Tuesday, June 30, 2009

The U.S. Stuns Spain In Confed Semis



a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgh2hTEz5BQ5_NdkirAHmlxeDeHT6TR0qRONkSOllm0y0x0xsvwIkBTWF5WZmK4sny2yU4iCmy5k4f-5M94JeIFEOXf3FzOFrIrVJHghHnghfV36YJM1uDAH8bYxnSNF2RaKOSGpnMyUwtK/s1600-h/usa.jpg"img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 425px; height: 242px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgh2hTEz5BQ5_NdkirAHmlxeDeHT6TR0qRONkSOllm0y0x0xsvwIkBTWF5WZmK4sny2yU4iCmy5k4f-5M94JeIFEOXf3FzOFrIrVJHghHnghfV36YJM1uDAH8bYxnSNF2RaKOSGpnMyUwtK/s400/usa.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5350981569006752594" border="0" //abr /I, and millions of people, gave the United States zero chance against Spain today. Well thanks to an early goal by Jozy Altidore, and some great defense in the second half, the United States ended Spain's fifteen game win streak with a 2-0 win. Here are your highlights....br /br /centerobject width="360" height="300"param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/ykTUmvXcd40hl=enfs=1"/paramparam name="allowFullScreen" value="true"/paramparam name="allowscriptaccess" value="always"/paramembed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/ykTUmvXcd40hl=enfs=1" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowscriptaccess="always" allowfullscreen="true" width="360" height="300"/embed/object/centerbr /br /How David Villa didn't score seven goals today is beyond me, but we'll take it for sure. Great play by Onyewu and Howard, and the Americans' dream run will continue on this Sunday in the Finals, versus the winner of Brazil and South Africa.div class="blogger-post-footer"img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/28221516-6775168859127588372?l=awfulannouncing.blogspot.com'//divdiv class="feedflare"
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Israel Ditches the LCS



It appears that the Israelis have ditched plans to purchase the a href="http://defensenews.com/story.php?i=4160683amp;c=FEAamp;s=CVS"Littoral Combat Ship:/abr /blockquote In a radical revamp of its surface fleet modernization program, the Israel Navy has shelved long-held plans to purchase Lockheed Martin-produced Littoral Combat Ships (LCS), as well as a fallback option involving corvetees built by Northrop Grumman.br /br /Instead, sources say, the Navy is pushing to establish a combat shipbuilding industry through customized, locally built versions of a a href="http://www.naval-technology.com/projects/meko/"German corvette design./a/blockquotebr /The German option is a longer, larger version of the A-100 corvette. This is interesting, because there are multiple potential Israeli motivations. br /br /The central tasks of the Israeli Navy are to prevent infiltration into Israel, prevent smuggling into Gaza, and support IDF land operations in Lebanon and Gaza. There's good reason to think that the LCS would do all three of these jobs better than the A-100. As Galrahn has pointed out repeatedly, the LCS is best understood as a mothership for small boats and UAVs, and not as a surface combatant. These capabilities give it the capability to monitor and act in a substantial portion of Israel's sea space, and also to contribute to operations on land. The LCS was originally envisioned as the Navy's contribution to network-centric warfare, extending surveillance and fire capability across the littoral (which includes both the sea and the coast). This fits in well with the IDF's vision of how war ought to be fought. The LCS was also conceived in response to the threat presented by swarms of small, fast boats, which is exactly the problem that Hezbollah and Hamas might pose in the maritime sphere. The LCS is also some 16 knots faster than the A-100, giving it the ability to respond more quickly to problems, and to evacuate itself more quickly from dangerous situations. Although it's unclear that the Israelis would have much use for the LCS' modular nature, it's fair to say that the LCS is a *much* more capable platform than even a modified A-100. br /br /That said, there are good reasons why the Israelis would prefer the A-100. First, the technology is much more mature, and the design is operationally tested. The first littoral combat ships remain in trials, and won't be used operationally for some time. They might not achieve full operational capacity for quite a while. Second, the cost of the LCS is much higher than the A-100. To this day, no one quite knows how much a fully operational LCS will cost. For a state more focused on its land frontiers than its littoral, the less expensive corvette makes some sense. Third, the LCS isn't necessarily a street fighter. No modern warships can be expected to have a lot of staying power, but the LCS is particularly vulnerable because of its light construction. The LCS also costs more per unit, which means that more Israeli treasure is bound up in a specific ship. This matters, because people occasionally fire surface-to-surface missiles at Israeli ships, and also sometimes blow up small boats next to Israeli vessels. Finally, it appears that the modified A-100s will be built in Israel, and job-creating defense projects are always popular with politicians. br /br /The wild card is this; while the Israeli decision to quit the LCS can be explained purely through military and economic factors, you have to wonder whether there's also a political motivation. Given recent assertions about Israel's capacity to "go it alone," and mildly increasing tensions between the Obama and Netanyahu over settlements, it's possible to read this as a message to US defense contractors (and perhaps more importantly, to US congress-critters) that Israel can say no, and that there are potential economic consequences for playing hardball. Now, just because an action can be read as a message doesn't mean that a message is being sent, and I may well be over-interpreting the Israeli decision on this point. br /br /See a href="http://feedproxy.google.com/%7Er/InformationDissemination/%7E3/JIfIS2YnANo/israel-says-no-thanks-to-lcs.html"also Galrahn. /adiv class="blogger-post-footer"img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/7163938-1588354418857247560?l=lefarkins.blogspot.com'//div

Voyeurism, Celebrity, and Our Michael Jackson Obsession



The only time that I can remember feeling sadness about the death of an entertainer was the death of Frank Sinatra. Sinatra's career spanned nearly six decades. It included an Oscar along with all sorts of musical accolades. I don't remember the media going into quite this sort of a saturated obsession when Sinatra died. It's true that Sinatra died mostly of old age. Yet, Sinatra was exponentially the better singer, actor, and entertainer than Michael Jackson.br /br /Yet, it appears the rest of the world stopped when news broke of Michael Jackson's death. It took all other news off the front pages. The massacre in Iran was no longer all that important. Even passage of the monumental cap and trade in the House took a backseat to the coverage of Michael Jackson's death.br /br /For about a day, cable news couldn't talk about anything else. There was endless speculation about his death, and endless recaps of his life. The whole thing was entirely surreal. Jackson ceased being any sort of a rock icon more than a decade ago. For the better part of the last two decades, Jackson was something akin to a circus freak and even likely something much more sinister.br /br /The most obscene part of the whole thing is this. The story of Jackson's death could be summed up in about ten minutes. The rest of the time the media engaged in endless speculation. It was the sort of repetitive speculation that ultimately didn't advance the story though in any meaningful way. It did, however, I assume advance the ratings of everyone that engaged in it.br /br /So, what is it that makes people watch? Why do people care so much? This story is the perfect confluence of the sort of voyeurism we get in a trainwreck, the attraction of celebrity, along with scandal and mystery. So, a tragic but ultimately frivilous story winds up taking all the oxygen of the media. It's frankly unclear when any other story will find any oxygen left for itself.div class="blogger-post-footer"img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/3098264341625381422-3346503383687643124?l=theeprovocateur.blogspot.com'//div

The New and Improved PPIP Is Ready to Launch



It received much fanfare, speculation and criticism when it was first introduced both in February and in March. Now, the Private Public Investment Program (PPIP) is about set to launch. Secretary Geithner first talked about this in February. When he made his initial speech on the matter, a href="http://theeprovocateur.blogspot.com/2009/02/assessing-geithners-bank-bailout.html"he was very vague and general. /aThe market proceeded to plunge four hundred points in the aftermath. Secretary Geithner came back in a href="http://theeprovocateur.blogspot.com/2009/03/geithners-reprieve.html"March with a much more detailed plan and the market responded more favorably. /aThe plan is extremely complicated and it's ultimately unclear if it will work. It has also since gone through a major rework. The PPIP is the Treasury's plan to try and get so called "toxic assets" off the books of banks. Removing these so called "toxic assets" (very poorly valued Mortgage backed securities for instance) was one of the center pieces of the administration's economic recovery. It would allow for an auction among selected hedge funds and other private financial firms to buy these "toxic assets. The private firms would put up some of their own money and the federal government would loan the rest. (as such the public private investment) Now, it's just about ready to a href="http://www.cnbc.com/id/31638841"launch. /abr /br /br /blockquoteThe PPIP has gone through a long gestation process, interviewing many prospective investors and scaling back its scope, which at one point was hailed as a $1 trillion endeavor. It now looks to do business worth around $50 billion.br /br /Markets initially rallied when Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner announced back in March, a two-pronged plan to offer government financing to lure investors into buying bad loans and toxic securities from banks./blockquotebr /br /Originally, the program was supposed to be worth near one trillion dollars. Some estimates put "toxic assets" at near five trillion dollars. Clearly, what we have now won't resolve much of anything. I can only hope and assume that the Treasury has decided to roll it out in a small way to see how it works. If so, that might be wise. This plan is terribly complicated and rolling it out all at once could spell disaster. Still, given the enormous amount of toxic assets banks hold, it's easy to see just how difficult this task will be given they are only rolling out $50 billion for now.br /br /What's much more curious is the list of hedge funds involved in the PPIP. There are reported to be nine and those nine includes GE Capital. It's frankly nothing short of uncanny how often GE, and its subsidiaries, are on the receiving end of a favorable Obama program. It's no secret that both MSNBC, CNBC, and NBC, all GE affiliates, have given President Obama very favorable coverage. Now, we have another example of GE receiving a favorable business deal from the administration.br /br /In April, Bill O'Reilly featured this Talking Points Memo about a GE subsidiary that would stand to benefit handsomely from cap and trade.br /br /embed id="mediumFlashEmbedded" name="FOX News" pluginspage="http://www.macromedia.com/go/getflashplayer" src="http://foxnews1.a.mms.mavenapps.net/mms/rt/1/site/foxnews1-foxnews-pub01-live/current/videolandingpage/fncLargePlayer/client/embedded/embedded.swf" width="305" height="275" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" bgcolor="#000000" allowscriptaccess="always" allowfullscreen="true" quality="high" play="false" scale="noscale" menu="false" salign="LT" scriptaccess="always" wmode="false" flashvars="playerId=videolandingpageamp;playerTemplateId=fncLargePlayeramp;categoryTitle=undefinedamp;referralObject=4554841"/embedbr /br /Meanwhile, after working behind the scenes, GE was able to convince the Obama administration to change the guidelines of a href="http://seekingalpha.com/article/105984-general-electric-gets-a-140b-bailout-what-s-the-point-of-aaa"TARP and TALF in order to qualify for bailout funds. /abr /br /br /blockquoteAt the same time, GE has avoided many of the restrictions facing otherbr /financial giants getting help from the government.br /br /The company did not initially qualify for the program, under which the government sought to unfreeze credit markets by guaranteeing debt sold by banking firms. But regulators soon loosened the eligibility requirements, in part because of behind-the-scenes appeals from GE. As a result, GE has joined major banks collectively saving billions of dollars by raising money for their operations at lower interest rates. Public records show that GE Capital, the company's massive financing arm, has issued nearly a quarter of the $340 billion in debt backed by the program, which is known as the Temporary Liquidity Guarantee Program, or TLGP.br //blockquotebr /br /GE qualified as a bank merely because they own two small banks in Utah. Of course, it is the very same GE Capital that was the recipient of the bailout.br /br /This of course brings up another issue. Why was GE Capital chosen as one of the hedge funds to participate in the program? Aren't we only supposed to be dealing with hedge funds that are healthy? More than that, if GE Capital received a bailout, then wouldn't it stand to reason that they would be using government funds to buy these toxic assets. Wouldn't that remove the "private" from the public private partnership.br /br /Just think about this for a minute. Here's how the PPIP is supposed a href="http://www.treas.gov/press/releases/tg65.htm"to work. /aThe private companies would put up only one twelfth of the money. The rest would be loaned from the government. If the investment ultimately lost money, the loans would be forgiven. Any profits would be shared by the private firm and the government. That's a pretty sweet deal for any firm chosen to participate. It's even sweeter when said firm recently received a government bailout. It sounds as though GE Capital will essentially be allowed to buy up toxic assets with no risk and all government money.div class="blogger-post-footer"img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/3098264341625381422-1521756420018352378?l=theeprovocateur.blogspot.com'//div

