Time For Another Quake

Per a real estate web log:

USC Casden has released its annual report on Southern California rents (in LA, OC, SD Counties, and the Inland Empire) and daaaaamn this market is tiiiiiight. They've poked their head out, seen the specter of rapidly declining vacancies, and declared two more years of rent increases.

[...]

Los Angeles County had the biggest rent increase in SoCal--rents went up 2.86 percent to an average of $1,435 (Orange County is still the most expensive though, at $1,572).

The only way to relieve that tiiiiiightness is a quake big enough to send the rats scurrying back to their holes.

Lessee, January 1994 ... yeah, we're inside the window of opportunity, ± a yr. or two, so any day now.

Why The Hell Not Shut It Down?

Darby approves.

It Can't Happen Here

Nihilists & the like will enjoy this (if they haven't already) from 2005 in The Atlantic.

A leading expert on counterterrorism imagines the future history of the war on terror. A frightening picture of a country still at war in 2011

2011, 2013, whatever. Is there any difference? Can't name one, can you? It just gets smearier as time blurs along. (Starting to agree w/ the "all time is all happening all at once" theory. The dullness is so equal & universal at all possible times & places that one can dip into existence anywhere & not be able to determine the decade, let alone yrs. & months. But enough philosophical digression.)

The future history timeline is off a bit, the piece is long & depressing, but the scenarios for low-budget terrorism are entirely plausible, so it seems obligatory to drag it out following the atrocities & horror in Nairobi. Does anyone believe these United Snakes are any better prepared for mall attacks & so on than in 2005? Here "leading expert" Richard A. Clarke imagines an attack on a fictional Mall of America:

The 4.2-million-square-foot mall, located in Minnesota, was globally recognized as the largest entertainment and retail complex in America, welcoming more than 42 million visitors each year, or 117,000 a day. On this day neither the 160 security cameras surveying the mall nor the 150 safety officers guarding it were able to detect, deter, or defend against the terrorists. Four men, disguised as private mall-security officers and armed with TEC-9 submachine guns, street-sweeper 12-gauge shotguns, and dynamite, entered the mall at two points and began executing shoppers at will.

[...]

The panic and confusion brought on by the terrorists' opening volleys led many shoppers to run away from one pair of murderers and into the path of the other, leading to more carnage. Two off-duty police officers were cited for bravery after they took down one pair of terrorists with their personal weapons, before the local SWAT team could get to the scene. Meanwhile, one of the other terrorists used his cell phone to remotely detonate the rental van he had driven to the mall; this resulted in even more chaos in the parking garages. Once the SWAT team arrived, it made short work of the two remaining terrorists. By the time the smoke had cleared, more than 300 people were dead and 400 lay wounded. In the confusion of the firefight the SWAT team had killed six mall guards and wounded two police officers.

At the same moment, at the Tower Place, in Chicago; the Crystal Place, in Dallas; the Rappamassis Mall, in Virginia; and the Beverly Forest Mall, in Los Angeles, the scene was much the same: four shooters and hundreds of dead shoppers. America's holiday mall shopping effectively ended that day, as customers retreated to the safety of online retail.

We're never going to a mall again. We may start iNternet grocery shopping too.

S'pose the terrorists are waiting until the gov't. shutdown? Or does the national security state even enter into the calculations of those who would kill us for our freedoms? Or for their freedom.

A Chicken In Every Pot,A Car In Every Garage,& A Tee Vee In Every Room

So this one's either in the bathroom

or the kitchen.

Is This The End For Uncle Sam?

Tune in tomorrow to find out!

Clay Bennett/Chattanooga Times Free Press

New Yorker Cartoon Of The Wk.

"Christ, what an ugly asshole!"

The Portrait Of Raffi Cruz

All one need know about the junior Republican Senator from Texas, repellent & repugnant Cuban-Canadian Rafael Edward "Ted" Cruz, is this from AlterNet,

There is no shortage of power-mad narcissists floating around Washington, the kind of people who line their office walls with photos of themselves shaking hands with Very Important People. But Cruz gives them all a lesson in self-aggrandizement by decorating his Senate office with a giant oil painting of himself. In fact, it's not just an oil painting of himself. It's an oil painting of other people making paintings of him as he argues a case before the Supreme Court.

which was drawn from this paragraph in the recent GQ piece:

But all along, what kept drawing my eye was a giant oil painting above the couch depicting Cruz as he delivered the first of his nine oral arguments before the Supreme Court. "I was 32 years old," he recalled. "It was abundantly clear we didn't have a prayer.... And I've always enjoyed the fact that as I'm sitting at my desk, I'm looking at a giant painting of me getting my rear end whipped* 9-0." He gazed at the wall. It is an unusual painting: From the artist's vantage point, we see three other courtroom artists, each also drawing Cruz—so the painting actually features not one but four images of young Cruz before the bench. "It is helpful," he explained to me, "for keeping one grounded."

