tBlog - To herd or not to herd

To herd or not to herd

Blog For Free!

Archives
Home
2004 November
2004 October
2004 September
2004 August
2004 July
2004 June

tBlog
My Profile
Send tMail
My tFriends
My Images

Sponsored
Blog

Powerful links

The Great "I"

Advanced Thinking

Promethea

The Third Age of the World.

Just do it.

More consistently solid thinking.

Theory and application.

"Rights", The Bad Con

Sign...or not.

Just say "no".

Declaration of Individual Independence

"Anybody wanting a piece of me without my consent can come back tomorrow and go to the end of the line. I gladly accept your requirement to be treated likewise." --jomama

Blog Search Engine

You are here: http://jomama.tblog.com

More ornery blogs John Lopez

Other fine sites Nexialist News

Simmering frogs.

Classic essays etc. Who owns you?

Reasoning for Rational Anarchism

The Granfalloon

Part of a short work of fiction. (See Chaps. 7-12) I won't.

Hit counter

November 19, 2004

17085

add this to your site

Where are visitors to this page?

Leaving this site.

11.22.04 (11:53 am) [edit]

jomama--you know, the guy that writes this stuff
here--has permanently vacated this site and moved.
I'm not posting here any longer.

Don't forget to update your bookmarks if you wanna
continue reading this screed.

I've got a brand new bag, er, blog

The New America, by Fred

11.21.04 (8:12 am) [edit]

Again, Fred tells it like it is. He left, I
left. There are a number of freer spots on the
planet.

Here are just a few of the reasons we left...

"The new America. No checks, no balance. There’s
no restraint on the power of these people, and
they know it. If you suggest that it is none of
their business why an American citizen is going
to his country’s capital, at the very least you
miss your flight. You could easily end up in
jail, and nobody would know where you were. So
you knuckle under. In, say, 1985 the difference
between a cowed citizen of Russia and an American
was that the American had some degree of
recourse. That was then.

But does it matter? Maybe there is less of a
market for this Bill-of-Rights stuff than we
thought. Maybe nobody cares, except self-
interested journalists scuttling in the shadows
like cockroaches carrying some vile disease. Give
the people Budweiser, give them Oprah, and
they’ll finesse the details.

There’s money enough in the country now that
government is more about power than lucre. Pretty
much everybody can have 300 channels and a shot
at home theater. Beer, T-and-A, a warm place to
sleep, all the golf you can watch. Nobody is
going to take it away. It keeps the lid on. Just
keep your mouth shut and don’t lose the remote...

In Houston the speech-major voice gurgled from
above, 'Certain…measures have been taken for your
security….' Don’t make jokes. Report each other.
Vigilance."

The whole rant.

The "sale" of war.

11.21.04 (7:38 am) [edit]

"But wars are not made by common folk, scratching
for livings in the heat of the day; they are made
by demagogues infesting palaces. It is not
necessary for these demagogues to complete the
sale of a war before they send the goods home, as
a storekeeper must complete the sale of, say, a
suit of clothes. They send the goods home first,
then convince the customer that he wants them....
But the main reason why it is easy to sell war to
peaceful people is that the demagogues who act as
salesmen quickly acquire a monopoly of both
public information and public instruction....
The dead are still dead, the fellows who lost
legs still lack them, war widows go on suffering
the orneriness of their second husbands, and
taxpayers continue to pay, pay, pay. In the
schools children are taught that the war was
fought for freedom, the home and God."
--H. L. Mencken

-- A Second Mencken Chrestomathy, pp. 57-59.

via Cafe Hayek.

The Velvet Revolution of Central Europe of 1989

11.20.04 (2:24 am) [edit]

"The revolution was Velvet because it stemmed
from the beliefs of the common man. It was a
cultural groundswell. Too often, revolutions are
about power and attempting to grab control of the
enforcement structure. They result in less
liberty for the populace, as the new regime feeds
on the dying carcass of the old establishment. If
a revolution is to create more freedom, it must
be derived from general popular consent and have
as its goal simply to reject the prevailing
sovereigns rather than to capture command, much
like the American Revolution and Velvet
Revolution were. Only then will there be the
necessary cultural institutions present for
liberty to thrive. Such an outcome is more
secession than revolution. Otherwise, the result
will be simply bloodshed and more tyranny as the
French Revolution and Bolshevik Revolution
showed. Libertarians dreaming of revolution ought
to take note." [My emphasis]

Very nicely stated.

All fools dreaming of bloody revolution should
take note, not just Libertoonians.

If you don't play the game by The Rules of Power
you've got a good shot at winning. That's what I've
been talking about here for so long. And take another
look at Ghandi.

By Jonathan Wilde at Catallarchy.

Whose moral authority?

11.19.04 (4:12 pm) [edit]

"If those who express genuine moral concern over
the direction taken by organized society have in
mind a political agenda for change, no real
transformation can take place. Only in the
absence of coercive power can one have moral
influence. Coercive power operates as a magnet
for division and conflict, as contentious
interests compete for the control of its tools of
force."

You heard the man. I've come to the same
conclusion along with an inconsequential number
of others.

Which brings me to Devlin's comments. He says the
election was fixed, thrown. Maybe he's right. He
also believes the electors got what they deserved.
With that last sentence I have no argument.

So what?

Well, there seem to be a whole lot of the rest of
us that have to put up with shit that 115 million
people voted for. That number was only 52% of the
voting age population and only 40% of the total
population.

