That Sounds Painful

    Old news: News Corp. (Fox news, WSJ, the Sun) thinks they can do better than google for bringing money to his news enterprises on-line via web searches.  Breaking News:  News Corp. has been in negotiations with Microsoft(Bing) on a deal which would de-list his companies on google and create a partnership with the Bing search engine.  Whether that deal will revolve around just Fox news and the rest of its news sites, including Barron’s and the New York Post online or everything that News corp. owns, which would include Myspace and Hulu is as yet unknown. The deal would involve having customers pay to read news from his websites, where now readers get news for free from just about everywhere.  The associated press and several other sites that seek greater profits, you can be sure, are watching closely to see if will be successful.   Watch a comic take on this from the people at headzup:

    

    Myspace and Hulu aside, this could potentially be a huge issue for News Corp.  The deal, as I said before, would involve all News Corp sites being de-listed from Google, which currently has about an 85% share of all searches done right now on the Internet, as opposed to Microsoft’s Bing, which has about 3.5%.  Which means that if this deal is successful Fox will, in an effort to increase it sales, move to a source that gets approximately 1/25th of the total amount of hits that google currently sends his way now.  Hits generate income.  Less hits, less money, larger operating losses.

    Sounds like less than a great deal, but Rupert I am sure, knows what he is doing.

     Still,That would be an extraordinarily large drop in the amount of people who actually look at fox news online, resulting in a smaller amount of advertising revenue coming in to Fox.  And they have been having issues with their online businesses, losing revenue totaling $319,000,000 on operating losses of $128,000,000.

    And forgoing the standard business model, because Rupert thinks that google is “stealing money” from him, and going to an all pay news site model, sounds like financial suicide to me.  If I can get news for free from other sources, why would I pay him for it?  It makes no sense to me, but Rupert, in his infinite wisdom, probably has an answer for that problem. 

    Oof.  Good luck with bing Rupert, yer gonna need it.  We’ll see what happens.

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     The day has been a less than wonderful one for me.  I’m not exactly sure what the hell I did to myself, but I managed to injure my upper back, right side badly enough where it hurts to turn my head or look down at any significant angle.  Makes typing a bit of a bitch, but it isn’t impossible, and it’s easier than holding a cup of coffee, or anything else for that matter, with my right hand.

    If you read my running commentary page, you’ll see my run numbers and what I did working out.  The injury actually happened between the two events.  I was fine this morning, great during the run, but after the run and before the alleged workout, I did something to the damn thing.  I said there that it was my right teres minor, but that is mere speculation.  I really don’t know. I’m not, after all, a doctor.  I am happy that I have my wife helping out whenever and wherever she can.  That makes me feel better, just knowing the assist is there if and when I need it.

    If the pain subsides somewhat I may attempt one of my alleged workouts again tomorrow, but i won’t invite injury by pushing too hard on the affected area, and there will be no workout if there is excessive pain.  Surprisingly, neither push-ups nor my modified squat thrusts hurt.  It was the crunches that had me gasping in pain.  I’ve had an Icy hot patch on the thing and a heating pad on it, both were a small short term help, but the pain is still there. 

     Ah well.  Shit happens.  No worries, so long as I have painkillers, I’ll be fine.

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     That’s it from here.  Later!

Today’s nugget’s, Via wikiquote:   While it’s impossible to be completely prepared for a downturn of this magnitude, we began priming ourselves for a weakening economy earlier last year. We have implemented strict cost cutting measures across all our operations. We have reduced headcount in individual businesses where appropriate and we’ve scaled back on capital expenditures. Even in plush times, we have never been a company that tolerates facts. So in times like these, we are better positioned to weather this cycle than our competitors.   Rupert Murdoch

It is of the nature of idea to be communicated: written, spoken, done. The idea is like grass. It craves light, likes crowds, thrives on crossbreeding, grows better for being stepped on.  Ursula LeGuin

Do you really want to go there?

      

     I watched this viddy just to see what it was, then watched as Dacher Keltner began to talk about Charles Darwin and the concept of antithesis in nature.  I was hit with an almost immediate parallel.  A simple one, and perhaps not the best one, and it isn’t much of a stretch, but I’m tired, so you’ll forgive me.  There is a political variant to the Darwinian concept of antithesis, and it is playing in front of the entire nation every day. 

