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."

Wednesday, July 04, 2012

Where does “Press 2 for Spanish.” get you?


Ukraine police clash with Kiev crowd over language law


The police and protesters clashed outside the convention hall

Related Stories

Police in Ukraine's capital Kiev have fired tear gas to disperse hundreds of protesters angry over a new language law that boosts the status of Russian.
The clashes erupted outside a building where President Viktor Yanukovych was scheduled to give a speech.
The new law, drafted by Mr Yanukovych's Party of the Regions, was adopted by parliament on Tuesday without a debate on numerous amendments.
That prompted a request from Speaker Volodymyr Lytvyn to step down.
Mr Lytvyn's deputy Mykola Tomenko also tendered his resignation.
The second reading vote took place on Tuesday despite scuffles in the chamber between the ruling party and opposition MPs.
The bill grants Russian, mother tongue of most people in east and south Ukraine, "regional language" status.
Critics fear it will dilute Ukraine's sovereignty and help return Ukraine to Moscow's sphere of influence.
While Ukrainian would remain the country's official language, Russian could be used in courts, hospitals, schools and other institutions in Russian-speaking regions.
The bill will become law once signed off by President Yanukovych, who is seen by his critics as being close to Moscow.
Mr Yanukovych decided to postpone his speech on Wednesday as clashes continued. He invited parliament leaders and heads of parliamentary factions to meet him to discuss the resignations.
Correspondents say about 1,000 opposition activists took part in Wednesday's demonstration.
The new law says local officials can use a "regional language" if at least 10% of the local population are native speakers of that language.
Those officials would have to know the regional language and be able to use it in their official duties.
People will be allowed to choose which language they want their documents issued in - Ukrainian or regional.
The new law de facto grants Russian the status of an official language - but not the state one - in most of Ukraine.

72 comments:

  1. One of the great lasting benefits of the British Empire is the unifying power of a common language. It was crucial in the Commonwealth and was a great unifying factor in The UNITED States of America.

    Every immigrant from any tongue collaborated with and functioned in US society through the use of the English Language. Now we learn and are told that diversity makes us strong, which is interesting because everywhere else on the planet it appears that diversity and clamoring ethnicities and dueling tongues makes for less union.

    Today we celebrate a day off. Independence Day is now “the fourth,” except for a very few, it is picnics, fireworks and just another federal holiday. Happy Chinese fireworks holiday.

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  2. More than 1.9 million LED lights were recently installed in over 20,000 street lights the Beibei district of Chongqing, China in the country’s largest municipal intelligent lighting control project, which includes nearly 16 miles of highway, 119 streets, and one tunnel.

    Officials estimate the installation will result in annual maintenance and electricity savings of more than RMB 19.5 million (approximately USD 3 million) and 17.6 million kWh.


    Source: Clean Technica (http://s.tt/1gK4o)

    LEDs light up Chinese City

    ReplyDelete
  3. A typically American Mash-up:

    During the American Revolution, the legal separation of the Thirteen Colonies from Great Britain occurred on July 2, 1776, when the Second Continental Congress voted to approve a resolution of independence that had been proposed in June by Richard Henry Lee of Virginia declaring the United States independent from Great Britain.[4][5] After voting for independence, Congress turned its attention to the Declaration of Independence, a statement explaining this decision, which had been prepared by a Committee of Five, with Thomas Jefferson as its principal author. Congress debated and revised the wording of the Declaration, finally approving it on July 4. A day earlier, John Adams had written to his wife Abigail:


    The second day of July, 1776, will be the most memorable epoch in the history of America. I am apt to believe that it will be celebrated by succeeding generations as the great anniversary festival. It ought to be commemorated as the day of deliverance, by solemn acts of devotion to God Almighty. It ought to be solemnized with pomp and parade, with shows, games, sports, guns, bells, bonfires, and illuminations, from one end of this continent to the other, from this time forward forever more.[6]

    Adams's prediction was off by two days. From the outset, Americans celebrated independence on July 4, the date shown on the much-publicized Declaration of Independence, rather than on July 2, the date the resolution of independence was approved in a closed session of Congress.[7]

    Historians have long disputed whether Congress actually signed the Declaration of Independence on July 4, even though Thomas Jefferson, John Adams, and Benjamin Franklin all later wrote that they had signed it on that day. Most historians have concluded that the Declaration was signed nearly a month after its adoption, on August 2, 1776, and not on July 4 as is commonly believed.[8][9][10][11][12]

    In a remarkable coincidence, both John Adams and Thomas Jefferson, the only signers of the Declaration of Independence later to serve as Presidents of the United States, died on the same day: July 4, 1826, which was the 50th anniversary of the Declaration. Although not a signer of the Declaration of Independence, but another Founding Father who became a President, James Monroe, died on July 4, 1831, thus becoming the third president in a row who died on this memorable day. Calvin Coolidge, the 30th President, was born on July 4, 1872, and, so far, is the only President to have been born on Independence Day.


