Friday, September 28, 2012
Stealth Propaganda Film "Won't Back Down"
That new movie "Won't Back Down" is a stealth propaganda film backed by right-wing Colorado billionaire Philip Anschutz – funder of A.L.E.C. and other Koch Brothers groups – and by billionaire Rupert Murdoch's Fox Studios. The story of the film is 'inspirational' and the trailer purports that the film is about actual events, but the premise is based on union-busting and on the 'parent trigger' element of A.L.E.C.'s school privatization agenda. Privatization is fascism, and the One Percent is spending billions of dollars on the 2012 election and elsewhere to destroy the availability of healthcare and to prevent an untainted education in America.
Copyright 2012 by G.E. Nordell, all rights reserved
Wednesday, September 26, 2012
September 2012 News Factoids
"The most promising new energy source in terms of supply [is] micropower – cogeneration, wind, sun, small hydro, geothermal, biomass, and waste fuel – [which] is now providing about one third of the world's new electric capacity." ~~ Amory Lovins, 2008
DEPT. OF REALLY STUPID PRODUCTS
Received another paper catalog in the mail of stuff that I will never buy. Second prize for stupidest product goes to the N.F.L.-themed gingerbread house for under the Xmas tree; first prize for stupidest product goes to the twelve toaster machines, each of which burns the name and logo of your favorite N.F.L. team onto the surface of the toast.
"A representative democracy only works when everyone truly has a voice, and when the voices of the many aren’t drowned out by the pocketbooks of a few."
~~ Helena, Montana Independent Record editorial, February 2012
"Dubya can’t win in Iraq, and he failed totally in Louisiana, and the same blindness that caused the thousands of deaths in New Orleans will also trigger the collapse of the world economy." ~~ philosopher G.E. Nordell in WMail ezine Issue #54 Sept 2005
The 1957 novel "Atlas Shrugged" by Ayn Rand [1905-82]is the 'second most influential book for Americans today' after the Bible, according to a recent joint survey conducted by the Library of Congress and the Book of The Month Club
"Moody's Analytics estimates that the housing crisis wiped out $4.3 trillion in owner-occupied-home values from 2007 to 2010." — per TIME Magazine, September 2012
Decades of overfishing has left fewer than 100 {sic} adult codfish in the North Sea. — per Sunday Times of U.K.
Why are Israel and the United States pounding the war drums about theocratic Iran? While the 'obvious' reason is Iran's dangerous potential for building a nuclear weapon, what may be a more important reason is that Iran has broken ranks with the New World Order people that demand payment for crude oil in U.S. petrodollars – Iran is instead accepting payments for oil exports to Russia and China in gold.
===============================
New York Times/C.B.S. polling in late September shows that the Romney-Ryan campaign is losing ground. Ohio results have Obama leading 53 percent to Romney's 43 percent; Florida has Obama leading 53 percent to Romney's 44 percent; in Pennsylvania, Obama is leading Romney by 12 points. A separate poll in Massachussetts (Romney's 'home' state) has Obama leading 64 percent to Romney's 33 percent.
So I repeat my prediction on this blog back in March 2012: a landslide for Barack Obama in November of something like 60-40 in the popular vote.
Copyright 2012 by G.E. Nordell, all rights reserved
DEPT. OF REALLY STUPID PRODUCTS
Received another paper catalog in the mail of stuff that I will never buy. Second prize for stupidest product goes to the N.F.L.-themed gingerbread house for under the Xmas tree; first prize for stupidest product goes to the twelve toaster machines, each of which burns the name and logo of your favorite N.F.L. team onto the surface of the toast.
"A representative democracy only works when everyone truly has a voice, and when the voices of the many aren’t drowned out by the pocketbooks of a few."
~~ Helena, Montana Independent Record editorial, February 2012
"Dubya can’t win in Iraq, and he failed totally in Louisiana, and the same blindness that caused the thousands of deaths in New Orleans will also trigger the collapse of the world economy." ~~ philosopher G.E. Nordell in WMail ezine Issue #54 Sept 2005
The 1957 novel "Atlas Shrugged" by Ayn Rand [1905-82]is the 'second most influential book for Americans today' after the Bible, according to a recent joint survey conducted by the Library of Congress and the Book of The Month Club
"Moody's Analytics estimates that the housing crisis wiped out $4.3 trillion in owner-occupied-home values from 2007 to 2010." — per TIME Magazine, September 2012
Decades of overfishing has left fewer than 100 {sic} adult codfish in the North Sea. — per Sunday Times of U.K.
