brainiac conspiracy

Saturday Night Music Blogging

Because we still need MOOOOOOAR WARRRRRR against evil Commies everywhere. Don't we always?

---Baron V

Surveillance States

Okay, so the Twittersphere is bursting with quips to the effect of "So I need 2 know about NSA spying on Huawei for why exactly?" as if this is just gratuitous salt-rubbing on the part of Snowden and Greenwald, and only meant to embarrass the Surveillor-in-Chief. Perhaps, but I think it's important that we get these subjects out in the open because (1) it's our money they're spending on this shit, (2) it's another indicator that a regime that was created to catch terrorists has spiraled out of control, and (3) spying, in general, is a necessary evil at best; it should only be done sparingly, and should never be standard operating policy. That's because spying sews seeds of distrust, and that in turn threatens to unravel the fabric that binds societies together. In other words, you simply cannot have an umbrella surveillance state and a thriving liberal democracy. They are utterly incompatible forms of self-governance.

---Baron V

America's Thought Leaders

A.k.a., people who are mostly wrong about everything:

Hillary Clinton has accepted an invitation from former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush to appear at a conference in Texas that he is co-hosting next week on higher education. Education Secretary Arne Duncan will be there, too [...]

The conference is called “Globalization of Higher Education,” and is being held on March 24-25. Co-hosting with Bush, a Republican, is former North Carolina Gov. Jim Hunt, a Democrat, and Queens’ College, University of Cambridge.

Clinton, the former secretary of state and first lady of the United States, leads a conference list of speakers, which also includes Duncan and New York Times columnist Tom Friedman.

This is even better than Sting slumming at one of David Brooks's TED Talks. Thanks for reminding me again why there is no hope for the planet, and why I decided to bail on Team Democrat.

---Baron V

Why We Can Never Have Nice Things

Regular readers of this stupid blog know that only a deranged Marxist would believe that our government is, essentially, a protection racket for America's job creators, and that our gigantic military-security-surveillance regime provides the muscle for the racketeers. Even though, you know, that's exactly what they do:

The American government conducted a major intelligence offensive against China, with targets including the Chinese government and networking company Huawei, according to documents from former NSA worker Edward Snowden that have been viewed by SPIEGEL. Among the American intelligence service's targets were former Chinese President Hu Jintao, the Chinese Trade Ministry, banks, as well as telecommunications companies.

But the NSA made a special effort to target Huawei. With 150,000 employees and €28 billion ($38.6 billion) in annual revenues, the company is the world's second largest network equipment supplier. At the beginning of 2009, the NSA began an extensive operation, referred to internally as "Shotgiant," against the company, which is considered a major competitor to US-based Cisco. The company produces smartphones and tablets, but also mobile phone infrastructure, WLAN routers and fiber optic cable---the kind of technology that is decisive in the NSA's battle for data supremacy.

Not to overlook Chinese hackery against us---they've been known to do it, too---but it would be nice if we were spending our money on something more productive than rigging the global wireless market on behalf of Silicon Valley. it certainly doesn't help to improve relations between the nations!

---Baron V

Glass Half Empty

Here in the Marxist dystopia, people really like their light-rail transit. For every extra mile we build, ridership goes up! Bus ridership, on the other hand, has been flat for years, and after spending the last half of the last century building our city entirely around the automobile, we'll never be able to lay enough miles of track to put a dent in traffic congestion, let alone emissions, before we get to the point where it won't matter anymore. So we can't only offer carrots to transit users, we also need to swing a stick at the motorists. Ten dollars a gallon and $5-an-hour parking should do the trick.

---Baron V

Only One Conceivable Location For It

Sure, there'll be some debate over whether the President's library should be based in Cambridge or Honolulu or even Hyde Park, but the only place it rightly belongs is, well, right here. Call it snark, but I can't think of any other place that's benefited more abundantly from his administration, can you?

---Baron V

It Was Always a Scam

Those so-called "defined-contribution" 401(k) plans were promoted from the get-go by the Pete Peterson/Fix The Debt types who've been warning us for decades that Social Security is on the verge of bankruptcy and it won't be there for you when you retire so give us your money instead, etc. This has remunerated them handsomely in form of annual management fees, but for the actual account holders, not so much. This is a feature, not a bug, of such retirement systems.

---Baron V

Greeted as Liberators

Because freedom's untidy, and free people are free to make mistakes and commit crimes and do bad things. They're also free to live their lives and do wonderful things. And that's what's going to happen here:

Scores of gunmen took over a federal police headquarters in northern Iraq on Friday before driving a tanker laden with explosives into the building, killing many, a government official said.

The battalion commander and his assistant were among the dead but the total number of casualties was still impossible to ascertain because victims remained trapped beneath the building in the village of Injana, the official said.

---Baron V

We Can Never Have Enough Enemies

Here we go again:

Away from the conflict in Ukraine, Russian President Vladimir Putin is quietly seeking a foothold in Latin America, military officials warn.

To the alarm of lawmakers and Pentagon officials, Putin has begun sending navy ships and long-range bombers to the region for the first time in years.