    Independence Day: Wiki

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  4. Observance


    An 1825 invitation to an Independence Day celebration In 1777, thirteen gunshots were fired in salute, once at morning and once again
    as evening fell, on July 4 in Bristol, Rhode Island.

    Philadelphia celebrated the first anniversary in a manner a modern American would find quite familiar: an official dinner for the Continental Congress, toasts, 13-gun salutes, speeches, prayers, music, parades, troop reviews, and fireworks. Ships were decked with red, white, and blue bunting.[13]

    In 1778, General George Washington marked July 4 with a double ration of rum for his soldiers (Old Georgie always did understand whut was important) and an artillery salute. Across the Atlantic Ocean, ambassadors John Adams and Benjamin Franklin held a dinner for their fellow Americans in Paris, France.[14]

    In 1779, July 4 fell on a Sunday. The holiday was celebrated on Monday, July 5.[14]

    In 1781 the Massachusetts General Court became the first state legislature to recognize July 4 as a state celebration.[14]

    In 1783, Moravians in Salem, North Carolina, held a celebration of July 4 with a challenging music program assembled by Johann Friedrich Peter. This work was titled "The Psalm of Joy".

    In 1791 the first recorded use of the name "Independence Day" occurred.

    In 1820 the first Fourth of July celebration was held in Eastport, Maine which remains the largest in the state.[15]

    In 1870, the U.S. Congress made Independence Day an unpaid holiday for federal employees.[16]

    In 1938, Congress changed Independence Day to a paid federal holiday.[17

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  5. Time for a Bezmenov update.

    Bezmenov exposes Glenn Beck.

    Bezmenov on Deception. (seminal video from 1984 - nearly 1.5 hrs.)

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Guy looks and sounds crazy as a fruitcake to me.

      The 1.5 hour one, no thanks.

      b

      Delete
  6. Did Bezmenov expose Glenn Beck? It looked to me as if the purewater something or other used a Bezmenov video and then used Beck as an example.

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    1. :) There's some bailing wire and bubble gum in the effort I will grant.

      AFAIAC, Beck, Limbaugh, Savage, and the rest can pound sand. Pseudo-intellectuals with really big megaphones.

      This country is over-governed in some ways - the regulatory code is a mess, especially the tax code. Should government be shifted more to the States? I don't know the complete answer but I do know that State government is a fully corrupt as the Feds.

      In terms of long term strategies, I favor (in addition to health care reform) an education push. It's really hard for some of these half-wits like the trio named above to get any traction among a population that is informed and skilled in critical thinking.

      (The ever popular buddy larsen adored Glenn Beck. I couldn't stand to listen to him. So there it is.)

      Delete
    2. Glenn Beck has been having a glacial rate mental melt since he was once funny, a long time ago.

      Delete
    3. Glenn Beck is nutz.
      MaxMoron is Programmed.

      Delete
    4. Illinois, CA, corrupt.

      Indiana, Wisconsin - cleaning things up.

      DC, corrupt, through and through.

      Delete
  7. Bezmenov says that one of his first duties with the KGB was to keep foreign guests intoxicated from the time they landed at the airport.

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  8. At about 12:30 Bezmenov starts to sound, eerily, like Kruschev ("The Capitalists will sell us the rope with which we'll hang them.")

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    1. The first ten minutes is all "anti-sovietism," and after that it's all "America is stupidism." By the end of a half hour you're scared to death, and wondering how many more of these nutjobs they let into the country.

      Delete
    2. Oops, this comment was supposed to be Below my 10:36 comment.

      Delete
    3. That was Lenin.

      Kruschev said 'we will bury you'

      Close is only good enough in horse shoes and gov't medical care and hand grenades.

      b

      Delete
  9. My experience has always been that if you give an Eastern European ten minutes, he/she will start telling you how America should be more Autocratic.

    A Rooskie is a Rooskie is a Rooskie.

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  10. It seems that too many people have already forgotten the primary reason of our post war foreign policy. Bezmenov provides a good reminder.

