Books to the ceiling,/ Books to the sky,/ My pile of books is a mile high./ How I love them! How I need them!/ I’ll have a long beard by the time I read them. – Arnold Lobel

The worst taint is ignorance. Destroy this one taint and become taintless. — Buddha

When I do good, I feel good; when I do bad, I feel bad, and that is my religion. – Abraham Lincoln

“To keep your marriage brimming,

With love in the loving cup,

Whenever you’re wrong admit it;

Whenever you’re right shut up.”

– Ogden Nash

A Klaudt is a sick fuck asshole.

This is a "Klaudt".

Isn’t this lovely: Spend, don’t save, during the flush years. Cut services when people need them. Make it harder for workers to, you know, get to jobs. Genius. The genius of a corrupted society. (Link. Update here.)

Not that the banks are better: Why make money lending when you can steal from the needy instead? But I’m sure Obama’s right and no meaningful reform is needed, maybe just more bailouts….

A defense for Obama? Maybe the country has moved so far to the right, that it can be pushed leftward so little? I don’t actually believe it but it can be right…. Look! Another healthcare fail! Lieberman got Obama to shift, and the “reform” will be completely devoid of any actual reform?! Imagine: The solution for out-of-control healthcare costs is to force people to buy private insurance, and nothing else….

More fail for Obama: Cuts a deal with Big Pharma; freed to do anything in exchange for support of a healthcare bill no matter how big a load of crap it is. So we are now to get screwed with an awful reform-free healthcare bill (excuse me: Health insurer windfall bill) and Big Pharma is now unpoliced. Read about his latest fail here.

And here’s a statement of President Oneterma’s that can only honestly be characterized as fucking stupid.

True? Obama never wanted a public option?

I wonder whether Oneterma’s popularity would be improved if actually accomplished something good for the nation. Like healthcare reform.

Wow! I was right that the Wall Street Journal has been turned to crap by Team Rupert! Look! Really, if papers (and all media elite journalism) keep people stupid, if not make them dumber, who needs them? Look, for example, at the weekend’s Times’ load of crap on the iPhone destroying AT&T’s network: Times lies, the blogosphere corrects. (More here.) So much for them high quality, but clearly lying, professionals….

Flash! Times discovers dog bites man! People upset over jobs situation is front page news!

Meanwhile, the Times clearly thinks Matt Taibbi was on to something. Too bad they couldn’t figure this out and report it long ago, when it maybe mattered….

This is sad. Don’t understand why this nation can’t be better… really.

Completely inexcuseable. If there was any thought to this stupidity, I do not want to know what they were thinking.

But this is funny. (You know it is. But don’t worry; the fucker will be rehabilitated soon.)

About the Google phone: A big fuck you to everyone who buys any other Android phone and the manufacturers. Why buy anything else? And just how affordable is an unlocked phone going to be? And smartphones that keep all the data in the cloud? We know how successful that’s been, right? (Yeah, yeah, I know there’s ways to set the G-crap up so the data goes to the desktop, but it ain’t MobileMe.) And here’s my Cringely moment: Maybe Apple can sue the crap out of Google over this: How much of this crap was arguably learned while Schmidt was on Apple’s board? If I was Apple and had billions in loose cash, I’d be drafting my papers right this moment…. Remember: Google may now be evil

God bless America. Someone who will vote Palin in 2012 speaks.

The RIAA extends it’s war of greed on… a record store. Of course. Who needs retailers when you can sue for money?

I think I’m sick of Tiger — but first, there’s this. (Ooops! I thought there may well be an early rehabilitation of the Lyin’ King — but this would not help at all.)

Huh. Fascinating….

Huh. This is a little scary…. (Imagine: instead of torture, enhance the alleged’s memories to fit the scenario, not the facts….)

Santa. Satan. Related?

Ho, ho, oy:

The perfect gift for a teabagger:

One cannot always be a hero, but one can always be a human. — Goethe

When bad men combine, the good must associate; else they will fall one by one, an unpitied sacrifice in a contemptible struggle. — Edmund Burke

Those who can make you believe absurdities can make you commit atrocities. – Voltaire

Consistency requires you to be as ignorant today as you were a year ago. – Bernard Berenson

There is no pleasure in having nothing to do; the fun is in having lots to do and not doing it. – Mary Wilson Little

Essential reading: Matt Taibbi on Obama’s big fail.

