Opposing value systems

According to a recent report, more than two-thirds of recent immigrants to the USA send money home regularly. The worst-paid, poorest people in the country manage to save enough to send some back to the old country. The US Ambassador from El Salvador says that the two million Salvadorians in the U.S. sent enough money home to account for 13 percent of the GDP of his country.

At the same time, nearly two-thirds of American households are in debt. Many of them in serious debt. If the housing market falters, all those triple mortgages and home equity loans go under water, which means that people will have to sell their houses to get the money to pay off the loans, and the cycle starts.

Something very odd going on with these two groups.

Why do they each do what they do so differently?

The whole post.

Nuts

"The previous regime, armed with its arrogance and intolerant ideology, reduced man to a force of production. It reduced gifted and autonomous people to nuts and bolts of some monstrously huge, noisy, stinking machine whose real meaning was not clear to anyone. It could do no more but slowly and inexorably wear itself out, and all the nuts and bolts too." --Vaclav Havel

Ripped from Roger Sizemore's Enormous Damn Blog

The world's most popular browser?

Microsoft's new browser hit by another flaw

Another flaw in IE 6 found

Had enough yet?

Download Firefox.

The Crimes of Greed vs. the Crimes of Government

I'll take greed anyday...

Justice demands that we be always on guard against a prosecutor's case. However, the devastation wrought by fraud committed by a few at the top of Enron seems real. Thousands of employees lost jobs and pensions, and shareholders took a large hit.

We now know that fraud on the part of the Bush administration launched the ill-fated Iraqi war. The war's financial and human cost dwarf the Enron catastrophe. The out-of-pocket cost of the war to date is $337 billion, with steep future costs for veterans' care and replacement of military equipment. Approximately 3,000 US troops have been killed, and Department of Veterans Affairs documents show that 100,000 veterans of Iraq and Afghanistan have been granted disability compensation. Estimates of Iraqi civilian "collateral damage" range from 30,000 to 655,000 deaths. America's reputation has been shattered, and the prospects for terrorist "blow-back" are higher.

The most important difference between these two fraud cases, however, is in accountability. The Enron executives have been brought to justice with prison sentences, multi-million dollar fines, and, in one case, by death from a heart attack brought on, perhaps, by the stress of prosecution.

...
The disparities in accountability and punishment for misdeeds in government and private sectors are striking.

Read.

America and the Dollar Illusion

For capital market investors, reality
isn't reality until the majority of investors
are convinced it is reality and have
begun reacting accordingly. Right now, everyone
is watching everyone else closely. Everyone
knows the dream of the stable economic
superpower has ended, but everyone is keeping
his eyes shut just a little longer.

Government bonds and shares don't have any
objective value -nothing you can see, weigh,
taste or even eat. Their value is measured by
investors' faith that the purchasing power of $1
million will still be $1 million 10 years from
now, rather than having been reduced by half.
This faith is measured on the markets almost every
second - and the measure used is nothing but
the faith of other investors. As long as the
faithful outnumber the skeptics, everything works
out fine for the dollar (and the world
economy). The trouble starts the day the scale
begins to tip.

Full article.

Humanity wired wrong

“The theory seems to be that as long as a man is a failure he is one of God's children, but that as soon as he succeeds he is taken over by the Devil.” --H. L. Mencken

Is that why we're living in an intellectual Dark Age?

Anti-flu spray could be used on UK's trains

Main line and Tube trains and stations could be sprayed with a powerful new anti-flu disinfectant, it was revealed today.

The non-toxic disinfectant, called nano silver-titanium dioxide coating (NSTDC), is being introduced on the Hong Kong metro rail system by the MTR company.

Another tribute to the disinfectant qualities of silver.

Read.

Thanks to Rick

The Voting Ritual

As others go forth to participate in this silliest of all rituals – designed to convince members of the boobeoisie that they are really running the political zoo – I shall be engaged in more productive pursuits, such as picking the lint out of my navel.

The media priesthood has already begun the chant: if there is something wrong with the political system, we need to go to the polls to fix the problem. One of the media stalwarts has his own solution: “go to the polls and vote out every incumbent.” Don’t dare consider, of course, that there may be something fundamentally dysfunctional about the system itself. If drinking a quart of Scotch each day has given you cirrhosis of the liver, don’t bother with changing your habits, just change to another brand of Scotch!

Full rant.

For safety?

