God, twice as much.

Only twice?

If you were in charge

Wouldn't you set things up so that you made money either way the wind blew? Heads you win, tales I loose.

Karl had it backwards: while capitalism does necessitate a parasitic relationship, it is the coerced consumer dependent on capital--if the latter dies, so too does the former--not the other way around. Or, rather, Marx did have it right in his period of infancy-capitalism. The simplicity of the structures involved engendered a clear, direct line--transparency and accountability-- in the transfer of wage-labor into profits, as Marx saw the host (worker) to parasite (capitalist) relation. Since then, workers have had to do less and less for more and more--the price paid for labor's compliance with business since WWII, to be sure.

Things eventually got turned around, or at least expanded so that larger parts of our society shared in dividends as well, whether actual dollars from investment or quality, cheap consumer goods or, even, a home.

This is not due to the success of capitalism at raising up the whole of the economy, per se; this was/is only possible because the exploitation of wage-labor was shifted to the developing world, or the better sounding emerging markets, like a coming-out party for adolescent states.
At the same time, the access to credit, for business and government only no longer, was given to the working classes to foster higher living conditions (by way of heavy consumer spending); capitalism's shown exemplar. It's the classic bait-and-switch: play by the rules and receive your economic security; only, there is no true security in a system of credit w/ nothing really behind it but algorithms and greed.

McCain calls Iran's government and economy "lousy."

Or: 'The League of Democracies'- as McCain proposes.

Ouch! Mac just bit it bad trying to pronounce Ahmedenegian. And just now "para-stroyka."

'No conditions' is not having tea - says Obama.

Wipe it off the map. Dangerous.

Russia. Unacceptable. KGB-aparatchik-run govt. Behave. Ukraine break-down. Resurgent.

9/11 - safer. do better. long way to go (both). threat. al qaeda. greatest. iraq = al qaeda. fragile sacrifice. peace. prison.

applause.


Ken Silverstein at Harper's:

Surely the most penetrating observation of the night came from McCain, when he said in discussing the beleaguered people of one nation currently enmeshed in an economic crisis: they “have a lousy government, so therefore their economy is lousy.” He was talking about Iranians, but I imagine the sentiment rang true for quite a few Americans as well.

“Guns don't kill people the government does.”

~ Dale Gribble

I think I'll sleep naked

Check out the third up from the bottom: Ignition or melting of nightwear. Huh? As in spontaneous combustion? I shouldn't worry too much, though, I've been electrocuted twice (more deadly than killer pajamas), and here I am. Interesting that the first two, poisoning and falling, are probably often murders gone undetected. Killing someone by forced choking (food or non-food) seems pretty unlikely.





Though in the new movie, "Choke," based on the excellent book by Chuck Palahniuk, the main character makes a living by causing himself to choke on food in public, allowing some brave soul to "rescue" him, thus binding them, their sympathy, and eventually their money to him for life in the form of financial "help." See, once you've saved someone's life, the logic goes, you want to keep them alive so as to maintain your "hero" status. Good stuff. Oh, that, and he's a sex addict with a mother who thinks she fathered our hero with a relic of Christ, making him...Christ II?

The very last on the list, fireworks, goes out to my pops; though usually more on the cautious side of the parenting deal, he just couldn't help but share with us boys his love of things that go bang and make pretty colors. God bless him.

Sci-NOT-fi

"Mr Warwick’s team at Reading has now gone a stage further. Instead of using a computer model of part of the brain as a controller, the group’s new “animat” (part animal, part material) relies solely on nerve cells from an actual brain.

"Signals from a culture of rodent brain cells in a tiny dish are picked up by an array of electrodes and used to drive a robot’s wheels. The animat’s biological brain learns how and when to steer away from obstacles by interpreting sensory data fed to it by the robot’s sonar array. And it does this without outside help or an electronic computer to crunch the data."

HOLY CRAP.

This thing below I don't even fully understand, but what's creepy is that it seems no one else does either.

"The evolvable concept, pioneered by Adrian Thompson at the University of Sussex in Britain, has led to some astonishing results. Dr Thompson’s original “proof of principle” experiment—a design for a simple analogue circuit that could tell the difference between two audio tones—worked brilliantly, but to this day no one knows quite why. Left to run for some 4,000 iterations on its own, the genetic algorithm somehow found ways of exploiting physical quirks in the semiconductor material that researchers still don’t fully comprehend."

(Thanks, as always and forever, to The Economist for the tip-off...and the scare.)




(Kudos for this image and for further info go here.)

Shock to the Hart!

In a recent New Yorker article, Gary Hart--yes he's still around--is quoted from a memo he wrote for the Democratic Party in 2006 outlining a proposal for how the West could be won:

"Westerners are individualists who do not like the beliefs of others imposed on us," he wrote. "We are people who believe in principles: integrity, honor, courage, accountability. The religious right preach values. Democrats, regionally and nationally, should espouse principles, for ourselves and for our country." He argues that while "values" have a religious connotations, "principles" are secular."

I would go further, saying this is what's needed for the entire country to be won.

This is the end of the ignorance (ongoing)

When asked if religion should be kept out of politics, 44% of people said yes. This year 52% polled said church and state should be kept separate. I call this a positive trend.

A more nuanced version of the above findings are illustrated below w/ the Economist's usual graphic flare.

I'll I've got to say about Mrs. Palin

I'd totally hit that. Don't act like I was the only one thinking it. I can safely say I never had such "feelings" for Hillary. I mean, c'mon: black leather boots and a skirt above the knees? Did you see those calves in her interview w/ Charlie G? Look at her kids, they're all like JC Penny back to school models. I would've knocked up her daughter too, if I had the chance.

(Thanks to Media Matters for the two quotes below. They--mediamatters.org--may be a bit touchy about the conservative bias now prevalent in the news media, but someone's got to be.)

"There is a tendency in the media to kick ourselves, cringe and withdraw, when we are criticized. But I hope my colleagues stand strong in this case: it is important for the public to know that Palin raised taxes as governor, supported the Bridge to Nowhere before she opposed it [but still took the money from Congress and spent it on other things], pursued pork-barrel projects as mayor, tried to ban books at the local library [apparently only inquired about wanting to ban books] and thinks [hopes] the war in Iraq is "a task from God." The attempts by the McCain campaign to bully us into not reporting such things are not only stupidly aggressive, but unprofessional in the extreme." - Joel Klein

"The conservative movement has been very effective attacking the media (broadcast and print) for its liberal biases. The refusal of the media to disclose and discuss the ideological leanings of reporters and editors, and the broader claim of objectivity, has made the press overly anxious, and inclined to lean over backwards not to offend critics from the right. In many respects, the campaign against the media has been more than a victory: it has turned the press into an unwilling, and often unknowing, ally of the right." - Tom Edsall