No question that he sees only that he's "getting his rear end whipped"* & that it humbles him. He couldn't possibly be seeing the Cuban-Canadian no one liked because he was such an irritating dick arguing for the federal government in the Supreme Court of the bigger & badder country next door, as three courtroom artists paint him, win lose or draw. No way. (See also: Stalin, Joseph & Hitler, Adolf. Just saying. Saying that, like those two, he's a totalitarian narcissist from a minor neighboring hellholenation, most of which speaks more or less the same language these United Snakes do.) "Grounded." Fuck. You.

We looked for a picture of the painting, & found moving pictures.

[Oh, nice. Defending an attempt to back out of a legal settlement in which Texas agreed to provide meals to poor children. Christ, what an asshole. —M.B.]
The Colbert Report Get More: Colbert Report Full Episodes, Video Archive
[LIKE THE COLOR SCHEME? You'd better. Why are you reading in this box?]

If a picture is worth X words, what is video of a painting worth?

Finally, a couple of thoughts we couldn't work in anywhere above w/o more damn thinking & typing, but well enough reasoned & articulated that we'll leave them here to be admired.

A) We are going to harden our immigration position; if it will spare the world more of these success stories

Cruz never tires of telling the story of his father, an immigrant from Cuba, coming to America with $100 sewn into his underwear, a narrative he has been repeating since his college days. Myth-making is one of Cruz's core competencies.

we are for stopping immigration entirely.

B) The urge to kill: Cruz's smugly sagging face alone awakens atavistic urges to finish the work gravity has started & smush his mug into the ground; when he opens his mouth & reveals what's inside, removing him from the species becomes a genetic imperative. Contrarily, stupid right-wing jerks don't need any martyrs.

---

*What is w/ these people? The bend over, the shove down the throat, now "whip my ass". Close to 50 yrs. ago, & still sadly relevant today:
"A world of secret hungers
Perverting the men who make your laws
Every desire is hidden away
In a drawer . . . in a desk
By a Naugahyde® chair
On a rug where they walk and drool
Past the girls in the office"
— F. Zappa, "Brown Shoes Don't Make It" from Freak Out (1966).

The Bicycle Thief's Victim

One (of many, if not an infinity) from the "St. Nick on a stick, would you just shut the fuck up already, you inane droning cretin?" file.

When the left finally completes its revolution in America, one of the final* things to go will be comic books. The art form is just too conservative to survive once everything else has been banned. In fact, a Marxist did attempt to suppress comics once before, in the 1950s. (I know, I know liberals, I’m overreacting — the next thing you know I’ll claim they would ban a rodeo clown.)

Remember the clown? What we're excerpting here was typed about six wks. ago, & Mark Judge probably still resents the firing of the poor rodeo clown. After all, Mr. Judge has been resenting that colored person (No evidence, therefore the thief must have been black.) who stole his bicycle for a while now. And the evidence that the bicycle thief was a Negro comes from the same dark (mental) recess where he found an already-in-progress leftist revolution in America & the resultant eventual banning of the graphic novel.

We're sticking w/ three contradictions; feel more than free to look for the other howlers. Meanwhile, the Judge is back on the Wertham wagon.

Liberalism’s distrust of comics goes back to Fredric Wertham, a psychiatrist who launched a crusade in the 1950s against the ill effects of comic books, even writing a book about it, Seduction of the Innocent. Liberals love to finger Wertham as a typical 1950s McCarthyite tight ass, but in fact he was a Marxist and Freudian who thought comics were sexual and political propaganda for the West.

(Speaking of Freudians, what's this "fingering" Wertham? And his "tight ass?" Hey, now everyone can be a Freudian!)

Remember the doctor's searing critique of capitalism, Seduction of the Innocent Petit Bourgeoisie? And while the Wart is best known for appearing before the Senate Subcommittee on Juvenile Delinquency, if he were such a fucking pinko why didn't the House Un-American Activities Committee call him?

Then a windmill tilt at today's Werthams:

Liberals in academia and the culture at large love to claim that there is ambiguity in some superheroes — Superman is an illegal immigrant! Batman hates guns! — but these are usually just weak attempts to claim ownership of something whose primal appeal cannot be denied.

You know he means it; he set his projector to 11 & pointed it directly at the (uncited, ahem) liberal scarecrows in his mental cornfield.

I grew up on Marvel and DC comics in the 1970s, and I still keep a toe in that world to keep up with the latest movies and story lines.

Are these "latest movies" the popular-as-all-get-out comic book movies that are blathered about everywhere, all the time? Just asking; were one to believe ol' Judgey, oppressive political correctness forces him to see these unpopular money-losers at secret showings in abandoned warehouses in bad parts of town or, perhaps, in the screening rooms of wealthy Galtian conservatives.

