A Tête-à-Tête On Tats (December 1, 2014)

Posted in Personal Stories Series, Personal Story, Society, Tats on December 1, 2014 by e-commentary.org

. . .

1          “I do not get it.”

2          “You’re too old.”

1          “I get it.”

. . .

1          “This old futbal coach would ask whether you were drunk or just stupid.  Coach’s sentiments still animate this old boy.  I always thought you had to be a soldier, sailor, carny or criminal.  Today, soccer moms sport ink.”

2          “There may be nothing left for the young to rebel against.  Long hair?  Shaved head?  Shabby threads?  Flashy clothes?  Everything has been done or not done or undone.  What do you do or not do?”

1          “Perhaps the ultimate form of rebellion is to rebel against the rebels.”

. . .

1          “Some may want to proclaim that things were not copacetic at home.  I am not objective about it, but I maintain that I have been an avuncular uncle who has been dismissed unfairly by my nephew.  Is that grounds for me to toy with a tat?”

2          “‘Nephew’s a brat; I got a tat.’  For me, I do not deserve a tat because my parents were not bad people, but they warrant one: ‘Our son was a dishonor student’ or even something more candid.”

. . .

2          “If a person defaces something, the authorities will come down on him or her.  If a person even makes a face, the authorities will come down on him or her.  Yet a person is still free to deface – or perhaps debody – himself or herself without legal consequence.  The last unregulated canvas of personal expression.”

1          “Dubbing it a ‘tramp stamp’ is revealing.  Hiding it is also revealing.  Are the public messages a threatening signal to the public to get away and leave them alone?  Are they trying to make themselves unemployable?  That is a way of letting others know that you want to be left alone.”

2          “They may be art works akin to cave paintings that one sports and transports.  An epidermal bulletin board for personal expression.”

1          “Don’t get me wrong.  I am all about the First Amendment and restraining government interference.  At times, however, social restraint and individual self-control are appropriate.  You do not always have to do what you are free to do.  What happens when you change your mind?”

. . .

1          “You?”

2          “It isn’t me.  Mom knows that she is my anchor.  Plus I don’t deserve it.”

1          “Getting old?”

2          “Gettin’ there.”

. . .

1          “The next great fortune will be made by someone who creates a tattoo removal technique and then patents and franchises it.”

2          “Open the tattoo removal shop next to the tattoo parlor.  ‘Tats Rn’t Us’ next door to ‘Tats R Us’.”

1          “The tattoo puller next to the tattoo pusher.”

. . .

Tattoos of the week:

Mom

Anchor

U.S. Navy

Organisation des Nations Unies pour l’Education, la Science et la Culture

Jesus loves me and my tattoos

Scars are tattoos with better stories

http://www.tatfreesingles.com

Nobody Cares

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Police Police (November 24, 2014)

Posted in Civil Rights/Civil Liberties, Courts, Ferguson, Forfeiture, Freedom / Liberty, Judges, Judicial Arrogance, Judiciary, Perjury, Perjury/Dishonesty, Police, Race on November 24, 2014 by e-commentary.org

. . .

D          “Do you trust the police?”

L          “No.  You?”

D          “No.  But you are White and in the ruling class?”

L          “The petit bourgeoisie perhaps, but hardly in the ruling class.  Look at you.  You are White and in the ruling class.”

D          “The medical guild?  At least you are a sustaining member of the rule class.  You make the rules, you break the rules.  Imagine what would happen if I were not in the White class.”

L          “No need to imagine.”

D          “I try not to interface with the police, because they just get in my face.  The last police officer who pulled me over when I was driving at precisely the speed limit said that if I moved in any way, he would shoot and then charge me with resisting arrest and attempting a battery on a police officer.  Then he laughed and said to produce a driver’s license and proof of insurance without taking my hands off the steering wheel.  When a White person who abides the law cannot even abide the law, the system is profoundly broken.”

L          “The first fifteen seconds are critical.  I got a trooper talking about his success on opening day and was let off with a warning.  Saved by gadwalls and pintails.  And I had been burning the carbon off the rings before he arrested my momentum and let me off with a warning.”

D          “So I need to shoot a gun not to get shot.”

L          “I have seen the police serve as a private army for private parties against those who are not connected.  And the judges who are petitioned to remedy the situation do not care at all as long as they get paid their regular pay check and handsome pension.  That’s the solution.  Before you get pulled over, you need to be a judge first.  The cops apologize and wish the judge a good day.  Drink with candid judges to get the full story.”

