Rape Isn't So Bad If You Just Relax And Let Yourself Enjoy It...

When Iran, under Mohammed Mossadegh nationalized Iran's oil production in March of 1951, it put a crimp in the relations between Iran and Britain, who had enjoyed massive profits from drilling operations going back to 1909 and who, by 1950 had come to rely (as did the U.S.) on Middle East oil for 70% of its consumption (even back then). After a hotly contested dispute, which brought in the League of Nations to re-negotiate in 1933, Iran got slightly more of a percentage and by 1946 had negotiated to get 30% profits to Britain's 70%.

After Mossadegh took over and nationalized Iran's oil production, Britain quickly attempted to negotiate a 50/50 split, but Mossadegh would have none of it. The dispute between Britain and Iran went on for two years. So on August 22, 1953, with the help of our very own CIA the Mossadegh government was overthrown and The Shah was reinstated. Shortly after, Britain and Iran were negotiating oil.

And shortly after, The Anglo-Iranian Oil Company became British Petroleum. And the rest, as they say, is history.

The history? With the assistance of the CIA, Mossadegh's democracy was overthrown and the brutal repressive reign of the Western Puppet Shah created the conditions that led to the present Fascist "Revolutionary" Islamic Republic of Iran. You want more history in the making thanks to the monstrous entity known today as BP? Sit back, do nothing and spread 'em. Because they will and are doing it to you.....

Who Does She Hope To Be?

The interface between music and emotion, between human feeling and art...the acuteness of what is the human "condition" and how to it can be expressed?

Two of my favorite jazz artists collaborated in the early 1990's and created a body of work that sends me over the edge, every damn time I listen to any of it. Pharoah Sanders, the saxophonist and Sonny Sharrock, the guitarist. This was a cut off of the recording, Ask The Ages by Sonny Sharrock.

Today I did a bike ride with my ipod loaded with live Sonny Sharrock and Pharoah Sanders....There's a piece called Japan, which is sort of like the cave rock classic WildThing...three chords of gory glory, by Sanders which provided the emotional energy to push me over the hills between St. Robert and Ayen and back again! With their help and inspiration, I have achieved actual thinocity.......

I Shudda Used A Chalkboard

This chart which is available for your inspection at ritholtz.com is a fairly easy, well kinda easy flow chart of how our friend the rodeo clown works with Goldline to nightly shear the wool from his flock of sheep.

This week, Rep. Anthony Weiner (Dem. NYC) and House Commerce Subcommittee Chairman Bobby Rush (Dem. Chicago) formally announced a hearing to investigate the practices of Goldline International, a precious metals dealer that uses aggressive sales tactis which include the nightly drumbeat of immenent government takeover and financial collapse and and anarchy spewed  by The Rodeo Clown to sell overpriced gold coins to his brain dead viewers.

Among the Key Findings of Rep. Weiner’s Report: (Full Report CLICK HERE)

• Goldline Grossly Overcharges For Their Coins

The average Goldline markup was 90% above the melt value of the coin. The largest markup on any coin was 208% above the melt value. Furthermore, the average Goldline markup is 47% higher than better-priced competitors, with some of the company’s markups going as high as 102% compared to its competitors on one of the coins they offered.

• Goldline Falsely Claims To Offer “Good” Investments

By selling gold at twice the melt value, the price of gold would need to double for consumers to break even on their “investment.”

• Goldline Salespeople Misrepresent Their Ability To Give “Investment Advice”

Sales people imply that they are “investment advisors” or “financial advisers” by offering investment advice, which insinuates that they have some sort of fiduciary responsibility to get you the most return on your investment.

However, since they are not licensed investment advisors, they have no such responsibility. In 2006, the Missouri Secretary of States’ Office, Securities Division filed formal consent order against Goldline for exactly this reason and recovered over $200k for an elderly consumer that was ripped off.

After looking at the chart, I had to ask myself, why does The Rodeo Clown employ such a complicated scheme to get his viewers to part eith their hard earned cash? All he usually needs is a chalkboard and he could just tell his sheep that Obama was going to take all of their diamonds and their porn collections and they should just send them all to him.

At least he'd get a bunch of pretty wierd porn.........

Bring It On!

To quote the brain dead piece of detrius that was our last president, "Bring It On!"

