Writers Dilemma

 How do I write anything as horrifying or ridiculous as reality? When we tell stories we want to interest you. We fear the trite and banal. 

There was a child, Shane Tamura, who played football in high school. Later he decided that resultant brain injury had ruined his life. Being an American he got a rifle to shoot up NFL headquarters. But he got confused and shot up the wrong office. Did he laugh before he killed himself? Was he careful not to shoot his head?

Another child, Dick Cheney, decided he wasn’t cut out for lineman, academics or the law and went into government. He successfully supported executive expansion only to see the clown become president. The irony only apparent to him at the end of his life.

Charlie Kirk, a debate me bro raised prodigious money argued that we must have guns and being consistent, that meant that people would be killed for their opinions.  A fan agreed with him.

The worst court decision ever made. Supreme Court has decided that the president can have the court, themselves, killed. Even if it is legal, why would you say it?

Steve Miller, a red diaper baby caught in leftist divisions rejecting neo liberal reforms that perpetuate empire comes to the accelerationist view that you must make things worse to bring the revolution.

A nation so enamored of its entertainment and inured to obfuscation that it builds homes resembling stage sets and identifies with ridiculous protagonists. It’s bad enough that we completely miss the message of movies, adaptations of books purposely mislead for marketability. The point of The Natural was that everyone sells out. When the movie had a happy ending it reinforced the message of the book. If the movie had been faithful, it would have been a refutation. Likewise, the newest adaptation of Wuthering Heights can’t have a dark-skinned protagonist. By failing the movies are perversely faithful to the original works. Just as everyone should have the experience of firing a gun, everyone should attempt to write a story and realize that authors are playing dolls with characters they may actively dislike.

Just as Stephen Douglas brought on the Civil War, Hilary Clinton savagely defeated the socialists then sponsored the clown in a Manichean scheme to destroy the Republican party. She may succeed at the expense of the empire she professed to support.  

Is managed trade or unitary executive justification for physical correction?

All grist to the mill, you might say. But how far can reality stretch credulity?

Personality vs Materialism

 

Historian’s emphasis on leadership and the decisions leaders make ignores the ordinary material facts surrounding those decisions. These histories of leadership over circumstance are favored by those in power and their subordinates. Material conditions are ignored in favor of personalities. This personification obscures the obvious. But there are moments in history where individuals made the difference. Here are some possibilities:

Another obscured area is who the decision makers are. The Hamilton musical based on Ron Chernow’s biography attempts to redress this by giving glory to a functionary. But ignores that Alexander Hamilton was working for Robert Morris. Hamilton was on Washington’s staff, representing Morris. Thank heavens he was there to summon Morris when Washington, scared of heading south, was about to attack New York rather than Yorktown. Morris paid to transport Washingtons army to Yorktown. Imagine how the French would have felt if we hadn’t supported them at Yorktown. Washington was the Virginia general in the north. Benjamin Lincoln was the Massachusetts general in the south and Lincoln got his butt handed to him by the English General Henry Clinton.

Washington had a penchant for losing battles. The Patriots victories were usually under other commands or despite Washington. Washington was the last American General who understood attrition. Having worked for the English, Washington was properly terrified that they would send over the thug who would arm slaves in the south and burn granaries in the north. Washington wanted to keep the English generals he had. The English learned from this colonial rebellion and were far more ruthless in later conflicts. If you doubt the English could have won the American Rebellion, I give you South Africa, India, China, Ireland, and the Napoleonic Wars.

There are financial reasons for the American Rebellion and eventual victory. But the reason the British were soaking their colonies was to pay for the Seven Years War that Washington started. The British feared that colonial greed would lead to slave insurrection, indigenous uprising, and further international conflicts.

Another example of leadership making the difference is the succession of Roosevelt by Truman. Wars are decided after the battles. The loss of Roosevelt changed history. Truman took responsibility for Hiroshima and Nagasaki. But Truman was a reluctant warrior compared to Roosevelt.  Why drop atomic bombs to just turn around and accept the surrender that Japan had been offering for months?

Japan wanted to keep its emperor and Parliament:

-screw our nation, emperor comes first.

Roosevelt wasn’t interested. Roosevelt wanted unconditional surrender. When Truman got disgusted and took the deal, he proclaimed it as unconditional, it wasn’t. Roosevelt would have dropped the third bomb that was on its way, used the nerve gas we had stockpiled, invited in the Russians, and then invaded. Roosevelt may have even provided the Russians with transport.

Just as in partitioned Europe, when the waves got going of Japanese choosing who they were surrendering to, our casualties would have been a lot smaller than currently estimated. Imagine the emperor deciding which way he was running.

A partitioned Japan may have distracted Russia from Korea. Or Roosevelt may have also turned over Korea. It is said that dropping the bombs was a warning to Russia. Americans were far more disgusted with England. Britain dragged us into two world wars and obviously couldn’t manage Europe. That was our fault as well, but it couldn’t be US, must be the British. Demonstrating the fate of an indomitable island fortress in modern warfare might convince England to pack that empire up.

Roosvelt would not have allowed the French back in Indochina. Using our offshore carriers and bases in China, USA had just bombed Vietnam into starvation in support of communist Ho Chi Minh. Ho wanted Vietnam to be the Yugoslavia of Indochina, an ally of Russia and the US, a bulwark against China. The influential Nationalists running Taiwan were not impressed.  Ho Chi Minh was another in a long line of American stooges who turned against us.

Eisenhower can be seen as a return to Roosevelt’s policies ending European empire. Eisenhower stopped Israel, France and England from seizing the Suez. Israel wouldn’t exist without Truman. Roosevelt would have seen Israel as a British puppet.  

Historians fail to understand how large financial value is, as against revenue, when considering material conditions. It is difficult to appreciate how vulnerable individuals are to influence. Usually, by the time of decision the choice is obvious. Yet there are moments when we surprise ourselves. 

We don’t seem to appreciate how serious a boob president is. We have had worse presidents. Many of them had intellectual or personality faults. But no president has such an overwhelming ignorance of propriety. It is difficult to find a particular affront that is outside our history.  But they are affronts, one after another.

US empire, as all empires before us, survives on sufferance. A sort of show me better. If you are a leader or an investor at some point you will be insulted and decisions will be made. I hate the neo-neos: neocons, neolibs defending our empire, but it would be nice to dismantle things politely, instead of bringing it crashing down.