D          “I’ll pass.  Or stay in my lane and stay below the speed limit.  The last time a neighbor called the cops, the cops would not respond until halftime.  And the home team was not even in scoring position in the second quarter.”

L          “I had someone try to invade the house and the cops discounted it as petty vandalism without a second thought.  Petty vandalism is not investigated.  Judges have said privately that cops lie all the time under oath on the stand.  When I asked a judge why he always accepts their testimony, he stated without hesitation that he is paid to believe the cops.”

D          “A judge on the ethical take who takes the cop’s word.  At least they did not discount the possible home invasion as mere hooliganism.  You can understand those who observe:  ‘When seconds counts, the police are minutes away.’  The cops are a quarter or an inning or a period away.  We are on our own.”

. . .

L          “Congress should pass omnibus legislation that repudiates and repeals and pre-empts each and every forfeiture statute of any kind by any government at any time under any circumstances.  When police shake down a citizen today, they can later allege that they were engaged in a civil forfeiture in the field.”

D          “Get a car or a boat or a plane that the cops don’t want to steal from you.  They always want money.”

. . .

D          “I am not even a lawyer, but I could see that the prosecutor Bob McCulloch sent clear signals to the grand jury.  The grand jury had heard dozens of cases in previous weeks that included a suggestion by the prosecutor to return a bill.  Except in that one case.  The grand jury obeyed.  The process failed.  Now and forever, there is no way for the process to unfail.  Law is too important and complex to leave to the lawyers and judges.”

L          “Rest assured, prosecutors lie all the time.”

D          “Lawyers and judges rationalize their many mistakes by saying that time has passed and the matter is over.  My colleagues bury our mistakes when we bury the body.  Yet, your violations to the body politic live on forever.  One of the lingering problems is that there are many bad if not evil characters out there who are far more of a threat than the police, yet the police are the only ones who threaten me.”

L          “The country needs to debate a national truce or there will be continued strife.”

. . .

Bumper stickers of the week:

When seconds counts, the police are hours away harassing an innocent citizen or watching the next play.

“A doctor can bury his mistakes, but an architect can only advise his clients to plant vines.”  Frank Lloyd Wright

De-militarize the police; police the military

Nobody Cares

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Gas / Au / Ag / Cu: The Great Commodity / Currency Wars: What’s Up? What’s Down? What’s Really Up? What’s Going Down? (November 17, 2014)

Posted in "Fiat ______", Carbon Surcharge & Dividend, China, Debt/Deficits, Dollar - World's Reserve Currency, Football, Foreign Policy, Gold Standard, Middle East, Money, Peak Oil, Russia, Silver Standard on November 17, 2014 by e-commentary.org

. . .

E1          “Today’s high-tech town criers, LED scoreboards broadcast the news from every street and street corner.  They proclaim that gas prices are down, gas prices are down, gas prices are down.  The most public and publicized scores in our economy are even more prominent than football scores.”

E2          “Is supply up because Saudi Arabia has strategically increased the supply?  Is demand down because the world is in recession?  What’s really up?  What’s really going down?”

E1          “What’s real?  The great trifecta is at play.  Saudi Arabia is advancing American political interests by undercutting Russian oil sales while also underpricing American fracking operators and undermining Iranian producers.  Prices now below about $80 a barrel undermine American competitors who are fracking the production of oil at a cost of typically $85 a barrel.  An American operator who cannot compete and goes down will not later reenter the market.  Saudi Arabia can effortlessly constrict supply and drive up the price.”

E2          “The Republicans will provide tax benefits and government subsidies for the frackers and increase the national debt.”

E1          “That’s for real.  If Russia and Russians can endure the very real impact of the sanctions and continue to circumvent the use of the dollar, they may end up prevailing in the ‘Cold Currency War.’  The public scoreboards provide daily clues to developments on the international battlefield.”

. . .

E2          “Now when the price of oil is down is the time to adopt a carbon premium and dividend program.”

E1          “Never happen.”

E2          “Nothing will happen until it is too late.”

E1          “Not when gas mongering SUVs are flying off the shelves.”

. . .