Night of the living dead



div align="justify"Via Belmont Club on Michael Jackson:br //divblockquotep align="justify"span style="color:#3333ff;"The NY Post says the autopsy found Michael Jackson had nothing in stomach but half-dissolved pills. His emaciated body was a network of needlemarks and scars weighing barely 112 pounds on a 5? 10? frame; and the whole skeletal assembly was surmounted by a head bald but for a scant covering of peach fuzz, a fact artfully disguised by wigs worn on all his public appearances. The Post writes:br /br //p/spanemblockquotep align="justify"span style="color:#3333ff;"“He was skin and bone, his hair had fallen out, and he had been eating nothing but pills when he died,” a source close to the singer’s entourage told the paper. “Injection marks all over his body and the disfigurement caused by years of plastic surgery show he’d been in terminal decline for some years.”br /br /There were four fresh injections around his heart, presumably from attempts to pump adrenaline into it to jumpstart it, the paper said. Three of them had penetrated and damaged his heart wall, while a fourth struck his ribs, the paper reported. He also sustained several broken ribs while authorities administered CPR during his final moments Thursday./span/p/blockquote/emp align="justify"br /br /span style="color:#3333ff;"If any man in Guantanamo Bay prison had been found in this condition there would be cries for a war crimes prosecution. But since Jackson succumbed to that most socially acceptable and lucrative of ends, death by celebrity, the real question is whether anyone — anyone at all, bar some fall guy — will be found guilty of anything. /span/p/blockquotediv align="justify"br /Why did no one know?br //divblockquotep align="justify"span style="color:#3333ff;"This guy lived and died in the middle of a big city; he was among the most watched human beings on the planet and yet everything that was publicly known about him was either a lie or so shaded a truth as to be virtually indistinguishable. How any investor could be induced to bet hundreds of millions of dollars on a series of Farewell Concerts featuring a man in the condition of a Holocaust concentration camp victim is something that could never have happened without some major league disinformation going down.br /br /These information lockdown artists were geniuses. Where were these masters of deception over the decades when US codes, missile designs and nuclear installation data were falling down behind copiers, suddenly appearing in China or being accidentally published in open source? /span/p/blockquotediv align="justify"br /The backstory of Jackson and the Nation of Islam:br //divblockquotep align="justify"span style="color:#3333ff;"But for the circle of handlers who surrounded Jackson during his final years, their golden goose could not be allowed to run dry. Bankruptcy was not an option.br /These, after all, were not the handlers who had seen him through the aftermath of the Arvizo trial and who had been protecting his fragile emotional health to the best of their ability. They were gone, and a new set of advisers was in place.br /The clearout had apparently been engineered by his children’s nanny, Grace Rwaramba, who was gaining considerable influence over Jackson and his affairs and has been described as the ‘queen bee’ by those around Jackson.br /br /Rwaramba had ties to the black militant organisation, the Nation of Islam, and its controversial leader, Louis Farrakhan, whom she enlisted for help in running Jackson’s affairs.br /br /Before long, the Nation was supplying Jackson’s security detail and Farrakhan’s son-in-law, Leonard Muhammad, was appointed as Jackson’s business manager, though his role has lessened significantly in recent years.br /In late 2008, a shadowy figure who called himself Dr Tohme Tohme suddenly emerged as Jackson’s ‘official spokesman’. /span/p/blockquotediv align="justify"br /Read the rest./divdiv align="justify" /divdiv align="justify"I really don't care about Jackson, not for him, not for his music ... not my taste. But the unreality of his existence in the last decade is the most repellent thing I have read about this person. He may well have been a prisoner of his handlers. A slave in plain sight./divdiv class="blogger-post-footer"img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/7158917-206582404422133582?l=moneyrunner.blogspot.com'//div

Michael Bloom: Reanimating the Living Dead - Uncovering the Zombie Archetype in the Works of George A. Romero



Reanimating the Living Dead: Uncovering the Zombie Archetype in the Works of George A. Romerobr /by Michael Bloombr /a href="http://www.offscreen.com/"Offscreen/abr /br /blockquote“And suddenly he thought, I’m the abnormal one now. Normalcy was a majority concept, the standard of many and not the standard of just one man … Full circle, he thought while the final lethargy crept into his limbs. Full circle.” (I am Legend, Richard Matheson 159)/blockquotebr /br /img src="http://www.eons.com/images/members/2008/9/29/7/0/70431722211446144878_610w.jpeg" width="95%"br /br /Even for those who have never seen a zombie horror film, the mere mention of the subgenre conjures distinct images of mindless cadavers preying upon the flesh of the living, vulnerable only to serious head trauma. Such an interpretation, while not necessarily absolute, has emerged in the collective consciousness of the modern world in the wake of countless films subscribing to such an ideal. Yet this definition is distinctly inconsistent with the cultural origins of the zombie mythos, standing in stark contrast to the subservient reanimated drones rooted in Voodoo folklore. In actuality, the zombie as we understand it today is the direct result of auteur George Romero’s reimagining of the zombie identity. Beginning with his seminal Night of the Living Dead (1968) and continuing through to his most recent installment, Diary of the Dead (2007), Romero has purged the zombie genre of its culturally phobic roots and redefined it as a means of reflexive social commentary, subverting conventions within the genre both preceding and following his immense influence.br /br /This essay will endeavour to explore the evolution of the zombie conception from its religious genesis through to its modern reinterpretation. First to be examined are the roots of zombie mythology in Afro-Caribbean Voodoo and their (mis)translation to American/European society, particularly through the influence of the horror classic White Zombie (Victor Halperin, 1932). Proceeding onward, I intend to establish the cinematic and sociological context of Night of the Living Dead’s release within the dissolution of the zombie subgenre and the expansion of American consciousness to the graphic and senseless violence present both in Vietnam and on the home front. Night’s prolific sequel, Dawn of the Dead (1978), will then be addressed as a furtherance of Romero’s revision and the refinement of his social discourse. The direct influence of both his ontological restructuring of the zombie creature and emphasis on social reflection will then be noted in the preservation and progression of the undead archetype in modern reimaginings such as Danny Boyle’s 28 Days Later (2002) and Zack Snyder’s remake of Dawn of the Dead (2004). Finally, Romero’s culmination of the Dead trilogy, Diary of the Dead, will be discussed as both a return to form and an alternative subversion of the 21st century zombie standard, defining the perennial quality of the auteur’s enduring vision and adaptability to transforming social currents.br /br /Before addressing Romero’s work itself, it is necessary to understand that the zombie first originated in quite a different form than how it has been popularized in modern media, but that there still remain similarities in structure between the pre and post-Romero ghoul. Preceding the notion of the zombie as it was derived from voodoo demonology, the notion of the living dead is present in the very foundation of human psychology. Ghosts, vampires, and golems all find their roots in ancient folklore, and Bishop correlates this to Freud’s statement that “...to many people the acme of the uncanny is represented by anything to do with death, dead bodies, revenants, spirits and ghosts” (Bishop 200). Therefore the living dead, as with most fantastic archetypes of horror, is inevitably tied to the concept of the Uncanny, or the familiar rendered strange.br /br /This idea is the direct result of the universal consciousness of human mortality and the fear involved in seeing those who were once alive (familiar) as an intersection of matter and spirit converted to death (unfamiliar), or pure matter devoid of what the ancient Greeks best described as Nous, roughly translated into “mind” or “soul,” but ultimately referring to that which animates objects. The uncanny nature of death stirs our fear of mortality, but when related to the living dead the uncanny matures into collective terror. Death, while frightening, is inevitable and can be accepted and thus made familiar. But the idea of an inanimate corpse revived into a form alien to its prior living state furthers the process of the unfamiliar into that which cannot be reconciled with natural laws. Hence, as seen in virtually any zombie film where a character must confront the reanimated corpse of a former friend or relative, the moment is often reserved for the climax or a significant plot point to magnify the relationship between the living and the undead. This is why Barbara finally succumbs to the ghoulish horde in Night when she sees her own zombified brother (1:25:45 – 1:26:05), or why “Helen Cooper does little more than allow herself to be butchered” (Bishop 203) when she finds her own daughter undead (1:24:30 – 1:25:25). Both women are unable to fight back because they are literally incapacitated by fear.br /br /The function of the uncanny as the natural cause of fear toward the undead is universally human, but is not explicit to the zombie genre itself. In fact, the historical heritage of the proto-zombie stems from more social and ethnic anxieties revolving around the Afro-Caribbean community in the West Indies at the turn of the 20th century. Brought to the new world from Africa, stigmas of the primitiveness and primordial spirituality of the “dark” continent were transposed upon the same communities in the primarily African island of Haiti (Rhodes 70). With Haiti’s independence in 1804, the predominantly black nation ruled by Afro-Haitians became a source of anxiety for the American Southern Confederacy, who became increasingly fearful of their own slaves (Rhodes 70). Thus, the grounds for suspicion and fear of the Afro-Caribbean “Other” was set to erupt into misappropriation of Voodoo ritual through pejorative reports on Voodoo practice and William Seabrook’s (mis)anthropological book The Magic Island (1929), with its accusations of infanticide and cannibalism (Rhodes 72).br /br /Due to the mélange of fact and fiction in reports on Voodoo practice, it is easy to see why there is no clear origin of the zombie concept. Rhodes states that the term had various spellings and various meanings throughout history, referring to the snake god “Zombi,” revenant spirits, and a pharmacological ingredient used in potions (75). Indeed, the etymology of the term is most likely found in the Kimbundu word nzúmbe, which coincides with the revenant definition (Bishop 197), but it was Seabrook’s defamatory book which first connected the term to the living dead in American culture (Rhodes 81). Whether Seabrook fabricated this connection or if it was prior terminology, adapting the word for a returned spirit to describe a returned corpse, is contentious, but the importance of his writing is that, like any good lie, it indeed contains an element of truth. Zombification was not invented by Seabrook, but he did exploit its mystical and occult premises. In reality, there are actual pharmacological practices within the Vodoun religion (for which voodoo is a Westernized misnomer) which are carried out by a very esoteric minority of bokors, or witch doctors. These practices are capable of simulating a temporarily death-like state (Bishop 198), interestingly similar to the potion given to Juliet in Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet. Subjects of such a drug could be buried alive and return from the grave, undoubtedly triggering the uncanny fear of living death. Widespread publication of this misinterpreted phenomenon certainly laid the foundation for what would become the first zombie movie, Victor Halperin’s White Zombie (1932), which would capitalize on the American interest in and fear of Voodoo.br /br /a href="http://www.offscreen.com/biblio/pages/essays/reanimating_the_living_dead/"To Read the Rest of the Essay/abr /br /img src="http://www.horror-movies.ca/albums/userpics/poster_DiaryOfTheDeadPoster2.jpg" width="95%"div class="blogger-post-footer"img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/6323968-1338534805693715331?l=dialogic.blogspot.com'//div

