tag:tpmcafe.talkingpointsmemo.com,2009:/talk/blogs/chthonic//1602 2009-11-04T18:32:40Z Movable Type Pro 4.21-en tag:tpmcafe.talkingpointsmemo.com,2009:/talk/blogs/chthonic//1602.300154 2009-11-04T17:39:12Z 2009-11-04T18:32:40Z

It starts over here. Breaking news of the last, oh, century or so:...

chthonic over here.

Breaking news of the last, oh, century or so:

]]> "...human biology has changed..."....People in the industrialized world are taller, heavier, stronger. They're more resistant to disease and more likely to overcome it when they do get sick. They live longer, their lives less fraught with chronic ailments. "We're just not falling apart like we used to,"..."Even our internal organs are stronger and better formed."... this process of improvement, "technophysio evolution."...is "not only unique to humankind, but unique among the 7,000 or so generations of human beings who have inhabited the earth."

The good old days, before the genocide:

Work in 19th Century England, for children: In textile factories they often worked for more than 12 hours a day.

America, Irish Immigrants, 1850: "The Five Points slum area in Manhattan: Described by a witness as having 75 people living in 12 rooms. Many tenements did not have indoor plumbing or running water. Sewage collected in outhouses and rats were prevalent, carrying and spreading disease, often to children. In 1857, 2/3 of New York City's deaths were children under age 5, mostly Irish. Wages for unskilled jobs during the 1840s were under 75 cents a day for 10-12 hours of work. In 1833, Irish women who worked making cotton shirts were...paid between 6-10 cents a shirt and worked about 13-14 hours a day. "

And since the only group possibly lower than the Irish were African-Americans, we can be pretty sure that's about as bad as it got; unless perhaps the Chinese railway builders had it worse. When it's that bad, it's hard to tell who has it worse.

Further evidence of the genocide perpetrated against the American middle class:

They all have at least one indoor toilet connected to a properly functioning sewage system; and they don't have to share it with the neighbors. Nonsense, you think?

For comparison:

"In the early 19th century poor families often had to share toilets and on Sunday mornings queues formed."

And so on, across multiple indexes: access to public tools for communication; access to tools for personal and public hygiene, from curbside garbage collection to shampoo; access to public tools for increasing literacy, from public schools to public libraries.

That's right: it's a never ending trail of tears; and a never ending demolition of everything you cherish; a genocide of not just your economic place; but the genocide of your very dreams.

So, by this index, the use of the Pity Me meme (see my blog posts on Meme Watch:The Pity Party) by the Republican Party means that they may be correct when they say: "We are the future of politics in America."

Be afraid; if not of The Pity Party, then stupid hyperbole and inapt use of words by fake progressives who refuse to employ publically available tools to access publically available information.

That's politics. You're welcome.]]> tag:tpmcafe.talkingpointsmemo.com,2009:/talk/blogs/chthonic//1602.299149 2009-10-30T17:33:43Z 2009-10-30T17:38:08Z

The story is here; but this is the money shot: "During remarks to a U.S. Chamber of Commerce legal summit in Washington, Bush had tough words for the president in response to an audience question. "I think President Obama...

chthonic is here; but this is the money shot:

"During remarks to a U.S. Chamber of Commerce legal summit in Washington, Bush had tough words for the president in response to an audience question.

"I think President Obama has used the bully pulpit as a way to attack capitalism,"...

Republicanism in 2009: still grappling with, and attempting to defeat, undermine, and outright destroy, the legacy of people named Roosevelt.

For instance, from the current occupant of the White House:

"I suffer no illusions that this will be an easy process. It will be hard. But I also know that nearly a century after Teddy Roosevelt first called for reform, the cost of our health care has weighed down our economy and the conscience of our nation long enough. So let there be no doubt: health care reform cannot wait, it must not wait, and it will not wait another year." - President Barack Obama, February 24, 2009

For the next century, their plan is to deal with the legacy of Theodore Kennedy.]]> tag:tpmcafe.talkingpointsmemo.com,2009:/talk/blogs/chthonic//1602.298782 2009-10-29T01:40:49Z 2009-10-29T01:50:35Z

...and stepped up their game by opting for The Shoe-Banging Party thing....

chthonic The Shoe-Banging Party thing.]]> tag:tpmcafe.talkingpointsmemo.com,2009:/talk/blogs/chthonic//1602.297569 2009-10-22T15:14:29Z 2009-10-22T15:16:00Z

Along with being addressed by the FOIA, would that be an RIAA or a DMCA issue; or possibly addressed by both?...

chthonic Along with being addressed by the FOIA, would that be an RIAA or a DMCA issue; or possibly addressed by both? tag:tpmcafe.talkingpointsmemo.com,2009:/talk/blogs/chthonic//1602.296086 2009-10-15T00:51:09Z 2009-10-15T01:03:17Z

The one covered here. After thinking it over, and not reading anything on the issue, I've made up my mind. Clearly, the Republicans are on to something. But we cannot leave it to the politicians. Today, the kind of war...

chthonic here.