E2          “The PM markets for elements 79 and 47 are distorted.  Now that the physical quantities of Au and Ag are so tiny in comparison to the exploding paper market, the spot price is another illusion.  Sellers of physical quantities are setting prices that exceed the former ‘spot price plus markup’ formula to reflect the limited physical supply.  However, no generally accepted ‘physical spot price’ has emerged.  In a world of fraud, illusion and dishonesty, the ‘market price’ is not the ‘market price’ and another ‘market price’ must be concocted to provide realistic information.”

E1          “The market is unreal.  However, it is hard to fix the metals market when the metals market is fixed.  Information is sketchy, incomplete and possibly inaccurate.  China, Russia, India, Brazil and other governments and the Chinese, Russians, Indians, Brazilians and other citizens are amassing massive amounts of physical gold.  Manipulating the acquisition price of physical gold lower via machinations in the paper market facilitates the transfer of physical gold to folks who are not always happy with us.”

E2          “That may be the most counter-productive policy in recent memory.  Some countries are rallying around gold to provide a counterpoise to the dollar.”

E1          “That is surreal.”

. . .

E2          “Morgans were minted from 1878 to 1904.  Peace dollars from 1921 to 1935.  Even among those who are not interested in the numismatic value of a coin, the premium for George T. Morgan’s creation is more than the premium for Peace dollars.”

E1          “A hint of aesthetic sensibility among the junk metal set.  Morgans may have been minted again in 1921.”

E2          “One fellow said that he maintains 70 percent of his precious metals inventory in silver to serve as a medium of exchange and 30 percent in gold to serve as a store of value and secondary medium of exchange.  However, the dollar is still the unit of account.  Wonder what he knows.”

E1          “Metals perforce do not pay interest, yet when banks start charging interest to hold funds, metals become the non-interest burdened asset.  What percentage of his assets are in metals?  And why?”

. . .

E1          “The ISIS or ISIL or Islamic State or whatever is proposing to issue their own currency by minting real gold dinars and real silver dirhams.”

E2          “The IS is also in the business of selling oil on the black market at reduced prices which lowers the world price.  Another factor in the analysis.”

E1          “And the scoreboard up ahead proclaims: ‘Unleaded – 3 dinars and 99 dirhams per liter; Diesel – 4 dinars and 49 dirhams per liter.  Free oil check and window washing.’”

E2          “A mecca for the gold bugs.”

E1          “‘27 inch flat screens from China for 99 dinars.’”

E2          “If gold is denominated in dollars, the dollar is king.  If gold is denominated in gold, then gold is king.”

E1          “Aren’t they obligated to field a football team first?”

. . .

E1          “If I couldn’t make light of it, it would get too heavy.”

. . .

[See the related e-commentary earlier this year at “Texas Votes To Secede From U.S. And Join Mexico; Russia Blows Up World In Response (March 17, 2014)“, “NATO: Nations Aggressively Taking Over (March 31, 2014)“, “Distrust But Verify (July 21, 2014)” and “World’s Reserve Currency War I = Cold War 2.0 = WW III (?) (September 8, 2014).”  See also the background e-commentary at “The Silver Standard: The Value Of (Sort Of) Real Money (July 15, 2013)“, ““Fiat Gold” / Fool’s Gold (May 2, 2011)” and “Is The Gold Standard Really The Gold Standard? (January 18, 2010).”

Bumper stickers of the week:

He who has the dollars has made the rules; he who has the gold will make the rules.

Folks (and governments) will use Fe and Pb to acquire and protect Au and Ag.

We seek stasis, we get entropy.

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Midterms 2014: A Verdict On Race (And Concerted Ineptitude) (November 10, 2014)

Posted in Blue States / Red States, Citizens United Decision, Civil War, Dollar - World's Reserve Currency, Elections, Marijuana, Minimum Wage, Race, South, Southern Strategy on November 10, 2014 by e-commentary.org

. . .

M          “The election came down to the Republicans putting an elected official who was not even running for office on every ballot in America.”

L          “And putting him on trial.  This race was about race.  American politics is a perennial battle between fear and hope.  The midterm elections were a verdict on whether a Black man should be President of the United States.  And the verdict is in.  Those American people scared into voting are more than uncomfortable with a Black man and his very Black woman in the House for Whites.  And then toss in Ebola and ISIS or ISIL or whatever it is and fear cripples the citizenry.”

M          “In recent decades, every President who has won a second term and had a Senate majority to lose has lost the Senate majority.”

