Cluelessness defined and displayed

I don't even need to add a comment. Just watch.



It's just "fantasy theater."

Flight 1549 3D Reconstruction

An amazing computer-3D reconstruction of the flight and river landing of the fabled USAir Flight 1549, smoothly piloted by Capt. Sullenberger ontothe Hudson River after bird strikes shut down both engines.

Occupy Wall Street's Code of Omerta

Back in the '60s they called it cooperating with your oppressor. The NY Post reports on the crime-ridden Zuccotti Park:

Overall security at the park had deteriorated to the point where many frightened female protesters had abandoned the increasingly out-of-control occupation, security- team members said.

Rumors swirled that one homeless man had pulled a knife in a dispute the night before -- and that there had been yet another case of groping.

But protesters and a cop on duty told The Post that most of the crime goes unreported, because of a bizarre “stop snitching” rule.

“What’s happening in there is staying in there,” said the cop.

"Godfather, what happens in Zuccotti
Park stays in Zuccottii Park!"

Ah yes, the code of Omerta, the Mafia's infamous code of silence that what happened among the families stayed among the families.

But this tidbit is only at the trail end of the Post's story, which points out that Zuccotti Park's squatters are a bunch of - gasp! - freeloaders!

The Occupy Wall Street volunteer kitchen staff launched a “counter” revolution yesterday -- because they’re angry about working 18-hour days to provide food for “professional homeless” people and ex-cons masquerading as protesters.

For three days beginning tomorrow, the cooks will serve only brown rice and other spartan grub instead of the usual menu of organic chicken and vegetables, spaghetti bolognese, and roasted beet and sheep’s-milk-cheese salad.

They will also provide directions to local soup kitchens for the vagrants, criminals and other freeloaders who have been descending on Zuccotti Park in increasing numbers every day.

The real problem is that there is a vast organization, well funded by unknowns, supporting the squatters to enable them to eat quite lavishly for free. And now other folks want in on the squatters' dolce vita, the chronic underclass of New York who were there long before the OWS squatters ever came and will be there when they finally leave. They understandably don't see why these whippersnapper newcomers can eat like gourmands free at OWS kitchens while they cannot. But OWS alone has purity of heart and motive, so they feel qualified to judge the motives of everyone else.

And why should they be turned away? Cannot anyone who shows up at Zee-Park simply claim 99 percent status and get in the chow line? If not, why not? Well, the answer is easy: OWS is a bunch of commies. And they won't let New York's ordinary underclass join the revolution. The revolution, you see, is only for the "right people," the overwhelmingly white, Gentile sons and daughters of the middle class who want to live freely while others foot the bill.

How this makes them different from the old line of New York's freeloaders and panhandlers is quite beyond me.

Occupy Camelot, 932 A.D.

Even King Arthur had problems with the Occupy movement, although the Occupy Camelot gang at least had a coherent political philosophy:



Compare to what really is happening at New York's Zuccotti Park.

All belongings and money in the park are supposed to be held in common, but property rights reared their capitalistic head when facilitators went to clean up the park, which was looking more like a shantytown than usual after several days of wind and rain. The local community board was due to send in an inspector, so the facilitators and cleaners started moving tarps, bags, and personal belongings into a big pile in order to clean the park.

But some refused to budge. A bearded man began to gather up a tarp and an occupier emerged from beneath, screaming: “You’re going to break my [snip] tent, get that [snip] off!” Near the front of the park, two men in hoodies staged a meta-sit-in, fearful that their belongings would be lost or appropriated.

Animal Farm, live and in person.

This seems relevant, too.

Hey, Biden-how much money to prevent these rapes?

Vice president Joe Biden has famously said that rapes will rise if the Congress doesn't give $36 billion to states and local governments to hire more cops or keep the ones they got.

So I'm wondering, Joe, since you and your boss have said how right as rain the "Occupy ____" groups are, how much money would it have taken to stop the rapes in their squatter's camps?

Why parents love Occupy Wall Street

Found here.

Nationalize the Fed!

Occupy Wall Street’s Marxists--Charles Gasparino - NYPOST.com

A little trip down to Zuccotti Park and a brief conversation"

One woman was holding a “Nationalize the Federal Reserve” sign; I tried to explain that the Fed is already nationalized, because it’s part of government, and she told me to “go check my facts -- it’s privately owned."

