National Fire Arms Act - 80+ years young

Every time yours truly thinks about Wayne LaPierre, the "tough" guy NRA head who never served in the military but talks a tough chicken hawk game, your truly's head does a Linda Blair given just how craven this guy truly is. Well, it seems there is a 1934 gun control law that works, something that should be applied to civilians who want guns of every type but have to submit to the regulatory protocol as articulated by the National Fire Arms Act, courtesy the ATF. 

In speeches, publications and a steady stream of fund-raising literature, the N.R.A. rails against gun registration and gun owner databases. In 2008, the organization’s chief executive, Wayne LaPierre, claimed that photographing and fingerprinting gun owners was “the key gun control scheme” of the candidate Barack Obama, who, Mr. LaPierre predicted, would confiscate every gun in America before the end of his first term as president. The N.R.A. now says that the “real goal” of “gun control supporters” like Hillary Clinton is “ gun confiscation.”

But the longstanding National Firearms Act not only already mandated the registration of all owners of machine guns, short-barreled rifles, silencers and other weapons deemed highly dangerous at the time, it created a national database of those gun owners with their mug shots and fingerprints, and a detailed description of each weapon purchased, including its serial number. Purchasers of “N.F.A. weapons,” as they are known, must pass an F.B.I. background check, be approved by the Bureau of Alcohol Tobacco and Firearms and pay a $200 tax. Stolen weapons must be reported to the A.T.F. immediately — the sort of requirement the N.R.A. opposes for other gun thefts.

Isn't time for the NRA to return to it roots when it apolitically supported gun control and taught countless Americans the proper use of firearms as the Civil War Vets intended when they created this once great organization back 1871.

Don't do this @ home. :)

Memorial Day

Memorial Day, in one instance, is yours truly's favorite holiday as it marks the beginning of summer, the favorite season of this old rube. In the other instance, Memorial Day is a paean to the dead who gave their lives, in many instances, for unworthy causes promoted by our so-called leaders of this once great nation. To this end, an extraordinary Guardian article commemorating this day is a must read to learn why no-cost war is but a dream foisted upon us by those who will never fight in one.

Endless war: Trump and the fantasy of cost-free conflict

Jack Satan’s the greatest of gods
And Hell is the best of abodes.
’Tis reached through the Valley of Clods
By seventy beautiful roads.
Ambrose Bierce, from A Sole Survivor

Memorial Day is upon us, our 15th since the dawning of the Era of the AUMF, and you’d think smart people would have learned a few things by now. Is it a war yet? Or still the same damn movie that’s been playing in America since 2001, that revenge-and-war-porn blockbuster where the USA kicks some serious bad-guy ass. Afghanistan, Iraq, Pakistan, Somalia, Yemen, Libya, Syria and on it rolls like a 15-year-old beater with 200,000 miles on the engine and balding tires, “it” being the AUMF, the Authorization to Use Military Force of 14 September 2001.

All these years later it’s worth revisiting this document, the act of Congress whereby President George W Bush was empowered to use all necessary and appropriate force against those nations, organizations, or persons he determines planned, authorized, committed, or aided the terrorist attacks that occurred on September 11, or harbored such organizations or persons, in order to prevent any future acts of international terrorism against the United States by such nations, organizations or persons.

I won't talk about the 2016 bloviators running for president who fantasize about this no cost option as none of these clowns has ever faced someone wanting to kill them, especially ones who rightfully consider us to be invaders and destroyers of the first kind, (Iraq, Afghanistan, Libya, Syria) who state,  in self righteous manner, that, "we are exceptional and we're here to help you whether you like it or not." while spending 4 trillion dollars that garnered us nothing but lost and shattered lives of our young, the displacement of millions, the creation of ISIS and an immigration nightmare of historic proportions aimed at the heart of Europe. On top of this is the very real possibility of needless war with Russia, thanks to neocon ideology in concert with their intimate connection to the ever growing Military/Industrial/Congressional Complex system that Ike warned us about way back when. In conclusion, maybe these fools (Hillary and The Donald) might heed the wise advice of Ben Fountain before starting another adventure doomed to failure as the ones listed here.

