COLLECTIVE MADNESS


“Soft despotism is a term coined by Alexis de Tocqueville describing the state into which a country overrun by "a network of small complicated rules" might degrade. Soft despotism is different from despotism (also called 'hard despotism') in the sense that it is not obvious to the people."

Friday, December 06, 2013

211

104 comments:

  1. As I suspected, the stories on Mandela are rewriting his life. They are more interested in the creation of a legend than the man.

    ReplyDelete
  2. It is interesting to me because of the weight that we put on historic figures. If the story line changes before a man is buried, what happens after a week, month or a century or twenty?

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Friedrich NietzscheFri Dec 06, 03:08:00 PM EST


      “Giving style” to one’s character - a great and rare art!

      It is exercised by those who see all the strengths and weaknesses of their own natures
      and then comprehend them in an artistic plan until everything appears as art and reason and even weakness delights the eye.”

      Delete
    2. Simple answer: "History" is made-up bullshit.

      Delete
    3. Seems to be going around these days.

      Delete


    4. History will be kind to me for I intend to write it.

      Delete
  3. .

    Indeed, the picture that the world had of Mr. Mandela was as an almost saintly figure, the faultless “father of the nation.” Images of the heartfelt prayer gatherings and candlelight vigils in recent months as South Africans came to terms with his death have reinforced that view.

    But Mr. Mandela was a politician, among the most transformative of his era, but still a politician. As such, he went through the usual ups and downs that characterize any political career.

    “Nelson Mandela was not a saint. We would dishonor his memory if we treated him as if he was one,” Pierre de Vos, a law professor, wrote on Friday in The Daily Maverick, an online magazine in South Africa, arguing that Mr. Mandela’s genius lay in his willingness to bend and compromise. “Like all truly exceptional human beings, he was a person of flesh and blood, with his own idiosyncrasies, his own blind spots and weaknesses.”


    http://www.nytimes.com/2013/12/07/world/africa/mandela-politics.html?_r=0

    .

    ReplyDelete
  4. Teresita RedingerFri Dec 06, 10:54:00 AM EST
    I'm not a racist, I'm not even anti-Jew.

    And yet? She calls Allen "YID"

    I call her a liar, a witch, a distorter of truth and just an all around nasty shit of a person.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies

    1. "As a trafficker in climaxes and thrills and characterization and wonderful dialogue and suspense and confrontations,
      I had outlined the Dresden story many times."

      Delete
    2. WiO,

      No, she used the plural, "Yids".

      Delete

    3. How many angels can dance on the head of a pin?


      bob

      Delete
    4. I stand corrected.. She calls "JEWS" Yids.....

      she's still a twit.

      Delete
    5. I'll give you one thing, WiO, you have not claimed that I said the "N" word like Bob and Allen. That's all it would take for you to get in the cooler permanently with them, but we all know you hold liars in such contempt (unless they're on your side), you'd never do that. No.

      Delete

  5. Who cares what you call her?

    Who are you, that any right minded reader would give a shit what you called 'her' ?

    bob

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Who cares about 'her' either ?

      Or any of you ?

      If only some one would care about me, my niece would have have but for Dresden, it is a cursed place, that Dresden.

      bob

      Delete

    2. “The Dresden atrocity, tremendously expensive and meticulously planned, was so meaningless, finally, that only one person on the entire planet got any benefit from it. I am that person. I wrote this book, which earned a lot of money for me and made my reputation, such as it is. One way or another, I got two or three dollars for every person killed. Some business I'm in.”

      Delete
    3. .

      "If you don't get in that cab now, you will regret it, maybe not now, but soon and for the rest of your life."

      but...but

      Remember, "We'll always have Dresden."

      Dresden

      "rat...er...I mean other guy, round up the usual subjects."

      .

      Delete

    4. We'll always have Paris

      :):):):):)

      bob

      Delete

  6. “History is always written by the winners.
    When two cultures clash, the loser is obliterated, and the winner writes the history books-
    -books which glorify their own cause and disparage the conquered foe.

    As Napoleon once said, 'What is history, but a fable agreed upon?”

    ReplyDelete
    Replies


    1. Just the other day, I was in my neighborhood Starbucks, waiting for the post office to open.
      I was enjoying a chocolatey cafe mocha when it occurred to me
      that to drink a mocha is to gulp down the entire history of the New World.

      From the Spanish exportation of Aztec cacao,
      and the Dutch invention of the chemical process for making cocoa,
      on down to the capitalist empire of Hershey, PA,
      and the lifestyle marketing of Seattle's Starbucks,

      the modern mocha is a bittersweet concoction of imperialism,
      genocide, invention, and consumerism served with whipped cream on top.

