye.
President Dmitry Medvedev says alleged vote fraud in Russian parliamentary elections that led to major protests will be investigated .Medvedev told reporters Thursday — after meeting Czech counterpart Vaclav Klaus — that the law may have been violated during Sunday's vote, because "our electoral law is not ideal."
He called for Russians to remain calm during any inquiry, adding that "experts, not ordinary people" would investigate.
Stalin once famously observed that its not who votes that counts, its who counts the votes. "Experts," my ass.
This statement by Medvedev comes on the heels of, well, almost neo-con-like charges from once and future Russian President Vladimir Putin that the US and in particular, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton were fomenting unrest among the populace:
Prime Minister Vladimir Putin strongly criticized U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton on Thursday, accusing her of encouraging and funding Russians protesting election fraud, and warned of a wider Russian crackdown on dissent.
By describing Russia's parliamentary election as rigged, Putin said Clinton "gave a signal" to his opponents.
"They heard this signal and with the support of the U.S. State Department began their active work," Putin said in televised remarks. He said the United States is spending "hundreds of millions" of dollars to influence Russian politics with the aim of weakening a rival nuclear power.
I speak fluent Russopolispeak too, so let me translate: "The sheeple noticed? Holy crap! Who can I blame?"
Let me sum up events for you quickly, to comprehend what happened here: the United Russian party (basically, the former KGB-sponsored political arm) held something like 70 percent of the seats in the Russian Duma after the 2007 elections. After the 2011 elections, the margin was narrowed considerably, and the actual results, discounting any fraud as claimed, may show Putin losing the Duma completely.
Since he planned on running for President in 2012, this would effectively scuttle his presidency, win, lose, or draw.
And so now you understand why there's some resistance to the official results, despite Medvedev's claim that the results are in line with polling done before the election (which you might expect...indeed, it's how closely the results hew to that polling that make me sit up and take notice.)
There is to be a rally in Moscow on Saturday, for which the Moscow police have issued a permit for 300 people. More than 17,000 have pledged on Facebook to attend.
Muscovite officials have said strong police action will be triggered if more than 300 show up. If 17,000 show up, then I would imagine all bets are off.
It will be interesting, over the next few days, to watch the rabid anti-Occupy forces spin trying to reconcile support for what may be violent Russian dissidence while mocking and deriding peaceful, non-violent domestic protests.
Mitt Romney vows to make his "closing argument" for the GOP presidential nomination, including drawing some sharp distinctions with new front-runner Newt Gingrich.
Romney has led or been near the top of national public opinion polls this year, only to lose ground to Michele Bachmann, Rick Perry., Herman Cain and now Gingrich. They have been viewed as more conservative than Romney, who has drawn the ire of some in the GOP for the health care law he signed as Massachusetts governor.
Newtiechoo has taken a pretty commanding lead in Iowa polling, has pulled ahead in New Hampshire and has a strong lead in South Carolina, all states now critical to a Romney victory. Until now, Mittman had been able to rise above the crowd, confining his direct confrontation to the endless debates.
The two combatants find themselves in similar straits, with similar weapons and similar strengths and weaknesses (save for Newtiechoo's immoral behavior all his life.) This creates a distinct problem for Romney since the "Anyone But Romney" vote is almost three times as big as Romney's poll numbers.
Romney's saving grace is that Gingrich has his own baggage as far as the rank-and-file Teabaggers go. For example, his comments on Paul Ryan's "conservative social engineering" healthcare proposal could not have sat well, nor his flip-flop on an individual health insurance mandate. Both seem to support Obamacare. Both seem to support Romneycare. The debate on the far right will be about the lesser of two weasels.
How did it come to this? The culprits include the internet, labor expenses, and, as with pretty much every problem our country faces now, Congress.
In and of itself, that's a remarkable statement: Gingrich hasn't been on the national political scene since he was forced out as Speaker of the House way back in the Clinton administration. Even President Dumbya was smart enough to stay away from this pudgie toxic waste dump of stoopid.
But when you consider how Gingrich both withered away-- revelations of his demanding a divorce from his wife on what could have been her death-bed, complete with notepad of how to divide the marital assets, his numerous affairs with women clearly out of his league, his tantrum when he was forced to sit in the back of Air Force One on a state visit-- and his intervening years-- making television commercials with both Al Sharpton and Nancy Pelosi, calling out Paul Ryan's budget plan, accepting money from Freddie Mac while deriding them publicly, coming out in favor of a healthcare mandate, to name just a few-- make his "comeback," however temporary it is fated to be, pretty astounding.
It would not be unlike Eliot Spitzer deciding to run for President, and becoming the front-runner by basically making shit up about his past: "Twitter? What's that?"
I'm pretty convinced by now that President Obama and the Democratic party are egging on this "flavor-of-the-month" gallop by the various nags and dodgepots in the horserace to accomplish two things: to force the nomination into Mitt Romney's hands and then to force an insurgency candidacy by (choose your poison.)