And many reading this would also say, "So what?"

I'll tell ya what I think and, sshhhh, don't tell
anyone else.

In the last "election" there were 115 million people
playing with matches(power)like children occasionally
do.

Trouble is, they're throwing the lit ones at the
rest of us.

No, Dev. I ain't interested in what these
children do, or how they get/got screwed. They
deserve whatever they get for playing with power.
I'm only interested in the effect on the other
60% and the rest of the non-voting world, the
ones just minding their own business.

Like the man says. There is no political solution.

Acquiring knowledge.

11.19.04 (10:04 am) [edit]

"There are two modes of acquiring knowledge,
namely by reasoning and experience. Reasoning
draws a conclusion and makes us grant the
conclusion, but does not make the conclusion
certain, nor does it remove doubt so that the
mind may rest on the intuition of truth, unless
the mind discovers it by the path of experience."
-- Roger Bacon

Humans born to be endurance runners?

11.19.04 (2:29 am) [edit]

LONDON - "It's our ability to run, not walk, that
sets humans apart as the world's dominant
species, researchers say.

According to an anatomical analysis by two U.S.
scientists, we're built to run."

If we're 'built to run', why do I come across
so many who have run themselves into a semi-crippled
state by jogging over the years?

Obviously the human knee joint is not built to take
repeated pounding.

More shit science.

The whole short story.

Even another paradox.

11.18.04 (11:42 am) [edit]

"Government can only survive as long as a
majority is programmed to believe that theft
isn't wrong if it's called taxation or asset
forfeiture or eminent domain, that assault and
kidnapping isn't wrong if it's called arrest,
that mass murder isn't wrong if it's called war."
-- Bill St. Clair

Paradoxically, this group of folks known as
government are really not interested in protecting
life, liberty and property, are they.

And Devlin says in one of his comments here...

"BTW, does Shaffer give any guidance on when we
should accept others' claims of ownership? You
can claim to own anything you want, but that
doesn't necessarily make it so."

Bingo, professor.

I hadn't noticed that Shaffer ever 'gave
guidance' in this. But like he has said in a past
essay, and you have said here, everyone is on
their own, despite all the laws ostensibly
written to protect our property or our lives.
All government is just another socialist experiment.
After having looked around a bit, I came to the
same conclusion some years ago quite a while
after I threw away those hi-school civics text
books that peddled the Glory of the State.

Have you seen any cops on the scene of a real
crime, eh? You know, a crime that has a victim?

And what Bill says above is unarguable.

Maybe Earth is the galactic nut bin. You know, the
place where the extraterrestrials throw the irrational
ones.

It's the only explanation I can come up with.

Another look at empire.

11.18.04 (2:52 am) [edit]

"If the United States is serious about conquest
and governing people without their consent --
even for the purpose of introducing Rule of Law
and ordered stability of the Western variety --
we will need two armies: one for winning battles,
the other for occupation, military government,
and nation building. The second army will need
its own promotion paths, and its own doctrines;
its own officer corps, and an entirely different
attitude, being more a constabulary than an army.
Conflicts between the two are inevitable, and
envy between the two are inevitable. The combat
army will have to have its own incentives: not to
attract the warriors, who will drift to it, but
to attract the technicians and logisticians and
intelligence analysts. The Roman solution to this
was to pay Praetorians including their support
troops double what the usual Legions got, and pay
Auxiliaries, who held much of the periphery of
the empire, about half what the Legions got. And
Legion pay was not trivial; and you could work
your way from trooper to Legate with proper
courage, ability, and administrative talents."

Then came the fall of that empire as has happened
to all of them.

How does this happen?

Do the homeboys resist the ever increasing
sacrificing demanded of them by their leaders/priests?

I expect so.

Do the leaders then go elsewhere beating fresh
rubes into submission to pay for their endless plans?

Why not?

Do the leaders then spread themselves so thin
that they lose control attempting to scrub the
planet for their particular brand of socialism?

Are we hard-wired to playing the hamster, running
around in our cage forever?

I think not...once enough of us step outside the
cage but you'll have to make up your own mind.

Think about it.

Full text.

The once Almighty US$

11.17.04 (4:12 pm) [edit]

"Indeed, the dollar is declining against all
currencies that have any international standing:
the British pound, the Canadian dollar, the
Australian dollar, and even against the Japanese
yen despite Tokyo's intervention to support the
dollar.

Overcome by hubris and superpower delusion, US
policymakers are unaware of America's peril.
Economists and pundits are equally in the dark.

No argument here on that. Why would any of them
tell you, even if they admitted this to themselves?
Not one in one-thousand Americans are cognizant of
the results of currency movements and that the
Almighty US$ would ever fall from favor.

Both the Clinton and Bush administrations are
guilty of permitting China to maintain a grossly
undervalued currency that sucks productive
capacity out of the US. [As if they could have
had any control over the Chinese.-jo] The combination
of cheap Chinese labor and an undervalued currency
are destroying US middle class living standards."

This report is valuable in some ways but the
author makes far too much of the trade figures and
not near enough of the unpayable =http://sfgate.com/cgi-bin/art..."debt.

There's just no way I see to pay it off without
the US gummint declaring bankruptcy and offering
pennys on the dollar to pay it off. They've bought
and sold the soul of every American alive and beyond
and they'll just have to close shop after the auction.