Abortion Revisited

 

Lindsay Ellis, in her YouTube video, recently said the bible didn’t reference abortion. This isn’t true. It is not explicit, but there is the bitter water ordeal.  If your wife was unfaithful, you dragged her and her lover into the road, and everyone stoned them to death. If you weren’t sure, you could drag her to the Priest and there she was subjected to the ordeal of bitter water where she would drink a concoction that, hopefully, proved her fidelity. It reads like nonsense until you realize that it is read to the entire congregation, men women and children, once a year. What is being passed on is a recipe for ergot, rotted millet, which causes miscarriage. A dangerous practice, there are much better methods today. The Greeks made use of an herb.

I have another blog posting about my time as an admitting clerk before and after the miracle of legal abortion.  While working the midnight shift, I had time to consider if the bible explicitly dealt with women who did not want their children. Again, the bible seems lacking. Moses abandonment is in the mythic tradition of explaining that the protagonist wasn’t raised right and didn’t know how to behave. Solomon was an idiot. The real mom would rather see her child killed. The spilling seed prohibition is a plea for women’s conception autonomy. If you can’t deny her, can you force her? If you must talk fruitful and multiply, that was us, not you. The best I could find was the story of Isaac. In Babylon the story was collected of a Phoenician who rejected his people and lived in the hinterlands. Part of this was rejecting the sacrifice of the first born, big step forward. Monotheism encourages personal responsibility. God spared Isaac. There is also the prohibition of idolatry. If God did not demand such a sacrifice, then who can? Abortion should not be trivial.

Similarly, we do not worship the idolatry of suffering. Perhaps considering this continuum can be of use. If not, forget I said anything. Talmud is stuffed with ancient rabbinic stupidity, and I hate to reference it. It has the argument that you can kill the pursuer, made use of in these circumstances.

 

There is also the prayer going back before Jews, writing or even language:

-Thank God I am not a woman.

Thank God I am not a woman, and I don’t have to make that decision. Didn’t say it was a good religion

When I was an admitting clerk, some poor young woman in some godawful place like Kentucky or Tennessee had received a tubal ligation because she was mentally incompetent. At that point Illinois decided that we were not paying for tubal ligation for anyone under 21. I didn’t give that much thought.

A patient asked me if it were true:

-I heard the same thing.

-That means I’ll have 3 more kids.

Whenever people argue from common sense or practicality, I’m doubtful.  For instance, if you are talking adoption, you are young or you forgot. The last orphanage in Chicago, Angel Guardian, closed in 1969. Before that there were lots of kid warehouses. The reason you can smugly talk adoption is because of abortion and birth control. Even now not everyone is adopted.

HFBD

Someday you’ll die

Someday you’ll die

No need to cry

All gonna die

 

One year more

Till the last

Never know

When it's past

 

Enjoy the day

Might as well

Laugh and play

Meet in hell

 

On your birthday

Have your fun

One more year

Till you’re done

 

Throw your body

In the lake

Put up a plaque

You know is fake

 

Throw your body

In the ground

Somewhere it

Can not be found

 

Throw your body

Incinerator

Lose the ashes

Sooner or later

 

No one remembers

Who you were

Why it mattered

What you wore

 

The past is taken

Without its sense

Memory lost

In present tense

 

Did it matter

Did it count

Just a little

Any amount?

 

How much harm

Did you do?

Would it help

If you knew?

 

Did you increase

Population?

Create more bodies for

Conflagration

 

Pulled it off

Took the fall

Ripped them off

Lost it all

 

Were you dull?

Did you amuse?

Why would we

Search for clues?

 

If you weren't

The world goes on

Happy birthday

Enjoy the song

 

Cha cha cha 

Betty Mooney MacDonald

 

I have wasted so much time on this goofy JFK assassination. If you are a serious person with a meaningful life, read no further. One obvious issue is the Warren Commission files. Almost every presidential candidate assures the public they will release the files. Once they are elected, they, or some person reviews the files and refuses. What could be so embarrassing, silly, or whatever that no one wants to reveal it decades later? Chances are if you or I reviewed the files we wouldn’t want it released either. Bad Babbling Babar is purported to have said this. Oswald, returned Russian defector, shot the president. Would nearly blowing up the world be sufficient embarrassment? Even with the latest vast dump, there are unreleased documents.

There was a Dallas comedian who talked about the Onassis love triangle. If you marry the guy, it is romance not pornography. It is always the spouse, but I don’t think Jackie was in on the assassination. She had good reason to debrief. Jackie might have felt guilt about that. When her second husband, got abusive, she might have got some help as payback. Would that do it? Whatever theory you come to; one criterion must be that it is intensely embarrassing.

Up till now I have confined these speculations behind a paywall, books: How to Replace a Kitchen Faucet and Conspiracy 101. I won’t drag you through all that. It is not proof of conspiracy but there are a lot of unidentified other guys:

·      Another guy with Oswald shooting at Walker.

·      Other guy with Oswald meetings with Cubans.

·      Other guy with Oswald at the gun range.

·      Two other guys with Oswald in Mexico City.

·      Maybe another guy at the depository.

·      Maybe a woman on the stair at the depository.

·      Shooter on top of the depository.

·      Possibility of the shooter in the other building across the way.

·      Two of the three hobos.

·      Maybe one or two other guys when Tippit is shot.

·      Maybe an Oswald lookalike at the cinema.

Why not release the list of everyone who bought that Carcano rifle from the mail order? How many could it be? I would be looking for a purchase of 5 or 10 after Hidell bought his. They were only twenty dollars each. Police would hate this because there is coincidence. Someone might be checking that it could reach, how consistent the bullet markings are, they could repack the rounds, use a better scope, fragmenting bullets, add a suppressor.

I have personally seen the grassy knoll. There is no way you can squeeze trainyard workers on the bridge, Zapruder and an unremarked sniper on that tiny grassy knoll. Fuck the grassy knoll.

-If it won’t fit, you must acquit.

Too bad, I had some dialogue for the shooters. If there was a fourth shot it was the Secret Service firing a tumbling AR15 from the following car, finishing off (or missing) Kennedy as courtesy, malice or accident. The Secret Service had some rough humor after the Reagan shooting.