      Delete
  7. Israel is the only country where the cops have to bribe the citizenry:

    JERUSALEM -- U.S. Secretary of State John F. Kerry, concluding his latest effort to advance Israeli-Palestinian peace talks on Friday, sounding encouraged about progress despite ongoing tension between the parties.

    “We are closer than we have been in years" to bringing peace to the region, Kerry told the press Friday morning before departing Israel for Washington.

    After arriving in Israel on Wednesday night, Kerry met with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu three times and once with Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas.

    He said he was encouraged by the "continued commitment of both leaders," and advised observers to be patient. “The fact that there is no information doesn't mean the talks are not productive," Kerry said, reminding that the parties agreed to refrain from publicly discussing the negotiations.

    Despite sharp disagreements, Kerry insisted both leaders have the “same endpoint in their sights: two nations for two peoples, living side by side in peace and prosperity."

    However, “neither peace nor prosperity are possible without security" Kerry said, touching the key focus of the talks.

    Leaks from the negotiations that resumed in July suggest the process has become deadlocked, with Israel insisting that security arrangements in the West Bank -- in the Jordan Valley in particular -- be finalized before beginning discussions on any future border outline.
    Israel contends that maintaining a physical military presence along the Jordan Valley is critical for securing the eastern border, controlling future border crossings and defending its airspace. The Palestinians reject this as a ploy to perpetuate the occupation.

    {HERE IS THE GOOD PART}

    In an effort to break the cycle, the U.S. has offered a package of security proposals, presented to Netanyahu by retired Gen. John Allen, special envoy for related security matters.

    No official details were offered, but Israeli press reports suggested they include military equipment, early warning stations and various guarantees. Reportedly, the Palestinians flatly reject any Israeli military presence in the West Bank but might consider NATO or international forces.



    http://www.latimes.com/world/worldnow/la-fg-wn-john-kerry-middle-east-peace-20131206,0,1660180.story#ixzz2mjKB8hWP

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. The palestinians are savages. That is the problem.

      Until the savages stop glorifying suicide bombers, jihad and murder of Jews as "rite of passage"? There will be no peace.

      And sad for you? The Jews will not go quietly into the night. remember 1/2 of Israel are Jews driven out of the homes by arabs. They are the Jews of Israel that say: "Don't trust the arabs, they will rape your daughters, slit your throat and loot your property"

      They should KNOW, 800,000 of them were driven from communities in the now occupied arab world, in some cases dating back 1000 years before arabs ever CRAWLED out of arabia in 640 CE

      Delete
    2. No, the problem is that every time the waiter brings the check to the US/Israeli table, the Israelis are in the men’s room.

      Delete
  8. Israel is the real world leader when it comes to the shakedown.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies

    1. The mere mention of a 'Plan' to remove Israel's nuclear arsenal caused him t melt down and 'blow' his cover.

      That is nothing compared to what will be coming down the track..

      the Palestinians flatly reject any Israeli military presence in the West Bank but might consider NATO or international forces.

      bob

      Delete
    2. and Israel have always rejected the deployment of international force/peace keepers in the occupied territories.

      Delete
    3. The territories are "disputed" not occupied.

      That's according to resolution 181 and 242.

      Why should Israel disarm against 21 arab nations that have a population of 330 million and a land mass that is 899/900th of the middle east?

      But that's right, according to you, once the Jews are all either subjected into slavery or dead we will have peace.

      Delete
    4. DeuceFri Dec 06, 03:54:00 PM EST
      Israel is the real world leader when it comes to the shakedown.

      The spittle running down your chin is telling....

      Delete

    5. "The so-called “Palestinian autonomous areas” are Bantustans.
      These are restricted entities within the power structure of the Israeli Apartheid system."
      - N. Mandela

      The Palestinians are in their "Ghettos", on their "Reserves"

      Palestinian lackeys rule over the fractured and factionalized Palestinians, $100 million a month the Israeli pay their house boy Arabs in baksheesh.

      Just as the Germans used Ashkenazi guards in the Warsaw Ghetto.

      The first commander of the Warsaw ghetto was Józef Szeryński, a Polish-Jewish police colonel.

      Warsaw Ghetto archivist Emanuel Ringelblum has described the cruelty of the ghetto police as ...
      "at times greater than that of the Germans, the Ukrainians and the Latvians."


      bob

      Delete
    6. "disputed" "occupied" take your pick because it is irrelevant to the point of international peacekeepers. The point is that Israel has consistently rejected the use of international peacekeepers in those regions.

      Delete
    7. Not at all, ash can.