Check it out.

A road less traveled.

11.17.04 (2:34 am) [edit]

"We recently quit our corporate jobs and decided
to travel across America to capture a true sense
of what this country is about. To force us to
slow down, take a different road, and capture
people's attention, Josh Caldwell is riding a
Segway HT from Seattle to Boston. After we're all
done, the stories we discover and the experiences
we have will culminate in a feature-length
documentary that is being directed by Hunter
Weeks. This project is independent of Segway and
plans are to find more ways to encourage
approaching life at 10 mph in the future."

I'll be looking forward to that documentary,
a look at real, live people actually doing something
constructive instead of fantasizing the political
granfalloon.

Now I also would like to see the series. Oslo to
Athens anyone? Perth to Sydney? Kuala Lumpur to
Bankok? Somebody's gonna do it. Why not you?

Stay tuned here.

Who will it be?

11.16.04 (6:25 pm) [edit]

"The search for moral guidance which shall not
depend upon external authority has invariably
ended in the acknowledgment of some new authority."
-- Walter Lippmann

A new Fred rant.

11.16.04 (3:06 am) [edit]

Fred's about to take over the vacancy left
by the master curmudgeon, H. L. Mencken.

I'll be putting a permanent link here to Fred in the
left panel.

"Which brings us to the Feddle Gummint. Between
the coasts it’s seen as the enforcement arm of
the coastal snots—a gray, repressive, stupid,
intrusive, and alien force, as degrading as
having your leg humped by the dog in somebody
else’s living room. To a lot of people,
Washington isn’t the capital of their country.
It’s The Enemy. It pushes on them everything they
loathe. They hate it."

Full rant.

A different look at the vote.

11.15.04 (10:14 am) [edit]

"Is 30-40-30 a new herbicide? Do you use it to
control noxious shrubs in your yard?

Maybe not. This formula could be restated as
Bush Voters – No Voters – Kerry Voters.
Personally, I couldn’t care less about the
numbers of people who endorse the coercive state,
while I’m very interested in the numbers of
people who don’t. So I’d like to look at the 40%
figure that is bandied about, and then ignored."

I agree. And thinking about this, gives me a
different take on Americans and all the 'blue'
and 'red' analists (intentionally spelled) promoting
the "us and them" meme. It ain't that simple.

You people watching America closely from elsewhere
can now see that not all of America is criminally
insane.

Take a fresh look.

Blasting for democrazy

11.15.04 (5:47 am) [edit]

A little grisly satire never hurt anyone, did it.

Analysis you're unlikely to see in the major media...

"We have definitely exceeded expectations," said
Colonel Savvi Corhapi, who commanded the effort.
"A month ago everyone expected all of Fallujah to
boycott the January elections. Now, we are going
block by block to register prospective voters and
to educate them in the basics of democracy. It’s
a really fulfilling, thrilling experience for all
of us to be a part of."

Fouglas Deith, a Defense Department observer
involved in planning the operation, was on site
to observe. Mr. Deith explained how the program
works.

"Well, we knew there were a lot of anti-
democratic diehards in the city – you know,
people who just won’t vote, not matter how good
the candidates are, because, well, in their way
of thinking, the whole election process is a sham
full of nothing but Yankee occupation-force
stooges. So first of all, we look at the old
census tracts and identify those anti-democratic
elements – we call them "terrorists" – and for
several days we pound the hell out of their
neighborhoods with artillery fire, strafing by
fighter jets, and – usually last on the list –
razing what’s left of their neighborhood with
tank-bulldozers armed with 55-mm cannon."

Full story.

Who's on first?

11.14.04 (3:56 pm) [edit]

More disorder brought to you by one of its
organizers.

"The disruption comes as the CIA is trying to
stay abreast of a worldwide terrorist threat from
al Qaeda, a growing insurgency in Iraq, the
return of the Taliban in Afghanistan and
congressional proposals to reorganize the
intelligence agencies. The agency also has been
criticized for not preventing the Sept. 11, 2001,
attacks and not accurately assessing Saddam
Hussein´s ability to produce weapons of mass
destruction."

Looks like chaos is just now finishing breakfast.

Full =http://tinyurl.com/6bol8"story.

The state.

11.14.04 (9:35 am) [edit]

"The state – whatever its particular forms –
always expresses itself as a collective form of
property ownership. All political systems are
socialistic, in that they are premised upon the
subservience of individual interests to
collective authority. Communism, fascism, lesser
forms of state socialism, and welfarism, are all
premised upon the state’s usurpation of privately-
owned property. Whether one chooses to be aligned
with the political 'Left,' 'Right,' or 'Middle,'
comes down to nothing more than a preference for
a particular franchise of state socialism."

Well, now. That's pretty plain talk, ain't it.

So, if you participate in any way, supporting
your government, you're a flavor of socialist.

Hey, that's all right. I think you're deluded but
whatever blows your skirt up.

Just be honest with yourself.

Now, just fuckin' think about this.

Is that what you are? Is that what you want?

And hey, it ain't about revolution. No good
will come of that and I won't support it.
Ever. If you were successful, you'd just end up
installing some new socialist idiot.

Read it all.

From a minor scuffle, big things come.