I suppose you could put the three hoboes behind the wall, giving each other cover. One of them pops the rifle for a moment and shoots down on the motorcade while everyone is looking at Kennedy. Then a car comes by and gets the rifle. Would you plan like that? No witness has said there was anyone behind the wall. A more reasonable possibility is that all these people were intended as security, flooding the zone for Kennedy and embarrassed that it failed.

If there were other snipers you are going to have to squeeze them in somewhere else and they were shooting at each other with suppressors. Say they had tested the customized rifle but when it was fired the round didn’t make it out the barrel. Maybe they successfully shot the opposing assassin in the building across the way. Maybe they just tried to shoot him. That would have pissed him off. A CIA double cross? I must be mistaken. Maybe they shot the mobster on the roof of the depository. Maybe they tried to shoot Oswald. I really wanted Johnson to have Connally shot first.

The RFK mob prosecutions could have just been a mob layoff, a generational change. I had thought the mob was cleaning up and shot Oswald. I am attached to the idea that the mob shook down the Russians and LBJ for the cleanup. Since it looks like the mob, must be the FBI. Maybe Johnson didn’t trust the mob. Even if Oswald was on his own, Johnson might have wanted him killed to avoid him running his mouth. Jack Ruby was a night club owner and FBI informant. Imagine the mob and the government told you to do something. I hate all these theories that deny Oswald agency. Let Oswald shoot somebody.

They can’t even agree on how many bullets are in Kennedy’s head. I think Oswald shot Tippit because he was having trouble getting the diffident officer to arrest him and then realized that trying to convince Tippit gave himself away.

Dallas deserves more inquiry. Maybe if you could find the right person and ask the right question. As an example: I used to be a programmer at Wards Insurance, over the store on State in Chicago. An actuary had taken up programming for himself. His program had broken and he was carrying his abnormal end listing around asking for help. I was working and ignored him. After a day or so he came to me and described his debugging effort:

Me-Let me see the source listing.

A-There’s nothing wrong with the source.

He returned with the source.

Me-You didn’t code this parameter.

A-You don’t have to code that.

He came back later:

A-Why didn’t you tell me?

Me-You didn’t ask.

Dallas itself is sick of this. There’s a Lee Harvey bar, a Jack Ruby bar (no dancers), and Pegasus brewery offers 6^th floor beer. Is there someone in Dallas who would know or might they direct you to the right person if you were polite? It might be dangerous. Maybe because it’s embarrassing. There have been some events. Send Geraldo. If someone were to tell us, would we believe them?

If you are down In Dallas anyway look up the MacDonald lady, or whatever her name was. I defy you to find one documented fact about her. She doesn’t fit in anything. She smells operational. Why give an alibi for that poor schnook even if it is true? I’m guessing it has something to do with going overboard with the FBI clean up. A bookend to Marylin Monroe. If I must guess, and I guess I do, MacDonald might be another FBI informant. FBI got mad at her interfering with their operation. Since they knew her, they knew it was likely she would kill herself when she was locked up.

I think the JFK assassination started as a Kennedy stunt that got hijacked, would that be enough embarrassment? Everyone is considering the idea that the attempts on our Elephant Emperor were stunts to get more votes. Cutting his own ear could be a wrestlers move. Melania wanted to know why the police couldn’t do their job and get a child they had twice reported into a car. Police threw me and my friends in a car just fine. The Secret Service sniper team was premature and unexpected. They were supposed to be brought in after the nomination. Secret Service had a tip. Times have changed. Even if the Tufted Tyrants shootings were stunts, that didn’t change many votes. Even if I could have proven they were stunts it wouldn’t have changed many votes. 

It is hard to believe how we used to fear shame.

Conspiracy seems untenable without Kennedy involvement. With all the other guys around Oswald, at least one of them was a plant, which means there was a control. Hijacking the Kennedy stunt would be natural as well as the control collecting from South Vietnam through Nixon and Johnson through the CIA.

Sorry I dragged you into this. Hope I didn’t endanger anyone.

Phonics

 

I am surprised that this issue is still in question. When I was taught the preferred teaching method was called “look see”. It relied on memory to read. I admit not much works with boys and almost anything seems to work with girls. Girls have more brain connections or something and they don’t seem as affected by fetal alcohol. Or maybe girls figure out phonics on their own. In any case mom got disgusted and got me a tutor who taught phonics. I had to do workbooks. Blue birds were the lowest reading group in class. I moved from blue bird over red bird to yellow bird and never looked back.

I’ve already posted about reading aloud and using grids rather than flash cards. But ignoring the phonetic basis of written English is perverse. Later Sesame Street seemed to have settled the issue and I was relieved.

I didn’t realize the nonsense was back. Now it is called “whole language”. Children are supposed to use the “language of context” to somehow intuit words rather than sounding them out. I admit when you currently read you are unaware of any underlying phonics process. But it is ridiculous to expect someone to master the quantity of knowledge required without the tool that will give you that knowledge.

Why do teachers hate phonics? What is there about the process that is so distasteful to them? It is the pain and suffering buried in the construction of English. Each inconsistency contains history. If you actually look at the language, as children do, the stench of barbarism, wickedness and conquest seeps out.

Teachers don’t want to explain the Phoenician empire wiped out by the Romans over infanticide. The conquests by Rome and the Normans. Billy the Bully. The slaughters and famines brought by empires. Slavery. Serfdom. The English empire itself. The language of the oppressor.

Q-Where did English come from?

A-People killing and starving each other.

Q-Why don’t the words follow the rules?

A-We used to talk like that and kept the spelling.

Q-Why do people talk funny?

A-They want to be special.

A-Just like the playground. Good guys sometimes lose. People aren’t the same.

Teachers are pushing the “language of context” to avoid discussing the context of language.

If your little darling is having trouble, there’s lots of phonics YouTube videos. If they still have trouble, get rid of the televisions, they will learn to read. Everybody needs stories.

If you know how to read and write, you can escape.

Rebuild Los Angeles

Start with fire. You are going to build a fireproof house. Once you have a plan to build a fireproof Los Angeles house build an architectural model using the same materials, say an aluminum foil roof etc. Then take a blow torch and hold it to your model for a day. Dena means valley, Pasadena, Altadena…A valley is a wind tunnel.

Say you have a surviving model. Then blast it with your garden hose, raising the water level to half the level of your model. Desert valleys flood. Make sure your model is somehow anchored, so it doesn’t float or slip away. Check your model for mold. The seals on your model must survive fire and flood.

