Photographer Has His Canon 5D Mark II Kidnapped and Killed by a Lion PetaPixel (Robert M)
Texas Feral Hog Wrecks Mark Losing Battle With Animals Bloomberg
Working wonders without water out West The Daily Climate (Aquifer)
Biofuels and the Right to Food: Time for the US to get its head out of the sand Triple Crisis
Outbreaks of Foodborne Illnesses Are Becoming Harder to Detect Scientific American (Aquifer)
Hopes of Home Fade Among Japan’s Displaced New York Times (Aquifer)
de Tocqueville in China Global Economic Intersection
19/8a Wylde Street Potts Point NSW 2011 Sydney real estate porn! Disclosure: I’ve been to parties at this apartment (I lived about a seven minute walk up McCleay Street), so it’s sort of sad to see it on sale. The communal garden is a really nice feature.
Goodbye Europe- live BBC World Service (David W)
Carney a ‘significant positive’ for banks Telegraph
Protesters descend on Tahrir Square Guardian
Obama’s Drone Problem New Yorker. Lambert: “Interesting since The New Yorker is, like, totally in the tank for Obama.”
Republicans set stage for showdown over Susan Rice Guardian
Rule of Law index: U.S. Ranks Low In Access To Justice Compared To Other Wealthy Nations Huffington Post
Revenge of the Reality-Based Community Bruce Bartlett
Catfood watch:
More Austerity Advice From the Very Rich: Buffett On Deficits! New Economic Perspectives
Tim Geithner’s Lead Negotiating Position on Fiscal Slope Should Cause Concern Dave Dayen, Firedoglake. Since I beat up on Andrew Ross Sorkin so often, I must point out that he was the first one I saw call Jacob Lew as Obama’s pick for Treasury, and that was a full month ago.
Ok, here’s my theory about why the Masters of the Universe want to kill the social insurance programs Riverdaughter
Democrats Angling to Ignore Base in Fiscal Slope Deal Dave Dayen, Firedoglake (Carol B). The only problem I have with this piece is that it implies that this is different than what the Democrats do every day of the week.
Naked Ambition in Speaker’s Office: AIDS Activists Strip on Hill Bloomberg. Aha! This is THE APPROACH to the fiscal cliff nonsense. But the hell with having cute young people get naked. We need the catfood crowd to show up in their birthday suits, the more decrepit the better: quadruple bipass scars, knee replacement scars, war wounds, etc. And former hippies would be in the right age cohort…the display would fry Congresscritters’ circuits.
http://www.beckershospitalreview.com/racs-/-icd-9-/-icd-10/municipal-bonds-rates-at-lowest-levels-since-lyndon-johnson-presidency.html Becker’s Hospital Review (Aquifer)
Cyber Sales Jump Not So High Wall Street Journal
Special Report: Silicon Valley’s dirty secret – age bias Reuters
War on the Weak, the Elderly, the Disabled, the Outsider Jesse
How Damon Runyon Would Have Explained Jon Corzine LiveJournal. Still relevant
Antidote du jour (Lance N). Leopard mating dance, courtesy Telegraph:
92 comments
Comments are closed.
Bank of America CEO Brian Moynihan Apparently Can’t Remember Anything Matt Taibbi
I don’t know if it’s a leopard or a cheetah, but it sure can do the Macarena.
Leopard.
Macarena is probably about right, but as soon as I saw the pic, I heard James Brown singin’ “Papa’s Got a Brand New Bag!”
I read about the first 1/3 of the Bartlett piece on “reality based” Republicans, then skimmed the rest in frustration.
I could be wrong, but I didn’t notice one criticism of things like the war on Iraq, the drug war, the emerging police state, mass deregulation of finance, etc. It’s pretty amazing that someone could speak from such a high horse (“the reality based community”) when they seem to tacitly support these things.
Agreed.
And if you noticed in your skimming, Bartlett’s solution to the Republicans’ demographic problem is to incite racism among African-Americans against Hispanics.
He has not traveled far from his days in Young Americans for Freedom in the Nixon era. Howard Phillips, the chronicler if not the originator of modern Republican race-based politics, has come further.
