Kraut, unkraut
France and Poland are finally going to get some reparations from the Krauts, and it will be real money this time, not Weimar wheelbarrow money!

Germany has been fully stupefied by the Gaians, and has decided to eliminate nuclear power quickly. The Krauts have already been short on electricity, and have been buying reliable clean nuclear power from France. Now that Gaia forbids them to generate any electricity at all, they'll have to buy even more nuke power from France and coal power from Poland.

Maybe France can build a new Maginot Line of reactors along the Kraut border. Convenient to the grid and perfectly impregnable, because the primitive superstitious Teutons will be afraid to get anywhere near the reactors.

Even more delicious is today's news item: The Krauts are suffering real death and disease from E Coli contained in ORGANIC vegetables from Spain.

Avoid nukes, eat only organic produce. Appease the mighty Planet Goddess by dying like Haitians.

Maybe Jehovah is still in the fight after all.

= = = = =

Sidenote: This matches up with Polistra's recent comment on the connection between public health and 'democracy'.

When public health authorities go to work in a primitive country, one of their first steps is to eliminate the use of sewage as fertilizer. Gaia insists on returning to primitive use of sewage as fertilizer. Guaranteed E Coli trouble. In this case the 'democracies' of EU are so firmly locked into suicidal Free Trade and suicidal Gaian Orthodoxy that they refuse to follow normal public health procedures. Russia, which makes no pretense of 'democracy', has banned all imports of the infected vegetables. Russians are safe because Russia is not 'democratic'.

= = = = =

Later: Apparently the Krauts have decided Spanish cucumbers weren't the culprits, but they haven't yet found the real infector. Meanwhile, Spanish officials pulled a well-intentioned but unfortunate PR stunt:



This lady is the Agriculture Minister of Andalusia province, and she's attempting to demonstrate the safety of their vegetables. A little more thought could have produced a far more persuasive picture. Face it, nobody wants to see a middle-aged lady eating a cucumber, and the Hazmat gear doesn't exactly shout "We know this field is a wonderfully clean place!" Take off the medical suits and have a pretty girl eat the cucumber.
  ¶ 3:03 AM

  Totally non-self-explanatory but fun
Polistra collects self-explanatory sentences, but likes non-self-explanatory items as well.

Cooking With Rola is one of the most non-self-explanatory video productions in the world. Something like a Pakistani version of Sesame Street on LSD. Why is this odd international collection of people and puppets in the same room? Why are they giving demonstrations of cooking?

In spite of all that, the recipes are real and the result is fun.




  ¶ 8:22 PM

  Who's Scientific?
Polistra has recently asked two questions: Who's free? and Who's enlightened? In both cases the answer is not the Anglosphere. In both cases some Arab and Muslim countries are considerably more free and enlightened than we are.

Now, thanks to Wikileaks, we have some embassy memos about Saudi energy concerns. One memo details the Saudi concern about 'climate change'.

On February 6, Assistant Petroleum Minister Prince Abdulaziz Bin Salman provided a snapshot of Saudi Arabia's concerns about energy issues and climate change. He explained that Saudi Arabia is concerned about the lack of clarity in the direction of energy markets. Supply and demand scenarios have rarely been less clear, as evidenced from the continued debate about whether the world's oil production capacity, or demand, has peaked. Saudi officials complain that international energy forecasts have varied wildly over the last decade so much that it has undermined the Kingdom's ability to make logical investment decisions to develop further its production and refining capacity. The track record of international agencies on forecasting raises questions in their minds whether the current forecasts of future demand will be seen as just as far off as oil demand forecasts a decade ago. In that regard, they wonder if today's concern about climate change and how to address it will prove to be more reliable than previous predictions.

Perfectly objective and perfectly scientific. No flat lies, just puzzlement about what the Western idiots will do next under the ghastly influence of the fanatical Gaia cult.

In other related memos the Saudis are worried that the American government allows Goldman Sachs and other speculators to control the oil market. Nice proof, not that it was really needed. Meanwhile the Goldman slaves of both "parties" are trying to divert blame from Goldman. The red-label slaves insist it's all just good old supply and demand; the blue-label slaves insist it's all the fault of the oil companies. Nope, it's Goldman all the way down.

Labels: Natural law = Sharia law

  ¶ 6:45 AM

  That Goebbels thing
All politicians and commentators enjoy 'beasting' their opponents by connecting the 'lies' of their opponents to that Goebbels quote.

Goebbels had it wrong. Effectiveness of a lie doesn't depend mainly on repetition, though I suppose a lie that's said only a few times wouldn't gain any coverage. The most important variable is the flatness and certainty of the lie. If you say it defensively, or wade into the weeds of details, your lie won't stick.

Carbon Cultists are the absolute champions of flatness and certainty. Everything said by every leader in this fucking idiotic suicidal world starts with an unarguable assumption that 'climate change' is the biggest problem we face. There's never an if, never a provided that, never a detail, never a scrap of evidence to defend the criminal claim. 'Climate change' is simply taken as the ground and basis of all reality. It needs no introduction in the same way the existence of matter needs no introduction.
  ¶ 3:38 AM

  Random note about randomness
This blog averages about 3 reads per day. Typically 1 of those is from an English-speaking country (US, UK, AU) and 2 from non-English places. Some of the Anglosphere reads are indefinite because Sitemeter doesn't give enough info, but the definable ones are actual readers who spend 5 to 20 minutes reading some of my better stuff. That's satisfying.

The foreign reads are frustratingly mismatched. Examples:

A few days ago I linked to a heavenly piece of Bulgarian music. Today a link came from Bulgaria. Looking at the Bulgarian music? No, looking at something about monarchy.

Recently I said something nice about Quebec. Today a link from Quebec read one of the nice things I said about Russians.

I've said many nice things about Koreans. Do Koreans look for blogs saying nice things about Koreans? Apparently not; all the Korean reads come to one article about "user-serviceable parts".

I've said many nasty things, and recently some nice things, about Arabs. (My attitude on Arabs has decisively turned around.) Do Arabs read either of those opinions? Nope. Readers from Arab countries are either looking for porn or reading about "global warming".

Similarly with Persians. Most of my comments about Persians have been positive, but the only links from Iran are looking for porn or video games.

= = = = =

Conclusion from all of this: Only Americans are insecure enough to care what others think about them. Other nationalities are more secure in their own identities. They don't give a damn what everyone else thinks; they are just surfing the web for things that interest them personally. Porn.
  ¶ 4:48 PM

  Swamping
6/6 HOLD THE PRESSES.

I really wanted this thing to work, but it doesn't. It cooled well on one day when humidity was 20%, but it doesn't cool when humidity is 40%. I've got some serious programming work to do this summer, and I can't afford to be slimy and uncomfortable all the time for the sake of a principle. So I broke down and ordered a regular made-in-China Freon cooler today.

If you want, you can read the part below as a nice bit of wishful thinking. It would be wonderful if an American-made device would work, but this one simply doesn't. American manufacturers have lost it.


= = = = WISHFUL THINKING BELOW! = = = =






Last October, while pulling the Chinese Crap air conditioner out of the window to close up the house for winter, I dropped it on the ground. No injury, because I learned young and learned well an old survival tip from Popular Mechanix mag:

When something starts to drop, DON'T CATCH IT! Pull your hands away instantly!

Nevertheless, the Chinese Crap AC was kaput. This offered me a chance to indulge a couple of my current passions: Bring back American industry, and bring back old technology.

Found dual indulgence in the form of a new made-in-USA portable swamp cooler by Kuulaire in Texas.



Evaporative coolers are unquestionably old tech, as old as sweat. They work well in places like Spokane where summer is hot and dry. They don't work in humid places like Ohio or Alabama. You need Freon there.

= = = = =

This cooler follows the pattern of the 'perfected' 1930s swamp cooler, with a large surface area kept damp by a pump, plus large air flow. You can't make a useful swamp cooler with casual tricks like a wet towel on a fan; the towel has to be rewetted often and it restricts flow.

Kuulaire seems to be treating these portable units as a sideline, without much marketing. The serial number on this one is 767, which indicates they're a bit beyond hand-made but nowhere near serious mass production.

Their advertising focuses on energy-saving, but only in a standard Green context. Seems to me they're missing a unique appeal to non-Green conservationists and simple-lifers. Non-Greenies know that carbon has nothing to do with warming, and we also know that urban heating is a real human effect on overall climate. A big part of the urban heat island comes from the compressors of conventional Freon ACs. When a Freon AC takes heat from the interior, it dumps the heat (plus a little extra) outside. This makes the city hotter, which in turn makes more people use air conditioning. Real positive feedback, unlike the mythical positive feedbacks imagined by the Carbon Cultists!

Swamp coolers don't cause this form of external 'pollution'. They absorb the heat by evaporating water, and no heat is dumped outside. Thus they ameliorate the real global warming.

= = = = =

Ergonomically this unit is satisfying, with one odd exception. It's clear that the engineers tested the design with real Murphy-quality people; they didn't design purely for fast robotic production as the engineers of Chinese Crap appliances do.

