Posts from — November 2011

Is anyone else having a problem getting to Corrente?

I’ve been getting ‘no find’ errors all day, both from my blog roll and from Google.

Chilling

Where’s the sun?

[Editor: Tonto is at her favorite sunny spot, but the sun is behind the total overcast of this week’s cold front. She and I are both feeling the North wind, which is why this has been so delayed.

Friday Ark

According to the BBC widget, in 1477 William Caxton of Westminster published the earliest dated book in England on this day. If Michael Bloomberg had been the Lord Mayor of London it would have been immediately thrown in the trash.

The German quote in my left sidebar by Heinrich Heine says that “Where they burn books, they will in the end burn people.” He wrote that in 1821, a century before the rise of the Nazi Party.

In twice ordering the trashing of the library at Zuccotti Square, Michael Bloomberg clearly demonstrates to one and all that the only form of culture he has is found among the bacteria in his gastrointestinal tract.

CNN, based in Atlanta, Georgia, writes Scores arrested, officers hurt in New York protests.

It would appear that a few officers went to the hospital for what seems to have been pepper spray. The trained police officers are taken to the hospital for medical attention, while citizens are left to their own devices?

Another incident involves an officer seemingly hit by a glass, five-pointed star. They think the protestors are throwing Christmas tree ornaments at the police?

Later there will probably be reports of officers with repetitive stress injuries from constant use of nightsticks.

On CBS, located in New York and the only media outlet to actually follow OWS from the beginning, we have In day of protests, “Occupy Wall Street” faces police violence. Gee, you think that all of the video of the police beating and pushing people might be considered violent.

The real question is: Who is paying for the police reactions? The local governments are broke, so someone else has to be covering the costs of these operations. I wouldn’t be shocked to find that cities that attack Occupy movements are going to receive grants from the Department of Homeland Security.

Albert Einstein noted that “We can’t solve problems by using the same kind of thinking we used when we created them.”

Unfortunately, some people are not moved by reality, as the Guardian reports: UK economy stalls and unemployment rises.

There are also rumors that Niki and Angie are on the outs over the role of the European Central Bank. Niki just got the bill for France’s latest bond sale, and the news wasn’t good. He also learned that his austerity program is doing the same thing as the UK’s – sinking the economy.

When you have dug yourself into a hole, the important thing is to stop digging. ‘Conservative’ politicians don’t seem to understand that, or the concept of ’cause and effect’. Belief is important in con games, not economies.

Update: Even CNBC is noticing some problems with austerity.

In a wonderful come back to the pogrom, Occupy Wall Street posted this: NYPD Occupying Liberty Square; Demands Unclear.

[Via ‘Noz]

Update: Keith Olbermann lays into Tsar Michael in a Special Comment.

[Via Steve Bates. That goes to the Current site and it is a bit overwhelmed as the YouTube version was pulled. There is a transcript, but you really should see Keith in high dudgeon.]

It’s American Censorship Day, an effort to derail the latest effort by Congresscritters to punish the 99% on behave of the 1% – the ‘Stop Online Piracy Act’ HR 3261.

The BBC covers the issue, while the US media are silent because the ‘news’ is a subsidiary of the beneficiaries of this latest attack on freedom in the US, the media conglomerates.

The only good news concerning these efforts is that they give rise to Pirate Parties as a reaction.

The media conglomerates are using the ‘Net as an excuse for their reduced revenues. It doesn’t occur to them that they are overcharging for products that are not worth the money. If they shipped their goods on re-writable media, the end-user would at least get something for their money.

Here’s a news flash – it isn’t the ‘Net’s fault that Tony Bennett Sings Justin Bieber isn’t selling.

The applicable laws:

Bill of Rights:

Amendment I

Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.

Amendment IV

The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.

Application to the the states:

Amendment XIV

Section 1.
All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the State wherein they reside. No State shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States; nor shall any State deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws.

Federal law:

US Code Title 18 Chapter 13 § 241. Conspiracy against rights

If two or more persons conspire to injure, oppress, threaten, or intimidate any person in any State, Territory, Commonwealth, Possession, or District in the free exercise or enjoyment of any right or privilege secured to him by the Constitution or laws of the United States, or because of his having so exercised the same; or

If two or more persons go in disguise on the highway, or on the premises of another, with intent to prevent or hinder his free exercise or enjoyment of any right or privilege so secured—

They shall be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than ten years, or both; and if death results from the acts committed in violation of this section or if such acts include kidnapping or an attempt to kidnap, aggravated sexual abuse or an attempt to commit aggravated sexual abuse, or an attempt to kill, they shall be fined under this title or imprisoned for any term of years or for life, or both, or may be sentenced to death.