11.13.04 (3:02 pm) [edit]

"Just last October 18, a laborer/farmer in Wan
Zhou near Chongqing in Sichuan province
accidentally brushed against a woman on a busy
street. The woman’s husband refused to accept
profuse apologies. He beat the offending farmer
up and broke the man's leg. To discourage passers-
by from intervening, he declared himself to be a
government official, though government officials
deny that. The message: 'I beat him because I
can.' This enraged the townspeople. Within hours
up to 40,000 people surrounded the main
government building, setting a police van on fire
and repelling police crowd-control squads.

Ten days later, the city of Han Yuan, also in
Sichuan province, was shut down as hundreds of
thousands of farmers staged a sit-in at the site
of a hydro-power station under construction.
Faced with government-backed eviction from their
land without adequate compensation, the farmers
protested. There are sketchy allegations of
clashes with the armed police. Witness accounts
gleaned from the tumult claim that students
joined the farmers and together they stormed the
government buildings and that police
reinforcements were sent in. But the government
has since cut off all roads and communication
lines, imposing a news blackout."

Full story.

A new look at the mob.

11.13.04 (5:46 am) [edit]

"The establishment party line being floated for
public consumption is that George W. Bush’s re-
election was largely a victory for 'moral
values.' That grown men and women can offer this
assessment with a straight face offers some of
the most compelling evidence for the moral and
intellectual insolvency of our culture. Such a
rationalization reflects the kind of perverted
thinking that also leads people to speak of 'wars
of honor.'

...

As the costs and revelations of duplicity in
this war continue to escalate, the Bush
administration appears ready to play the same
unprincipled game at the expense of Iran, or
North Korea, or any other country selected as the
enemy du jour. If these are examples of the
'moral values' that were triumphant on election
day, can someone explain their meaning to me? How
do such actions express 'moral values' that
differ from those of Machiavelli, or Attila the
Hun?

What moral response is to be made to the utter
insanity of all of this?

...

It is difficult to speak intelligently of 'moral
values' in the context of collective behavior.
Moral thinking is a uniquely personal
undertaking, by which individuals develop their
inner sense of principled behavior. People have a
need for spiritual experiences; a need to
transcend the inherently limited nature of their
lives and to connect up with the universe –
including other people – in satisfying ways. The
personal exploration and expression of moral
conduct is part of this need, the satisfaction of
which occurs only within individuals, not through
mass-minded crusades.

But as our lives become more politicized, our
sense of meaning shifts from individual to
collective considerations. We become increasingly
less interested in the inner voices that
challenge our thinking, and become more concerned
with the outer voices that demand our attention
and obedience. Over time, we abandon our
internally-directed world in favor of an
externally-directed one."

The mob is loose, alive and hissing their
Emotionally-Derived Belief Systems.

Full essay.

Correction.

11.12.04 (4:54 pm) [edit]

Due to a gross error on my part, not having looked
at The Big Picture pointed out by Charles Heuter
in the comment section here, I have modified my
T-shirt to read:

"I don't vote, so don't blame me for the presence
of the current idiot in the White House or any of
the other Houses. A pox on all their Houses."

Are you a magician?

11.12.04 (1:08 am) [edit]

"When people trapped in their deductive minds use
the word 'dualism' they are usually referring to
a mistaken belief that they have, that magicians
believe there is one material universe full of
kickable things, and there is also a second,
different, spook alternate reality, connected to
this one by silver cords or whatever. That makes
two universes (they figure), so they say the
magicians are 'dualists' - believers in two
universes. Of course the magicians believe no
such thing. Instead they believe that there is
this, single material universe, which contains
kickable things that are arranged in patterns
which are also found in this material universe.
Where else could they be? The magicians believe
that the patterns are 'more material than
material itself' - that the patterns govern the
kickables to the extent that the kickables are
like shadows of the patterns, and the material
properties of the material universe are found in
the patterns rather than the superficial
kickables. It's because the people trapped in
their deductive minds can't see the patterns that
they assume the magicians are talking about...
like... somewhere else."

Pattern recognition, folks. It's found in the
patterns.

I wonder how many magicians there are. From where
I sit looks like most of 'em are in hiding.

More.

The Followers

11.11.04 (11:27 am) [edit]

"The net result of Washington's escalating
confrontation with Muslim countries and peoples
under various guises will only be to widen
further the gulf that already exists between the
US and Muslims in general, paving the way for a
much-dreaded 'clash of civilizations' that never
need have happened.

Do you have your cave picked out yet?
...

Following tactics they had already developed in
Samarra in late September, most Iraqi and foreign
insurgents have already left Fallujah for other
destinations in the Sunni heartland. Those who
have stayed behind will undoubtedly fight to the
death, and the resulting heart-rending carnage -
shown on numerous Arab satellite channels - is
sure to intensify anti-American feelings not only
among Iraqis but also among the inhabitants of
the surrounding Sunni-majority countries of Saudi
Arabia, Jordan, Syria, and Turkey."

And because hyumans continue to play follow
their leader the rest of us suffer.

Aack!

Full text.

Note on The Grand Zero-Sum Game.

11.11.04 (7:32 am) [edit]

"The prime feature of political decision-making
is that it's a zero-sum game. One person or
group's gain is of necessity another person or
group's loss. As such, political allocation of
resources is conflict enhancing while market
allocation is conflict reducing. The greater the
number of decisions made in the political arena,
the greater is the potential for conflict."

Indeed. Institutions...making new enemies every
day in every way.

Now carry that to its logical conclusion.

I don't believe one in 1000 has tried.