Ya, I could barely make myself get through the first part, but it does get more interesting as it goes on.
He does have quite a few zingers, like, “Obama is not a Liberal”. I enjoyed this guy’s come-to-jesus moment.
Bruce Bartlett reflects like many Republicans before him that the new social conservative dominated Republican Party is less then appealing but like the flat earth society member never gives up hope on the old Republican VS Democrats myth. The Bible Belt is a political bloc and wants a political outlet which happens to be the old Republican Party political machine. The national media would rather talk in terms of liberal vs conservative but the reality is that our national political stage is sharply divided by regional and lifestyle choices that have little if anything to do with liberal vs conservative.
Ding! Ding! Ding! Ding! That’s a winner!
Too many wild hogs, and the article makes it seem like nobody has even thought of hunting them for food.
Nonetheless, they are killed by thousands and in some certainly expensive ways (helicopter hunting?).
Meat quality must be superior to that from farmed beasts.
Wild swine are the base of some of the most incredible French and Italian peasant cookery. The noises they make in the night and the rototiller-like results of them rooting in the forest floor are noteworthy as well.
Re: “Obama’s Drone Problem”–the Amy Davidson piece.
So drone use is not particularly seen as a problem for those subjected to the missiles (they are usually dead), but a “problem” regarding whoever is president–as to that president not having the keen judgment of the Obama.
Interesting reading some of the comments there, predictable “liberal hawk” blather about drones saving lives etc.
Somewhat wishy washy, but does raise the intersting and important point– If Yemen is OK, how about Paris? Would all those that are OK with drones, believe that are taking out terrorists, and believe that they are “targeted” feel the same way if there was “collateral damage” in the 16th arrondissement?
Of course, this question can only be hypothetical. There is no chance that drone warfare popularity would be put at risk this way and you might hear or read the dreaded words “civilian casualties”.
I thought it was interesting that she had no problem with people in Yemen being blown up, but Frenchmen would be a different story. I guess poor people in poor countries are worth less than people in fun, fashionable vacation destinations?
When the collateral damage is photogenic blond girls of the sort loved dearly by the missing children media industry then that will be the step too far. Brown people? Outrage not really possible in racist America.
Obama’s won over Romney due to the latter being the worst candidate the Republican had in a long time. Many Obama voters were scared of Republican extremism. Yet, Obama’s people think that their candidate can do no wrong. Well, he seems unable to do right.
Being a right wing Democrat with support of the brain dead left, he always wanted to cut the safety net. Well the deficit stems from a crazy large military. We don’t need the WWII, Cold War and terrorism military we have. About a 1/3 of its current size is plenty. That’s the deficit.
Oh come on. Romney was the best they had to offer. Their primary system works, whether their base likes it or not.
Romney was the best candidate, but he was still the worst winning candidate ever.
whatshisname Pawlenty would probably be prez elect now if he’d have stuck with it, instead if bailing out early.
My Aunt Ida, 88, has always voted Republican on a straight party ticket, but this year, when she learned that Mormons believe the Garden of Eden is in Missouri, she refused to vote at all.
Did anyone notice that only the female naked protestors were arrested? What’s with that? Was this a part of the prop-agit angle? (Stir up a little ‘righteous anger’ among the Feminist cohort, perhaps?) Is this consistent with other protest arrests on The Hill? The article says that the male protestors left earlier than the female, and were not interfered with. Hmmm… One doesn’t show up in the offices of a Congresscritter, have a protest, and then just leave. One is ‘allowed’ to leave. Something fishy here. (And no, I’m not referring to the Hot Tuna song.)
Aw, c’mon, you know why – every (straight) guy’s dream, right? – naked females in handcuffs
Dear Aquifer;
I wish I had a link to the film version of “The Night Porter” right now.
Riverdaughter has nailed it: keep the boomers working (even though it keeps the next generation from their share of the pie) to keep the PRIVATE pension system afloat. Since corporate executives and their Supreme Court henchmen stole (why doesn’t English have a stronger word for the type of world-breaking larceny these knaves and fools practice?) the retirement security of an ENTIRE generation (see the unrefuted “Retirement Heist” by Ellen Schultz) they have to be kept working until they drop dead. Just like slaves.