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  11. Where does “Press 2 for Spanish.” get you?

    Eventually to fighting in the streets.

    We need that English language amendment.

    Or I'm going back to Swedish.

    Happy Independence Day, or Dependence Day, your choice.

    b

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  12. A system set up to control the rulers ability to tax, among other things, winds up with the Supreme Court ruling the government can tax anything as long as it's somehow called or at least thought of as a tax.

    b

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  13. heh, I read the PRI in Mexico was handing out pre-paid gift cards for a vote for PRI. That's what press two for Spanish will eventually get us.

    b

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  14. Out this way, the fighting between the groups was mostly based on language, Sahaptin, Salish, Piegan and so on. (and of course, who owned the fish and game)

    We speak 'the real language' here, you don't. Go way.

    b

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  15. At 58:44 he lets he mask slip when he sneeringly lumps the "Civil Rights Protestors" in with the "Other Useful Idiots."

    I'm telling ya, "A Ruskie is a Ruskie."

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. :)

      I'm glad you're watching, it's too much for me this morning.

      b

      Delete
  16. It's also noteworthy, I think, that he almost hates to use the word, "communism," referring continuously to the Soviet system as "socialism."

    I'll betcha if you got him drunk enough you'd be facing a raging fascist. Happens every time.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. I had him figured for bonkers half way through the first video.

      Keep up the good reporting.

      b

      Delete
  17. The criminal world is just as competitively hierarchical as the straight world. Guy Ritchie made a name for himself documenting The Life several rungs below the world of Russians, polonium and Bezmenov. Or is it the same life? I've always wondered.

    Anyway, Ritchie is an interesting character, not just for surviving ten years with Madonna but for his movies, which he generally writes and directs. His scripts are crisp and funny. It's hard to imagine he just "made it up." He also has a "tribe" consisting of Sting, Trudie Styler, and Jason Statham. For a good time check out "Snatch" available for direct download on Netflix (be sure to turn on the subtitles to help with the cockney accents.)

    .....

    We speak 'the real language' here, you don't. Go way.

    I am always amused to hear the paean to tribalism emerge from the same people who demand their "right" to be "independent." (The "we're hip and you're not" attitude is the stuff of childhood. It's OK. We were all children once. Some grow out of it. Some don't. Some care. Some don't.)

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  18. I would say that the ability to sing the music of Freedom has been bred out of the Russkies.

    Just not enough "Cherokee" blood, I'm thinking. :)

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    1. I remember being surprised during the 1990's, the period between the dissolution of USSR and the collapse of LTCM. I thought the Russians were going to charge forward, become a vibrant and energetic State. Did that ever not happen. I was informed that the Russian people were lacking, both in education and, to a degree, desire; the failure of the Russian state serving as a glaring example of the long-term impact of totalitarian government. It is instructive to note the requirement of a fertile substrate for the growth of a free society and its institutions. Whatever was missing in the emergent Russian State is is missing in the ME as well, only more so.

      Delete
    2. And, before that, it was the Czars. And, before that the "Kings," and before that the Mongols, and before that . . . . . .

      You gotta admit, we're damned lucky. Progeny of a self-selected bunch of independent-minded, ambitious, risk-takers that found a place abundant with good farmland, mineral wealth, and a great river system, and, perhaps more importantly, benefitting from great isolation.

      Delete
    3. I was on a so-called trade mission to Russia right before the final USSR collapse. It was one of the longer weeks of my life. I was amazed at how dirty it was. The food tasted like it was stored in an old drawer. Nothing described it better than one cynic saying that, "...in Russia, they pretend to pay us and we pretend to work.”

      The police regularly walked through my Moscow Hotel next to the Kremlin looking for bribes.

      The hotel did not accept Rubles, neither did the hookers who paid the cops in dollars.

      The official rate was 1 ruble = USD $1.89.

      Cabs in Moscow were forced to take Rubles. When I checked into an office, run by a Finnish company, I asked them what to do with the rubles the airport officials forced me to buy at the airport (official rate of course} and they laughed, opened a drawer stuffed with them, they told me I could put them in there or help myself to as many as I wanted.

      I put them in the drawer as there was nothing I could buy with them. I forgot about cab-fair and realized my mistakes when the cabby told me my fare was two rubles. I gave him five dollars. He almost had a stroke and saluted me. I later learned that the street rate was 35 rubles to the dollar and that I paid him was worth two months salary in the black market.