Do you?

So many distractions, so little time.

Full text.

Something to believe in.

11.10.04 (4:35 pm) [edit]

"If we do not believe in ourselves--neither in
our efficacy nor in our goodness--the universe is
a frightening place." --Nathaniel Branden

It's about time.

11.10.04 (11:25 am) [edit]

"In the end we see that the Einstein spacetime
formalism is demonstrably wrong, and that the
evidence against it was available even before the
Einsteins put forward their fundamental
assumptions that later became the foundations of
twentieth century physics. Essentially the whole
Einstein formalism has all the hallmarks of
another system of 'epicycles' - when finally we
understand what is going on the whole construct
evaporates, just as Ptolemy's epicycles did when
it was realised that they were entirely a
consequence of not separating a measurement
protocol from the phenomena it was meant to
measure. In the case of Ptolemy it was finally
realised that the Earth was itself undergoing
motion. In the case of the Einstein formalism we
finally understand that the rods and clocks used
to define and implement measurements of motion
are actually affected by motion through the
quantum foam that is space, a view that predated
the Einsteins and is now seen to be correct.

All of these developments and the clearing away
of epicycle descriptions lead us back to very
challenging notions about the nature of time and
the deep connectivity and processing that is
reality, a connectivity that was evident in some
aspects of the quantum theory, but which was
essentially outside of the non-process paradigm.
This new physics is seen to be panexperientialist
in character in which a primitive self-awareness
or 'consciousness' is foundational to reality in
the manner argued by Griffen and others [5], a
consciousness that appears to be intrinsic to the
semantic nature of the information system that is
process physics. Such notions it seems may well
be moving into the realm of experimental science
and will result in a unification of human
knowledge and experience that is beyond our
prevailing comprehensions."

Oops, another mistake. They're poppin' up
everywhere, aren't they.

Keep your eyes and ears open, boys and girls.
The ride is gonna be wild.

The nature of time is that it's a purely human
construct. Why the hell would an infinite
universe care about time?

Reginald T. Cahill, Process Physics: From Information Theory to Quantum Space and Matter

Episodes of hyperinflation

11.10.04 (2:38 am) [edit]

Always brought to you by your Glorious Leaders.

You know, the folks who are positive they can
re-order the world in their own image.

The Worst Episode of Hyperinflation in History:
Yugoslavia 1993-94

"Under Tito Yugoslavia ran a budget deficit that
was financed by printing money. This led to rate
of inflation of 15 to 25 percent inflation per
year. After Tito the Communist Party pursued
progressively more irrational economic policies.
These irrational policies and the breakup of
Yugoslavia (Yugoslavia now consists of only
Serbia and Montenegro) led to heavier reliance
upon printing or otherwise creating money to
finance the operation of the government and the
socialist economy. This created the hyperinflation.

By the early 1990s the government used up all of
its own hard currency reserves and proceded to
loot the hard currency savings of private
citizens. It did this by imposing more and more
difficult restrictions on private citizens access
to their hard currency savings in government
banks."

Read it all and laugh til you cry. I did. The
victims I cried for. I laughed til it hurt at the
idiots trying to save their asses by printing funny
money.

Written by an econ professor, no less. Don't that beat
all. Thanks to L. R. White for this...

The complete review.

Take your stand.

11.09.04 (11:05 am) [edit]

The new style in T-shirts.

My t-shirt would read: "I don't vote, so
don't blame me for the presence of the current
idiot in the White House."

See...I don't discriminate and that shirt will be
good for my whole life.

The Dismal Science

11.09.04 (8:13 am) [edit]

Here's Mencken on the economics profession:

"Its dismalness is largely a delusion, due to
the fact that its chief ornaments, at least in
our own day, are university professors. The
professor must be an obscurantist or he is
nothing; he has a special and unmatchable talent
for dullness; his central aim is not to expose
the truth clearly, but to exhibit his profundity,
his esotericity -- in brief, to stagger
sophomores and other professors."

That's the basic academic mind, even apart from
economics. It also describe pols, doesn't it.

One exception to the usual econ drivel coming up
soon on this blog.

Thanks to Don Boudreaux for this.

Independence.

11.08.04 (5:40 pm) [edit]

"Independence is the recognition of the fact that
yours is the responsibility of judgment and
nothing can help you escape it." --Ayn Rand

What game?

11.08.04 (2:13 am) [edit]

Pols sell security. That's that ol' Insurance
Co. in the Sky. It's a hot item. Everybody wants
it.

That's what politics is all about, selling
insurance to one group at the expense of another
all the while bullshitting everyone that it's free
for everyone and that politics--as opposed to
markets--can provide everything for everyone at
no cost to anyone in a vainglorious attempt at
remaking the world in the image of the pol of the
hour. At some point these vultures outnumber the
roadkill and the vultures move on.

There is no political solution to this. The
Ruling Concept is always 'get more power'. The
game can't be won playing with this ball and in
fact a whole new game has to be invented, one
without a ball...not even a game. Here's one
way to do it.

Playing the pols game everyone ends up paying
until USA, Inc. goes broke like all the others
who've gone before.

Then it begins again...or maybe it can be
different this time... if you don't play the game.

US$ continuing into the toilet. This could be The Big
One.

The new rage.

11.07.04 (9:37 am) [edit]

"Psychologists and anger specialists are
treating what they call 'political rage'
problems. There are no immediate numbers attached
to this Democratic despair but newspapers in New
York and California have reported the issue."