L          “The Republicans could not say that a candidate is in the same party as the ‘n-word’ guy.  ‘Reggin’ and ‘monday’ are too blatant.  They unleashed a cacophony of dog whistles. ‘Romney – Obama Care’ passed as the ‘Affordable Care Act’ and was excoriated as ‘Obamacare.’  Republicans accused all incumbent Democratic Senators over and over and over and over of casting the deciding vote for ‘Obamacare.’  ‘Obamacare’ is the socially acceptable substitute for the ‘n-word’ today.”

M          “Money carried the message and the day.  They say the sword is mightier than the pen, but the pen that writes the campaign checks is mightiest.  Justice Roberts’ plan in Citizens United is unfolding like a carefully choreographed chess game.”

L          “It is always about money.  Obama won in 2008 in substantial part because he rejected public financing and substantially outspent McCain.  Americans were fearful then, but in the perennial battle between fear and hope, hope triumphed over fear.  Bush had made such a mess of the economy and foreign affairs that a continuation of Bush was frightening.  The fear of another Bush combined with the hope espoused by Obama was right for the times.  In this race, spending by the mega PACs bought the elections for Republicans by appealing to race and avoiding any concrete policies.  Few of the Republicans were honest enough to concede that the Republicans have used all available resources to stymie legislation and then blamed Obama.  The public voted against what they were told is ineptitude in Washington.”

M          “In 2008, in their gut, many devout Republicans said they simply could not stomach ‘President Palin’ at the helm.”

L          “Many pundits proclaimed that America was ‘post-racial’ then, yet America was and is still very involved in the racial mix and maelström.”

M          “When the finals are held in 2016, virulent racism will not be on the national exam.  Gender is much less incendiary.  America is much closer to a ‘post-gender’ electorate.”

. . .

M          “Maryland and Massachusetts are lapis lazuli blue and yet both elected Republican governors.  At some point, citizens tire of taxes and regulations.”

L          “I was heartened to see that four red states – Alaska, Arkansas, Nebraska, and North Dakota -–adopted provisions to increase the minimum wage.  And the blue city of San Francisco joins the Emerald City in adopting a minimum wage.  You cannot spend money if you do not have money.”

M          “Oregon, Alaska and the District of Columbia adopted more rational and realistic marijuana policies.  Reduce civil rights violations, increase tax rolls and cut spending on prisons.  Regulate marijuana like alcohol and discourage and dissuade the use of both.”

. . . .

L          “Save your Confederate dollars.  The South is rising again.”

M          “Will they substitute as the world’s reserve currency?”

. . .

[Fall of the Berlin Wall:  Yesterday – 25 years]

Bumper stickers of the week:

Deal race, buy votes

Save your Confederate dollars.  The South is rising again.

Lee surrendered.  I didn’t.

The New Confederacy – Same Old Same New

The New Confederacy – Same as it ever was

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“Peak Advertising” (November 3, 2014)

Posted in Consumerism, Economics, Elections, Facebook, Football, Google, Minimum Wage, Occupy Movement, Peak Advertising, Politics, Press/Media, Social Media, Sports, Television, Voting, Wages, Writing on November 3, 2014 by e-commentary.org

. . .

1          “‘Mt. / Everest / Sherpas / Prefer / Burma / Shave.’”

2          “Turns out that some of the first ‘six-word memoirs’ were crafted by English majors laboring for BBDO.”

. . .

1          “‘Peak Advertising’ occurs when all of a person’s senses are assaulted all of the time with non-stop commercial advertising.”

2          “That is the collective business plan of all the social media platforms.  They are premised on their presumed ability to bombard the right demographic with saturation advertising all the time.”

1          “At some time, the marginal utility of each additional fusillade will not provide any return because the consumer has nothing to spend and no source of additional debt.  What if they don’t have any more money?”

2          “They have huge advertising budgets.”

. . .

2          “Well, right, those people may be out of money.”

. . .

1          “If the television is viewed as a mirror rather than a monitor, what should one make of a string of ads for fortified barley soda interspersed with those huckstering elixirs for erectile dysfunction.”

2          “Potents for potency.  The medium is also a microscope into the ‘Land of Skinny People’ where the people have BMIs below 22 and definitely do not reflect their viewers.  They hawk products that make a person fat ninety percent of the time and concoctions that purport to make a person skinny ten percent of the time.”

1          “When others talk about ‘thinking inside the box’ are they referring to the big flashing box in the home and the little flashing box in hand?”