It would be my fondest wish to have the Republicans nominate Sarah Palin for the 2012 Presidential Race.

As Americans begin to climb out of the narcotized vapors of the propaganda smoke screen that led to the Iraqi War Money Pit and Nightmare, as we struggle to cope with the ongoing reality of the Afghani Debacle in Progress....

A corporately funded political machine that wants to dismantle the Health Care Bill that was so bitterly fought over and wants to dismantle Social Security.

A party that wants to rob you of your money that you paid into Medicare, because they say "We Can't"...and that means they can't afford to coddle the very rich and be socially responsible at the same time. A party that proved over and over again, in deregulation, energy policies, apologizing to BP in spite of the fact they have destroyed the Gulf Of Mexico...A Party that has time and time again proven that their bottom line is 

TAKE THE MONEY AND RUN!

A Party that supprted the policies that enabled the biggest financial crash in history.

A party that wants to rewrite history, turn back the clock on civil rights....

A party that could even fantasize that Sarah Palin could be the ticket to the 2012 Presidency...I say, "Bring It On!".

SARAH PALIN 2012! YAY! USA USA #1 

$8.7 BILLION OF UNDETECTED LOSS?

From the Good Blog: Where Did the Money to Rebuild Iraq Go?

From the Special Inspector General for Iraq Reconstruction, July 27, 2010 (PDF):

Weaknesses in DoD's financial and management controls left it unable to properly account for $8.7 billion of the $9.1 billion in DFI funds it received for reconstruction activities in Iraq. This situation occurred because most DoD organizations receiving DFI funds did not establish the required Department of the Treasury accounts and no DoD organization was designated as the executive agent for managing the use of DFI funds. The breakdown in controls left the funds vulnerable to inappropriate uses and undetected loss.

 Inappropriate Uses? $8.7 Billion of UNDETECTED LOSS? There's lame and then there is LAME! This goes beyond any previous known definition of LAME!

The Wedge

It's hot as hell and it's 1963...We're goin to the beach with Dick Dale and His Deltones to listen to some real cool ass surf guitar!

What's up with the dancers? Well, they're on crack!

A Really, Truly Bad Idea

As part of a set of major cuts to police budgets, the UK government has floated the idea of supplementing police with volunteer militias of "community police" who will get to tell their neighbours what to do:

The scheme was first raised in a Conservative pre-election policy document which talked of creating a "new cadre of police reserves". The consultation paper says that neighbourhood policing is key to David Cameron's "big society ... we want more active citizens taking part in joint patrols with the police, looking out for their neighbours and passing on safety tips as part of neighbourhood watch groups or as community crime fighters," it says. May said she wanted to see more special constables, whose numbers have plummeted from 67,000 in the 1950s to 15,000 today.
But the paper adds that they want to go further and explore new ideas to "unlock the potential of police volunteers in the workforce, for example, as police "reservists".

Cameron's answer to budget cuts: get public involved in 'DIY' policing

Percival Dovetonsils Encore!

I've said it before, just about the only other person I would have liked to have been is Ernie Kovacs. Here is another episode of Pervival Dovetonsils, Poet Laureate.

1954, this is beyond comedy, this was performance art before there was anything called ...uhhh...performance art....

The Cross Over

If we could only do what was in our best interests, this would have happened a long time ago. But, An item in todays NY Times Business News announced that a historic cross over point had been reached. The cost of photvoltaic, or solar power has finally declined to the point where it is now cheaper than nuclear. The cross over occurred when the cost of solar power dropped to 16 cents per kilowatt hour.

"Solar photovotaics have joined the ranks of lower-cost alternatives to new nuclear plants," John O. Blackburn, a professor of economics at Duke Universtiy, in North carolina, a graduate student, wrote in the paper, "Solar and Nuclear Costs-The Historic Crossover."

Read the entire article here.....

Remember My Forgotten Men

The GoldDiggers of 1933 /Joan Blondell

This might have been Busby Berkeleys finest moment!

Now Everybody's Gonna Want One

I live in France and for months now, the government has used the issue of the wearing in public of burquas by a very small minority of moslem women to, change the subject and coddle the extreme right.

It is officially against the law to wear a burqa in public in France now and Britains new Conservative Governement is jumping on the band wagon.