It’s not about Social Security. It’s about the corporate kleptocracy.
What a wonderful country the USA is. Knaves and fools, knaves and fools.
Stole/pillaged/raped
There ya go.
Hmmm – ISTM that this will work only to the extent that folks believe there is nothing in the SS trust fund. Just as with politics in which folks keep voting for AHs they don’t like because they have been convinced TINA, folks will go along with this Grand Betrayal because they think TINA here either.
In the case of politics – TINA meant no 3rd party (or variations thereof), in the case of SS – TINA means there is no trust fund …..
It is an endless source of amazement/amusement (masochistically speaking) that in this land of “boundless invention/ingenuity” we continually succumb to whatever TINA TPTB choose to dish out in service to their own ends …
If one argues that the money was “stolen” then why do we not insist it be returned? Are we actually going to put up with this BS? Frankly, at this point, after all these years of watching the populace accept this same nonsense over and over, i am at the point of saying if we are still so gullible, we (though not all “we”) can well be said to deserve what we get …
They do have a stronger word: cozening, which was a predominant crime for the star chamber. The connotation was, powerful elites abusing a position of trust, which is exactly what’s going on here.
Thank you. “Cozening.” I never bothered to look it up, just knew from context it meant some kind of cheating. I really intend to learn more about the Star Chamber, since I see it as an analogy to the drone program. A solution to a problem that seems intractable, so is attractive, but turns out to have terrible unintended consequences. I can’t understand how so many Americans fail to see this. They trust Obama, but would they trust President Dan Quayle or President Sarah Palin with this program? I’m afraid it’s going to take decades, even centuries, to get this genie back into the bottle. Probably not until we overthrow The Oligarchy.
“why doesn’t English have a stronger word for the type of world-breaking larceny these knaves and fools practice?)
plundered ?
Yves, there’s a bum link to this story: de Tocqueville in China – it goes to the biofuels item
Correct URL for that article:
http://econintersect.com/b2evolution/blog2.php/2012/11/27/de-tocqueville-in-china
That’s Derryl Hermanutz, folks. Simply the best.
Meanwhile large swaths of the American and European “people”, the politically powerless peasantry, are being evicted from their mortgaged homes and cast into unemployment exacerbated by an official policy of “austerity”, all for the sake of trying to salvage the insolvent ruin of their arithmetically impossible privately owned money systems (a for profit money system that issues all its money as loan principal, but charges debt as principal + interest, systematically creates more monetary debt than it creates money to pay that debt; the process culminates in systemic debt default and banking system insolvency as we see today in Europe and America).
(MMT sees no flaw in the engineering of money, only that USG doesn’t print or borrow quite enough to support optimal spending on public needs.)
It could be here Why Toqueville in China?
Re: “War on the Weak, the Elderly, the Disabled, the Outsider”
As the first and second video in the series point out, eugenics was actually an invention of the AngloAmerican world that the Nazis imported into Germany. Hitler took it to new heights.
This theme dovetails with Francois Haas’ article in the FAESB Journal:
“German science and black racism—roots of the Nazi Holocaust”
http://www.fasebj.org/content/22/2/332.short
On a recent trip to the US, I bought five books that deal with Spanish America’s racial hierarchy during its colonial period:
1. Casta Painting: Images of Race in Eighteenh -Century Mexico by Ilona Katzew
2. Imperial Subjects: Race and Identity in Colonial Latin America. by Andrew B. Fisher and Matthew D. O’Hara
3. Genealogical Fictions: Limpieza de Sangre, Religion, and Gender in Colonial Mexico, by Maria Elena Martinez
4. Imagining Identity in New Spain: Race, Lineage, and the Colonial Body in Portraiture and Casta Painting, by Magali M. Carrera
5. Contested Visions in the Spanish Colonial World, by Ilona Katzew
All these books and more concerning racism in Spanish colonial America have been published recently. I’m wondering why all the sudden interest in the United States.
I’ve now read the first three and am about halfway through the fourth. The one by Maria Elena Martinez is the only one thus far that acknowleges the shift for the moral and intellectual justification of racial theories–from religion to science–that occurred during the 18th century with the advent of the Enlightenment.