Susie notes that the mayor of Oakland admits “coordination” with other mayors.

The mayors violated the rights of a free press, the right to assemble and petition for redress of grievances, and seized property without warrants. Everyone involved should be arrested and prosecuted. It won’t happen because Zero and his Department of Justice have no interest in the Constitution or prosecuting criminals. Citizens are expected to obey their ‘betters’ and not question the 1%.

In what was an obvious coordinated attack at multiple locations, the police have wasted millions of tax dollars destroying camp sites of the Occupy movement. The people will relocate and start again. This isn’t going away.

You should sign this petition, or at least read it. Badtux told you to do it on Saturday, 11/12, and ‘Noz started the ball rolling on Tuesday, 11/08. If the petition disappears, let me know. I copied the text.

There is apparently not going to be a professional basketball season this year, which I know really bothers you. This is what happens when the 1% fights among themselves.

Newt is apparently the new favorite Not-Romney candidate in the GOP. They really want Zero to win.

You are running out of time if you want to make a traditional English Christmas pudding. They require aging for the flavors to blend and ripen. Remember, when in doubt, add more brandy. Whether you add it to the pudding or yourself is entirely your call.

The annual bogus “War on Christmas” has started. It was launched by the wingnuts over a plan by tree growers to have a marketing campaign for the industry, like the beef and pork producers have. The growers were going to pay for the program by a 15¢ assessment on every tree sold by members.

The wingers claimed that Zero was imposing a tax on Christmas trees, so the Department of Agriculture is apparently backing away from the program. In Winger World it is fine for corporations to buy Congresscritters, but small farmers can’t band together to buy ads for their products.

Not to burst anyone’s bubble, but the traditional meaning of the ‘fir tree’ in Teutonic culture is a closer fit with Easter that Christmas, as part of the ritual to encourage the sun to return during the Winter Solstice. The fly agaric tree ornaments date from the original purpose of the tree.

I was driving on Friday and my credit union had an ad on the radio, which isn’t unusual. They have run ads for their car loans for years. But this ad was different, it was all about the fees they don’t charge.

For a local credit union to pick up on the whole ‘Move Your Money’ movement and start running ads, shows that the credit unions see an opportunity and are taking it. You aren’t going to get wealthy on the interest they pay, but they do pay interest, even on your ‘checking account’, rather than charging you to use your own money, and your deposits are insured to the same limit as banks.

Via Scott at Corrente, a post by George Monbiot in the Guardian‘s Comment is Free area: The 1% are the very best destroyers of wealth the world has ever seen.

While I am aware that Monbiot is looked upon with distrust by some people, [‘moonbat’ was coined for him], he does a researched look at the ‘Masters of the Universe’, with references to a number of different people’s work that studied the CEO class.

Read the article and then review what you know about the bankers, and people like Donald Trump and Michael Bloomberg. Ask yourself, is the portrait that Monbiot draws accurate? Is the hypothesis valid?

Update: The British satire site Newsbiscuit gives a hint about what some people think about George: Authorities threaten St Paul’s protestors with George Monbiot.

Vizzini Award for Language Abuse [Second Class] to University of California Police Captain Margo Bennett for her redefinition of “violence”.

In Digby’s article, Asymmetrical Violence, we discover this quote:

“The individuals who linked arms and actively resisted, that in itself is an act of violence,” UC police Capt. Margo Bennett said. “I understand that many students may not think that, but linking arms in a human chain when ordered to step aside is not a nonviolent protest.”

Captain, if the English department of the University decided to pound you to a pulp with dictionaries, they could plead ‘defense of the language’.

I was extremely busy with Real Life™ and couldn’t present my normal coverage of Tropical Storm Sean, which used up a name while making life exciting in the Atlantic between Bermuda and the East Coast of the US. That should give some idea of how pressed for time I’ve been, and what a ‘nothing’ of a storm Sean was.

Of more personal interest was the buran in the Bering Sea. Buran [Буран] is the Russian name of the ‘snow hurricanes’ that are normally only seen in the interior of Siberia. They can have winds up to 100mph, bitter temperatures, and blowing snow.

Infrequently they make it into the Bering Sea and pummel the Northwest Coast of Alaska, as happened this past week. The loss of permafrost due to the rising temperatures in the Arctic makes the coast even more susceptible to erosion.

The area most affected by the storm is the end of the Iditarod Sled Dog Race on the coast of the Norton Sound.