Less I write, more people visit this site. The traffic is up, figures. I will just wait out the cockroaches.
February 2011
I don’t feel like writing anything of substance anymore. Of course one of the reasons is that there is no substantive exchange. But mostly when I meet the readers in person, a rare treat, I realize that they completely miss the plane of ideas, there is no common experience, no common slice of the ordinary. Or they don’t notice that I moved on from the points I used to make. This is the emptiest of the feelings. Instead there are still the attacks of the drones. I admit, it very much gets under my skin. People who know me, say that I never had a skin. I feel dismay with my readers. I feel like I am riding a train, I have traveled a million miles, but every time my train stops, it’s the same station, the same people, the same clock on the wall, the same coffee shop, the same barber, the same cat. If I can use another cliché , I can’t wrap my head around this. I am also disappointed with my writing skill. I don’t think I will ever be able to write with the flowing grammar of the native speaker. I am a perfectionist of style. This saddens me a lot. The dice of the fate never rolled my way, which is another way of saying that I feel unlucky, even with this project. And so this game draws to its close.
On the subject of the previous post. First there was this great article: Spy Games: Inside the Convoluted Plot to Bring Down WikiLeaks. Opens your eyes on the dangers of using the social media and the “best practices” of the PR/security firms. And now the detailed expose of the attack itself, a textbook on the Internet security: Anonymous speaks: the inside story of the HBGary hack. Hacking is like terrorism, if you have the motivation and a little “luck” there is always a door left open. It’s never 100% secure. Only people who sell this service will lie about it and it’s a poetic justice that they got hacked. Outstanding journalism from Ars Technica.
The Anonymous is the hacker group associate with Wikileaks. The security firm HBGary teamed up with Palantir Technologies and Berico Technologies. Aaron Barr of HBGary promised to identify the individuals behind the Anonymous. The Anonymous declared a cyberwar on HBGary and succeeded in hacking their servers. The Anonymous uploaded the entire email archive of HBGary on public servers. Glenn Greenwald of Salon is the most vocal supporter of Wikileaks. In the published email archive, the HBGary (and other firms) pitched BofA, Commerce Dep., etc. to go after the journalists like Glenn Greenwald, to destroy their careers.
email from Aaron Barr of HBGary
Michelangelo, Sistine Chapel, Ceiling Panels, 1508-1512
I was looking at the Vatican’s 3-d display of the Sistine Chapel. This is not just a pagan eruption celebrating the masculine body. Michelangelo’s athletic saints and the heavens take on the earthly apotheosis. The incidental to the masterpiece occasional female figures, they are like God himself, clothed and to the side. The Jesus Christ on the Last Judgment front panel echoes the popular at the time androgynous Apollo. The beauties of Sandro Botticelli on the lower panels and the pastoral Perugios, they pale under the Michelangelo’s muscular masculinity. The artistic juxtaposition of Sandro Botticelli to Michelangelo is perhaps the irony of the church. Michelangelo was obsessed with masculinity and painted his women with broad, male bodies. Sandro Botticelli drew delicate, weightless (his Venus), thin girls, his men often look feminine and to mirror Michelangelo are the just side characters.
The Last Judgment in the Sistine Chapel. Apostle Bartholomew holding his (Michelangelo's) skin. 1535 -1541.
The most powerful monument to skin in the world is in the heart of the Vatican and naturally Michelangelo painted his own auto-portrait as the flayed skin of the Apostle Bartholomew. תולמי-בר AKA Bartholomew would have been amazed at his athletic, straddling the cloud posture. Bartholomew points the flaying knife at the Christ, one can observe a dismayed anger. There is the diagonal symmetry between the delicately punctured leg of the savior (upper left) and the flayed Michelangelo. Christ there is in the prime of his physical, ideal beauty while the flayed artist is sliding to the lower depiction of hell.