Why are Israel and the United States pounding the war drums about theocratic Iran? While the 'obvious' reason is Iran's dangerous potential for building a nuclear weapon, what may be a more important reason is that Iran has broken ranks with the New World Order people that demand payment for crude oil in U.S. petrodollars – Iran is instead accepting payments for oil exports to Russia and China in gold.
===============================
New York Times/C.B.S. polling in late September shows that the Romney-Ryan campaign is losing ground. Ohio results have Obama leading 53 percent to Romney's 43 percent; Florida has Obama leading 53 percent to Romney's 44 percent; in Pennsylvania, Obama is leading Romney by 12 points. A separate poll in Massachussetts (Romney's 'home' state) has Obama leading 64 percent to Romney's 33 percent.
So I repeat my prediction on this blog back in March 2012: a landslide for Barack Obama in November of something like 60-40 in the popular vote.
Friday, September 14, 2012
September 2012 Quotations
"I hate authors. I wouldn't mind them so much if they didn't write books."
~~ Elizabeth van Arnim
"Consistency is the last refuge of the unimaginative."
~~ Oscar Wilde [1854-1900]
“There is no end. There is no beginning. There is only the passion of life.”
~~ Federico Fellini [1920-93]
"If the fascist Republican Party had anything of value to offer the American voter they would not have to lie and cheat and steal to win elections."
~~ G.E. Nordell
"The United States was founded by the brightest people in the country – and we haven't seen them since."
~~ Gore Vidal [1925-2012]
"People never lie so much as after a hunt, during a war, or before an election."
~~ Otto von Bismarck [1815-98]
"If one cannot do great work, it is worthwhile to do good work and think it great."
~~ Ambrose Bierce [1842-1914]
"Sentiment without action is the ruin of the soul."
~~ Edward Abbey [1927-89]
"Hell is a place where you have nothing to do but amuse yourself."
~~ George Bernard Shaw [1856-1950]
"In Hollywood a girl's virtue is much less important than her hairdo."
~~ Marilyn Monroe [1926-62]
"What is that unforgettable line?"
~~ Samuel Beckett [1906-89]
"Occupy something!"
~~ radio talk show host Thom Hartmann
"It's theatre, you know. I'm whispering in your ear, and you're dreaming my dreams, and then I'm getting a feeling for yours. I've been doing that for forty years."
~~ Bruce Springsteen
“A created thing is never invented and it is never true: it is always and ever itself.”
~~ Federico Fellini [1920-93]
"I hate it when I don't forward a chain letter and I die the next day."
~~ Kelly Kronbar
"The mind of a bigot is like the pupil of the eye; the more light you pour upon it, the more it will contract."
~~ Oliver Wendell Holmes [1809-94]
"My country, right or wrong; when right to be kept right, when wrong to be put right."
~~ Carl Schurz [1829-1906]
“Unless someone like you cares a whole awful lot / Nothing is going to get better. It's not.”
~~ Dr. Seuss {Theodor Geisel 1904-91}, in "The Lorax", 1971
"To be free is not merely to cast off one's chains, but to live in a way that respects and enhances the freedom of others."
~~ Nelson Mandela
“The next best thing to knowing something is to know where to find it.”
~~ Robert Johnson
"The cleverly expressed opposite of any generally-accepted idea is worth a fortune to somebody."
~~ F. Scott Fitzgerald [1896-1940]
"Finishing second in the Olympics gets you silver. Finishing second in politics gets you oblivion."
~~ Richard M. Nixon [1913-94]
"Hobbies of any kind are boring, except to people who have the same hobby."
~~ Dave Barry
"Take care of the luxuries, and the necessities will take care of themselves."
~~ Dorothy Parker [1893-1967]
"The truth is lived, not taught."
~~ Herman Hesse [1877-1962]
"If you're not a sex object, you're in trouble."
~~ Helen Gurley Brown [1922-2012]
"The greater the artist, the greater the doubt. Perfect confidence is granted to the less talented as a consolation prize."
~~ art historian Robert Hughes [1938-2012]
"[Paul Ryan is] a supply-side zealot who would shred the safety net to put more money in the pockets of the very rich."