Newt is just the current bookmark until the race begins in earnest early next year. The ideal scenario for the Democrats would be a bloody, heated battle between Newt (or whomever) and Mitt that would last well into the spring, exhausting the financial resources of both while tallying up much-needed ammunition for the general campaign.
I know, it's really unfair to hold a candidate to his own words, but what the hey, right?
That Newt believes he is more electable than anyone else running is a black mark on both the Republican party and Newt himself.
Newt's self-image is grossly out of proportion to his actual essence as a cad, liar, and coward. Somehow, tho, he's managed to surround himself with enough desperate people to "yes" him to death. This, I think, explains the mulitude of enticements that have been put in his way. Too, I think his success has come about because he operates at his best in an environment that applauds mediocrity. If Newt was playing tee ball today, he'd get a trpophy for getting the bat off his shoulder, is what I'm saying.
As for the party, that Newt can still be taken seriously as a candidate speaks to the shallowness of the gene pool, which happens when a small but vocal minority of your party has oversized influence. It would be nice to see the Olympia Snowes and Amo Houghtons of the GOP get a chance in the spotlight, but those candidacies would be non-starters, precisely because they want to work to make the country a better place, not pray it does.
Gingrich tells about 500 insurance company employees at their Des Moines headquarters that they have responsibilities to their community and to their neighborhood, and “we’re all going to have to roll up our sleeves and be a little bit more responsible in the next 30 years.”
1) After 9-11, when President Bush told Americans to just relax and go shopping, we did.
2) When President Bush told us America was an ownership society, we took him seriously, went out and bought houses.
Why do you think we're in the mess we're all in, but we were being responsible according to the leader of YOUR OWN PARTY.
By the way, how many times you been divorced? Were you being responsible while Callista was suckign your dick in your office?
Never has unemployment been so high for so long. And as a result, more than 16 million kids are living in poverty - the most since 1962. It's worst where the construction industry collapsed. And one of those places is central Florida.
We went there eight months ago to meet families who'd become homeless for the first time in their lives. So many were living day-to-day that school buses changed their routes to pick up all the kids living in cheap motels. We called the story "Hard Times Generation."
Now, we've gone back to see how things have changed. It turns out some families are losing their grip on the motels and discovering the homeless shelters are full. Where do they go then? They keep up appearances by day and try to stay out of sight at night - holding on to one another in a hidden America - a place you wouldn't notice unless you ran into the people that we met in the moments before dawn.
But hey, those one-percenters, they have their yachts and second and third homes to live in if by some queer freak chance, they were foreclosed on by the banks, right?
Look, I don't want to sound alarmist, but I think the country...the world...is in deeper trouble than anyone realistically wants to admit. We seem to be devolving from a middle class society, with strong middle class values and an economy dependent on our middle class for both production and consumption, into an almost feudal serfdom, with itinerant workers grabbing scraps of work where they can and putting down their heads wherever they can.
Desperation sets in and pretty soon all sorts of behavior becomes the norm in places where there is no security, no safety net. Right whingers complain about the Occupy movement, claiming it's just a bunch of shiftless, spoiled kids who ought to take a bath and get a job. But as the people in the linked piece demonstrate, nearly all of them want to work, want to be productive members of society, but society has been slowly closing the gates on productive work paying a living wage that anyone can do in favor of the affluent and their minions.
It's going to stop, to be sure. and if the Right Whingers think Occupy is a sham movement fronting for socialism, well, they ain't seen nothing yet. The hungry, the destitute, the desperate, once they begin to march, they won't be polite. They won't be respectful. They won't merely shout and obstuct, they will be violent and raging, and tearing things up and down.
Once those folks no longer have homes and jobs and prospects for work, they will turn their attention on those who do. Human survival, ultimately, comes down to ensuring your own personal survival first. This is what I would call "the capitalism of the cave."
If economic capitalism is defined as each individual acting in his own self-interest contributing to the greater good, the cave-capitalism will be equally cold-blooded. If economic competition is defined as being that much better than your rival, cave-competition is going to incorporate that, but on a scale that will not be limited to lawful means of satisfying your self-interest.
There will be no safe places. I don't care how carefully guarded your gated community is, or how many security cameras you have or attack dogs. At the end of the day, if fifty starving people swarm your walls, maybe five or ten will be caught. That still leaves forty to ransack your home, steal your car and things, and eat your food.
The Statue of Liberty has a line in its commemoration plaque:
"Keep, ancient lands, your storied pomp!" cries she
With silent lips. "Give me your tired, your poor,
Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free,
The wretched refuse of your teeming shore.
Send these, the homeless, tempest-tost to me,
I lift my lamp beside the golden door!"
Translated to 21st Century language, it says "We were kicked out of all the cool countries because we didn't fit in with their notion of proper society."
You really expect their descendants to be any different?
The great liberal, John F. Kennedy, wrote in Profiles In Courage, "A man does what he must — in spite of personal consequences, in spite of obstacles and dangers, and pressures — and that is the basis of all human morality."
But he also said, "Those who make peaceful revolution impossible will make violent revolution inevitable."
This is not a war the 99% choose to wage, but we are willing to battle.