Unemployment - with and without the stimulus.



Pay attention now.br /br /img src="http://michaelscomments.files.wordpress.com/2009/06/stimulus-vs-unemployment-may-corrected.gif?w=460amp;h=280" /br /br /The heavy blue line was Team Obama's projection of unemployment WITH their plan in place.br /br /The light blue line was their "scare" projection of what would happen if their plan was not put in place.br /br /The plan is in place.br /br /The red dots are the real unemployment numbers.br /br /Question: did the plan, which was put in place promising to make unemployment better:br /(1) help,br /(2) have no effect,br /(3) or actually make it worse?br /br /One thing is clear: Team Obama's projections are not to be relied upon ... for anything.br /br /Neither are a href="http://moneyrunner.blogspot.com/2009/06/higher-taxes-gibbs-were-going-to-let.html"his promises/a.div class="blogger-post-footer"img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/7158917-1252472243510774798?l=moneyrunner.blogspot.com'//div

Steve Dollar: Pigs, Pimps and Other Friends of Shohei Imamura



Pigs, Pimps and Other Friends of Shohei Imamurabr /by Steve Dollarbr /a href="http://daily.greencine.com/"Green Cine Daily/abr /br /img src="http://www.jwschwarz.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/04/pigs-cover.jpg"br /br /Although he bowed out in 2006, at age 79, as a globally revered grand master of cinema—his nation's greatest living filmmaker—Shohei Imamura may have simply refined his touch over a 45-year career so that his gritty vision of Japanese society played more elegantly on the screen. He didn't stake his reputation on arthouse propriety. Not that you'd necessarily infer that from the somber, poetic tone of latter-day productions such as The Ballad of Narayama (1983). Over time, the director became so smoothly transgressive that his final feature, 2001's Warm Water Under a Red Bridge, could employ female ejaculation as a metaphor and not raise any eyebrows.br /br /Because so many of his films from the 1960s—the period when Imamura broke with convention and boldly defined himself as a fearless observer of the human condition, mapping the gamier precincts of postwar Japan—have been out of circulation or otherwise hard to see, contemporary audiences have missed out on most of the ripe, juicy stuff.br /br /Criterion delivers the goods with its new triple-disc set, Pigs, Pimps Prostitutes. Its an apt summary of some of the major players in these robust dramas, and also the title of a 2007 retrospective at the Brooklyn Academy of Music's BAMcinematek that saw rare revivals of Pigs and Battleships (1961), The Insect Woman (1963) and Intentions of Murder (1964), all included in the box, as well as the mad ethnography-on-crack epic The Profound Desire of the Gods (1968), and the decade-closing documentary, History of Postwar Japan as Told by a Bar Hostess. Those latter films would have made welcome additions to the package, which also serves as a fitting companion to Criterion's edition of The Pornographers (1966), the most commonly accessible of Imamura's '60s efforts.br /br /Watched in sequence, the films show off the development of Imamura's unusual balance of objectivity and outrageousness. Every biographical note talks about the director's impulse to break away from the stately transcendence of Ozu, for whom he apprenticed, and surf the hurly-burly of the underclass. What makes his films so pleasurable, even when the camera seems to impose an almost clinical gaze, is that irrepressibly earthy sensibility. There's an often grimy, grindhouse candor that animates these social anatomies and their gallery of misfits. Pimps, prostitutes, and pigs were some of the director's best friends, not to mention serial killers, bar girls, rapists, conniving husbands, hapless pornographers, petty hoodlums and incestuous country bumpkins.br /br /Those porkers are no mere symbol. Pigs and Battleships, which Nikkatsu's bosses despised on its release, is a broadly comic saga of occupied Japan. Its lowlife antics transpire in the port town of Yokosuka, whose black market thrives amid the influx of American servicemen. A series of unfortunate events turns a wannabe gangster's pork-vending scam into so much hogwash, as hundreds of pigs stampede, trampling the exploitative intents of the local crime syndicate and the Yankee arrivals alike. The film, in all its sordid vigor, represents Imamura at his most freewheeling. One memorable scene involves a yakuza version of the Three Stooges who, having whacked a rival and tossed him in the pigpen, later slaughter one of the swine for supper and discover... well, let's say they need a few extra toothpicks for this barbecue. Making splendid use of black-and-white Cinemascope shot in high contrast by Shinsaku Himeda, a restlessly mobile camera, a manufactured set of neon jazz dives and hive-like bordellos, and penumbral interior lighting that evokes noir-like intrigue even at the most mundane moments, Imamura enjoys a crackling pace. When the local punks leap into the air to dodge a round of accidental machine gun spray, it's as kinetic as a 15-second musical. br /br /a href="http://daily.greencine.com/archives/007465.html"To Read the Rest of the Review Essay/abr /br /img src="http://wildgrounds.com/img/news/eclipseimamura-1.jpg"div class="blogger-post-footer"img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/6323968-2473830602783658058?l=dialogic.blogspot.com'//div

Pre-Emptive Ricci Post



I will be in a car returning from a graduation party most of the day. So if, as expected, the Court hands down its decision in ema href="http://http//www.scotuswiki.com/index.php?title=Ricci%2C_et_al._v._DeStefano%2C_et_al."Ricci/a/em today and reverses the Second Circuit, let me say that this in no way shows that Sotomayor was "wrong" on the law. First, because the Supreme Court can create new law in way that Circuit Courts can't. And, second, because cases interesting enough to make it to the Supreme Court generally admit to multiple reasonable interpretations, and New Haven's belief that civil rights law did not allow it to use a test that would disproportionately promote white people unless it could show a much stronger relationship between the test and job performance was certainly plausible, and a legal position that obtains 3 or 4 Supreme Court votes in particular cannot usefully be said to be "wrong."div class="blogger-post-footer"img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/7163938-2811691177170193333?l=lefarkins.blogspot.com'//div

Malaysia's latest political party



blockquotespan style="font-size:180%;"/spandiv style="text-align: justify;"a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhNnzHMakPHaNOw35KjfQ087NWgCvmQSM9bheQ7WHib9PgjonSFkvRncCQx4Bi8Q4yhVLhNpo188Z8Rhj8i4P9GFDOyMbHvykddIBdRNgtq7ZiFP7hpaL4jR-JdY_baT1KaeMCZMiqEsTA/s1600-h/new+paper.JPG"img style="margin: 0pt 10px 10px 0pt; float: left; cursor: pointer; width: 136px; height: 128px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhNnzHMakPHaNOw35KjfQ087NWgCvmQSM9bheQ7WHib9PgjonSFkvRncCQx4Bi8Q4yhVLhNpo188Z8Rhj8i4P9GFDOyMbHvykddIBdRNgtq7ZiFP7hpaL4jR-JdY_baT1KaeMCZMiqEsTA/s400/new+paper.JPG" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5352957344543873794" border="0" //aspan style="font-size:180%;"Human Rights Party. /spanFormer ISA detainee, lawyer span style="font-weight: bold;"P. Uthayakumar/span, may have secured the approval to set up his own political party, which will be known as Parti Hak Asasi Manusia (span style="font-weight: bold;"PAHAM/span). I was told the launch is scheduled for around the third week of next month.br /br /Uthaya, the former Hindraf leader, will be PAHAM's pro-tem Secretary.br //div/blockquotediv class="blogger-post-footer"img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/28452020-7126715306111617294?l=rockybru.com.my'//div

Alexia Kelley -- A solid Catholic appointee from President Obama?