Then take a large pail of gravel and dump the gravel from some height on the steel framed model with the fancy Swiss made seals. Valleys also have rockslides. Make sure your model can withstand the landslide without moving.

After that, take the entire diorama, including the model, lift it up and bang it on the table as hard as you can. Earthquake proof means the house holds together long enough for you to escape.

If you have such a house and you have somehow convinced a company to give insurance, the question remains: why would you want to?

                           ****************

In the news, I have noticed that the houses are gone, and the lawns are green. What this suggests to me is that people turned on their sprinklers before they left. One person even “put their hose on their eaves”. If everyone did this that explains the loss of water pressure. They saved their lawns and lost their houses.

Don’t put propane tanks, eucalyptus trees, electric cars or lawns in the path of a fire.

There are also the drones. People are flying drones to survey the desolation, catch some cool video of planes dousing the fire and see if the alerts are correct. Then the water planes can’t fly because of drones in their way.

It is expected that people are first warned if the fire is nearby, giving them time to get ready and then told to evacuate, jamming the exits. Treat this like a hurricane, people should evacuate on the warnings.  Instead of lugging valuables, have a fireproof safe.

If you can’t get insurance that is unacceptable risk. When insurance companies raised premiums or cancelled coverage, they told the world months before that this was going to happen. If the insurance company won’t take the bet, why should you?

Condescending Saviors

 

I wrote this shortly after the Democratic Convention:

This recent convention solidified five deficiencies of the Democratic Party. Rather than addressing these well-known criticisms, the liberal elite, the party owned them with a nice helping of Jingo.

One is their use of the term middle class. Looking down from the upper I suppose what they see is the middle class. I wrote about class in my book, Another Data Processing Book. In US land we have nine classes, a tic tac toe board, upper, middle and lower both ways:

Upper upper	Middle upper	Lower upper
Upper middle	Middle middle	Lower middle
Upper lower	Middle lower	Lower lower

 

Most of us are middle-lower and lower-lower. There is a big bulb at the bottom with a long tail stretching out into the distance. Somewhere on that tail you can parse out a small segment that contains the population middle-middle. We aren’t in it, and we know that. I haven’t found the middle class all that amenable to my company and I’m okay with that. Democrats use the term middle class as aspiration. Perhaps they are squeamish, if there is a middle, then there must be an upper and lower, but those terms are too offensive. It is disorienting to use the word middle without lower and upper. The disposition of wealth does not fall into a bell curve and that should be an advantage to Democrats. The middle-class votes for Orange Jesus.

Second is the use of the term workers. When we think of workers, we think of unions. For most of us, unions mean we can’t get jobs. We aren’t in the 11%. To raise wages, you must reduce hiring. Occasionally we get sucked into organizing efforts that end disastrously. Boycotts, wildcats and new trade unions are illegal. Companies are fined and unions imprisoned. Again, Democrats aspire; we live here. Union people are often middle class.

Third is the argument that we should do it for mom. MAGA base hates its mom. I’m not saying they are wrong. Mom didn’t think much of them. When mom doesn’t make you special, you find other justification.

Fourth is the subsidies. I’m not talking about services but subsidies. If everyone got something, no one got it. Mortgage interest deduction is a good example. The deduction means banks charge homeowners more interest. As Adam Smith explained, if ministers get free tuition, there will be too many ministers for churches to hire. Subsidizing home buying makes housing more expensive. If tips were tax free, we would tip our lawyers. If everyone has a college degree, it is not a distinction. We all know this.

Fifth, we need to end our empire. It’s too great a sacrifice and too expensive. Take Gaza, please. US and Qatar interest in Gaza is preventing the development of Gaza Marine, Thirteen something trillion something cubic something times whatever. Qatar is now our junior partner selling natural gas to Europe and neither of us want a large gas field selling to our market. Texas is giving natural gas away and Europe is buying. That is why the US is recovering so well. That is why we blew up the pipeline.  US and Qatar favor any policy that delays development. Stooge is a subset of chump. It is cunning, it is also dumb. US produces the most oil, we won, we’re the OPEC. Why should it be US ruining the world to make a buck? All empires fall. Let’s go out with more style. If you don’t share, no one will play with you.

This doesn’t mean we should hire an idiot to run the country. The first time the babbling baboon ran they didn’t bother with a platform. Since there were no stated objectives and who would want to work for him, they just made a mess. The Project 2025 document begins by acknowledging the mess. This time Republicans created a ridiculous and defensive platform, they hate immigrants, trans and poor people. Republicans hire the undocumented. They put on a big show, but they hate the documented immigrants who will someday vote. Abortion is only illegal for poor people in stupid states. Republicans know that they are so hateful that people become trans to avoid being gay. Hateful and rich doesn’t make it legitimate. Republicans don’t understand they are giving away the game. You can’t govern without legitimacy.

Bobs court is an embarrassment. Each decision is worse, with no pretense of sense or justification. Cleaning up this mess will require constitutional amendments. Most idiotic in the history of courts is giving the president free reign. Mealy mouthed as it was, the court did not write an opinion to restrain the president. The decision provides a silly framework to justify any executive decision. In principle, our president could order Bobs killed. Bobs is corrupt, it’s in the national interest and it’s an official act.

There was a US citizen running around Yemen running his mouth. The president ordered him killed. Then we killed his sixteen-year-old son. The first two were killed with missiles. Then the next president ordered a ground operation to kill his five-year-old daughter and the family taking care of her. Presidents have little fear of prosecution. There is no reason to make that official.

Government is all in the wrist. It almost doesn’t matter what the policy is if it is executed well and conversely how good it is if executed poorly. Democrats mean well, or at least profess good intentions. A president must come in with about four thousand people or at least 400 who can each bring ten. Even if fat and furious made sense, he doesn’t have the people. Would you work for him? Look what happened to the ones that did. Six months doesn’t give much pension. Do you want Island of Misfit Toys on your resume?

Obama handled three epidemics. El Pompadour couldn’t get an appropriation for the vaccines. Instead, they drained the government research budget. Government research is where the future comes from. That set us back at least ten years.

Troll in chief privatized government intelligence. Our government intelligence is temps.

When someone announces they are an idiot, they are a one issue voter, or undecided they give away the argument and they can’t state their true reasons. Hope they are not registered. There is nothing wrong with being either liberal or elite if you deliver. If only more poor people voted. If only more poor people voted in the primaries. The harder it is to vote, the more it matters.