Russia’s defense minister says the country is planning bases in Cuba, Venezuela, and Nicaragua, and just last week, Putin’s national security team met to discuss increasing military ties in the region.

“They’re on the march,” Sen. Joe Donnelly (D-Ind.) said at a Senate hearing earlier this month. “They’re working the scenes where we can’t work. And they’re doing a pretty good job.”

"They're on the march." Jesus, what an idiot.

It will never fail to amaze me at the sense of entitlement so many Americans feel to be their birthright---that we should be held to some standard of behavior and conduct that's separate from any other nation because freedom, liberty and exceptionalism. But we really aren't exceptional, except perhaps at bossing other nations around and acting like privileged little assholes. For what it's worth, though, I doubt that "the Russians are coming" is going to resonate anywhere beyond the corridors of the D.C. foreign-policy establishment. After 13 years of war, I am guessing that the national mood is likely to be, "Wake us up when they start shooting at us."

---Baron V

The Best Essayist of His Generation

Ta-Nehisi Coates.

---Baron V

Friday Night Music Blogging

Because we must have MOOOOOAR WARRRRRR with the perennially Evil Empire.

---Baron V

Not The Least Bit Helpful

This:

President Obama complained Thursday that Democrats “get clobbered” in midterm elections, blaming a “toxic” atmosphere in Washington for suppressing Democratic constituencies.

“The challenge is that our politics in Washington have become so toxic that people just lose faith,” Obama told a group of top Democratic donors gathered at the home of former Miami Heat star Alonzo Mourning. “They say, ‘Y’know what, it doesn’t matter, I’m not that interested, I’m not gonna vote.’ And that’s especially true during the midterms.”

Bullshit. Voters who would normally vote for you grow apathetic when they feel that the people who govern them aren't listening to them. You want their votes? Listen to them. Can the "grown-up in the room" schtick. Get mad for a change. Channel some of the anger that millions of us still feel over having lost our jobs, our homes, and our fortunes to the organized crime syndicate that masquerades as a legitimate financial system. Get the voters fired up, and they'll turn out for the midterms. It worked for Team Democrat in 2006, and it worked for the zanies in 2010.

Sure, turnout is always higher in presidential election years, but the principle always applies: Give people a compelling reason to vote for you. Because if you don't, they won't.

---Baron V

Shocked, I Tell You

To learn that morale is horrible in public schools:

“I was stunned---I was stunned---that we were suspending and expelling four-year-olds,” Duncan said at a Washington D.C. elementary school, where he and Holder discussed findings of the latest Civil Rights Data Collection by the U.S. Department of Education’s Office for Civil Rights. The survey showed that nearly 5,000 preschool students were suspended in the 2011-12 academic year.

“This preschool suspension issue is mind-boggling,” Duncan said. “And we need to as a nation find a way to remedy that tomorrow.”

Don't know what else he would expect after we've spent the last 30 years demonizing teachers' unions and driving away experienced educators, starving public education of funding, steering public moneys into underperforming charter schools and turning the public schools into dumping grounds for poor and underprivileged kids. Put another way: what's happening at school is merely a reflection of what's happening across a broad swath of American society, i.e., state-sanctioned violence against its own citizens. It really has got to stop, but no one should be the least bit surprised by it. It's systemic.

---Baron V

Basketball Is Cool

And it is definitely a thing this week! Heck, I played the game myself when I was in high school, so in general I enjoy watching it. But one thing I increasingly can't stand to watch are games being played by some of the most exploited workers in America:

In 2010, the NCAA signed a 14-year contract with CBS and Turner Sports (TNT, TBS, and truTV), giving those networks the right to broadcast the tournament for the measly sum of $10.8 billion. For this tournament alone, the NCAA will haul in somewhere around $770 million in revenue. That doesn’t include revenue from ticket and concession sales or from corporate sponsorships, which together add tens of millions more to the NCAA’s coffers.

B-b-b-but, scholarships! Yes, the NCAA member schools give them out, but it doesn't obscure the fact that most of these kids will never make it to the pros. An untimely injury can derail the career aspirations of even the most talented college player, and most of the players won't even graduate. They deserve to be paid a living wage for their work, and nobody should invest much time and money in the NCAA's product until they are. Just my .02.

---Baron V

Greatest. Nation. Ever

I wouldn't consider myself a terribly religious person, but after reading stories like this, I can't help but wonder if some awful demonic force hasn't been unleashed in this country over the last generation that manifests itself in sadism and cruelty. I mean, authority figures are rarely ever held to account for violent and antisocial behavior anymore, and it has been that way in this country since we put a gang of mass murderers on the federal payroll and set them to the task of slaughtering nuns and relief workers while our national media yawned in apathy.

War crimes, torture, tasings, mass incarcerations, austerity economics, punishment without end---none of these things are isolated incidents. They all stem from a culture of dominance and control that justifies any means to achieve its ends, and we should remind ourselves while we're Talking Tough on Ukraine™ and once again conflating belligerence with statesmanship that we live in a very sick society, and it has been getting gradually sicker since the 1980s. I don't pretend to have all the answers here, but inculcating four-year olds with a Reaganite punishment ethic isn't going to change things for the better.