"Abortion rights activists" are in a tizzy because of a href="http://blogs.abcnews.com/politicalpunch/2009/06/president-obama-appoints-antiabortion-pro-obama-catholic-to-senior-health-position-causing-controversy.html" target=_blankPresident Obama's appointment of an "ianti/i-abortion pro-Obama Catholic" Alexia Kelly to the senior position of Health and Human Services Department's Center for Faith-Based and Community Initiatives/abr /pSuspicion was aroused because Kelly is co-founder of the Soros-funded organization Catholics in Alliance for the Common Good -- which according to their FAQ:blockquote... believes in the sanctity of all human life—from conception until natural death. Our Catholic faith and the Catholic social tradition affirm that all life is sacred, and that every person has essential worth and dignity. Therefore, we support a consistent culture of life that includes protections for unborn children; implementation of social, economic and material supports for pregnant women and vulnerable families; and protections for children from abuse, poverty, and neglect./blockquotea href="http://www.salon.com/opinion/feature/2009/06/07/hhs/print.html" target=_blankFrancis Kissling, retired founder of the heterodox "Catholics for Free Choice", fears the worst/a:blockquote[W]hy the post, which includes oversight of the department's faith-based grant-making in family planning, HIV and AIDS and in small-scale research into the effect of religion and spirituality on early sexual behavior, has gone to someone who both believes abortion should be illegal and opposes contraception[?]/blockquotebr /In 2004, Catholics in Alliance for the Common Good published iVoting the Common Good: a Practical Guide for Conscientious Catholics/i, infamous for a href="http://www.catholicculture.org/culture/library/view.cfm?id=7265CFID=7104556CFTOKEN=68445357" target=_blankenlisting none other than Pope Benedict XVI -- by way of selective and abusive quotation -- to answer affirmatively the question: "Is it okay to vote for a pro-choice candidate?”/a. br /pa href="http://www.zenit.org/article-23964?l=english" target=_blankDenver Archbishop Archbishop Charles Chaput/a (among others) harshly criticized CACG for havingblockquotedone a disservice to the Church, confused the natural priorities of Catholic social teaching, undermined the progress pro-lifers have made, and provided an excuse for some Catholics to abandon the abortion issue instead of fighting within their parties and at the ballot box to protect the unborn./blockquotebr /Indeed, feel free to correct me on this, but Kelly's organization professes to be committed to "a consistent ethic of life" but in reality appears not the least bit interested in supporting any legislation that might place ilegal restrictions on/i abortion. Such that, as Rich Leonardi (iTen Reasons/i) points, out, a href="http://richleonardi.blogspot.com/2006/10/dear-prudence.html" target=_blank"they take a position at odds with the landmark USCCB conference document 'Living the Gospel of Life'"/a:blockquote"Any politics of human dignity must seriously address issues of racism, poverty, hunger, employment, education, housing and health care. ... But being 'right' in such matters can never excuse a wrong choice regarding direct attacks on innocent human life. Indeed, the failure to protect and defend life in its most vulnerable stages renders suspect any claims to the 'rightness' of positions in other matters affecting the poorest and least powerful of the human community" ("Living the Gospel of Life," n. 23)/blockquotebr /pKelly herself is chiefly known for serving as director of religious outreach for the Kerry-Edwards campaign in 2004 and Senator Obama's campaign in 2008; for adopting a 'seamless garment' approach to abortion, a href="http://www.faithinpubliclife.org/content/press/2007/05/leaders_call_for_balanced_reli.html" target=_blankplacing it alongside issues which she presumes are of equal weight/a ("unjust war, the dignity of the human person, the growing gap between rich and poor, and global warming") and most recently, a href="http://www.catholicsforsebelius.org/" target=_blankrunning defense for Obama's selection of Kathleen Sebelius/a as director of Health and Human Services. (This despite the fact that Archbishop Joseph Naumann, Sebelis' own bishop, has asked her to refrain from communion due to her support of abortion).br /pSo: regarding liberal fears that Obama's latest Catholic might iactually live up to and reflect her Catholic principles regarding "the sanctity of all human life—from conception until natural death"/i -- call me skeptical. br /pBut I would so like to be proven wrong.div class="blogger-post-footer"img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/9017636-2980999248739814252?l=thepublicsquare.blogspot.com'//div

The Democrats Stunning Chutzpah on Patriotism



Remember when Democrats screamed that they weren't going to stand to be called unpatriotic just because they dissented from then President Bush's policies. Here is a href="http://www.truthout.org/article/senator-john-kerry-the-right-dissent"John Kerry on the subject. /abr /br /blockquoteI have come here today to reaffirm that it was right to dissent in 1971 from a war that was wrong. And to affirm that it is both a right and an obligation for Americans today to disagree with a President who is wrong, a policy that is wrong, and a war in Iraq that weakens the nation.br / br / I believed then, just as I believe now, that the best way to support the troops is to oppose a course that squanders their lives, dishonors their sacrifice, and disserves our people and our principles. When brave patriots suffer and die on the altar of stubborn pride, because of the incompetence and self-deception of mere politicians, then the only patriotic choice is to reclaim the moral authority misused by those entrusted with high office.br / br / I believed then, just as I believe now, that it is profoundly wrong to think that fighting for your country overseas and fighting for your country's ideals at home are contradictory or even separate duties. They are, in fact, two sides of the very same patriotic coin. And that's certainly what I felt when I came home from Vietnam convinced that our political leaders were waging war simply to avoid responsibility for the mistakes that doomed our mission in the first place. Indeed, one of the architects of the war, Defense Secretary Robert McNamara, confessed in a recent book that he knew victory was no longer a possibility far earlier than 1971.br //blockquotebr /br /Dissent on issues of war and you are exercising your patriotic duty. Dissent on issues of climate change and you area href="http://www.realclearpolitics.com/video/2009/06/29/waxman_gop_rooting_against_country_because_of_energy_bill_vote.html" suddenly unAmerican?/abr /br /blockquoteThey [Republicans] want to play politics and see if they can keep any achievements from being accomplished that may be beneficial to the Democrats. They're rooting against the country and I think in this case, even rooting against the world because the world needs to get its act together to stop global warming."br //blockquotebr /Paul Krugman seems to take it one a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2009/06/29/opinion/29krugman.html?_r=1"step further. /abr /br /blockquoteBut 212 representatives voted no. A handful of these no votes came from representatives who considered the bill too weak, but most rejected the bill because they rejected the whole notion that we have to do something about greenhouse gases.br /br /And as I watched the deniers make their arguments, I couldn’t help thinking that I was watching a form of treason — treason against the planet.br /br /To fully appreciate the irresponsibility and immorality of climate-change denial, you need to know about the grim turn taken by the latest climate research.br //blockquotebr /br /When Democrats dissented on Iraq, they used straw men to protest with righteous indignation that they wouldn't stand to be called unpatriotic. That's because only the fringe on the right actually made such an argument. No serious conservative or Republican said that those that opposed the Iraq War were unpatriotic. If all these folks were really so viscerally hurt by this reference, we'd assume they'd never question someone's patriotism because of a policy dispute, would they?br /br /That the patriotic card is trotted out so quickly, recklessly and totally without class is really just a sign that their argument is weak. Do they really believe that those that oppose cap and trade are really un American? Do they really believe that those that oppose cap and trade really just hate the planet?br /br /After all, those are pretty serious charges. Krugman's argument appears to be the planet is in trouble and so anyone voting against this bill hates the planet. Isn't that a bit of a leap? Waxman takes it a step further and a href="http://hotair.com/archives/2009/06/29/waxman-opposing-cap-and-trade-means-rooting-against-the-country-or-something/"cites/a opposition to the stimulus as also un American. I expect that Senator Kerry, the beacon of patriotic dissent, will make sure and condemn these two pronouncements.br /br /These two suppositions are both yet two more examples of why people are so cynical about politics. These statements are not only absurd but totally disingenuous. They aren't meant as serious analysis. Rather, they're a way to demonize your opponents. Rather than engaging in serious debate, on a serious issue, these two have decided to simply demonize their opponents in hopes that such demonization will marginalize them. That's really as cynical as it gets.div class="blogger-post-footer"img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/3098264341625381422-7332731934927284136?l=theeprovocateur.blogspot.com'//div

Georgia Governor: Roy Barnes Hopes for a Successful Second Act



By Stuart Rothenbergbr /br /The last time I saw Roy Barnes was the day before Election Day in 2002. The Democrat was hobnobbing with CNN executives, reporters and producers in a hip Atlanta condo.br /br /I’m not certain that Barnes, who was then governor of Georgia, knew that he was less than 24 hours from suffering a stunning re-election defeat. I know I was surprised, as were many others, including some Democrats who talked about Barnes as a presidential candidate in 2004.br /br /Now, Barnes is ready to make another gubernatorial run, hoping that changed circumstances and a considerable dose of new-found humility will help him win a second term as Georgia’s chief executive.br /br /Barnes’ defeat more than six years ago can be traced to his controversial decision to change the state flag, his alienation of state teachers and his inability to resolve the state’s transportation problems.br /br /National Democratic strategists were euphoric at the news that Barnes wanted to make a comeback. The Democratic field without him was far from intimidating, and Barnes’ campaign skills and past fundraising success has most state political observers rating him the early favorite in the Democratic race. Polling substantiates that.br /br /Also in the race is state Attorney General Thurbert Baker, state House Minority Leader DuBose Porter and Lt. Gen. David Poythress, a retired Georgia adjutant general who also served as secretary of state and state labor commissioner. But observers are skeptical that any of them can raise enough money to compete with the former governor.br /br /Baker, who is black, would seem to be a formidable opponent in the primary. African-Americans, after all, account for more than 45 percent of the vote in the Democratic primary, and Baker has not had a difficult race since he was appointed to his office in 1997 by then-Gov. Zell Miller (D).br /br /But Baker has compiled a generally pro-business record, and he angered African- American leaders when he appealed a lower court decision that reduced the charge against and ordered the release of Genarlow Wilson, a 17-year-old high school athlete who was convicted of felony aggravated child molestation for having oral sex with a 15-year-old girl at a party. (The Georgia Supreme Court ultimately ruled that the 10-year sentence was “grossly disproportionate” and released Wilson.)br /br /Unfortunately for Barnes, the primary is likely to be his easier challenge.br /br /While the GOP field is not intimidating, the state has changed considerably since Barnes’ last campaign, and it is not to his advantage.br /br /When Barnes was first elected governor, Democrats controlled both chambers of the state’s General Assembly and had won 14 of the previous 15 gubernatorial contests. But the GOP made considerable gains in the 2002 elections, and shortly after Election Day, a handful of Democrats switched parties to give the GOP a majority in the state Senate. Republicans won the Georgia House in 2004, the same year they captured a second U.S. Senate seat — putting two Republicans in the Senate for the first time since the passage of the 17th Amendment (which transferred Senators’ selection from the state legislatures to a popular election).br /br /Georgia has now become a red state, with a Republican governor, two GOP Senators and solid Republican legislative majorities. Democrat Barack Obama drew 47 percent of the vote in last year’s presidential race.br /br /Following the surprising exit of Lt. Gov. Casey Cagle from the race, the frontrunners for the Republican nomination appear to be Rep. Nathan Deal and Secretary of State Karen Handel. State Insurance Commissioner John Oxendine and state Senate President Pro Tem Eric Johnson are regarded as long shots. Oxendine, who was first elected to his office in 1994, leads in some polling but has been dogged with ethics controversies and isn’t seen as the likely GOP nominee.br /br /Observers see Deal as a more formidable general election candidate, though they agree that his service in Washington, D.C., may not be an asset given Congress’ image.br /br /Handel, who earned a GED and worked in the nation’s capital for Hallmark Cards and later in the Bush-Quayle White House before moving to Georgia and being elected to the Fulton County Commission, is regarded as less prepared to stand toe-to-toe with Barnes in a debate.br /br /Democrats hope that, while partisan trends in the state have worked against Barnes, the state’s current problems will work to his advantage. They note that the state’s economy is an albatross around the GOP’s neck, and Georgia Republicans have failed to deliver on their promises to deal with the state’s transportation problems.br /br /Republican legislators recently cut $3 billion in spending, and party leaders may need to call a special legislative session to cut another $1 billion from the state’s budget.br /br /Barnes’ prospects will depend on both the strength of the Republican nominee and the quality of the former governor’s campaign. Some observers are concerned that while Barnes talks of having changed his approach (by listening more to others) and promises to run a very different campaign than he did in 2002, he is surrounding himself with many of the same people who served him as governor and who worked for him in his last race.br /br /Veteran consultant Ray Strother, for example, will come out of retirement to consult, while Chris Carpenter, who was deputy chief of staff during Barnes’ term as governor, will serve as campaign manager.br /br /The state’s Republican bent means that Barnes starts off as an underdog. But depending on who wins the GOP nomination, how the state’s finances look 15 months from now, and whether Barnes can control himself and not sneer at his adversaries, the former governor may find himself with an opportunity to prove he has learned his lessons.br /br /br /a style="font-style: italic;" href="http://www.rollcall.com/issues/54_152/rothenberg/36237-1.html?type=printer_friendly"This column/aspan style="font-style: italic;" first appeared in /spana style="font-style: italic;" href="http://www.rollcall.com"Roll Call/aspan style="font-style: italic;" on June 25, 2009. 2009 © Roll Call Inc. All rights reserved. Reprinted with permission./spandiv class="blogger-post-footer"img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/16918071-2869817562031487201?l=rothenbergpoliticalreport.blogspot.com'//div