The case is a bit bigger than you'd expect, but (without water) it's very light and easy to roll around. Recessed handles on the sides are just right for lifting, and the 5 casters are placed to make tipover nearly impossible.

Buttons on top control the main functions. Most appliances have a flat membrane panel with vague action, requiring a fingernail to punch the correct area, which then becomes permanently dented. These buttons are mounted on a membrane, but they protrude from the surface, have readable labels, and click satisfyingly. Each button toggles between several conditions (low-medium-high, continuous-random-sleep, on-off) and the conditions are indicated by labeled LEDs with an effect something like an old rotary switch. Nice and clear. (Though ideally I still prefer actual rotary switches.)

The only oddity is the water fill inlet. Behind the buttons on top is a big door with spring detent. When opened, it reveals a chamber or well with holes at the bottom, a lot like opening up a coffee-maker.



This must be where you put the water, right? Happystar thinks so, but he's wrong. This top chamber contains only the temperature control knob. You put the water in a smaller door on the side. I suspect the original design was supposed to be top-fill; they ordered a batch of cases with the top-fill chamber, then decided at the last minute that side-fill was better.

= = = = =

In operation it's relatively quiet, given the large airflow. The worst noise from a Freon AC is the compressor starting and stopping, which often sounds like a small earthquake. That noise can't happen on a swamper.

Well, does it work? It does produce cool air, but I can't tell if this will effectively cool the house because Spokane is still stuck between winter and spring. Almost June and we still have frost on roofs most mornings. Only two days have busted 70 degrees so far. Might hit 70 next Saturday. I'll update with a performance report if we ever get warm enough to need a cooler!

= = = = =

6/4 update: First warm day, and it does cool the house! Also, the mysterious well on top has a real purpose after all. The pump sends the water up through the shaft of the control valve; water then sprays into the well and drips down the holes into the evaporative medium. In other words, it does work like a coffeemaker (and even has a nice little percolating sound when running!) but it doesn't fill like a coffeemaker.
  ¶ 12:25 PM

  And along the same line
Continuing from yesterday's perfect Obushma illustration.

Obama speaking in Poland:

The message the White House is hoping to send is that two decades after choosing democracy, Poland has a growing economy and is a strategic partner on the world stage — and the same could happen in Tunisia and Egypt, where another longtime leader has stepped down from power.

Here's what bothers me: Bush The Son didn't know better. He grew up as a rich pampered playboy who only needed to know that Pappy was always ready to bail him out. When Bush The Son read this crap about 'Young Democracies', he had no idea what it meant.

Obama is smart enough to know better. He comes from a hard-left cultural background, and his adult training was pure Chicago gangsterism. He must know that 'democracy' is a meaningless term, and that each ethnic group has a firmly locked tradition. He must know that Egypt's 5000-year tradition is solid dictators, and that Egypt has survived on that basis. Now that Sheikh Osama's triumph has removed the Western-facing dictator, Egypt will get an inward-looking dictator.

Obama must also know that Poland's 1000-year tradition embraces a certain amount of public input and public consent, thanks to the Catholic regard for individual dignity. When the Russian occupiers released their iron grip, Poland reverted to its natural tendency toward freedom. (As did other Roman or Protestant countries like Bohemia, Hungary, Slovenia and Croatia. The Orthodox countries like Serbia, Slovakia and Belarus continued their natural tradition of Slavic harshness.)

'Democracy' is not a factor in either of these changes. Both are a return to innate national character, and each nation has a different character. That's how they survive.

Before 1989, our interactions with foreign countries started from this basic reality. Our ego had limits. We minded our own goddamn business and didn't try to fuck with national character. We dealt on a hard practical gangsterish basis with existing dictators. You get money, we get support. You fail to give us support, we run a coup against you.

Under Bushobama we are Big Nanny. We are Nurse Ratched. We know what's good for everyone. Young Democracy is good for everyone. We insist that everyone must adopt Young Democracy under the tender guidance of the US Army. Result: 9/11, infinitely expanding permanent pointless wars, and infinitely expanding dictatorship within this unfortunate land.
  ¶ 5:31 AM

  Finishing off the partisans
The next time you hear a brand-R parrot knocking the pacifist socialist weakling Obama, or a brand-D parrot knocking the war criminal fascist torturer cowboy Bush, just re-read this one little news item.

The State Department on Thursday named career diplomat Victoria Nuland as its new spokesperson, filling a vacancy left when P.J. Crowley resigned in a flap over the soldier accused of leaking secret WikiLeaks documents.

Nuland was a national security advisor to former Vice President Dick Cheney

No need to continue the quote. Nuff said.
  ¶ 6:25 PM

  Encouraging signs
Safe bet that the blind partisan parrots are past their sell-by date. Four years ago, when I wrote comments in various blogs or papers pointing out that both parties were equally to blame for ________ [fill in anything], I was absolutely alone. All the other commenters were mindlessly copy-pasting the current day's brand-R or brand-D talking points.

Now when I start to write a pox-on-both-houses comment, I find it's already been written, and better than my attempt would have been! The partisan copy-pasters are still there, but the non-team players, the thinkers outside the chalk lines, are starting to dominate.

Good sign.
  ¶ 6:35 AM

  The crossing song
In the 20 years I've been at this address, I've heard the 'Crossing Song' every morning from the nearby school. It's an interesting example of how music develops on its own from shouting. Ethnomusicology or something like that.

The crossing guards seem to be assigned on a weekly basis. Each pair has a slightly different way of singing, but the basic tune is always the same. You'd think that in 20 years, with presumably a different pair each week, you'd hear at least one pair who can sing in unison. Nope. Each pair has one good tune-carrier who starts the song, and one poor tune-carrier who follows. The follower is always out of unison by at least a half-tone.


The 9:00 song is simplest, just Last Crossing! I've represented it as G G E, though it's really Sol Sol Mi. (Relative pitch, not absolute.)


The 8:30 song adds another phrase. (Schools here offer both breakfast and lunch; about half the kids take advantage of the breakfast, so it needs a separate crossing period.)


And a few musically conscious 'lead singers' add an extra pitch to the 8:30 song, with just a bit of pride evident in the voice.

= = = = =

May 2015: After building a usable microphone, I finally got a live recording of the Crossing Song. Thirty seconds long, with three repeats; there was some noise from a nearby weed-wacker or something on the first two, but the noise turned off on the third. Here is the MP3 file.
  ¶ 4:40 AM

  Does your musical palate......
Does your musical palate need cleansing? Had enough of rock, rap, Beyonce, Gaga, et al?



Полегнала е Тодора.

Pure music, 200 proof. God hears this.

There are plenty of performances available on the Web... this one strikes me as the best musically, though the camera mysteriously switches to a different scene halfway through the song.
  ¶ 2:25 PM

  Weight is our friend
For a long time now, Raymond Loewy's main rule has been applied in all sorts of places and ways. In the '40s and '50s, Loewy had signs all over his industrial and auto studios reading:

Weight is the enemy.

In the same period, German spy Wallis Simpson famously said,

No woman can be too rich or too thin.

Loewy's slogan was a good corrective at the time, given the extremes of totally unnecessary weight on most cars. Example: In designing the '58 Buick, arguably the epitome of excess, Harley Earl ordered his stylists to add 100 pounds of chrome, and threw a hissy fit when they only added 80 pounds of chrome.

Now we've taken weightlessness too far.

Three completely unrelated observations:

(1) Why do trailers 'attract' tornados? Because they're light. Stick-built wooden houses are hard to lift, generally 'overengineered'. The older the better. Trailers are built to minimize weight, which means they can be lifted and overturned easily.

(2) Why are minicars dangerous? Because they're light. Even with similar crash-proofing, the car with more inertia will always win in a collision.

(3) A recent bit of research (can't find it online, think it was done by a Spokane hospital) countered the idea that hefty people are couch potatoes, finding that many of them were doing active jobs like construction. Fits my own observations and experience. In construction work, a 300-pounder doesn't use nearly as much effort as a 180-pounder, because the big dude has inertia as well as weight. When wrestling pipes off a truck or maneuvering 4x8 plywood, the big guy can just plant his feet and move the object. The smaller guy has to do fancy footwork and fancy torso moves to fight static friction, wind, and angular momentum.

= = = = =

Update 9/28: I think the commentators are seriously missing the point when they say NJ gov Christie has to lose weight before running for pres. They're stuck in the modern Repooflican love of amorphoditic wispy fairyboys, and that's exactly why the Repooflicans are fucking everything up.

Inertia works psychologically as well as physically.

Physical inertia lets the big dude plant his feet and move a physical object without effort. Psychological inertia lets the big dude plant his feet and move a crowd without effort.