Click on the image to see how 21st century America chooses to respect a Freedom of Information request. (Short answer: With a hearty Fuck you.)

Assholes: Monsanto, controllers of the food supply as a means to profit. I’m sure no one is suffereing as a result….

Correction: Banks have in fact been lending: By means of laundering drug money.

I guess we better not screw around with Goldman Sachs anymore because not only are they running the nation, now it looks like besides being dangerous, they’re armed.

I think maybe Ill set up a Oneterma Watch, like this:

Oneterma: Still failing.

The good thing with a GOP takeover of Congress in 2010? Can’t be so much worse than what we have. Really: how much worse is this from what we have?

A great American. Better if he was a great American martyr….

Apparently, we have finally achieved our true victory in Iraq: We bankrupted the country so Big Oil can get ownership of the oil fields.

GOP family values: The sanctity of marriage never applies to them. But of course, the wingnuts and their pols are masters at talking the talk while never walking the walk.

Tough guys: The RIAA, MPAA and U.S. Chamber of Commerce hate blind people and want to screw them good.

Another fail for the Times: Uses AT&T’s paid hacks to blame the iPhone for AT&T’s network problems. In AT&T’s defense, I again repeat that no one saw the data useage of iPhone users company; in early 2007, 3G was nothing big nor did Amuricans seem interested in it. On the other hand, two-plus years may be enough time to correct things. So to me, have AT&T has an excuse, albeit maybe a weak one. The Times, though… having imbecilic, inept publisher and EIC, has no excuse….

The greatest health system in the world turns poor women away from free cancer screenings.

You have to love it: A few weeks ago, it was reported that a bunch of the cream of Goldman Sachs were arming themselves for protection in case of a peasant uprising. The Murdochized Wall Street Journal now reports that it can’t be true ’cause a police source says there hasn’t been an increase in gun permits reflecting the (alleged) purchases. My question: Do guys who operate the way Goldman does — would they really feel obligated to inconvenience themselves by applying for permits, waiting for approval, etc.?? About the only thing clear from the story is what a piece of crap Team Rupert has turned the once pretty excellent WSJ into. (Link.)

Relationship of the decade: Blackwater and the C.I.A.

The pastors of Uganda can go along with this without fear of death? It would be very cool if they could but I’m not sure….

Catch!

And maybe I am a little obsessed with the Lyin’ King. How else to explain linking to this?

When you stop and think about this, it is not funny:

A reminder from the Lyin' King....

The spirit of Al Goldstein lives on?

#10?

Thousands of candles can be lit from a single candle, and the life of the candle will not be shortened. Happiness never decreases by being shared. — Buddha

Torture, American-style. What the scumbags claim to be doing on our behalf — helping destroy America. See what what was done here.

Editor & Publisher: R.I.P.

The Great Leader of the GOP speaks. Listen!

I wonder about this: Elected officials no longer care about us except those of us who bother to vote and return them to office. Tell me what our elected putzes have actually done for the good of the nation for the last decade or so/ Enabled a financial and economic disaster? Two truly pointless wars? Healthcare reform that is little more than essentially a tax to give a windfall to the insurers? A flaccid fiscal stimulus? What?

Ain’t this all effed up: The German government pays to fix Windows’ crap instead of, oh, Micro$oft.

God, Google has turned into some really nasty organization…. More, presciently, here.

Apparently, a venti black eye, in sufficient quantities, is a health drink.

(More about the video here.)

The “solution” too often is to just throw out a little freedom, or, in this case, weaken our system of law. That’s how you get a repressed, dictatorial state…. The full spew from a conservative political whore:

10 Suggestions for Court Reform

Michael A. Cardozo

12-07-2009

Editor’s Note: Corporation Counsel Michael A. Cardozo, who will begin a third term next month as New York City’s chief legal adviser on Friday received the Cyrus R. Vance Tribute from the Fund for Modern Courts. Following are excerpts from his remarks.