~~ William Falk
"There are no rationalists. We all believe in fairy tales, and live in them."
~~ G.K. Chesterton [1874-1936]
"Jesus was a bachelor."
~~ Don Herold [1889-1966]
"Happiness is a butterfly, which when pursued, is always just beyond your grasp, but which, if you will sit down quietly, may alight upon you."
~~ Nathaniel Hawthorne [1804-64]
"Nothing flatters a man as much as the happiness of his wife; he is always proud of himself as the source of it."
~~ Dr. Samuel Johnson [1709-84]
"I don't pretend to understand the universe, it is a great deal bigger than I am."
~~ Thomas Carlyle [1795-1881]
"To invent you need a good imagination and a pile of junk."
~~ Thomas Alva Edison [1847-1931]
"Never use a long word when a short one will do."
~~ George Orwell [1903-50]
"Democracy is supposed to give you the feeling of choice, like Painkiller X and Painkiller Y. But they're both just apirin."
~~ Gore Vidal [1925-2012]
"A creative man is motivated by the desire to achieve, not by the desire to beat others."
~~ philosopher Ayn Rand [1905-82]
"History is the sum total of the things that could have been avoided."
~~ Konrad Adenauer [1876-1967]
"Success loves a witness, but failure can't exist without one."
~~ Junot Diaz
"Life is too short, and the time [that] we waste in yawning can never be regained."
~~ Stendhal 1783-1842]
"Ignorance more frequently begets confidence than does knowledge."
~~ Charles Darwin [1809-82]
"Speak softly and carry a big stick."
~~ Vice President Theodore Roosevelt [1858-1919], in a speech at the Minnesota State Fair on 2 September 1901
"It is the business of the artist to make humanity aware of itself."
~~ poet Ezra Pound [1885-1972]
"Humankind cannot bear very much reality."
~~ poet T.S. Eliot [1888-1965]
"Only by going alone in silence, without baggage, can one truly get into the heart of the wilderness."
~~ eco-activist John Muir [1838-1914]
"I do not like what is going on in our society. Our education system . . . is a total disaster."
~~ Ray Bradbury [1920-2012], in Salon interview 8/2001
"I don't believe in the tooth fairy, although I once had a dentist [that] I wasn't too sure of."
~~ Hollywood columnist James Bacon [1914-2010]
"If you tell about one place really well, you tell about the whole world."
~~ Isaac Bashevis Singer [1902-91]
"Basic research is what I'm doing when I don't know what I'm doing."
~~ rocket scientist Werner Von Braun [1912-77]
"If Paul Ryan was honest, he would have pointed to that debt clock and said, ‘We built that'."
~~ Cong. Chris Van Hollen
{each set of posted quotations are then posted at the Working Minds website, alphabetical by author}
~~ Elizabeth van Arnim
"Consistency is the last refuge of the unimaginative."
~~ Oscar Wilde [1854-1900]
“There is no end. There is no beginning. There is only the passion of life.”
~~ Federico Fellini [1920-93]
"If the fascist Republican Party had anything of value to offer the American voter they would not have to lie and cheat and steal to win elections."
~~ G.E. Nordell
"The United States was founded by the brightest people in the country – and we haven't seen them since."
~~ Gore Vidal [1925-2012]
"People never lie so much as after a hunt, during a war, or before an election."
~~ Otto von Bismarck [1815-98]
"If one cannot do great work, it is worthwhile to do good work and think it great."
~~ Ambrose Bierce [1842-1914]
"Sentiment without action is the ruin of the soul."
~~ Edward Abbey [1927-89]
"Hell is a place where you have nothing to do but amuse yourself."
~~ George Bernard Shaw [1856-1950]
"In Hollywood a girl's virtue is much less important than her hairdo."
~~ Marilyn Monroe [1926-62]
"What is that unforgettable line?"
~~ Samuel Beckett [1906-89]
"Occupy something!"
~~ radio talk show host Thom Hartmann
"It's theatre, you know. I'm whispering in your ear, and you're dreaming my dreams, and then I'm getting a feeling for yours. I've been doing that for forty years."
~~ Bruce Springsteen
“A created thing is never invented and it is never true: it is always and ever itself.”
~~ Federico Fellini [1920-93]
"I hate it when I don't forward a chain letter and I die the next day."