“I would listen to the generals,” Trump said in one debate as he called for deploying 30,000 troops to Syria. I would say: screw that. How about we listen to the sergeants, lieutenants and captains who wore those boots on the ground the past 15 years? The ones who are out, who are now free to speak their minds and have no stake in the business-as-usual business of American war; no sergeant or junior officer is angling for a lucrative post-military career sitting on defense industry boards or yakking for cable news. On a fall night in Austin last year I listened to one of these former sergeants – infantry, two tours in Iraq – tell me: Sure, we can invade Syria and whip Isis’s butt. Just make sure we go in with four or five hundred thousand troops, and plan on keeping at least 200,000 there for the next, say, 15 or 20 years. And we’d better commit to massive investment in the infrastructure, schools, the legal system, to keep Isis or something like it from coming back. Oh, and we’ll have to bring back the draft, that’s what it’ll take to keep an army that big over there. And raise taxes to pay for it, including healthcare for all the fucked-up people who’ll be coming home. We can beat Isis, sure. But not the way those guys –he nodded at the TV, where one of the circus-style debates was going on – are talking about.

Mesmorising

Just North America

Biodiversity, essential for life on on earth, is under existential threat due to climate change, environmental degradation/habitat loss and extensive use of herbicides and pesticides. 

This report is based on the first-ever conservation vulnerability assessment for all 1,154 native bird species that occur in Canada, the continental United States, and Mexico. 

In Crisis: Oceans and Tropical Forests

More than half of species from oceans and tropical forests are on the Watch List because of small and declining populations, small ranges, and severe threats to their habitats.

Note: This is just for North America and limited to birds but ... since birds occupy the same environment as other lifeforms like insects, mammals, reptiles, etc., etc.,  and the three variables stated in the document still apply to said environment, it stands to reason roughly the same breakdown of biodiversity vis a via other lifeforms would apply, don't you think? Don't you also think we're headed for a crisis as a species? Sounds reasonable to me without issue.

Click here to download the report.

Panspermia

Panspermia, the notion that life came from outside earth, just got major league reinforcement from Rosetta, the European spacecraft orbiting Comet 67P/Churyumov-Geranismenko.

Ingredients regarded as crucial for the origin of life on Earth have been discovered at the comet that ESA’s Rosetta spacecraft has been probing for almost two years.

They include the amino acid glycine, which is commonly found in proteins, and phosphorus, a key component of DNA and cell membranes.

Scientists have long debated the important possibility that water and organic molecules were brought by asteroids and comets to the young Earth after it cooled following its formation, providing some of the key building blocks for the emergence of life.

While some comets and asteroids are already known to have water with a composition like that of Earth’s oceans, Rosetta found a significant difference at its comet – fuelling the debate on their role in the origin of Earth’s water.

But new results reveal that comets nevertheless had the potential to deliver ingredients critical to establish life as we know it.

Interesting to say the least. :)

I dunno about this.

Sensory overload to the max. Augmented reality anyone? I dunno about this. Later

Idiocracy - circa 2016

Yours truly has watched this flick a few times, marveling at how crass and stupid the human race can be. Said film takes place in 2505 but, thanks to the advance of tech and the demise of intelligent thought today, Idiocracy reigns supreme in 2016, thanks, in part, to the amazing presidential campaign from hell. :)

'Idiocracy' Realized: How Our Current Situation Is Worse Than the Film Predicted

The corporate overlords the movie indicted are creating a world where water is inaccessible to the poor and Trump Nation darkly looms.