In our age of oppressive political correctness, superheroes retain a purity that even academics find difficult to co-opt or dismantle. The male heroes are turbo jocks, muscular and graceful as they leap between buildings. The female heroes are are [sic] pure adolescent id sex fantasy, from the classic Wonder Woman’s curves to Power Girl’s massive chest.

How difficult it must be for the creatorsThe Walt Disney Company to make millions upon millions in profit from superheroes who, Judge fears, are about to be politically corrected from "turbo jocks" & pneumatic sex goddesses to flabby latte-drinkers & fat femiNazis? And all while struggling under a viciously oppressive political correctness that barely allows these movies to be seen on more than a few thousand screens in these United Snakes during any given wk.

How Big Is It, Marky?

So big that:

Over the last year I started hearing about a new book about comic books that was roughly the size of a small car. There were stories of UPS people getting hospitalized trying to deliver the thing, and of dogs (and not even small ones) getting crushed when it tipped over.

Is this conservative humor, for lack of a better word? Not the pain & suffering (although ...) just the sheer apparently (Because who can fucking tell any more?) unironic banality of "it's so big that?" Unless he was establishing his final sentence & ultimate proof:

And, of course, there is the very existence of the environmental nightmare that is 75 Years of DC Comics. They must have felled half the rain forest to publish it.

Irony? You bet! Conservatives no longer conserve. If anyone to the left of Attila the Hun thinks not using it all up & throwing the wrappers out the window is the way to go, well, bedrock conservative principles say do the opposite, whatever the consequences. It's really about the only principle left for them.

Added oddity: We clicked a link & were led to this opus of the Judge's. Creepy, & peculiar. Another one for Dr. Freud.Ouch: Judge? Mental.

---

*Say huh? How can he know the order in which the left will be banning all that is good, pure, White, Catholic & American?

Video Alpha, Video Omega

In the hopper since sometime last mo. The interview was conducted in 1986 by curmudgeon Harlan Ellison.Just as well the useless pricks at C-SPAN made this three hr. tour "Not Embeddable." We'd as soon watch other crap on telebisionpoke out our peepers (& ear drums, just to be safe) w/ knitting needles than move Mr. Mouse near the play button. Three effin' hrs.? Oy.

Nonetheless, while it would seem fertile ground for nut picking* (C-SPAN viewers question Ben. Yow.) no iNternet personage of whom we are aware (& we know 'em all) has mentioned watching any of it. Even the we-read-&-watch-so-you-needn't types have their limits.

---

*That's one awkward metaphor; maybe "picking up nuts" would've been better.

Where The Hicks Are

Old, uneducated, morbid, male & white. Our demographic, yet we despise most of its other members. Where the ones for whom we have the most contempt live:

As the above map, detailing the geography of the suicide caucus, shows, half of these districts are concentrated in the South, and a quarter of them are in the Midwest, while there’s a smattering of thirteen in the rural West and four in rural Pennsylvania (outside the population centers of Philadelphia and Pittsburgh). Naturally, there are no members from New England, the megalopolis corridor from Washington to Boston, or along the Pacific coastline.

[...]

The members of the suicide caucus live in a different America from the one that most political commentators describe when talking about how the country is transforming. The average suicide-caucus district is seventy-five per cent white, while the average House district is sixty-three per cent white. Latinos make up an average of nine per cent of suicide-district residents, while the over-all average is seventeen per cent. The districts also have slightly lower levels of education (twenty-five per cent of the population in suicide districts have college degrees, while that number is twenty-nine per cent for the average district).

The members themselves represent this lack of diversity. Seventy-six of the members who signed the Meadows letter are male. Seventy-nine of them are white.

As with Meadows, the other suicide-caucus members live in places where the national election results seem like an anomaly. Obama defeated Romney by four points nationally. But in the eighty suicide-caucus districts, Obama lost to Romney by an average of twenty-three points. The Republican members themselves did even better. In these eighty districts, the average margin of victory for the Republican candidate was thirty-four points.

In short, these eighty members represent an America where the population is getting whiter, where there are few major cities, where Obama lost the last election in a landslide, and where the Republican Party is becoming more dominant and more popular. Meanwhile, in national politics, each of these trends is actually reversed.

Keep fucking that chicken, dumb old dying honkies. Reagan was right; your grandchildren will live in a socialist workers paradise!

Urban Adventure Report

All this "cities bad" noise had us worried for a sec. or so, but (as one might suspect) our bunker is nowhere near any place worthy (let alone deserving) of a suicide attack. Downtown Hell maybe, the Westside of Hell* yes & the Ninth Circle of HellS.F. Valley absolutely.

Attacks like this week's siege in Nairobi reinforce what we've already seen in places like Mumbai and Karachi: that urban environments, including complex pieces of urban terrain like shopping centres, hotels and industrial facilities, are the battlegrounds of the future. And the urban siege, with its commando-style tactics and guerrilla infiltration of a big city's ebb and flow, is increasingly the tactic of choice for a wide range of adversaries.