    And the stress reaction that Mr. Keltner speaks of, caused by the losses in the 2006 and 2008 election cycles has been playing off in front of the entire nation since that first series of losses of house and senate seats, as it did tonight in the talk of the Republican senators who spoke prior to the cloture vote to allow discussion of the $898,000,000,000 Health care bill.

    Read the CBO report on the bill here.

    The Republicans haven’t a leg to stand on, they have no legitimate arguments, so they use illegitimate arguments and attempt to pass them off as legitimate.  Examples include saying that medicare will be cut to the bone.  Untrue. Wasteful spending is trimmed, not ALL medicare spending.  If you have medicare, you are not in danger of having all your coverage cut and being set adrift by this legislation. But if you listened to the Republicans talk, anyone over 65 is in mortal danger… but that “danger” comes from government cutting wasteful spending in government programs….wait.  Weren’t Republicans for that idea at one point? 

     They talk of the great tax burden the bill creates…despite the fact that the taxes on the wealthiest The President gets away on a technicality here.  He said no family making less than $250,00 a year will see a tax increase of any kind, and in this bill their is a  tax added in the form of a hospital tax that will be paid by any individual making over $200,000 a year, or family over $250,000 a year.  The size of this tax increase?

    0.5%

    Sucks, but that .5% tax raises, from next year to 2019, over $53,000,000,000 in new tax revenue to help pay for the bill.  And if you republicans who are reading this winced when you saw that and said “How can he talk so cavalierly about raising taxes?”  Well, party of Reagan disciples, what party was it that made the AMT tax the onerous burden that it is today? Do you know what party he came from? Do you remember his name?

      It was Republican Ronald Reagan. 

     Ouch. 

     A .5% hospital tax on individuals who make $200,000 won’t turn into the ugly beast that the AMT is, thanks to Reagan being entirely too dead, and the Repubs too far out of power to be overly involved in fleecing the people.

   …

    I was better at capturing the concept of Darwinian Antithesis in republican thought than I thought I’d be.  Nice.  The Health care bill is now open for debate, by the way, the voted passed 60-39.  All dems voting for, all Republicans voting against, except George Voinovich, who missed the vote. 

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     If you remember at the very end of 2008 and the beginning of 2009, there was a fairly major engagement between Israel and the Izzadin Kassam, Hamas’ army.  Well, rockets were fired into Israel from Gaza yesterday, none were killed or wounded by the strikes,thought it was enough for the Israelis to decide to carry out several air strikes against Hamas, focusing on two weapons plants and an arms smuggling tunnel, said a spokesman for the IAF.  None are reported killed, and five people were wounded.  

    Luckily for everyone involved, this doesn’t look as bad as the heavy fighting that went on earlier this year and late last year.  Hamas has claimed that they have struck a deal with other forces in Gaza to not fire missiles into Israel. The Israelis, not surprisingly, reacted with little enthusiasm.  But the fact that Hamas sounds like they are trying to avoid a confrontation tells me they aren’t strong enough in their own eyes to handle the Israelis right now, and that means this may end up (fingers crossed) an isolated clash between these two mortal enemies. 

    More on this later, if necessary.

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   That’s it for news.  I gave you a classical music viddy yesterday, and it was so nice I have to do it twice.  John Williams playing Bach BWV 1006, enjoy.

   

    Later!

Today’s nuggets, from John Milton’s “Paradise Lost” via Wikiquote:   For who can yet believe, though after loss, that all these puissant legions, whose exile Hath emptied Heaven, shall fail to re-ascend, self-raised, and repossess their native seat?

Freely we serve, Because we freely love, as in our will to love or not; in this we stand or fall.

I fled, and cry’d out, DEATH! Hell trembled at the hideous name, and sigh’d From all her caves, and back resounded, DEATH!

Nor love thy life, nor hate; but what thou liv’st live well; how long or short permit to Heaven.

What’s going on?

    

     Let’s see….I am listening to the music of Augustin Barrios-Mangore right now on Pandora.com.  Calm classical guitar music, soothing and relaxed, kinda thing that takes the mind off of stressful situations.  I’ve been thinking an awful lot about work and finances the last few days, more than I usually do, and my mind is on these two subjects most of the time, even in the best of times.  There is for me personally, a sense of foreboding ,about my current financial situation, a feeling that things bad as they are, will get worse before they get better.  I send in resumes, I go to agencies, I get tested to see what I’m good at.  No contact after that.  Nothing.  I called a place today just to make sure they received the resume I sent in, even though I knew they received it, just to make sure they… well…actually to talk to a real live human being, to make sure they knew I existed. 

