"Get Some"

Herewith, Comrade, Irony

Today is Thursday, 28 January 2010.

Howard Zinn is dead.

Sleep Tight, Tonight

Today is Tuesday, 26 January 2010.

On yesterday’s date in 1995, Russia almost launched nuclear missiles, it’s early warning system having mistaken a Norwegian research rocket for an incoming USA/USE sub-launched missile.

Charming. Our masters have forced us, since 1945, to live with the nuclear gun in our mouths.

Sleep tight, tonight.

And here, again, from Dame Vera Lynn and Dr. Strangelove:

Friend

Today is Monday, 25 January 2010.

Ron Paul Frothing

Today is Friday, 22 January 2010.

Speaking to an audience of libertarians at a Campaign for Liberty regional conference in Atlanta this past weekend, Rep. Ron Paul (R-TX) said: “There's been a coup, have you heard? It's the CIA coup. The CIA runs everything, they run the military. They're the ones who are over there lobbing missiles and bombs on countries. ... And of course the CIA is every bit as secretive as the Federal Reserve. ... And yet think of the harm they have done since they were established [after] World War II. They are a government unto themselves. They're in businesses, in drug businesses, they take out dictators ... We need to take out the CIA.””

(from rawstory.com, 20 January 2010)

Paul is a life-long anti-Semite, white supremacist, and delusional conspiracy nut of psychotic proportions, or is perhaps merely pandering to his base.

It speaks volumes about the depths of the moral corruption in the Republican Party leadershp that they allow continued membership to this wicked wretch.
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Just finished When Genius Failed: The Rise and Fall of Long-Term Capital Management by Roger Lowenstein (Random House, 2000). Anyone who is under the delusion that banks, brokerages, and hedge funds should not operate under the strictest supervision should read this excellent telling of how a hedge fund almost brought down the global financial system ten years, nearly to the day, before the choice of the Bush-Cheney regime to let Lehman Bros. go bankrupt almost triggered a depression worse than the Great one.

Supreme Prostitues

Today is Thursday, 21 January 2010.

Whatever else one may say about Supreme Court Justices Roberts, Alito, Kennedy, Scalia, and Thomas, they are certainly whores who give their corporate johns great value for the money.

I refer, of course, to today’s ruling that government may not ban the corruption of corporations bribing elected officials with campaign contributions. The fantasy behind the ruling is that corporations, as fictive legal “persons”, are entitled to enjoy all the rights under the First Amendment that actual human beings enjoy.

This is patent nonsense. This ruling should, of course, be overturned by a Constitutional amendment. Good luck with that, considering the flood of corporate bribes that will now flood Congress.

As in the case of Pat Robertson, I’m tempted to reverse my hope against any reality for eternal damnation.

Shame and Tantrums in Massachusetts

Today is Wednesday, 20 January 2010.

When confronted with a ruthless political demagogue such as Scott Brown of Massachusetts, the only way to fight back is with an axe dipped in poison.

Obama is often chastised for a “too cerebral” approach and style. However, his failure to realize the dangers of Brown’s far-fright [sic!]“populist” campaign speaks ill of his political intelligence. Rather, it seems to be the mistake of one smug, arrogant, self-satisfied, and complacent. Certainly, there’s enough blame to go around in the Coakley campaign, but the buck must stop with the leader of the Democratic Party.

Brown was elected by two types of voters: drones who always vote Republican, and “angry” independents. The latter seemed typified by a male quoted on CNN: “I’m not angry at Coakley or Obama. We’ve got to send the message that we’re angry.”

While the temper tantrums of three-year olds may be annoying and distasteful, the inchoate temper tantrums of adult voters are disgraceful, irresponsible, and immoral.

Tea Party = Tantrum Party.

Of course, there is also a racist undertone. The Tantrum Party damns Obama and the Democrats for incurring massive additions to the National Debt. The truth is that more than 2/3 of the National Debt was added by the regimes of white males Ronald Reagan, G.H.W. Bush, and G.W. Bush, with the eager endorsement of the (overwhelmingly white) Republican Party. And yet the Tantrum Party made not a peep.

Anger was shown by voting for “the opposition”, an opposition which when in power caused the problems for the anger. True, the great powers of socialization conspire to render voters into ignorant and misguided children, and yet the voters are adults, and bear complete responsibility for rejecting that socialization and seeing the world as it is.