And let's face it: No one wants to live w/ hicks & wild (animal) life.

---

*Take (Please!) the Westfield Mall in Century City. So similar a name.

Albino Band Up-Date

Were it not for following stories as they develop we might have to put more & actual effort into this crapour efforts here.

Following Sly Stone's plans for an all-albino musical aggregation led to this:

Sly Stone, 70, revealed that he is making a comeback with a new band — made up of albino musicians (albinism is a genetic condition that causes a lack of pigment in the hair, skin and eyes). It’s no surprise that he would pick such an eclectic band since Sly and the Family Stone was the first American band to be multiracial and multigendered. However, his reason for wanting an all-albino band is odd and objectifying.

('Phoning it in now. Or sending a fucking telegram.)

Only In America Dep't.

Land o' plenty. And excess.

Where we found it.

Cats Confused

(Should this also be filed under "There'll always be an England?")

"Movement is also a key trigger. Big cats will start getting interested if someone limps past their enclosure because they look weak.

"Possibly the worst thing you could do is limp past the lion or tiger enclosure in a zebra print outfit."

Visitors to a Surrey safari park have been asked not to wear animal print clothes after concern emerged that fake leopard print and tiger stripes might be confusing or even frightening the animals.

Zookeepers at Chessington World of Adventures noticed a change in behaviour of animals after the launch of a new attraction which allows visitors to be driven off-road through a 22-acre Serengeti-style reserve, where animals roam free.

Spokeswoman Natalie Dilloway said: "Animals are getting confused when they see what looks like zebras and giraffes driving across the terrain in a 7.5 tonne truck."

Keepers reported that some animals had tried to communicate with visitors, while others had run away, fearing they were predators.

Uh, pardon us, but, well ...

Crummy Games of the Wk.

We're calling it this soon.

Ohio subdivision:

Witch Burning Report

"The heinous act of vandalism ..."Text.

Didn't Think So

All the coffee on the planet can't keep me interested. Or awake.

Oh, Crap ...

Damnit, nothing here yet.

What. Ever.

Work Is The Problem, Not the Solution

Pope Francis has called for a global economic system that puts people and not "an idol called money" at its heart, drawing on the hardship of his immigrant family as he sympathised with unemployed workers in a part of Italy that has suffered greatly from the recession.

All well & good, but hard to believe there'll be reform when the "people first" people follow their plea for humanity w/ the usual clichéd crap about work & its alleged dignity.

"Where there is no work, there is no dignity," he said, in ad-libbed remarks after listening to three locals, including an unemployed worker who spoke of how joblessness "weakens the spirit". But the problem went far beyond the Italian island, said Francis, who has called for wholesale reform of the financial system.

"This is not just a problem of Sardinia; it is not just a problem of Italy or of some countries in Europe," he said. "It is the consequence of a global choice*, an economic system which leads to this tragedy; an economic system which has at its centre an idol called money."

Which is more fucking "dignified," wage-slaving at a job that often involved interaction w/ others (You have no "dignity" if fear of losing a crummy low-paying job prevents you from expressing the ugly truth about the assholes imposing themselves on you.) for a few nickels more than US$8.00/hr., or not working yet receiving about US$300.00/mo. more from disability payments (earned through 30 yrs. of wage-slavery & FICA contributions) than the paycheck?

Dignity. A bead-rattler who probably never worked a day (let alone a body & mind numbing eternity) in his life but has collected Holy Welfare since seminary understands the "dignity of work?" Not bloody likely. Their union is so strong priests can't be fired (only transferred) from a Church gig even if they're caught w/ the proverbial live boy/dead girl. Literally.

---

*Choice? Were we around the corner buying cigarettes or sleeping or, or ... something when a choice was offered? We have no fucking memory whatsoever of any options.

Equinox

Too late.Where?

Sensing A Theme Here ...

Pat Bagley, Cagle Cartoons, Salt Lake Tribune

Credit & links, if we must.

David Horsey/Los Angeles Times (September 19, 2013)

Self-Thinning Herd

Politeness on increase:

That's when Taylor pulled out his gun and shot 43-year-old Pullum, Bernadine Pullum said.

"He shot at Jim first, then he shot Jim again while Jim was reaching in his car to get his gun. And I think that’s the one that took him," she said. "And then Jim got his (gun) and he made a couple shots."

Despite Jim Pullum's deteriorating condition his shot was accurate enough to hit Taylor, killing him, authorities said of the exchange of gunfire.

Bernadine Pullum said her daughter-in-law, who was out of the car to help wash it, ran down the road screaming in terror.

IONIA, MI -- Robert Taylor, one of two men who died Wednesday in a shootout after a driving altercation, had his concealed pistol license revoked for three years because of a drunken driving conviction.

