Month: May 2009

Overwhelmed by it All; Out of My Mind for 31 May 2009

· Leave a comment ·

Anytime is the right time to honor our troops. Here too. And here. And here.

Not everything that can be counted counts, and not everything that counts can be counted. — Albert Einstein

And yes, this is sick, one way or another:

A member of congress:

If I’d the time, I mention my near-obsession with whole concept of the best and the brightest (unless used ironically or sarcastically). But I don’t, nor the interest, so, I hope, another time….

I really have no opinion on the SAG contract thing because I know nothing about the issues (although Ed Asner is against it it, which counts with me). But this is Lumpy and Eddie Haskell speaking:

Of course, the GOP can go racist on Sotomayor because it has opposed racism against blacks and Hispanics. And the GOP has defended empathy in SCOTUS appointees.

Having a temporary burned-out day; just sick of all this publicity given to the rightists and wingnuts. I expect it from Big Media but from lefty blogs? Need a break….

And maybe I’m getting sick of these profiles in dementia and gratuitous racism. I’d love to believe this woman is headed for a life-long commitment in a public mental hospital….

Why does someone like this get any publicity, is treated with any seriousness by Big Media? Really, why?

High prom, GOP-style: segregated.

Doubt Sotomayor’s qualification? Read this and you’ll see no one is more qualified!

Again, how it all went to hell.

To me, this is funny:

Picture 26

Super-Sized! Out of My Mind for 30 May 2009

· Leave a comment ·

Little evil would be done in the world if evil never could be done in the name of good. — Marie von Ebner-Eschenbach

About the video is here.

Like a wet dream, it’s kind of exciting but has nothing to do with any reality: Another expert — ex-FBI interrogator — on the inefficacy of torture. But really, if Dick Cheney and his cohorts are for it, it has to be bogus….

Play cop: Who looks guilty to you?

The latest failure of e-voting.

Idiot. Again, why does Big Media feel any need to promote an asshole like this? Is it a death wish?

I kid you not. A client wrote this about me in an email to the office:

p.s. mitchell looked pretty dam good in those jeans but then
i only noticed his backside.

You’d have to know her to know that while this is of course somewhat complimentary, it’s also very, very creepy….

Watch actual destruction of our planet here.

Global correction: Mancow was not tortured but tortured us. But don’t they all…?

Just about all you need to know about the GOP hypocrisy on Sotomayor is here. Even shorter version (again): The party who got Clarence Thomas on the SCOTUS bench has no right to go racial.

Rainy Friday; Out of My Mind for 29 May 2009

· Leave a comment ·

Obstacles are those frightful things you see when you take your eyes off your goal. — Henry Ford

(Love) Taibbi + (hate) Palin = This.

Classic craziness paranoia.

Historic thieves: Goldman Sachs.

Wow! Yum! 3-D printer’s output is… sugar!

Did an East German spy’s fatal shooting of a demonstrator set West German politics on a more lefty course in ’67?

From the Duh Dept.: Making things with your hands (as opposed to using your hands to type or move a mouse) is important.

Query: All them Big Banks: Aren’t they still all insolvent or nearly so, still sitting on loads of crap? It’s just that Big Finance and Our Leaders  and Big Media are, um, obfuscating? I mean, is that problem actually resolved or not?

Update: We’re still losing Afghanistan. Hey, didn’t we think we were co-opting the Taliban when they were in charge and all the time they were letting Osama bin Laden run wild and stuff, resulting in 9/11??

In a sane, fact-based world — the one Big Media and the wingnuts ignored — the GOP would not be allowed to make any accusations against Sotomayor anything like those the same wingnuts claimed were unfair to hurl against their beloved Clarence Thomas (except they were, um, accurate in Thomas’ case). Their ^&%$ing lies about her are exposed here; you paying any attention, Big Media water-carriers for a failed party?

My nightmare!

It’s Almost Like My Own Little Cannes! Out of My Mind for 18 May 2009

· Leave a comment ·

This is really sad, sad for the guy, sad for a society screwed up enough to do this. I’m almost beginning to think there really is a need for Sasha [NSFW!] Grey (although I doubt it)….

Isn’t it amazing? The recording industry’s greed is destroying itself… this time, its DRM causes people to become pirates as an alternative.

Sex like you’ve never seen (and is not NSFW)!

Struck by lightning!

Read: online graphic novel about the South in the 1930s.

What we did when we were young. When we played, my generation used our imaginations.

Wingnuts: Still clueless, still crazy…. (Yet Big Media still can’t ignore the crazies….)

Another rightist shibboleth trashed by facts: Canadians are not running away from their socialized medicine. In fact, Americans are running away from our free market healthcare, the one rendered unaffordable by the health insurer’s greed.

Awesome! Invented: Glow-in-the-dark monkeys.

Don’t the Republicans have to hate America? Aren’t so many of their underlying beliefs contrary to what America represents?

More on our debt-based prosperity.

Speaking of which:

I think the first step is to fully comprehend how the financial mess we’re in is not some aberration, but the culmination of a debt-based economy. When speculation and lending outweigh innovation and value-creation as drivers of economic activity, addiction to growth and the attendant bubbles are really the only possible long-term outcome. That’s why it’s important we understand how the ground rules were established, who came up with them, and why. Only then can we begin to look at how arbitrarily they were determined, and how artificially they were upheld.

But once we’ve done that, we need to look at mechanisms for restoring the functioning of a bottom-up economy that is at least as worthy as its top-down counterpart.

***

The Fourth Estate is made up almost entirely of large corporations. And, operating almost entirely under the principles of debt, media companies cannot make any distinction between the market value of information and its importance. Britney Spears’s latest breakdown and the invasion of Iraq are both treated as major media events deserving of equal time and space. In the face of all this, the hippest way out is to adopt the attitude of amused and quizzical cynicism worn by Stephen Colbert and Jon Stewart.

Link.

My inner old guy can be absorbed just watching life around me going on. And here’s the book showing why….

Gummi bear surgery.

Catching My Breath… Out of My Mind for 27 May 2009

· Leave a comment ·

Do what it says, then read the piece that follows.

Oh, this may be fun.

Lookit all the numbers!

The victory of Prop H8. Me, I’d just rename civil marriages as civil unions (to me, marriages are religious) and open them to all; essentially, they’re legalizing a relationship, placing responsibility on the union’s members and that’s it. No reason why that shouldn’t be available to all adults. Then there’s the joke: Why shouldn’t gays have the same opportunity to be miserable as straights?

More but different bad news from Guatemala.

In praise of the debt economy — not.

The story of my favorite varietal.

We Remember Every %^$#ing Day (Memory Permitting); Out of My Mind for 26 May 2009

· Leave a comment ·

A belated Memorial Day message.

What is an epigram? A dwarfish whole, its body brevity, and wit its soul. — Samuel Taylor Coleridge

It is no measure of health to be well adjusted to a profoundly sick society. — Krishnamurti

Keep emotionally active. Cater to your favorite neurosis. /.

Everywhere is walking distance if you have the time. — Steven Wright

Like that music viddie above?? More here!

Stupid thieves. All they had to do was drop off the face of the earth but no….

All these eco-friendly new technologies: How eco-friendly are they exactly? Is the Prius actually a plus ecologically or does the manufacturing process do more harm than the vehicle will ever make up for? Or this: Ethanol mixed into gasoline — no good? Hint: You have to stay sharp when it’s some big business touting anything eco-friendly.

Drink of the day (if story is true and the claimed significance is true).

Be warned! Toxin of the day.