      The Russians that I travelled with were all members of the Communist Party and ran a massive network of factories mines and materials for the domestic state owned construction monopoly . They knew the wheels were coming off and the country was on the verge of a complete collapse. They all were looking to make their own deals. They wanted to make business deal where I would represent various of "their" products for export. The deal was that they would borrow money from the central bank to finance export sales. I would sell the goods in the US for just about any price and keep half sending them the balance in dollars. They would convert the dollars at the street price and repay the central bank with domestic rubles. The math was interesting; They borrowed 100 rubles for commodity X and I would sell it for a 50% discount and remit to them 25% of the original value. The would convert to street rubles 25 x 35 = 875, pay back the bank the 100 and pocketed the 775. That was their idea of business.

      I took a pass. Many did not.

      Delete
    4. I read Matthew Brzezinski's "Casino Moscow: A Tale of Greed and Adventure on Capitalism’s Wildest Frontier", MB being ZB's nephew. Starts out very Bond-like with MB getting the shit kicked out of him.

      You should write a book Deuce, fiction, of course.

      Delete
    5. Re luck, charity and teat-sucking socialists, etc.

      The Black family needs to focus - on itself. I don't know how exactly but the problems need to be internalized as part of an awareness that informs a specific racial group, ala the Bill Cosby and Chris Rock themes.

      The governors aren't getting a pass, but the real culprits in the (post-) modern world have been the money changers: Russia, EUrope, USA. I see that's starting to crumble a bit. (Still not getting the cell-time they deserve.)

      The modern conservative crowd, more informed by blog sphere themes than the old Bill Buckley conservatives, is still fighting the ideological wars (with considerable assists from Beck, Limbaugh et al.) I do not believe that is where the current danger lies.

      (I intend to go back and review the Bezmenov interview with your time points in mind Rufus. The liability with the modern Russian mindset is the dominance of ideology over - everything else, especially finance and technology. While the Russians are still pining for a fascist State, the opportunity costs will ultimately nullify their vision as the future sweeps past. I have no idea to what degree someone like Putin understands that. Probably the way he wants it.)

      "Can't stop the signal Mal." (Serenity)

      Delete
  19. In the run-up to credit crunch of 2007, whistleblowers were warning that an incumbency, the financial-services sector, had its asset assessment fundamentally wrong. The incumbency poured scorn on this, many of them professing that they had invented a new asset class – mortgage-backed securities and related complex derivatives – that represented an entirely new method of generating wealth.


    Today, rather more whistleblowers are saying that another incumbency, the oil and gas sector, has its asset assessment fundamentally wrong. The incumbency pours scorn on this, insisting that they have opened up another new asset class – unconventional oil and gas – and that it represents another unforeseen road to riches. Some go so far as to say that North America is en route to being self-sufficient in hydrocarbons.


    The first incumbency illusion proved to be a deadly bubble, the legacy of which still threatens to torpedo the global economy five years on. We will find out about the second within a few years. The UK industry taskforce on peak oil and energy security, which I convened, is among many groups forecasting a global descent in oil production by 2015 at the latest, notwithstanding all the incumbency rhetoric.


    Monbiot was "Right" before he was Wrong
    <a href="

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  20. I copied this comment from the poster that goes by the nom de guerre, "Darwinian" at the Oil Drum Blog. I hope he doesn't mind.

    I have posted OECD net import charts on Drumbeat before but never OECD imports plus production.

    The EIA publishes monthly, both import and production numbers for 30 of the 34 OECD countries. For some reason they do not publish import data for Israel, Chile, Estonia and Slovenia. But they do publish this data for the rest of all OECD nations which are:
    Australia Denmark Hungary Korea, South Norway Sweden
    Austria Finland Iceland Luxembourg Poland Switzerland
    Belgium France Ireland Mexico Portugal Turkey
    Canada Germany Italy Netherlands Slovakia United Kingdom
    Czech Rep. Greece Japan New Zealand Spain United States

    So I took the Crude + Condensate production data for these 30 countries, then took the Net Imports for these 30 countries and added the two. The chart below is the 12 month running average of all the imports plus all the crude + condensate production of these 30 countries.

    From May of 2005 until October of 2006, OECD imports + production averaged just above 43,700,000 barrels per day. But by February 2012, the last data point on the chart, OECD imports + Production, average for the previous 12 months, was 37,379,000 barrels per day. That is a drop 6,320,000 barrels per day. That is a drop of 14.46% over a six year period. That is a drop of 2.41% per year. The data is kb/d.