2          “A wide body watches a wide out on a wide screen doing battle for his team and town.  The viewer should go out and do.”

. . .

1          “Seventy percent of the economy is attributed to consumer spending.  The total amount and the percentage of consumer spending in the next few years will be revealing.”

2          “Hard to spend if you have no money and no one will provide any more credit.”

. . .

1          “One thought might be to have parents lease a newborn’s forehead to tattoo an advertisement.  You can’t let an unbleached beachhead canvas go untrammeled.”

2          “Start young.  The kid surely would develop an affinity for the product or service.”

. . .

1          “Anyone in a political battleground state has been subject to ceaseless fusillades of hate and fear from all quarters for months.  In interviews, voters criticize the negative campaigning and yet in the voting booth vote in favor of those behind the vicious attacks.  The candidates provide what the public really wants.  Each political battle is part of the ceaseless war in American politics to own the government with its ability to plunder from the populace.”

2          “I vote to be a non-combatant.”

. . .

Bumper stickers of the week:

Mt. / Everest / Sherpas / Prefer / Living / Wage

Occupy Namche Bazaar

Namaste

Peak Oil, Peak Water, Peak Land, Peak Advertising, Peak Peaks

“Don’t mind your make-up, you’d better make your mind up.”  Frank Zappa

“If voting made any difference, they wouldn’t let us do it.”  Mark Twain

A ‘tax and spend’ Democrat versus a ‘no tax and spend’ Republican.

Vote

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“Legs Network” Is Big Brother (October 27, 2014)

Posted in Amazon, Consumerism, Elections, Facebook, Google, Internet, Journalism, Markets, Press/Media, Technology, Television on October 27, 2014 by e-commentary.org

. . .

1          “While watching late last night, it dawned on me.  Big Brother is now privatized and outsourced.  The ‘Legs Network’ is Big Brother.”

2          “I like it.  The name, that is.  The Network provides ideological programming punctuated by ideological advertising.  Spin reality and repeat it over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and . . . .”

1          “A vile message grounded in fear and repeated and repeated and repeated to advance the interests of the corporate sponsors.”

2          “Over and over and over and over.”

. . .

1          “Female applicants are required to submit photographs of their legs.  They know what they are foisting.”

2          “Shoes?  Restorative varicose vein surgery?  And all of the propagandists are graduates of the Edward L. Bernays School of Disinformation.”

1          “One was a Joe Goebbels Fellow.”

2          “Josephina Goebbels Fellow?”

. . .

1          “A higher percentage of the indoctrinees of the ‘Legs Network’ are living on government assistance than the viewers of public television.”

2          “The governments – federal, state and local – are also even bigger Big Brothers than in the past.”

1          “Every new social media spawns its own monopoly and gestates another Big Brother.  Amazon, Google, Facebook, you name it, are all Big Brothers.  We need a protective and independent ‘Big Brother’ to protect or at least to inform us.  Instead we get a bevy of Orwellian ‘Big Brothers’ that monitor and manipulate us.”

2          “Everyone is in our corner and no one is in our corner.”

. . .

Bumper stickers of the week:

Big Brothers abound

“Legs Network” is Big Brother

Facebook is Big Brother

Google is Big Brother

Twitter is Big Brother

Amazon is Big Brother

ebay is Big Brother

Zillow is Big Brother

_____ is Big Brother

Are Big Sisters more benign?

[A Pawel Kuczynski sketch of a video camera on a wall focused (and fixated) on a second video camera on the same wall also focused (and fixated) on the first camera.]

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Ebola: Doctors And Spin Doctors (October 20, 2014)

Posted in Ebola, Health Care, Insurance, O'Bama, Public Health on October 20, 2014 by e-commentary.org

. . .

L          “A spin doctor rather than a doctor.  One group of ‘D’ students was not doing us proud, so O’Bama turned to another group of ‘D’ students more familiar to him.  A JD is now nominally in charge of the MDs.”

D          “That will not end well.  By training, temperament and experience, lawyers are more effective playing spin doctors than doctors.”

L          “He is described as the ‘Ebola czar.’  When the government props up a ‘czar’ to address a problem, the government is tacitly admitting that everything undertaken to date by the government to address the problem has been a failure.”