      Back to 1948, back to the partition plan, the one that 'Internationalizes' Jerusalem.
      Or at least variants of the plan.

      bob peckerwood

      Delete
    8. AshFri Dec 06, 04:56:00 PM EST
      "disputed" "occupied" take your pick because it is irrelevant to the point of international peacekeepers. The point is that Israel has consistently rejected the use of international peacekeepers in those regions.

      INternational "peacekeepers" didn't stop mass murder in Bosnia? Rwanda? Haiti? Nigeria? Liberia? Syria? Lebanon?

      So EXCUSE ME (in my best Steve martin impression) if Jews just don't TRUST the UN to protect Jews.

      After all the fucking UN has DONE such a GREAT job of protecting Israel in Lebanon, the Sinai, Gaza, Iraq and Iran.

      How about this idea.

      The complete and total surrender of all arab peoples who are at war with Israel, just like the Japanese and Germans did at the end of WW2?

      Israel can then occupy all lands, establish government for the arabs to have, arrest, try and incarcerate all war criminals, execute them. and give Israel 80 years to straighten them out, just like the USA did to Japan and Germany.

      Delete
  9. ...break the cycle?

    Au contraire, mon ami: That is the Cycle.

    ReplyDelete
  10. .

    Leaks from the negotiations that resumed in July suggest the process has become deadlocked, with Israel insisting that security arrangements in the West Bank -- in the Jordan Valley in particular -- be finalized before beginning discussions on any future border outline.
    Israel contends that maintaining a physical military presence along the Jordan Valley is critical for securing the eastern border, controlling future border crossings and defending its airspace. The Palestinians reject this as a ploy to perpetuate the occupation.


    :)

    Let's hope Kerry has better luck with Iran than with these so-called peace talks.

    .

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. He might actually have a "partner" for peace in Iran.

      Delete
    2. The difference is rather basic. All the Iranians want is THEIR OWN money. (stated without spittle)

      Delete
  11. I suppose if Allen is willing to sink so low as to claim service in the Corps when he never came near it, it's not a big stretch for him to claim I said the N word. But there's a search function on this blog. Have at it.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. You are being disingenuous T. He pointed out that calling a Jew a Yid, which you did, is equivalent to calling a black a nigger.

      Delete
    2. No, he said that I said that word. Twice he said that.

      Delete

    3. How many angels will dance of the head of a pin?

      Really, I must know.
      Someone must tell me


      bob

      Delete
    4. Weeelllll, actually, Yiddish is a High German language of Ashkenazi Jewish origin, spoken in many parts of the world. It developed as a fusion of different German dialects with adstrats of Hebrew, Aramaic and Slavic vocabulary and some traces of vocabulary from the Romance languages.[2][3] Yiddish orthography uses the Hebrew alphabet.

      Is calling someone a "yid" really a racial slur? This is, actually, kind of a serious question. It may be impolite, or crude; but it doesn't "feel" to me as if it rises to the level of the "n" word, or any of its derivatives. Am I way out of line on this one?

      Delete
    5. If it's a racial slur, than Judaism is a race. And if Judaism is a race, then the policies of Israel elevating Judaism to a protected political status over non-Jews are racial apartheid.

      Delete
    6. The Invention of the Jewish People
      is a book written by Shlomo Sand, an Israeli professor of history at the University of Tel Aviv.

      The author wasn’t probing a belief system but Zionist fabrications of a spurious common lineage for people of the Jewish faith.

      Sand argues that the idea of Jews having a common ethnic identity is implausible because,
      as with Christianity and Islam, Judaism was originally a “proselytising religion”.

      The notion of Judaism as a “race”, rather than a religion of various races, is without foundation.

      The recent study by John Hopkins geneticist Dr Elhaik confirms...
      that the common genome structure of the European Jew gravitated towards an origin in old Khazaria.

      “The majority of Jews do not have Middle Eastern genetic component,” he told Israeli newspaper Haaretz.

      Founded on a mélange of myths and manufactured historical tales,
      Israel has failed the archaeological test of time and is now exposed by DNA science.

      Today’s genetics prove unequivocally that in 1948 “the children of the original Jews” were replaced by converts ...
      With no roots in the Middle East.

      bob

      Delete

    7. “George W. Bush is the worst President in all of American history.”
      ― Helen Thomas

      heh, heh, heh

      bob

      Delete
    8. Rufus IIFri Dec 06, 05:27:00 PM EST
      Is calling someone a "yid" really a racial slur? This is, actually, kind of a serious question. It may be impolite, or crude; but it doesn't "feel" to me as if it rises to the level of the "n" word, or any of its derivatives. Am I way out of line on this one?

      This does not surprise me. Try the dictionary. It is a racial slur just as bad a nigger. The little Gook was POd and let her inner ..... out.