Obama and the Democratic leadership should have been barnstorming this country for the past year, relentlessly driving home one salient truth: that the key reason for the mortgage crisis, the financial system meltdown, etc. was the Reaganite Republican emasculation of necessary regulatory regimens, in favour of putting foxes in charge of henhouses.

In 1972, a majority of Massachusetts voters covered themselves with glory, being the only state to vote for McGovern and against the ruthless war criminal and high traitor Nixon. In 2010, a majority of Massachusetts voters covered themselves with shame.

Thanks, Republican Party

Today is Tuesday, 19 January 2010.

Last week, an obscure Iraqi government agency announced that some 500 candidates for the upcoming parliamentary election were being disqualified, but only a few names were released (the remainder will apparently be disclosed today). Surprise, surprise: two of the most prominent Sunni opponents of Prime Minister al-Maliki and his henchpersons were given the boot on transparent pretexts.

I’m sure all of the Americans, Brits, Iraqis, etc. slaughtered by W. Bush/Cheney/etc. are pleased they died in the service of this grand “experiment in democracy”.

Or rather, an experiment in replacing a Sunni gangster regime with a Shiite gangster regime.

Thanks, Republican Party.
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Friday last, we took our ailing Lyntl Weimaraner to the OSU Veterinary Teaching Hospital for a second consultation with her cardiologist. Though her heart continues to weaken, her quality of life is undiminished, and she is as loving and active as ever.

Pat Robertson, Satanist

Today is Thursday, 14 January 2010.

Is Pat Robertson, owner of The 700 Club telecast and the Christian Broadcasting Network, in the early stages of dementia? Or does he really believe all the crap he spouts? Or is he just a shrewd con man who knows what racist filth his marks crave? Or does he say outrageous things because his diseased ego craves media exposure?

Tuesday last, on his show, Robertson said: "Something happened a long time ago in Haiti and people might not want to talk about. They were under the heel of the French, you know Napoleon the third and whatever. And they got together and swore a pact to the devil. They said 'We will serve you if you will get us free from the prince.' True story. And so the devil said, 'Ok it's a deal.' And they kicked the French out. The Haitians revolted and got something themselves free. But ever since they have been cursed by one thing after another."

Is the devil’s pact contained in “voodoo” or Roman Catholicism? And, by the by, it was Napoleon I, not Napoleon III. Not so good for a history major. Robertson is also an anti-Semite, teaching that the international financial system is controlled by “The Jew”.

I occasionally receive CBN e-mails, pushing a special broadcast, a book, etc. Turns out Pat also rents out his e-mail list. See this missive touting Pat Boone’s Golden Retirement Strategy (Boone advocates converting IRAs into precious metals IRAs).

http://www.cbn.com/dmtemplates/CBNSelect-SwissAmerica.htm

Robertson will do anything, of course, for a buck. In 1990, piggybacking on his religious broadcasting success, he founded the for-profit Family Channel, which he sold to a Fox subsidiary in 1997 for $1.9 billion. He was also involved in a lucrative diamond mining scheme with former Liberian dictator and war criminal Charles Taylor.

If anyone has made a deal with the devil, it's Pat Robertson.

Criminals such as Robertson tempt me to hope that eternal damnation exists.

"Some of These Days"

Today is Wednesday, 13 January 2010.

Our little black dachshund was rescued by Mrs. HH, from the street onto which the child (aged 3 months) had been discarded, in January 2006.

Mrs. HH named her "Sophie", to which I added, "Tucker".

Lay ee odl lay ee odl lay hee ho...

Today is Wednesday, 12 January 2010.

Herewith, a shout-out to cheer a Friend.

And, it's a sweet song. You who like it when HH goes all warm and fuzzy: rejoice!



And, HH is Austrian and Swiss in descent, so one should be able to yodel.

Hmmmmmm.

A Lott of Bull

Today is Monday, 11 January 2010.

The hypocritical equating by right-wingers, particularly Republicans, of remarks by Sen. Harry Reid and disgraced former Senator Trent Lott is despicable.

Reid was simply stating the obvious: white racism is still so prevalent that many whites wouldn’t vote for a candidate perceived as “too Black”.