Call Me "Senator"



Read a href="http://townhall.com/Columnists/DennisPrager/2009/06/23/senator_embarrassment,_d-calif?page=fullamp;comments=true"Dennis span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_0"Prager/span on Barbara Boxer's incivility and disrespect for the military/a.div class="blogger-post-footer"img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/14410967-7469183513787160908?l=theconstructivecurmudgeon.blogspot.com'//div

Monday, June 29, 2009

Understanding Sin



a href="http://www.breakpoint.org/listingarticle.asp?ID=11961"Charles Colson writes /aof the fall of Governor Sanford and the ways of sin.div class="blogger-post-footer"img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/14410967-7397275112704232300?l=theconstructivecurmudgeon.blogspot.com'//div

Rosenthal Added To MLB Network



a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhZZtamXRe9DniedRXY5w3DznsaSD9DEA7FWts30AAbyXfXyzoTu9qBz-DIlBzgA4V0J6RuvVcjI2kly7cekWn_ApRZ4Oh8FedKr24bu0k19mMfWQZZq_01slH6auI8T2s6OWoO5cYRSuJL/s1600-h/ken.jpg"img style="margin: 0pt 0pt 10px 10px; float: right; cursor: pointer; width: 223px; height: 302px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhZZtamXRe9DniedRXY5w3DznsaSD9DEA7FWts30AAbyXfXyzoTu9qBz-DIlBzgA4V0J6RuvVcjI2kly7cekWn_ApRZ4Oh8FedKr24bu0k19mMfWQZZq_01slH6auI8T2s6OWoO5cYRSuJL/s400/ken.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5352803447000681426" border="0" //aThe MLB Network added yet another piece to their ever-growing puzzle of reporters and analysts today, by hiring FOX Sports' Ken Rosenthal. According to MLB-N PR, Rosenthal will continue to work for Fox Sports, both online and on-air....br /blockquoteMLB Network today announced that Ken Rosenthal has joined its roster of on-air talent. Rosenthal will join the cast of MLB Tonight beginning Tuesday, June 30 at 6:00 p.m. ET. Rosenthal, who will continue his reporting for FoxSports.com and MLB on Fox, joins Sports Illustrated senior writers Tom Verducci and Jon Heyman as Baseball Insiders on the MLB Network team.br /br /“Ken brings a wealth of on-air reporting experience and insight into the game and we’re excited to welcome him to MLB Network,” said Tony Petitti, president and CEO of MLB Network. “As we grow as a network, it’s important that we continue to bring fans the most up-to-date information from the best resources in the business.”br /br /Rosenthal has served as lead field reporter for MLB on Fox since 2005. Prior to joining Fox Sports, Rosenthal worked as the national baseball writer for The Sporting News and as a sportswriter at the Baltimore Sun, where he was named Maryland Sportswriter of the Year five times by the National Sportscasters and Sportswriters Association. He is a voting member of the Baseball Hall of Fame.br //blockquoteI still think Ken Rosenthal is a hypocrite after his Outside the Lines tirade during the whole "Ibanez Steroid Speculation" thing, but this is another big get for the MLB Network. Unlike the NFL, Major League Baseball only has one or two connected national reporters. Tom Verducci is one of them, and Rosenthal is the other. Both are now employed by the MLB Network.br /br /In other Rosenthal news, be sure to Twitter him questions during the All Star Game. The reporter will be answering them during his time in St. Louis.div class="blogger-post-footer"img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/28221516-8349925717856626220?l=awfulannouncing.blogspot.com'//divdiv class="feedflare"
a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/awfulannouncing?a=Yps28VhhugQ:Wri2jOAOyPY:yIl2AUoC8zA"img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/awfulannouncing?d=yIl2AUoC8zA" border="0"/img/a a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/awfulannouncing?a=Yps28VhhugQ:Wri2jOAOyPY:63t7Ie-LG7Y"img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/awfulannouncing?d=63t7Ie-LG7Y" border="0"/img/a a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/awfulannouncing?a=Yps28VhhugQ:Wri2jOAOyPY:7Q72WNTAKBA"img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/awfulannouncing?d=7Q72WNTAKBA" border="0"/img/a a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/awfulannouncing?a=Yps28VhhugQ:Wri2jOAOyPY:V_sGLiPBpWU"img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/awfulannouncing?i=Yps28VhhugQ:Wri2jOAOyPY:V_sGLiPBpWU" border="0"/img/a
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*Blech* Twitter



We now have span style="font-weight:bold;"*shudder*/span a a href="http://twitter.com/lefarkins"Twitter feed/a. Adjust your behavior accordingly. We expect that the feed will include not only self-serving links to LGM posts, but also unique examples of the quality socio-political commentary you've come to expect from LGM, distilled down to 140 characters.div class="blogger-post-footer"img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/7163938-2296461090877135773?l=lefarkins.blogspot.com'//div

American Papist Issues Challenge to Left-Leaning Catholics: "No More Claiming US Bishops Are 'Partisan' on Abortion"



a href="http://www.americanpapist.com/2009/06/amp-challenge-no-more-claiming-us.html"Tom Peters has issued a challenge/a to certain left-leaning Catholics "in the interest of dialogue":br /blockquoteemI challenge them to explicitly and totally repudiate the pernicious claim that US Bishops, when they speak about abortion, are engaging in "partisan politics." This same claim is similarly made about American Catholics when they, essentially, mimic the talking points of the US Bishops.br /br /The claim that US Bishops, and those who agree with them, are "partisan" when it comes to abortion is deeply hypocritcal, because such a claim is, itself, a partisan charge made exclusively by liberals./em/blockquoteTom then goes on to quote a href="http://cnsblog.wordpress.com/2009/06/06/losservatore-romano-clarifies-its-views-on-obama/"emL'Osservatore Romano/em/a (which the Catholic left has recently taken to treating with magesterial authority) against them:br /blockquoteem"Obviously the Holy See and L’Osservatore Romano have been, are and will be fully at the side of the U.S. bishops in their commitment in favor of the inviolability of human life in whatever stage of its existence.br /br /strongOther interpretations have no foundation, especially those that have wanted to use the newspaper’s articles to make it appear that the teachings of the U.S. episcopate on the inherent evil of abortion were an exercise in partisan politics, supposedly in contrast with a different strategy of the Holy See./strong"/em/blockquote(emphasis added)br /br /So, will the Catholic left now be willing to abandon the claim that the Bishops are acting out of partisan interests or in a partisan manner now that emL'OR/em has put that little calumny to rest?br /br /(Hat tip: a href="http://opinionatedcatholic.blogspot.com/2009/06/challenge-is-issued-no-more-claiming-us.html"emOpinionated Catholic/em/a)div class="blogger-post-footer"img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/9017636-3655990277530133494?l=thepublicsquare.blogspot.com'//div

1Indonesia's Pesta Blogger



a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjcdyK2L2yj-AlGjOYMaOre-LGxgz_GDyzlSoPv4qOsOJx1ed3_1XN4pX7o4WyXOvyZ750HBUUPIwIRhdxrHKLtkdT_TOX0UReGl6_xgj0DWE4bxxlAlh7_R9w3WtiRZs12diMKZIIjHmo/s1600-h/pesta+blogger+09.jpg"img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 400px; height: 51px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjcdyK2L2yj-AlGjOYMaOre-LGxgz_GDyzlSoPv4qOsOJx1ed3_1XN4pX7o4WyXOvyZ750HBUUPIwIRhdxrHKLtkdT_TOX0UReGl6_xgj0DWE4bxxlAlh7_R9w3WtiRZs12diMKZIIjHmo/s400/pesta+blogger+09.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5346853172150205426" border="0" //abr /span style="font-size:180%;"/spandiv style="text-align: justify;"blockquotespan style="font-size:180%;"1Spirit 1Nation./span The logo and tagline for Indonesia's a href="http://pestablogger.com/"span style="font-style: italic;"Pesta Blogger 2009/span/a is very interesting, indeed. It's an attempt to brand the growing annual event and Indonesian bloggers as a unifying tool for theIndonesian people. The logo is not without its detractors, as blogger Ong in Jakarta points out a href="http://theunspunblog.com/2009/06/09/pesta-blogger-2009-gets-a-logo/"span style="font-style: italic;"here/span/a, but nowhere near the 1Malaysia concept that the Prime Minister is trying to push through.br /br /Najib is beginning to get a pep talk from some bloggers about One Nation. Check out a href="http://malaysiafriday.wordpress.com/2009/06/12/challenges-of-building-the-malaysia-nation-brand/"span style="font-style: italic;"malaysiafriday/span/a at wordpress, for eg. In his span style="font-weight: bold; font-style: italic;"Challenges of building the Malaysian brand/span, the blogger discusses the challenges facing 1Malaysia, including the need to get the private sector to take parta onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhFugqUyxm6GLCJgPaFkeR5DG8vrP1s0lLk-eHrqAESEffDZS6gq89RgXVt8Qgc7oyWl7Xs4IBDcxi9f63fkj8W2VvGEWI6GqSAaAXfoksqag06FETpEPZmx4rHOTfGcY0acdgT6lQSC5A/s1600-h/obama-that-one-poster.jpg"img style="margin: 0pt 10px 10px 0pt; float: left; cursor: pointer; width: 129px; height: 200px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhFugqUyxm6GLCJgPaFkeR5DG8vrP1s0lLk-eHrqAESEffDZS6gq89RgXVt8Qgc7oyWl7Xs4IBDcxi9f63fkj8W2VvGEWI6GqSAaAXfoksqag06FETpEPZmx4rHOTfGcY0acdgT6lQSC5A/s200/obama-that-one-poster.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5346865026091313458" border="0" //a.br /br /Another blogger, a href="http://ninitalk.wordpress.com/"span style="font-style: italic;"Ninitalk/span/a, suggests that we learn from the experience of America's race relations. She says efforts to unite diverse communities with diverse needs remain a crucial part of the American dream as they are with the Malaysian one.br /pspan style="font-size:85%;"span style="font-style: italic;""America does this wisely and systematically through a common language, a common education system, a common constitution and law. Lately common national pursuits like the fight against terrorism and the pledge to uphold democracy at home and abroad have united the American people and given them a relevant impetus and a modern identity as a nation. "/span/span/ppRead the rest of Ninitalk's span style="font-weight: bold;"E Pluribus Unum (Out of Many, One)!/span, a style="font-style: italic;" href="http://ninitalk.wordpress.com/2009/06/05/608/#comments"here./abr //p/blockquote/divdiv class="blogger-post-footer"img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/28452020-8579258344254821395?l=rockybru.com.my'//div