The dialogue is reduced to the extreme positions of respect and out right banning. What ever happened to tolerance? The middle?

Let's face it, it has not been that long since we had this discussion about tattooing. It was a an anti social act. Psychiatrists wrote books about the pathology of tattoos. The very discussion of tattoos made them cool enough to the point that they are totally banal now. One in every 5 of us has a tattoo and the usual discussion is "Cool, who does your work? Geez, that must have cost...."

It's hard to believe that we are having this debate. Governments and legislatures shouldn't be telling us what wew can or cannot wear. We've got the right to wear exactly what the hell we want. I guess I draw the line at crotchless jeans out side of primary schools or exploding top hats with sparklers while you are at a gas station filling your 4x4.

Perhaps there are tattooed people who wear burqas. Who would ever know? Not that I could ever find anything good about wearing a burqa. Any belief system that insists that half the population go about constantly covered from head to toe in black cloth, whether out of modesty, humility, tradition or stealth has a massive flaw.

But, then, I also believe that it is ridiculous to believe in transubstantiation, considering the bible to be the literal word of god reduces that supposedly omnipotent being to a muddle headed maniac. The Hindu caste system and the Roman Catholic rules against contraception are evil enough to have been invented by Satan, who was invented by....

Well, there, Now if something happens to me, no one could ever guess who's killed me.

It's not bigoted to disagree with peoples choices as long as you are defending their right to make them. If people do things I don't agree with, altering their appearance in ways that I think look awful or silly, then I am allowed to say so. Which brings me back to tattoos.

Tattoos on most people are horrible and never come off. Walking around with a bad tattoo is like perpetually screaming, "I should never have done this!" at the top of your lungs.  It isw foolishness made permanent. Most people can extricate themselves from a bad marriage with less pain. The fashion for tattoos, this fad for the indelible, shows an outbreak of mass imprudence comparable with Easter Island at its giant head-carving  peak. Will it lead to thousands of years of collecticve regret?

But that's liberty for you: gladly or not, it's all about suffering fools.

Why I Like Roosevelt

Little Willie Eason and His Talkin Gospel Guitar.

Medieval History In The Making

The year? 1241. The site is the Chateau de Guedelon, which is under construction in the department of Yvonne, France.

The picture is a computer simulation of the finished structure. It was begun 11 years ago and will not be finished until the present time year, 2024, or in the daing of the reality of the world of the Chateau, 1255 ad.

The Chateau has been constructed with volunteer labor, using medieval methods. I have been watching updates of the construction for a few years now, but if you are planning a trip to France, this is a place whrer you can truly leave the 21st century and exist in a time before the Black Plague, When the king was Louis XI and it was a relatively prosperous period.....More here from the Independant.

Look Around You/Music

Another segment of the BBC program, Look Around You. I keep watching this over and over again to hear the song, Little Mouse. Remember to turn in you copy books at the end of the segment, please.

Racism And The USDA

Right now, if you do a web search of the words "racism" and "USDA," the majority of links will steer you to coverage of this week's Shirley Sherrod affair, in which the African-American U.S. Department of Agriculture staffer based in Georgia resigned after a conservative website reversed the meaning of a speech she gave last year to imply she would deny farm loans to whites.

It's an astonishing development given the history of race relations at the USDA, an agency whose own Commission on Small Farms admitted in 1998 that "the history of discrimination at the U.S. Department of Agriculture ... is well-documented" -- not against white farmers, but African-American, Native American and other minorities who were pushed off their land by decades of racially-biased laws and practices.

It's also a black eye for President Obama and Secretary of Agriculture Tom Vilsack, who signaled a desire to atone for the USDA's checkered past, including pushing for funding of a historic $1.15 billion settlement that would help thousands of African American farmers but now faces bitter resistance from Senate Republicans.

FORCED OFF THE LAND

Any discussion about race and the USDA has to start with the crisis of black land loss. Although the U.S. government never followed through on its promise to freed slaves of "40 acres and a mule," African-Americans were able to establish a foothold in Southern agriculture. Black land ownership peaked in 1910, when 218,000 African-American farmers had an ownership stake in 15 million acres of land.