After thinking it over, and not reading anything on the issue, I've made up my mind.

Clearly, the Republicans are on to something. But we cannot leave it to the politicians.

Today, the kind of war we're fighting is too important to be left to politicians. They have neither the time, the training, nor the inclination for strategic thought. We, as citizens, have to step up.

For myself, I can no longer sit back and allow Muslim infiltration, Muslim indoctrination, Muslim subversion and the international Muslim conspiracy to sap and impurify all of our precious bodily fluids. ]]> tag:tpmcafe.talkingpointsmemo.com,2009:/talk/blogs/chthonic//1602.295714 2009-10-13T16:16:06Z 2009-10-13T16:20:02Z

I wonder if this will result in a need to cite "those who fail to learn from history"?...

chthonic this will result in a need to cite "those who fail to learn from history"? ]]> tag:tpmcafe.talkingpointsmemo.com,2009:/talk/blogs/chthonic//1602.295470 2009-10-12T15:15:26Z 2009-10-12T16:23:00Z

At the NYT, there is this story: New Way to Tap Gas May Expand Global Supplies By CLIFFORD KRAUSS Published: October 9, 2009 OKLAHOMA CITY -- A new technique that tapped previously inaccessible supplies of natural gas in the United...

chthonic this story:

New Way to Tap Gas May Expand Global Supplies By CLIFFORD KRAUSS Published: October 9, 2009

OKLAHOMA CITY -- A new technique that tapped previously inaccessible supplies of natural gas in the United States is spreading to the rest of the world, raising hopes of a huge expansion in global reserves of the cleanest fossil fuel. Italian and Norwegian oil engineers and geologists have arrived in Texas, Oklahoma and Pennsylvania to learn how to extract gas from layers of a black rock called shale.

The author:

"Clifford Krauss has been a correspondent for The New York Times since 1990. He currently is a national business correspondent based in Houston. "

A version of this article appeared in print on October 10, 2009, on page A1 of the New York edition.]]>
The author made no mention of polluting the water supply for New Yorkers.

Looking at the Times search results for 'shale' one can find links to these results:

Clean Water Laws Are Neglected, at a Cost in Suffering

Comments on this, mentioning shale

Live in NYC?

Consider yourself screwed. Did you know that NYC water is so pure, it does not need to be filtered?

You can thank George Bush. See? Not only did his administration shit into your hamburgers, they enabled corporations like KBR to take a chemical piss into your water.

Republicans must be so proud.]]> tag:tpmcafe.talkingpointsmemo.com,2009:/talk/blogs/chthonic//1602.295261 2009-10-10T15:22:39Z 2009-10-10T15:52:03Z

That' s democratic, with a small 'd'; but it's intended to refer to something that individuals using the label Democrat seem to be starting to do. There is this and then this. Then this guy pops up. It seems that...

chthonic
There is this and then this.

Then this guy pops up.

It seems that Pelosi is moving assertively.

Then, there is Alan Grayson on Olympia Snowe, among other things. I recommend watching this one.

While not all of this is exactly like bringing guns to the knife fight, and is maybe more like aluminum bats for some; it's what I see as a movement toward democratic behavior.

Time will tell, I suppose.]]> tag:tpmcafe.talkingpointsmemo.com,2009:/talk/blogs/chthonic//1602.293850 2009-10-03T21:53:17Z 2009-10-03T22:34:43Z

"When I, or people like me, are running the country, you'd better flee, because we will find you, we will try you, and we'll execute you. I mean every word of it. I will make it part of my mission...

chthonic
This is a regressive view of health. And it is, in this case, centered around who controls someone else's vagina and other relevant parts of someone else's body; and these parts include, but are not limited to wombs, at the level of the organ; and T-cells at the level of components of the immune system. When one's gaze is upon T-cells, one is not far from seeing all human blood.

From questions about our common blood, one can wander into deeper questions; questions about myth; being; and generalized notions and inquiries about "what are we going to to with ourselves?" and "well, what is a self?"; or into questions about medical research and what that might look like in, say, 75 years. Some of us will be alive in 75 years.

I'd say a medieval view of health; but apparently, it was (while relatively primitive by our standards) not entirely bad in the bad old days; see pages 78-80 about, of all things, female ejaculation.

The personal remains political.

There is not a limit, there is no boundary, that will not be crossed or violated by the kinds of people who dress like Nazis and go to gun shows because, they say, of a wish to protect their culture from fascism.]]> tag:tpmcafe.talkingpointsmemo.com,2009:/talk/blogs/chthonic//1602.292839 2009-09-28T19:52:14Z 2009-09-28T19:56:07Z

Over here wossname reports that some random click-n-drool hominid banged on his keyboard. Some questions: 1) What the hell is cyber? Is it even word? Or is it just filler-text from a hot-key on some keyboard only available to newly...

chthonic here wossname reports that some random click-n-drool hominid banged on his keyboard.

