May 20, 2013

Don't try to understand with your mind grasshopper.

Look to the water at your feet. Does not the sage say: "What is more yielding than water? Yet, back it comes again, wearing down the ridged strength, which cannot stand to its strength. What is more forceful than quite water?"

It is a mystery. But it is true.

May 20, 2013

People believe the darndest things.

And it wouldn't surprise me if a more than a few "truth-tellers" were in the Koch brothers' pockets. Greenwald for example we know is because he's attached to the CATO institute which is a Koch PR shop. Glenn earning his pay at CATO, Feb. 2012:

#!

http://www.cato.org/multimedia/cato-video/glenn-greenwald-catos-ending-global-war-drugs-conference

May 20, 2013

Just another tale told by an. . .

Well I'll let Shakespeare say it, from Macbeth:

. . . it is a tale
Told by an idiot, full of sound and fury,
Signifying nothing.

So what has MacHedges cooked up for us today? Three paragraphs righteously condemning corporations, and then a stirring defense of the AP, a corporation.



And then there's this:

The government’s fierce persecution of the press—an attack pressed by many of the governmental agencies that are arrayed against WikiLeaks, Bradley Manning, Julian Assange and activists . . .

Memo to Chris: There are no US "governmental agencies" arrayed against Julian Assange, who is being very nicely taken care of in a London embassy. The US has brought no charges against Assange and there is no credible evidence, none, of any pending indictments.

May 20, 2013

Great speech, and very funny.

Just listened to the full speech. Very inspiring! So glad he took the time to share in these grads' accomplishments. And they were good sports for standing in the rain!

My job, as President, is to advocate for policies that generate more opportunity for everybody — policies that strengthen the middle class and give more people the chance to climb their way into the middle class. Policies that create more good jobs and reduce poverty, and educate more children, and give more families the security of health care, and protect more of our children from the horrors of gun violence. That’s my job. Those are matters of public policy, and it is important for all of us — black, white and brown — to advocate for an America where everybody has got a fair shot in life. Not just some. Not just a few. (Applause.)

May 19, 2013

A 3-D Great Gatsby, what could go wrong?

Just kidding. Thanks xchrom this looks like a good review. Haven't seen it yet but the ads and trailers are promising and it got some respect at Cannes. The NYT review also seems reasonably positive:

Is the tale of Daisy and Gatsby a credible love story? Fitzgerald himself was not sure, but Mr. Luhrmann, Mr. DiCaprio and Ms. Mulligan make it an effective one. At a crucial, climactic moment — a scene in a suite at the Plaza Hotel — the director mutes his irrepressible, circus ringmaster showmanship and plunges into undiluted melodrama. . . .

That scene stands out in a movie that is otherwise gaudily and grossly inauthentic. Jay Gatsby is too, of course. He is self-invented and also self-deluded, spinning out fantasies for himself and others as easily as he gives parties. As a character in Nick’s ruminations, in Fitzgerald’s sentences and in our national mythology, he is a complete mess. This movie is worthy of him.

One thing this version apparently does better than the last one is spend money on the sets. The Robert Redford-Mia Farrow 70s version looks like it was made for TV and makes the story seem even more washed-out and dated than most students already think it is. I guess it's a choice of boring and cheap vs. lively and cheesy. Here's an interesting reader review from the NYT:

I don’t remember an unspoken homoerotic relationship between Nick and Gatsby, but this is the big love story of the movie. In this version, the fireworks literally explode when Nick finally lays eyes on Gatsby. Luhrman uses 3D in a self-conscious theatrical way that despite its pretentiousness does heighten the emotions and adds a political layer. It’s not just a visual gimmick. I advise audiences to sit as far away from the screen as possible. I had been warned and was seated on the last row.

http://movies.nytimes.com/movie/457425/The-Great-Gatsby/overview

Trailer with music by Jay-Z:

#!

May 18, 2013

About that “record number” of Obama leak prosecutions:

We've all heard the claim that Obama has out-Cheneyed Cheney by doubling down on whistle-blower prosecutions. Oh the outrage! But apart from the fact that leakers are not "whistle-blowers," here's what that actually means:


1. The total number of Obama first-term leak prosecutions is six (6). Previous leak prosecutions: three. So technically, yes, the BO has prosecuted more leakers than all previous administrations combined, but all that says is that previous administrations had reasons not to pursue leakers.