Sunday Book Review: Second World



This is the fourth installment of a seven part series on the a href="http://www.uky.edu/PattersonSchool/files/SummerReading.pdf"Patterson School's Summer Reading List./abr /br /ollia href="http://lefarkins.blogspot.com/2008/08/sunday-book-review-world-of-nations.html"World of Nations, William Keylor/a/lilia href="http://lefarkins.blogspot.com/2008/08/sunday-book-review-bottom-billion.html"The Bottom Billion, Paul Collier/a/lilia href="http://lefarkins.blogspot.com/2009/06/sunday-book-review-hide-and-seek.html"Hide and Seek, Charles Duelfer/a/liliSecond World, Parag Khannabr //li/olIf you like Tom Friedman, but think that his concepts are too concrete, that he doesn't illustrate his points with enough random conversations with locals, that his conclusions aren't sufficiently sweeping, that he spends way too much time defining key terms, that he doesn't contradict himself enough, that he does too much research, that he could substitute stereotype for analysis a bit more often, that he doesn't have enough contempt for existing work in the field, and that he's insufficiently arrogant, then you'll absolutely frakkingspan style="font-style: italic;" love/span Parag Khanna. a href="http://www.amazon.com/Second-World-Redefining-Competition-Twenty-first/dp/0812979842/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8amp;s=booksamp;qid=1246137884amp;sr=8-1"Second World/a is almost certainly the worst book that I've ever read on international politics.br /br /That is all.div class="blogger-post-footer"img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/7163938-1820852905387919647?l=lefarkins.blogspot.com'//div

What's in a Name II



(H/T to good reporting by Nancy Armstrong of a href="http://msplaceddemocrat.com/"MS Placed Democrat/a) Earlier in the week there was a big brouhaha over the supposed name change of a href="http://theeprovocateur.blogspot.com/2009/06/whats-in-name.html"ACORN. /aAs I reported, a somewhat sloppy story lead many in the conservative media to mistakenly report that ACORN (the Association of Community Organizers for Reform Now) had changed its name. That wasn't accurate. It was in fact a href="http://chieforganizer.org/2009/06/24/name-games/#more-1696"ACORN Intl. /athat changed its name. ACORN Intl. is the organization now run by former ACORN CEO, a href="http://theeprovocateur.blogspot.com/2009/06/management-council-of-wade-rathke.html"Wade Rathke. /aWade Rathke was removed from that position last year when it was revealed that he had covered up about a million dollars worth of embezzlement by his brother a href="http://theeprovocateur.blogspot.com/2009/05/embezzlement-of-dale-rathke.html"Dale Rathke. /aNow, while the conservative media was breathlessly speculating about what all of this means, ACORN put out this statement.br /br /blockquotepACORN International, a five-year old organization of overseas former ACORN affiliates, did./ppACORNwithdrew from ACORN International a year ago as part of an overall restructuring process and requested that they stop using the ACORN name, which they have now done."Wade Rathke was fired as Chief Organizer in June 2008 and has had no further involvement with ACORN since then. He will not be taking on any responsibilities with ACORN."/p/blockquotebr /br /Now, interestingly enough, Wade Rathke has a slightly different explanation for the name change.br /br /blockquoteHere are the brass tacks. Acorn International is a federation organized with a board from each of its member countries. ACORN is one non-profit corporation in the USA. In the USA we are going to do business as Community Organizations International. Why? Because it reduces confusion on one hand – why should we want to deal with these whacks and weirdo’s out there, I wonder? And, on the other hand it allows us to more easily amalgamate other organizations that are already established and have different names. So in the existing seven countries where we have members and are already chartered, they will clearly keep on keeping on with their name. In some countries (Sicily for example) where existing organizations have begun talking about affiliating to Acorn International, it is even easier to do so with the name of Community Organizations International, because then no one has to argue about autonomy. At the point we expand to new areas we will make the decision with local people from place to place. /blockquotebr /br /So, if ACORN and ACORN Intl. are severed organizations, then it's news to Wade. According to Rathke himself, ACORN Intl. is a federation of organizations from all around the world INCLUDING ACORN IN THE USA. The name change is occurring simply so that here in the states there is no confusion between the two groups. In fact, officially, ACORN Intl. is still the name of his organization according to Rathke himself. Furthermore, the name of the organization continues to be ACORN Intl., a href="http://www400.sos.louisiana.gov/cgibin?rqstyp=crpdtlCamp;rqsdta=35600162N"according to the Secretary of State's office in Louisiana. /aThe address of the organization is 1024 ELYSIAN FIELDS, NEW ORLEANS, LA 70117, which is the now infamous address a href="http://www.google.com/search?hl=enamp;q=1024+ELYSIAN+FIELDS%2C+NEW+ORLEANS%2C+LA+70117+amp;btnG=Google+Searchamp;aq=famp;oq=amp;aqi="that houses Citizen's Consulting Inc. ACORN itself, along with many other ACORN affiliates. /aFinally, listed as Treasurer and Secretary of ACORN Intl. is Mande Hurde. Now, there's no other listing of a Mandy Hurde anywhere else. There is, however, a listing for a Maude Hurd. a href="http://www.capitalresearch.org/blog/wp-content/uploads/2008/11/acornwww400-sos-louisiana-gov_cgibin_baguypkt.pdf"She is currently the President of ACORN./a (the address listed is the same in both cases) So, either two people with very similar names live at the exact same address or the same Maude Hurd who is President of ACORN is also Secretary and Treasurer of ACORN Intl.br /br /As such, if ACORN is insisting on making sure that they have severed all ties between themselves and Wade Rathke, as their press release insists, they are doing rather terrible job of it.br /br /There's more. Here is the a href="http://www400.sos.louisiana.gov/cgibin?rqstyp=crpdtlCamp;rqsdta=34345130N"Secretary of State of Louisiana's record of ACORN Funds Inc. /aThey also just happen to list their main office at the exact same address on Elysian Fields. Who's the President of ACORN Funds Inc.? You guessed it, Wade Rathke. Now, either the folks at the Secretary of State's office in Louisiana are awfully slow in updating these records, or ACORN isn't being totally forthright in their assertion that all ties between themselves and Wade Rathke have actually been severed.br /br /This is no small point. Wade Rathke covered up a million dollar embezzlement. The organization removed him for obvious reasons. a href="http://theeprovocateur.blogspot.com/2009/05/oreilly-vs-bertha-lewis-ceo-of-acorn.html"Bertha Lewis told Bill O'Reilly emphatically that there was no more criminality on her watch. /aACORN itself has stated unequivocally that they have no more ties to Rathke. Clearly, they do. This not only raises issues of honesty. More importantly, how much influence does Wade Rathke, an admitted party to a million dollar embezzlement, still have at ACORN?div class="blogger-post-footer"img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/3098264341625381422-3392772039887974725?l=theeprovocateur.blogspot.com'//div

Florida Senate: Just What Is Marco Rubio Up to?



By Stuart Rothenbergbr /br /The GOP field in the 2010 Florida Senate race was supposed to clear quickly when Gov. Charlie Crist (R) announced his bid. But someone forget to tell former state Speaker Marco Rubio (R).br /br /Most observers believe that Rubio, who jumped into the race before the governor, has little chance of wrestling the Republican nomination away from Crist. Even if that’s true (and I’m agnostic on that question at this point), there is still reason to keep an eye on the GOP contest.br /br /Rubio, who turned 38 years old recently, began his career as a city commissioner for West Miami, eventually winning a seat in the Florida House during a 2000 special election. He was elected Speaker of the House for 2007 and 2008.br /br /Rubio eyed a statewide bid for months, and insiders confirm that he initially intended on waiting to commit himself to a race until Crist revealed his plans. If Crist ran for re-election, Rubio would run for the Senate. If Crist switched to the Senate race, Rubio would run for governor.br /br /But when Crist sat on his decision, Rubio jumped into the Senate contest, insisting that he was in the race no matter what Crist decided. (Rubio explained his decision by asserting that he couldn’t wait to finalize his plans, an assessment that few others share.)br /br /Most observers doubted that the Miami-area Republican was serious. They believed that if Crist opted for the Senate, Rubio would run in the open gubernatorial race or possibly for state attorney general, depending on what Attorney General Bill McCollum (R) did.br /br /But when the dominoes fell, McCollum was in the gubernatorial race, while Crist and Rubio were running for Senate. So, instead of coasting into the high-profile attorney general’s office, Rubio is now in a fight with the top state elected official of his party — and a man with a job-approval rating well over 60 percent.br /br /Initial public polling in the Senate primary shows Crist over 50 percent and leading Rubio by more than 30 points. That’s a big problem for Rubio, considering that state voters aren’t traditionally all that interested in politics and the local media prefers covering crime, growth issues and tourism concerns rather than politics.br /br /Geography is another problem for the former Speaker. His Miami base is not an asset in a primary or a general election, since the area is seen by voters in North Florida and in the crucial I-4 Corridor (from Tampa/St. Petersburg to Orlando and Daytona) as different from their own communities and interests.br /br /Money is a challenge for Rubio. Florida is a large, expensive state that includes 10 media markets (including three extremely pricey ones), and Rubio must prove that he can raise enough money to run a credible campaign. He will be heavily outspent by the governor.br /br /Pretty daunting, isn’t it? So what’s Rubio up to?br /br /GOP insiders say the former Speaker is being encouraged to run by friends of former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush (R), who like Rubio also believes that Crist was too quick to yield to state legislators about backtracking on some of Bush’s accomplishments.br /br /Tensions in the state between Crist supporters and Bush loyalists haven’t been much of a secret, and allies of the former governor apparently have been happy to encourage Rubio’s Senate ambitions, hoping that even if he can’t win the nomination, Rubio can damage Crist’s reputation, thereby undermining his national ambitions.br /br /Rubio’s opening salvo against Crist, a Web video, suggested that the former Florida Speaker hopes to make the 2010 contest into a referendum about both ideology and change, portraying the governor as a selfish politician who has put his own ambitions first and who would not be a reliable opponent of President Barack Obama on Capitol Hill.br /br /“Some politicians support trillions in spending, borrowed money from China and the Middle East, mountains of debt for our children,” says an announcer shortly before a photograph of Crist and Obama comes into focus in the Rubio video. “Today, too many politicians embrace Washington’s same old broken ways ... ” continues the announcer, the photograph of the two men filling the screen.br /br /“Movement conservatives” already call Crist “a squish,” so it wouldn’t be surprising to see plenty of them in the Sunshine State embrace Rubio. The question is how much the former Speaker can broaden his support. A recent endorsement from Sen. Jim DeMint (R-S.C.) is meaningless but reflects Rubio’s approach.br /br /Supporters of Rubio talk about the primary as a national race, with the former Speaker appearing on Fox News and raising money nationally from conservatives. Rubio has already begun to court the Club for Growth, and knowledgeable sources tell me the club is “actively considering the race and Rubio’s candidacy.” Some observers see Rubio as trying to imitate then-Rep. Pat Toomey’s (R-Pa.) 2004 primary challenge to Sen. Arlen Specter, which became a cause célèbre for many on the right.br /br /Some insiders whisper that Rubio expects to lose but is running statewide to establish himself for a future race, possibly the seat held by Sen. Bill Nelson (D) in 2012. That’s possible, but running for and winning election as Florida’s attorney general would seem to be a better way for Rubio to set himself up for a run for governor or the Senate.br /br /“People thought initially that Marco wouldn’t even be a nuisance [to Crist],” said one Rubio supporter. “But that sentiment is starting to turn. They realize that his candidacy isn’t a sign of selfishness. Nobody thinks that running against the governor is the easiest road Marco Rubio could have taken.”br /br /br /br /a style="font-style: italic;" href="http://www.rollcall.com/issues/54_149/rothenberg/36086-1.html?type=printer_friendly"This column/aspan style="font-style: italic;" first appeared in /spana style="font-style: italic;" href="http://www.rollcall.com"Roll Call /aspan style="font-style: italic;"on June 22, 2009. 2009 © Roll Call Inc. All rights reserved. Reprinted with permission. /spandiv class="blogger-post-footer"img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/16918071-4939102699371222220?l=rothenbergpoliticalreport.blogspot.com'//div