China is in talks with Colombia to built a 220km railroad connecting Pacific and Atlantic across the narrow northern Columbia. As part of the plan there is proposal to build a new city, an assembly and shipping hub next to Carthage, to distribute Chinese products in the South America – FT. Allegedly 5% of the world trade pass through the Panama Canal and the railroad will facilitate the “flow” of the Asian goods. In related news, the former CEO of Sun, Scott McNealy on the future of the Silicon Valley – WSJ:
“It’s not a terribly job-filled recovery. Productivity gains continue to push the need to hire out. A lot of the jobs today are around two areas: government-sponsored green initiatives and the social-networking space. I’m skeptical that the green jobs are [going to drive the recovery]. So far, the track record’s been terrible. That’s going to be a challenge for the people here who stuck their neck out to go green. Then there’s social networking, which is a pretty interesting phenomenon. There’s a lot of energy there, but that’s not a terribly labor-intensive kind of activity. I don’t think social networking is the jobs driver. I see a migration from the early days of the Valley. We aren’t doing manufacturing; we aren’t doing design; we aren’t doing computers. It’s all moving to Asia and other places where there are lots of technical engineers who are willing to work at a more reasonable salary because they don’t have to spend $3.5 million on a home and pay half of it to taxes. I think every new transition has created less job opportunity as technology has become very leveraged. I don’t think our education system, our regulations, our government policies have kept pace with the changes that technology is driving.”
The International Language of the Egyptian Revolution: Please move to the Recycle Bin.
There needs to be “insert your leader here” in place of “Mybark”. Acceptable formats to recycle: President, CEO, rabbi, mullah, priest, your boss, your oligarch, etc. This is the international language of freedom that each and every human being understands without translation. In related news, Google Exec Wael Ghonim, who was beaten in prison, kissed his guards upon release, including the soldiers who beat him. He explains:
“And I forgive them, I have to say. I forgive them, because one thing is that they were convinced that I was harming the country,” he said. “I’m sort of like a traitor, I’m destabilizing the country. “So when he hits me, he doesn’t hit me because … he’s a bad guy. He’s hitting me because he thinks he’s a good guy,” he said.
The incredible thing is that every beating, killing and your regular daily damage that most people commit as often as they eat breakfast is always because “he thinks he’s a good guy”, that’s the secret of every ideology or religion on the face of the earth.
Two top rated comments to the most viewed article in the NYT by Bob Herbert – When Democracy Weakens.
RT Koenig from Memphis TN: “Maybe it’s time the American people took a lesson from the people of Egypt and take to the streets. Maybe it’s time that the poor and middle class working people of America staged their own Day of Rage. Maybe it’s time for a million unemployed workers or the millions who have lost their homes to a recession sparked by corporate greed to march on Wall Street.
Just this week we learn that JPMorgan Chase, one of the banks responsible for the recession and the recipient of millions in bailout money, defrauded thousands of American servicemen and their families. In some cases, the second largest bank in the US illegally foreclosed on U.S. servicemen and their families. If this latest outrage doesn’t spark protests, then perhaps we are no longer capable of outrage.
A Day of Rage cannot overlook Washington, where as Herbert has noted so eloquently, neither party is representing the interests of the poor, the unemployed and the underemployed. Americans fortunate enough to still have jobs need to stand together in protest lest they be next.
It’s time to get off the couch and take to the streets. As the people of Egypt have shown us, even the powerful cannot afford to ignore millions united for change, freedom and fairness.”
Mel Presley, Roskilde, Denmark: “There are only two factions that stand in the way of a second American revolution, a true political revolt to end rule by the corporate dollar and restore democracy.
One is partisan cheerleaders for the Republican political cause.
The other is partisan cheerleaders for the Democrat political cause.
The Times’ readership seems to divide itself about 10 percent to 90 percent, respectively, in favor of these two opposing camps. There’s virtually nobody at all with enough common sense to see that we’ll never find our way out of the woods, and away from plutocracy, until we all reject BOTH.