The 2006 cult comedy Idiocracy is having its moment in the sun. Written and directed by Mike Judge, creator of “Beavis & Butthead,” Idiocracy envisions a future corporate American wasteland where Costco is as large as a small city, the food pyramid consists entirely of fast food, and the president of the United States (Terry Crews) is a five-time "Ultimate Smackdown" professional wrestling champion and ex-porn star. “So you’re smart, huh?” President Dwayne Elizondo Mountain Dew Herbert Camacho says to hapless time traveler Joe “Not Sure” Bauers (Luke Wilson), an Average Joe chagrined to discover he’s now the smartest man in the country. “I thought your head would be bigger,” Camacho bellows. “Looks like a peanut!”

Donald Trump's political ascendancy has made Idiocracy seem like prophecy. (Or, per a viral tweet by the film’s screenwriter, a “documentary.”) As satire, however, Idiocracy is uneven, precisely because recent events have already exceeded its most trenchant bits of lunacy. In the fictional Idiocracy future, Congress is full of idiots who do nothing but yell, “You’re a dick!” at the president. But those antics pale in comparison to stunts pulled by presumptive Republican presidential nominee Trump, a billionaire real-estate developer and reality TV show star whose foreign policy proposals include telling China, Listen, you motherfuckers, we’re going to tax you 25 percent! In 2009, Trump purchased the rights to pro-wrestling show “Monday Night Raw” and then sold them back to the previous owner “for twice the price,” according to the World Wrestling Entertainment website. “Since then, the WWE Hall of Famer [has] focused on his ever-expanding real estate empire, his Emmy-nominated reality television show ‘The Apprentice’ and running for president of the United States.”

Any questions?

Let them eat cake

Hubris, condescension and self appointed entitlement says it all regarding Clinton's arrogant response to the State Department's self depreciating account of how she blatantly disregarded security protocols when she decided to install an unsecured private email server to handle personal and S.O.S. confidential documents, 22 of which were top secret or above, thus becoming personally responsible for the proper handling of said documents NO intelligent person (or techie) would ever do as stated in BRT. 

The 83-page report declares that “beginning in late 2005 and continuing through 2011,” the department revised its Foreign Affairs Manual and “issued various memoranda specifically discussing the obligation to use Department systems in most circumstances and identifying the risks of not doing so.” Ms. Clinton didn’t.

During her tenure, State Department employees were told that they were expected to use approved, secure methods to transmit information that was sensitive but unclassified, or SBU. If they needed to transmit SBU information outside the department’s network, they were told to ask information specialists for help. The report said there is no evidence that Ms. Clinton ever asked, “despite the fact that emails exchanged on her personal account regularly contained information that was marked as SBU.” On June 28, 2011, a cable was sent to all diplomatic and consular posts over her signature warning that personal email accounts could be compromised and officials should “avoid conducting official Department business from your personal e-mail accounts.” At the time, Ms. Clinton was doing exactly that.

It gets better.

State Department functionaries faced a hopeless task as they tried to spin their own Inspector General’s matter-of-fact critique of former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton’s imperial attitude toward basic security measures everyone else is required by law to follow.

It turns out that she deliberately chose to use a hacker-friendly, unprotected email server, and not so much for convenience – unless you define “convenience” as the ability to operate in total secrecy with no possibility of being held accountable for your policies or behavior. In one email to an aide, Clinton explained, “I don’t want any risk of the personal being accessible.”

When some staffers had the temerity to voice concerns over the vulnerability of a non-governmental email system, they were warned by their seniors “never to speak of the Secretary’s personal email system again.” The IG report establishes that Clinton’s claim that her use of an insecure email system for official business had been “allowed” is, well, disingenuous.

Lastly.

 “Emails Add to Hillary Clinton’s Central Problem: Voters Just Don’t Trust Her.”

Oh what a tangled web we weave,

When first we practice to deceive!

Sir Walter Scott

Sir Walter Scott

Past as Prelude

As my loyal readers know, Network is one of the all time favorites of yours truly, a film worthy, IMHO, of belonging in the same league as Strangelove, Godfather I and Citizen Kane as great cinema forcing one to think differently about reality after seeing the work in question. Well, it seems Chayefsky wanted to have an ending even more prescient then the one in the film as his take on the news was prescient to a fault.