In the US and Mexico these days, racism (and classism to a lesser degree) is not overt as it was in the colonial period, but covert and flies under the guise of things like ‘the war on drugs’. A great deal has been written and said on the subject, including the excellent work of Eric Sterling and Christian Parenti (author of Lockdown America: Police and Prinsons in the Age of Crisis). Both did interviews with The Exile Nation Project, which are available on YouTube, as well as Sterling’s excellent interview with William Aiken (“Drug War Nixon Law & Order Racism” and “interview with Eric Sterling by William Aiken”) The most concise statement I’ve found, however, is Deborah Small’s on this program:
“Is the US war on drugs racist?”
http://www.aljazeera.com/programmes/insidestoryus2012/2012/08/2012823103039675592.html
“eugenics was actually an invention of the AngloAmerican world that the Nazis imported into Germany”
Also, the concentration camp was invented in America and adopted by others.
Actually by the Brits in the Boer war.
You need to update the link for Glenn Greenwald’s blog. He’s no longer at Salon.
Protesters descend on Tahrir Square Guardian.
Reminds me; isn’t it about time ‘immunity from judicial review’ granted Hank Paulson be revisited? The Hank Paulson who, while Treasury Secretary continued to represent the interests of Goldman Sachs, to meet with them, and who continues to be taken seriously in interviews for publication as if he has some track record of public service to the American people?
And isn’t it about time we had a discussion about the magic wand of immunity extended to all Hank Paulson cohorts in Goldman Sachs banksterland? The immunity from judicial review granted to Hank Paulson by Congress with Nancy Pelosi leadership that led to even more leveraged trillions of dollars for the benefit of banksters all over the world while shutting down the real economy: residential housing, employment oppportunity, and small businesses in favor of frnchise operations requiring big finance while continuing to talk the trash of austerity for everyone but themselves in a system of worldwide croniism that defies anything the world has ever seen?
In spite of bankster control of several European countries and our own Government we never hear about that immunity granted Hank Paulson by Congress 2008 on the TV.
There’s also the immunity granted corporations from truth in reporting by Bush -if they do any business with the government.
Are those powers of immunity perpetual -the power of ‘freedom from judicial review’ granted banksters all over the world through Goldman Sachs via Hank Paulson while he was still Secretary Treasurer of the US in the employ of the American people October 2008? Is this the power that Courts rely upon for cover in their non judicious corporate decisions against the public interest?
Similar to how the protests in Egypt will be manipulated by TPTB to install an even bigger Western stooge in the possible form of ElBaradei any outrage expressed over the machinations of our American betters will only forseeably result in even bigger criminals/fascist bootlickers replacing the old.
Paulson–>Geithner–>Dimon?
Mubarak–>Morsi–>ElBaradei?
Don’t worry the minions run-deep.
Here’s from ElBaradei’s wiki entry:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mohamed_ElBaradei
“During the early days of the Egyptian Revolution, ElBaradei’s speechwriter and long-time associate Laban Coblentz and other IAEA colleagues of ElBaradei contradicted the notion that ElBaradei had only recently become engaged in Egyptian politics, saying he had never relinquished his focus on human rights deficiencies in his home country.”
On January 27, 2011, ElBaradei returned to Egypt amid ongoing turmoil, with the largest mass protests in 30 years, which had begun two days earlier, on January 25, 2011. ElBaradei declared himself ready to lead a transitional government if that was the will of the nation, saying that, “If [people] want me to lead the transition, I will not let them down.”[62]
Never let a crisis go to waste especially one you helped manufacture, right?
On a related note: the one thing that Morsi has going for him in my eyes is that he has repeatedly and publicly stated that the official U.S. 9/11 fairy tale is just that: a fairy tale.