Voting for the gibbering gibbon won’t keep black people out of your neighborhood. You know that. Persecuting poor women in stupid states doesn’t stop abortion. This is a democracy. Eventually abortion will be unequivocally legal; we’re sick of your shit. Ending abortion doesn’t stop women working. No one wants to marry your stupid ugly kid. You know that too. You are not going to bring down the American empire. The American empire will end when it’s good and ready and it won’t be because of losers like you. All you have done is make another mess that everyone else will have to clean up, just like every time before.

Rock is dead.

Kind of fun. But then I wonder if I was telling you anything. Would this have any effect? Would it be positive?

It is yet another vestige of slavery that such a small plurality, less than 2,500,000 votes, produces so dramatic an advantage. There were only about 6 million registered voters that didn’t vote.

When training a police officer or prison guard someone has the responsibility of explaining to them that if they are taken hostage, it is possible that they will be the first target of the police sniper. This policy became obvious at the Attica Prison uprising. This minimizes casualties. Porky’s 47 cracks about Hannibal Lecter are a juvenile reference to the Isreal Hannibal directive that informed the Israeli people that they are all prison guards. Juvenile slyness targets a demographic.

Incels affect a depraved exploitative homosexuality. Orange Julius fellatio references was for their benefit.

There is no reasoning with MAGA. Biden cut bait in Afghanistan, not Don John. Big Greasy jailing children and sending their parents back to die insulted the Mexican undocumented and they quit coming. The fruit rotted, stores closed on Mondays and there are more jobs. That combined with Double O zero raising oil prices and Covid supply shocks without the undocumented to cushion them, brought inflation. Admittedly Mexico doesn’t seem to have street gutters, and they use adobe not brick, wait till they are arguing in front of the Supreme Court. It is wrong to let Cubans run Catholic charities. East Orthodox handled their federal money. We haven’t quite made it, but if we can survive the Irish, we can survive anything. Except for 9/11 Muslims are Irish lite.

MAGA likes undocumented. The undocumented work for MAGA. MAGA is not going to round up and deport its own undocumented. It is the people in the system, paying taxes, workmen’s comp, social security, that will someday vote who MAGA targets. Whatever rationalization MAGA offers, it ends with voting for His Hugeness.

MAGA doesn’t care about any of this. They don’t care about the price of eggs. They hate women, blacks, and themselves. Whatever talking point they throw, there is no way that Rumbo will deliver, except for keeping a woman out of the White House.

You can’t change people’s minds. What you can do is bring in new constituencies. My mom helped win an aldermanic by registering students in 1959. Big Cheeto’s success in 2016 was bringing his audience into the Republican party. Kind of like converting the King of the Khazars.  Jews quit proselytizing after that. Bidens victory was due to the Democratic snap back, more new Democrats registered than Republicans. Each election registered more voters. This election the Republicans found incels and enough women want their pussy grabbed. Besides running a woman, the Democratic mistake was concentrating all that resource on the existing voting base rather than registering more voters. Taylor Swift and Beyonce can’t overwhelm the incels by themselves. Someday we may run out of unregistered, but for now even Democrats should have found constituencies amongst the more than 80 million. Showing voter registration should be obligatory at concerts, events, demonstrations and family gatherings.

The Business School at University of Chicago just made the argument that we vote for Democrats when times are bad and Republicans when we feel prosperous. This is in line with Adam Smith’s view of the constant cycle between ruination and salvation in democracies. It was said that Democrats must be bought, and Republicans are already there. Everybody is bought. The difference is that Democrats seek consensus, and Republicans think they are right.

It is almost impossible to believe that “can you get me 11,000 votes” and electric Musk didn’t steal the election. There is the Adamowski argument. Adamowski was the Cook County States Attorney in 1959. Daley got Republicans to trade him away for Nixon votes. Since the States Attorney is supposed to police elections, if he can’t do his job he doesn’t get to keep it. If the election is stolen from incumbents, they are incompetent. Again, Democrat incumbents want an obvious plurality. Democrats are hurt that misogyny beats ability.

As to registered voters. I am going to state the obvious. During an election voters have power. The voters are deciding who to hire. We used to go door to door canvassing precincts to determine how people are going to vote. There is a quantum problem. Someone might say:

-I was going to vote for your candidate.

Canvassers should be short, elderly, and like your pet. One tactic is to ask people if they want to volunteer.  They don’t, but if they looked guilty, they were probably a plus. Once we contacted you and determined your preference, we did not contact you until election day. If you hadn’t voted we would helpfully remind you. If you were a minus or a zero, we didn’t want to remind you to vote. If you were a plus any further contact might change your mind.

Once we had experience in the precinct, we didn’t have to canvass everybody. There was the legendary Mrs. Isenberg of East Hyde Park who had five precincts. Voters knew when she was available to ask her how to vote if they weren’t sure. She may have occasionally canvassed if it was expected.

As I explained in an earlier post, I vote against anyone who robocalls me. Once you know I am voting for Harris and I am not donating money, any further contact may discourage me, even texts. The message Harris gave is that her campaign did not know who I am and has too much money. Just because I am voting for you doesn’t mean I should be pestered. Harris is the first candidate who wanted my donation more than my vote. Would you solicit money on a job interview? I would like to see a list of donors who did not vote.

The Democratic Party did fine out of this, everybody made money. Now they can stand back, and watch Republicans make another stinking mess. Grifter in Chief is already shaking the tariff money tree, looking for his taste, just as before with a wider scope. Please don’t ever say managed trade again. We need the free trade amendment. Put that on the list with ending the presidential pardon, abortion is legal amendment, dropping the second amendment, ERA, making federal election law an amendment, ending the Department of Labor, legalize drugs… The Democrats expect to come roaring back. After Big Bill Thompson Chicago is a Democratic city. Assuming there is another election. Mr. Microphone and the right wing Yippees denying legitimacy while owning the oil market invites a coup.

Franklin, Deane, and Washington

 

I was put off by the choppy narrative of Unlikely Allies by Joel Richard Paul. But it confirmed my view of conspiracy. A conspiracy is just a group of people who agree. Usually, it’s just someone alone in their motel, sucking on whatever, watching CNN saying:

-I guess that worked.

The book also highlighted how common it is to have infiltrators, provocateurs and opposition. Ben Franklin and Silas Deane understood and accepted that and still accomplished their objectives.