Chayefsky - "We are shooting for a third act in which the NETWORK becomes so powerful it is an international power of itself and even declares war on some country."

For Chayefsky it wasn't just about the TV network; he was obsessed with the idea of a multination corporation buying all of America's networks, making them the propaganda arms of these independent powers. This sort of corporate dystopia is very familiar to modern scifi and cyberpunk readers, but was less common in the 70s - especially on the scale that Chayefsky was making Network. While the final film is not exactly science fiction, Chayefsky was heading in that direction, including sketching out his vision of what calamties might befall America in the second half of the 70s:

• racial hysteria + jingoism
• police violence in the ghettos + barrios
• a consolidation of a United Front joining together all sections of the 
• revolutionary, radical + democratic movements
• the sheer numbers of the prisoner class and their terms of existence make them a mighty reservoir of revolutionary substructures and infrastructures

Of course like all the best futurists Chayefsky was simply using the past as a guide; you can see the outlines of William Randolph Hearst's yellow journalism, which pushed America into war with Spain, in Chayefsky's original ending concept. He just took that idea - a media entity so powerful it can cause war - and extrapolated one step further - a media entity so powerful it can go to war.

When you think about it, 6 mega corporations run news in this country with the obstensive purpose to sell ads. The best way to do it is be sensationalist, sleazy, patriotic and fear mongering, characteristics The Donald leveraged to the max when beginning his successful run to get the GOP nomination. Also consider the fact the big 6 are connected directly or indirectly with the Military/Industrial/Congressional Complex, the money and power engine that keeps on giving thus helping the big 6 in transforming news into NOOZE, the "reality" show that misinforms 24/7 to keep us rubes quiet and in the dark along the lines of They Live sans the B&W sunglasses.

This infographic created by Jason at Frugal Dad shows that almost all media comes 
from the same six sources.

That's consolidated from 50 companies back in 1983.

NOTE: This infographic is from last year and is missing some key transactions. GE does not own NBC (or Comcast or any media) anymore. So that 6th company is now Comcast. And Time Warner doesn't own AOL, so Huffington Post isn't affiliated with them.

But the fact that a few companies own everything demonstrates "the illusion of choice," Frugal Dad says. While some big sites, like Digg and Reddit aren't owned by any of the corporations, Time Warner owns news sites read by millions of Americans every year.

Up close & personal

This visualization shows how the two black holes merged, thus generating the gradational wave set detected by LIGO. Absolutely hypnotic without question.

Massive Bodies Warp Space-Time

Image Credit: T. Pyle/Caltech/MIT/LIGO Lab

How our sun and Earth warp space and time, or spacetime, is represented here with a green grid. As Albert Einstein demonstrated in his theory of general relativity, the gravity of massive bodies warps the fabric of space and time—and those bodies move along paths determined by this geometry. His theory also predicted the existence of gravitational waves, which are ripples in space and time. These waves, which move at the speed of light, are created when massive bodies accelerate through space and time.

Pretty stellar if you ask me.

Deep Time

A Sense of Scale depicts the smallest to the largest entities in our part of the multiverse. Here, an infographic does the deed regarding deep time and how it applies to earth. :)

Just Words :)

Just did a post in Medium, a pretty interesting publishing site. No graphics, just words. :)

A Sense of Scale

A must see. "Nuff Said. :)

Pepe Le Peu

Pepe Le Peu, a creation of the great Chuck Jones, is an amorous skunk that never succeeds in love due to his overly aggressive manner and malordous scent, characteristics, in indirect fashion, possessed by The Donald and Hillary, two really disliked presidential candidates from the get go.

The coming presidential race between Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump begins in a virtual dead heat, a competition between two candidates viewed unfavorably by a majority of the current electorate and with voters motivated as much by whom they don’t like as by whom they do, according to a new Washington Post-ABC News poll.

Never in the history of the Post-ABC poll have the two major party nominees been viewed as harshly as Clinton and Trump.