Or think of a canine metaphor: Most Repoofs are Chihuahuas. Yappy, squeaky, bitey, ineffective. Christie is a St Bernard. Calmly gets the job done.
  ¶ 6:02 AM

  Pecking order
Hidden in this juicy Australian story about Sheikh Osama's henhouse is a surprising bit of chronology. The juicy parts are plenty juicy:

Although the compound where bin Laden hid for five years was large, the three wives were all cooped up in the same house. The older two lived on the second floor and the youngest one on the top. Their husband alternated between them. Pakistani officials who have been debriefing the women portray life in the compound as an Islamic version of Desperate Housewives. ... "It's a well-known fact that when you have two older wives and then this young one comes along half their age, they don't like it," said one.

The wives even dispute who tried to protect their husband in the raid. The youngest was reported to have attempted to save him, sustaining a bullet wound to her calf. But the older wives say they were the ones who rushed to shield him.

Here's the important bit:

According to Najwa's account, he kept his wives behind walls from the start. Expelled from Saudi Arabia in 1991, they spent five years in Sudan, until the Khartoum government kicked them out and they travelled to Afghanistan. They lived on a mountainside in Tora Bora then, when the Taliban took power, moved to Kandahar. Apart from their time in Tora Bora, the wives always had separate houses or apartments. Bin Laden divided his nights between them.

Got that? Tora Bora before the Taliban took power. Not after we allegedly deposed the Taliban.

More juicy:

In Abbottabad, CIA agents, who watched bin Laden from satellites and stealth drones referred to the tall figure walking round and round the compound as the Pacer.

"The joke in Pakistan is that Bin Laden called in his location to CIA because he was being driven mad cooped up for five years with so many wives and children," said Rehman Malik, Pakistan's interior minister.

I can understand it!
  ¶ 4:30 AM

  Random notes
Most likely the reason I find The Onion's Autistic Reporter so outrageously funny is that I'm way too close to his mindset. I understand what he's thinking entirely too well. For instance, when I see this picture, my first thought is "Wow! Neat car! Looks sort of like a Crosley Hot Shot, but could also be a modified Citroen Deux Chevaux. No, it can't be either of those. What could it be?"

= = = = =

Have to wonder about the quality of warnings and preparedness in Joplin. Death toll there (so far) is about 116, which is huge. Yet the area of urban destruction is considerably smaller than the 1999 Moore tornado, which had a death toll of 36. Joplin is well within the traditional Tornado Alley, so you'd assume its broadcasters are ready... but I have a feeling they weren't. In recent years most small-market radio and TV stations have fired most of their human staff, relying largely on autopilot computers. It's especially bad on weekends. Storms that happen on Sunday can't be allowed to interrupt football.

= = = = =

Vermont has enacted a true single-payer health plan. Interestingly, Obama seems willing to grant them exemption from his monstrous gift to Wall Street, so that the Vermont plan can subsume Medicare and Medicaid with existing levels of funding. After all, the entire point of SINGLE-payer is to eliminate the conflicting rules of multiple insurance companies and multiple fed plans. That's the only way to save money. Gov Shumlin's plan sounds generally similar to the French plan, which works well.

Shumlin reminds me of Maury Maverick. A rigorous and broad-ranging thinker, a firm and precise speaker, and a funny-looking man. The sort of man who should be eminently qualified for President, but will never have a chance because of those three qualities in combination.



Polistra salutes Vermont, the first state to GET IT RIGHT. (But not the only state currently making good and difficult decisions. This is a shining moment for states, as the Feds continue their 22-year exploration of unprecedented Circles of Hell.)
  ¶ 7:34 AM

  Chicks-n-Chimps
Now that more details are emerging about le Chimpanzé en Rut, his downfall becomes a parable for a point Polistra has been making lately.

Disgraced former IMF chief Dominique Strauss-Kahn attempted to lure two attractive hotel employees to his $3,000-a-night hotel suite -- and later put the moves on an Air France flight attendant following his alleged sexual assault on a maid, The Post has learned.

"What a nice ass!" he barked to the attendant, using the lewd French expression "Quel beau cul!" as she prepared the business-class cabin for takeoff last Saturday.

His catcall came just moments before Port Authority detectives hauled him off the plane, the French magazine Le Point reported.

Steyn remarks with satirical intent: "Ah, that Gallic charm. No wonder the chicks are crazy for it."

Unfortunately, that's not satire. Post-feminist chicks unquestionably go for raw brute power, which is why it continues to grow, why we have more and more chimpanzees in positions of authority.

Fortunately for us, DSK made the mistake of messing with a pre-feminist chick, the Muslim maid from Guinea. She knew the proper roles of civilized men and women, and she wasn't impressed by a chimpanzee.

As Polistra has been saying:

So the ruling class loves Islam for insane reasons, but as mentioned earlier, the ruling class will be in considerable trouble if full-fledged Islam takes hold.

But what about ordinary Americans? This part is damned hard to think about and damned hard to write, but must be said.

Ordinary Americans don't want "Human Rights" or "Individual Liberty". They want safety, security and peace.

Ordinary Americans hate Islam for extremely rational reasons ... and yet ordinary Americans, unlike the ruling class, would have a better life under Islam, provided it adopts the softer non-Arab forms as in Indonesia, Turkey or pre-Khomeini Persia. (The proviso is critically important!)

An adapted Islam will give ordinary Americans a better family structure and a safer community. It will strongly encourage men to be sober and clean, and strongly encourage women to be modest and obedient. It will encourage families to bear lots of well-disciplined and well-loved children. It will discourage crime with public, quick and satisfying punishments.

Islam will give ordinary Americans a better commercial culture in which the human connection between buyer and seller matters more than the infinite increase of raw numbers; a commercial culture that treats bankers as low-status quasi-criminals, necessary evils but not the Masters Of The Universe.

Islam will give ordinary Americans a better government: a government that doesn't place the "human rights" of fags and fish above the safety and security of normal families. A government that doesn't build much, but also doesn't place infinite obstacles in your path if you want to start a business or run a farm or build an oil well or a power plant. Just pay the bribe and everything's OK.

= = = = =

All of the qualities listed in the above three paragraphs are fatal anathema to the ruling class, left and right. All of the qualities listed in the above three paragraphs would be a healing solace to ordinary Americans.

Monkey meet civilization. Civilization no like monkey. Monkey go jail.
  ¶ 4:50 AM

  Countdown
Well, it's about to turn 6 PM in this time zone, and as yet noth


= = = = = =

More seriously, the media coverage of the Camping apocalypse has been surprisingly even-handed. This is one case where the media professionals are doing their job fairly well, while the commenters are acting like idiot partisans. The major networks and newspapers have tried to treat Camping's followers with respect while pointing out the absolute zero batting average of all previous prophecies.

Much different from Y2K, where the media roared into action stirring up all sorts of fantastic rumors. No mystery, of course. Y2K was designed to manipulate stock prices. Whenever Goldman needs to raise the value of stock A or drop the value of stock B in order to steal a couple quadrillion from Americans, "our" media are always ready to assist with the shorts and longs. Camping wasn't trying to manipulate a stock, so "our" media were able to treat him neutrally.
  ¶ 6:00 PM

  Silliest theory in history
This feature in New Superstitionist runs through a new 'theory' that links public health to democracy.

[According to Randy Thornhill,] ... the nature of the political system that holds sway in a particular country - whether it is a repressive dictatorship or a liberal democracy - may be determined in large part by a single factor: the prevalence of infectious disease.

NS, to its credit, kicks down three dozen absurdities in this notion, but still misses the most basic problems.

First, Thornhill totally ignores race and ethnicity. When you open your eyes to the fact that PEOPLE ARE DIFFERENT, you don't need this theory at all. Racial tendencies explain both the competence of government and the prevalence of disease. (I thought the whole point of Sociobiology was to pay attention to biological differences, but apparently that has gone away.)

Second, Thornhill assumes that voting is a good measure of 'democracy', and assumes that 'democracy' is a desirable condition. There is no evidence for either assumption. Every society has some form of election. Tribal elders meet to choose the new chief. Modern quantitative democracy is a tool to eliminate popular consent. When you have a 'mandate' generated by publicity, trickery and cheating, and reinforced by a totally uniform 'free press', you don't need to listen to the real voice of the people. When your power depends solely on remaining unshot by bullets or unpierced by arrows, you're more likely to listen.

Third, modern 'democracy' eliminates the firmness and courage needed to maintain public health. We could have controlled AIDS much faster, using time-tested public health techniques, if our 'democracy' hadn't surrendered to the rich and powerful homosexual lobby. Several old diseases (plague, TB, polio) are coming back because politicians want maximum immigration from primitive countries in order to gain new voters. Other old diseases are returning because our 'democracy' listens to the Vaccines Cause Autism pressure group. Malaria is returning because our 'democracy' respects the rich and powerful Gaian fanatics more than it respects life.