Ionia County Prosecutor Ron Schafer today confirmed that Taylor lost his license in November 2006 after a drunken-driving conviction. He registered 0.18 on a portable breathalyzer.

But he obtained a new license in November 2010 after four years.

Both Taylor and the other victim in the shootout, 43-year-old James Pullum, had valid concealed pistol permits.

They both died after exchanging gunfire in the lot of the Wonder Wand Car Wash on South Steele Street in Ionia about 7 p.m. Wednesday.

Two down, approx 7,999,999,998 remaining.

Shut Up You Old Wretch!

This idiocy

inspired yet another reason to despise John McCain:

No-class act by a bunch of overpaid, immature, arrogant, spoiled brats! "The #Dodgers are idiots" http://t.co/KfZZliBFBV
— John McCain (@SenJohnMcCain) September 20, 2013

(Not that) Brian Wilson responds:

Senator McComplain knows a thing or two about coming in second and watching someone take a plunge in the pool (I mean poll) #POoLITICS
— Brian Wilson (@BrianWilson38) September 20, 2013

.@IntentionalTalk @ChrisRose @KMillar15 Defeating the RePLUNGEican pool party: pic.twitter.com/5OA5kY10YL
— Brian Wilson (@BrianWilson38) September 20, 2013

The AZ Snakes have a swimming pool in their ball park w/ which to soak their customers. Literally. How dare they complain? As they say, win & you won't have this problem.

Adventure Land

In Los Angeles, all is deception.Anything you see may have been Imagineered by Disney.

Nature is rendered as pseudo as Times Square.

What We're Watching

"Exploring the possibility of a deadly virus from space wreaking havoc on Earth after reaching the planet through aircraft or comets."

We're back to comets as bad omens spreading ill humours?

Rural Radiation Report

What if your county agent is Hank Kimball?

Gratuitous squirrel at (8:26).

New World News

Also this.

Obvs. we've only read headlines concerning the new pontiff; example:

Pope Bluntly Faults Church’s Focus on
Gays and Abortion

so this may not be original (or first exposed here) but is it possible that Pope Frankie's being (the first Pope from south of the equator &) from the "New World" has made him, for lack of a better term (& sloth) less uptight, even, like, mellower than the stick-up-the-ass Euro-traditionalists obsessed w/ S-E-X in general & homosexuals & abortions in particular?

(We ask 'cause, like, as a denizen of the New World we're always willing to spit in the eye of the old Euro-order.)

Not very Benedictine.

Speaking of Catholics (Fuck 'em, mellow pope or not.) here is a loon we discovered while looking for Papal pix (Hard to find any of him looking evil. Smiles a lot in public.) one Marielena Montesino de Stuart. (The name says it all. Wanna-be aristos, every one of them.)

The Cycle Of Life

It never ends well.

Stuff We Like

Dead things.

Zyklon B Up-Date

We thought Germany had (w/ just a little help) de-Nazified itself almost 70 yrs. ago; as usualso often happens, we were laboring under a false impression.

BERLIN (AP) — Germany exported more than 100 metric tons (110 tons) of "dual-use" chemicals to Syria between 2002 and 2006, but officials insisted Wednesday there was no indication the substances had been used to make chemical weapons such as the poisonous sarin gas used in last month's deadly attack outside Damascus.

The exports were authorized after officials were assured of "plausible civilian uses" for the chemicals, the Economy Ministry said in a written response to questions from left-wing lawmakers.

Chancellor Angela Merkel said there was no indication they had been used for military purposes.

"According to all the information available to me, they were used for civilian purposes," Merkel told public television station ARD.

But she said officials were still checking whether further shipments took place after 2006 and before May 2011, when Germany imposed strict controls on exports to Syria.

The first and third panels contain the German Pest Control Company
emblem and the brand name Zyklon. The center panel reads
"Poison Gas!" "Cyanide Preparation! to be opened and used
only by trained personnel." The labels were used as evidence at
the International Military Tribunal trial of war criminals at Nuremberg.

If we could prevent First-Worldimperialist powers from supplying their client states & neo-colonies w/ weaponry & other materials for murder wouldn't it be a nicer world? As it is you stupid human jerk-offs are just making Hitler happy. Way to go, "First" World.

N fucking B: Poison gas, Germans. We wouldn't try to invoke Godwin's Law here.

Annals of Paranoia

Don't tell us this thing isn't following us;

it turned & came right atover us,

then into the sunset.

Things ...

... for which we won't be signing up:

Just a quick reminder. We're flipping over to our own in-house commenting system tomorrow and you'll need to register with TPM to comment. It's free. Easy. Lickety-split. You can sign up the first time you want to comment or you can do it now on the beta version of our new site. Sign up right here and you'll be ready to go when the new system goes live.

