Sure to watch parts two and three…

Martin Gilens writes:

Democracy requires that all citizens—rich and poor alike—have influence over the policies their government adopts. Of course, it would be unreasonable to expect everyone to have equal sway. Citizens differ not only in economic resources but also in time, knowledge, and interest in social and political affairs. Still, when influence becomes too skewed toward the affluent, when political power becomes too concentrated in the hands of a few, democracy itself is threatened.

No matter what else you have planned for today, make sure you read Gilens’ essay in its entirety.

I firmly believe that once you’ve read the entire essay, the video below by Dr. Robert Reich, a man for whom I have great respoect, will seem simply shallow and perhaps even disengenuous.

Mano Singham writes:

I am not saying that nothing should have been done. The point was that the government gave the big banks essentially free money. If they had also taken over the banks, fired the top executives, restructured them by breaking them up so that they were no longer ‘too big to fail’ and then returned them to private sector, that might have worked out better. This is similar to the way that the FDIC deals with troubled banks.

But with TARP nothing really changed.

I would add a single word: still.

We need a 12-step program for Faux News addicts.

From this morning’s edition of my hometown daily:

I have heard enough of the Obama clan and their subservient toadies accusing all, who don’t subscribe to their radical raping of the USA, as waging war on some facet of American life.

Websters defines war as, “A state of hostility, conflict or antagonism.”

The temporary residents of the White House, along with their: socialists, Marxists, hate preachers, terrorists bombers, racists, race baiters, environmental wackos, baby murderers, hopeful issuers of death sentence to the elderly and infirm, financial thieves, deceivers and godless attackers of the faithful, liars, islam lovers, Constitution defilers, treasonous fanatics, women haters, child haters, in their pocket press and politicians, and homosexual agenda movers, are conducting open warfare on every aspect of American life.

These evil people, through their actions, have declared war on God, women, men, children, unborn children, elderly, the infirm and disabled, the Constitution, the economy, the financial sector, health care, border security, fair elections, truth, and every other facet of American society. They just keep attacking and taking more control over American lives. Remember the saying, “Absolute power corrupts absolutely.” This is their goal. These evil doers are led by the likes of Obama, Biden, Holder, Sherrod Brown, Rockefeller, and Charlie Wilson, who wants to be reelected to continue his fawning at the feet of the Democrat so-called leaders. Please open your eyes and ears to what is happening in our once great nation. We can change the tide of downfall this November, but if truth and honesty fails to win, this nation will very likely be lost forever.

If you have access to the Fox News network, tune in and learn. Fox News is about the only agency that provides both sides of the issues. The so-called mainstream media all seem to be falling all over themselves to become the official lackeys of a hoped for USA (United Socialists of America.

Thank you all for taking time to read this letter.

Eric Brant
Belpre

On Sunday, 22 July, in response to a Facebook share by my friend Tish Grier, I wrote:

Good afternoon friends,

It is difficult to tell from the published account, but the story reads this way to me.

The young woman was sexually assaulted while intoxicated. To avoid a public trial that she might have lost, she acquiesced to a plea agreement that included confidentiality for the men involved. She later became dissatisfied with that decision and broke the confidentiality portion of the agreement, exposing herself to the stated consequences.

Whether this is the result of bad lawyering, bad judgement on her part or possibly coercion by her family or those close to her, the story doesn’t tell us. In the absence of more complete information, anyone’s anger is premature.

Do all you can to make today a good day,

Jeff

Tish sent me a message regarding my comment to which I replied:

Good morning Tish,

I agree, but she’s not facing jail time for tweeting the names of rapists, she facing jail time for violating the terms of a plea agreement that she — and we’re not clear on this, the story posted doesn’t tell us the precise details — apparently signed off on.

Do all you can to make today a good day,

Jeff

The reporting from Slate now leads me to believe that Savannah Dietrich didn’t sign-off on the plea agreement.