“The one permanent emotion of the inferior man is
fear - fear of the unknown, the complex, the
inexplicable. What he wants above everything else
is safety.” --H.L. Mencken

In such an environment the pols thrive, finding
enemies to save him from. The Wars government
promotes to that end have many names in this age.

Safety provided by others, however, is another
Grand Illusion.

Save me, the fearful say. Just look at all religions
and governments, two sides of the same corroded
penny, The Bad Con.

There are others but those two are predominant.
They're both plays on faith with no refunds given
for bad performance.

And what are those guns under their coats for?

For whose safety?

Behind the curtain

The truth of the quote below is so trite to me that at
first I rejected posting it.

Then I thought that few know it when I thought of the
kid growing up in the big city being asked where
steaks come from:

"From A&P, you dummy."

Never underestimate the amount of stupidity on the
planet.

"The State is a shadowy entity that apparently gets its money out of some fourth dimension. The truth is, of course, that the government has nothing to give to anybody that it doesn't first take from someone else."  --Henry Hazlitt, "Man vs. the Welfare State"

Ripped from bkmarcus

Where are we going?

 1         6138        games cheat
  2         5743        music lyrics
  3         3455        google
  4         3332        myspace
  5         2727        myspace.com
  6         2594        ebay
  7         2385        ps 2 game cheats
  8         2291        yahoo
  9         2248        lyrics music
 10         2163        funny photos
 11         1754        girls
 12         1643        from
 13         1541        paris hilton

Those results from Keyword Tracking of millions
of searches, ranked from 1 thru 13. There are many
more that come with the free service.

The new anthropology, almost real time now.

Check it out yourself.

Piggie bank's empty

CHEYENNE MOUNTAIN AIR FORCE STATION, Colo. - Dr. Strangelove would have a hea wt [sic] attack: America's vaunted underground war room deep inside this granite mountain is being retired. Not only that, but Russian military men have been inside the place.

During the long nuclear standoff with Moscow, the nation's super-secret nerve center was a symbol of both Cold War might and apocalyptic dread, depicted in such movies as "WarGames" in 1983. But with the end of the Cold War, the war room is being put on "warm standby" to save money.

Time to save wherever possible now. You
regular readers know the piggie bank's
empty.

Ain't no more.

That's good news.

Full article.

Explorer 7: new browser, old security hole

Are you still using IE? If so, why?

Secunia has issued a warning that the latest version of Microsoft's ubiquitous software is still vulnerable to an earlier flaw it reported in Explorer 6 back in April. The vulnerability affects the final version of Explorer 7 running on Windows XP with Service Pack 2, the security company confirmed.

If a user visits a malicious website, the site could exploit the security flaw to read information from a separate, secure site to which the surfer is logged in.

Full article.

Update:

Firefox 2.0 now available. Download it here.

Permission to travel

In anticipation of hordes of fleeing taxpayers intent
on keeping what's theirs and a prelude to complete
lockdown?

Should you have to ask for permission from the government before you are allowed to get on a plane or cruise ship? ("Mother, may I?")

The USA Department of Homeland Security (DHS) has proposed that airlines cruise lines, and operators of all other ships and planes -- including charter flights, air taxis, fishing vessels, etc. -- be required to get individual permission (”clearance”) from the DHS for each passenger on all flights or ocean voyages to, from, or via the USA. Unless the answer is “Yes” -- if the answer is “no” or “maybe”, or if the DHS doesn’t answer at all -- the airline wouldn’t be allowed to give you a boarding pass, or let you or your luggage on the plane.

See it all.

NBC to cut 700 jobs in overhaul

Bloggers taking over like the first machine printers
did from the scribes of the Holy Roman Church.

Full report.

The "promise" of order and prosperity for all

SAN FRANCISCO (MarketWatch) -- The housing slowdown has turned some areas of Phoenix and Las Vegas into "ghost towns," where many unsold homes stand empty, Janet Yellen, president of the San Francisco Federal Reserve Bank, said Monday.

Yellen said that she heard the ominous description from a "major home builder," who told her that the share of unsold homes in some subdivisions around the two Western cities has topped 80%.
...
"I believe policy may now be well-positioned," Yellen said.

That last is rich with "promise", but I'm in the
dark. What the hell does that gobbledygook
mean?

Read.