And, something for which we did, which we'll probably never be arsed to use, but one seldom knows. (The fact that it refers to itself as "kick-ass" may tell us all we needed to know.) We're sharing because it looks like the sort of "art film" crap pseudo-intellects would totally dig.

Chateau

Give This Man A Gun & A Job!

Well, it is a free country. W/ rights for all. From the SPD BLOTTER:

Following his arrest, Alexis told detectives he perceived he had been “mocked” by construction workers the morning of the incident and said they had “disrespected him.” Alexis also claimed he had an anger-fueled “blackout,” and could not remember firing his gun at the victims’ vehicle until an hour after the incident.

Alexis also told police he was present during “the tragic events of September 11, 2001″ and described “how those events had disturbed him.”

Detectives later spoke with Alexis’ father, who lived in New York at the time, who told police Alexis had anger management problems associated with Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder, and that Alexis had been an active participant in rescue attempts on September 11th, 2001.

Getting just a little bit tired of having to wait until another law-abiding citizen has killed 12 people before we can take his guns from his cold dead hands.

In "How All This Relates To Us," bane of our existence H-P appears to put as much effort into hiring sub-contractors

Alexis was working most recently for a company called "The Experts," a subcontractor on an HP Enterprise Services contract to refresh equipment used on the Navy Marine Corps Intranet network. A federal law enforcement official said he was living at a Residence Inn in Southwest Washington.

The official, who is not authorized to comment publicly, said Alexis purchased at least some of the weapons used in the assault within the past few days in Virginia. Then on Monday, he allegedly drove to the Navy Yard complex and cleared security checkpoints before parking in a lot on the property.

as it puts thought into design, materials & manufacturing in its printer division. (California dodged one when Meg Whitman lost her try at replacing Gov. Schwarzenegger. Think how she could have screwed up the state & our however-largest-in-the-world-it-is economy.) Can we finally put HP completely out of business?

Probably Won't

But a third generation of development could happen.

Please build this. We so want to see what happens
to the glass in the next significant earthquake.

The previous & current structures were a mere two stories.All the links one could ever possibly need. Not that one would give a crap about this sort of thing.

Relax ...

George Segal

Exceptional Injustices

Awoke today w/o plans for any activity beyond chilling, but the never-ending horror of murdering racist scum cannot be suppressed forever. (Although 50 yrs. of suppression appears possible.)

Today's horror: Not only were four girls murdered 50 yrs. ago, but two teen-aged boys were shot in cold blood in the streets of Birmingham the same day, 15 September 1963.

Thirteen-year-old Virgil Ware was riding on the handlebars of his brother James’ bicycle when he was fatally shot by white teens — Eagle Scouts — who had just come from a segregationist rally. As the story goes, Larry Sims was holding Michael Farley’s gun when they saw the Ware brothers. They decided to “scare” the boys and Sims fired two shots. Ware was hit in the chest and cheek. The young teen, who had just picked up a newspaper route, died in his brother’s arms.

Sims and Farley, both 16 at the time of the murder, were convicted of second-degree manslaughter. They were sentenced to seven months in jail, but a judge ultimately suspended their sentences giving them only two years’ probation for Ware’s death.

Johnny Robinson also died that day. Outraged about the bombing, Robinson, 16, and other black youth were participating in a demonstration when they were confronted by white teens driving by and hurling racial slurs. According to reports, the black youth threw rocks at the car which was draped in a confederate flag. When the police pulled up, the crowd scattered. As Robinson ran, he was shot in the back by police officer Jack Parker.

Two grand juries refused to bring Parker to trial and no one was ever prosecuted for Robinson’s death. His story went largely unnoticed for years until the FBI opened a slew of cold cases in 2009.

Today, 50 years after their deaths, Ware and Robinson’s stories are finally being told alongside that of the four little girls.

Cue the chorus of assholes praising exceptional, special, wonderful justice-for-all America. Once that's over, we can restart Reconstruction, in Birmingham. Burn it to the ground, plow the ashes under & salt the land, that nothing grow there again.

Bad Advice

Death To America Already

After reading this:

5 shocking ways America abuses
its homeless

From sit/lie bans to anti-panhandling measures, local governments trample the Constitution to battle the poor

&/or:

5 Screwed Up New Ways
America Is Abusing the Homeless

Cities are cracking down on the homeless
in endlessly nasty ways,

we are 100% in favor of "small-scale attacks inside the United States to 'bleed America economically.'"

(Reuters) - Al Qaeda leader Ayman al-Zawahri urged small-scale attacks inside the United States to "bleed America economically", adding he hoped eventually to see a more significant strike, according to the SITE monitoring service.

In an audio speech released online a day after the 12th anniversary of the 9/11 strikes, Zawahri said attacks "by one brother or a few of the brothers" would weaken the U.S. economy by triggering big spending on security, SITE reported.

Western counter-terrorism chiefs have warned that radicalized "lone wolves" who might have had no direct contact with al Qaeda posed as great a risk as those who carried out complex plots like the 9/11 attacks.