2. Obama only calls attention to his leak prosecutions because Congress has accused him of leaking on purpose to flaunt his national security achievements -- like RW administrations do. How they love to accuse Obama of their own sins.


3. There’s no coordinated WH or DoJ policy of cracking down on leaks, and the prosecutions have originate from various sources:

The scattered bureaucratic background of the six cases appears to support the notion that they were not the result of a top-down policy. Two were handled by the Justice Department’s criminal division, while two others were developed by the national security division. A case involving a former C.I.A. officer, John Kiriakou, started with an unrelated inquiry at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, and ended up as a leak case by accident. And the case against Pfc. Bradley Manning, an Army intelligence analyst accused of delivering huge archives of classified documents to WikiLeaks, was a military prosecution that would most likely have been brought under any administration.

4. The reason Obama has succeeded where previous admins have failed-on-purpose is largely because of accidental developments like growing use of digital devices and policies set in motion during Bushler’s second term:

But a closer look reveals a surprising conclusion: the crackdown has nothing to do with any directive from the president, even though he is now promoting his record as a political asset. Instead, it was unplanned, resulting from several leftover investigations from the Bush administration, a proliferation of e-mail and computer audit trails that increasingly can pinpoint reporters’ sources, bipartisan support in Congress for a tougher approach, and a push by the director of national intelligence in 2009 that sharpened the system for tracking disclosures.

5. Last but not least, “Decisions about leak prosecutions are made by the Department of Justice,” not the White House, and five of these six cases have been pursued by agencies of the DoJ. The sixth, Manning's, is being pursued by the Army.


But that doesn’t get the outrage flowing, does it?


More here: http://www.nytimes.com/2012/06/20/us/politics/accidental-path-to-record-leak-cases-under-obama.html?pagewanted=all&_r=0

May 16, 2013

K/R. Hedges yesterday on Democracy Now

gets my vote for best ratfuck of the week. Hedges to Amy:

That’s what’s so frightening. And it’s a pattern that we’ve seen, with the use of the Espionage Act, to essentially silence whistleblowers within the government—Kiriakou, Drake and others, although Kiriakou went to jail on—pled out on another charge—the FISA Amendment Act, which allows for warrantless wiretapping, the National Defense Authorization Act, which allows for the stripping of American citizens of due process and indefinite detention. And it is one more assault in a long series of assault against freedom of information and freedom of the press. And I would also, of course, throw in the persecution of Julian Assange at WikiLeaks and Bradley Manning as part of that process. . . .

http://www.democracynow.org/2013/5/15/chris_hedges_monitoring_of_ap_phones

Yes, Chris, go ahead and "throw in the persecution of Julian Assange at WikiLeaks," even though the US has brought no charges against him, and has no plans to:


http://www.reuters.com/article/2012/08/22/us-wikileaks-assange-usa-idUSBRE87L12W20120822

May 12, 2013

Here's a real surprise:

Ron Paul's top 5 contributors:

1. US Army $113,933
2. US Navy $91,100
3. US Air Force $88,102
4. Google Inc $42,478
5. US Dept of Defense $40,500

http://www.opensecrets.org/pres12/contriball.php

May 12, 2013

Looks like GS didn't get what they wanted.

Obama's top 2012 contributors:

1. University of California $1,212,245
2. Microsoft Corp $814,645
3. Google Inc $801,770
4. US Government $728,647
5. Harvard University $668,368
6. Kaiser Permanente $588,386
7. Stanford University $512,356
8. Deloitte LLP $456,975
9. Columbia University $455,309
10. Time Warner $442,271

11. US Dept of State $417,629
12. DLA Piper $401,890
13. Sidley Austin LLP $400,883
14. Walt Disney Co $369,598
15. IBM Corp $369,491
16. University of Chicago $357,185
17. University of Michigan $339,806
18. Comcast Corp $337,628
19. US Dept of Justice $334,659
20. US Dept of Health & Human Services $309,956

No more GS.

May 12, 2013

The shocking truth: Obama's top 2012 campaign contributor

Barack Obama's top 2012 presidential campaign contributor:

1. University of California - $1,212,245

http://www.opensecrets.org/pres12/contrib.php?id=N00009638&cycle=2012



Mitt Romney's top 2012 presidential campaign contributor:

1. Goldman Sachs - $1,033,204

http://www.opensecrets.org/pres12/contrib.php?id=N00000286&cycle=2012

.................

Who'd a thunk it?