War on photography and its face

The Knoxville News-Sentinel's Michael Silence reports what happened to Nashvillian BillHobbs when Bill went down to cover an Occupy Nashville protest and Legislative Plaza, which as you might expect from the name, is public property. Here's Bill's video:



Needless to say, as Michael pointed out, photographing in public is legal. At the Youtube page there are some comments, including these two.

I want to add my voice as someone from the Occupy Nashville group that this is absolutely NOT in the spirit of the OCcupy group. I would like to add my invitation for you to return and take all the pictures and videos you want. this incident was discussed last night in committee meetings and the general assembly, and there was unanimous agreement that this sort of behavior is not representative of the group and that you should be invited back.

Bufflo55

To which Bill replied,

Thank you to those from OccupyNashville who said I'm welcome to be there, and that you have taken the issue up with "Mr. Goon." By the way, he has been identified - police provided me his name, Steve Reiter. He has previously been arrested and charged with simple assault in a similar situation involving a downtown resident who was photographing homeless people. Mr. Reiter is a "homeless advocate." He was acquitted at trial. His attorney happens to be Patrick Frogge, also OccupyNashville's atty.

I've known Bill practically since I started blogging in 2002, though I have not spoken with him in quite some time. Glad he came through this all right!

Excellent online newspaper index

A great idea with great execution: List of Newspapers.

List of Newspapers is the largest directory of newspapers around the
world. We provide links to more than 25,000 newspapers in 201 countries
and territories.

List of Newspapers is an excellent resource and is included in the
Library of Congress's News & Periodical Resources.

Occupy Wall Street v. Tea party marchers

For the answer, click here.

HT: Never Yet Melted

"What has Wall Street Ever Done for Us?"

What has Wall Street Ever Done for Us? @ AMERICAN DIGEST:

I mean, aside from financing millions of miles of fiber optic cables that enable the protest marchers to use their iPhones and Androids to organize the marches, and financed the airlines and transportation companies that the marchers used to get to New York or other cities, and financed the agri-conglomerates that raised, brokered and marketed the very food the marchers eat at the restaurants along the route, and the chemical companies that produced products to prevent massive losses of crops and harvests from insects and spoilage and vaccinations of food animals against all kinds of nasty diseases ...

I mean, apart from all that, what has Wall Street done for us?

Nothing! So Down With Evil Corporations!

The Best Tweets About The D.C. Earthquake

The Best Tweets About The D.C. Earthquake:

My fave:

What did the president feel and when did he feel it?

The very old joke about what makes news is that when a dog bites a man, it's not news. But if a man bites a dog, that's news.

Here is the "dog bites man" earthquake story of the day. ABC News: Obama Golfing in Martha's Vineyard When Earthquake Hit. Sorry, that's not news. News would have been if Obama was not playing golf when the earthquake hit.

The President was playing golf at the time. Two reporters at the golf course felt the quake, another didn’t. A White House staffer who was there too, just told me he didn’t feel it either.

Immediate calls into the travel pool – reporters assigned to cover the president on a day-to-day basis – where Obama was playing golf, could not determine if the President was aware of the quake.

The president was seen taking a phone call, but it’s not clear if it was connected to the earthquake.

Waiting to hear what the President felt…and for the aftershocks.

Oh my gosh, I can't resist: What did the president feel and when did he feel it?

And will he return to Washington?

Update: Latest assessment is

Epicenter was situated at the convergence of Bush’s Fault, Congress’s Fault, Teaparty Fault, and Itsnotmy Fault.

Earthquake rocks east coast, maybe even Martha's Vineyard

A rare, large-magnitude earthquake was felt for hundreds of miles up and down the east coast this afternoon. Rated at 5.9 on the Richter scale, the quake was centered near Mineral, Va., about 100 miles south of Washington, D.C. Its locus was almost five miles underground (link).

The quake was felt strongly in the capital and most federal buildings there have been evacuated for the day. There is one report that the National Park Service is concerned that the Washington Monument was tilted by the shock. The two airports serving the capital have had all flights suspended and their towers evacuated. Flight operations as far away as New York's JFK International Airport were also suspended for a short time.

The question on everyone's mind, however, is this: Was the earthquake felt in Martha's Vineyard? And will Michelle let her husband suspend their vacation to return to duty in Washington?

Stay tuned for the next exciting installment of Lifestyles of the High and Disconnected!
_______________________

Note: my son emailed from Winston-Salem, NC, and said the tremor there was strong. My eldest is in NYC and I am awaiting word from him. Fortunately, news shows report no injuries in NYC and most things there seem to be returning to normal.