Here's the basic fact: A well-organized and well-disciplined country that has some regard for its own people will eradicate parasites and diseases, and will also increase its prosperity. After a country reaches a certain degree of comfort and prosperity, it often turns toward 'democracy', which destroys its discipline and prosperity and brings it back to the default Haitian level. 'Democracy' is neither a cause nor an effect of good public health, 'democracy' is a disease that eliminates public health.
  ¶ 12:42 PM

  No flying fuck
The neocoms are busily parroting standard talking points about Obama "throwing Israel under the bus".

Okay, fine. Got it. You favor Israel and Obama favors Palestine. (Though it's hard to tell where his practical policy differs from Clinton or Bush The Son.)

I don't give a flying fuck who favors Israel and who favors Palestine.

Both of those places are OTHER GODDAMN COUNTRIES. THEY ARE NOT PART OF AMERICA. WE DO NOT LIVE IN ISRAEL. WE DO NOT LIVE IN PALESTINE. WE LIVE IN A DIFFERENT COUNTRY CALLED AMERICA, WHICH IS NEITHER ISRAEL NOR PALESTINE.

I'll be glad to demonstrate this weird radical unprecedented idea to anyone who doubts it. The demonstration will require the use of a super hi-tech device called a "map", which is a two-dimensional representation of weird radical sci-fi concepts called "borders".

When in the holy fuck do we get a politician who can read a goddamn map? When in the holy fuck do we get a politician who FAVORS AMERICA?



Polistra and Happystar, in a pointed mood, demonstrate their strange new theory that America and Israel are DIFFERENT COUNTRIES.
  ¶ 10:59 AM

  You first, No, you first. No, you first......
A nice symmetry of guaranteed paralysis.

In Obama's regular Saturday radio message, he urged Congress to change the "No Child Left Behind" law, to leave more room for local-level reforms. Good idea, but it ain't gonna happen. Congress never changes any laws unless the change allows Goldman Sachs to steal a trillion extra dollars from Americans. If Obama really thought this was important, he could order the Dept of Ed to fix the regulations.

In Kay Bailey Hutchison's "response", she urged the President to make offshore drilling easier. Good idea, but it ain't gonna happen. No President will expand offshore drilling, because that would mean American oil production might start to compete with Saudi oil production. Unthinkable. If Congress really thought this was important, they could change the law to remove all executive authority to restrict drilling.
  ¶ 6:04 AM

  Why I listen to NPR, part 11
NPR's feature on the failure of Harold Camping's apocalypse included several interviews with Camping believers, all thoroughly sane and respectable people. One common and unexpected theme emerged in the interviews. All were fatalistic about the chance of achieving comfort and security in the present economic setup. "What's the point of saving, just letting money sit there?"

Tragic. In post-1989 America, where the Wall Street Mafia controls everything, borrowing is pretty much required and saving is pretty much prohibited.

You can still achieve comfort by livin' little instead of livin' large, but it ain't easy. I've detailed my path to comfort here.

Pascalistra says: "Chance favors the prepared miser."
  ¶ 5:40 AM

  Heart of Gramscian darkness
Britain's Chief Justice is getting his fine satin panties in a big wad about the existence of a free press.

He argued that, in applying privacy law, the courts should treat newspapers and broadcast media differently from new media because the public knew that "modern technology is totally out of control and everybody can put anything on it". The Master of the Rolls, Lord Neuberger, who led the committee on super-injunctions, described reports on "the web" as being "often very inaccurate indeed". The internet, he said, was "not a reliable place".

Hey, I've got an idea. How about understanding that people know the Web is not a reliable place, and thus don't put much credence in lies? How about treating us like adults for a couple of milliseconds?

The comments of the judges provoked concerns over the judiciary's understanding of modern media. Padraig Reidy of Index on Censorship said: "Lord Judge's comments merely highlight the false dichotomy drawn between 'mainstream' media and online social networks."

Well, the dichotomy is real.

Plain fact: Lies spread by TV are far more effective than lies spread via the Net, because TV has NO FACTS AVAILABLE. When you hear something egregiously and maliciously false on CNN or Fox (i.e. when you hear something on CNN or Fox), you can't click to some other channel to hear the truth, because there is no truth available on TV at all.**

On the Net you can instantly find a different take on anything. A citizen who wants to be informed will either (1) remain uncertain, WHICH IS A GOOD THING, or (2) will gradually get closer to the truth, which is an even better thing.

Steven Barnett, professor of communications at the University of Westminster, said the judges would be criticised for their use of language but agreed that something needed to be done to tackle those who "maliciously" break the law online. "Those who deliberately and systematically attempt to undermine the decisions of the courts should be sought out and brought to justice," he said. "But the judges should avoid notions like clamping down and other Soviet language which doesn't do them any favours."

Gramsci on parade. Comrade Barnett is saying we must use Soviet methods to exterminate free speech, but we must not use Soviet terminology to describe our Soviet methods. We must murder truth with a highly polished rapier, not a sledgehammer.


= = = = =

** Okay, that's a slight overstatement. Every now and then, at random moments, truth will accidentally appear on TV.

A more precise statement would be: After you hear a lie on TV, you have no way to locate a different opinion or treatment of the same subject. On the Web you can always do that.
  ¶ 4:48 AM

  Once a Kraut, always a Kraut.
Ah, those wonderful Germans.

Munich Re said it was conducting a full scale investigation to look into the 100-person sex party that took place in Budapest in 2007. However, the German insurance giant ... said it could not be sure it was the only "incident" of its type at that time.

Twenty escorts were hired for the event and required to wear colour-coded armbands.

Red for hostesses that were available for flirting but who did not perform sex acts.

Yellow armbands were given to women who ... took men to four-poster beds at the Budapest spa to "do whatever they liked", fulfilling their "every wish".

A select few at the orgy wore white arm brands to signify they were available only to executives and top salesmen.

In a bizarre example of German efficiency, the executives are reported to have insisted the women have their forearms stamped to indicate how many sex acts they had performed that night with the group.

Once a Kraut, always a Kraut. Numbers, numbers, numbers. Data, data, data. Forearms, forearms, forearms.

Especially delicious because Munich Re is a major player in the genocidal Carbon Cult. They have been funding significant amounts of "warming" research, to establish a way to sue the nearest deep-pocket company or government for "carbon pollution" that supposedly "caused" a flood or hurricane.

From their own website:

Since 1973, Munich Re has devoted intense work to the issue of climate change and the consequences of global warming.

Numbering the hottest Hungarian whores is intense research on the correlation between Forcing Factors and Exponentially Rising Hockey Sticks.

= = = = =

Sidenote: I just noticed a nice Freudian typo in the article above: arm brands. Even though the writer was trying not to make the explicit reference, it was clearly in his mind!
  ¶ 5:32 AM

  Phrenology
Scientists and detectives of the late 1800s developed a pattern to distinguish criminal faces from normal faces. Some of them got carried away with analyzing every bump on the skull, which discredited the original studies. Modern "scientists" treat the whole subject with disdain because modern "scientists" "know", based on complete reversal and falsification of all available facts, that all humans are precisely identical.

Nevertheless, there is such a thing as a criminal face. Many criminals don't have criminal faces, but there's a good chance that people with criminal faces will have criminal tendencies.

Great example: Check out the brows on this brother-sister pair who tortured and killed one of their friends for snitching.
  ¶ 6:21 PM

  Frivolity first
Sci-fi writers and 'futurists' always assume that new technology begins with deadly serious and highly official applications. Nope, that's rarely the case.

Examples: The first horseless carriage was invented in 300 BC to participate in religious processions, to impress the yokels. Radio began with infomercials. Television began with pro wrestling, and continues with a more debased form of verbal pro wrestling called "fair and balanced debate". The commercial internet began with porn and continues mainly with porn.

And now we have the first commercial application of 'electronic telepathy', the first available brain-wave reader! It's a pair of cat ears that you wear on your head, and they respond to your brain in the same way that real cat ears respond to a real cat brain.

Behold! Necomimi from Neurowear!



===============================



Wouldn't it be fun to see le Chimpanzé en Rut wearing Necomimi ears when he declares his complete innocence?
  ¶ 6:52 AM

  Best combox
When I believe sanity 'has left the building', when I think I'm the only remaining observer of plain facts, I quickly read the commenters in UK Telegraph. The professional writers and reporters there are somewhat better than their American counterparts; they do occasionally get something right. But the commenters at the Telegraph always get it right on every subject, from "global warming" to economics to feminism. Very few Gramscian trolls, lots of excellent thinking. I always learn something new.

It's good medicine for a lonely soul.
  ¶ 5:00 AM

  Finally speaks!
I've been wondering since January when Sheikh Osama would congratulate the revolutionaries in the Arab world, who are unquestionably accomplishing his stated goal. Now al-Qaeda has finally released an audio of indeterminate date, supposedly from April.

"My Muslim Umma (nation), we are monitoring with you this great historic event and we join you with your joy and delight, so congratulations on your victories and may God have mercy on your martyrs. May he cure your injured and grant the release of your prisoners.

...