Holy shit, Batman. First we had 'the political
economy', then we had 'political theology' and
now we have 'political insanity'.

Are there any humans left, you know, individuals
outside of this hellacious political matrix?

Comment on comment

11.07.04 (6:48 am) [edit]

Devlin brought this up in the comment section
here...

"It should be pointed out that the election was
obviously rigged, which explains the disparity
between people's preffered policies and who they
supposedly voted for."

That's ascribing a much higher level of intelligence
to the voter than I'm willing to do. Virtually
none of 'em have a clue about The System. They just
want Their Favorite Guy of the Hour to provide a
six-pack in every ice box, on the tax tab of some
other slug just minding his own fucking business.

Rigged? They're all rigged in one way or another.
From ballot petition requirements to get on the
ballot to approval of the party inner circle to
crappy and rigged vote counts.

Democrazy is just another mind-rape. In this last
election and, if I'm not mistaken, at least the
two before it, 80% or more of the population is
suffering the idiocy of the other 20%. That's right.
Less than 20% of the population voted for Bush...
and they still call it democracy.

Then Cheney calls it a mandate.

"But yessir, Jethro, ur vote counts."

Bwahahahahah.

Logical man.

11.07.04 (6:06 am) [edit]

"2004 vote: Quit pretending that it matters,
would you? Can you vote for all the nefarious
cabals that really run the world? No. So fuck
it." --Drew Carey

Hero worship

11.06.04 (5:34 pm) [edit]

"Hero-worship is strongest where there is least
regard for human freedom." --Herbert Spencer

Political theology , a double whammy.

11.06.04 (5:57 am) [edit]

"The result of the US election reveals a country
deeply split, geographically and ideologically -
or rather theologically - and a people deeply
conflicted internally, since so many Bush voters
ended up casting their ballots for a president
whose actual policies on many issues they
disagree with.

When the fuck has it been any different? If
you put five Joe Sixpacks in a room what do you
suppose they agree on? Why people don't give up
this voting-for-a-Glorious-Lea der crap and vote
only for themselves is beyond ken. On second
thought, I know why. They're after that which
they're too much of a wuss to get themselves.
They want to lay The Cracking of Heads off on
someone who's "authorized" to do it, never thinking
that eventually their own heads will end up cracked.

Aack!

Political theology is what Amurikans thrive on
now and religion and politics thrive on massive
amounts of bullshit, just two sides of the same
meadow muffin. In order to sell self-sacrifice
ya gotta cover it with bullshit. Will enough
people ever wake up to this?

Doesn't look good, does it.

The mismatch can be seen in the victory of the
referendum in Florida to raise the minimum wage -
a plank of the John Kerry campaign nationally,
which George W Bush has resolutely opposed in
Washington, but which, as he showed during the
debates, he was totally evasive about during the
campaign. More than 72% of Floridians voted for
the raise, which means that at least 60% of Bush
voters supported a measure that is socially and
economically the antithesis of what their
candidate stands for."

When has a system whose basic design is to
peddle confusion ever made any sense? Why should
the victims exhibit consistency? How many people
do you know that carry around 2 or more contradictory
ideas in their heads?

The whole analysis.

Can you see thru the fog?

11.05.04 (4:46 pm) [edit]

"It is great that Ryanair's cheap flights have
enabled a lot of people to travel, but by
encouraging consumers to take an individualised
view of life, the airline has highlighted the
destructive anarchy of individualist capitalism."

See the whole discussion here...read carefully...

...and think about what's at stake here.

Then tell me. What's destructive about this?

Then ask yourself why anyone would charge the cost
of taxi fare from one corner of London to another
for an airline trip from London to somewhere in
France.

Full text.

Things that bump and the other possibilities.

11.05.04 (2:08 am) [edit]

"There still remains the problem of our
consciousness and its relationship to our
material form - the Mind / Brain problem.
Behavioural psychologists such as Skinner tried
to reduce this to one level - the material brain -
by viewing the mental or consciousness events
from the outside as being merely stimulus-
response loops. This simplistic view works fine
for basic reflex actions - 'I itch therefore I
scratch' - but dissolves into absurdity when
applied to any real act of the creative intellect
or artistic imagination. Skinner's determinism
collapses when confronted with trying to explain
the creative source of our consciousness
revealing itself in an artist at work or a
mathematician discovering through his thinking a
new property of an abstract mathematical system.
The psychologists' attempts to reduce the
mind/brain problem to a merely material one of
neurophysiology obviously failed. The idea that
consciousness is merely a secretion or
manifestation of a complex net of electrical
impulses working within the mass of cells in our
brain, is now discredited. The advocates of this
view are strongly motivated by a desire to reduce
the world to one level, to get rid of the
necessity for 'consciousness', 'mind' or 'spirit'
as a real facet of the world.

...

Our consciousness is at its root a maverick,
ever moving, jumping from one perception,
feeling, thought, to another. We can never hold
it still or focus it at a point for long. Like
the quantum nature of matter, the more we try to
hold our consciousness to a fixed point, the
greater the uncertainty in its energy will
become. So when we focus and narrow our
consciousness to a fixed centre, it is all the
more likely to suddenly jump with a great rush of
energy to some seemingly unrelated aspect of our
inner life. We all have such experiences each
moment of the day. As in our daily work we try to
focus our mind upon some problem only to
sudddenly [sic]experience a shift to some other domain
in ourselves, another image or emotional current
intrudes then vanishes again, like an ephemeral
virtual particle in quantum theory.