By 1992, those numbers had dwindled to 2.3 million acres held by 18,000 black farmers. And that wasn't just because farming was declining as a way of life: Blacks were being pushed off the land in vastly disproportionate numbers. In 1920, one of out seven U.S. farms were black-run; by 1992, African-Americans operated one out of 100 farms.

The USDA isn't to blame for all of that decline, but the agency created by President Lincoln in 1862 as the "people's department" did little to stem the tide  -- and in many cases, made the situation worse.

After decades of criticism and an upsurge in activism by African-American farmers, the USDA hosted a series of "listening sessions" in the 1990s, which added to a growing body of evidence of systematic discrimination:

Black farmers tell stories of USDA officials -- especially local loan authorities in all-white county committees in the South -- spitting on them, throwing their loan applications in the trash and illegally denying them loans. This happened for decades, through at least the 1990s. When the USDA's local offices did approve loans to Black farmers, they were often supervised (farmers couldn't spend the borrowed money without receiving item-by-item authorization from the USDA) or late (and in farming, timing is everything). Meanwhile, white farmers were receiving unsupervised, on-time loans. Many say egregious discrimination by local loan officials persists today.

Among those concluding that such racial bias persisted were the USDA's own researchers: In the mid-1990s, they released a report [pdf] which, analyzing data from 1990 to 1995, found "minorities received less than their fair share of USDA money for crop payments, disaster payments, and loans."

Adding insult to injury, when African-American and other minority farmers filed complaints, the USDA did little to address them. In 1983, President Reagan pushed through budget cuts that eliminated the USDA Office of Civil Rights -- and officials admitted they "simply threw discrimination complaints in the trash without ever responding to or investigating them" until 1996, when the office re-opened. Even when there were findings of discrimination, they often went unpaid -- and those that did often came too late, since the farm had already been foreclosed.

In 1997, a USDA Civil Rights Team found the agency's system for handling civil rights complaints was still in shambles [pdf]: the agency was disorganized, the process for handling complaints about program benefits was "a failure," and the process for handling employment discrimination claims was "untimely and unresponsive."

A follow-up report [pdf] by the GAO in 1999 found 44 percent of program discrimination cases, and 64 percent of employment discrimination cases, had been backclogged for over a year.

TAKING USDA DISCRIMINATION TO COURT

It was against this backdrop that in 1997, a group of black farmers led by Tim Pigford of North Carolina filed a class action lawsuit against the USDA. In all 22,000 farmers were granted access to the lawsuit, and in 1999 the government admitted wrongdoing and agreed to a $2.3 billion settlement -- the largest civil rights settlement in history.

But African-American farmers had misgivings with the Pigford settlement. For one, only farmers discriminated against between 1981 and 1996 could join the lawsuit. Second, the settlement forced farmers to take one of two options: Track A, to receive an immediate $50,000 cash payout, or Track B, the promise of a larger amount if more extensive documentation was provided -- a challenge given that many farmers didn't keep records.

Many farmers who joined the lawsuit were also denied payment: By one estimate, nine out of 10 farmers who sought restitution under Pigford were denied. The Bush Department of Justice spent 56,000 office hours and $12 million contesting farmers' claims; many farmers feel their cases were dismissed on technicalities.

THE POLITICS BEHIND THE SHERROD AFFAIR

Shortly after coming into office, President Obama and his chief at the Department of Agriculture, Iowa's Tom Vilsack, signaled a change in direction at USDA. Vilsack declared "A New Civil Rights Era at USDA," and stepped-up handling of civil rights claims in the agency.

This year, Vilsack and the USDA also responded to concerns over handling of the Pigford case, agreeing to a historic second settlement -- known as Pigford II -- in April that would deliver another $1.25 billion to farmers who were excluded from the first case. As Vilsack declared:

We have worked hard to address USDA's checkered past so we can get to the business of helping farmers succeed. The agreement reached today is an important milestone in putting these discriminatory claims behind us for good.

But the Pigford II case was very much still alive when right-wing media outlets went after Shirley Sherrod this week. Sherrod herself had received $150,000 from the USDA last year as part of the original Pigford lawsuit, which has been bitterly opposed by Republicans and conservative media.