~~ Kelly Kronbar
"The mind of a bigot is like the pupil of the eye; the more light you pour upon it, the more it will contract."
~~ Oliver Wendell Holmes [1809-94]
"My country, right or wrong; when right to be kept right, when wrong to be put right."
~~ Carl Schurz [1829-1906]
“Unless someone like you cares a whole awful lot / Nothing is going to get better. It's not.”
~~ Dr. Seuss {Theodor Geisel 1904-91}, in "The Lorax", 1971
"To be free is not merely to cast off one's chains, but to live in a way that respects and enhances the freedom of others."
~~ Nelson Mandela
“The next best thing to knowing something is to know where to find it.”
~~ Robert Johnson
"The cleverly expressed opposite of any generally-accepted idea is worth a fortune to somebody."
~~ F. Scott Fitzgerald [1896-1940]
"Finishing second in the Olympics gets you silver. Finishing second in politics gets you oblivion."
~~ Richard M. Nixon [1913-94]
"Hobbies of any kind are boring, except to people who have the same hobby."
~~ Dave Barry
"Take care of the luxuries, and the necessities will take care of themselves."
~~ Dorothy Parker [1893-1967]
"The truth is lived, not taught."
~~ Herman Hesse [1877-1962]
"If you're not a sex object, you're in trouble."
~~ Helen Gurley Brown [1922-2012]
"The greater the artist, the greater the doubt. Perfect confidence is granted to the less talented as a consolation prize."
~~ art historian Robert Hughes [1938-2012]
"[Paul Ryan is] a supply-side zealot who would shred the safety net to put more money in the pockets of the very rich."
~~ William Falk
"There are no rationalists. We all believe in fairy tales, and live in them."
~~ G.K. Chesterton [1874-1936]
"Jesus was a bachelor."
~~ Don Herold [1889-1966]
"Happiness is a butterfly, which when pursued, is always just beyond your grasp, but which, if you will sit down quietly, may alight upon you."
~~ Nathaniel Hawthorne [1804-64]
"Nothing flatters a man as much as the happiness of his wife; he is always proud of himself as the source of it."
~~ Dr. Samuel Johnson [1709-84]
"I don't pretend to understand the universe, it is a great deal bigger than I am."
~~ Thomas Carlyle [1795-1881]
"To invent you need a good imagination and a pile of junk."
~~ Thomas Alva Edison [1847-1931]
"Never use a long word when a short one will do."
~~ George Orwell [1903-50]
"Democracy is supposed to give you the feeling of choice, like Painkiller X and Painkiller Y. But they're both just apirin."
~~ Gore Vidal [1925-2012]
"A creative man is motivated by the desire to achieve, not by the desire to beat others."
~~ philosopher Ayn Rand [1905-82]
"History is the sum total of the things that could have been avoided."
~~ Konrad Adenauer [1876-1967]
"Success loves a witness, but failure can't exist without one."
~~ Junot Diaz
"Life is too short, and the time [that] we waste in yawning can never be regained."
~~ Stendhal 1783-1842]
"Ignorance more frequently begets confidence than does knowledge."
~~ Charles Darwin [1809-82]
"Speak softly and carry a big stick."
~~ Vice President Theodore Roosevelt [1858-1919], in a speech at the Minnesota State Fair on 2 September 1901
"It is the business of the artist to make humanity aware of itself."
~~ poet Ezra Pound [1885-1972]
"Humankind cannot bear very much reality."
~~ poet T.S. Eliot [1888-1965]
"Only by going alone in silence, without baggage, can one truly get into the heart of the wilderness."
~~ eco-activist John Muir [1838-1914]
"I do not like what is going on in our society. Our education system . . . is a total disaster."
~~ Ray Bradbury [1920-2012], in Salon interview 8/2001
"I don't believe in the tooth fairy, although I once had a dentist [that] I wasn't too sure of."
~~ Hollywood columnist James Bacon [1914-2010]
"If you tell about one place really well, you tell about the whole world."
~~ Isaac Bashevis Singer [1902-91]
"Basic research is what I'm doing when I don't know what I'm doing."
~~ rocket scientist Werner Von Braun [1912-77]
"If Paul Ryan was honest, he would have pointed to that debt clock and said, ‘We built that'."