Street protests won’t work in America as they have in Cairo, because we face a far more entrenched enemy than the Egyptians. But there’s one thing that would. We need to form a temporary, single party of national unity with the sole purpose of having it write a Constitutional amendment to mandate modern, multiparty voting and an end to private funding of campaigns. If we all elect its candidates, and boycott all those of our fraudlent two-party system, we’ll have the mother and father of confrontations on our hands, and if the sitting powers attempt to annul the election results, we might even start a civil war. But I can’t see any other way to restore rule by the people – which is what democracy is supposed to be in the first place.”
Larry Kudlow interviewed the House Monetary Chairman, Congressman Ron Paul (transcript and the video) on February 8th, 2011:
“Monetary Policy and Unemployment: …One Fed member today said that “the growth is there at 4%, we better turn the machine off.” And yet the unemployment rate is disastrous for those who are unemployed. We have so much unemployment and it’s so undercounted. You know, the free market economists report that there is probably 22% of unemployment. So that’s where the depression is, they can pump some numbers and Wall Street does a little bit better and there’s a little bit of growth. I mean, they should, they pumped in $4 trillion, they should have had a lot of jobs. But, you know, a few jobs are coming back. But how much did it cost us? And We haven’t even see the after effects, and that of course, is the price inflation that will come. And I think we’re certainly seeing signs of that in the commodities and, of course, I think the bond market’s getting pretty risky. The bond prices have been in a bubble, and it’s been going on for 30 years, and I think we’re moving into another 30 year period where you’re going to see a reversal of interest rates and we’re going to see a crashing of the bonds like it did 30 years ago, and it lasted for a long, long time.
The Fed policy a failure: I mean, they brought to the bubble, and they give us the recession and the corrections. But you know, they’ve gotten away with this for a good while. They’ve been running the show, we’ve had a total fiat currency since 1971. And they’ve gotten all the credit for the boom times when the business cycle is doing well. But then a recession would come and they would tinker with the interest rates and they would lower interest rates and they would get all the credit for getting us out of it. But you know, that runs out of steam. Eventually the bubble gets too big, it bursts for other reasons, and the malinvestment is so great, and the debt is so out of this world, that they can’t bring it about. And that’s where we are today, and this is why they’re giving a lot more attention to the Fed, and rightfully so. And I encourage that because I put them at the seat of responsibility. They’ve been involved, they don’t deserve credit for the good times, they deserve the blame for the inflation when we have it, and they deserve a lot of the blame for the unemployment. They’re other factors involved in unemployment, like taxes and regulations and things like that. But, when you have a recession, you have to expect unemployment.
Run on the dollar: I think it’s almost unimaginable. I think it can be so devastating, it could bring a strong worldwide run on the dollar. And that would be devastating because we do have the reserve currency of the world. So I think we’re in uncharted territories. These recessions off and on for the past 30, 40 years, they’re going to be minimal compared to the conditions that have been created by the world fiat system, principally run by our Federal Reserve. So it’s not a domestic affair, it’s not a U.S. affair, this is a worldwide affair. And I think that we’re in for very, very devastating changes. I think we will see changes in our economy and our country almost equivalent to the change that occurred with the Soviet system. I think it will bring down our empire, we’re going to have to reassess things, we won’t be able to afford our welfare state, and we won’t be able to afford taking care of the world, too. And we’re essentially expected to do that. If there’s a bankruptcy in Greece or some other country, we’re expected to go rescue them. The states; they expect the Fed to rescue them. And we’re supposed to be there to rescue everything. And when we say, “We’re going to rescue them”, it’s always the dollar. All the weight is put on the dollar. It is the Congress that’s spending money, but it depends on the Fed to monetize that to keep interest rates low so they don’t turn off our so-called recovery.