The (Muslim) nation was always getting ready for the victory that is rising from the eastern horizon but the surprise was that the sun of the revolution rose from the Maghreb, the west. The light of the revolution sparked in Tunisia and the nation felt the relief, the faces of the people got brightened and the throats of the rulers got coarser and the Jews got terrified because the coming of the promised day.

From the start these revolutions were trying to replace Our SOB's with native Islamist rulers, which is the exact and complete goal of Sheikh Osama's movement.

The "American" government and media continue to paint these revolutions as "Democracy", whatever the fuck that means. Sorry, folks, we aren't swallowing your shit any more. The only thing we want now is our own Spring, our own release from the secular elite.

Labels: Natural law = Sharia law

  ¶ 8:39 PM

  The PERFECT Republican candidate!
Here he is, Mr Republican!

He's got everything! The looks of Pawlenty, the data-bathing abilities of Romney, the soul of Newt!

= = = = =

No, I take it back. Santorum actually beats this guy in the inappropriate remark department, which seemed impossible. There is a real problem with McCain and torture, but it's the exact opposite of what Santorum said. McCain understands torture too well, in a completely personal way. This disqualifies him from making the cold hard decisions that a President sometimes needs to make. If your own feelings prevent you from ordering a necessary interrogation or a necessary war, you shouldn't be president. On the other side, if your own feelings or ideology compel you to order unnecessary interrogations and wars, you shouldn't be president.

McCain disqualifies both ways. He can't order a necessary interrogation but he loves unnecessary wars.
  ¶ 10:39 AM

  Hmm. I wonder who's the favorite........
AP news on "temporary" replacement for Chimpanzé en Rut:

Steegmans didn't name any potential candidates or say whether Germany itself might propose one. But he said it "makes a lot of sense" to have an IMF chief who is "very familiar" with "Europe's particularities, the currency questions and also the political circumstances here."

Chancellor Angela Merkel has made the same point, along with several European finance ministers. Possible candidates mentioned in news media speculation include French Finance Minister Christine Lagarde, French Finance Minister Christine Lagarde; the former head of the German central bank, Axel Weber; the head of Europe's bailout fund, Klaus Regling; and Peer Steinbrueck, a former German finance minister.

Nuff said.
  ¶ 8:26 AM

  I didn't guess this one
Based on the facts and connections, I assumed from the start that Obamacare was a guaranteed monopoly for large insurance companies. The brand-R shouting about socialism reinforced this assumption. Presumably brand-R wanted other insurance companies to retain their monopoly.

Nope, I assumed wrong. Truly didn't see this coming.

Turns out Obamacare is just a straightforward Mafia protection racket, pure Chicago politics. The only important part of the whole program is the waivers. If you contribute enough or have a good record of Party loyalty, your business or state or agency or union gets a waiver. If you're non-Party, no waiver for you.
  ¶ 5:24 AM

  More proof that Russia will survive
Polistra has been noticing that the Slavic culture survived 70 years of hard Communism, while Western cultures have not survived 60 years of soft Communism.

Islamic cultures will also survive, especially now that they're following Sheikh Osama's advice to reclaim their national identities from secular dictators.

More evidence from a parodically perfect source:

To mark International Day against Homophobia and Transphobia, the Brussels-based group ILGA-Europe published a colored map on its Web site illustrating which countries are the most and least gay friendly.

In the "red zone" or least gay friendly is Cyprus, followed by Italy, Latvia and Malta.

Other countries in the red zone are Armenia, Azerbaijan, Macedonia, Russia and Turkey.

"It is very disappointing to see so many countries remain in the 'red zone' of violations and discrimination, and that not a single country in Europe can claim full legal equality for LGBT people," said Linda Freimane, co-leader of the group's executive board.

The ILGA-Europe map shows a clear east-west divide regarding legal equality for lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgendered people, the EUobserver reported.

Transphobia? As far as I can tell, this is not from The Onion.
  ¶ 4:31 AM

  Toldja so
Long ago I stopped paying attention to political jibber-jabber about budgets and deficits and debts. It's been clear for at least 15 years that such jibber-jabber is not ideological or serious. Whichever party currently has the majority emits standard boilerplate about Necessities And Common Sense, and the current minority emits standard boilerplate about Drastic Risky Cuts That Will Kill Orphans And Widows.

This year I knew in advance that all the pretend shouting and pretend fighting about cuts would end up with an actual increase. Why? Because it ALWAYS DOES.

And it did:

According to the CBO, “Total discretionary outlays in 2011 will be $3.2 billion higher as a result of the legislation, CBO estimates - an increase of $7.5 billion for defense programs, partially offset by a net reduction of $4.4 billion in other spending.”

Toldja so.

Please, Lord, send us a Pinochet. Send us a military dictator who will kill thousands of DC and NY traitors.
  ¶ 3:21 AM

  Mitt will win.
From today's WashPost:

The list of donors at Romney’s first presidential fundraiser, held April 12 at the Harvard Club of New York City, reads like a who’s who of the Wall Street elite, including Goldman Sachs bankers and in­dependent financiers. Those attending the breakfast meeting included investment banker Lewis M. Eisenberg, who served as finance chairman for John McCain’s 2008 presidential campaign, and hedge-fund king John Paulson, who shattered records in 2010 by earning $5 billion in a single year.

Well, that's all she wrote. The Jewish Mafia has picked Mitt as the Red-Label nominee. Other candidates can pack up, go home and enjoy the little bit of life that remains.

We also know that Mitt will lose to Obama, because Obama's record of 100.0000% slavish service to the Jewish Mafia is proven and unblemished, while Mitt's record is not yet known. From history and odds, Misteromney is likely to be another hundred-percenter, but GS can't be entirely sure of that. He could be only 99.9999% loyal. So the Blue Label slave will continue.
  ¶ 1:57 AM

  Bad boys get the girls
Nice to have objective proof of this. I've always seen it, but always suspected that my view was distorted by overflowing piles of sour grapes.

Nope, it's just plain true.
  ¶ 8:14 PM

  LED: good bulb, bad investment.
Lynne Kiesling discusses a newly introduced LED-based light bulb by Philips. Unlike the killer CFL, the LED is harmless.

This bulb presently costs about $45, and is supposed to last 25 years.

The life estimate is plausible: I'm looking right now at an LED power indicator on my Radio Shack amplifier that has been ON most of the time since 1972. Little LEDs are eternal.

Kiesling brings up a basic fact about actual use of bulbs: We don't expect them to be permanent. Most people move every few years, so you'd have to pack up the bulbs and take them with you to justify the 25-year investment! Nobody is going to do that.

I'm past the quick-moving stage of life, but even for my simple and static little life, the investment doesn't make sense. Assuming I've got 25 good years left: the living-room ceiling fixture needs about 4 incandescents per year. I've stocked up on incandescents at 49 cents per bulb, so the cost of keeping that fixture lit for 25 years is

(4 bulbs per year * 0.49 dollars per bulb * 25 years) = 49 dollars.

About equal to one LED bulb.

But what happens if you break the LED bulb, or it fails on its own before 25 years? The investment is immediately bad. And you're not going to keep a stock of spares at that price, so you're in the dark until you can get to the store for another bulb.
  ¶ 7:52 AM

  Parallel
Revelations are emerging about Comrade Scheissenesser's "love-child". Supposedly this was a fully kept secret for many years, and supposedly it's the cause of his separation from the Royal Family.

I suspect the real reason for separation is more basic: now that he's no longer Governor, there's no reason for the Royal Family to associate with him. With Commies, raw brutal physical power is everything.

Nice parallels to the Chimpanzé en Rut. Tempting to imagine a rare alignment of planets that brings down evil assholes, but probably meaningless.




Polistra and Happystar continue their celebration, with a special bottle this time.

= = = = =

Later: After more details emerge, I'm don't think there's a real parallel. Much as I hate to halfway defend a hardline Gaian Leninist like Scheissenesser, it's not the same. The long-term habits of le Chimpanzé en Rut are raw violence plus raw sex. Arnie's affair is just traditional aristocratic decadence. His Mexican mistress seems to have been his real wife. She did the housework, bore his children, and received his money and affection. Aside from legalities, that's the job of a wife. Maria Shriver was his official dynastic ambassador to the Royal Kennedy Family, performing official duties at official parties. This is how the Crowned Heads of Europe have been conducting their lives for many centuries. Legal marriages to create dynastic alliances, practical marriages to commoners.
  ¶ 4:18 AM

  Little signs of sanity
As Polistra often observes, America had an accurate understanding of life before WW2, and went insane afterward. The insanity began with Stalinist subversion around 1948, and was complete in 1968 with the Cultural Revolution. Egalitarianism removed all the foundations of family, morality, justice and science, and made most truths unsayable.

In the last 10 years we've seen a few signs of a return to sanity in some areas.

Example.