...

An important experiment carried out as recently
as summer 1982 by the French physicist, Aspect,
has unequivocally demonstrated the fact that
physicists cannot get round the Uncertainty
Principle and simultaneously determine the
quantum states of particles, and confirmed that
physicists cannot divorce the consciousness of
the observer from the events observed. This
experiment (in disproving the separabilty [sic]of
quantum measurements) has confirmed what
Einstein, Bohr and Heisenberg were only able to
philosophically debate over - that with quantum
theory we have to leave behind our naive picture
of reality as an intricate clockwork. We are
challenged by quantum theory to build new ways in
which to picture reality, a physics, moreover, in
which consciousness plays a central role, in
which the observer is inextricably interwoven in
the fabric of reality."

I've said it before here. Since the observer
can't 'divorce his consciousness from the events
observed', he's merely looking into his own mind.

What else could he be looking at?

And if that's the case, there is no quantum world
outside of our minds. It only lives there. Pure
imagination or consciousness.

This is quite a well done article, explaining
clearly the difference between the world of Things
that Bump with the hypothetical quantum world.

If you don't know much about quantum theory [correctly
termed quantum hypothesis] and want to learn, this
piece is for you.

I'll post something on the difference between 'theory'
and 'hypothesis' later...if I can remember.

Full text.

Chaos.

11.04.04 (11:34 am) [edit]

"China has witnessed rising social unrest, mostly
involving peaceful demonstrations stemming from
anger over unfair government policies and illegal
actions. Recent protests have been sparked by the
near-fatal beating of a migrant worker, an
illegal hike in taxi fees and low wages in an
electronics plant - to name a few. These are but
the tip of the iceberg in the nation of 1.3
billion people where the wealth gap is widening,
corruption is widespread and the rule of law is
far from entrenched. For those who know their
Chinese history, this raises the specter of
devastating peasant and other revolts over the
ages, sometimes cataclysms that have toppled
regimes.

...

For the people in many parts of China, officials
are neither respected nor considered public
servants, but rather as self-serving fat cats."

Where and when has this ever been otherwise?

Can anyone tell me where the much revered rule
of law is entrenched?

We're all living under Napoleanic law now, or
hadn't you noticed.

Chaos is alive and well, everywhere, having some
breakfast and waiting...

Full text.

Dollar news.

11.04.04 (11:23 am) [edit]

Yaaahooooo.

Dollar bustin' loose agin.

D
o
w
n she goes.

Aquarius rising.

11.04.04 (2:01 am) [edit]

"However, humanity can expect a new revelation
of the divine wisdom, and once the proverbial
dust has settled, a new era. Like in the
turbulent days of the Essenes, small groups of
people are rejecting the dying old age and
separating from the world to form underground
networks. In touch with the divine wisdom of the
ages, the task of this remnant is to survive the
coming destruction and establish a New Society,
with a truly Aquarian consciousness.

As David Fideler in Jesus Christ: Sun of
God explains:

During such periods of cultural renaissance
and renewal, a spiritual impulse is released into
the world of human affairs. Those visionaries who
have long been watching the horizon detect the
first rays of light; they are the first to detect
the soothing breath of spring’s first breeze,
announcing the promise of a new season..."

Visionaries spot the patterns where others
are blind.

...or some find patterns where none exist?

But patterns are important and most can't see
them so they call the results magical or spiritual.

Worth a read and some thought, nonetheless.

Aquarius rising.

Disgusted with democracy

11.03.04 (5:10 pm) [edit]

"It's about this time of every other year that I
get really disgusted with democracy. It has
become little more than legalized looting, if you
think about it a bit. Politicians travel about
promising that if you just vote for them, they
will do you the favor of robbing others for your
benefit."

Don't believe that? Politicians are just
transfer agents. They take money from you and
give it 'to the greater cause/good' based on
what they think this cause is.

What about you?

No, you're shit outta luck working on your own
causes. They've decreed your causes mostly irrelevent.

How do you feel about that?

Full essay.

Then see what Gary Reed says about this Hog Sandwich.

Be careful what you wish for.

11.03.04 (11:45 am) [edit]

"The urge to save humanity is almost always only
a false-face for the urge to rule it." -- H.L.
Mencken

Seen any that fit this description?

More communist capitalism.

11.03.04 (8:12 am) [edit]

"After a brief flirtation with private investment
in the oil sector, Beijing has started cracking
down on independent players in the field. In one
of the most flagrant examples, the government has
ordered the seizure of thousands of private oil
wells in northwest China as part of an
environmental cleanup and overhaul of the
industry. But in an unforeseen legal twist, the
people who invested in the wells - thousands of
private entrepreneurs from China's heartlands -
are preparing to sue the government over the
forced seizures, without due process. They claim
the wells are worth an estimated 7 billion yuan
(US$845 million) and cover an area spread over 15
counties in Shaanxi province."

Communist capitalism. I wonder if the Chinese
power junkies will ever make up their mind.
Agin, makes ya wonder who's in charge.

Full text.

The bionic human is on the way.