      Delete
    9. Rufus: Is calling someone a "yid" really a racial slur? This is, actually, kind of a serious question. It may be impolite, or crude; but it doesn't "feel" to me as if it rises to the level of the "n" word, or any of its derivatives. Am I way out of line on this one?


      "but it doesn't "feel" to me " well you aint a Jew sparkie are you?

      Might i suggest that old adage? Maybe if you used your mouth less and your ears more you might LEARN something...

      Delete
    10. Abraham Gancwajch who was a prominent Jewish Nazi collaborator in Warsaw Ghetto during Second World War.
      Described as the "kingpin" of the ghetto underworld.

      Abraham Gancwajch who was a Fifth Columnist

      bob

      Delete
    11. Teresita RedingerFri Dec 06, 05:32:00 PM EST
      If it's a racial slur, than Judaism is a race. And if Judaism is a race, then the policies of Israel elevating Judaism to a protected political status over non-Jews are racial apartheid.


      You are very simple minded are you not?

      Delete
    12. “Do you know, Mother, that Haj Salem was buried alive in his home?

      Does he tell you stories in heaven now?

      I wish I had had a chance to meet him. To see his toothless grin and touch his leathery skin.
      To beg him, as you did in your youth, for a story from our Palestine.

      He was over one hundred years old, Mother.

      To have lived so long, only to be crushed to death by a bulldozer.

      Is this what it means to be Palestinian?”

      ― Susan Abulhawa, Mornings in Jenin

      “But in our camp, his story was everyone’s story, a single tale of dispossession,
      of being stripped to the bones of one’s humanity,

      of being dumped like rubbish into refugee camps unfit for rats.

      Of being left without rights, home, or nation
      while the world turned its back to watch or cheer the
      jubilation of the usurpers proclaiming a new state they called Israel.”

      ― Susan Abulhawa, Mornings in Jenin

      bob

      Delete
  12. (And to think we almost elected this bimbo Vice President):

    O'REILLY: And we ran around and we caused trouble. And every -- and you know it was my reception was mixed. I mean some of the people really liked me but some of the people you know, they are kind of like you know what are you doing here? Don't ever come again. But I should have stocked up on moose chili. And nobody guided me into that.

    PALIN: I'll bring you some next time.

    O'REILLY: You have to because there's not a lot of moose on Long Island where I live. So it's either we can't really slay them and chop them up into chili.

    PALIN: I don't think you can shoot anything. I mean isn't the mayor around here trying to ban everything?

    O'REILLY: Well the bad guys can shoot people.

    PALIN: Yes the bad guys --

    O'REILLY: The good people can't. See, that's the law in New York. If you're bad, yes, go ahead and you can shoot. But if you're good you can't. But in Alaska everybody is armed and ready.

    PALIN: Well, we're independent.

    O'REILLY: That's right.

    PALIN: And we want to protect ourselves and we do want to fill our freezer with organic meat.

    ReplyDelete
  13. “From time to time, I open a newspaper.

    Things seem to be proceeding at a dizzying rate.
    We are dancing not on the edge of a volcano, but on the wooden seat of a latrine, and it seems to me more than a touch rotten.
    Soon society will go plummeting down and drown in nineteen centuries of shit.

    There’ll be quite a lot of shouting. (1850)”

    ReplyDelete
  14. I just woke up - haven't posted today.

    My name is still being used.........anyway


    I see though, and find it interesting, that Mrs Terestita Redinger has called Jewish folks yids........of course she called me a peckerwood.......and much else too........

    This is mildly amusing in it's own small way.....

    I do seem to remember her calling Jewish folks ........ now that I think of it....


    Isn't she the moral exemplar whose new Boss is a carpenter or something.......?

    Free air fare still offered......






    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. From me to thee Mrs Teresita "slur baby" Redinger.........


      http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YP77Fja42ts


      It is a wonderful and wonderfully done song if read metaphorically, internally, psychologically......

      May this true most holy birth come to us all......

      As Master Eckhardt, who was being kicked out of OUR LORD'S MOST HOLY CHURCH said on many occasions when still in the pulpit......

      Another way of saying.......you must be bull to your own mother.....and be son or daughter of you own very higher self......but this is all just metaphor.......until you are six months gone with new Me.....

      :)

      hardeharharhukhukhahahahaharharhar......


      It was -40 degrees in parts of Montana yesterday......

      A wonderful time to be born anew in a cold mental stable....

      "I wake to sleep, and take my waking slow......"

      "A man knows by going where he has to go...."

      "Being, not doing, is my first joy....."

      "What's dark to us is light to them....."

      "This first heaven of knowing......"