I want to begin with a bit of history. In 1974, then Governor-elect Hugh Carey appointed what he called a Task Force on Court Reform and appointed Cyrus Vance as its chair. Cy in turn appointed me as counsel to the task force and thereby started me on my journey into public service and court reform. That task force was asked to recommend solutions to the difficult challenges faced by the New York judicial system at the time. The task force ultimately recommended, and the Legislature and then the people subsequently adopted, three constitutional amendments creating a merit appointment system for the Court of Appeals, a Commission on Judicial Conduct, and a centralized administrative system for the courts.

Today the judicial system faces different and frankly far more daunting challenges than those presented in the mid-1970s. In fact, as Chief Justice Margaret Marshall of the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court said in a lecture at the City Bar last month, the state courts in this nation are in crisis.

In New York State this crisis includes judicial compensation that has made judges justifiably angry and dispirited and is increasingly discouraging qualified attorneys from applying for judgeships; an insufficient number of judges; a selection method for the state Supreme Court that too often rewards political connections over merit; and an overwhelmed judicial system that, despite heroic efforts on the part of committed court administrators, is too often inefficient, resulting in justice delayed to such an extent that it far too often results in justice denied.

While days could be spent discussing each of these subjects I want to suggest steps that might be taken now to address the last part of the problem, judicial efficiency. In particular, I believe the able administrators comprising the Office of Court Administration, who have made extraordinary positive changes in the administration of the courts, should exercise even more imaginatively and extensively the authority given them by Amendment 3 of the 1977 Amendments establishing OCA.

Here are 10 specific recommendations that I believe would improve the efficiency of the courts and with that efficiency, a better system of justice.

1. Judges must be made more accountable and data must be created, maintained and analyzed to allow this to happen. When complaints about delayed trials, or delayed decisions, are raised the excuse is often that the system is overwhelmed and more judges are needed. While we need and must continue to advocate for more judges, “we can make things better,” to use the words of Chief Administrative Judge Ann Pfau, even without additional judgeships. The economic crisis our state faces today is too important a crisis to waste; that crisis offers an extraordinary opportunity to improve judicial accountability and with it judicial performance. Faced with a drastic shortage of resources OCA should seize the moment and make judges aware of the importance of justice being dispensed not only fairly but also efficiently. Let me be more concrete:

2. Performance measures for judges should be promulgated setting forth the expectations to which judges in different parts and courts will be expected to adhere. While the independence of the judiciary is critical to the fair administration of justice, this independence does not excuse inefficiency. As a longtime champion of judicial independence I cannot emphasize strongly enough that an independent judiciary does not excuse judicial delay and inefficiency

Yet the examples of lack of efficiency abound. It is no secret, for example, that the delays in the New York City Family Court are, as a recent report documented, “edging the family justice system toward danger.” Custody disputes take months and sometimes years to resolve. Endless court hearings, sometimes as short as 15 or 20 minutes, accompanied by numerous adjournments, are too frequently the norm.

In the criminal courts multiple court appearances—”churning” some lawyers call them—is too often standard practice as well. Cases linger on clogged calendars with little chance of moving to trial. A guilty defendant can wait for the ultimate speedy trial dismissal (and a potential subsequent lawsuit against the city for wrongful arrest) and innocent defendants can remain under the cloud of suspicion for years. On the civil side, the fact that cases continue to remain in the system for years, with supposed final trial dates not being enforced, demeans the civil justice system and costs the courts, and the litigants, millions of dollars.

This entire culture must be changed. All court appearances should be made meaningful, churning eliminated and continuous trials made the standard. Judges should be empowered to insist that the various lawyers, particularly in Family Court, appear before them on a date and time certain no matter what. Rules should be promulgated prohibiting excess adjournments, and mandating dates certain for trial.

3. The concept of Standards and Goals should be extended to individual judges. While standards and goals exist for much of the court system today, those standards must be extended to all courts, and particularly made specific to each judge, so that individual performance can be measured and accountability enhanced.

4. Focus on delayed decision making. Nothing makes me, and I would add the mayor, more frustrated with the judicial system than when a case is not timely decided. When—as too frequently happens with respect to New York City and I am sure other litigants as well—a judge fails to make a decision in an effort to coerce a settlement, or because the judge doesn’t want to decide a difficult case, or the judge is inefficient in managing his or her case load, something is seriously wrong. Over the last eight years I have more than occasionally seen difficult or controversial cases go undecided for just these reasons. When a proposed action—rezoning a particular area, knocking down a building, regulating in a particular manner—is stopped for years because a fully submitted matter is pending undecided justice is frustrated, and the public suffers.