Lott praised the notorious Mississippi Senator Strom Thurmond, who ran for President on a white supremacist ticket (“Dixiecrat”) in 1948.

Lott, who as a Representative voted against the Voting Rights Act (i.e., voted to prevent Blacks in the South from voting), claimed the country would be better off were it still ruled by segregation and the Klan mentality.

Lott: “I want to say this about my state. When Strom Thurmond ran for president, we voted for him. We’re proud of it. And if the rest of the country had followed our lead, we wouldn’t have had all these problems over these years, either.”

Reid is not a racist.

Lott is.

A-Pauling

Today is Friday, 8 January 2010.

Late last year, the House passed and sent to the Senate legislation which would empower Congress to review the interest rate decisions of the Federal Reserve Board. Such an effort is insane.

Many industries (finance, housing, etc.) would rush to flood legislators’ campaigns with more cash, attempting to influence them into putting pressures on the Federal Reserve Board. However mediocre the Reserve’s decisions have been in recent years, turning Congress into the cat’s paw of moneyed interests in this sphere would only mandate introducing foxes into the henhouse.

It should come as no surprise that this legislation was authored by Rep. Ron Paul. Paul has unsuccessfully pushed such legislation for years, as the first step toward complete abolition of the Federal Reserve.

Paul is a life-long and vocal anti-Semite. Every anti-Semite worth their salt “knows” that the Federal Reserve was created by “The Jew” to solidify “Jew” control of the global financial system and ease the way to complete “Jew” domination of the world. The only responsible conclusion is that this neo-Nazi belief is what leads Paul to campaign to eliminate the Federal Reserve.

Ron Paul is a clever little SS clone. For decades, he has been successful in hiding his anti-Semitic (and white supremacist) beliefs from the wider public, confining them to his turgid political newsletters. His SS mentality only gained some greater airing during the 2008 political campaign. And yet, he is not routinely identified in news stories as “obstetrician and anti-Semite Rep. Ron Paul”, but rather as “medical doctor and Republican Rep. Ron Paul”.

That is shameful. Even more shameful and inexcusable is that the Republican Party accepts this admirer of Hitlerism into its ranks.
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Has Rudy Giuliani another new mistress? Being freshly love-besotted might explain why he’s forgotten 9-11 happened.

Rudy said, on today’s ABC morning show, “What he [Obama] should be doing is following the right things that Bush did. One of the right things he did was treat this as a war on terror -- we had no domestic attacks under Bush; we had one under Obama."

Or perhaps Rudy simply can’t handle his meth before breakfast. Or mayhap a pretzel from the Green Room buffet became stuck in his throat, and he momentarily lost consciousness.

More on "Christmas Bombings"

Today is Wednesday, 6 January 2010.

There are two books by the military historian John Keegan that everyone should read: The Face of Battle, providing an excellent portrait of what it was like to be in combat at Agincourt, Waterloo, and the Somme, and The Mask of Command, an exploration of military leadership.

In the latter, Keegan demonstrates that one of the central problems of military leadership is the physical location of the top commander: at the front always? at the front sometimes? at the front never?

For centuries, the correct answer was “always”: the supreme commander was required to face the same possibilities of capture, wounding, and death as the most junior soldier. However, as the size of armies increased and the technologies of butchery “progressed”, the answer became “sometimes” and then “never”. The latter removed all “moral hazard” to the person of the top commanders, and enabled and encouraged them to treat the lives of their soldiers as worth less than dirt. (Cf., for example, the massive casualties of attrition warfare in the American Civil War and the trenches of The Great War.)

I find this ethically repugnant and unacceptable. All of those engaged in the direction of war, whether political or military leaderships, should put their lives as completely at hazard as the most junior soldier. Perhaps those leaderships would be less likely to go to war if they knew the bullet could so easily seek them out.

And what of the masses in quasi-democratic regimes such as the USA/USE? Had the American “civilians” who slobbered for the deaths of millions in Indochina and Iraq, for example, known they could be as easily found out by bullets or bombs, would they have been so eager to force others to kill and die?

Alas, it would take an unlikely revolution in the ethics of the masses and their masters for all to put their monies and lives where their mouths are. Most likely, humanity will persist in its present mad course until it destroys itself, and perhaps all life on the planet.