D          “The Surgeon General is the one who should be overseeing the Ebola response.  The National Rifle Association will not allow the Senate to consider O’Bama’s nominee, Dr. Vivek Murthy, because he made some comments about guns and public health.  With time of the essence, the Acting Surgeon General Rear Admiral Boris Lushniak is a more appealing point person than a lawyer and Democratic political player.”

L          “By appointing an operative as the ‘czar,’ O’Bama is treating this matter as a public relations problem that can be managed by controlling the memes and dictating the themes.”

D          “Montesquieu’s discussion of the separation and balance of powers failed to acknowledge that Mother Nature has absolute veto power over the President and over Congress.  Of course, Montesquieu was a lawyer, not a doctor.”

L          “And she has veto power over the courts that will venture into this morass.  Judges will find their decisions automatically appealed and then likely reversed and remanded with much different instructions and consequences by Mother Nature, the Ultimate Judge.”

D          “Arrogance and its privileged cousin – hubris – are also mutating.”

. . .

D          “Those who test positive for the virus now are getting disproportionately expensive treatment and excessive attention.  The decision to fly the nurse Nina Pham from Texas to Maryland to an NIH facility that specializes in research and not treatment may prove to be exceptional.  No insurance company will provide for others to fly on a private jet to a national medical facility.  Insurance companies dictate health care policy in America and dictate that a person be treated locally and cheaply.”

L          “Some of those who were exposed have now gone 21 days without symptoms.  Conventional commentators are proclaiming victory.  I wonder if some tenacious ‘Type A personality’ virus will remain virulent for a longer period of time.”

D          “Some of the viruses will become benign in a fortnight and others will remain malignant for a month.  However, the amount and quality of care for each successive patient will decline exponentially at the same time that the virus is mutating exponentially.”

L          “When the celebrity patients are no longer on the screen, ordinary patients will be given numbers and partial bus fare with a substantial co-payment by the insurance companies and left to secure whatever medical care they can hustle.”

. . .

D          “Third world countries are often defined by their third world medical facilities and services.  Russia and China are each mutating into first-rate military powers, yet each country operates second world medical systems.  Someone who is able to obtain treatment from a Russian doctor – who is much more likely to be female than a doctor in America – must personally supply the medicines and medical supplies from black or brown market sources.”

L          “America is following that model.  So the first world and the second world and the third world are not prepared.”

. . .

Bumper stickers of the week:

“America’s health care system is neither healthy, caring, nor a system.” Walter Cronkite

Be prepared

Be calm and panic

1 Comment »

Ebola: The Halcyon Days Of The Panic-demic In A “Peak” Health Care-less System (October 13, 2014)

Posted in Book Reference, Bureaucracy, Civil Rights/Civil Liberties, Ebola, Health Care, Military, Pogo Plight, Population, Privacy, Public Health on October 13, 2014 by e-commentary.org

. . .

1          “Who can you trust?  Events are moving so quickly.  Fraud and deception work effectively in finance and politics, but Mother Nature is indifferent to and immune from the shenanigans and machinations of mortals.”

2          “The government and the public are still mired at Stage 1.  The government is denying the threat because it has no plan.  The public is denying the threat because it has no idea.”

1          “I am collecting the quotations of the major players to document the response in real time.  Dr. Frieden with the CDCE and Dr. Fauci with NIAID/NIH are not prepared and have not been candid.  A test patient, Dr. Nancy Snyderman with NBC, agrees to a voluntary quarantine and then brazenly violates the quarantine, refuses to accept responsibility and escapes accountability.”

2          “We as a society need to move through the stages from denial to anger to bargaining to depression to acceptance of a plan more quickly than the virus is moving.”

1          “The health care-less system will peak after it fills the nineteen available beds.”

. . .

2          “Easy to say that everything reasonable must be done to contain and eliminate the menace in West Africa.”

. . .

2          “Viewers of Fox tv are yelling at the tube for the government to do something.  The Republicans who advertise on the network cut funding to the CDCE and other programs.”

1          “If the Democrats had provided an additional five billion dollars in funding to the CDCE, what would have happened?”

2          “The CDCE would have lobbied for another five billion dollars.”

1          “Or ten.  And yet the Democrats cut funding, as if any amount of funding matters.  Some researcher who sent repeated e-mails to those in power warning of the dangers of Ebola is not happy.”

2          “I can forward some of the e-mails.”

. . .