5. Make greater use of the so-called 60-day reports, the one already existing performance measure that lists how long a matter has been pending for decision before a particular judge. To the extent there is today any follow up with the individual judge on these 60-day reports that follow-up should be substantially increased.

6. To be sure that these 60-day reports are viewed seriously by the judiciary, OCA should make clear that a failure to file accurate reports, as I understand happens from time to time, will result in OCA filing a complaint with the Commission on Judicial Conduct.

7. Judges must be evaluated far more frequently than occurs today. The kind of data to which I have been referring, including the 60-day reports and an individual judge’s compliance with additional performance measures, should be used by OCA, and made available to judicial screening panels, together with all other available information, to evaluate the performance of individual judges. Having now spent eight years advising the mayor on judicial reappointments I am constantly amazed by the number of judges who, when faced with a series of complaints of a particular practice the judge follows, respond, I believe truthfully, by saying that he or she never heard the complaint before. Supervising judges must establish a procedure, similar to that followed in virtually every major business and law firm in this country, of regular and periodic evaluations and being sure that judges learn of the complaints about them, and are carefully monitored to see that the complaints, if justified, are being addressed.

8. To the extent that delayed trials, and delayed decisions, are the product of insufficient judicial resources, and that is certainly part of the cause, more attention must be given to moving resources around, even at the risk of alienating some parts of the judiciary. For example, it is no secret that there is a desperate need for more judges in family court, but unfortunately the Legislature has not yet seen fit to authorize more judgeships. But additional judges—even if they are sitting as acting Supreme Court justices in the not as overwhelmed Supreme Court, criminal parts, could, and I submit must, be moved to Criminal and Family Court.

9. A greater effort must be made to take cases out of the judicial system. We all know that the volume of cases in the courts, particularly family and criminal courts, is overwhelming and growing. For example in the last five years cases in the New York City Family Court have increased an average of 7 percent a year and this year have increased substantially more. Cases in the criminal court have recently increased an average of 3.3 percent a year. While OCA has taken imaginative steps to remove certain cases out of the system, and have them resolved, for example, by alternate dispute resolution mechanisms, significantly more must be done.

10. Added attention must be paid to two of the most overlooked groups of the judiciary’s clients—the victims and witnesses who need to appear in court. Dignity in the court to all participants in the justice system is essential to the perception of the fair administration of justice. Yet we too often fail to accord that dignity to some of the players. When, for example, a crime victim misses a day’s pay because he or she has come to court in the morning, only to wait until the end of the day for the case to finally be heard, or worse, adjourned, not only does that victim suffer, confidence in the system is hurt as well. Something must be done to deal with this unconscionable situation.

These recommendations are not only needed, but are the logical next steps to many of the innovations OCA has already made. I refer particularly to OCA’s successful efforts in changing the culture of the court system from the long-standing laissez-faire approach of the courts to one that makes clear that if a plaintiff wants to avail him or herself of a public forum dispute resolution, the timetables and rules established by the court system, not those of the litigants’ counsel, must govern. I suggest OCA must now give increased attention to changing the culture of the judges themselves, and must emphasize to them the need for judicial efficiency and accountability.

Working together the bench and the bar have made substantial progress in improving the functioning of the courts, but there is a great deal left to be done. These joint efforts must continue.

At the same time, however, the state court crisis we face is obviously one that cannot be solved by court administrators and the bar alone. To meet this crisis a broad coalition should be formed—composed not just of judges and lawyers—to galvanize public support. Civic groups favoring particular causes, advocates for victims of domestic violence, the homeless, children and the elderly, political groups demanding change, and business leaders—not just their general counsels—who depend on the courts to enforce both their contracts and the laws, must be made to recognize that unless they join in the call to strengthen the third branch of government their goals not only will not be met, but their causes and clients will be in grave jeopardy.

The more we can work together the better the end result will be. At the same time, we cannot hesitate to find new, and more efficient ways to dispense justice.