Here’s a WaPo op-ed lamenting how he needs to give up his “truther” talk.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/getting-egypts-morsi-to-give-up-911-conspiracy-rhetoric/2012/09/11/4ca304ea-fb97-11e1-8adc-499661afe377_story.html
Hmm, the question is: Or what?
is the war on drugs racist? is the Pope Catholic? lol
Just when I think I can’t be any prouder of the United States and her war criminal minions:
Western-backed terrorists slaughter 34 civilians in Damascus.
http://rt.com/news/damascus-blast-twin-killed-768/
http://landdestroyer.blogspot.com/2012/11/breaking-western-backed-terrorists-in.html#more
But this all should come as no surprise as Seymour Hirsh pointed out in 2007, this has been the American et al. war criminals’ intention for a while now.
http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2007/03/05/070305fa_fact_hersh?currentPage=all
“To undermine Iran, which is predominantly Shiite, the Bush Administration has decided, in effect, to reconfigure its priorities in the Middle East. In Lebanon, the Administration has coöperated with Saudi Arabia’s government, which is Sunni, in clandestine operations that are intended to weaken Hezbollah, the Shiite organization that is backed by Iran. The U.S. has also taken part in clandestine operations aimed at Iran and its ally Syria. A by-product of these activities has been the bolstering of Sunni extremist groups that espouse a militant vision of Islam and are hostile to America and sympathetic to Al Qaeda.”
“the Saudi government, with Washington’s approval, would provide funds and logistical aid to weaken the government of President Bashir Assad, of Syria. The Israelis believe that putting such pressure on the Assad government will make it more conciliatory and open to negotiations.” -The Redirection, Seymour Hersh (2007)”
NOTE: the Land Destroyer piece also has a great detail from a 2007 West Point report that shows just where in Syria Al-Qaeda fighters had been slipping into Iraq from at the time.
Surprise!!
They are same exact areas where the “freedom fighters” America so proudly supports today are based!!
What a coincidence!
There is no circle of hell deep enough….
jsmith, it looks like all the MiddleEast wars are waged to turn each country into a State of the BIS Global Empire under BIS Global “Governance.” Whatever Puppet hands his country over to BIS is “above the law” and immune from any criticism or interrogation. much less prosecution. The BIS Agents–Agents of a Foreign Power–now “governing” the U.S. illegitimately, are likewise “above the Law” of the Constitution of the United States by their own fiat, since they are Citizens of the BIS Global Empire: a Foreign Power.
HOW IT WORKS:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0r3-MNonZ64
“The Bank For International Settlements (BIS) Part I” — [also Part 2]
Uploaded by BackToConstitution on Feb 16, 2012
Arrest Traitors/Tyrants. The “Foreign Power” now is obvious.
That’s a LILF, for sure ;)
re: Naked Ambition in Speaker’s Office… Aha! This is THE APPROACH to the fiscal cliff nonsense. But the hell with having cute young people get naked. We need the catfood crowd to show up in their birthday suits… the display would fry Congresscritters’ circuits.
Yeah, I don’t know about that– Boehner sees it everyday. But it would fry Gawker’s server and that would be even better. :)
They’re going to have to stop arresting just the women though. No catfoodie era woman is going to stand for that.
“Cute young people getting naked?”
Bunch of ugly Black homosexuals and their
White girlfriend fag-hag acolytes are hardly cute, nor likely to engender much sympathy from most Americans.
Noes?
Wow, so you only date Victoria’s Secret models, or more likely, masturbate to pictures of them?
And it never occurred to you that straight women get HIV too? Yes, straight people do anal sex too and you can get HIV from vaginal sex. Guess you are too cloistered to know that.
go Yves!
Maybe you will enjoy – Situational – Homo erotic some day, its fairly common under many circumstances ie. log cabins / the woods, military service, imprisonment, extremismist patriarchal cults and society’s, etc.
Skippy… let not forget either, that anal sex is the oldest form of birth control in our species history. The only mobs that have a problem with this act are conducting some sort of breading / population program.
PS. “engender much sympathy from most Americans.” – Carl Do you mean the MSM informed – cult-ish – lied too – kept the dark – folks? Ignorance the bedrock of your assertion?
skippy, as any Italian can tell you, this form of “pre-marital sex” permits marriage with vaginal *virginity* intact. Abortions for Italian schoolgirls were $10,000US to the priest, cash on the barrelhead, in the 1990’s, and who knows what they cost now. With Roman Catholic dogma supreme, “birth control” is forbidden, so the Roman Catholic specialty is employed for all comers.