"We should bleed America economically by provoking it to continue in its massive expenditure on its security, for the weak point of America is its economy, which has already begun to stagger due to the military and security expenditure," he said.

It's a damn shame if the enemy's leaders are smarter than the ones you're stuck w/.

Unhappy Passenger

Self-Expression

Really now, what the hell do economists know about personal relations & humanity?

Well, it turns out that many prominent people have inner demons of one kind or another — often homophobia, but also racism, sexism, or just some kind of generalized contempt for large numbers of other people. And social media make it all too easy for those demons to slip out in front of a large audience.

We know one must set one's demons free! Granted, the only prominent thing about this reporter is the point on his head, but it's unquestionable that large amounts of undifferentiated tissuenumbers of other people absolutely deserve generalized contempt.

Get this: Fuck that! I don't owe you fuckers anything, & all I've got to say is: FUCK YOOOOOOOOOOOU!!
— M. Bouffant (@MBouffant) September 12, 2013

We can be specific too.

Lady Lieberman

Christ on a crutch, w/ sanctimonious little prick Joe Lieberman class-warring for corporate money* at a New York law firm is there a Democratic Senator less democratic than Dianne Feinstein?

The Senate Judiciary committee on Thursday approved legislation that would protect reporters, with exceptions, from being forced to disclose confidential sources. The bill was passed with an amendment that defined a “covered journalist” as an “employee, independent contractor or agent of an entity that disseminates news or information.” Or, as Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.) said, “real reporters,” and not just anyone with a website.

“I can’t support it if everyone who has a blog has a special privilege … or if Edward Snowden were to sit down and write this stuff, he would have a privilege. I’m not going to go there,” she said, according to the Los Angeles Times.

The “journalist” would also have to have been employed ["WORK‽" — Maynard G. Krebs] for a one year period within the last 20 years, or for a three-month period within the last five years. Student journalists would also be covered, as well as those “whom a federal judge has decided should be able to avail him or herself of the protections of the privilege, consistent with the interests of justice and the protection of lawful and legitimate newsgathering activities.”

Yes, we understand religious blinders keep her from seeing Israel as it is, & keep her wasting zillions on defensethe profitable manufacture & export of weapons, nat'l. security (theater) voting for the PATRIOT Act & more FISA, & we grant that her marriage to investment banker Richard C. Blum & net worth of scores & scores of millions of dollars force her to err on the side of the wealthy & their corporate interests, no problem there, but does she have to be such a fucking fascist all the time?

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*Former Sen. Joe Lieberman has joined the the firm Kasowitz, Benson, Torres & Friedman as a senior counsel in its New York office.

The former Democratic Vice Presidential candidate is expected to focus on independent and internal investigations [Snoop, then rat. —M.B.] as well as advise clients on public policy, strategic and regulatory issues, according to a firm release.

Lieberman will also work with corporate clients on tax, health care, security, intellectual property and international expansion initiatives†.

While in the Senate, Lieberman led several congressional investigations, including the inquiry into Enron’s collapse, the government’s response to Hurricane Katrina and the Fort Hood mass shooting, among others.
Since leaving Congress, Lieberman has remained active and recently joined as a co-chair of the American Internationalism Project‡ at the American Enterprise Institute.

Were we in charge those would all be capital crimes. In both senses.

†Shorter press release: Imperialism.
‡Shorter A.E.I.: Imperialism.

No Sucky Assholes!

It seems the twisted fucking sick-o perv voyeur jagoffs at the NSA have a shit fit when their stupid logo/shield/coat of arms/whatever the exact word is is used somewhere, as if the gummint has a copyright on the shit our (Well, yours, sucker!) tax dollars pay for.

So here it is, Gestapo!! Come get us. We've been waiting for a reason to explode for some time now. Not that a specific "reason" is needed. Any one not in a permanent state of rage is either in a coma, or one of the walking brain-dead (i.e., Americans) who clutter our streets & public places, & probably believe academic freedom exists. Which it doesn't.

Via War in Context.

Almost Forgot

All you fucking sinners had better atone your asses off before The Big Fucking Killer In The Sky (Hebrew Edition) comes for you!

Drown Baby Drown!

Mmmmm, lessee here ... hotter, right, more evaporation, mmm-hmm, leads to more rainfall. Science!

The result of more rain? A reduction in the number of the fucking humanoids, who caused it in the first place.

KUSA - Authorities said Friday afternoon that 80 people are still unaccounted for after catastrophic flooding in Boulder County.

Go nature go. Kill 'em all!!

Friday, September 13, 2013

If it wasn't for real bad luck ...
Need we say more?The orig., w/ lyrics, from A.K. & his Gibson Flying V*:Friday the Thirteenth Triple Play!!!