Nearly 6 in 10 registered voters say they have negative impressions of both major candidates. Overall, Clinton’s net negative rating among registered voters is minus-16, while Trump’s is

minus-17, though Trump’s numbers have improved since March. Among all adults, Trump’s net negatives are significantly higher than those of Clinton.

Personally, I would take Pepe over these two but better yet, I would take Bernie or Elizabeth Warren in a heartbeat.

For the love of B&W

Like radio, B&W will never die. Channeling William Turner

Zen Space

Riders on the Storm

Seek & Ye Shall Find

"It is as I say it is." - Sen Charles F. Meacham/Shooter

On Reaching 1900

Reaching 1900 blurbs feels pretty significant to yours truly. Waxing poetic about it is not in the cards but waxing poetic about infrastructure or the lack thereof is because the US is falling apart while the Military/Industrial/Congressional Complex continues to run amuck on ill advised military adventures driven by ideology and money and not pragmatic reality, issues BRT has discussed in depth as long as this "wonderful" blog has existed. What's even more amazing is how politicos view this lack of infrastructure funding as a mysterious process even though the raison d'ete is as obvious as the nose on one's face. The pix above is China's rather futuristic version of the subway, something rather unlike the ones seen in this country.

It’s the problem that no one has been able to solve.

For years, there has been widespread agreement in Washington that the nation is facing an infrastructure crisis, with dangerously congested roads and deficient bridges threatening public safety and trade. 

Time and time again, lawmakers in both parties have expressed agreement that something should be done.

Yet congressional attempts to revitalize the country’s transportation infrastructure — which now ranks 11th in the world after slipping from no. 1, according to the World Economic Forum — have gone nowhere. 

Members of Congress, local legislators, former Cabinet members and experts alike say the impasse largely boils down to one thing. 

“It’s politics,” said Rep. Peter A. DeFazio (D-Ore.), ranking member of the House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee.

Funding shortfalls ahead

By 2025, the country’s total infrastructure investment needs will total $3.3 trillion, but planned investments are only $1.8 trillion, leaving a $1.4 trillion gap. 

That shortfall is projected to grow to $5.1 trillion by 2040 if investment rates continue on the current trajectory, according to the latest report from the American Society of Civil Engineers (ASCE).

Homer actually has the answer. :)

For the first time ever, after some 26 years on the air, The Simpsons hit a new milestone for an animated series by going live on Sunday night. For three minutes, Homer Simpson—voiced by Dan Castellaneta—fielded phone calls from fans during both the East and West Coast broadcasts and offered his opinion on the U.S. presidential candidates. Well, kind of.

Ending the episode, titled “Simprovised,” Homer’s live segment on the West Coast feed saw him wade into the political storm surrounding Donald Trump’s presidential run (something, by the way, that was predicted by The Simpsons in 2000). Asked by a caller if he would move from Springfield to Canada if Trump is elected, Homer responded: “Well, there are a lot of people who want me to move out of Springfield already. But I don’t think Canada will welcome me.”

He then added: “But you know what? That’s why I’m for Bernie Sanders. I love his chicken. But out of respect we should refer to him as The Colonel.”

Gotta love it. :)

Addendum: Check out Five Infrastructure Emergencies from  The Hill. The mystery remains intact as to why there's not enough money to fix things but reality, like rust never sleeps in spite of the BS given to us by our so-called leaders.

Raga = Color, Hue, Beauty & Melody

Ragas, derived from Sanskrit word which mean act of coloring or dyeing (the mind and mood/emotions in this context) and therefore metaphorically means 'any feeling or passion especially love, affection, sympathy, desire, interest, motivation, joy, or delight.' 

Which is what one hears from the amazing Monterey Pop performance by Ravi Shankar, Alla Rakha  and Kamal Chakravarty at the top of their game almost 50 years ago. Take the time to listen to this masterpiece and be amazed at the modernity of music that started in India over 1100 years go. Astounding says it all.

In Transit

No words needed. :)

The Great George C.