US Army scratching for crumbs, big ones

I wonder if 'boots on the ground' has factored in an
attack on Iran or Korea here...[never could
understand 'boots on the ground'. Where else
would they go? Typical militaryspeak, full of sound
...and a little worn out, they are now.]

According to a senior Army official involved in budget talks, Schoomaker [US Army Chief of Staff] is now seeking $138.8 billion in 2008, or nearly $25 billion above budget limits originally set by Rumsfeld. The Army's budget this year is $98.2 billion .

I wonder when Standard & Poor or Moody's Bond
rating service will call it like it is, declaring US
government debt junk status. 

Don't count on that. The boys in the back rooms
are likely telling these raters, "Let's not piss in the
milk."

Who will be the first of them to call a spade
something to bury things with?

Whole article.

Us & Them

"It was so much easier to blame it on Them. It was
bleakly depressing to think that They were Us. If it
was Them, then nothing was anyone's fault. If it was
us, what did that make Me? After all, I'm one of Us.
I must be. I've certainly never thought of myself as
one of Them. No one ever thinks of themselves as
one of Them. We're always one of Us. It's Them
that do the bad things." --Terry Pratchett, Jingo

Yea...under my skin

My kinda music.

Diana Krall is pure class.

An education

"An education was a bit like a communicable
sexual disease. It made you unsuitable for a
lot of jobs and then you had the urge to pass
it on." --Terry Pratchett, Hogfather

Another study in rot

Breton told the Financial Times (October 4) that “In Airbus and EADS we have European companies that are really a European success…There is no question. We will defend this model.” Now, there’s something in the back of my head that vaguely bothers me about that state-ment…what could it be? Oh yeah: Why the hell would a successful model need defending?

Let’s back up. Airbus was created when European governments orchestrated their economies, creating new national and continental champions as per politicians’ whims. But as far as industrial policy goes, Airbus was a no-brainer: The jetliner industry offers guaranteed growth rates and extremely high barriers to entry. Take some legacy industrial assets, insert government cash, find some talented sales people like John Leahy, and watch it go. Every other European industrial scheme—shipbuilding, cars, Concorde, Minitel terminals—obliterated value. Airbus was the only state-supported success. Unfortunately, Europe’s politicians forgot a crucial fact: Airbus succeeded despite government industrial policy, not because of it. In fact, this government interference has created some serious trouble.

And so it goes: Throw stolen funds (taxes) at it, it
eats itself.

See it all.

A Study In Rot

Permit me a foray of a paragraph into psychojournalism. It fascinates me to know that George Bush was a male cheerleader at Andover. Yes, it could have been worse. He might have been a table-dancer. But most of us who were in high school when he was recognize that you either came to watch football, or you came to watch the girl cheerleaders. There was something odd about a boy who wanted to be one.

We are ruled by a male cheerleader who favors torture. I wonder what things twist in the inner fog.

The whole rant.

A Brief Tax History of America

John Hancock was probably the leading tax evader in Boston. He was apparently wanted for evading what today would be hundreds of thousands of dollars in taxes. He was a very successful merchant and importer, his merchant ships arrived almost daily with goods from abroad, and he hadn’t paid H.M.S. Customs its full tax for decades. Today, we would call him a tax protestor and he would have had a red flag on his tax file. Hancock’s bold signature is a clear reminder that America was founded by tax rebels, and their rebellion eventually gave birth to the United States of America.

My man, John.

Read.

Like hell...

By the end the eighties and during the nineties, the workplace became the new target. In the last few years, restaurants, bars and pubs were added to the list and I read somewhere that in the U.S they want to establish smoke-free states.

Your home is next.

link.

Over my lit cigarette.

Donkeys, pigs, Elephants and a king?

But donkeys will think when pigs fly. A Democratic Congress will be as stupid, cowardly, and corrupt as its Republican predecessor;

It's the nature of the beast. He's almost got it.

in reality, both parties are one party, the party of successful career politicians. The White House will continue a lost war in Iraq, solely to dump the mess in the next president's lap. America or Israel will attack Iran, pulling what's left of the temple down on our heads. Congress will do nothing to stop either war.

By 2008, I may not be the only monarchist in America.

Good boy. After you shoot yourself in one foot, try
the other one to see if it feels any better. At least
you won't limp.

But still, a fine Lind rant.

Thanks to Rick.