When Franklin finally arrived in Paris to support Deane he was wearing a fur hat. The narrative gives reasons but fails to mention that Franklin was also teasing the French about giving up Canada and its French citizens for Haiti after the Seven Years War. Franklin loved teasing and double entendre.  

In the book Arthur Lee is painted as the villain who falsely accused Dean. But where was Franklin? To have a case there should be a shortfall. Deane is unable to give account but Franklin had to know how much the French paid and how much the Patriots got. Why wasn’t Franklin screaming:

-How much was taken?

So there had to be a shortfall. The French were shy publicly saying what they sent. The Americans had to know what they spent their money on. Franklin’s silence damns Dean. Franklin had picked Deane as an envoy. But Deane shows no profit. He is penniless. Washington received the French funds. Washington was not penniless. Washington socked all his money into his plantation and land purchases. A common tactic when currency is suspect. His downfall was that the size and scope of Washington’s holdings made it difficult to collect rent. Washington was a Virginia Gentleman. Of course he was skimming. There is even a satirical picture, Washington Prays for His Troops. Washington is plump and prosperous while his troops starve. His horse stares at him from behind while Washington kneels.

The French Monarchy is portrayed as foolishly borrowing money to support the ideals of the American Revolution, seduced by their hatred of the English.  The promise of American trade, particularly tobacco, is ignored. It wasn’t realized that the Turks and Greeks would compete supplying tobacco to Europe. Everyone also failed to reckon with Thomas Jefferson. Jefferson was the next American Envoy. He and the trade minister, Lafayette, Jefferson’s best friend, failed to do the tobacco deal. Who would expect that Jefferson would act so diametrically against his own interests? Robert Morris came over to France to rescue the deal and Jefferson back stabbed him the whole way screaming:

-It’s not enough money.

Tobacco is addictive, you must establish your market. Jefferson may have been tipped by the Greeks, but it was also that from Jefferson’s position in the Virginia hierarchy, if everyone is busted then he is equal. Robert Morris thought he could have made it if he got the tobacco deal. The British captains begged Jefferson to do the deal, their ships were sitting at anchor.

Once everything caved in the Americans, in desperation, wrote the constitution to tax whiskey and give themselves enough revenue to borrow on. Washington owned a large distillery and favored the competitive advantage this gave him over the small farmers who brought whiskey over the mountains to trade. Washington had little scruple suppressing Shay’s rebellion of people who weren’t paying his rent and competed with his distillery.

Franklin must have realized that Washington was pocketing the French money. Franklin teases Washington about Washington’s lack of progeny. Franklin makes a big point of his happiness with his grandchildren and the gifting to Washington of his walking stick.

Even with the whiskey revenue, Washington was unable to get America another loan from the French. Washington had gone even handed on them earlier. So, Washington was told to grab his hat and not let the door hit him on the way out. His last act was bringing in John Adams to hold off Jefferson.

DNS Network Slow

 Kind of ridiculous to post on the internet about what to do when you lose access to the internet. I intend this as preemptive. Maybe you can help someone else.

I lost access to the internet with some obscure message about network service. When it breaks, turn it off. The message suggested that as well. Turned the provider gateway on and off, turned my PC on and off. Repeatedly. So, I called my provider and was trapped in the response tree. They even turned my gateway on and off themselves. Eventually I was in a chat text conversation with the providers Dennis who was also trapped in a response tree. It culminated with him sending me an email to confirm my identity. Since I couldn’t receive it on my PC, he was, in effect, instructing me to change providers.

Dennis sent me back to the providers original help phone number. My next-door neighbor had service. She has a different provider.

On reflection, it dawned on me that the problem was on my PC. Something like this once happened to me at work. I’d had to zero out my own IP address. In Windows 11 settings, I was prompted to restore DNS factory settings. That worked. Now I can’t find that prompt. Maybe because I don’t need it. If Windows 11 is that smart, why didn’t it fix itself?

It must have broke because some application got confused and ruined my settings. How many programmers does it take to screw in a light bulb? It’s a hardware problem.

Why US is Pissing on its Allies Again

Humans differentiate on location and association. We change location to meet association and change association to meet location. Two material conditions of the US constitution were taxing whiskey[i] and protecting slavery[ii]. The document is designed to frustrate popular will. Political parties are intended to ameliorate that frustration. We now have a small group of Republicans preventing the passage of a popular defense bill that contains appropriations for Ukraine and Israel.

America has always been a nation of divided loyalties. Some Americans have loyalty to Mother Russia. That is an influence. There is also a material cause.

Republicans focus on the border while ignoring immigration policy. Republicans like undocumented immigrants who know their place. Republicans terrorized the undocumented immigrant’s children when it looked like they may get status and eventually become voters. That’s when Mexicans got insulted and the fruit rotted on the ground and stores close on Mondays. Removal of the undocumented marginal base rate was the start of our new wage inflation. [iii]

Republicans don’t like refugees. Refugees have status. Refugees can’t just do as they are told, drive the truck or whatever because it endangers their status. Republican Catholic Charities make such a mess of Venezuelans and Cubans, with our tax money.[iv]

Ukrainians immigrate fine.

Our Mexicans have gotten funny:

-Hey I was undocumented. What makes you so special? This is America. This is how we do it.

Our immigration system screens for privileged, refugees, and lawbreakers.

US created the Venezuelan and Cuban refugees with our sanctions.[v]

Holding the border is futile. If we were serious about stopping undocumented, we would do what every other country does and go after their employers. We are not serious. We want our slaves. If our undocumented had status they would no longer be valuable.

The reason Congress is waving around this nonissue is they expect to get paid. US has already gotten what we came for: we are now the junior partner with Qatar supplying natural gas to Europe. That’s why we blew up the pipeline.[vi] That incentive is gone. The other incentive was arms sales.

Ukraine’s recent loss on the battle field did not receive the same publicity or doting analysis of its victories. Our stupid generals babbled about combined units, poor Ukraine listened and ran into Russian smart mines losing a lot of people.

Warfare has changed. Find a video of a shoulder launched missile. If that large rocket was still being aimed and fired as a bazooka, the operator would be a twisted cinder. Instead, the rocket pops out of the tube, drops slightly and then takes off. When the operator is aiming, they are giving the missile directions, the missile then knows what to do. The missile could circle the tank and knock on the hatch. They are keeping it shoulder launched just to be retro. Modern missiles, radio-controlled craft, programmable mines are only limited by programmers’ imagination and fuel.

