brainiac conspiracy

Monday Night Music Blogging

Because if we're too late to avert catastrophe, we can at least poeticize it. Disaster porn, y'know.

---Baron V

Revolt of the Spooks

If the administration has ever worried about one---as has long been rumored---they'd best find the source of this leak, and if it's an American, fire him or her at once.

The President couldn't be this stupid, could he? I mean, this is not some freelancer like Snowden or Dan Ginsberg who gave their intel to the media in the interest of transparency. This is an American citizen who was on the payroll of a foreign nation, who passed state secrets along to it for money. We used to call it treason, and there is no pardoning or granting clemency to it. There is only one U.S. policy position that's acceptable here, and that's to demand that our Friends in Freedom abide by international law and UN mandates, or face immediate sanctions. Hey, we just gave that ultimatum to the Russians! I realize that's not going to happen because freedom, but that's really what needs to be done. Anything else just jeopardizes our security---both from radical Islamists, and from a security-surveillance regime looking for payback for Pollard. You tempt them at your own peril.

---Baron V

Plessy v. Hobby Lobby

We've been there before, it could happen again. It all comes down to how much damage the Chief Justice wants to wreak on the commonweal. In this case, I am guessing plenty. Would love to be proved wrong!

---Baron V

Tips For Twitter

I'm not real active on that site---mostly because it's been my experience that the people who tweet the most frequently, generally, have the least interesting things to say---but I do post there from time to time, I've had some pleasant exchanges with some people, and I've developed some fairly simple rules for keeping your sanity there:

1. Only follow people whose work you admire.
2. Only engage people when you have a question that they might know the answer to, or to correct them if you think they may be in error.
3. Engage respectfully (see Rule #1). Life is too short for flame wars and trolling, and you'll see enough hateful bilge being retweeted by others in your your timeline.
4. Be generous in your endorsements. The people you call out for praise will appreciate it, even when it comes from a minor-leaguer like me.

That's about it. I know this will strike most of you as plain-old common sense, but it's amazing how little there often is of it at Twitter. It reminds me in many ways of high school inasmuch as people tend to form these tribe-like "cliques" that all claim to be the most righteous and perceptive on the Interwebs. I prefer, by contrast, to remain a lone wolf.

---Baron V

Today's Worst Person

Barack Obama.

I mean, it's depressing to think that may have already passed the point of no return and that our fate as a species is sealed, but at this point in human history, everyone needs to decide whether to be a part of the solution or a part of the problem. No, I'm not saying that everyone should ditch their cars and start growing their own food, but it's inescapable that we are going to need to make some fundamental and transformative changes in the way we operate, both as individuals and as a society, and those changes need to start happening, like, now. Shit's getting real, folks.

---Baron V

Light Blogging Day

Went to the downtown library to return a book. Forgot it was a holiday. So, two hours shot to hell, basically. Now it's off to the market to buy a fat pig. Or something.

---Baron V

Giving Up Hope

Some days, I'll admit it's awfully easy to say that all is lost, let's go back to sleep and party like it's 1789 because we're all doomed anyway. But cynicism and suicide are not our natural inclinations, so I guess we have to keep plugging away and doing whatever we can to increase people's consciousness of what we are allowing to be done to our world. Perhaps there really is no hope for our greedy, wretched species, but that doesn't excuse us from doing everything in our power to regain control of the biosphere from the greedheads and the rent extractors who are bleeding the planet dry.

---Baron V

Been There Before

Just when you think Americans have grown too obsessed in the post-9/11 era with kicking foreign ass, you realize that we've gone down that road many times in the past. Support for the Vietnam war was still pretty high when that horrendous massacre took place, even after the Tet Offensive and even after it had become apparent that the Pentagon had gone to great lengths to keep it covered up. I and my family members were mortified, but most of my schoolmates (I was in middle school at the time) were gung-ho pro-war and pro-Rusty. As one of them so memorably put it to me not long afterward, "Blast the kids at Kent State and fuck you." Guess this means we have always had our 27-percenters; the difference between then and now is, they've got a nationwide media apparatus to spread their bile.

---Baron V

Sunday Night Music Blogging

Because if reincarnation is really true, our future selves will have problems when the food runs out.