Update: Turns out that Googling for earthquake Martha's Vineyard is going on a lot, and as I type this, this post is in second place on the results page.

Jeepers....

Update: Time Magazine just picked up on my April 2009 post, "New Madrid earthquake risk downgraded." Time's link to my post is in the piece's penultimate sentence.

No justice for Calee Anthony?

"Jury consultant" Susan Constantine, answering on FoxNews Channel whether she was shocked by the acquittal of Casey Anthony, accused of murdering her daughter, Calee:

"Yes,I was really shocked. I think that all of us wanted to have, you know, some justice for Calee."

This was a total acquittal of Casey in the death of Caylee. The jury could have found her not guilty of murder 1 but guilty of a lesser charge, such as child abuse of aggravated manslaughter. They did not. Legally, we do not at this time know who killed Caylee. Her death returns to "unsolved."

Which makes Susan Constantine's expression of dismay all the more silly. Susan said that she expected a guilty verdict. Presumably, as a trial consultant for FNC, Susan has heard to reviewed each day's proceedings and in her mind had concluded that Casey was guilty.

However, what she said in the quote above was that Calee did not receive posthumous justice because an innocent person was not found guilty of her death. Because on the face of it, that's what happened. That being so, how could justice be gained for Calee by finding Casey, who is not guilty of Calee's death, guilty nonetheless?

Osama Under the Sea

Sitting here watching the Derby, what else do I have to do with my multitasking skills but post stuff?

Just a hunk-a, hunk-a burnin' love

Man ‘Engulfed In Flames’ At San Francisco Porn Shop « CBS San Francisco

Letter Home: We're doing just fine

I got one of those frantic letters from my 92 year old mother: "what's going on in Israel? We only hear about Egypt--nothing about Israel? Are you guys okay? Are you still there? "

Well, we are still here and doing just fine. But, that IS the question to ask right now--what ABOUT Israel? With all of its neighbors being shaken to the core, Israel remains calm. That's what's going in Israel right now. In fact, for the first time in Israel's experience, it is no longer the center of attraction. Suddenly the screed that Israel is the source of all that's wrong in the Middle East is silent. And for good reason. Because it has never been true. Ever.

Let's say it again: ISRAEL HAS NEVER BEEN THE PROBLEM IN THE MIDDLE EAST. That's the point. Bush was right. It's about Democracy not puppet states and extortionist regimes. When Israelis are asked from where did this meme appear, they point directly to the culprits. The Clintons (and I voted for him twice and campaigned for him in 1992) and Carter (I voted for that charlatan, too--I am so ashamed) have done more damage here than all the years the British mucked up the region AND India. When the dust settles, perhaps some real work can be done.

It's not over by any means. The US State Department and intelligence has zero ability to read this area. It is an empirical question if the country does not slip into the Iranian model. There are no strong candidates except the fundamentalists. The Army is THE power and they certainly do not want to go the Turkey root, the other loose cannon in the region. In fact, as I write this, the Egyptian Army just shut down the national assembly, suspended the old "constitution", and annouced a new one with elections in 6 months. The risks of recession and a post Shah disaster in Egypt is simply too great. Egypt has become too western and too secular to permit that sort of fundamentalist nonsense.

The US has propped up all the dictators in the area since before the war. EVERYONE is on notice with the way the US treated Mubarak. Egypt is not alone. Jordan, the Emirates, Saudis, Turkey, Algeria, Yemen, Dubai--they are all just dominoes. Even Syria is rocky. The King of Bahrain is so sacred that he's handing out $2700 bribes to each and every family in his country in order to stave off getting the bum's rush. Good luck, dude.

Where there is no more turmoil than usual is Israel and the West Bank. The most disasterous event here in the last ten days is the IKEA store in Netanya burnt to the ground--a significant omen for the Oslo accords if there ever was one. Here we have the usual static but real peace. Now building is going on (can you imagine the fallout if US domestic policy was to halt housing construction for ANY REASON?), employment is way up.

The best source of peace here, which is an everyday reality, is MONEY! EVERYONE is building now. Commercial goods are flowing into the West Bank and there are only smiles from Jews, Christians, and Muslims at the local shopping mall. When the rain clears, I'll continue my astronomy lessons to the Muslim watchmen at the Kibbutz vineyards (they want to be ready for Ramadan).

It is interesting to note that Abbas and his henchmen just took out Jordanian citizenship! They, too, and read the writing on the Wall (over here that's a literal thing, you know) and want to get out of here while they can. So, they're jumping ship--just exactly where do they think it's safe to run?