Renunciation is Good For You

The salient characteristic of authoritarian entities is the worship of the monolithic. To achieve it, they enforce homogenization down to the level of the greatest stupidity. The stupid know constant, collectivist certainty and are tireless. They can’t be persuaded. As incorrigible, evangelical idiots, they are highly useful to people with a power agenda. They are the shock troops of homgenization. The only way to put a check on them is to deny them resources, whether that’s your vote, your dollar or your soul. JohnFen wrote of happiness recently. You have a better chance of getting and keeping it when you’re not a participant in organizations dedicated to keeping you managed. A calculated and careful obduracy is your best friend.

For those with a need for community, may I suggest a Discordian cabal?

I suggest a membership card burning party.

I'll bring the beer.

Read.

Turn Yourself In and Get It Over With

For instance: are you one of those who have been frivolously wasting time, waiting around for the dreaded midnight pounding on your door? Have you been experiencing nonproductive periods at work, fretting over job security due to a few too many carelessly expressed opinions at that last office party? Have you said anything at all, at any moment, which could possibly be construed as less than fully complimentary to those morally and intellectually superior individuals who were (possibly) elected to run your country in your behalf? If so, then you are shamelessly squandering your nation's human resources, since other people are going to have to be keeping an eye on you for the rest of your life. Do you really think that is being fair to them?

See it all.

Ripped from Post-atomic.

The fan is spinning

Most Investors Probably Won’t Learn
That GM and Ford Are Going Bankrupt
Until It’s Too Late to Run for Cover

Make no mistake: You’re watching one of America’s most successful, most iconic industries — generating $700 billion in annual sales and employing 3.4 million people — unravel before your very eyes.

It’s a horror story, played out in four acts.

See the four acts and more.

Ripped from Uncommon Sense. who ripped from DeCoster.

Yet another magnetic motor claimed

We are routinely producing with our EBM Power Plants several kilowatts well over unity without any pollution and emissions whatsoever! All our EBM Plants are scaled for manufacturing from 1.5 to 225 MW. Who said we cannot save the environment? OPEN HOUSE AT THE LAB IN BUDAPEST - In October and November 2006, every Monday, Wednesday and Friday from 9:00 am to 3:00 pm - Come and see for yourself what you can read in the Certification! / This technology is non-nuclear, 100 % environment friendly with zero emissions. Being environment-friendly, this technology has several other very important additional features as follows:

• The average 1 kilowatt-hour electric power costs 75 % to 80 % of most local tariff rates at 65 % load factor (appx. 5,700 hours use per annum); The pay-back period of invested capital is less than 4 years!

• The power plant can be commissioned within a very short time after the order is placed.

• The average turn-key-cost of the EBM Power Plants is less than 2,000 USD/kW depending upon the MW size of the plant; This includes fuel for 40 years!

• With the inexpensive and clean EBM electric power, and heat energy, the production of hydrogen for fuel cells is highly competitive or the production of nitrogen for fertilizer, or desalination of sea water can be economically implemented. With the torque produced by EBM Units, large ships or locomotives can be directly driven!

Too good to be true? Neither one of us know that yet.

This unit is billed as an over unity device. See what
Wikipedia says about that.

Then see what Tom Bearden says about it.

Check the unit out.

Ripped from kellynet.

Legalized piracy

People cordon off a piece of land and arbitrarily announce that it is henceforth a "sovereign nation." Ruffians and schemers soon grab the posts of government, and by the power they vest in themselves set about plundering the individuals who live there. This has been going on for thousands of years, until today the entire earth (other than a portion of the oceans) is divided among different gangs, who wear pinstripe suit[s], and run their plunder under the flag of governments. -Albert Keuls, The Offshore Game, From John Pugsley's Journal, Private Conversations with the Money Masters

Read.

A Discordian Century

Then look at us. We’re all free men and women on this voyage. No-one forced us to join, there are no atrocities to our names, we don’t ram our religion down your throats through TV, marketing, or the state. We could, if we really wanted to, but we don’t. We don’t take to the streets, we don’t ram the airwaves full of our crap and we don’t try to buy politicians to bend the law to our own views. And yet we continue to grow. Maybe only a few hundred each year, or a few thousand, but there are already so many of us its impossible to keep count. Like the process of water on a rock, we will wear you down.

Guaranteed.

Full rant.

USSA

In the late 1980s, I was the first western journalist allowed into the world’s most dreaded prison, Moscow’s sinister Lubyanka. Muscovites dared not even utter the name of KGB’s headquarters, calling it instead after a nearby toy store, “Detsky Mir.”