Here's a 1934 episode of the excellent police show 'Calling All Cars'. I'll transcribe the introduction by Chief Wallace of Los Anglis [as it was pronounced then]:

Good evening, friends. We hear much about the reformation of the hardened criminal. It rarely happens that way; once the criminal has crossed the borderline into dishonesty, it seems that he can't resist the temptation to turn another trick. It's very discouraging to police officers to spend so much time and so much taxpayer money to capture a bandit, and then have him turned loose by the parole system after a short jail sentence. Police know only too well that they will soon pick up evidence that the so-called 'reformed criminal' has returned to his erring ways. Police records are full of cases of men and women arrested again and again and again. Police know that most major crimes are committed by experienced criminals who have police records. Tonight's story tells of a band of holdup men composed, with one exception, of ex-convicts. It gives a typical example of how these men, whose minds have already been poisoned against law and order, delight in pitting their strength against the law enforcement agencies. Their punishment by the courts does not teach them a lesson. As you will see, it is necessary for your police department to keep a watch on all known criminals and convicts, and it is from their ranks that police make most arrests. I hope that the moral taught by tonight's program will be instrumental in keeping many potential law violators from making that dangerous first step. I fear that, having once tasted the forbidden fruits of crime, it is almost impossible to return to a respectable life, and that the police must arrest the criminally inclined again and again, if necessary, until they have been put behind bars for good.

Even then, the idiotic notion of reform had already infected the courts, but it hadn't infected the mind of Chief Wallace. He understood criminals accurately, and was able to express his understanding without being shouted down or censored.

Today we get a refreshing column by Dominick Lawson in UK Independent, who has reached the same conclusion that Polistra reached a year ago.

Ameneh Bahrami has been waiting a long time for the justice she seeks. In 2004, while she was returning home from work, a man named Majid Movahedi threw a bucketful of acid into her face, leaving her blinded and also horribly disfigured. Bahrami had repeatedly turned down Movahedi's proposals of marriage, which included promises to kill her unless she consented; but instead of carrying out that threat, Movahedi decided that if he couldn't have her, then he would make sure that no other man would desire her.

The Iranian courts determined on a fine and prison sentence for Movahedi, but his victim insisted that she was entitled by law to qisas (retribution) because, in her words, "only this way will he understand my pain". In 2008 she won her case, after which Movahedi's lawyers launched a number of appeals, all of which were unsuccessful.

On 14 May 2011, Bahrami's wish would be carried out. Movahedi was to be taken to Tehran's Judiciary Hospital and there, under full anaesthetic, have a few drops of acid put into each of his eyes, rendering him blind.

At this point, the issue suddenly became of more than local concern. Amnesty International declared that such a sentence "amounted to torture"; the British Foreign Office protested, saying (presumably on behalf of the British people) that "we are deeply concerned by reports that Majid Movahedi's sentence of being blinded by having acid dripped into his eyes may be carried out". Surprisingly, given its known contempt for both the British government and Western human rights organisations, the Iranian authorities intervened to block the judicial blinding of Movahedi.

Good old neocons, always minding everyone else's business, always making life easy for criminals and hard for normal people. Any little fragmentary vestige of civilization anywhere in the world must be EXTERMINATED EXTERMINATED EXTERMINATED! All must be confusion, chaos and disorder!

Here Lawson departs from modern idiocy and finds old-fashioned sanity:

If the Foreign Office intervention truly reflected the view of the nation it represents, then we in Britain would now be heaving a collective sigh of relief that Majid Movahedi has been preserved from his victim's retribution. Yet I can't say that I am greatly relieved; my empathy remains wholly with Ameneh Bahrami, who not only lives with a dreadful unappeased pain, but who is unable, because of her blindness, to work as the engineer she qualified to be.

Simple fact: Criminals are innately different from non-criminals. Criminals are short-term thinkers and seekers of immediate pleasure. Most of them can learn to control their impulses, but multi-year court proceedings with a vanishingly tiny chance of actual punishment will have no effect at all. Quick and satisfying justice, an eye for an eye or simply an immediate public spanking for minor offenses, will teach the offender and deter others, and will also satisfy the victim and the public at large.

Islamic justice understands human nature. Modern Western justice is hopelessly ignorant and unscientific.

Persia seems to be at a crossroad between Islamic sanity and Anglospheric idiocy, and (contrary to our usual propaganda) seems to be heading in the Anglospheric direction at the same moment when Westerners are totally disgusted with it.

Labels: Natural law = Sharia law

  ¶ 5:11 PM

  Chimpanzé en Rut
Polistra thought this exhibit would be funny, like the Crazed Sex Poodle.



It's not funny.

Apotheosis of Gramsci. Man of infinite appetite, man of infinite evil.
  ¶ 10:16 AM

  Special reason
A special reason to enjoy the downfall of Rutting Chimpanzee Strauss-Kahn.

To help finance this shift in the global economy, the IMF is working on a set of proposals to create a multi-billion dollar “Green Fund” that would provide the huge sums — which could climb to $100 billion a year in a few years — needed for countries to confront the challenges posed by climate change.

During a panel discussion on the future of the world economy, Strauss-Kahn said it was obvious that developing countries don’t have the cash to finance the measures needed to tackle climate change, while developed countries were saddled with enormous debts from combating the global economic crisis.

There was a need to think outside the box and come up with innovative ways to provide the money. “I can’t believe we don’t have the solution to this huge problem,” he told the audience in Davos.

The IMF will start discussions with central banks and finance ministers on the feasibility of creating this Green Fund, possibly partly financed through the issuance of additional Special Drawing Rights (SDRs), a reserve asset created by the IMF.

Strauss-Kahn said that climate change financing was such a big issue that “it cannot be seen as a problem that cannot be solved.”

Gramscian apocalypse, done to perfection. Use Wall Street trickery to steal billions from the workers in rich countries, and give it to obscenely rich dictators in poor countries. Use grotesquely false pseudoscience, also financed by IMF for many years, to "justify" this reverse Robin Hood megathievery.
  ¶ 3:55 AM

  Deposuit potentes de sede
News item:

The arrest of IMF chief Dominique Strauss-Kahn in connection with a sexual assault in New York risks throwing the French presidential race in disarray.

Strauss-Kahn is seen as the strongest potential challenger to conservative and unpopular President Nicolas Sarkozy in 2012 presidential elections. Strauss-Kahn has not announced his candidacy but was expected to seek the Socialist Party nomination.

Political rivals expressed shock after his arrest in New York. Far right presidential candidate Marine Le Pen said his presidential bid was doomed.

Polistra and Happystar break out the celebratory vintage. Always good when the People Who Count, the financial elites, fall from high places; especially delightful when the fall gives a direct advantage to a Nationalist.

= = = = =

More on Monday: From NYTimes:

As the impact of Mr. Strauss-Kahn’s predicament hit home, others, including some in the news media, began to reveal accounts, long suppressed or anonymous, of what they called Mr. Strauss-Kahn’s previously predatory behavior toward women and his aggressive sexual pursuit of them, from students and journalists to subordinates.

Sounds mighty familiar. And it gets better:

Mr. Strauss-Kahn behaved aggressively toward a young female journalist and novelist, Tristane Banon, in 2002, according to the newspaper Le Parisien and other Web sites, and corroborated by Ms. Banon herself in a 2007 television interview on Paris Première, a cable channel. At the time, she said that a French politician — whom she later said was Mr. Strauss-Kahn — had tried to rape her in an empty apartment in Paris after she had contacted him for a book she was writing.

“He wanted to grab my hand while answering my questions, and then my arm. We ended up fighting, since I said clearly, ‘No, no.’ We fought on the floor, I kicked him, he undid my bra, he tried to remove my jeans,” she said.

Afterward, she said that she had contacted a well-known lawyer who already had “a pile of files on Mr. Strauss-Kahn,” but that she never filed a complaint. “I didn’t dare; I didn’t wish to be the girl who had a problem with a politician for the rest of my life,” she said.

Gramscian demigods always leave a trail of raped girls (or sometimes raped boys) behind them. The French media apparently referred to Comrade Strauss-Kahn as 'the Great Seducer' for a long time (note this news item from a week before the current event!), so the wide-eyed surprise by NYTimes is the usual 100% lie. They all knew what was happening.
  ¶ 3:06 AM

  Unicameral: Let's do it.
The Wash State legislature is vaguely considering a proposal to simplify itself by eliminating the Senate.

"Well, that's an idea that is batted around from time to time," said Sen. Karen Fraser, D-Lacey.

Fraser was on a governor's committee that went around the state collecting ideas from citizens on how to save money. On the committee's final list was an idea to establish a unicameral legislature, just like Nebraska.

"I like it," said Rep. Hans Dunshee, D-Snohomish. "Things happen faster, and you can hold people accountable."

I grew up in Kansas and often traveled in Nebraska for work or fun. Kan and Neb make a good Separated Twins experiment because they began as one territory, and are innately similar in geography, history, resources and demographics. If the structure of the legislature made an important difference, it would have been visible between these two twins. It didn't make a difference. Both had similar roads, similar public services, similar schools, and a similar level of prosperity. In short, both states had equally competent governance.