      Delete

    2. “The history of our race, and each individual’s experience,
      are sown thick with evidence that a truth is not hard to kill and that a lie told well is immortal.”

      Delete
    3. Teresita RedingerFri Dec 06, 05:30:00 PM EST
      (And to think we almost elected this bimbo Vice President):


      She sure as shit accomplished much more than you....

      She unlike you, has raised kids.

      She unlike you, has had real jobs.

      She unlike you, has held public office and has fought and won when it comes to corruption.

      You call her "bimbo"

      Hmm...

      there is something to that I think...

      Bimbo is a derogatory slang term for an attractive but unintelligent female.

      So maybe you are jealous of her attractiveness? Since we all have seen both you and her?

      She's leaps and bounds ahead of you in the most classical "beauty" definition.

      As for "unintelligent?"

      Hmmm... Got elected Governor of the State of Alaska..

      Can hunt and kill a moose, clean it and cook it...

      Doesn't sound "dumb" to me...

      Me thinks you are pissed that she's such smart person and also quite the looker....

      Delete
  15. mourn  
    1. To feel or express grief or sorrow.
    2. To show grief for a death by conventional signs, as by wearing black clothes.
    To make a low, indistinct, mournful sound.
    To feel or express deep regret for
    To grieve over (someone who has died).
    To utter sorrowfully.

    Israeli leaders mourned the loss of former South African president Nelson Mandela, who died on Thursday evening. Prime minster Benjamin Netanyahu said Mandela was "the father of his nation, a man of vision, a freedom fighter who opposed violence. President Shimon Peres, who met the South African leader when he visited Israel in 1999, also eulogized Mandel

    ----------------

    On the International Day of Solidarity with the Palestinian People, December 4. 1997, Mandela assembled a group “as South Africans, our Palestinian guests and as humanists to express our solidarity with the people of Palestine.” At the speech, he called for the metaphorical flames of solidarity, justice, and freedom to be kept burning.

    “The UN took a strong stand against apartheid; and over the years, an international consensus was built, which helped to bring an end to this iniquitous system. But we know too well that our freedom is incomplete without the freedom of the Palestinians.”

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Three key features characterize Israeli apartheid:

      • Four million Palestinians in the Occupied Territories lack the right to vote for the government that controls their lives through a military occupation.

      In addition to controlling the borders, air space, water, tax revenues, and other vital matters pertaining to the Occupied Territories,
      Israel alone issues the identity cards that determine the ability of Palestinians to work and their freedom of movement.


      • About 1.2 million Palestinian Israelis, who make up 20 percent, or one-fifth, of Israel’s population, have second-class citizenship within Israel, ...
      ... which defines itself as a Jewish state rather than a state for all its citizens.

      More than 20 provisions of Israel’s principal laws discriminate, either directly or indirectly, against non-Jews, according to Adalah: The Legal Center for Minority Rights in Israel.

      Millions of Palestinians remain refugees in Jordan, Lebanon, Syria, and elsewhere, unable to return to their former homes ...
      ... and land in present-day Israel.

      Even though the right of return for refugees is enshrined in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.



      bob

      Delete
    2. The whites continue to flee.......this great new nation......

      Niece hasn't responded to request of true information on treatment of Hindus in this great new nation yet.....will report if/when she does......she's working on blindness research.....hasn't much time for else.....

      Delete

    3. “It is wrong and immoral to seek to escape the consequences of one's acts.”

      Delete
  16. Deuce, a serious (to me in a mild way) blog question.......why do you allow rat to keep posting in my name?......why do you allow that?.......I am trying to get my lazy daughter to set me up with a new google.....we are over sixty miles apart now......it may take some time......is there anything you can do about it till then?.......

    ReplyDelete
    Replies

    1. anonymous synonyms: unnamed, of unknown name, nameless, incognito, unidentified, unknown, unsourced, secret

      bob

      Delete
    2. Ifeanyi Enoch OnuohaFri Dec 06, 07:13:00 PM EST


      In you is the ability that will move you from nonentity and mediocrity to an entity of meteority.

      Take responsibility now!

      Delete
    3. I believe you had Ash attempt to walk you through the process. There is no way for me to monitor every post. Today, Jenny said someone posted in her name. I have no way of knowing who unless i am willing to commit a lot of time. I am not going to do that.

      Delete

    4. Google provides a remedy for any who are bothered by the chaos

      Delete

    5. “It takes real planning to organize this kind of chaos.”

      Delete

    6. “Everything under heaven is in utter choas; the situation is excellent.”

      Delete
    7. .

      I can sympathize with you Deuce. Normally, one could assume that it was strictly the rat being the rat, i.e. and asshole being an asshole. However, since Jenny suffered the same problem as Anonymous-Bob, there could be any of a number of assholes involved.