Unemployment, the Fed Policy and Ben Bernanke: Yeah, and I sort of hope I’m wrong and that maybe he could be right just because I don’t like to see the pain and the suffering coming. But if he accomplishes that, he’s repealed so many economic laws, it will be absolutely baffling. And one time when Greenspan was before the committee and we were discussing a similar set of events like this, I said, “If you can do that, you’ve literally repealed economic laws. If you can make this fiat system work as if it’s the marketplace working, giving us the right information”. No, he can’t do it, it’s delusional to think that one person could know what the money supply should be and what interest rates should be and you can do total central economic planning through monetary policy. It’s positively baffling that we as a country who brag about the free enterprise system, have accepted the fact that one individual basically can control the economy through that one issue. Because when you control the money you control every single transaction because money is one-half of every transaction. So you’re interfering with everything. And this is why we have gotten to this point. We have deceived the people in Congress and the people, we make all these promises, and now nobody can turn the switch off. We can’t turn off the switch because we’re addicted to it and we need a lot of people to go into rehab in order to get our addictions under control.
Gold and Monetary Policy: We did it one time after the Civil War period when we had the Resumption Act of 1875 and we were off the gold standard for 15 years. But the conditions were different, we didn’t have a welfare state, we weren’t running the world, and people believed in the government when they told them what they would do. Today you can’t have a Resumption Act, but you could legalize competition. Now they put you in jail if you want to opt out of the system. You know, if you opt out of medical care, you can be in trouble there. But if you opt out of the monetary system, say I want to use such-and-such as my currency because it’s gold and silver, you can get into big trouble. You need to legalize competition. You’re familiar with Hayek, Hayek advised competing currencies. So I don’t think I know the perfect answer, but I know what history shows and I know what the market probably would pick. But I’d like to just get the monopoly power away from this cartel that pretends that they know how to run the entire economy.
The Egyptian revolution will not be complete till they take down the symbol of the pharaonic monarchy, the pyramids, stone by stone. Do not crash the pyramids, take them apart. To commemorate each of the slaughtered slaves, every single stone should lay flat, horizontally (similar to Peter Eisenman’s Jewish museum in Berlin). Down with the top-stone pointing pyramids celebrating the dictatorship and the authoritarian power. And down with the absolutist monotheism, the bastard child of the pyramidal power. Down with the blasphemous afterlife obsession (the pointed symbolism is clear).
While they take down the real pyramids, please erase the masonic pyramid off the dollar bill.
Pity the fascists who claim revolutions need a “leader”. Pity the communists who claim revolutions need a guillotine.
Update: Might need a guillotine after all…
I was going to write something life changing here. But what’s the point? Please get your fill of distractions and entertainment elsewhere.
The Green Bay Packers is the only professional team in America (the world?) that is a publicly owned, a nonprofit corporation. The shares of the team are purchased by the fans. The team has no “owner”, just the salaried executives. The Green Bay Packers is truly by the people and for the people. This arrangement is unique and ideally preferred for a sports team.
- The Green Bay Packers corporation has a shareholder meeting and they publish a financial report. This is significant, especially this year when the major demand in the labor negotiations is for the owners to open up their books on expenses.
- The Green Bay Packers, despite their small media market, is financially sound. The team is able to compete for the best free agent players (hence they are in the Super Bowl). Here is why:
- The private owners siphon the revenues from their teams for multiple, undisclosed business ventures. Here in New England the Kraft family built a mall, restaurants, and who knows what, they also bought a soccer franchise. No one knows the extent of it, the books are closed. The NFL team ownership is a gift that guarantees a total monopoly in the their respective lands. The NFL owners appoint their family to the executive positions. As an example just look at the Kraft Chassidik Court here in Boston or the Rooneys in Pittsburgh.
There are also some significant reasons to root against the Pittsburgh Steelers:
- Pittsburgh is a moronic town. Provincial in the worst possible sense.
- The legacy of the Pittsburgh Steelers is questionable. As was recently reported: ”the franchise has lost 18 former players — age 35 to 58 — since 2000, including seven in the last 16 months.” Sadly, this likely means their bonehead defensive game run on steroids.
- Did I mention that Pittsburgh sucks, I though I did.
Go Green Bay Packers, the American Team!