Wednesday, June 02, 2010
ToDaZeD Voice from the Past
foresight
In 1831, twenty-five year-old Alexis de Tocqueville spent 9 months in the US, sent by the French gubbmint to study the American prison system. He studied the economy and political system, too. In 1835 he published Democracy in America. He hit some nails:
I seek to trace the novel features under which despotism may appear in the world. The first thing that strikes the observation is an innumerable multitude of men, all equal and alike, incessantly endeavoring to procure the petty and paltry pleasures with which they glut their lives. Each of them, living apart, is as a stranger to the fate of all the rest; his children and his private friends constitute to him the whole of mankind. As for the rest of his fellow citizens, he is close to them, but he does not see them; he touches them, but he does not feel them; he exists only in himself and for himself alone; and if his kindred still remain to him, he may be said at any rate to have lost his country.
Above this race of men stands an immense and tutelary power, which takes upon itself alone to secure their gratifications and to watch over their fate. That power is absolute, minute, regular, provident, and mild. It would be like the authority of a parent if, like that authority, its object was to prepare men for manhood; but it seeks, on the contrary, to keep them in perpetual childhood: it is well content that the people should rejoice, provided they think of nothing but rejoicing. For their happiness such a government willingly labors, but it chooses to be the sole agent and the only arbiter of that happiness; it provides for their security, foresees and supplies their necessities, facilitates their pleasures, manages their principal concerns, directs their industry, regulates the descent of property, and subdivides their inheritances: what remains, but to spare them all the care of thinking and all the trouble of living?
Thus it every day renders the exercise of the free agency of man less useful and less frequent; it circumscribes the will within a narrower range and gradually robs a man of all the uses of himself. The principle of equality has prepared men for these things;it has predisposed men to endure them and often to look on them as benefits.
After having thus successively taken each member of the community in its powerful grasp and fashioned him at will, the supreme power then extends its arm over the whole community. It covers the surface of society with a network of small complicated rules, minute and uniform, through which the most original minds and the most energetic characters cannot penetrate, to rise above the crowd. The will of man is not shattered, but softened, bent, and guided; men are seldom forced by it to act, but they are constantly restrained from acting. Such a power does not destroy, but it prevents existence; it does not tyrannize, but it compresses, enervates, extinguishes, and stupefies a people, till each nation is reduced to nothing better than a flock of timid and industrious animals, of which the government is the shepherd.
I have always thought that servitude of the regular, quiet, and gentle kind which I have just described might be combined more easily than is commonly believed with some of the outward forms of freedom, and that it might even establish itself under the wing of the sovereignty of the people.
This part is what struck me particularly:
It covers the surface of society with a network of small complicated rules, minute and uniform, through which the most original minds and the most energetic characters cannot penetrate, to rise above the crowd. The will of man is not shattered, but softened, bent, and guided; men are seldom forced by it to act, but they are constantly restrained from acting.
Have ya tried to start a business—or even fix your porch or foundation lately? “a network of small complicated rules, minute and uniform, enforced by the small minds, minute and uniform in the belief that not one person, other than themselves, is capable of doing one dang for themselves.
The shadow gubbmint of Regulatory Agencies is infinitely more dangerous to Individual Freedom than any silliness Teh iWon or the Congress could do, the ravening hoards of barbarians at the gate, or the nuclear wet-dreams of the MiniMahdi or the mini-Elvis of Pyongyanker.
Isn't that Spay-shill?
there’s a scene like this in The Godfather...
Regardless of the details of the flotilla incident, sources say President Obama is focused on what he sees as the longer term issue here: a successful Mideast peace process.
“The president has always said that it will be much easier for Israel to make peace if it feels secure,” a senior administration official tells ABC News.
The suggestion is that US condemnation of Israel would further isolate that country, and make further peace negotiations between the Israelis and Palestinians even more difficult.
...Mr. Obama pushed the notion that last night – as the United Nations Security Council met to issue a statement about the incident – was the moment when the US had maximum leverage, that the longer the statement was being debated the worse it would ultimately be for Israel.
Ultimately, as the statement was negotiated over night, the US succeeded in making it more neutral where other nations wanted it to criticize and condemn Israel.
Now that’s a ChiTown “Win” for Teh iDaddy. It [somewhat] pacifies the US Israel supporters—after all it is a statement of “support”. or at least not condemnation, eh?
But it sets US up as the Only Friend of The Problem Child. Big ol’ Superpower defending it’s wayward Little Brother. [Like Jimmah and Billy] That’s the price of the “Friendship,” being identified as The Problem.
It’s one of the oldest games humans play: pick the bad guy. [” ‘Pick the target, freeze it, personalize it, and polarize it.’ Cut off the support network and isolate the target from sympathy." Alinsky 12]
Try it with 5 or 6 friends. Five of you get together and decide to pick on the 6th for some imagined “wrong.” Something that makes no sense to criticize, like defending himself against aggressors.
Pick the smartest, most stable guy to do this to, then everyone begin to chide him, getting more serious as ya go along. He’ll start to get agitated. Then one guy take his side and begin to “help” him to “correct” his ways. Even the most well-grounded will start to freak out a little. It’s crazy-making.
Pick a stable guy, but not a big guy; he will owe ya a punch in the snoot for this, afterward.
So tkx, iDaddy.
Tuesday, June 01, 2010
*WARNING* Take Your Pepto Now
ready your eye bleach for later details
[In a] “a mutual and mutually supportive decision that we have made together following a process of long and careful consideration” ... Al Gore and his wife, Tipper, are separating after 40 years of marriage.
The A. G. of the Commonwealth of Virginia has launched investigation – under the Virginia Fraud against Taxpayers Act --- into Climatergate’s Michael Mann ( of the “hockey stick” and the “Earth warming” infamy.) A subsequent and logical question looms: Should the former VP Al Gore ( and why he shouldn’t ) be consequently investigated under the Fraud in Connection with Major Disaster or Emergency Benefits Act, i.e. 18 U.S.C. § 1040 ( while 18 U.S.C. § 2331 may apply there as well. )
Gaia is a B*tch
she does not love you
*clickity* for larger
a spontaneous sinkhole ("hundimiento") 20 meters deep and 15 wide that appeared today in Zone 2 of Guatemala City, after overwhelming saturation of rains from tropical storm Agatha. Local press reports that it swallowed an entire 3-story building.
...in part because of unstable geology, and in part, bad urban engineering—read more about it in the comments. A break in the over-stressed sewage pipes after the storm was the cause for this one. There are rumors of other sinkholes now forming nearby.
Amazing geological phenomenon: how is it so perfectly round?
How is there no utilities pipes and stuff sticking out of the edges? How are the edges of the pavement so clean?
The Pacaya volcano started erupting lava and rocks on Thursday afternoon, blanketing Guatemala City with ash and forcing the closure of the international airport.
Science FAIL
Integrity FAIL
Solution? Change yer PR visuals.
Dr. Kate Manzo of Newcastle University: “There have been various efforts to put a face on the climate change issue. Communicators need to move away from the traditional images of polar bears or fear-laden imagery to find new, inspirational motifs to engage people with climate change.
Concept Grasping FAIL
Artists and cartoonists are among the producers of inspirational alternatives. A recent study of American public perception showed that fewer people are convinced of the reality of climate change, and of those that are only 36% attribute it to human activity. This shows the variance of levels of climate change knowledge and understanding, which effects how people behave in response.
hmyeah. When folks know that AGW advocates cheat, obfuscate, profit wildly and flat out lie, that’s called a “variance of levels of climate change knowledge and understanding.”
No reason “inspirational cartoons” wouldn’t overcome that.
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