The real Snake in the Grass in this mix has been Carter. Jimmy Crack Corn. His policies are complete post Southern Reconstruction. His screed has been nothing but separate and unequal. Whenever he shows up, we all notice that he ONLY supports and talks to those who discriminate against Jews, Catholics, and Christians (and Blacks) and whose strong arm thugs wear masks (black Nike masks instead of white sheets). Sound familiar? It is absolutely scandalous that after two generations of Civil Rights that American Foreign Policy has promoted dictators, bigots, terrorists, murders, and rapists. This is to be surpassed by callously abandoning their clients and puppets when the winds turn.

So, when Condi piped up about Birmingham and racism, I was appalled. I, too, remember the Cracker South. Well, my Mizrachi brethren from the Arab World lived in a racist world that makes the South look good. The parallel construction of the South with the Middle East is the Jews=Blacks. Period. Add the Christians of all stripes to the mix as well. All at the bottom of the heap, all with special badges, all paying special infidel taxes, all subject to brutal pogroms simply because they were Christian, Jewish, or non-Muslim. It was truly pathetic--even more than Jimmy.

So, you ask about Egypt.

About time.

But it ain't over by any means.

Peace will come, however, when the Americans and the Europeans shut up, stand back, and stop enabling the racists and extortionists whether right or left.

IN SUM, the entire fiction of the Middle East has split asunder. The problems here are not due to Israel. That screed has only been the classic means to deflect local anger from where it matters most--the domestic inequalities of extortionist Ancient Regimes and are finally imploding. It is time the US and the Europeans stop fanning those flames. The people who must bear the cost for this distorted view of foreign policy are the poor schnooks who have to bear the burden of the despotic yoke of servitude and extortion.

Ironically, it will be the oil that will bring these states down. In the punitive arrogance, the OPEC states have raised the price of oil too much. Economies around the world are strangling and the costs of shipping are so high that ships are simply being laid up or scrapped. The Oil States depended on that revenue for their larder and livelihood. They built their empires on the assumption that the West is addicted to oil and will pay and pay ever higher prices. Well, that ain't true. Now, their economies are in trouble, too. Their domestic troubles are growing as well and all of it is backed up on their US Lackey covering their security problems.

Ah, but Mubarak--the loyal retainer. Couldn't even wait until he's dead from cancer.

So, the price of oil will be their ultimate undoing. It is the contradiction to their mode of production.

Finally, it does show that Israel's economy and social structure is more stable than its neighbors. It is like Reagan's gambit in the 80's--like the Russians, Israel's enemies simply cannot maintain the economic infrastructure to support a constant war against Israel and continued monetary extortion from their local people. The Gulf States make tons of money but they have the worst infant mortality rates and greatest wealth inequalities in the world. They depend on outside talent for ALL their technological development since they dare not educate their masses. They are dependent on foreign goods and talent. When Bechtel pulls the plug, the Gulf states will be through.

The real question will be in the next several months. The lessons of Revolution, as my Old Man would say, lie in the aftermath, the Thermidor. The Army did not fare well in France nor in Iran. We shall see about Egypt. At this point, nothing is clear anywhere in the region. The best that anyone can do is to wait cautiously. This is not a disco or LA or a football game. There's a lot of mist in the woods right now. It's best to wait and see.

If there is no war this summer, then there won't be for a while simply because the Revolution will have spread to Syria, Jordan, and parts East.

A new dawn indeed.

"He has a demon, and is mad"

Nine years and a few months ago someone asked me whether I was surprised that 19 Islamists had hijacked four airliners and killed almost 3,000 people. The question struck me as odd. Why is anyone ever surprised of the evil men do? "There is no one who does good, not even one," said the Psalmist, and so why should we be surprised that some commit actual evil?

We have learned again, from Tucson, that we civilized people cannot constrain the devil that stalks the human soul. "Who knows what evil lurks in the hearts of men?" asked the Shadow, so far be it from me to psychoanalyze Jared Loughner. Best leave that to Sheriff Clarence Dupnik, whose flashing-quick diagnosis of Rightwing Derangement Syndrome for Loughner surely was the fastest-ever solving of the "motive" side of the means and opportunity triangle. What the psychs will discover about Loughner I leave to them.

"He has a demon, and is mad."