Russia may not have the particular missile or whatever to take out our fancy weapons system, but someone will want to sell them some just to see if it works. Ukraine wants kits they can adapt to circumstance. Now that Ukraine has lost interest in buying expensive weapons systems to support combined units and our manufacturers don’t want their systems publicly popped killing sales, that Congressional incentive is also gone.

As to Israel. If there was stability Gaza Marine, a large natural gas field next to Gaza, close to Europe would be developed. US and Qatar are in no hurry for that competition.

With no one to grease the bill, Congress is sucking on a dry teat. Democrats accuse Republicans of losing Ukraine. This assumes the American public has that much memory. My guess is that Ukraine and Israel will do just fine without our help which is another embarrassment.

---

[i] Shay’s Rebellion

[ii] The Counter-Revolution of 1776: Slave Resistance and the Origins of the United States of America, Gerald Horne

[iii] The subsidies burned off.

[iv] https://www.catholicnewsagency.com/news/250369/catholicvote-border-catholic-charities-migrants

[v] NewReport: How U.S. Sanctions Aggravated Venezuela's Crisis (wola.org)

[vi] How America Took Out The Nord Stream Pipeline (substack.com)

14th Amendment

 Back when Chicago had winters, I once dragged myself through the slush into a travel agency and said:

-Get me out of here.

I hate to travel. There is some remarkable geology. In Lacrosse Wisconsin there are bluffs. There is a fun mix of prosaic and profane seeing people living on and around the bluffs.

There are also the plaques. In Pennsylvania there is mention of Jumonville. George Washington at the age of twenty murdered Jumonville causing the French and Indian War which lead to the Seven Years’ War, which lead to our revolution. The revolution was not popular, ask the Tories, who respected the king, paid their debts, and opposed slavery. 

The Evanston Illinois light house, built in 1873 after the North was freed of the South’s hatred of boondoggle. Why of all the stretches of sand along Lake Michigan was the light house built here? The light house was an emotional reaction to the sinking of the Lady Elgin in 1860. In Milwaukee there is a wonderful plaque explaining that the Irish on the Lady Elgin had it coming. The Germans wanted to secede from the Union in opposition to slavery. The Irish wanted to stay in.

The site of Pickett’s Charge in Gettysburg.

I hate the St. Louis Arch. They try to warn you: claustrophobia, acrophobia, and ochlophobia. They tell you don’t go up there. Due to construction we had to buy tickets in the museum. There was a plaque there explaining that there weren’t many Blacks in St Louis before the Civil War. The Irish were taking the work. It was cheaper to hire an Irishman for a day than keep a slave for life. Dred Scott was pissed that his owners were sending him out to find jobs.

When the Supreme Court uses arguments like natural law or constructionism, they are saying they don’t have anything else. This wasn’t the case with slavery. All stupid Taney had to say was that slavery was in the Constitution. It would have been nice if Taney had ruled that if you didn’t have work, you were no longer a slave. Taney would have been discovering a right under the 9^th amendment. The 9^th is kind of a fun meta-amendment. When the Supreme Court argues that a right isn’t covered under the Constitution, they are ignoring the 9^th. We fought a war to remove slavery from the Constitution.

The slave breeding border states would have hated such a decision. They made money selling slaves south.

Keeping the Union was not popular. It was not the peoples will. Lincoln got in on a three way, another example of the Voters Paradox. After the putative end of the war, Republicans dragged the army up to vote and dumped the territories into the count. Fortunately, the Southern raids infuriated the border states. The Democratic platform was to concede the war to the South. The South didn’t vote, we had won by force of arms and freeing the slaves. When the Southern property walked off, their financial value collapsed. The Northern banks were furious with Lincoln, they thought they were going to collect on their loans. McClellan got 45% of the vote in the North.

Rather than lining the rebels against a wall and shooting them as a sovereign nation ought, goofy Johnson followed Ceasar’s advice and pardoned them. Even so, the 14^th amendment said the rebels could no longer run for office. There was no folderol about process, popular will or which office. A sovereign state should not allow traitors to hold office, regardless of the peoples will. If you want to change the Constitution, we have process for that. Please don’t argue that an amendment is unconstitutional.

I despise the 2^nd amendment. It is ambiguous and confusing. The Supreme court shouldn’t rule against it. We should amend the Constitution to explicitly return that power to the states.

The first amendment was too mealy mouthed about government supporting religion. It seems obvious that tax money should not go to religions. Stop faith-based grants. Faith-based worked fine when it is Greek Orthodox taking care of Ukrainians. It shamelessly falls to pieces when it is Catholics serving Venezuelans. The Cruz and DeSantos Catholics are happy with undocumented immigrants. Undocumented don’t get Social Security, Minimum Wage, Unemployment, or Workmen’s Compensation. MAGA is opposed to refugees, people with status who don’t do as they are told, and who may someday vote.

Catholic “charities” is also taking tax money to oppose the rights of equality and privacy.  

MAGA isn’t fascist. Fascists had ideals. Maga is a pseudo nihilist, sometimes antiimperialist, pro-Russian belief in slavery and forced pregnancy. Maga wants crippled orphan children working 12-hour shifts in packing plants.

Popular will overriding the law is a fascist argument.

The only way individual Democrats can fight for Reconstruction is to crossover to the Republican primaries and vote for Haley. At least Haley hasn't shipped immigrants.

Blogspot is Weird

 The defaults seem the opposite of common sense. AdSense is pestering me about an ad.txt file. I finally get a custom one in settings. Then I just figure out to click the blog file in manage your sites to get it scanned. If they want a file why not just make the file?

I can find my blog in Bing but not in Google. I hesitate to mention it because maybe Bing is in error. Is it something with indexing? I go to Google Search Console. The page is crawled but not indexed. So, I request indexing. They notify me they are thinking about it. Weeks later, still thinking. I finally found a way in search console to request another crawl, but that crawl didn’t show up on the report.

Why is the default for blogspot to not show up in Google? How neat that I can request and control how Google scans my page, not.

The reason Google surpassed Yahoo is because they didn’t try to control searches. What else is Google missing?

It would be nice to have a table of contents. 

Hamas

 Anyone who says “peace in the Mideast” should be slapped. They are announcing that what follows is stupid. Peace never had anything to do with the Mideast. The statement is arrogant. How would you like to hear “peace in the US”? American policy in the Mideast should be mute. It is disgusting to hear Americans advise and excuse each group their atrocities. Americans are never short of advice.