Yep. An associate told of dating a girl from the Med. Upon meeting the father for the first time, he was informed of all the places he could venture, but one had bells on it. The rest was fare game.
Skippy… have fun at the movies… Kids!
Meanwhile these are the concerns of a Tory MP, as reported in the Guardian:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/society/2012/nov/27/housebuilding-needs-more-open-land?CMP=EMCNEWEML1355
Nick Boles: “I think everyone has the right to live somewhere that is not just affordable but that is beautiful and has some green space nearby.” He calls this “a basic moral right, like healthcare and education. There’s a right to a home with a little bit of ground around it to bring your family up in.”
Democrats Angling to Ignore Base in Fiscal Slope Deal Dave Dayen, Firedoglake (Carol B). The only problem I have with this piece is that it implies that this is different than what the Democrats do every day of the week.
That’s so true. No one becomes a saint by joining a political party, though many mistakenly think otherwise, assuming one political party can be more virtuous than another.
The slippery slope here is if one party is more virtuous than another, you will be soon on the way to banning that not-so-virtuous party.
Americans will go over the cliff, but the crooked kleptocrats will have parachutes.
Thanks to that wonderful Chinese invention, they will glide with silk parachutes that are light and strong, and not crash with heavy, gold parachutes.
That’s the gist of CNBS’ “Rise Above” slogan. MSNBS’ “Lean Forward” doesn’t work so well at the cliff edge.
“Obama On Filibuster Reform: White House Embraces Harry Reid’s Rule Changes”
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/11/28/obama-filibuster-reform_n_2204589.html?1354119681
Consider what is happening here. When health care reform was being enacted, Obama and the Democrats made no move to amend the Senate rules. Instead they hid behind the 60-votes/Joe Lieberman canard to say it was impossible to get anything better than the corporate legislation we got. IOW: there was not enough Progressive support in the Senate for a progressive health care bill. Now Obama wants to cut the social safety net, which is the antithesis of Progressivism. And NOW Obama and the Democrats want to ease Senate rules. Why? To guarantee that any Senatorial Progressive resistance, however unlikely, is neutered and the gutting of the social safety net can proceed apace.
I wouldn’t trust Obama as far as I could throw him. Obama is a sneaky liar with a Hollywood smile. Obama serves the Rich and no one else.
And I am dismayed, to say the least, that Senator-elect Elizabeth Warren — rather than take a firm stand in support of the social safety net — has instead chosen to throw her post-election weight behind Senate filibuster reform. Hey Liz, get a clue: process is NOT the problem. The problem is substantive. Like, for instance, the Democratic Party and a Democratic President (nominally anyway) targeting the signature achievement of the Democratic Party and the foundation for (what remains of) the American Middle Class.
When Lizzy chose to be a Dem, she cast her lot …
I suspect she may be thinking that she can “do more good” in positions on certain committees and so will “do what she must” to get there – that kind of thinking has sunk more staunch “progressives” than she ….
If she is, indeed, a “one note pony”, don’t expect much else …
Not “safety net.” Nor “entitlements.” Social insurance.
Working wonders without water out West.
We will know if life can work wonders without water on Mars when we find life there.
War on the Weak, the Elderly, the Disabled, the Outsider
I would also add the non-stop war on the less-smart, especially by those who think they are smart.
I’ve no argument with you further breaking down the catagories but the “less smart” are just a sub group of “the weak”.
That’s a good point. You are right that they are all connected in that the elderly are weak as well, for example.
The less smart seem to be their own worst enemies; there’s no need to make war on them.
They probably are less wise, though not necessarily less-smart.
A lot of things are true until they aren’t. A lot of things provide false security until they don’t.
Archimedes was surely smarter than the Roman soldier who did him in. But somehow Archimedes wasn’t smart enough to know not to f**k with that soldier on that fateful day.
Also, “less smart” peoples or groups can and do engage in substitution to make up for not being smart, in order to acheive their aims. If they really are less smart their substitution for intellectual/emotional deficits might be a baseball bat and not so they can have a friendly game of softball with their perceived social opponent. It might be a knife but not because they want to peel you an orange.
