July 2009
“You can only take so much of the BS, from the printing press moving full steam,...”
– Anonymous #21366 (via poortaste)
Interview: Writer Without Borders - William T.... →
Three Good Reasons To Liquidate Our Empire →
azspot:
However ambitious President Barack Obama’s domestic plans, one unacknowledged issue has the potential to destroy any reform efforts he might launch. Think of it as the 800-pound gorilla in the American living room: our longstanding reliance on imperialism and militarism in our relations with other countries and the vast, potentially ruinous global empire of bases that goes with it. The...
Pynchon lights up →
Inherent Vice reviewed.
Pynchon conceives of the almost-lost paradise of hippieland, embodied by Gordita Beach, as an enormous postgraduate crash pad, where everyone lounges around all day getting wasted and having sex until evil is introduced in the form of a landlord demanding the rent. Such bummers are caused by nothing more than sheer “greed,” the term Pynchon’s protagonists...
Facebook for poets?
qarrtsiluni:
Check out the new Read Write Poem, now with a burgeoning social network for poets and fans of poetry (powered by the WordPress über-plugin BuddyPress), and with many more regular features on tap for the front end. This is much more than a weekly poetry prompt site now. Here’s a rundown of the new features.
Founder and director Dana Guthrie Martin and community manager Nathan Moore...
“Everyone in the world knows that Jesus and his teachings were non-violent except...”
– Gandhi (via azspot)
“When I graduated from college in the 1960s, the average CEO made 20 times what...”
– Featured Article - WSJ.com
Jim Webb knocks this one out of the park. (via shorterexcerpts)\ (via poortaste)
“I know not with what weapons World War III will be fought, but World War IV will...”
– Albert Einstein (via strawburyduck) (via poortaste)
ambivalence:
U.S. Adviser’s Blunt Memo on Iraq - Time ‘to Go Home’ - NYTimes.com by Michael Gordon]
“A senior American military adviser in Baghdad has concluded in an unusually blunt memo that Iraqi forces suffer from entrenched deficiencies but are now able to protect the Iraqi government, and that it is time “for the U.S. to declare victory and go home.”
The memo offers a look at tensions...
Get Free Anonymous BitTorrent With ItsHidden →
“It has been created to put some rights back in the favor of the user and that includes us,” David from ItsHidden explained to TorrentFreak. “There are so many bodies, mostly unelected that seem to have full access to the most intimate of online details with little or no justification and more importantly, no evidence.”
The service encrypts the connection between the user and ItsHidden’s servers...
A Biofuel Process to Replace All Fossil Fuels →
Joule Biotechnologies grows genetically engineered microorganisms in specially designed photobioreactors. The microorganisms use energy from the sun to convert carbon dioxide and water into ethanol or hydrocarbon fuels (such as diesel or components of gasoline). The organisms excrete the fuel, which can then be collected using conventional chemical-separation technologies.
…
Algae-based...
The Great American Bubble Machine - Matt Taibbi →
The bank’s unprecedented reach and power have enabled it to turn all of America into a giant pumpanddump scam, manipulating whole economic sectors for years at a time, moving the dice game as this or that market collapses, and all the time gorging itself on the unseen costs that are breaking families everywhere — high gas prices, rising consumercredit rates, halfeaten pension funds, mass layoffs,...
Strange Tides?
ambivalence:
Mysteriously High Tides on East Coast Perplex Scientists by Alexis Madrigal]
“From Maine to Florida, the Atlantic seaboard has experienced higher tides than expected this summer. At their peak in mid-June, the tides at some locations outstripped predictions by two feet.
The change has come too fast to be attributed to melting ice sheets or anything quite that dramatic, and it’s...
“Former Senator John Breaux once told a story about a woman who rushed up to him...”
– From Fear, Anger, Hope and Inspiration Will Decide Health Care Battle by Robert Creamer
Harry and Louise's Deadly Embrace →
azspot:
A New York Times/CBS News poll shows that a majority of Americans support a government-run, universal health care system. A survey of U.S. doctors reported in the Annals of Internal Medicine showed that 59 percent favor a Medicare for All system of national health insurance.
“Our kitchens and other eating places more and more resemble filling stations, as...”
– Wendell Berry (via azspot)
“We live in a corporate state. We live in a state that no longer responds to the...”
– Chris Hedges (via azspot) (via igather)
Naomi Klein: Let's Put an End to Sarah Palin-Style... →
What if the bailout actually works, what if the financial sector is saved and the economy returns to the course it was on before the crisis struck? Is that what we want? And what would that world look like?
The answer is that it would look like Sarah Palin.
“No, I don’t do drugs anymore, either. But I’ll tell you something about drugs. I...”
– Bill Hicks (via quinntessential (via poortaste)
WatchHuffington to Colbert: Stephen, you’re suffering from premature exaltation.
The Chinese Come Calling →
tsparks:
The Nation
by ROBERT SCHEER
July 29, 2009
What a hoot. The Chinese Communists invaded Washington on Monday demanding not that we sacrifice our freedoms but rather that we balance our budget. Creditors get to make that kind of call. And the Marxists of Beijing, who have turned out to be the world’s most prudent bankers, are worried about their assets invested in our banana republic.
...
Bill Maher on Health Care
ambivalence:
[via HBO: Real Time with Bill Maher: New Rules: July 24, 2009]
“And finally, New Rule: Not everything in America has to make a profit. You know, if conservatives get to call universal healthcare “socialized medicine,” I get to call private, for-profit healthcare “soulless, vampire bastards making money off human pain.”
Now, I know what you’re thinking: But, Bill, the profit...
Lake Mead (And Lakes Downstream) Are Doomed
ambivalence:
[Is Lake Mead In Nevada Drying Up? | The Good Human]
“Lake Mead’s water level dropped 14 feet last year and the Bureau of Reclamation predicts it will drop another 14 feet this year. That’s a drop of a whopping 28 feet in just 2 short years (and over 100 since 2000) - leaving the “folks in the know” to put 50-50 odds on Lake Mead being bone dry come 2021.”
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Downstream is Lake...
The Dark Years are Here - by Egon von Greyerz –... →
poortaste:
“In this newsletter we will outline what is likely to be the devastating effect of the credit bubbles,government money printing and of the disastrous actions that governments are taking. Starting in the next 6 months and culminating in 2011-12 the world will experience a series of tumultuous events which will be life changing for most people in the world. But 2011-12 will not be the...
“The reason a real health-care bill is not going to get passed is simple: because...”
– Matt Taibbi (via azspot)
Watchpoortaste:
The Corporation Documentary, Part 1
The Corporation Part One (Of Three) The Pathology OF Commerce
THE CORPORATION explores the nature and spectacular rise of the dominant institution of our time. Footage from pop culture, advertising, TV, news, and corporate propaganda, illuminates the corporation’s grip on our lives. Taking its legal status as a “person” to its logical...
WatchNewspapers are dead. Now what?