People who read BRT know how much I respect and admire George Carlin, who, IMHO, is the greatest comedian this country has ever produced, Richard Prior not withstanding as Carlin was also a philospher king who would make you laugh and cry at the same time when issuing forth his singular take on humanity and the chaos of reality in which we all live. In this vein, his daughter is donating his work to the new National Comedy Center in Jamestown, NY in hopes that it will become a premier destination for fans, artists and historians. What's so interesting about the NY Times piece is the measured way Carlin conducted his life, something contrary to the on stage persona of a brilliant but seemingly unhinged personality doing a number on everything from filth to greed and all things residing in-between these two "serious" subjects that were mercilessly parodied to the nth degree.

Onstage, George Carlin was a rebellious performer who delighted in reminding audiences that as much as we try to keep our lives organized, the universe is ultimately a chaotic place.

Behind the scenes, however, Mr. Carlin was a surprisingly methodical person. Over a career that spanned almost a half-century, this pioneering stand-up saved countless artifacts, including notes, set lists, scrapbooks, tickets and clothing — even the signs he liked to steal from the theaters where he played.

Check out the pix below to see how G.C. assembled his material as the subject matter written on the tabs revealed just how innately curious this guy truly was. Awesome says it all. :)

Without question, he spoke the truth, something all too rare in this age of bloviation 

and avoidance of personal responsibility.  R.I.P. G. C. 

AR, not VR

AR, the notion of CG composited over reality, is the next big thing, something Magic Leap, Google, Microsoft/HoloLens  and Apple, among significant others, are pursuing at light speed as seen by videos like the one seen above. Truly disruptive, this tech will change how us rubes will interact with the real world using non obtrusive devices unlike VRs like the  Oculus Rifts of the world, which are totally immersive, thus limiting one's ability to interact with reality with any degree of success.

This is just the beginning ...

Out of the mouths of babes ... :)

BRT has often talked about bloviating and pundits, the self appointed "experts" on all things politic, economic and governance, with particular emphasis on their "knowing" how to predict the future with great accuracy even though quantum mechanics and the 2nd law of thermodynamics (entropy), along with Gödel's incompleteness theorem, prove otherwise without question. With this in mind, their take on the unquestioned demise of THE DONALD is quite illuminating and humorous when you see the tally of wrong predictions made by these self appointed geniuses, courtesy The Intercept. :)

TRYING TO PREDICT the future can be fun, which is why — from office sports pools to stock market speculation — many do it. Generally, though, people make such predictions with at least some humility: with the knowledge that they do not actually know what the future holds.

But not America’s beloved political pundits. When they pronounce what the future has in store for us, it comes in the form of definitive decrees, shaped with the tone of authoritative certainty. With a few exceptions, those who purported to see the future of the 2016 GOP nomination process spent many months categorically assuring everyone that, polls notwithstanding, Donald Trump simply could not, would not, become the GOP nominee; one could spend all day posting humiliating examples, so a representative sampling will have to suffice:

Gotta love it. :)

A Flickering Truth

As we delve into the shattered remains of the archive, Brettkelly builds a ghost-mosaic of Afghan history, from the monarchs who oversaw the gradual liberalisation of the country through most of the 20th century (and introduced cinema), to the successive revolutions and civil wars that left the country in chaos. Film, it becomes clear, has a special role here: as repository of history and culture that the Taliban’s year-zero mentality aimed to abolish. Even as the political situation becomes more volatile in the run-up to elections – prompting Arify to hastily leave the country – the remaining archives head out into outlying provinces to enable screenings of old films for a population that has grown up largely in ignorance of such things. This is moving, powerful stuff.

Under the auspices of the NeoCons, Bush and Obama, the record in Afghanistan, the Graveyard of Empires, has been an unmitigated FUBAR, just as the rest of US foreign policy has been for the entire world, where ideology has triumphed over common sense and reality, with a minimum cost of 4 trillion and rising, the displacement of millions of people including the immigration nightmare of Europe, the death and injury of thousands of US troops and the destruction of 4 countries including Afghanistan (Iraq, Syria, Libya), a topic covered in exquisite detail by Seymour Hersh, one of the very few who can truthfully be called a reporter of the first order.