2          “A communicable disease is communicated by public transportation.  Even if the disease is not transmitted at this time via air, the public is transmitted via air.  Ebola is small enough to fit in a ‘carry on’ bag.  Ebola will hitchhike and stow away.  Air travel must be purposefully restricted.  Restrictions are costly, but the costs of limiting air travel must be weighed against the costs of not limiting air travel.”

1          “All costs should be calculated.  We need to address the resulting deprivations of privacy and limitations on constitutional rights before the public is too terrified to think.”

. . .

2          “One of the bench marks will be bleach sales.”

1          “Or overflow patients camping in tents in parking lots.”

. . .

1          “The female RNs are underpaid to do the work while the male MBAs who make the decisions take almost all the profits.  The RNs are underpaid to care for the sick and the dying and are not paid anything to get sick and to die in the process.  When a nurse is called in to care for someone sick with Ebola at an institution unprepared for the challenge, she or he should in good conscience call in sick.”

2          “She or he will get there and then be blamed for the negligence of the hospital.”

1          “The American military personnel being deployed to Africa are not being provided combat pay.  The ‘charge of the blight brigade’ should occasion charges against those giving the orders.”

2          “No one gets it.”

1          “Everyone will get it unless all of us get it.”

. . .

[See http://prosperouswaydown.com/category/subtopics/healthcare-subsystems/ebola-healthcare-subsystems/  Five stages of grief and five stages of collapse in a dire scenario.  http://cluborlov.blogspot.com/2014/10/ebola-and-five-stages-of-collapse.html#more.  Consider Earth Abides by George R. Stewart.]

Bumper stickers of the week:

Be clean

Get a flu shot

Wash your hands

Take your kids to the park

Prepare to hunker down

Be calm and panic (but do so with poise and dignity)

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A Deft Move (October 6, 2014)

Posted in Courts, First Monday In October, Gay Politics, Supreme Court on October 6, 2014 by e-commentary.org

. . .

L1          “They have one of the few jobs that allow one to decide what to do and what not to do.  What to decide and what not to decide.  When to decide and when not to decide.  Why to decide and why not to decide.  The big challenge is to decide who gets to decide.”

L2          “Ecclesiastes in practice.  And it is a part-time job with full-time pay for life.  Sign me up.”

. . .

L1          “By doing nothing, they did not do nothing, they did do something, although they did not do everything.”

L2          “That’s the thing I like about them.  Sign me up.”

L1          “Not a bad compromise.  The four regressive and reactionary corporatists on the right and the four progressive civil libertarians on the left were all jockeying for Kennedy’s nod.  Kennedy supports the freedom to marry, yet there is that concern that he views the marriage thing as a state matter.  So they agreed to dismiss all the petitions for cert. and allow the decisions below to stand and move forward.”

L2          “The issue can continue to percolate in the courts below and in the courts of public opinion around them.  Sign me up.”

L1          “As I see it, the four male Republican Catholic Justices on the right squared off against the four ‘female’ Democratic ‘Jewish’ Justices on the left and all lobbied for the vote of the male Republican Catholic Justice.”

L2          “Hard not to entertain a lingering concern that it is another ‘Justice delayed is justice denied’ scenario.  Justice is being delayed and denied for some to allow the bigger controversy to stew.”

L1          “A good compromise, really.  They are all astute enough to realize that hundreds of thousands of citizens will be getting married in the interim providing more momentum for the freedom to marry.  If one of the remaining three-judge federal Circuit Court panels elects to deny persons the right to marry, the plaintiffs will move for and receive en banc review by the entire Circuit Court that will almost surely side with those upholding equal protection and due process.  Thus, a disagreement between or within the Circuit Courts that typically leads to Supreme Court review will never manifest itself.”

. . .

L1          “Marriage will be a fundamental right shortly.  It is a matter of time.”

L2          “At times, we tell time.  At other times, time tells time.  Always good when time is on your side.”

L1          “Time marches on.  Life goes on.”

. . .

[See the commentary at “The Sea Change Is Now A Tsunami (March 11, 2013)” and “The Tsunami Hits Shore (March 24, 2014)” and other commentary at https://e-commentary.org/category/gay-politics/.%5D

Bumper sticker of the week:

Sign outside the Supreme Court last year during oral argument:  “Supremes: You can hurry love.”