    Accompanying Chart

    Folks, this is peak oil. This is what is causing most of the turmoil in Europe today, though few people realize it. They think it is "something happening to the economy". Well it is, the chart above is what is happening to the economy. Their liquid energy supply is declining by almost 2.5 percent a year. And it will continue to decline.

    So you can deny peak oil until the cows come home. But the chart above is cold hard data from the EIA. And it tells the whole story. Peak oil arrived around 2006, or at least as all OECD nations are concerned.


    Ron P.

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    1. This comment has been removed by the author.

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  21. California, Arizona, Nevada, Texas, New Mexico, Colorado, the mother language was Spanish, before the influx of civilian Anglos and subsequent military occupation of those territories by the US or their proxies that followed.

    The Mexicans had the misfortune to be led by inept and egotistical Generals.

    Mexico never did recover from the loss of Northern California.

    To complain that the language of the defeated peoples has not been wiped out, comical.
    Sounds rather Russian.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. California, Arizona, Nevada, Texas, New Mexico, Colorado, the mother language was Spanish, before the influx of civilian Anglos and subsequent military occupation of those territories by the US or their proxies that followed.



      Spanish was NEVER the mother language of those states.

      Remember SPAIN? They were just another invading force... No more, no less...

      Delete
    2. Mother language?

      Perhaps not.

      It was the language of government, there.

      Santa Fe being established long before the English set foot at Plymouth Rock

      Delete
  22. It was fighting in the streets that made English the de facto language of the land.

    Why would one think that the fight was over?

    Especially when the defeated peons were never displaced, just kept impoverished.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. It was the breathe and width of the British commercial empire that brought English as a universal tongue.

      As for your comment "Especially when the defeated peons were never displaced, just kept impoverished"?

      Please site any modern day example of British imposed impoverishment?

      Delete
    2. It was not the British that took San Diego from Mexico.

      Nor did the Brits take El Paso or Santa Fe.

      The British were long gone from North America by the time the US imposed its' Manifest Destiny.
      By capturing Vera Cruz in 1914.

      Delete
    3. Government Motors builds Chevrolets in San Luis Potosí, Silao & Ramos Arizpe, Mexico.

      Situated in those seven border States of Mexico that the US has treaty dominion over.
      Thanks to NAFTA.

      Delete
    4. While the largest company in Mexico, well, that'd be Walmart.

      Delete
    5. While the richest man in North America, that'd be Carlos Slim.

      A man that knows how to exploit peons. After all he bought a major share of the NY Times.

      Delete
  23. With the celebration this month of the 100th anniversary of Woody Guthrie’s birth, festivals, academic symposia and new collections of his music are bringing renewed attention to “This Land Is Your Land,” one of the U.S.’s unofficial anthems. And it is becoming more widely recognized that some versions of the song featured lyrics not normally associated with patriotism -- words reflecting Guthrie’s communist beliefs.

    What may not be so well-known is that “This Land Is Your Land” belongs to an American tradition of patriotic pieces made by critics of capitalism. The authors of the Pledge of Allegiance and “America the Beautiful” also took a distinctly leftist view of the U.S. economic system.

    Make no mistake, Guthrie was a patriot. In May 1941, months before Japan attacked Pearl Harbor, he ended his song “Pastures of Plenty” with the pledge, “My land I’ll defend with my life if it be / ’Cause my pastures of plenty must always be free.” When the war reached the U.S., he volunteered for the Merchant Marine, and in his three voyages across the Atlantic, two ships sank under him, one hit by a torpedo, another sunk by a mine.

    Nevertheless, Guthrie was also a Communist sympathizer. Evidence suggests that he never officially joined the party. In an article he wrote for the Communist newspaper People’s World, he deflected the question with humor: “I ain’t a communist necessarily,” he wrote, “but I been in the red all my life.”


    Guthrie was following in a line of artistic critics running back to Francis Bellamy, a former Baptist minister and a member of the Society of Christian Socialists, who composed the Pledge of Allegiance in 1892, in honor of the 400th anniversary of Christopher Columbus’s landing.

    Bellamy gave considerable thought to what should go into the Pledge. Most important was the republic for which the flag stands. With the Civil War a living memory, “indivisible” was crucial, too. Then, being a Christian Socialist, he considered “liberty, equality, fraternity” -- ultimately rejecting these in favor of “liberty and justice.”