      .

      Delete

    8. It took an asshole to break allen's composure,
      the remark about there being a "Plan" to dismantle the Israeli nuclear arsenal sent him over the top.
      On top of the normal chaos of conflict, in the 'fog of war' our Fünfte Kolonne von Teamleitern broke his 'cover'.

      “Howard Hughes was able to afford the luxury of madness,
      like a man who not only thinks he is Napoleon but hires an army to prove it.”
      ― Ted Morgan


      Why hire an army when the Hegemony of Character is available, for free.

      - bob peckerwood - aka - Anonymous -




      Delete
  17. If it is so hard to understand what's wrong with "Yid", "Kike" or "Hymie" your server might help you out.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Henric Ştefan Streitman was a Romanian Jew, a journalist, translator and political figure, who traversed the political spectrum from socialism to the far right. He was a physicist, social commentator and publisher, known for both his polemical stances and his erudition.
      Streitman turned to Nazi collaborationism during World War II, becoming president of the Central Jewish Office.

      Henric Ştefan Streitman was a Fifth Columnist

      bob

      Delete

  18. From the Congressional Budget Office (CBO): Monthly Budget Review for November 2013


    The federal government ran a budget deficit of $231 billion for the first two months of fiscal year 2014, $61 billion less than the shortfall recorded in October and November of last year, CBO estimates.
    ...
    Receipts for the first two months of fiscal year 2014 totaled $380 billion, CBO estimates—$34 billion more than receipts during the same period last year.

    ...
    Outlays for the first two months of fiscal year 2014 were $27 billion less than they were during the same period last year, CBO estimates. That decrease would have been slightly larger if not for shifts in the timing of certain payments from December to November (because December 1 fell on a weekend in both years). Without those timing shifts, CBO estimates, spending would have declined by $29 billion (or 5 percent).
    The most recent CBO projection put the fiscal 2014 deficit at 3.3% of GDP, down from 4.1% in fiscal 2013. These monthly deficits suggest even more improvement in fiscal 2014 than originally forecast.
    Read more at http://www.calculatedriskblog.com/#ueczdEW86PA0IQHW.99

    It just keeps falling (too fast, actually)

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Someone tell me how to "clean out my cache."

      Windows 7

      Delete
    2. .

      I don't know shit about computers, Ruf, but if you go to the Windows button and click on it, you can go to the "Search programs and Files" area at the bottom, type in 'clean' and a list of functions will show up under 'Disk Cleanup'.

      .

      Delete
    3. Thanks, I'll give it a shot.

      Delete
    4. I'm on.my phone at the moment but if memory serves in internet explorer hit the F12 key and it will bring up a pane of options with clearing cache being one.

      Delete
    5. Okay. It isn't f12, at least on mine, but I'll look at the other "f's."

      Delete
    6. I hopped on a PC. The following is for Internet Explorer. I'm sure there are equivalents in Firefox and Chrome. It is F12 but it may not work depending on (if you have it on your keyboard) where the "f Lock" is toggled to. Another way into it is to go to "tools" and select "developer tools" which shows the F12 shortcut beside it. Once in developer tools you will see a bunch of menu items up top. It is "cache" that you want. Under the menu items for "cache" you find "clear session cookies" and "clear browser cache". Clearing those items used to allow you to reset, for example, your free number of articles at NYTimes. I'm not sure if they've cleaned up that work around though.

      Delete
    7. Also, under tools, you can choose "internet options" and there is a section for deleting history and cookies there as well. I don't think it cleans quite as well as the developer tools though.

      Delete
  19. From Wiki:

    The word Yid (/ˈjiːd/; Yiddish: ייִד)[clarification needed] is a slang Jewish ethnonym of Yiddish origin. Its usage may be controversial in modern English language. It is not usually considered offensive when pronounced /ˈjiːd/ (rhyming with deed), the way Yiddish speakers say it, though some may deem the word offensive nonetheless. When pronounced /ˈjɪd/ (rhyming with did), some have perceived it as pejorative — and has been used as a derogatory epithet by antisemites along with, and as an alternative to, the English word 'Jew'.[1]

    Supporters of the English football club Tottenham Hotspur F.C. adopted the nickname "Yid" (or "Yiddo") and often identify as "Yid Army" - as a direct response to opposition fans originally using the word against them as a form of taunting and abuse. "Yid" is used as a badge of pride by the supporters of Tottenham Hotspur F.C., both those that are Jewish and non-Jewish. Such usage is controversial, and in 2013 has been addressed by the UK Society for Black Lawyers (an equality lobby group), as well as the British Prime Minister.[2]


    Anyway, if it's offensive, it shouldn't be used. Period.