“Debate” in the US has circled around who’s better. It is not going to convince anyone that they should shut up and take it because their families had it coming.  No one has rounded up their criminals.

Here is a quick review of America’s relationship, keeping an American eye for the man behind the curtain and the emperor’s clothes:

Before World War II, the countries of the world refused Jewish refugees from Germany. Germans made that a big deal. During and after the war Churchill sent Jewish refugees to Palestine. British grabbed Palestine from the Ottomans. Some Pan Arabism is nostalgia for the Ottoman Empire.

Israel was founded by Harry Truman as a Baptist fantasy. Palestinians originally met the Israeli incursion by demanding a unified secular democratic state. I can see why Israel didn’t trust that compromise. While those Palestinians were right, they weren’t demanding citizenship in Israel. Fatah has now found itself splayed across the position of demanding their own secular state. It is fun seeing Muslims demand a secular state. Wilsonian democracy is fraud. Do you want to be a nation or a religious artifact?

The American position in the Middle East is oil reserves. Eisenhower said it was oil when we made Israel, France and England give back Suez. It is not just gasoline or earnings on oil. It is the financial value of oil reserves, the tapped, estimated oil in the ground. That value has a multiplier from compounded investment instruments dependent on its future value. It is much larger than oil company earnings. Finance is the best conspiracy theory.

Sirhan killed Bobby Kennedy for supporting Israel.

Golda Meir, Wisconsin school teacher, had to take on the entire world, including Kissinger and Nixon, through two major existential conflicts. Each time, US support came once the conflict was determined.

In 1978 the three stupidest men in the world: Arafat, Begin and Carter met at Camp David. Eventually Arafat said something like:

-What’s it going to be? In or out?

At that moment Begin started talking two states. Arafat’s mistake was discarding his strongest card. Israel has no intention of allowing two states.

Just as refugees created Israel, Palestinian refugees then dominated the adjoining countries of Jordan and Lebanon. In 1982 Israel had enough and charged across Lebanon surrounding the PLO military in Beirut. Israel was starving out the encircled city. Haig, the cast iron American Secretary of State told Israel to hurry it up. Then Arafat called out to King Fahd:

-Am I not yours?

Haig was out. American, French and Italian military evacuated PLO from Beirut. Each PLO military unit returned to its own country, abandoning the refugees in their camps. You can see why Israel is nuts.

There has been snark about Israel lobby. Under Bush Sr. Israel was trying to borrow 10 billion dollars. At the exact same time King Fahd gave a check for 32 billion to the US to thank us for Kuwait. That difference is orders of magnitude. The function of the Israel lobby in American politics is to maintain the price.

To belabor the obvious, we showed up for Kuwait, not Israel.

After Likud called for the murder of Prime Minister Rabin, Rabin was killed and Likud created the next government. This stopped the Oslo accord. Rabin was a git. He was always working angles and fixing things. Talmud teaches that we are only judged on our last day. On his last day Rabin was murdered at a peace demonstration. Rabin even fixed that.

Israel dug most of the tunnels under Gaza, when Gaza was intended as a buffer state. Israel supported the creation of Hamas in 1987 to undercut PLO legitimacy. The atrocities of the Gaza strip justify the settlers. Americans understand the settler game. That is where we came from.

You would suppose Israel could find an intelligent leader. Netanyahu can’t acknowledge that all the arguments are reversible, either way. Coming from America, I realize it is difficult. America has privately demanded a cease fire. Israel initially said no, now kind of. As any law enforcement or jail can explain, the only way to prevent hostages is to officially make them the first target. Inept and heartless is a bad look. Israel leadership cannot appear to acquiesce to America once again reigning them in. America has pulled back Israel at least ten times before. I don’t think Israel will change leadership. As Americans know, demonstrations are not votes.

Another occupation will fail as all the previous ones have. If Israel wanted two states, they would clear the settlers out of the territories or better yet pull the Israeli police and let Fatah, do it. This would give the PLO legitimacy. The settlers aren’t that many votes; they aren’t even in the army. Many came from America and have sponsors here. Once that was done evacuate everyone from Gaza to the west bank. If you are going to be imperial, ask yourself what would the British do? Sift through the Gaza Palestinians, get the DNA, see if they match any pictures. PLO can do the second screening. This would minimize Israel casualties. Try sending missiles from a flattened Gaza.

Don’t worry, won’t happen. Israel wants Gaza, they want Hamas. Hamas is used like our black power during the civil rights movement. The settlers do not want Gaza moved to the west bank. It is not Iran but Qatar that directs Hamas with Israel’s acquiescence. Israel had the Hamas battle plan because Israel created it.  Gas reserves are also decision making valuable. Check Gaza Marine.

The pathetic sick undisciplined losers who tortured their captives had to know that they had the time to do it. Someone else had to create the plan and coach the disposable scum. I’m guessing they hadn’t planned for success.

Don’t demand disenfranchisement in a democracy.  What advice would you give our indigenous in the US about voting? The most terrifying demand the Palestinians could make is Israeli citizenship. Then Palestinians would be the settlers. I can see why Palestinians wouldn’t trust that compromise.

Questioning legitimacy is a slippery slope. Israel is a nation; the Palestinians are a people. You are not going to impress Americans talking about land. Except for Hawaiian, Navajo and Eskimo, we all recently came from somewhere else. Few of us are the people we started from. We are raised on atrocity and bitterness. Find a county seat in Illinois, there will be a monument with the cannon pointed south. In Mississippi the cannon points north. The north was right. We aren’t that into good and bad, we do understand big and little. My only advice is to not be the US. That pursuit is futile. You be you.

-How many white people did Chief Blackhawk kill?

-Not enough.

Allying yourself with America, or any group in America, is a mistake. Even Baptists. Americans are fickle and spendthrift. The last American general who understood attrition was George Washington. As for appropriations, Ukraine and Israel will have arms. If we don’t fund them, that will free them to buy from other countries and develop their own. Our appropriations are only matched by the cost of our systems. If the left was impeding military spending, military autonomy and national interest the way the right is, we’d be dead.

Once US blew up the pipeline, we became junior partners to Qatar supplying natural gas to Europe. Neither US nor Qatar is in any hurry to see Gaza Marine developed.