    The following year, Katharine Lee Bates, a Wellesley professor of English and a socialist sympathizer, penned “America the Beautiful.” A little-known stanza in the original 1895 publication critiques the greed of the Gilded Age, concluding: “America! America! / God shed His grace on thee, / Till selfish gain no longer stain / The banner of the free!” Bates not only made fraternity central to her hymn -- “crown thy good with brotherhood” -- but also portrayed her fellow citizens’ drive for “selfish gain” as a “stain” upon freedom’s flag.

    In subsequent revisions, Bates toned down the criticism. The final version reads, “America! America! / May God thy gold refine / Till all success be nobleness / And every gain divine!”

    That three of our most beloved patriotic texts were written by critics of our economic system speaks well of our freedoms. Criticism of country does not preclude loyalty -- or love.

    Bloomberg

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    1. .

      That three of our most beloved patriotic texts were written by critics of our economic system speaks well of our freedoms. Criticism of country does not preclude loyalty -- or love.


      Try telling that to Homeland Security.


      .

      Delete
  24. Replies
    1. :):):):):)

      Have a good 4th Ruf, and everyone. Casino and fireworks time...

      b

      Delete
  25. Anyone that would consider there to be real borders in North America, well, they deny economic realities.

    Manifest Destiny won.

    Welcome to the "Melting Pot".

    ReplyDelete
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    1. Where cultures become entwined, not destroyed.

      Where Carlos Slim has equal footing with Lester Crown.

      Where the family Romney could evade the oath of loyalty to the US, moving to a Mormon colony in Mexico, and yet still return to the US when boy George was five years old. Sins forgiven, if not forgotten.

      Delete
    2. yep the Rat is back..

      same lester crown crap different day....

      Delete
    3. Lester Crown, the man that made Mr Obama's career, yet some would let leave US in the dark, about the influence he wields.

      Wonder why?

      When Carlos Slim, a Mexican national, has immense influence on the US news business, why not discuss it?

      When men of great wealth dismiss borders and national sovereignty, why should the rest of us get hung up upon the shoals?

      Borders never stopped Rupert Murdock.
      The owner of the Wall Street Journal, now the most widely quoted news source, on FOX News.

      Borders never stopped Mr Romney from depositing cash in Cayman Island, Swiss or Bermuda banks.

      According to some sources crossing borders did not slow down Mr Obama's claim to US citizenship nor his qualifications to be President.

      But back to Lester, he is the man that put Mr Obama on the glide path to being President. He should get full credit for it. Not ignored because of his immense wealth and power.

      Any more than we should ignore Casino magnate Sheldon Adelson and his wife Miriam moving $25,000,000 dollars from his Chinese patrons to the GOP's coffers, laundered through his casino in Macau.

      Makes George Soros look like a bumbling idiot.

      John McCain (R-AZ) said Thursday that casino magnate Sheldon Adelson is indirectly injecting millions of dollars in Chinese "foreign money" into Mitt Romney's presidential election effort.

      "Much of Mr. Adelson's casino profits that go to him come from his casino in Macau, which says that obviously, maybe in a roundabout way foreign money is coming into an American political campaign," McCain said in an interview on PBS's News Hour.


      The Chinese hold Mr Adelson on a very short leash.

      Delete
  26. How come "Play" doesn't for me?

    ...looks like a hot Ukrainian Cop, but no go.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. ...at first I thought she mighteven be mounted.

      (in a DR sort of way, of course)

      Delete
  27. How about an 85 IQ threshold cutoff to eliminate the Max Indoctrination Garbage Rehash?

    ReplyDelete
  28. On closer inspection, looks like a protestor.

    ...lucky cops.

    ReplyDelete
  29. A courageous band of visionary revolutionaries or a modern pack driven by rhetoric, delusion, deceit and a misplaced sense of their own historic importance? And you thought the Sixties radicals were offensive?

    The huge irony of the claustrophobic echo chamber that encloses conservative rhetoric is that you demand this, that, and whatever, but only for Your Group. At its very core, the bombast of you, Beck and Limbaugh is rule by an elitist aristocracy, or better yet, if your Crazy G-ys have any say in the matter, throw in a little religion for looks and make it rule by theocracy, or better yet, add some costumes and go for a full blown monarchy.

    That's the ticket.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Vat ve needt iss goodt King.

      b

      Delete
  30. Gives a whole new meaning to Entitlement doesn't it?

    ReplyDelete
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    1. Democrats are the Party of entitlement, keeping the plebes down beneath their boot where they belong.

      Conservatives champion individual liberty, innovation, and prosperity.

      Anathema to Statist Progressives, I will admit.

      Delete