Regime Change: the New "Realism" in Iran



That doesn't even come from me. That comes from this Oped in the a href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/06/26/AR2009062603986.html"Washington Post. /abr /br /blockquoteStill, by now it ought to be clear that the best chance to protect what Mr. Obama calls "core U.S. security interests" lies in a victory for the Iranian opposition. That may look unlikely for now. But it is considerably more probable than a turn toward detente by those now engaged in murdering young women. There may not be much that can be done to help the opposition, though some tangible steps -- more money for broadcasting into the country, for example -- are readily available. But at the least, nothing should be done that would harm the cause of change. That is not just the moral course; it is the most pragmatic and realistic.br //blockquotebr /I believe that the riots, mass murder, and tyrannical squashing of free speech in the aftermath of the rigged elections proved that the only policy with a country like Iran, as well as North Korea, is regime change. The article believes that events mean that the new policy must be regime change. Either way, we've arrived in the same place.br /br /The key now is isolation. The first thing that should happen is that several countries should immediately dismiss Iranian ambassadors from embassies in their countries. This strategy is very dangerous because often Iranian protestors use foreign embassies to get treated for injuries. That's because secret police scour the hospitals and arrest those that have injuries consistent with those they themselves have inflicted. If foreign countries expel diplomats, it's only a matter of time before Iran does the same.br /br /Still, there is no better very easy way to isolate a country than to have allies get together and expel diplomats. If Iranians have foreign policy contacts with only Syria, Russia, China, and Venezuela, it's only a matter of time before the regime loses totally legitimacy and falls.br /br /The main weapon must be economic. Right now, the regime uses technology from Siemens to be able to spy on citizens that attempt to inform the world of what's going on. Siemens does business all over the world, including here in the States. That company must make a choice: do business in the world or in Iran. Any company that helps the regime put down its citizens is one that can't do business in the rest of the world.br /br /Iran would fall quickly if it was totally isolated economically. That won't happen because no matter what Russia and China would support it, but those two nations, on their own, aren't enough. If the Western world united so that all major companies had to choose: do business in Iran or the rest of the world, the regime would fall fairly quickly. Of course, this is mostly wishful thinking. We can't even seem to get most of America to sign on to something like this. The rest of the world is a lost hope. Still President Obama could have an effect immediately by divesting all federal funds from any company still doing business in Iran, in any way (be it through foreign subsidiaries or normally) He could encourage state governments to do the same in private conversations.br /br /At some point, the President would need to get countries like Germany, France and England on board. If NATO, for instance, stood united in calling for regime change that would be nearly a death blow if it was combined with the other steps.br /br /What should be clear is that, given what's happened, President Obama must adjust his policy toward Iran in a significant way.div class="blogger-post-footer"img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/3098264341625381422-3818814196633010112?l=theeprovocateur.blogspot.com'//div

Old School



Mr. Trend has one of the nicer tributes to MJ that a href="http://alterdestiny.blogspot.com/2009/06/rip-michael-jackson.html"I've read./adiv class="blogger-post-footer"img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/7163938-4518162208846752322?l=lefarkins.blogspot.com'//div

Farrah Fawcett and Michael Jackson selfishly draw attention away from freedom-loving Iranians



a href="http://pajamasmedia.com/rogerlsimon/2009/06/24/what-mark-sanford-did-wrecked-our-priorities/"Governor of South Carolina breathes deep sigh of relief./abr /br /br /...[UPDATE BY ROB] the obligatory video:br /br /object width="425" height="344"param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/ex30DYwQlHUhl=enfs=1"/paramparam name="allowFullScreen" value="true"/paramparam name="allowscriptaccess" value="always"/paramembed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/ex30DYwQlHUhl=enfs=1" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowscriptaccess="always" allowfullscreen="true" width="425" height="344"/embed/objectbr /br /Michael and Farrah, rest in peace.div class="blogger-post-footer"img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/7163938-3020044753056633355?l=lefarkins.blogspot.com'//div

Elvis has Left the Building?



divbr //divdivI'm a bit late to the game on a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2009/06/26/arts/music/26jackson.html?_r=1amp;hp"this one/a.  Paul a href="http://lefarkins.blogspot.com/2009/06/farrah-fawcett-and-michael-jackson.html"beat me to the punch/a, and got in the obviously good quip in the process.  I blame the time zones.  Or the healthy moderate drinking that a good friend and I partook in last night at my house.  It span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-style: italic;"was/span a nice Zin, and also a really nice, proper Chablis, but I digress./divdivbr //divdivI'm both surprised and not, at once.  When I woke and heard the news on BBC 6 Music this morning, I went to my itunes collection to put some Jackson on, out of some sort of sentimental obligation or whatever.  Fortunately, over the years, cooler heads have prevailed; out of the 95 gig of music in my itunes collection (other pointless stats: 51.7 straight days of music; I don't have 51.7 days to listen to music exclusively) there is strikenot a single Michael Jackson song/strike.  [UPDATE: There is.  I have a very nice Motown box set that I hadn't imported into itunes for some reason.  And I'm kicking myself for missing the obvious temporal link here -- the Jackson 5 were signed to Motown in 1968, the same year Elvis realized that he was irrelevant and had his comeback special.  1969 was when the Jackson 5 released their first singles, the same year Elvis recorded what would become parts of the Memphis Record.]/divdivbr //divdivThat also sort of surprised me -- as, while lapsed in the theological sense, I do maintain a catholic approach to music.  I'll admit to an admiration for the man in terms of his pop sensibilities -- he was genius there.  But, unlike the King, Jacko never had his return to Memphis moment.  Jackson had become utterly irrelevant, and worse, a running joke, but part of me had hoped, in vain, that he would recognize this.  Where Elvis had self-awareness, recognized that he had become irrelevant, and even better, did something about it, making perhaps a href="http://www.rollingstone.com/artists/elvispresley/albums/album/222262/review/5942372/the_memphis_record"one of the best records ever/a, Jackson did nothing more than a href="http://www.rwdmag.com/music/indie-pop/news/o2-gig-hits-a-roadblock-before-even-starts"string us along/a./divdivbr //divdivI will state, unequivocally, that Michael Jackson is not a href="http://www.myfox8.com/wghp-mourning-michael-090625,0,7492745.story"my generation's Elvis/a.  As far as I am concerned, a href="http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/entertainment/7905406.stm"that man is playing Glastonbury/a this weekend.  But with both Jacko and Farrah, strikea href="http://rgmale.blogspot.com/2006/10/death-comes-in-threes.html"who will be the third/a?/strike [readers have correctly pointed out that Ed McMahon was the first of this batch of three . . . and on this one, my excuses are flimsy at best.]/divdiv class="blogger-post-footer"img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/7163938-1529542774026244711?l=lefarkins.blogspot.com'//div