Over 100 years ago Roscoe Pound famously declared that court reform is not for the faint hearted or short winded. But we cannot afford to wait a year, let alone another 100 years, to improve the system. It must be worked on every day. This is what I learned from Cy Vance, that is what the last eight years have taught me, and that is what the Fund for Modern Courts stands for.

A government which robs Peter to pay Paul can always depend on the support of Paul.  – George Bernard Shaw

Virtue is a state of war, and to live in it we have always to combat with ourselves. – Jean-Jacques Rousseau

Why we’ll fail. FDR got lucky with his big fail: WWII. More here.

Incredible! Oneterma doesn’t actually have to be a complete failure. Of course, he doesn’t have the will to be a successful president, not when he’s insecure and feels he can succeed simply by bullshitting. Look here! He fails people with HIV.

No reform for the enabler/whores of the Global Economic Meltdown. Thank you, President Oneterma, for the fail.

You too can now know everything the TSA knows about its operations!

Liars; the wingnut media strike again with a new line of crap. How do you know they’re lying? They’re reporting, broadcasting, speaking…. Big Media: Who needs ‘em?

ISPs are massive police rats. Between ratting you out to the cops and other companies selling your personal information to anyone who offers any money, looks like the right to privacy is pretty much dead…. (“Raw data” here.)

How the Times fails: A new chapter. And a little recent flat-out dementia.

A tip for lazy journalists: Here’s how to actually report something important while barely working. If Huckabee runs for president in 2012 (although I’m sure Queen Sarah would crush him anyway), download a couple of articles and “think pieces” slamming Dukakis over Willie Horton and just do a couple of word search/replacements. Simple and, in fact, you’d likely be more accurate than the Republicans were about Horton. Read about the Huck’s idiocy here.

The truth about the wingnuts’ fake scandal about climate change. Very short version: They’re the liars, like always. See? And here’s the adventure of one lying wingnut sicko. Please, God, please strike them all dead….

Alexander Cockburn is usually full of crap to some degree or another. This time, though, he is dead on: Chapter and verse on exactly how wrong Oneterma’s Afghan policy is.

Tiger, Tiger, go to hell. You’re disgusting….

• Let’s laugh at Tiger’s expense!
• Are these all the ho’s — or just the beginning of a list of a legion?
• Meanwhile, Rite-Aid, of all places, may have something to help Mrs. Woods (or the hos who miss their Tiger), and I’m not talking about meds….

Time for the artists to sue the real music thieves: The members of the RIAA.

(More about the video here.)

Personally, I’m tempted to vote No:

Personally, I believe that Christianity is broad enough that at some point in the spectrum, this can and should be accepted as a wholly appropriate image of an angel and God knows, it's for a good cause.

Wine makes a man more pleased with himself; I do not say that it makes him more pleasing to others. –
Samuel Johnson

An economist is an expert who will know tomorrow why the things he predicted yesterday didn’t happen today. – Laurence J. Peter

Is President Oneterma some kind of dope?

Oneterma learns from FDR’s example: Cowtows to the conservatives, and does something stupid to make things worse.

Historical Big Media cowardice. Well, not cowardice, just feeling money was more important than principle, even if it meant screwing dozens of people to satisfie loud nutjobs.

From the No Comment Needed Dept.:

William Shatner:
If you have money, you’re going to get health care. If you don’t have money it’s more difficult.

Rush Limbaugh:

If you have money you’re going to get a house on the beach. If you don’t have money you’re going to live in a bungalow somewhere.

William Shatner:
But we’re talking about health care.

Rush Limbaugh:
What’s the difference?

Bernanke’s latest fail; and presumably Oneterma’s okay with it.

God bless the modern Big Media journalist. They’ve yet to learn that the job actually requires honesty.

Assholes.

This guy is almost as big a cocksucking scumbag as Tiger — possibly bigger!

Why would anyone have trouble with paying a ho $1,000,000.00??

How many hos does Tiger have? Yes, being a serial cheat is a private affair — apparently even to be kept private from your wife. But not when you’re paid tens of millions for an image that doesn’t include adultery. Tiger, you dumb shit — you were unfaithful to your fans and admirers and you don’t keep it private from the. You’re dead wrong.