McChrystal was cashiered in June 2010, after he and his aides were quoted in Rolling Stone making a series of derogatory remarks about the president and others in the White House. According to one of McChrystal’s advisors, he thought an early face-to-face meeting with the president was inconsequential and trivial—little more than a “10-minute photo op.” By then, there was much concern about a major aspect of McChrystal’s approach to the war, which was to find and kill the Taliban. I was visited that June by a senior official of the International Committee of the Red Cross whose humanitarian mission is to monitor, in secret, the conditions of civilians and prisoners of war in an effort to insure compliance with the 1949 Geneva Conventions. The ICRC was even granted limited access to the prison at Guatánamo, among other facilities in the war on terror, with the understanding that its findings were not to be made public. The official who sought me out did not want to discuss the prison system in Afghanistan, about which there have been many public revelations. His issue was the Obama administration’s overall conduct of the war. He had come to Washington in the hope of seeing Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and other senior State Department officials, but had been shunted aside. His message was blunt: McChrystal’s men were killing the wrong people. “Our inspectors are the only visitors from a secular institution who are tolerated by the Taliban leadership, and you Americans are killing those who support our activity,” he said. “You are killing those Taliban who are not jihadists—who don’t want to die and don’t give a shit about bombing Times Square. They have no grudge against America.” The indiscriminate targeting of all who are Taliban, he said, “is reaching a point of no return, and the more radical and extreme elements are picking up momentum.”

It gets better.

A longtime consultant to the special operations community depicted the mindless killing in Afghanistan as a “symptom of the weakness in the U.S. policy for combatting terrorism: It’s all about tactics and nobody, Republican or Democrat, has advanced a strategic vision. The special-ops guys are simply carrying out orders, like a dog eager to get off the leash and run in the woods—and not think about where it is going. We’ve had an abject failure of military and political leadership.”

Any questions?

For the love of money

As someone who knows quite a bit about HC, it's not surprising the for profits are fighting Colorado's bid for Single Payer big time as keeping the system as dysfunctional as it is is good for business because, as the esteemed Gordon Gekko so famiously said, "Greed is good.".

Coloradans for Coloradans, an ad-hoc group opposing single payer in Colorado, revealed that it raised $1 million over the first five months of this year. The group was formed to defeat Amendment 69, the ballot measure before voters this year that would change the Colorado constitution and permit a system that would automatically cover every state resident’s health care.

The anti-single-payer effort is funded almost entirely by health care industry interests, including $500,000 from Anthem Inc., the state’s largest health insurance provider; $40,000 from Cigna, another large health insurer that is current in talks to merge with Anthem; $75,000 from Davita, the dialysis company; $25,000 from Delta Dental, the largest dental insurer in the state; and $100,000 from SCL Health, the faith-based hospital chain.

Under the new system, there would be no health insurance premiums or deductibles, and all health and dental care would be paid for by the state through a new system called ColoradoCare. The plan calls for raising $25 billion through a mix of payroll taxes, along with bringing down costs through negotiations with providers.

The filing reveals that the anti-single-payer group has retained the services of Global Strategy Group, a Democratic consulting firm that has served a variety of congressional candidates and is currently advising Priorities USA Action, one of the Super PACs backing Clinton’s bid for the presidency.

Just another reason why Bernie is the choice for yours truly. :)

When you listen to this, the corruption of WS is clearly revealed for all to see.

The art of Newspeak

Have you ever seen the €500 note? If not, try to get your hands on one soon.

The European Central Bank (ECB) is reportedly considering ditching the denomination (paywall) in a bid to tackle what ECB governor Mario Draghi called the “increasing conviction in world public opinion” that these notes are used for money-laundering and the financing of terrorism.

The Financial Times reported that an “informal decision” has already been taken by the euro zone’s central bank to withdraw the €500 bill from circulation.