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  20. The straight story from Juan Cole

    United States, Israel opposed Mandela, supported Apartheid
    By Juan Cole | Dec. 6, 2013 |

    The attempt to make Nelson Mandela respectable is an ongoing effort of Western government spokesmen and the Western media. He wasn’t respectable in the business circles of twentieth-century New York or Atlanta,…

    The attempt to make Nelson Mandela respectable is an ongoing effort of Western government spokesmen and the Western media.
    He wasn’t respectable in the business circles of twentieth-century New York or Atlanta, or inside the Beltway of Washington, D.C. He wasn’t respectable for many of the allies of the United States in the Cold War, including Britain and Israel.

    I visited Soweto in 2012 and went to Mandela’s old house. It was a moving experience. I don’t want him to be reduced to a commercialized icon on this day of all days.

    We should remember that for much of the West in the Cold War, South Africa’s thriving capitalist economy was what was important. Its resources were important. Its government, solely staffed by Afrikaners and solely for Afrikaners, was seen as a counter-weight to Soviet and Communist influence in Africa. Washington in the 1980s obsessed about Cuba’s relationship to Angola (yes).

    That the Afrikaners treated black Africans like dirt and discriminated against them viciously, denying them the franchise or any hint of equality, was considered in Western capitals at most an unfortunate idiosyncrasy that could not be allowed to interfere with the West’s dependence on Pretoria in fighting the international Left.

    The African National Congress had attempted nonviolent protest in the 1950s, but the white Afrikaaner government outlawed all those techniques and replied with deadly force. In the early 1960s when Nelson Mandela turned to sabotage, the United States was a nakedly capitalist country engaged in an attempt to ensure that peasants and workers did not come to power. It was a deeply racist society that practiced Apartheid, a.k.a. Jim Crow in its own South.

    The US considered the African National Congress to be a form of Communism, and sided with the racist Prime Ministers Hendrik Verwoerd and P.W. Botha against Mandela.

    Decades later, in the 1980s, the United States was still supporting the white Apartheid government of South Africa, where a tiny minority of Afrikaaners dominated the economy and refused to allow black Africans to shop in their shops or fraternize with them, though they were happy to employ them in the mines. Ronald Reagan declared Nelson Mandela, then still in jail, a terrorist, and the US did not get around to removing him from the list until 2008! Reagan, while delivering pro forma denunciations of Apartheid or enforced black separation and subjugation, nevertheless opposed sanctions with teeth on Pretoria. Reagan let the racist authoritarian P.W. Botha come to Washington and met with him.

    {...}

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    1. {...}
      Likewise British PM Margaret Thatcher befriended Botha and castigated Mandela’s ANC as terrorists. As if the Afrikaners weren’t terrorizing the black majority! She may have suggested to Botha that he release Mandela for PR purposes, but there is not any doubt on whose side she stood.

      The Israeli government had extremely warm relations with Apartheid South Africa, to the point where Tel Aviv offered the Afrikaners a nuclear weapon (presumably for brandishing at the leftist states of black Africa). That the Israelis accuse Iran of being a nuclear proliferator is actually hilarious if you know the history. Iran doesn’t appear ever to have attempted to construct a nuclear weapon, whereas Israel has hundreds and seems entirely willing to share.

      In the US, the vehemently anti-Palestinian Anti-Defamation League in San Francisco spied on American anti-Apartheid activists on behalf of the Apartheid state. If the ADL ever calls you a racist, you can revel in the irony.

      {...}

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    2. {...}
      Ronald Reagan imagined that there were “moderates” in the Botha government. There weren’t. He wanted “constructive engagement” with them. It failed. The Afrikaners imposed martial law. Reagan tried to veto Congressional sanctions on Pretoria in 1986 but Congress over-rode him.

      Nelson Mandela was a socialist who believed in the ideal of economic equality or at least of a decent life for everyone in society. He was also a believer in parliamentary government. So, he was a democratic socialist.

      The current Republican Party is implementing Apartheid policies of making it difficult for minorities to exercise their right to vote. And they are changing tax laws to throw ever more of society’s wealth to the top 1%. And they just threw millions of Americans off food stamps, including children and Veterans. The US House of Representatives still stands against everything Mandela stood for.

      President Obama first became interested in politics at Occidental College in California and attended anti-Apartheid demonstrations. It was then that fellow activists informed him that Barack would be a better name for such an activist than “Barry.” In many ways Mandela’s cause started Obama on his path to the White House.