    This being the 4th resume I’ve sent to this particular company, for the 4th different position there.

     It feels hopeless sometimes, that is just me feeling down though. It’ll pick up… I’m made of sterner stuff than that, but I am only human.  I can only do so much, if they won’t hire, I can’t work.  I contact them, but if they don’t contact me back, I can do nothing.  I don’t mind being broke, that happens, Up and down happens to everyone, and this is just a down time for me, but it is the impotent feeling that accompanies this, the inability to actually make someone stand up and take notice when I am doing all I can to get them to take notice that frustrates me.

    If anyone has any job hunting strategies or anything that would help on that front, drop me a line. 

    And despite my feeling the way I do, there are people worse off than I am.  I’m happy that I have a roof over my head and the small help of the unemployment check makes things easier.  Without it, my wife and I would have had to move out of the apartment we live in by now.

   Some say the government is too intrusive, too big, spends too much.  Right now the government is the difference between me and my wife having an apartment, and us being a burden on someone else, taking up their space, eating their food, using up their resources, or worst of all, homeless with winter coming.  I won’t bite the hand that is, right now at least, feeding me. 

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    The music has changed to Fernando Sor, a virtuoso 19th century classical guitarist.  The lights are entirely too bright, but my wife is blogging on her laptop as we speak, and needs the light to write.  I can see in the semi-dark of the screen just fine, but my vision is better than my wife’s so I’ll handle it, no big deal really.  I just prefer semi-darkness to light, light is not something to really complain about.

    Looking over my left shoulder I see one of my two cats, Roddy, sleeping peacefully, semi-curled up in a ball, front paws pushing straight out on the inside of the small bed we bought him, brown exterior with flower patterns stitched in, with a wool-like inside that he only ever sleeps on when it gets cold.  Comfy cat is comfy.  As I lift my gaze from roddod, that being what we call him, there are two mandolins sitting next to one another, leaning at odd angles in front of the book case which is fairly well overstuffed with books.

    Maybe 125 works of science fiction, most of which I haven’t read in years, mainly from a few authors, men who have shaped ,in some small way, I hope, the way I write.  Isaac Asimov, Robert Heinlein, Stephen R. Donaldson, Douglas Adams.  Most of the political and philosophical works that I own are shrouded from view by the assorted knick-knacks that sit on the front of the bookcase, from picture frames and mementos from our wedding day and various family members pictures, placed in such a way as to suggest that they are there not only because they look good where they are, but because there is no other place to put them.

     Well, a few of the non Sci-Fi works do stick out.   I can make out De Tocqueville’s “Democracy in America”, looking slightly worse for wear, corners bent, sitting on top of an as of yet unread copy of Adam Smith’s unabridged “Wealth of Nations”, and Walden is there, buried under Descartes, Chaucer, and 1,001 gardening secrets, and on top of Thomas Paine’s “Common Sense”.  

   Just describing what my world looks like. Hope you don’t mind.

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That’s it from here.  Later!

Today’s nuggets, one of Aesop’s Fables, Via ETC at the University of Virginia:   

Hercules and the Wagoner

    A CARTER was driving a wagon along a country lane, when the wheels sank down deep into a rut. The rustic driver, stupefied and aghast, stood looking at the wagon, and did nothing but utter loud cries to Hercules to come and help him. Hercules, it is said, appeared and thus addressed him: “Put your shoulders to the wheels, my man. Goad on your bullocks, and never more pray to me for help, until you have done your best to help yourself, or depend upon it you will henceforth pray in vain.”

Self-help is the best help.

A more perfect union?

     I am at the moment having a relaxed night just enjoying time with my wife.  Had some lasagna tonight, had some coffee, watched some tv and feeling thankful for everything I have.  

       

    I’ve watched Rick Steves a bunch over the years on his travel shows on public  television.  Never thought of him as much more than just a guy with camera crew who went places and  told you what places are like.  He may be only that to me, but he makes a few big points here.  I’ll only touch on one.  The question: “how can you pay so  much in taxes?” The answer, so simple as to defy the imagination, from his Swiss buddy, Ollie:  “What’s it worth to live in a society with no hunger, no homelessness, and where everyone has access to quality health care and education?”