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*Of which Gibson Custom will sell you a copy of an original 1959 model (A copy, we typed!) for US$12,468! That's no typo: 12,468. (Why not an even 13 thou, w/ free shipping or something?)

Where The Pedophiles Are

Why do all but one of these pervs have facial hair? If you're a decent humanoid of the male persuasion you should shave your face clean, right now, because the morons & creeps have just caught up to sporting goatees. First one we saw was around, oh, 1986. So maybe in 30-40 yrs. these weasels will give up on the hating.

Be sure to send a donation, because of the Free Market!.

Annals Of Radiation

This is also how microwaves sound when they bounce around the space inside your head.Not the microwaves generated by your oven, either, nor is this bullshit like chemtrails. (Sadly, only digital subscribers will be able to read the New Yorker article [A two-parter, too.]  from 1976.) Not even going to link to why microwave cooking will kill you.

Douche-Wad Of The Day

Sting: 'Have you ever
heard me complain?'

No, but we've heard his music & wanted to complain. To be completely honest we do our very best not to hear anything that Der Stingle issues, especially hear his pathetic, washed-out, lame, limp & just plain crummy music.

Note the URL: http://www.theguardian.com/music/2013/sep/12/sting-tantric-sex-album-broadway-musical, or why you hate him in five words.

When you were on the top of the charts but are now extruding crap for Broadway, the arena for the stalest of musical expression, your time is over & you should kill yourself before someone else decides to. At least take your ill-gotten gains & get the hell out of the spotlight to avoid further embarrassment.

Fuck Tha Police!

Also fuck the L.A. County Sheriff's Dep't. & all other pseudo-military agencies involved in war on the homeless. The Fourth Amendment & the Second Amendment should apply here, & those deputies should be dead, rather than merely suffering from holes in their feet. (Tetanus, where is thy sting?)

It is a good sign that our homeless brothers & sisters are resisting fascism in every guise, whether it be law enforcement, a fucking job (either of which = Hitler) or the tyranny of property. We'll be starting an Arm The Homeless drive* so the victims of society may be as secure in their persons, houses, papers & effects as any property-owning millionaire w/ a contract for privatized security.

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*Send money, ammo & weapons to:
The Publisher
Just Another Blog (From L.A.)™
c/o General Delivery
Los Angeles, Calif. 90012+2904
(Do not write "GUNS & AMMO" on the package, dimbulb.)

(And yes, we may skim a gun or two & some rounds from the top. You're all warned.)

Double Nickels

"Close Your Eyes"(Recorded: New York City, NY September 12, 1958)

& I'll kiss you, tomorro — whuh?

Pynchon Off A Video*

Still having trouble w/ the concept of the "book trailer." (Considering that movie trailers don't actually trail the fucking flicks any more there might be a better word or description somewhere. You'd think a publishing co. could come up w/ something better, wouldn't you? No fucking wonder books are over.)

Anyway, this may be amusing. We certainly haven't watched it yet.

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*Sorry, we just don't give enough of a crap to try for anything better.

Justice Done*

Fuck w/ us & you pay:

Alcoa Inc., Hewlett-Packard and Bank of America Corp. will be dropped from the Dow Jones Industrial Average next week, in the biggest shake-up of the 30-stock index in almost a decade.

Not that much was to be expected from a corporation that hired Carly Fiorina as CEO.

In 2005, Fiorina was forced to resign as chief executive officer and chairman of HP following "differences [with the board of directors] about how to execute HP's strategy."

In 2008, Fiorina served as an advisor to Republican presidential candidate John McCain. In 2010, Fiorina waged an unsuccessful challenge against incumbent Democrat Barbara Boxer of California in a 2010 Senate election.

And followed that hiring & firing by picking up another loser, Meg Whitman, who had already fucked up ebay & lost the 2010 California gubernatorial election to ancient & recycled Gov. Jerry Brown.

Jesus, if either of these corporate fascists were general officers & had such a record of failure they would have been forced to retire, & at a considerable reduction in pension. (Most reasonable people agree that w/ such a record HP's Board of Capitalist Dimbulbs should be taken out & shot. Bullets, not votes.)

And while we're schadenfreuding, fuck Bank of America all the way up Giannini's rotting ass.

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*Bullshit. Justice will not have been done until all Hewlett-Packard facilities are smoking ruins & most of the employees (All of the "exempt" employees.) have been savagely tortured by the Asian wage-slaves the corporation has been exploiting for yrs. Mere prison time & /or execution is no longer enough to satisfy us. Punishment must be administered.

THESE COLORS DON'T RUN!

Although they fade pretty damn quickly,

burn well

& smell like weiners.

"Johnsonville." Heh.

Look Upon My Works

Too soon?

Where The Morlocks Are

Finally, Relief

The humidity is over, which means not as many clouds. Or pictures thereof. That's relieving.

Mt. Wilson on the far right. (So to speak.)