---Baron V

Stuff Happens

Because, you know, democracy can be messy:

Sunni politician Hamid al-Mutlaq says the country can only go downhill if Shiites like Maliki remain in power. Mutlaq, a member of the alliance of parties headed by secular Shiite and former Prime Minister Ayad Allawi, is the chairman of the defense and security committee in parliament.

Mutlaq, who doesn't make a particularly delicate impression, hasn't returned home to Fallujah for almost two months, ever since a bomb struck his house there. He says that there are "special troops who are burning down the houses of the Sunnis," and that "half a million people have fled." According to Mutlaq, the Shiite government is promoting "religious racism" and hunting down Sunnis "the way the Nazis once hunted the Jews in Germany." Is he serious? Completely. The true culprit, he adds, is neighboring "Iran with its sectarianism." The mullahs in Tehran, says Mutlaq, are literally "part of our government; they have driven a wedge into our nation."

Wonderful. Tens of thousands were slaughtered. Tens of thousands more are still being slaughtered. And no one in this country has had to account for any of it, even though none of the slaughter would have happened if not for our involvement. When I say "our" involvement, I'm not only referring to the White House and the D.C. policy establishment but to all the media and think-tank apparatchiks who took to the airwaves to cheer on the invasion while the fraud being perpetrated was hiding in plain sight. And by "our" involvement, I'm also referring to the people in Washington today who are running a protection racket for the serial liars, mass murderers and war criminals. They're equally culpable at this point in our history, and so long as there's no accounting for what was done in our name in Iraq, it virtually guarantees that sometime, somewhere, these atrocities will happen again. They may even be visited one day upon us!

---Baron V

Guess They Didn't Get The Message

That exurban sprawl is so last century, that in an era of scare resources, developers need to be focusing on urban infill projects that increase density, and forget about building as though there is limitless water for all those lawns and swimming pools. But no:

A state appellate court on Thursday cleared away a legal obstacle standing in the way of plans to build a community of 60,000 residents about 35 miles north of Los Angeles.

The court essentially restored a permit issued by the California Department of Fish and Wildlife that granted the Newhall Land and Farming Co. permission to alter a wild river.

Yeah, I know they do things differently in the Santa Clarita Valley---it's pretty rednecky out there---but it's not 1970 anymore, and projects like these just aren't sustainable in California now. Even if they manage to preserve local flora, the resources consumed by constructing and maintaining this new town, not to mention its supporting infrastructure, are going to be immense and would be put to much better use elsewhere---in fact, almost anywhere else. We already have too many suburbs.

---Baron V

Thought Leaders of the New Millennium

I think this explains why we are doomed as a species:

[A]t this year’s TED conference, which was held here in Vancouver, British Columbia, the rock star Sting got onstage and gave a presentation that had a different feel. He talked about his rise to stardom and then about a period in middle age when he was unable to write any new songs. The muse abandoned him, he said — for days, then weeks, then months, then years.

But then he went back and started thinking about his childhood in the north of England. He’d lived on a street that led down to a shipyard where some of the world’s largest ocean-going vessels were built.

Most of us have an urge, maybe more as we age, to circle back to the past and touch the places and things of childhood. When Sting did this, his creativity was reborn. Songs exploded from his head.

David Brooks . . . Sting . . . TED Talks . . . Shoot me now, or shoot me later?

More to the point, when I circle back to the place of my childhood, I remember what a creatively stifling and miserable experience it was for much of the time, and how I didn't really get my act together, both as a creative thinker and as a human being, until I moved away from there for good. The fact that the place was pretty much leveled by the  Northridge earthquake probably dimmed whatever nostalgic allure it might have held for me in my declining years, so there's that. Guess what I'm saying is, some of us move away from home for very good reasons, and they don't all revolve around money and fame.

(Via.)

---Baron V

People Need Money

Because tens of millions of Americans are living, quite literally, from paycheck to paycheck. And they're not all poor welfare moochers! This is why it's stupid and dishonest to tell people that they need to set aside money for their retirement or to make smarter investment decisions when they have no disposable income to set aside or invest. How to remedy? Well, there are a number of options, but increasing Social Security is an absolute necessity, and a guaranteed annual income should be on the table, too. I know it's beating a dead horse at this point, but we need to keep shouting until the people who govern us listen.

---Baron V

Cities Should be For People

Think about this for a minute:

Parking is the single biggest land use in any city, and it’s almost completely unmanaged. Zoning requires a space for every car but ignores the homeless. In our cities, free parking is more important than affordable housing.

Here in the Marxist dystopia, we have $3 billion dollars' worth of sidewalk repairs that have been postponed for lack of funds, and there seems to be no way to find the money. Eliminating free parking and using the additional revenues for infrastructure maintenance simply makes too much sense. A lot of neighborhoods, such as mine, have already implemented permitted/preferential parking (where you pay an annual fee to park; it's $34, which is pitifully low). Extending this to every residential neighborhood while metering all commercial zones would raise a lot of money at minimal inconvenience. Sure, it's a "regressive tax," but as it raises needed revenues and incentivizes use of mass transit, the positives easily outweigh the negatives. Which is why I am guessing it'll never happen.

---Baron V