The public humiliation culminated this June, when her assailants struck a plea deal on charges of felony sexual abuse and misdemeanor voyeurism that Dietrich felt amounted to a “slap on the wrist.” And the court had an order for Dietrich, too: Don’t talk about it, or risk 180 days in prison and a $500 fine.

First, Dietrich cried. Then, she logged online. “There you go, lock me up,” she tweeted to a couple hundred Twitter followers, outing her assailants by name. “I’m not protecting anyone that made my life a living Hell.”

I remain unclear on the law here, but the basic fairness issue cause me to believe that justice is not being served.

Glenn Greenwald concludes:

Now, here we are, almost four years after the vow to close Guantanamo was enshrined in an Executive Order, and the rights of detainees — including the basic right to legal counsel — are being constricted further, in plainly vindictive ways. Conditions at Guantanamo are undoubtedly better than they were in 2003, and some of the deficiencies in military commissions (for the few who appear before them) have been redressed. But the real stain of Guantanamo — keeping people locked up in cages for years with no charges — endures. And contrary to the blatant myth propagated by Obama defenders, that has happened not because Obama tried but failed to eliminate it, but precisely because he embraced it as his own policy from the start.

I once heard Senator Russ Feingold speak at Case Western Reserve University. I am appalled, but not surprised, that the apologists for President Barack Hussein Obama are hiding behind Senator Feingold’s courageous stance (you’ll have to read the entirety of Greenwald’s piece) and that the gross expansion of the imperial presidency continues apace.

America’s first woman in space is gone…

(Until I watched this Wilson Pickett video, I had no idea that the “Ride, Sally Ride” refrain apparently came later. In that vein, I offer what may be my favorite recording of the song by The Committments: movie version; concert version.)

[Update @ 1058 on Monday, 23 July –Via John Cole:

Went over to my friend Walt’s house to hang out for a little bit, and we sat on his screened in porch overlooking the creek, passed a bottle of wild turkey, and I smoked a Marlboro red that made me dizzy and sweat and think I was going to throw up. At any rate, he mentioned he watched a Bill Moyers episode, and Moyers had a guest on who “spoke to his heart.” He said that he was talking about the need for a new American revolution and for a need to overthrow corporate power, and that he was such a powerful guest that Walt immediately ordered his book.

Without missing a beat, I said- “the guest was Chris Hedges.” I tried to explain to him that while Hedges is viewed as the extreme fringe by our establishment media, if his message were not fully embargoed, more than half the country would agree with it. I didn’t want to be too pessimistic, because Walt was so hopeful, but I knew the reality of the situation.

At any rate, it just seemed to me, despite my pessimism, to be a very positive thing. If my pretty much apolitical friend can find value in Hedges and see the logic in his message, maybe more will, too.]

[First posted at 1239 on Sunday, 22 July]

Also read Days of Destruction, Days of Revolt by Chris Hedges and Joe Sacco…

Venkatesh Rao writes:

The question is interesting because the Web is making traditional subcultures — historically illegible to governance mechanisms, and therefore hotbeds of subversion — increasingly visible and open to cheap, large-scale economic and political exploitation. This exploitation takes the form of attention mining, and is the end-game on the path to what I called Peak Attention a while back.

In the ’90s I had a face-to-face conversation with a physicist with whom I shared a subculture connection. We talked about how much could be safely considered private online. He felt that the shear volume of traffic and the careful avoidance of obvious trigger words could ensure staying under the radar.

As Rao argues, fifteen years later that is no longer the case. If you think anything you send across the interwebs is private, you’re sorely mistaken.

From Mother Jones:

When Daniels first took a job at Growing Home, his friends laughed at him. “I guess it was considered feminine,” he said, shrugging. He showed me the garden he’s created in the backyard of his grandmother’s home. Last fall, he planted garlic, and soon he’ll plant collard and mustard greens, okra, tomato, bell peppers, and cucumbers. (He’s now learning to can.) “It takes my mind away from everything else,” he told me. “It’s so crazy. When I was away [in prison], I was surrounded by fields of corn and soy. Who knew?” He laughed. He’s helping some of his neighbors build gardens in their backyards, though many don’t have the room. One of the vacant lots on his block is so large it used to accommodate four homes. One small corner of it, an area the size of a swimming pool, has been mowed by a neighbor, a seemingly futile effort in a field of weeds that have been left untended so long they’ve become small trees. “Sometimes people just give up,” Daniels said, “and they say, ‘I don’t want to be a part of nothing.'” He paused. “If we could get that land, it would give people some hope.”