Form is insignificant. If we can speed things up a bit and save some money (on elections and staff) by eliminating the state Senate, let's do it.
  ¶ 6:12 PM

  A modest proposal
Repeating the headline catch of a few days ago. Today the Weather.com sidebar features another interesting juxtaposition.



The 'exceptional drought' turns out to be in Texas, especially around Houston.

The Morganza floodway is, of course, next door in Louisiana.

Polistra has a wild radical idea. Perhaps we could learn from Nature. Polistra has noticed near her Mill that beavers often build a sort of land-bridge across the creek, which holds back a large storage pond. What would happen if we carve a channel from the Mississippi and run it westward into Texas? We could then use the beaver technique to store some of this water in Texas when the Miss is running high, which happens every few years ... though rarely as high as this year. The stored water could then be used when Texas is short.




This would require a considerable amount of money and labor, so we'd have to bring home our soldiers from the 190 countries where they are currently sowing chaos and disorder, and assign them instead to create order in this country. Those with appropriate skills would work on the project or supervise civilian construction types who need the work.

The idea seems pretty damn obvious to Polistra, so she proposes calling it the Damn Obvious Idea, or just Damn for short. And the storage pond should be named to honor the Soldiers who performed loyally in our pointless wars, especially the reservists. Perhaps a good name, then, would be the Reserve War Memorial Pond, or just Reserve War for short.

And the whole project should be called Polistra's War Alternative, or PWA.

= = = = =

More seriously: Texas has a seacoast. There's absolutely no excuse for any area with a seacoast to be short of drinking water. Especially when the same area has lots of sun and lots of oil and lots of natural gas. Desalinate, for Christ's sweet sake.
  ¶ 4:57 PM

  Christie reclaims lost moral territory
Gov Christie of NJ has done two things that most of America has forgotten how to do.

Before the grotesque and murderous triumph of the Wilsonians and Neocons, Americans had a well-formed understanding of these two simple concepts:

NOYB. That's none of your business. Stop interfering in my affairs.

and

NOMB. That's none of my business. I won't interfere in your affairs.

Christie used both in the same context.

Christie was asked at a Thursday press conference whether he believes in evolution. In his famously brash manner, Christie responded, “that’s none of your business.”

NOYB. Verbatim.

Last week, Christie told attendees of a local town hall that he believes decisions on teaching creationism should be left to local school districts.

NOMB. Not quite verbatim, but he's clearly saying that the religious choice of local schools is "none of my business."

= = = = =

It's especially refreshing to hear both NOYB and NOMB from a government official in the East. The concepts are still barely alive in the Western states, but totally dead in NY, DC and other English-speaking countries.

Specifically:

On the level of individuals and families: NOMB formerly meant that governments allowed families to operate within their own households. Now everything that happens between husband and wife or between parents and children is intimately viewed and controlled by Social Services. Conversely, government used to stand back when individuals or families protected their homes from squatters and burglars. This reticence is extinct in Britain, where the government actually assists the burglars and squatters; it's vestigial in the Eastern states and still alive in the West.

On the level of nations: All other nations are Our Business. Every time we see some other nation violating the Holy Writ of Betty Friedan, allowing men and women to form normal families, we roar in with cluster bombs and ground troops to create perpetual disorder and chaos, as Satan's Homegirl Friedan would have wanted. Conversely, when international busybodies like UN and Amnesty International consider everything within America to be Their Business, we encourage them. We change our ways to satisfy their dictates. (Again, this is much worse in Britain where EU has total control.)

On the level of species: All other species are Our Business. Every time we find some obscure species following the natural process of evolution, dying out in one particular location, we move hell and earth to 'save' this species from evolution. We destroy our own farmland and stop our own energy production, literally starve ourselves, to protect this one subpopulation of one species from its natural fate, to stop evolution in its tracks. Conversely, we decide that predators have full rights to interfere in our affairs. We insist on bringing back wolves and grizzlies, which had been eradicated by earlier and more civilized Americans. We make humans vulnerable to savage creatures just as we make them vulnerable to savage criminals.

NOMB and NOYB have a good and natural reason. Whether we're talking about biology or engineering or programming or governments, boundaries and levels are necessary. A system works when each cell or subroutine or state is allowed to preserve and defend its own proteins or data or people. A system fails when boundaries are routinely crossed, when every cell or subroutine or state can reach into every other cell or subroutine or state to infect or corrupt or steal.

Most importantly, a living system will create its own boundaries to suit its own needs. This is most obvious in the developing brain, where learning involves the gradual formation and separation of pathways to discriminate one category from another. Also seen in a functional governing setup where school districts, fire districts, cities, etc, form or evaporate to suit the needs of the people in one area.

Polistra's Law of Boundaries:

Nature loves to create boundaries. Nature fails when boundaries are ruptured.
  ¶ 12:38 PM

  Bad logic, Randy
Rand Paul says a "right to health care" means that doctors are slaves; that anyone who needs or wants health care can take it from a doctor at any time.

Nope. Bad logic. The "right" to free press doesn't mean you can walk into a newspaper office and take over the presses; it does mean you can publish your own paper. The "right" to self-defense doesn't mean you can steal a gun; it does mean you can buy or make a weapon and use it to defend yourself. And so on.

Thus a "right" to health care, properly interpreted, would mean only that the FDA can't stop you from using therapists or medicines that don't bring huge profits to the FDA's favorite monopolistic pharma companies.

Yet another proof that the whole concept of "rights" was badly formed to begin with, and leads to all sorts of misuse and abuse from all directions.

= = = = =

Continuing the above thought: a proper right to health care could be formed as a direct extension of the right to self-defense.

Both of our idiot "sides" maintain the agreed-on lie that the 2nd Amendment is solely about guns. It's not. It's about self-defense. It guarantees that you can own and use the necessary devices to defend your house and body. Against what? Not specified, though it clearly means human enemies. A gun or baseball bat is a good device to defend your house and body against a human enemy; by extension, a DDT sprayer is a good defense against a mosquito enemy and a dose of polio vaccine is a good defense against a viral enemy.

Labels: Shared Lie

  ¶ 11:25 AM

  Psilly psyops
CIA is proudly showing some porn they "found" in Osama's house.

This is clearly a bit of propaganda fakery, but the CIA is so thorougly Friedanized that they don't even know it's counterproductive propaganda.

CIA clearly thinks this will convince Osama's Arab followers that he lacked something in the marble department. Or maybe they think it will offend his followers. Nope, it's the opposite.

In fact this will make every actual male, Arab or otherwise, doubt the sexual abilities of Osama's wives. Just as the previous video showing an old Osama-double hippie watching TV will make every actual male doubt the work ethic of Osama's wives.
  ¶ 10:27 AM

  Doesn't answer the main question
News item:

Despite having no Internet access in his hideout, Osama bin Laden was a prolific email writer who built a painstaking system that kept him one step ahead of the U.S. government's best eavesdroppers. ... The arrangement allowed bin Laden to stay in touch worldwide without leaving any digital fingerprints behind.

Holed up in his walled compound in northeast Pakistan with no phone or Internet capabilities, bin Laden would type a message on his computer without an Internet connection, then save it using a thumb-sized flash drive. He then passed the flash drive to a trusted courier, who would head for a distant Internet cafe.

In other words, it's a hi-tech version of an old spycraft trick.

But the human element is only a small bit of the process. After the messages got into the web, NSA should have been able to figure out what's happening.

In short, it doesn't matter if the messages originated directly from Osama's house, or from a nearby cafe, and it doesn't matter if the messages were encrypted. The messages were in the system, and NSA has been Node #1 of the system since 1968. NSA's traffic analysis should have been able to spot the cafe in Pakistan as the source of all these thousands of messages going to AQ operatives, and from the cafe a little plain old eyeball observation, plus talk with locals, should have distinguished OBL's house.
  ¶ 12:32 PM

  Why I listen to NPR, part 10
Fine report by Debbie Elliott on this year's Miss flood.

Strongly emphasizes common sense:

Floodplains are good farmland because they flood sometimes. Areas that never flood never get new topsoil. If you prevent all floods you eliminate farmland.

Also emphasizes the legacy of Hoover and FDR, who got the system of levees and dams built. If Hoover and FDR had been like today's idiot politicians, they would have handed trillions to Wall Street to reward it for the 1929 crash. Because Hoover and FDR were NOT like today's idiots, they spent large amounts of money creating a public infrastructure that made agricultural and industrial progress possible.

One old lady in Greenville summed it up nicely: "In '27 they were resilient and resourceful, everybody had a boat. Now nobody has a boat, it's all just blind panic."

Yup.
  ¶ 6:18 PM

  Mitt will win.
From today's WashPost:

The list of donors at Romney’s first presidential fundraiser, held April 12 at the Harvard Club of New York City, reads like a who’s who of the Wall Street elite, including Goldman Sachs bankers and in­dependent financiers. Those attending the breakfast meeting included investment banker Lewis M. Eisenberg, who served as finance chairman for John McCain’s 2008 presidential campaign, and hedge-fund king John Paulson, who shattered records in 2010 by earning $5 billion in a single year.