The teatards can’t understand why they didn’t get the tasty, free vegetable spray. Or the fancy flashbang pyrotecnics. Or perhaps it’s the wonderful baton massage they feel left out of.
How do religions die? Generally they don't, which probably explains why there's so little literature on the subject. Zoroastrianism, for instance, lost many of its sacred texts when Alexander sacked Persepolis in 330 B.C., and most Zoroastrians converted to Islam over 1,000 years ago. Yet today old Zoroaster still counts as many as 210,000 followers, including 11,000 in the U.S. Christopher Hitchens might say you can't kill what wasn't there to begin with.
Still, Zeus and Apollo are no longer with us, and neither are Odin and Thor. Among the secular gods, Marx is mostly dead and Freud is totally so. Something did away with them, and it's worth asking what.
Consider the case of global warming, another system of doomsaying prophecy and faith in things unseen.
As with religion, it is presided over by a caste of spectacularly unattractive people pretending to an obscure form of knowledge that promises to make the seas retreat and the winds abate. As with religion, it comes with an elaborate list of virtues, vices and indulgences. As with religion, its claims are often non-falsifiable, hence the convenience of the term "climate change" when thermometers don't oblige the expected trend lines. As with religion, it is harsh toward skeptics, heretics and other "deniers." And as with religion, it is susceptible to the earthly temptations of money, power, politics, arrogance and deceit.
This week, the conclave of global warming's cardinals are meeting in Durban, South Africa, for their 17th conference in as many years. The idea is to come up with a successor to the Kyoto Protocol, which is set to expire next year, and to require rich countries to pony up $100 billion a year to help poor countries cope with the alleged effects of climate change. This is said to be essential because in 2017 global warming becomes "catastrophic and irreversible," according to a recent report by the International Energy Agency.
Yet a funny thing happened on the way to the climate apocalypse. Namely, the financial apocalypse.
The U.S., Russia, Japan, Canada and the EU have all but confirmed they won't be signing on to a new Kyoto. The Chinese and Indians won't make a move unless the West does. The notion that rich (or formerly rich) countries are going to ship $100 billion every year to the Micronesias of the world is risible, especially after they've spent it all on Greece.
So basically what this asshat neo-conderthal is crowing about is, the Republicans have so choked the life out of the national economy that we can't afford to join in and save our planet.
What's the phrase again? "Cut off your nose to spite your face"?
Stephens, you ain't got much of a nose to begin with.
Religions are about faith, jerk. Climate change is science. It would be really nice if you could find it within your addlepated little mind to distinguish between received wisdom and knowledge obtained through hard work and attention to detail.
Europe markets were in a broad rally, with the Stoxx Europe 600 soaring 3.1%, after news reports over the weekend suggested euro-zone leaders were planning a new stability pact to contain the sovereign debt crisis. A new agreement, including measures to curb excessive debt by making budget discipline legally binding, could persuade the European Central Bank to take more action to halt the selloff in debt markets.
Investors' sentiment was also boosted after a report indicated the International Monetary Fund could provide between EUR400 billion and EUR600 billion in financial assistance to Italy.
"With a recession in Europe virtually certain, any movement in a positive direction, [anything] that stems the risks, is going to be interpreted very favorably by the markets," said Oliver Pursche, president of Gary Goldberg Financial Services.
The reason this is good news is the bad news if it doesn't happen:
PARIS, Nov 28 (Reuters) - The euro zone's debt crisis has become the biggest threat to the global economy and a break up of the currency zone can no longer be ruled out, the OECD said on Monday, slashing its forecasts and urging the ECB to play a bigger role in defusing the crisis.
The euro zone has already entered a mild recession but much worse could follow unless policy makers take decisive action to get ahead of the market, the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development said in a stark warning[...]
A worst case scenario of continued inaction in the euro zone and the failure of U.S. lawmakers to agree a spending-reduction plan would usher in a devastating downturn for the world economy, the Paris-based OECD said.
Since the US debt deal is a dormant matter (get to that in a minute), the Euro crisis is front and center on world markets.
Here's the heart of the matter: right now, there are two European Union economies that could survive on their own. Germany, which has been gloating over that fact for a few years now, and France.
And France itself faces some very severe problems if things go sour. (paywall, sorry)
As bad as the American economy looks right now, and make no mistake about it, it's bad, the European economy could collapse at any minute. In geopolitical terms, it is dead but just doesn't know it yet.
Still, the framework of a bailout of Europe seems to be in place, which means that it's possible, a small possible, that Europe could avert a worldwide debt crisis. If the US Congress can find their way to a framework to drop our national debt, the world could recover within a decade.
And there's the nub of the American problem: the smartest solution would be to let the Bush tax cuts expire. That would immediately add $4 trillion in revenue to the pot, bring our national debt back to the $10 trillion range, and would make enormous inroads into our budget deficits.
By. Doing. Nothing. For every dollar cut after that, it's one dollar more to the budget surpluses we'd begin to run in the next few years. This isn't rocket science, but it's not going to be sufficient logic for the low-normals of the right.
So it'll be on us when the world economy falls flat into a Dark Age. And blood will flow.
Posts
All Comments