Yet how odd that in our postmodern conviction and scientific certainty that we can easily find the answer, we gloss right over one that no one seems willing to utter, mayhaps 'cept I: "He has a demon, and is mad." Of course, that was an accusation made against Jesus, and is today an excellent summary of the mainstream-media commentary (such as the NYT's Paul Krugman's) on the Jedi mind-control that they claim the Right's "climate of hate" exercised over the hapless Jared Loughner. So we mustn't take it too far.

I retreat from such rhetorical arguments. In arguing that, "He has a demon, and is mad," I am not trying to argue the literal existence of demonic beings who actually enter the bodies and spirits of human beings, taking "possession" of them and controlling their actions. The modern mind has no room for that. I refer instead to sickness of the mind and of the soul, a spiritual sickness that aligned itself with the evil that is out there.

Evil is within us, but not only within us

French philosopher Paul Ricouer argued in his book, The Symbolism of Evil, that one of the things taught by the temptation stories of the Bible is that evil resides within the human breast but not only there. There is an "externality of evil," as he put it, symbolized in Genesis by the serpent. Within these texts is a strong subtext, not only in the Bible but in cultural myths around the world that there is a seduction of the human mind and the human body by the "tragic" of creation into which we are born, "which is already there and already evil" (his emphasis). There is, he says,

... a mystery of iniquity which is not reducible to the clear consciousness of actual evil, of the evil beginning in an instant; it points toward an underlying peccability which, as Kierkegaard says in The Concept of Dread, endures and increases quantitatively. That underlying peccability is like the horizon of actual evil... .

"Peccability" means that we mortals are temptable. Because of this fundamental fact we will be tempted by an externality much and yield to it often - usually, happily, on harmless things like another piece of chocolate but not infrequently to evil itself. When we yield to the harmful rather than the merely frivolous it is sin, indeed, too often mortal sin which, as we saw in Tucson, can be lethal as well.

This is not a modern world view. We have exorcised sin conceptually from our vocabulary, our discourse and hence, our understanding of the human condition. "He has a demon, and is mad" is eye-rolled for the former part and medicated for the latter - psychiatry today exorcises pharmaceutically, not ritually. And yet for all its chemically-reliant wonder, no mental-health professional will ever be able to explain away that the human being is predisposed to cooperate with the iniquitous, a cooperation that not merely endures but increases until it forms the horizon of actual evil, evil that erupts so tragically.

The human condition is tragic

"Tragically" is a key word, for the ancients did not use it as we do, simply to mean "sadly." The Greek playwrights knew tragedy as the unfolding of human character, hence human events, not as they are predestined but as they are predisposed. Tragedy is not random or accidental. It is the result of human striving, whether for good or ill, not exactly inevitable but not altogether avoidable. Even the heroic can be tragic.

Always, the ancients knew that the tragic is woven inherently in the human condition because they understood what we have progressively dismissed: that "there is no one who does good, no not one," except now and then, here and again, but almost never as a habit. Virtue, said Aristotle, is excellence made habitual, which is exactly why virtue is so rare: the habits of man are rarely excellent and left to themselves, without rigorous moral training or an externality of constraint to the good, will always become corrupted.

What makes the human condition tragic in this sense is that evil is never temporary and triumphs are never permanent. Salve of compassion, care and grieving is being applied to Tucson, but some must be saved for the next venue. For certainly another there will be.

Update,Jan. 13: This is very similar to what President Obama said in his speech the evening of Jan. 12:

Scripture tells us that there is evil in the world, and that terrible things happen for reasons that defy human understanding. In the words of Job, "when I looked for light, then came darkness." Bad things happen, and we must guard against simple explanations in the aftermath.

For the truth is that none of us can know exactly what triggered this vicious attack. None of us can know with any certainty what might have stopped those shots from being fired, or what thoughts lurked in the inner recesses of a violent man's mind.

That is very close to what it means to say, "He has a demon, and is mad." Bad things happen for which facile, "just so" stories offer no insight or understanding, especially if we agree with progressivism's mantra that, "people are basically good." This is a very modern world view, dating only about 130 years back. But it is empirically, provably false considering only the history of humanity of the last 100 years.

The president's quote from Job, "when I looked for light, then came darkness," is actually quite appropriate because the light of human reason and ability is simply too weak to overwhelm the darkness of the tragic of creation and the human condition. That is the primary, bitter lesson that Job must learn by the end of the book, as well as that human understanding is exceedingly partial, fragmentary, incomplete and usually misguided.

So how can the darkness be overcome? Again, Scripture gives us the answer: "The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it."

Originally published at Right Network.