~~ Cong. Chris Van Hollen
{each set of posted quotations are then posted at the Working Minds website, alphabetical by author}
Sunday, September 09, 2012
Patting Myself On The Back
It came up in conversation again recently, the right-wing meme that 'nobody could have predicted the G.O.P. Economic Meltdown of 2008'. I refuted that person's falsehood by citing my own early predictions on the matter, but of course since I only carry a dumb-phone (i.e. not a smart phone) along with me, I did not have the citations at my fingertips.
So here is that list of citations, as hotlinks, for direct use by me or you:
WMail Newsletter Essay #39 January 2004: "The 100-Year Exercise"
look for the phrase 'Great Depression II'
WMail Newsletter Essay #42 April 2004: "The Oligarchy"
look for the word 'bubble'
WMail Newsletter Essay #45 July 2004: "What is Reason?"
look for the word 'bubble'
WMail Newsletter Essay #51 March 2005: "The Three Economies"
the word 'collapse' is used in several places
WMail Newsletter Issue #54 March 2005
before the essay in 'News & Links of Interest'
WMail Newsletter Issue #72 November 2007: "Farewell Issue"
a warning about 'the imminent economic meltdown desired by the Bush-P.N.A.C. crime family'
WMail Newsletter Essay #76 June 2008: "How To Survive The Coming Depression"
the essay topic itself
. . . plus I suggested the Virtual Tea Party in January 2002
WMail Newsletter Essay #19 January 2002: "Virtual Tea Party"
Copyright 2012 by G.E. Nordell, all rights reserved
So here is that list of citations, as hotlinks, for direct use by me or you:
WMail Newsletter Essay #39 January 2004: "The 100-Year Exercise"
look for the phrase 'Great Depression II'
WMail Newsletter Essay #42 April 2004: "The Oligarchy"
look for the word 'bubble'
WMail Newsletter Essay #45 July 2004: "What is Reason?"
look for the word 'bubble'
WMail Newsletter Essay #51 March 2005: "The Three Economies"
the word 'collapse' is used in several places
WMail Newsletter Issue #54 March 2005
before the essay in 'News & Links of Interest'
WMail Newsletter Issue #72 November 2007: "Farewell Issue"
a warning about 'the imminent economic meltdown desired by the Bush-P.N.A.C. crime family'
WMail Newsletter Essay #76 June 2008: "How To Survive The Coming Depression"
the essay topic itself
. . . plus I suggested the Virtual Tea Party in January 2002
WMail Newsletter Essay #19 January 2002: "Virtual Tea Party"
Monday, September 03, 2012
Lubbock, Texas Concentration Camps
Lubbock County, Texas professional idiot and elected judge Tom Head somehow acquired 'knowledge' of President Obama's secret plan to send United Nations troops into West Texas after his re-election to take over the city and put Republicans into concentration camps. Then Judge Head got himself on any radio or TV talk show that would have him, talking about it, ad nauseum.
U.N. Secretary General Ban Ki-Moon had a cool response: He said that the United Nations has no plans whatsoever to 'mess with Texas'.
But I am still left with several questions.
1) Since the concentration camps in question were built under a five-year contract with Halliburton – see 2006 Halliburton press release – why does Judge Head blame President Obama?
2) Why are so many crazy people living in Texas?
3) How does Judge Head explain his access to 'secret plans' of the President?
4) If these plans are indeed secret, did he not commit treason by revealing them?
5) Why is there no Justice Department investigation of Judge Head's claims? Or even an investigation of the sources of the 'leak'?
6) Does the Lubbock, Texas Chamber of Commerce have no better way to get into the news stream?
Copyright 2012 by G.E. Nordell, all rights reserved
U.N. Secretary General Ban Ki-Moon had a cool response: He said that the United Nations has no plans whatsoever to 'mess with Texas'.
But I am still left with several questions.
1) Since the concentration camps in question were built under a five-year contract with Halliburton – see 2006 Halliburton press release – why does Judge Head blame President Obama?
2) Why are so many crazy people living in Texas?
3) How does Judge Head explain his access to 'secret plans' of the President?
4) If these plans are indeed secret, did he not commit treason by revealing them?
5) Why is there no Justice Department investigation of Judge Head's claims? Or even an investigation of the sources of the 'leak'?
6) Does the Lubbock, Texas Chamber of Commerce have no better way to get into the news stream?
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