The settlement is also now a major political battle in Congress: President Obama had put aside $1.15 billion in May to cover Pigford II cases, which the House later approved. But Republicans stripped the money out of their bills, leaving the supplemental spending now being debated in the Senate as the final option to appropriate the funding.

Given the stakes of the Pigford II decision -- which again affirms the present-day consequences of decades of racial discrimination -- and the sharp partisan battle over spending in Congress, black farmer advocates don't think the attacks on Sherrod this week are a coincidence.

And given the history of racial discrimination at USDA, they can't help but note the hypocrisy. As Gary Grant, president of the 20,000-strong Black Farmers & Agriculturalists Association, said in a statement [pdf]:

The statement from Tom Vilsack, Secretary of Agriculture, that USDA does not "tolerate" racial discrimination is a complete lie. Talk to almost any family member of a black farmer or check out ... the government's documentation of how USDA employees, on the local and federal level discriminated against black farmers, in particular. And nothing was ever done to penalize the all white officials bent on destroying a society of black farmers across the nation: not one firing, not one charge brought, and not one pension lost. Yet at the first erroneous offering by a conservative blogger that a black woman from USDA might have discriminated, she is immediately forced to resign.

Which begs the question: Where was the Republican and conservative concern over USDA "racism" before this week's swiftboating of Shirley Sherrod?

What If Breitbart Had Edited It?

Check out this Twitter Feed! Here's a few creative examples: 

 • Huckleberry Finn: Affirmative action sends ungrateful black man on river cruise, using lib-approved child labor. (via)
• 2001: An intelligent computer heroically stops wasteful government spending on space exploration. (via)
• Little Rascals: Juvenile delinquency caused by having black friends. Also, where's Buckwheat's birth certificate? (via)
• Aladdin: Swarthy thief flees jail, abducts princess, kills trusted advisor & performs coup d'etat. (via)
• Black men stole the rock and roll sound from Marty McFly!!! (via)
• MLK's famous speech: "I have a dream that my nation will not be judged by character." (via)
• Inglorious Basterds: Deranged Jewish woman murders innocent moviegoers (via)
• The Lord of the Rings: Through grit, working class Hobbits take back 'their' Middle America from colored Orcs (via)

Look Around You/Computer Games

I've posted a few segments from the BBC program, Look Around You. Sometimes I see episodes on my television when I can pick it up from the satellite. It is the perfect parody of the nerdy science and tech info shows. This isn't a plug for them...but finally, episodes are going to be available in the USA. They are releasing a DVD.

Great stuff and all the better because the cast is always perfectly in character.

The Flying School

A few weeks ago, I posted a segment from Jean Cocteau's 1930 film, Le Sang d'un Poet, Blood of a Poet. I have been a captive of its imagery since I was a teen.

There is something so effortless in its surrealism, images that make me feel that

my attempts with paint and photoshop are so contrived. Yet, Cocteau, working in a media that he had to invent as he created made something so fresh and compelling that it loses none of its power after 80 years.

This scene, which was in the clip I posted, is The Flying School. To achieve the special "effect",  a floor becomes a wall. The instructress is laying on her side, posed to look as if she is standing besides the fireplace. The lighting completes the effect.

The little girl is laying on her back. The effect in the film is totally convincing in a very disturbingly bizarre way. What an incredible image.

Jerry Was A Race Car Driver

Well, yes, I liked Primus a whole lot...I saw them in NYC back in the early 90's and they performed this song. Well, yes, I think Les Claypool is one of the nastiest bass players on the planet. I'm trying to find some of his live performances by his band, Colonel Claypools Bucket of Bernie Brains. That was a project earlier in this decade with the guitarist known as Buckethead, The Drummer, Brain and Bernie Worrell, the keyboard genius from Funkadelic and everyone else cool on the planet...

Don't Touch That Wall

The recently-applied work of street artist Banksy at an abandoned Packard auto plant in Detroit, Michigan. A local gallery promptly dug up and relocated the wall to their space, sparking controversy.

Read the article, tell me what you think. I think the wall should have been left in place.

Of course, that is the nature of Banksy's work, the very site specificity is what creates its inherent meaning. It is essentially graffitti and many of his works have been destroyed by other graffitti artists and public employees, just doing their job....

Even though the value of the work by one who percieves it as a form of valuable art...could be as high as $100,000......