---Baron V

Funny How That Works

It's amazing---isn't it?---how much attention the D.C. media mavens lavish on austerity peddlers and not on people who want to build a more humane and balanced society. One group believes that people (except themselves) are morally deficient and deserve to be punished. The other group believes that all of our citizens deserve to be treated with dignity and respect, and should not go wanting in the world's richest nation. Yet Paul Ryan is feted as a Man of Ideas of Sunday talk shows, and Alan Grayson is not. I guess what I want to know is, when did our Washington media get hijacked by sadists and sociopaths?

---Baron V

Hobgoblins of Small Minds

It's always the same old song and dance with these people: Roll out some "big" regulatory policy change, and when you dig into the fine print, you find that it's voluntary and pre-approved by the regulated industry. Because all the stakeholders deserve a seat at the table! That may be fine for some corporate sectors, but when the particular industry in question is responsible for thousands of consumer deaths each year, you should regulate first, and ask for approval, like, never. You might even consider prosecuting some of their executives sometime!

---Baron V

Occam's Razor LLC

Yeah, I know all the reasons we've been given why no bank executives have been marched off to prison: proving fraud is difficult because you have to prove intent to defraud. And many of their most fraudulent transactions were complicated and not easy to unwind, let alone explain to a jury. But the people who govern us will never know if they don't at least try, and the fact that they not even trying would suggest that, well, they just don't care much about it. Sad, but likely true!

(Via.)

---Baron V

Light Blogging Day

So many things to do, so little time to kvetch and moan, and it's a beautiful day besides!

---Baron V

Today's Worst Person

Leslie Gelb.

Because the last war this awful person supported turned out so well. Sackcloth and ashes, people.

---Baron V

Saturday Night Music Blogging

Because we can never achieve our destiny unless we are constantly picking fights with people.

---Baron V

The Company We Keep

In our quest to spread American values 'round the world, it never helps our cause when we denounce corrupt and despotic governments at the same time we cozy up to some of the world's worst offenders. I mean, these were the people behind the 9/11 assassins and whom we should have rightly bombed on September 12. Yeah, I know, we need their oil, they're a bulwark against the expansion of Iranian influence, and all the usual Machiavellian crap. But it shoots our credibility to hell all the same.

---Baron V

Salt in The Wound

It's ironic---isn't it?---that the current gang at the White House came into office having effectively repudiated trickle-down economics, but once ensconced in power, though, they embarked upon the biggest and most audacious trickle-down program in the history of the Republic. It's still going on today, and as with other trickle-down experiments, it has failed spectacularly to achieve its stated goals.

---Baron V

Can't Keep Going Down This Road Forever

We are running out of water, and overheating the planet, so the people who govern us can have their wars. More to the point, besides diverting money away from necessary improvements---health care, infrastructure, poverty relief---it's hideously wasteful and destructive of our environment. Unfortunately, so many of our job creators have got their tentacles in the Pentagon gravy boat at this point, it's hard to imagine how we will ever reverse the growth of these institutions that not only threaten our liberty but also our viability as a species. Guess the best thing we can do for now is elect leaders who understand that major systemic changes need to be made in the way we run our society, and that will require equally far-reaching changes in the collective consciousness of America's leadership class. All great military empires eventually crumble under their own weight. This time around, though, our collapse could possibly take the rest of the world down with it.

---Baron V

No Money for Mass Transit or Street Repairs

But plenty of money for sports franchises.

More to the point, devoting public funds to stadium-building is a dubious use of resources for a city that's thriving. For one that's just emerging from bankruptcy, it's insane. These things almost never make money, and it's kinda hard to believe that the hockey fans---mostly white, ahem, and suburban---are going to spend much time and money in Downtown/Midtown---mostly poor and blah---before or after the games. Anything's possible, but I wouldn't bet the kids' tuition money on it.

---Baron V

Goldberg Redux

I suppose there's a good reason why we should have a health-care system that's predicated on transferring billions of dollars from patients to enterprises that don't provide any actual health care, i.e., insurance companies, but I can think of one right now. Sure, the Goldberg Act makes this system a bit more equitable---and more affordable, if you're poor---but the fact that they've had to tinker with it so many times over the past four years seems indicative to me of the inefficiencies that are deliberately engineered into our needlessly complex and confusing system of heath-care delivery, and the Goldberg Act doesn't really solve this problem. It simply shifts the costs around.

---Baron V