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One Book Wonders: Scan Another Book (September 29, 2014)

Posted in Awards / Incentives, Banks and Banking System, Bernanke, Book Reference, Economics, Economics Nobel, Education, Greenspan, Minimum Wage, Monopoly on September 29, 2014 by e-commentary.org

. . .

1          “Two books do offer more insight.  But that is just me.”

2          “Three if you have a spare three-day weekend.”

. . .

1          “Former Chief Justice William Rehnquist often said that his world view was strongly influenced by a book he read as a young man, The Road to Serfdom, by Friedrich von Hayek.  The best-seller was published in 1944 during the last days of World War II.”

2          “I can see why Fred’s missive captivated the young private from Milwaukee.  He was conscripted by Big Government to fight other privates conscripted by other Big Governments.  Fred warned of the dangers of what he called collectivism and big government and predicted that the path to socialism, the ‘road to serfdom’ of his title, would eventually collapse.  The world sure looked like it was collapsing.”

1          “My original edition notes that the printing has been redesigned by the publisher to conform to the government’s request to conserve paper during that War.  Government making reasonable requests?”

2          “The government was right, we tattoo far too many fallen trees.  My copy warns the reader right on the cover that Fred may not have any idea what he is talking about.  The publisher warns the prospective purchaser that Hayek got the Nobel Prize in E-con-omics.”

1         “What if Rehnquist had stumbled on a book that warned of the dangers of raw selfishness and big corporations and predicted that the path to corporatism and kleptocracy, the ‘road to serfdom’ of the new publication, would eventually collapse.”

2          “Fred lived during a period of time when the governments of many world powers, at the direction of their military and financial elites, marketed much evil and inflicted great pain, grief, and violence on the world.  His distrust is not unfounded but myopic.”

1          “He intuits that big is often bad, but he only got half the story right.  We do not have a market economy.  Today, Big Government is Big Business; Big Business is Big Government.  Sit down and analyze the major industries in America.  Each one of them is monopolized.  The business is the industry; the industry is the business.  In this Internet era, when someone concocts a new application or gizmo, that person has a monopoly on the application or gizmo.”

2          “We are racing down the road to serfdom.  Yet the guvmit, not the private sector, has always enforced speed limits.”

1          “The government is a wholly-owned subsidiary of the monopoly corporations.  There are now no limits and no governors.”

. . .

1          “Let’s say that someone is deeply and genuinely concerned about the road to serfdom.  Would the concerned citizen support a higher minimum wage or not?  The folks who have minimum wage jobs today are serfs.  They are at the end of the road to serfdom in a hopeless cul-de-sac.  If the rate is raised, some folks will lose some of their serf status and yet a few may lose their job.”

2          “What I have noticed is that the opponents of a minimum wage increase do not give a hoot about the workers and only seek to do everything to cut the costs for the Owners.”

1          “Now that you mention it, Fred surely would support an increase in the minimum wage to avoid the nefarious road to serfdom.”

2          “What happened to Bill along his journey?”

. . .

1          “In The Age of Turbulence, Alan ‘Easy Al’ Greenspan describes the influence that Ayn Rand had on his intellectual development.  So many young men are distracted by shiny objects.”

2          “So many things in life just are not a surprise.”

1          “Raw self-interest is not genius, but it sure does appeal to our baser instincts.”

2          “And it advanced her and his financial interests.”

1          “But not ours.  I do not hold her exclusively responsible for the economic violence that he unleashed on the world, yet she is at the top of the list.”

. . .

1          “Think about the folks who look to the Good Book and only the Good Book for insight and inspiration.  At one time, a person could only carry one gun, one knife, one bed roll and one book.  That book was dubbed the Good Book.  The struggle to exist limited one’s time to contemplate one’s existence.  Space only allowed for one book and time only allowed for reading one book that had to provide all the answers.”

. . .

1          “Those who have access to more resources need to get a life.  And scan a second book.”

2          “Asking someone to read two books is a lot to ask.  Life is short.”

. . .

1           “When the smarter gender takes over, Nancy Drew will reign supreme.”

. . .

[Banned Book Week – September 21 – 27]

[Search the name “Carmen Segarra” on the Internet.  She should receive the Profile in Courage Award for 2014, but it will likely go to someone like Greenspan or Bernanke.  See the previous e-ssay at Profile In Cowardice Award (May 12, 2014).]

Bumper stickers of the week:

Scan a book, don’t ban books.

Read a second book; get a second opinion.

What we really need is a moment of science in the public schools.

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