The point is society should be set up with a basic structure of justice embedded in the institutions. Justice that truly is blind not just a fancy ideal, or a sculpture at the entrance to the courthouse. There’s always an element of danger in ignoring any of the social groups that make up society.
P.S. Lyndie England seems to me, to be quite a stupid individual, see some youtube interviews with her, they are stomach turning. I would bet money that all the people she subjugated at Abu Ghraib were smarter than her, but they still ended up suffering at her hands and other dumb American G.I.’s.
This is one of the most salient problems regarding “the less smart.” They are, at certain times, turned into weapons by “the intelligent.”
I think it’s more prudent to think of “the less smart” as unused potential, not as their own worst enemies.
I believe that it is all a war by the selfish and cruel. It explains a lot, when I wonder.
That they are, showing a lack of wisdom…especially harmful when combined with smartness.
I don’t believe that smart is the correct word. Try canny, wily, calculating…
I consider myself smart. All my experiences with this lot make me frustrated and angry. And disappointed in their lack-of-smartness.
I think, for me, canny is like timing a housing flip just before the market crashed.
Wily is like knowing when to put on a fake punt in a football.
Calculating is giving up true love to marry the general’s daughter.
Smart, on the on the hand, is designing derivatives, inventing GM seeds and buidling nuclear bombs. Smart is also putting money on winnable political candindates from all parties.
Less-smart as in ‘outsiders’.
Think of junior high, the fast crowd and the dweebs. Insider vocabulary, insider clubs, insider economics, insider information.
And, insider government.
There’s nothing less-smart about us outsiders (think ture about yourself, ducky) that can’t be attributed to large-scale information hiding and disinformation.
When favored insiders get inside, close enough to the inner sanctum to see what goes on there, they do one of two things: (1) drool and say, I WANT THAT, and redouble their asskissing and posturing efforts; or (2) recoil in horror. Category 2s are not less smart.
Correct link for “de Tocqueville in China Global Economic Intersection”:
http://econintersect.com/b2evolution/blog2.php/2012/11/27/de-tocqueville-in-china
Re: Age Bias
•The Rolex has always been a disgusting accessory. It speaks volumes about the kind of social clubs one wants to or does belong to. It’s weird that the Rolex was even mentioned though; I think you have to go back to late 70’s early 80’s to find a passing respect for the Rolex.
•Not wearing a wristwatch shows a lack of class and good taste. One can’t say such things openly though, it would show that you believe there is such a thing as taste and class-oops!
•A wristwatch would have been one of the few smart and super basic things to be equipped with during Hurricane Sandy.
She ditched her tailored pants and blouses for a dress, tights, and biker boots. She then got second and third interviews and had to come up with more hipster outfits. “I was beginning to sweat,” she recalls. She eventually got the position.
How revolting and humiliating to have to submit in this way.
Ah, the “creative class.” PBR in 2008. Memories…
Pabst Blue Ribbon?
Actually, the piece was another piece of evidence for my theory that most jobs these days, including in the private sector, are make-work. Most things worthwhile or productive have either been automated (agriculture and manufacturing) or people are willing to do for free.
So increasingly workplaces have become a sort of social club or mutual aid society, where if you wear the right clothes, and fit in, you get rent money! Money filters into these companies from god know where, and if they produce anything that is a net contribution to society, its by accident.
No. You missed the point of the article because you’re trying to nurse a pet theory of yours. That’s fine but do it when you have actual evidence for the theory. The article remains highly interesting for reasons other than what you have cited.
Nothing new about work places having a social identity or culture. It’s always been this way regardless of whether the product produced has utility or not.
Ha ha, the guy who thinks not wearing a wristwatch shows a lack of class and good taste is giving you shit for having a pet theory. Your sadness knows no bounds.
I think hiring discrimination is a huge, under-reported problem. Race discrimination is especially bad, and age discrimination is not much better.
But, “p implies q” does not mean “q implies p” — that is, not every oldster is rejected because of their age.
My engineering company actually has a preferences for “experienced” (read: old) engineers. In my early 30’s, I’m by far the youngest in my small software department. Aside from obsolete skills — which is not always bad in embedded firmware — they are lazy and incompetent. The former manager would mark code released to customers that wouldn’t compile. The #1 rule is to never break the code, and this guy was doing it on officially-released code. He didn’t want to spend his time merging code, so he would simply overwrite others’ fixes. He (I think purposely, for “job security”) wrote code that was impossible for others to understand.