11.03.04 (2:01 am) [edit]

"In 1982, Seattle dentist Barney Clark became the
first person to be fitted with a permanent
artificial heart. Although the 61-year-old’s life
was extended by 112 days, most people would agree
that his gruelling battle against a host of
complications made his quality of life
unacceptable.

But artificial heart technology has improved
dramatically since then – so much so that last
week the US Food and Drug Administration approved
for the first time a 'total artificial heart'
(TAH), designed to fully replace a patient’s
diseased heart until a donor heart becomes
available. Called the CardioWest, it is made by
SynCardia Systems of Tuscon, Arizona, and is a
redesign of the device Clark received and has
been through nine years of trials."

Full text.

Institutionalized corruption...looking for enemies.

11.02.04 (3:13 pm) [edit]

'You know, to be accepted you had to join. And I
just, I just started to join in with the
stealing, ripping off the drug dealers. Within a
year on the job, I became one of them. And I was
looked up to because I was a go-getter, and I'd
go chase these drug dealers and get this money,
and I'd split it amongst my peers.'
-- Michael Thames, convicted cop

Ah, yes. The System works. A convicted cop.
[/sarcasm]

"To protect and to serve."

Bwahahahah.

The whole story.

I'm voting for beer.

11.02.04 (11:18 am) [edit]

"The competing "President of Beers" ad campaigns
are vaguely amusing, but fortunately we don't
actually choose beer in a national election.
Often, votes in a political election are compared
with dollars spent in a market, but in reality
elections and markets are two fundamentally
different ways of selecting something. For
instance, here is a beer ballot from Palm Beach
County, Florida:"

Update: votes 'found on machines' in philly

11.02.04 (11:13 am) [edit]

"Before voting even began in Philadelphia --
Republican poll watchers believed they found
nearly 2000 votes already planted on machines
scattered in heavy-minority locations throughout
the city.

Republican poll watchers claim:

One incident occurred at the SALVATION ARMY,
2601 N. 11th St., Philadelphia, Pa: Ward 37,
division 8.

Pollwatchers uncovered 4 machines with planted
votes; one with over 200 and one with nearly 500..."

So much for democrazy.

Full story.

Your part in the political economy.

11.02.04 (8:10 am) [edit]

"Lockheed Martin was in 2002 the largest Pentagon
contractor. It’s pension plan which received the
risk free—to Lockheed Martin--money held $25.5
billion in 2001, of which $12.4 billion was in
U.S. stock and $4 billion in foreign stocks. The
latter figure is significant. It means that
through these federally subsidized pension plans,
U.S. taxpayer money is selectively invested in
stock markets world wide."

What a sweet deal...for some at the expense of
others. Nothing new, just different, brought to
you courtesy of USA, Inc., that insurance company
about to go broke.

Take a look at who's involved.

USA, Inc., the political economy.

11.02.04 (2:56 am) [edit]

"Legal deadlock between George Bush and John
Kerry after this week's presidential poll would
unleash turmoil on the US stock markets, analysts
are warning."

See how USA, Inc. is now a political economy.

China shuts 1,600 cybercafes

11.01.04 (11:31 am) [edit]

"The Chinese government confirmed this weekend
that it has closed 1,600 internet cafes and fined
operators a total of 100m yuan ($12m) since
March, when it began its crackdown on violent or
pornographic content, and other material it
considers harmful to public morality."

'public morality': a euphemism for 'continued
unquestioning support of the current authorities'.

Bwahahaha.

The whole story.

The Biggest, Bad Boy on the block.

11.01.04 (2:45 am) [edit]

"Moreover, the American people are almost totally
unaware that the marines were driven out of
Fallujah by heroic street fighting. [Do you suppose
the Brits were unaware of the Amurikan Colonials doing
the same to them in 1776 or thereabouts?]Americans
remain unaware, too, of the piracy that comes
with their government’s murderous adventure. Who
in public life asks the whereabouts of the 18.46
bn dollars which the US Congress approved for
reconstruction and humanitarian aid in Iraq? As
Unicef reports, most hospitals are bereft even of
pain-killers, and acute malnutrition among
children has doubled since the ‘liberation’. In
fact, less than 29m dollars has been allocated,
most of it on British security firms, with their
ex-SAS thugs and veterans of South African
apartheid. Where is the rest of this money that
should be helping to save lives? Non-wimp Kerry
dares not ask. Neither does he nor anybody else
with a public profile ask why the people of Iraq
have been forced to pay, since the fall of
Saddam, almost 80m dollars to America and Britain
as ‘reparations’.

American state terrorism, licensed by both
Republican and Democrat administrations, has
fought democrats and sponsored totalitarians.
Most societies attacked or otherwise subverted by
American power are weak and defenceless, and
there is a logic to this. Should a small country
succeed in breaking free and establish its own
way of developing, then its good example to
others becomes a threat to Washington. And the
serious purpose behind this? Madeleine Albright,
Bill Clinton’s secretary of state, once told the
United Nations that America had the right to
‘unilateral use of power’ to ensure ‘uninhibited
access to key markets, energy supplies and
strategic resources.’ Or as Colin Powell, the
Bush-ite laughably promoted by the media as a
liberal, put it more than a decade ago: 'I want
to be the bully on the block.' Britain’s
imperialists believed exactly that, and still do;
only the language is discreet."

That is the nature of power but no
government other than the US and Britain has
put its back behind the idea. There just
isn't enough wealth to confiscate so most of the
rest just busy themselves whacking their own
subjects.

Full essay.