And it’s not just central bankers who feel this way. A recent study by Harvard’s Kennedy School called for the euro’s highest denomination notes—the €500, €200, and €100 notes—to be progressively eliminated. Researchers note in the study:

We face an acute threat from well-financed international terrorism, most notably ISIS. Actions that help disrupt the economic underpinnings of such activity must be a priority.

The slow-motion start of going cashless has begun in Europe whereby the anonymity of cash will be replaced by the total control of the banks and the loss of said anonymity. The art of Newspeak lives.

Interesting Take

Ah, the E-Mail saga of Hillary, the slow-motion scandal that never disappoints has been covered by BRT in a blurb titled, Hoisted on one's petard, has been further addressed by Ray McGovern, an insightful 27 year Senior CIA Operative, who knows the drill down cold when it comes to secret data and how best to handle it. 

Whether Napolitano has it right or not, it seems likely that Clinton is reading President Obama correctly – no profile in courage is he. Nor is Obama likely to kill the political fortunes of the now presumptive Democratic presidential nominee. Yet, if he orders Lynch and Comey not to hold Hillary Clinton accountable for what – in my opinion and that of most other veteran intelligence officials whom I’ve consulted – amounts to at least criminal negligence, another noxious precedent will be set.

This is where it gets interesting.

This time, however, the equities and interests of the powerful, secretive NSA, as well as the FBI and Justice, are deeply involved. And by now all of them know “where the bodies are buried,” as the smart folks inside the Beltway like to say. So the question becomes would a future President Hillary Clinton have total freedom of maneuver if she were beholden to those all well aware of her past infractions and the harm they have done to this country.

It gets better.

“When the unclassified systems of the United States government, which has a full-time information security staff, regularly gets hacked, the idea that someone keeping a private server in the renovated bathroom of a server farm in Colorado is more secure is completely ridiculous,” the National Security Agency whistleblower (Edwin Snowden) told Mehdi Hasan in an interview that will air Friday on the debut episode of UpFront, Hasan’s new weekly talk show on Al Jazeera English. 

Read the entire piece, McGovern's take on Benghazi, from the intel perspective, is something yours truly and the Repugs completely missed without question.

A Jellyfish Extraordinaire

This guy looks almost electronic. :)

The Essence of Conscience

The essence of conscience, what is that? How do people react to that phrase, especially as it relates to governance when an individual working within the system realizes that said system is working against the values of the person in that system. This is an existential question eloquently posed by Edwin Snowden in an extraordinary piece regarding the act of whistleblowing and why this is so significant when done for the right reason.

“I’VE BEEN WAITING 40 years for someone like you.” Those were the first words Daniel Ellsberg spoke to me when we met last year. Dan and I felt an immediate kinship; we both knew what it meant to risk so much — and to be irrevocably changed — by revealing secret truths.

One of the challenges of being a whistleblower is living with the knowledge that people continue to sit, just as you did, at those desks, in that unit, throughout the agency, who see what you saw and comply in silence, without resistance or complaint. They learn to live not just with untruths but with unnecessary untruths, dangerous untruths, corrosive untruths. It is a double tragedy: What begins as a survival strategy ends with the compromise of the human being it sought to preserve and the diminishing of the democracy meant to justify the sacrifice.

The essence of conscience

Unrestrained power may be many things, but it’s not American. It is in this sense that the act of whistleblowing increasingly has become an act of political resistance. The whistleblower raises the alarm and lifts the lamp, inheriting the legacy of a line of Americans that begins with Paul Revere.

The individuals who make these disclosures feel so strongly about what they have seen that they’re willing to risk their lives and their freedom. They know that we, the people, are ultimately the strongest and most reliable check on the power of government. The insiders at the highest levels of government have extraordinary capability, extraordinary resources, tremendous access to influence, and a monopoly on violence, but in the final calculus there is but one figure that matters: the individual citizen.

And there are more of us than there are of them.

Read the piece in it's entirety, it's the right thing to do.