I still shudder recalling Lubyanka’s underground cells, grim interrogation rooms, and execution cellars where tens of thousands were tortured and shot. I sat at the desk from which the monsters who ran Cheka (Soviet secret police) — Dzerzhinsky, Yagoda, Yezhov, Beria — ordered 30 million victims to their deaths.

Then herds of zombies carried out their orders
believing their leaders, right or wrong.

Can't happen in Amurika, can it.

Full article.

--This has been another ZombieAlert brought to you by jomama.

Understanding

lemme howdt has "got it."

Your turn.

A paradox...you only need one to kill you

The most stunning statistic, however, is that the total number of deaths caused by conventional medicine is an astounding 783,936 per year. It is now evident that the American medical system is the leading cause of death and injury in the US. (By contrast, the number of deaths attributable to heart disease in 2001 was 699,697, while the number of deaths attributable to cancer was 553,251. 5)

Now you can treat yourself for many bacteriological
invasions and other problems...cheaply. I have for
years.

Start here.

Full study.

How Does a Nation Lose Its Soul?

It doesn't and can't. I'll let Butler explain...

The received wisdom informs us that the American public has tired of George Bush and his use of lies and other deceptions to fashion a war-crazed police-state. According to this view, voters will go to the polls this November and exchange a sufficient number of Republican scoundrels for Democratic ones to deprive Bush of a GOP-controlled Congress. Then, we are further led to believe, the sociopathic madness that has metastasized from inside the “beltway” will have come to an end, and – like members of any lynch mob who later reflect on their deed – most Americans will rediscover their lost sense of sanity and decency.

I accept none of this foolish thinking...

Neither do I. Not for one minute.

To inject moral or philosophic considerations into the political process totally misconceives of the basic nature of the state. To confront a collectivized mind with normative principles is as much a waste of time as trying to educate a person in differential calculus whose understanding of mathematics has been confined to using an abacus; or to explain the communicative powers of the Internet to a medieval man accustomed to sending fire signals from towers.

Mr. Bush, his Machiavellian supporters, and the Democrats understand this essential fact of politics quite well. If the Republicans suffer at the polls this November, it will not be due to any moral hostility to the wholesale lying or the slaughter of innocents directed from the White House, but only from a substantial deviation from the political forms, practices, and litanies upon which collective minds insist.

We begin to lose our souls when we allow ourselves to become part of a collective, a truth the statists understand as providing the foundation for their vicious systems. If individuals do not maintain their constant awareness, the “dark side” is very easy to mobilize into a collective mass of destructive energy. Crowds and mobs are made up of people who allow their judgment and responsibility to be taken over by such collective forces that speak in one simple, uncomplicated voice.
...
A nation – any nation – does not lose its “soul” for, being an abstraction, it has none to lose. Only individuals can suffer such a loss, which they do whenever they allow their sense of being to get submerged in any collective.

That covers the problem. He has found the root.

Now how many do you suppose can see it, really
understand it and the implications?

Do you?

Full essay.

New zombie poll results

A USA Today/Gallup poll conducted September 15-17 reveals that an astounding 42% of Americans believe that the current drop in prices at the pump are the direct result of manipulation by the Bush administration.

It is simply "astounding" to believe that the Current
Weasels in Charge could bring so much power to
bear, irrespective of what 42% believe.

Laughable even more so than astounding.

Beliefs are everywhere, as common as raindrops
in the tropics, dripping from the leaves.

Now consider this chart showing the fall of all
commodities prices, including oil. Looks like a
meltdown to me. By the way, that chart shows a
classic five leg up Elliot Wave formation followed
by a crash. Doesn't that scream deflation?

Imagine attributing that much power to a passel of
idiots.

Enjoy the circus.

Read.

P.S. I'll write more about Elliott Wave a little later.

The Peak Oil phantom again

• The End of Oil (The New York Times, March 1, 2006)
• "One thing is for certain, [oil] prices will continue to rise … traditional criteria of supply and demand don't apply." (Charles W. Duncan, February 25, 1980)
• "By 2025, we're going to be back in the Stone Age" (Princeton professor Kenneth Deffeyes, February. 11, 2006)
• Whale Blubber Scarce – World To Go Dark (The Boston Globe, November 12, 1857)

Full report.