This, to me, is keeping it real.

More Songs About Jazz and Dogs

Today is Tuesday, 5 January 2009.

Dear dog lover:

To what degree cats, dogs, horses, etc. were sentient being before the interaction of domestication by humans, I doubt we’ll ever be able to recover. However, they have been very sentient beings since that point. They may not have the same set of intellectual and emotional skills as adult humans, but then, neither do human children. I don’t believe this fact entitles one to judge either domesticated animal companions or human children as inferior, or entitled to fewer rights and protections.

I don’t intend to elevate dogs above half the USA/USE population: I believe they should be on the same level as befits all sentient beings.

As to “these-guys-are-not-fit-to-breath-air”, one might ponder a paraphrase from the Gospels: Whoever does evil to the least, it would be better for them if great millstones were hung round their necks and they were thrown into the depths of the sea. (Mark 9.42) I certainly don’t approve of capital punishment, but the “guys” I reference are all mass murderers, and should all spend/have spent life without parole.

As to La_Libertine knowing/not knowing half the USA/USE population: I believe that the vast majority of those who voted for Nixon, etc. knew the values they espoused, one of which was mass killing in pursuit of American power and profit. One need not know each of those voters individually to recognize that their votes made them, in that particular action, ethically inferior to dogs, not one of whom, I believe, ever voted for mass killing. (Note: I don’t contend those voters were ethically inferior to dogs in all their actions, only in that one.)

Sincere thanks for your thoughtfulness and comments. Please continue to “tear me a new one” anytime you think I deserve same. This is one of the paths by which knowledge is formed.

HH

Five Jazz Pieces

Today is Monday, 4 January 2009.

Lazard Goldblum is the later father of one of my dearest friends from New York City, like her father a born New Orleanian.

Lazard was one of those people whom you knew exactly who he was almost from the moment you met him, and you liked the person you met. Cultivated, not merely educated, witty, generous to a fault, and a lover of all New Orleans. At the funeral, his family distributed CDs with five of his favourite jazz pieces, the five I played.

I thought of him because we’re undergoing the last days of our senior dog, Lyntl. She’s 14.5 years, quite old for a Weimaraner, and her magnificent heart is wearing out. As the doctor told us, “When her heart finally fails, she could be on the operating table, and there would be nothing we could do”. Fortunately, she has had no pain, and the quality of her life has not been degraded. Prognosis is two to three months.

Lyntl is always loving, always wanting to exchange affection, and wants nothing more than to be with those she loves, and, of course, to dine.

When I consider that people such as Nixon, Cheney, Bush, Putin, etc., and those who support them, share this planet with beings such as Lazard and Lyntl, I’m again ashamed of the human species.

"Well", as JB would say

Today is Saturday, 2 January 2010.

A day of grace, if you please. Tomorrow, why Lazard Goldblum, and more on the dying days of our beautiful and most-loving Weimaraner.

Allow me to harpoon a minor fish, John Mackey of Whole Foods, grocer and buffoon.

(DISCLOSURE: I shop there a couple of times a month.)

Johnny doesn’t believe in global warming. After all, as quoted in the January 4, 2009 The New Yorker: “Historically, prosperity tends to correlate to warmer temperatures”.

Which is why the 19th century is known as “The Century of the Ugandan Empire”, not “The Century of the British Empire”.

The sun never sets on, etc.

Happy New Year!

Today is Friday, 1 January 2010.

NOTE: 2010 is the last year of the decade of the '00s, NOT the first year of a new decade, as the unlettered think. Arthur C. Clarke named the novel 2001, and not 2000, for a reason. Grrrrr!

Yes, HH does have a heart, as well as a brain, and the noive. Thus, due to popular demand, before HH begins another year of tearing new ones for those whom same deserve, an interlude.

I was born in 1952, and thus my TV DNA included Lawrence Welk. My middle name is "Lawrence", by which I was known until 4th grade, when I changed it to "Lloyd", my first name.



I'm making Hoppin' John for lunch - having been born in Mississippi, black-eyed peas on New Year's, a source of luck, are de riguer - and salmon with a Japanese sauce for dinner. If anyone wants the recipes, tell me.

Dear readers and comrades: May 2010 be the best years of your lives.



Well, something like that.