   According to what information i have, that being wikipedia, who in turn use as their sources, the heritage foundation and the OECD (Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development)  The actual numbers: the Swiss pay 1.9% more in taxes than we in America do according to the Heritage foundation, and 1.4% difference according to the OECD.

    It might cost us more than a 2 percent tax increase to cover the difference and give everyone in America what Switzerland has, though.  The amount of people uncovered or under-insured as far as health insurance goes (though the health care bill will cover most who aren’t covered and save money to boot) and those who are in need of a better basic education would cost a ton, but we could figure out a way to make it pay.  We’re Americans, we can do that.  If we can shave $129,000,000,000 over 10 years with the health care plan thats in congress now, we can do this.    Fixing homelessness and hunger within our own borders seems like something of an impossible dream, but if paying more in taxes got rid of all the issues these 4 problems create, it would make the world a significantly better place, and American capitalism would survive just fine.

    It makes you wonder …  Yeah paying taxes sucks, but if paying some more got rid of the all the problems that these 4 things create , wouldn’t it be worth it? 

    But it couldn’t happen here.  The political climate here is just too damned poisonous for it to work, and anything that was started on this front would be so watered down that it would  be largely ineffective in combating the ills living in a society as stratified as ours is.

   Maybe society is going to hell in a hand-basket because of that stratification? You be the judge.  Look at the world, and knowing how much you pay to keep it going, ask yourself, if we all gave more, how much better would this world be?  How much more would you pay to live in a more perfect union? 

    You’ll never know until you try.

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    Rep. Virginia Foxx, revisionist.  The dems weren’t much help in passing civil rights legislation? It was the passing of the civil rights legislation that drove most southern whites away from the Democratic party and to the Republicans.  D.Gregory is right to say that the divide wasn’t political, as members of both sides in the senate voted for the bill, it was geographical.  The south voted against, the rest of the nation for.

    The deep south has 22 senators, 21 of which at that time were democrats. One southerner of this number voted for the bill, Sen. Ralph Yarborough of Texas, the rest against.   45 of 46 non southern democrats voted for it, the only dissenter being Sen. Robert Byrd of W. Virginia.  Only 5 republicans voted against from non-southern states, 27 of the 32 Repubs from around the nation voted for the Civil Rights Amendment.  The numbers in the house of representatives, percentage wise, are similar. 

    While it would be wrong to say that the republicans have done nothing is false, and patently absurd, it is equally wrong to say what Rep. Foxx did, saying that Dems had not helped very much in passing the legislation. 

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   That’s it from here. Later!

Today’s nuggets, from the ETC, University of Virginia:  

The Old Woman and the Physician

    AN OLD WOMAN having lost the use of her eyes, called in a Physician to heal them, and made this bargain with him in the presence of witnesses: that if he should cure her blindness, he should receive from her a sum of money; but if her infirmity remained, she should give him nothing. This agreement being made, the Physician, time after time, applied his salve to her eyes, and on every visit took something away, stealing all her property little by little. And when he had got all she had, he healed her and demanded the promised payment. The Old Woman, when she recovered her sight and saw none of her goods in her house, would give him nothing. The Physician insisted on his claim, and. as she still refused, summoned her before the Judge. The Old Woman, standing up in the Court, argued: “This man here speaks the truth in what he says; for I did promise to give him a sum of money if I should recover my sight: but if I continued blind, I was to give him nothing. Now he declares that I am healed. I on the contrary affirm that I am still blind; for when I lost the use of my eyes, I saw in my house various chattels and valuable goods: but now, though he swears I am cured of my blindness, I am not able to see a single thing in it.”

Tales of Brave Ulysses

     Pleasure before business. 

     Usually when I post these viddys, they get taken down by Youtube shortly afterwards.  Nevertheless I will make the attempt.  Cream live from the smothers brothers show in 1968.  Enjoy.

   

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    1,836 dead, 705 missing.  $90,000,000,000 worth of devastation.  Laid at the feet of the Army corp of engineers.  In federal court in New Orleans today, U.S. District Court Judge Stanwood Duval Jr. ruled in favor of 6 plaintiffs, one business and 5 individuals, who argued that lack of oversight by the  USACE led to the flooding of the ninth ward and St. Bernard parish.   The case clears the way for 100,000 other claims, according to the bloomberg report.