Query: Anyone remember the last time a wingnut pol apologized for anything more substantive than getting caught cheating on a wife? I can’t either. But I know the Huck is no exception to the rule!

History lesson: The Free Market needs policing, just like individuals do.

Again, really, aren’t the record companies kind of destroying themselves with ineptitude, making themselves awfully unnecessary?

Come on, you know Micro$oft is far less a tech company than a criminal enterprise. Why expect any particular knowledge or intelligence about developments in technology from its top when that’s not its business? Watch “genius” at work:

The house of my dreams (almost).

Meet Cloacina.

The Master:

magictimelapse.ch/en

Here are the night timelapse shots I took mostly from cottages of the Swiss Alpine Club. Locations are: Diavolezza, Glecksteinhütte (Grindelwald), Carschina, Arosa, Glärnisch, Vrenelis Gärtli
Beethoven, Klaviersonate 14 “Mondschein” — piano sonata No. 14 “moonlight”

The first part of the series can be seen here:
vimeo.com/7700248

Ho, ho, ho, nooo!!

Anarchism is founded on the observation that since few men are wise enough to rule themselves, even fewer are wise enough to rule others. – Edward Abbey

We are all worms. But I do believe I am a glowworm. — Winston Churchill

It is too difficult to think nobly when one thinks only of earning a living. – Jean-Jacques Rousseau

Nobody realizes that some people expend tremendous energy merely to be normal. – Albert Camus

A job!

If that doesn’t work out, try juggling.

The government’s failing at job growth, but at least they’re giving us crumbs.

I think there’s something to this but how to then explain that all the country home-own Big Finance guys are a little, well, you know, busted in the head?

The return of the Huck: Rapist paroled under Dem governor and rapes again: Bad. Psycho paroled under GOP governor then kills four cops: No problem! Not for the GOP wingnuts, not for the Big Media press. The GOP: supporters of releasing violent killers from prison. More here. And Huck is forgiven by a party leader here.

Another GOP asshole (or is that a redundancy?): Peter King. To quote Gerald Ford: “Drop dead!”

Professor Krugman is far too hopeful. Even more so here.

Gimme credit, indeed: Let’s say the federal debt is a problem (which I don’t). Why no criticism of the underlying problem? The extent to which same was greatly expanded by fiscally irresponsible tax cuts by Republican administrations that freed money, by the way, to create numerous speculative bubbles that brought us where we are?

Goldman Sachs: First dangerous, now armed.

An anonymous wingnut decides he hates wingnuttery.

Monopolizer and TAX CHEAT/DODGER (and GOPer). (Click on the image for the story.)

Portrait in BSOD.

Computers: Useless. Meanwhile, Dell invents the craptop.

By all means, switch to Sprint: Lousy network, rat you out to the cops.

The silver lining to global warming: Better wine til the earth turns to crap.

Reminder: The only climate controversy is the fiction the wingnuts have created, aided and abetted by a moronic Big Media water carriers.

Larry Summers’ big private sector FAIL. I kid, though. It’s irrelevant. What’s more important than his role in Harvard’s loss is far outweighed by his successes for Wall Street as their puppet.

In case you doubt that someone who would appear on a reality show and then stage the kind of hoax he did isn’t a little bit not right, clearly this got has numerous screws loose, as this shows.

You and I call a private jet a private jet; apparently, President Palin calls it a bus. Belief will triumph over fact again! But electable or not, let’s call her what she really is: a shit-magnet. Stupid and shameless… that’s electable!

Another FAIL from Team Oneterma.

(More about that last one starts here.)

Indeed. Click on the image for more than you need to know. God bless false images.... Dude truly knows how o sink them balls in the holes....

If this applet works properly, you’ll see Rachel rip into Oneterma’s new big FAIL.

All of in the middle class, hut with job losses and losses of accumulated wealth like home values, 401ks — I think I have a solutuon.

Personal tax cuts.

Personal fiscal stimulation.

Those of us with investment or employment losses obviously would get a tax cut simply by reduced income.

But that’s not what I’m talking about. What I’m talking about is to take whatever you owe and pay, say, just a tenth and take the savings and spend it, stimulate the economy (and your own well-being and sence of self-worth) directly.