Some questions:

1) What the hell is cyber? Is it even word? Or is it just filler-text from a hot-key on some keyboard only available to newly enfranchised computer owners with access to blogging software? Something with a logo explained in an eMachine's manual as meaning "Hip phrases for the technologically challenged"?

Seriously. The only definitions I can find indicate it means:

a) to have; as in 'To have bigots'...no, I don't think so.

b) that it is somehow derived from kybernetes, Greek for "steersman" or "governor"; giving us....Steersman Bigots? Governor Bigots? WTF?!?

c) The theoretical study of communication and control processes in biological, mechanical, and electronic systems, especially the comparison of these processes in biological and artificial systems.

So perhaps he's saying "Given the ubiquity of connectivity, we in the larger society can make a close study of bigotry; its nature, how it spreads; its content; and develop strategies to mitigate its damage to the larger culture. Since we can do this, we should probably banish them before we undertake to understand how we can engage in preventative self-defense against the insidious nature of their activities."

An even bolder WTF?!?

If it has no meaning in a discourse, is it really a word? If a tree falls in a forest, does it make a bell?

2) Did Gerson suggest banishing the Cyber bigots to Free Speech Zones? ]]> tag:tpmcafe.talkingpointsmemo.com,2009:/talk/blogs/chthonic//1602.291943 2009-09-23T18:01:08Z 2009-09-23T18:19:59Z

Using a simple search phrase: disparity in health care for women at that thing called Google...

chthonic
disparity in health care for women

at that thing called Google ]]>
turns up these, in the top 1 2 3

Yet people who don't do basic homework, never mind read basic news which often obviates the need to do homework, pretend that other people do not make fact based arguments.

They usually screech some variation of "Cite!" as if someone, if not everyone, else needs to spoon feed them the reality that is the most common of memes.

When they don't spend their time imagining that cars have vaginas and carry the young of our species in their trunks.

That's politics. You're welcome.]]> tag:tpmcafe.talkingpointsmemo.com,2009:/talk/blogs/chthonic//1602.291430 2009-09-21T20:20:07Z 2009-09-21T20:35:26Z

On September 16, 2009, at 12:28 PM I posted this: Meme Watch: The Pity Party [snip] "So let the Republicans frame their argument on how racism will not lead to health-care discrimination against Americans." This popped up today; and it...

chthonic September 16, 2009, at 12:28 PM I posted this:
Meme Watch: The Pity Party
[snip]
"So let the Republicans frame their argument on how racism will not lead to health-care discrimination against Americans."

This popped up today; and it looks like they are testing syntax:

25. A "quota" system which would determine who would determine who would get treatment on the basis of race or age?]]> tag:tpmcafe.talkingpointsmemo.com,2009:/talk/blogs/chthonic//1602.291387 2009-09-21T16:49:44Z 2009-09-21T16:57:56Z

Here we see manifest the generation of abstract tools intended to generate self-loathing in young boys, coupled with use of the resulting shame, as a means of social control. The American Taliban....

chthonic Here we see manifest the generation of abstract tools intended to generate self-loathing in young boys, coupled with use of the resulting shame, as a means of social control.

The American Taliban.]]> tag:tpmcafe.talkingpointsmemo.com,2009:/talk/blogs/chthonic//1602.291357 2009-09-21T15:24:40Z 2009-09-21T15:30:58Z

And his attendance at the 2009 Values Voter Summit. This Bill Bennett....

chthonic Bill Bennett.]]> tag:tpmcafe.talkingpointsmemo.com,2009:/talk/blogs/chthonic//1602.291227 2009-09-20T16:00:07Z 2009-09-20T23:17:33Z

Watching the video of the man telling a group of women that the vote was gifted to women by men; and not one, it seemed, had the presence of mind to retort: "It was men who took it from...

chthonic man telling a group of women that the vote was gifted to women by men; and not one, it seemed, had the presence of mind to retort:

"It was men who took it from women; it was men who maintained that abrogation. That same majority you now praise."

]]>
I do not attribute those women present with anything like a moral failure. How could anyone not be utterly gobsmacked by such a thing?

I suppose we are somewhere between being close to that former state as evidenced in that man's functional illiteracy; and yet, so far from it that when such retrograde, obstreperous, willful ignorance displays itself, we are almost all unprepared to deal with it in the only effective manner. I suppose those who are capable of reason and progress must re-learn the proper response to such things.

Seriously: if you have not viewed it, do so and freeze it as the camera focuses on the woman in the brown dress at the podium; and watch how the women in the background react. It's as if each one asks the same (yet unuttered) question: "How can this man be completely ignorant?" Never mind asking " Where has our system of education failed?" or "How did this ignoramus obtain a seat on the Board of Education?"]]>