Mano Singham writes:

And yet, news reports say that some people were repeating this experience even after suffering burns the first time. This is what happens when woo is allowed to proliferate and people take it seriously. Fire-walking does not give evidence of religious devotion or the power of mind over matter. The only thing it demonstrates is the power of woo over good sense.

I have a friend who did this years ago and she considered the experience to be empowering and amazing. I wondered if she would say the same of living to tell the tale of pulling the trigger in Russian Roulette?

Shortly after my 17th birthday, Cat Stevens released Catch Bull At Four and the first song on the album was Sitting. In my full blown, dark moments of the soul/adolescent angst self, that song was what I played over and over and over.

Sitting now in the dark, I find myself thrown back to those moments, wondering, am I still on my way?

David Eagleman writes:

In contrast, a person with psychopathy often flies below the radar, revealing nothing unusual. He can perfectly capable of getting through a graduate program without triggering red flags. And his behavior in the theater—shooting victims serially, calmly, and randomly—has the flavor of a psychopath more than a person suffering from, say, a schizophrenic delusion of persecution.

As more data emerge about Holmes’ past and present, the question of his mental condition will be clarified. Of course, his problem could be something other than psychosis or psychopathy.

One suspect in bizarre acts like this is the presence of drugs (specifically, psychoactive drugs—those that effect the brain and can change cognition and behavior). But a drug-induced mental break seems less likely given his long-term pre-planning.

Another root of incomprehensible behavior can be a brain tumor, such as the dime-sized tumor impinging on the amygdala of Charles Whitman, the University of Texas tower shooter in 1966. Let me be clear that I see a brain tumor as an extremely low probability explanation in Holmes’ case, but it should be checked-out for completeness.

One does not have to be a neuroscientist to surmise that something is wrong with Holmes’ brain—but it matters what the problem turns out to be. The answer navigates his possible outcomes in court.

It will be months, if not years, before we know and I expect that by that time James Holmes will be a gauzzy memory to society.

David Eagleman is the author of Incognito: The Secret Lives Of The Brain.

Murtaza Hussain writes:

For Israel, a state that has always been tenacious and aggressive in combatting perceived delegitimisation from abroad, the most dangerous threat to its continued political integrity might today be engineered by its own right-wing government.

Recently, the Levy Commission, a blue-ribbon panel of Israeli jurists commissioned by Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu’s government to determine the legal status of the Palestinian West Bank, came back with findings and recommendations that represent a potential sea change in Israeli policy in the ongoing conflict. In contrast to mainstream legal opinion as well as the recognised position of the international community, including Israeli allies such as the US and EU, the Commission’s inquiry came back with the unprecedented finding that in fact there is no occupation of Palestinian lands and that the continued construction of settlement outposts, viewed as one of the major roadblocks to a negotiated peace agreement with the Palestinians, is in fact wholly legal both in the future and retroactively.

More than a dozen years ago, while working on a Master’s degree at the Cleveland College of Jewish Studies, I wrote a paper making the case that Israel ought to either immediately annex all of the territory gained as a result of war or withdraw completely from those lands.

My preference at the time, and, I must confess still, was that the former made a lot more sense than the latter and that continuing to sit on the fence in deference to international opinion made no sense for the State of Israel.

Granted, this is only the report of a commission, but Hussain makes a good case for the likelyhood of full implementation. He also does a good job of laying out the likely consdquences.

None of which matters because Israel is, and is very likely to remain, the sole nuclear power in the region. There will not be another Six Day or Yom Kippur war because, thanks to Israel’s submarine fleet, the nation now has second-strike capability and if Jerusalem falls, the capitals of every attacking force will be a likely target.