Well, that's all she wrote. The Jewish Mafia has picked Mitt. Other candidates can pack up, go home and enjoy the little bit of life that remains.

He will of course lose the general election. That's his job, just as it was Traitor McCain's job. GS is perfectly happy with Obama. No new regulations, continued quadrillions in free unmerited offerings. What more could they want?

But GS always hedges both sides of the bet, so Romney's well-established Jewish Mafia connections will make him an acceptable consolation slave in case some state slips up and actually counts the ballots.
  ¶ 6:23 AM

  Clever
Pasha Obama's latest speech on immigration makes a clever use of a major agreed-on lie.

The shared lie: Republicans are anti-immigration, and Bush The Son was especially anti-immigration. (Alligators in the moat, etc.)

D's like the lie because it lets them paint R's as racist. R's like the lie because it gets them a few votes from uninformed white people, though they don't really want icky filthy white votes. Eeeeewwww! Christians! Eeeeewwwwww!

The facts are a little more complicated.

Fact 1: R and D agree closely on immigration. Both want wide-open borders.

Fact 2: McCain favored wide-open borders even more insanely than Bush did.

Fact 3: Obama has enforced the border slightly better than Bush The Son did.

By playing with the moats and alligators, Obama will force the brand-R establishment to start weeping and weeping and weeping and screaming: "No, we're not racist! We're not racist! We're not racist! We're not racist! We want wide-open borders! We want instant citizenship for all Mexicans whether they're here or not! We want full welfare payments and instant Social Security and free college for all Mexicans before they get here!"

And they will be telling the truth for once.

This will make it much easier for Obama to pass all the open-borders crap he wants, and it will be truly bipartisan.

Labels: Shared Lie

  ¶ 5:46 AM

  Quebec gets FDR
From Montreal Gazette via Globalwarming.org:

Premier Jean Charest said Monday his government’s Plan Nord, to invest $80 billion in public and private money to develop northern Quebec over the next 25 years, is a dream come true. ...

Investments in energy development, mining, forestry, transportation and tourism in the 1.2-million-square-kilometre region – twice the size of France – will create 20,000 jobs a year, generating $162 billion in growth and tax revenues of $14 billion.

Only 120,000 people live in that vast territory, including 10,000 Inuit, 16,000 Cree, 9,300 of Quebec’s 16,000 Innu and 1,000 Naskapi, as well as 87,000 non-natives.

Most of the money, $1.2 billion will be spent on roads, airports and other infrastructure projects.

Yet more proof that English-speaking rulers (including Canada's national gov't) are accelerating ever faster toward Hell, while French-speaking rulers have maintained some level of rationality, some regard for the interests and prosperity of their own people.
  ¶ 6:26 PM

  More pseudoscience on "autism"
A "study" "finds" an unexpectedly large number of "autism spectrum disorders" among South Korean kids.

"Autism spectrum disorder" is a fancy phrase meaning "intelligence". Koreans are smarter than Caucasians. Therefore you should find more intelligence among Korean kids. It's a completely unsurprising tautology after you translate the fancy phrase. (And after you erase the motherfucking idiotic standard assumption that everyone is identical.)

Needless to say, the "study" was funded by a group that wants to create more diagnoses to increase its (already massive) lobbying and fund-raising power.
  ¶ 4:26 AM

  Turtles down
If I had to write a creation story, it would go like this:

In the beginning God made the laws of physics and logic.

On the second day he shaped energy into the resonance patterns we call atoms, and set up a physical universe.

On the third day he made DNA and wrote into DNA the complete blueprint for all possible types of life.

On the fourth day he breathed negative feedback into the world, turned DNA loose and let life develop using DNA and closed-loop control systems.

On the fifth day he saw that humans had developed, and that humans had immediately started to fuck up.

On the sixth day he gave humans a series of teachers: Moses, Jesus, Mohammed, Schütz, and Bach.

On July 28, 1750 Bach died.

On July 29, 1750 God cleaned out his desk and left a note: "I gave you Moses, Jesus, Mohammed, Schütz, and finally Bach. I can't do any better, and you still haven't learned shit. Bye-bye, assholes, I'm outta here."
  ¶ 6:16 AM

  Little pleasures part 2
The topic of Small Pleasures came up last week in a graphics forum where someone was feeling low and invited others to list their favorite little pleasures.

I was happy to join in, since I've learned in recent years to appreciate the small things in life.

My list:

1. A good dump in the morning! [As in this.]

2. Finding something that I'd forgotten I owned. [As in this.]

3. Buying old stuff on Ebay that I wanted when it was new in the '70s, but couldn't afford then. [As in this.]

4. A crisp sunny day like today! [As in this.]

5. Bach's hymn to little pleasures. [BWV 84]

= = = = =

This morning Pleasure #2 popped up again.

I was cleaning a closet shelf to make room for a stock of incandescent light bulbs. I came across a little cardboard box and was about to toss it, then noticed it wasn't empty. Looked inside, and found a Renderosity cap. Apparently I had ordered 2 of them back in 2007 then stashed the extra and forgot about it. The first one wore out last year; tried to order another, but found that Renderosity had stopped selling caps. Disappointed, I settled for a different cap of lesser quality and fit.



Now I've got my favorite cap again, and it's brand-new!

= = = = =

As Polistra says:

Chance favors the prepared miser.


Or as Bach said,

Ich esse mit Freuden mein weniges Brot,
Und gönne dem Nächsten von Herzen das Seine.
Ein ruhig Gewissen, ein fröhlicher Geist,
Ein dankbares Herze, das lobet und preist,
vermehret den Segen, versüßet die Not.

A complete and concise recipe for life.

[English translation here.]
  ¶ 4:43 PM

  Real journalism at its best
What should journalism do? It should tell you what's really happening, and it should tell you something you don't already know, something that breaks up a myth or assumption.

This article by Leo Hornak in UK Independent fills the bill. Hornak exposes the 'miracle' of microfinance in India, which has stirred lots of Nobel Prizes and idealistic frothing.

Until reading this, I'd gone along with the frothing because I hadn't heard anything different.

Hornak shows that microfinance is just a cross between credit cards and loan sharks. Some borrowers do use the money to start businesses, but most use it to buy gold jewelry. Some lenders do operate idealistically, but most are ready to kidnap or injure late-payers.
  ¶ 1:16 PM

  Unprecedentedly local
Following up on this.

I was looking on Weather.com to check radar on an approaching storm. My eye stuck on these headlines in the sidebar:



See it? Historic flooding in the Northern Plains, strengthening drought in the Southern Plains.

Weather problems in the last few years are precisely the opposite of Global.

Our trouble is unusually Local weather, with unusually sharp distinctions between highs and lows that are nailed in place for entirely too long. It's similar to the pattern in the 1930's, and if we had any sense we'd try to learn from that pattern. If NASA had any sense, it would be working on ways to break up such constipated patterns.

We don't learn, because we're suicidally trapped by an insane apocalyptic cult that has penetrated all the institutions where learning formerly ruled.
  ¶ 1:59 PM

  5 wives, no balls
These little domestic clips of Osama's inner sanctum have convinced me that he lived in Abbottabad for a while.

I'm still not convinced that he was killed there; the stories are too scattered and the evidence points more to an obfuscated failure than to a proud success. In other words, no picture = no body.


What catches my attention in these clips: You'd think a rich man and tribal chieftain would be able to get more work from his 5 wives. Looks like the hippie pads I inhabited in the early '70s. Completely disorganized, nothing ever picked up. I couldn't get any work from my wife either, but I'm a small poor nerd, not a tall rich chieftain with many scalps on his belt.

His Arab followers will see this and lower their estimation of his powers. That's undoubtedly the purpose of revealing these particular clips. And it's a good purpose! This is the best type of propaganda: visual and candid, no obvious manipulation or voice-over.

American media are focusing exclusively on an aspect that doesn't seem salient or newsworthy to me. They're mocking Osama because he appears to be examining his own speeches and productions. I don't know why this is supposed to be bad. Any writer, teacher, preacher or communicator likes to check out his productions. It's a chance to revise them before release, or to fix problems the next time around. Just a normal occupational habit. Maybe it looks weird to American journalists because they never fact-check or proofread their own work.

= = = = =

Later: After watching this a couple times, I caught something highly suspicious. The old guy on the floor who looks somewhat like Osama is flipping through channels with a remote control, and all the channels show images of Osama. How did that happen? Does Pakistan have a set of cable channels devoted solely to 24/7 Osama speeches? No. Well then, did the camera operator in the room know in advance that a unique moment was about to happen when all the channels were showing an Osama speech?

Only one possibility. The TV is playing a pre-edited tape of Osama speeches, and the remote control clicking is fake.

Why would Osama and his allegedly vast technical staff want to create this scene? Easier to assume that CIA with its actually vast tech staff created the scene.
  ¶ 12:40 PM