And I see others surviving on their tribal knowledge of customers’ needs as well. They won’t write it all down and only dribble out occasional facts, not realizing that they are simply limiting themselves.
They’re stubborn and crabby. They especially like to point fingers instead of fixing problems. Every other company I’ve worked at where I was a relative oldster never wasted a second pointing fingers.
I’ve also never seen younger people spend time on Yahoo! Games, watching TV, or just staring blankly at their desk killing time while putting in hours the way oldsters do.
That’s not to say all oldsters are like that. That’s why the discrimination is wrong. You should weed out the bad, just like not all youngsters are good.
It wasn’t that long ago that I was young and looking for a job and was getting passed over for lack of experience. It’s a bit perverse, though. When times are tough, HR can ask for the sun and the moon. One of the few Dilbert strips that made me laugh was the one where the HR creature (Catbert?) shot down an applicant for not having ten years of Java development experience, despite the applicant’s protestations that Java had only been out for nine years.
But there is a certain complacency that sets in as you get older. I know I’m much less thrilled to explore new technologies just for the sake of exploration. Each new release of Windows is just a burden of forgetting how I used to do things and learning new ways to do the same things.
Software development is not friendly to people who have given their curiosity. And some biological factors have painted all oldsters (most unfairly) with the same incurious brush.
I hear what you are saying, but mayhap some of the “jadedness” that accrues to getting older comes from the realization that a good deal of the “new and improved” is not really “new” and in fact worse than the old ….
I left out the “newer is not always better angle” because I agree that novelty is not a plus. As I said, I groan at each new Windows release because of the pointless shuffling of icons in the control panel, for example.
What I find galling is that many oldsters will stick to things that are fundamentally broken because they are a year away from retirement and don’t care.
The oldsters I know, unfortunately, have no fear of being old and looking for work in a youthful field.
I’ve always had respect for the elderly and am patient and like to listen and learn. It may be my particular company, but no one here has anything constructive to say. Just contagious crabbiness.
I think hiring discrimination is a huge, under-reported problem. Race discrimination is especially bad, and age discrimination is not much better.
Yes, I agree. It is so hard to demean oneself by bringing the complaint forward. Then proving the discrimination is kind of like proving a thought crime or an unfairness crime. The only benefit to being attacked with sticks and stones is that it’s easier to prove. Names can hurt though and so does discrimination. The hurt is not superficial it is a real economic impact.
Pick an interview any interview. They are sobering.
http://www.overfiftyandoutofwork.com/videos/100-stories/
“Chief executives in their 20s, led by Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg, are lionized, in part because of their youth. Many investors state bluntly that they prefer to see people under 40 in charge.”
They likes ’em young and dumb.
But it could be that Facebook, and Suckerman along with it, would have been better off not letting the finance sharks eff up the IPO.
My thought exactly. Why wouldn’t VCs want a CEO who didn’t know better and would listen to the money men?
http://dealbook.nytimes.com/2012/11/28/as-miller-drops-out-race-for-s-e-c-chief-shifts/?hp
The SEC faces a “challenging agenda” but the Administration won’t name anybody until next year. Gotta love Krawcheck being “personally named along with former bank colleagues in litigation stemming from her time at both Bank of America and Citigroup.”
“Enforcement? We don’t gotta show you no enforcement.” Not even a pretense.
what galled me in texas feral hog story was $8.21 to travel 40 mi. on a privatized toll road! Scum! I despise them.
Could it be that some of the “feral hogs” in the story were metaphorical?
Or were herded by those who also despise the privatizers.
Piggy wrenching?
“de Toqueville in China” was an excellent read.
Interesting Cali story:
http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me-school-bond-20121129,0,2358068.story
California school districts face huge debt on risky bonds
By Dan Weikel, Los Angeles Times
About 200 districts have borrowed billions of dollars using so-called capital appreciation bonds. Districts may have to pay 10 to 20 times the amount borrowed.
haha, a Damon Runyon reference!