   Many in the area have said that they thought that the reason  the ninth ward flooded was because of neglect by the USACE in maintaining the levee.  That I cannot speak to.  I am not from that area, and will not bash in either direction.  I will leave that to those who live there, and the dead and missing stand in mute testimony that whether the judge in this case is right or not, something went horribly wrong, and this, right or wrong, is the long awaited first step in a lot of peoples lives to help them get back what they lost that fateful day in 2005.

   Mind you, from what I am hearing, the judge is right to hold the USACE accountable here.  It was the corp that dug a navigational channel,  the MRGO (Mississippi River Gulf Outlet), a canal which was “designed to provide a shortcut from New Orleans to the Gulf of Mexico“.  This ultimately funneled the storm surge, made it 20% higher and doubling it’s speed, according to a study done by LSU. 

     Clearly not their intent, but you are responsible for what you do, regardless of you’re original intent. 

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     I’ve been talking to people again.  And you know that always causes trouble.  Drama seems to follow in my wake, no matter where I go.  This is just a quick run through of what was said between me and a few other people on face book, talking about the President. 

    I ran into a woman on-line who said Barack Obama is a Muslim.  AGAIN with the ass-clowns.  Claimed to have a viddy with proof.  Since I like to think of myself as open minded, I decided to watch.  And besides the one piece where the President, in a memorable gaffe, said he was Muslim while talking to  George Stephanopoulos, there was nothing in it which shows him to be Muslim. There were no other rea… Ya know, rather than tell you about it, I’ll let the viddy speak for itself.  Take a good look at what the right wing-nuts call proof that the President is a Muslim.

    

   If that is the absolute best you can do, you really do need to try harder.  This is weak from one end to the other and everywhere in-between.  Repeated playing him speaking a few words with the proper inflection for the language spoken isn’t proof of religion.  Having a Muslim father isn’t proof either.  The only spot where you could even come close to saying he says it is in the clip where he is talking to Stephanopoulos and misspeaks, and most of us have seen the entire viddy on that and have dismissed it. 

    Most, not all.   The wing nuts’ll hold onto any old thing that validates their beliefs.  But then again, I think most of us are guilty of that on some level at some point in our lives.  But not with this kind of tenacity.  She says this video is proof of his being a Muslim, and my not believing he’s a Muslim after seeing it is proof that I am in denial and called me stupid.  You tell me? Am I in denial?  Am I stupid? I’d really like an honest opinion from someone who hasn’t watched the viddy before whether it constitutes a proof of his belief in Islam or not. I don’t see it.

    She even asked me to prove a negative (silly rabbit), and said that he has said in “many interviews” that he is Muslim.  If anyone out there has anything on that, drop a link in the comments section and I’ll go over it and talk about it in a later blog.

     Oh, BTW, this discussion started with my wife saying she thought it was kinda scary that people on the right are selling bumper stickers and T-shirts in reference to the President that have a passage from the bible, PSALM 109:8 that reads:

“Let his days be few; and let another take his office. Let his children be fatherless and his wife a widow.”

     I think it’s anti-social and crude, but she seems somewhat concerned that it promotes violence against the President.  Which it does, kinda, but again, it’s a free country, and it’s only criminal behavior if you actually make threats or take a shot at him.

     But it is wrong regardless, even if it isn’t illegal, it is immoral to use inflammatory language like this against another person.  It isn’t the Christian thing to do. Christianity is supposed to be about love your neighbor.  The crap spouted here isn’t Christianity, it has nothing to do with being Christ like, or even being a good person.  It is an easy way to get away with anti-social behavior and hiding it in a religious context, every bit of it.  Her calling the President a Muslim, the whole psalm 109 thing, all of it.

    What can I do, though? I have to fight this whenever and wherever I see it.  If I allow ignorance to flourish, I am personally to blame for anything that happens as a result of that ignorance.  And like hell will I allow that to go unchecked.  Hell no.

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   More music before I depart.  I haven’t had a chance to play guitar yet today, so some joyous guitar music for you. From the master, Andres Segovia.

    

Today’s nuggets, Via wikiquote:  Bigotry is the disease of ignorance, of morbid minds; enthusiasm of the free and buoyant. Education & free discussion are the antidotes of both.  Thomas Jefferson

As it is necessary not to invite robbery by supineness, so it is our duty not to suppress tenderness by suspicion; it is better to suffer wrong than to do it, and happier to be sometimes cheated than not to trust.  Samuel Johnson