      In the meantime the UK also has a right wing government that is punishing students and the poor on behalf of the rich. And the Likud Foreign Minister in Israel, Avigdor Lieberman, wants to take away the citizenship of Palestinian-Israelis (20% of the population) just as the Afrikaners took citizenship away from blacks and pushed them into Bantustans. Mandela said, ““We know too well that our freedom is incomplete without the freedom of the Palestinians.”

      The world will celebrate Nelson Mandela. But for most of those global leaders, it is only lip service. With the partial exception of President Obama, they don’t share his actual ideals and wouldn’t approve of him when he was at his most active, in the early 1960s, trying to figure out how to sabotage the Afrikaner establishment. (I say partial in Obama’s case because obviously he admires the struggle against Apartheid, but on economic issues he is an Eisenhower Republican and Mandela wouldn’t approve). In the 1990s on his release from prison Mandela did stand out for his belief in peace and reconciliation. But that was only because the Afrikaners had lost and he could afford to be magnanimous in victory. He was not a pacifist. He did not believe in taking lives as part of his struggle, but he was willing to resort to violence. He was not a capitalist. He wanted uplift for the workers. He could not overlook racism the way Reagan, Thatcher and Shamir did.

      South Africa itself, for all its economic and social dynamism, has also not fully attained Mandela’s ideals. Its poor are becoming worse off. Labor relations are roiled. And the ANC leadership is in disarray.

      Mandela is not a birthday cake to be celebrated. The funeral with its hypocritical heads of state won’t honor him. He is a pioneer to be emulated. We honor him by standing up for justice even in the face of enormous opposition from the rich and powerful, by taking risks for high ideals. We won’t meet his standards. But if all of us tried, we’d make the world better. As he did.

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  21. Mandela is a good example of how prison rehabilitates. 27 years chilled his ass right out.

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  22. Too bad that crazy ass wife of his didn't share his cell.

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    1. Hegelians are taught to use any stupid argument at their disposal that enrages their assigned opposite "side,"
      their job is to fuel established conflicts and say anything they want, as long as it keeps the masses distracted.

      bob

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    2. .

      Have you ever noticed what clueless dicks Hegelians are?

      Brains of mush.

      .

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    3. My comments below.......

      It is too tough for them to understand Hegel....

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  23. Not so at all, bob.

    Hegel was, all unknown to himself, quite a master psychologist. His 'dialectic' may be said to have masterly described the development of the human person.

    In this sense he was true, and was talking to himself about himself from his Self.

    His mistake was in foolishly applying this understanding to history.

    He was also a little heavy on the superego side.

    'but when I breathe with the birds, and the spirit of wrath become the spirit of blessing, and the burning lake becomes a forest pool.....' is not an historical statement.

    Nor is it Hegel's.






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  24. "None of us really have names, we only have thoughts, the quality of which are hierarchical."


    The Hierarchical Fisherman From Idaho Where We Respect Jews And The Temperature Is Way Below Freezing

    (Hegel, oddly enough, was by the way, by birth, by tradition, at least,.....a Lutheran)

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    1. Primitive Middle Eastern religions (and most others) are much the same –
      Islam, Christianity and Judaism all define themselves through disgust for women's bodies.”

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    2. "Have I been getting into your mental inbox?"

      Santa, with cheery wink,and spiritual twink to your lovely feminine buns, from Idaho ;)


      In myth this spirit is depicted as from coming from outside in.......


      http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YP77Fja42ts

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    3. Not so at all Molly.

      When King David was on his death bed, cold as ice, they brought Abishag, the most beautiful young women in all Israel, body and eyes of pure life, and placed her in his death bed, to try and warm old David up.

      Didn't work......but great effort.....




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    4. Perhaps if it had been the most beautiful young Hindu in all of India it might have worked......


      Hamdoon

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    5. You must remember, dear Molly, it is not in Israel nor in the United States, were women are forced to wear the disgusting burka....

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    6. Metaphorically, spiritually, psychologically here what we are talking about is a veiling of the human spirit.....


      When my wife an I walked up to aile to marry in the oldest Lutheran Church in all the State of Idaho she wore no veil.

      She can do anything she wishes, and does......

      She runs the check book....

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    7. The veil is a symbolic way of killing the human spirit.

      Thus it is prevalent in Islam.

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    8. But this is just metaphorical stoning...

      The real stoning begins when the gal sheds the veil......

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    9. in moslem lands....

      But not in Israel, a Jewish State, nor in the United States.

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    10. It is never too soon to confront bigotry and racism whenever, wherever, and in whatever form it raises its ugly head.
      It is incumbent upon all people to confront even the slightest hint of racist thought or action with zero tolerance.”
      ― Hans J. Massaquoi, Destined to Witness: Growing Up Black in Nazi Germany

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