The Libertarian's Downfall: Conspiracy Theories



Did you hear the one about how the Federal Reserve controls the world? In fact, the Federal Reserve chairman is merely a puppet. They are always controlled by a super secret group of power players. No one, of course, knows exactly who they are because no one knows exactly who actually owns the Federal Reserve. In fact, the president is also merely a puppet. It is this super secret group of power players that ultimately puppeteer the world. It's all part of their goals to create a one world government and ultimately control that government. Furthermore, this is no new plan. This has been going on since the early nineteen hundreds. Way back then, John Rockefeller was quoted as saying that we are all moving toward a one world government and it was important that the right folks would control it. In fact, the North American Union is just such an avenue. Here's howa href="http://www.goodwillhinton.com/libertarian_enemy_number_one_ron_paul" libertarian Ron Paul characterizes it. /abr /br /blockquoteAnd there is a move on toward a North American union, just like early on there was a move on for a European Union, and it eventually ended up.br /br /And there is a move on toward a North American Union, just like early on there was a move on for a European Union, and eventually ended up. So we had NAFTA and moving toward abr /br /NAFTA highway. These are real things. It's not somebody made these up. It's not a conspiracy. They don't talk about it, and they might not admit about it, but there's been money spent on it. There was legislation passed in the Texas legislature unanimously to put a halt on it. They're planning on millions of acres taken by eminent domain for an international highway from Mexico to Canada, which is going to make the immigration problem that much worse.br /br /So it's not so much a secretive conspiracy, it's a contest between ideologies, whether we believe in our institutions here, our national sovereignty, our Constitution, or are we going to further move into the direction of international government, more U.N.br /br /You know, this country goes to war under U.N. resolutions. I don't like big government in Washington, so I don't like this trend toward international government. We have a WTO that wants to control our drug industry, our nutritional products. So, I'm against all that.But it's not so much as a sinister conspiracy. It's just knowledge is out there. If we look for it, you'll realize that our national sovereignty is under threat.br //blockquotebr /br /Speaking of Ron Paul, did you hear the one about how Ron Paul only lost the New Hampshire primary because of voter fraud? Apparently there were thousand person demonstrations everywhere but the media ignored them all. It turns out that in some towns Ron Paul had zero votes even though Ron Paul supporters a href="http://www.ronpaulforums.com/showthread.php?t=82909"know of people in those towns that voted for him. /abr /br /blockquoteMy mom, aunt, and dad all voted for RP today in my hometown, My mom and aunt both work passing out ballots, and checking them off. I just looked at the politico map and it says their town has ZERO votes for Ron. Now i know that there isn't corruption on voting in that little town, so where they reported it must be. What do I do, anyone know???br /br /"This town numbers are wrong wrong wrong on this map. I am from Sutton originally and my parents and one aunt all voted for Ron Paul today and Sutton says 0. So this is wrong. This is a town that had 20 people counting the ballots and I have no reason to believe that they cheated. Small town and I was born and raised there. The real numbers will come in by morning. The electronic machines in the big towns are the ones we have to worry about."br //blockquotebr /br /Then, there's the a href="http://www.cfr.org/"Council on Foreign Relations. /aThis isn't merely a foreign policy think tank. In fact, they are the wizards behind the curtains trying to create the a href="http://www.conspiracyarchive.com/NWO/Council_Foreign_Relations.htm"New World Order. /abr /br /blockquoteThe issue involves much more than a difference of philosophy, or political . Growing up in the midst of the "Cold War," our generation were taught that those who attempted to abolish our national sovereignty and overthrow our Constitutional government were committing acts of treason. Please judge for yourself if the group discussed is guilty of such.br /br /If one group is effectively in control of national governments and multinational corporations; promotes world government through control of media, foundation grants, and education; and controls and guides the issues of the day; then they control most options available. The Council on Foreign Relations (CFR), and the financial powers behind it, have done all these things, and promote the "New World Order", as they have for over seventy years.br /br /The CFR is the promotional arm of the Ruling Elite in the United States of America. Most influential politicians, academics and media personalities are members, and it uses its influence to infiltrate the New World Order into American life. Its' "experts" write scholarly pieces to be used in decision making, the academics expound on the wisdom of a united world, and the media members disseminate the message.br /br /To understand how the most influential people in America came to be members of an organization working purposefully for the overthrow of the Constitution and American sovereignty, we have to go back at least to the early 1900's, though the story begins much earlier (depending on your viewpoint and beliefs).br //blockquotebr /br /Then, there's Bob Barr, Libertarian Party candidate for President in 2008. Did you hear the one about how Bob Barr was a Republican plant sent in to create a href="http://aynrkey.blogspot.com/2008/10/conspiracy-theory-and-its-discontents.html"chaos in the Libertarian Party? /abr /br /blockquoteIn 2006 the Reform Caucus radically watered down the LP platform. In 2008 the Reform Caucus pushed forward Bob Barr and Wayne Root as the nominees. Due to these two efforts it is now difficult to distinguish the Libertarian Party from a watered down Republican Party. The Drug War is perhaps the only area of clear difference, as the War Caucus (misnamed as the Defense Caucus) insists that it is wrong to list being against wars of aggression as a libertarian value.br /br /In 2008 Alan Keyes also attempted to gain the nomination of the Constitution Party, but succeeded only in getting their ballot line in the state of California. Being the most populous state that ballot line is crucial to any party that seeks to grow large enough to be considered a major party someday, and the vote is split between Keyes and the actual Constitution Party nominee. In 2000 Patrick Buchanan sought and won the nomination of the Reform Party, and that party has since disappeared.br /br /It would not be far fetched to suggest that the Republican Party has been cynically manipulating third parties for their personal gain.br //blockquotebr /br /Libertarians have several bold ideas: legalize drugs, get rid of the Fed, the IRS, the FDA, and the Department of Education, just to name a few. Some say it's their extreme ideas that do them in. It's not. After all, the last campaign was won on the platform of change. You want revolutionary change. Just talk to a libertarian for a few minutes. On political philosophy, they make a strong case for limited and less intrusive government.br /br /I've always had an affinity for the libertarian philosophy. That's because libertarians model their political ideology based on the spirit of the founding fathers. The entire revolution was fought over the idea of liberty. The founding fathers fought against the tyranny of an intrusive government. There is some difference between a meddling FDA and the tyrannical king, but ultimately, the fight comes from the same place. Government intrudes in our lives just the same whether it's in the spirit of regulating food or simply a tyrannical monarch.br /br /Yet, it's the conspiracy theories where they lose people. It's one thing to say that the Federal Reserve is an organization out of control with power. It's quite another to link them to a new world order, and claim that the chairman is a puppet being controlled by a secret group of power players that no one can identify. The problem with libertarians is that everything ends in a conspiracy theory. Nothing is as it is. Instead, everything is not as it appears. Ideology gets clouded by nuttiness. Ron Paul wasn't merely a marginal candidate that did much better than anyone expected. Instead, he had his nomination stolen. Everything ends in conspiracy.br /br /It's a matter of framing. The minute you spin yarns you become a nut. Nothing you say matters anymore. Talk to a libertarian for five minutes and you'll find an interesting and provocative political philosophy. Talk to them for ten minutes and you'll find a conspiratorial nut. Unfortunately, that clouds many good political philosophies.div class="blogger-post-footer"img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/3098264341625381422-7593843608772022031?l=theeprovocateur.blogspot.com'//div

Sign On San Diego Forums: FBI Watch Bibliography



(Posted at a href="http://www.signonsandiego.com/"Sign on San Diego/a)br /br /A very extensive bibliography for those studying the FBI:br /br /a href="http://www.forums.signonsandiego.com/showthread.php?t=59139"CRIMES COMMITTED BY THE F.B.I.: SUGGESTED READING LIST/adiv class="blogger-post-footer"img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/6323968-4530967586253136712?l=dialogic.blogspot.com'//div

The Malay Mail, 19 June



a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEimNIf5OuN8GS11Z5m7kkvwTpVF4glu1c-ax1_WKDPTGae80lLQD1dlFGuusy9kEEZhCL62Crz3jFDvugJ4-tJN1ggep789IBIHnA7pkucku8aBLfWrBRgW6LRWMEjXi8PHQUcXE4uWjxk/s1600-h/mm+19+june.jpg"img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 200px; height: 122px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEimNIf5OuN8GS11Z5m7kkvwTpVF4glu1c-ax1_WKDPTGae80lLQD1dlFGuusy9kEEZhCL62Crz3jFDvugJ4-tJN1ggep789IBIHnA7pkucku8aBLfWrBRgW6LRWMEjXi8PHQUcXE4uWjxk/s200/mm+19+june.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5348874450994020770" border="0" //abr /a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEigqfOnM0h7u0u4JIG0SOxFnS6SeSJqhvxBFvovOO21qBH04MUUzwWgkBjPQQtzMflxJmZ8Tk_zFduWfSmWijZh44IYlXkiwFZDraury4BPFdKYyiVon1hP8npyURmFTbTUJDjo_WFujjw/s1600-h/too+far.jpg"img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 400px; height: 383px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEigqfOnM0h7u0u4JIG0SOxFnS6SeSJqhvxBFvovOO21qBH04MUUzwWgkBjPQQtzMflxJmZ8Tk_zFduWfSmWijZh44IYlXkiwFZDraury4BPFdKYyiVon1hP8npyURmFTbTUJDjo_WFujjw/s400/too+far.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5348873882880055506" border="0" //abr /blockquotespan style="font-size:180%;"A bridge that makes no Sands/span. My first front page as The Editor of The Malay Mail is on why the proposed Malaysia-Singapore third link is NOT going to happen. If Singapore really wanted to have the bridge, Lee Kuan Yew would not have brought up the issue of sand.br //blockquotediv class="blogger-post-footer"img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/28452020-8803441980170958756?l=rockybru.com.my'//div

Sunday, June 28, 2009

"A Marker Should Make Up for That"



See a href="http://amygdalagf.blogspot.com/2009/06/1977-or-example-of-why-i-have-little.html"Gary on eugenics in North Carolina. /adiv class="blogger-post-footer"img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/7163938-7184883343507948630?l=lefarkins.blogspot.com'//div

Murdering Journalists



a href="http://rawstory.com/blog/2009/05/right-wing-military-writer-we-may-have-to-kill-war-journalists/"This had slipped my mind/a, until I finally found it skulking in one of my Google Reader folders. Ralph Peters:br /blockquoteAlthough it seems unthinkable now, future wars may require censorship, news blackouts and, ultimately, military attacks on the partisan media. Perceiving themselves as superior beings, journalists have positioned themselves as protected-species combatants. But freedom of the press stops when its abuse kills our soldiers and strengthens our enemies. /blockquotebr /As far as I can tell, Peters is calling for the murder of journalists he doesn't like. David Axe has an appropriatea href="http://warisboring.com/?p=2189" set of responses:/abr /ulli Journalists are not a protected species: attacks on reporters in war zones have increased in recent years/lili If our nation’s causes are just, the establishment has nothing to hide, from the public, the press or anyone/lili Reporting does not kill U.S. soldiers, but the absence of a coherent, public strategy does/lili Openness, including press freedom, is one of the very “globalizing” forces America and her allies fight for/lili “We” doesn’t means what it used to: today the U.S. almost never acts truly unilaterally, for we are part of a vast, complex and shifting international system, that requires transparency in order to function/lili Peters is an angry, ignorant and paranoid old man — and no one should listen to a word he says/li/ulbr /The last point is worth dwelling on for a moment; in Accidental Guerrilla, David Kilcullen makes a point of calling Peters out for, essentially, being an angry, paranoid old man who doesn't know nearly as much about war as he'd like to believe. This made me deeply appreciative of David Kilcullen. Peters' position, however, does have a certain internal coherence. In makes sense in the context of the heroic vision that contemporary warbloggers/wingnuts create for themselves; they really seem to believe that they are key cogs in the American warfighting machine. As such, anyone who disputes their expertise and contribution is, by definition, objectively pro-terrorist.div class="blogger-post-footer"img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/7163938-8701085178498058684?l=lefarkins.blogspot.com'//div