From Slate:

All the evidence we have, every single indicator, is that … this is all Mr. Holmes’ activity and that he wasn’t particularly [emphasis mine, JH] aided by anyone else,” [Aurora, Colorado, Police Chief Daniel] Oates said.

So, Chief Oates, who generally opened the door to allow James Holmes to enter the theater?

Gretchen Morgenson writes:

[Neil Barofsky’s] story is illuminating, if deeply depressing. We tag along with Mr. Barofsky, a former federal prosecutor, as he walks into a political buzz saw as the special inspector general for TARP. Government officials, he says, eagerly served Wall Street interests at the public’s expense, and regulators were captured by the very industry they were supposed to be regulating. He says he was warned about being too aggressive in his work, lest he jeopardize his future career.

And so Mr. Barofsky, who formerly prosecuted Colombian drug lords as an assistant United States attorney in New York City, is schooled in the ways of Washington. One telling vignette comes early on in his book, when he is advised by inspectors general in other agencies about how to do his job.

As Mr. Barofsky writes, he had assumed that his assignment to oversee TARP meant that he should be fiercely independent from the Treasury Department, and vigilant against waste, fraud and abuse. But after canvassing other inspector generals for guidance, he writes, he learned of different priorities: maintaining and possibly increasing budgets, appearing to be active — and not making enemies.

Glenn Greenwald tweeted: The NYT’s Gretchen Morgenson calls Neil Barofsky’s new whistle-blowing book a “must-read” – so is her review.

Barofsky’s book is important and if you know nothing about the skullduggery of the past four years (or if you think the bailout of the banks was the right action to take) you should read the book, but what Morgenson’s review tells me is that the book would reinforce and not challenge what I already know and my knowledge in this area doesn’t need reinforcing.

I want to constantly call what I know into question, to chip away at my defenses, not continuously raise my walls around me higher.

Mike Adams, editor of NaturalNews writes:

More and more, this shooting is looking like a deliberate plot staged by the government itself much like Operation Fast and Furious pulled off by the ATF which helped smuggle tens of thousands of guns into Mexico for the purpose of causing “gun violence” in the USA, then blaming the Second Amendment for it.

All this looks like James Holmes completed a “mission” and then calmly ended that mission by surrendering to police and admitting everything. The mission, as we are now learning, was to cause as much terror and mayhem as possible, then to have that multiplied by the national media at exactly the right time leading up the UN vote next week on a global small arms treaty that could result in gun confiscation across America.

Even Forbes.com wrote about this quite extensively, warning readers about the coming gun confiscation effort related to the UN treaty. The story was authored by Larry Bell and says the UN treaty could “override our national sovereignty, and in the process, provide license for the federal government to assert preemptive powers over state regulatory powers guaranteed by the Tenth Amendment in addition to our Second Amendment rights.”

In other words, this has all the signs of Fast & Furious, Episode II. I wouldn’t be surprised to discover someone in Washington was behind it all. After all, there’s no quicker way to disarm a nation and take total control over the population than to stage violence, blame it on firearms, then call for leaders to “do something!” Such calls inevitably end up resulting in gun confiscation, and it’s never too long after that before government genocide really kicks in like we saw with Hitler, Stalin, Pol Pot, Mao and other tyrants.

…[T]hose who kept a food diary lost twice as much weight as those who used other techniques. It also helps to record how many calories are in the food, although that’s notoriously tricky to estimate. p. 232

I credit my loss of 80 pounds (189.4 pounds this morning) principly to two factors: first, weighing myself every morning and keeping a detailed food journal. My doctors agree. JH

From Willpower: Rediscovering the Greatest Human Strength by Roy Baumeister and John Tierney

Previously…

Found in my electronic chapbook.

I feel the same way about all of the foods and beverages I consume. I like my coffee black and my Bourbon straight because I like the taste of both. Why put any substance in your mouth if you have to disquise the taste?