look at my blogspot!

Media dishonesty

2010-11-07T19:29:00.000-08:00

listening to Obama being interviewed tonight. "unbiased" press question - what about the small business owner who makes 250,000 dollars a year, why would you want to raise taxes on them.

Hey guess what. Small business owners don't make a fucking quarter of a million dollars a year. And if they do, they then can afford to pay taxes just like real estate agents who make 250,000 dollars a year.

Financial Crisis

2010-11-07T17:16:00.001-08:00

I've spent the past month or so reading about the financial crisis, going through the following books:

Matt Taibbi: Griftopia
David Harvey: The Enigma of Capital
Danny Schecter: Plunder: the crime of our time
Yves Smith: ECONned
Joseph Stiglitz: Freefall
Robert Reich: Aftershock
Robert Scheer: The Great American Stick up

It's been pretty intense. But for anyone interested in better understanding the crisis. I recommend the above for the following reasons.

Taibbi and Scheer- well written, caustic, appropriately profane, and the best job of explaining to a lay audience, without condescending, how the crisis came to pass.

Harvey - still reading, excellent, from a distinctly Marxist perspective.

Schecter - conceives of the crisis as a pre-meditated crime. Not the first book to read on the subject, but a fine addtion.

Smith - Ive written about this before. Yves Smith brilliantly blames the crisis less on greed and corruption, and more on the actual study of economics, whose widely accepted (but clearly faulty) neo-classical models led inexorably to the sort of "innovation" in the financial markets that caused the collapse. Surprisingly dense at times.

Stiglitz - a "mainstream" economist's take. Like Krugman and Reich, Stiglitz is about as far to the left as you can be and still have a job in government.

Reich - provides "next steps" to not only fix the current calamity, but create a new sort of capitalism that does not allow for the level of abuse and economic redistribution to the rich that we have seen over the past 35 years.

Griftopia

2010-11-06T21:51:00.001-07:00

The bomb new book I am reading

Restoring Sanity

2010-11-06T18:33:00.000-07:00

So I was wondering what all of you guys think about Jon Stewart's speech. I tend to agree with both Bill Maher and Keith Olberman and Jimmy Dore. Maher, on his show last night, said,

"The message of the rally was that if the media stopped giving voice to the crazies on both sides, then we could restore sanity...there are no moderates on the other side. When Jon announced his rally, he said the national conversation was dominated by people on the Right who believe Obama's a Socialist and people on the Left who believe 9/11's an inside job, I can't name any Democratic leaders who think 9/11's an inside job. But Republican leaders who think Obama's a Socialist? All of them."

I really do think Jon Stewart did the country, and himself a disservice by speaking as though the fucking psychopaths on the American right are equivalent to the people on the MNSBC left. While Rachel Maddow and Keith are certainly "liberal" they are hardly radicals, and the rest of the channel, while mostly to the left of center, is far more moderate. Fox news, as Rachel Maddow said on her show Friday night, is literally a political organization masquerading as a news source. MSNBC is a news source of people who are liberals because the facts dictate a that progressive policies make more sense, in LITERALLY ALL CASES. Not because they have a biblical certitude in the inerrant moral superiority of the Democratic Party.

Having said all of the above I think Jon Stewart painted himself into a corner somewhat. Assuming he knows better than what he said on the mall, he was not in a position to be totally honest, he would come off (to much of the country), as distinctly partisan, during an event marketed as anything but. However, I still think what he did was irresponsible. Painting MSNBC and fox with the same brush does tremendous damage to legitimate media.

from nbc sports: Hugo Chavez and Edgar Renteria

2010-11-04T18:53:00.000-07:00

Hugo Chavez to Edgar Renteria: “We beat Bush’s team!”

Craig Calcaterra

Nov 4, 2010, 8:28 PM EDT

4 Comments

Earlier this week Venezuelan president Hugo Chavez and Colombian president Juan Manuel Santos had a summit meeting. As recounted in this BBC report, the meeting was interrupted so Santos could call national hero Edgar Renteria and congratulate him on winning the World Series. Chavez, a huge baseball fan, spoke with Renteria too. And yes, that’s actually a picture of Chavez on the phone talking to Renteria.

What didn’t make the BBC report, however — but which did make it into Daniel Lozano’s report in the Spanish language paper Publico was this:

“The two leaders joked over the phone with baseball player Edgar Renteria, the star who just won the baseball title for the San Francisco Giants after 56 years. Chavez challenged him to a Caimanera (a casual game) and confessed his joy at the victory: ‘We beat Bush’s team!’”

Jesus Fucking Christ

2010-11-03T00:57:00.000-07:00

n April 21, 1945, Inouye was grievously wounded while leading an assault on a heavily-defended ridge near Terenzo called Colle Musatello. The ridge served as a strongpoint along the strip of German fortifications known as the Gothic Line, which represented the last and most dogged line of German defensive works in Italy. As he led his platoon in a flanking maneuver, three German machine guns opened fire from covered positions just 40 yards away, pinning his men to the ground. Inouye stood up to attack and was shot in the stomach; ignoring his wound, he proceeded to attack and destroy the first machine gun nest with hand grenades and fire from his M1 Thompson submachine gun. After being informed of the severity of his wound by his platoon sergeant, he refused treatment and rallied his men for an attack on the second machine gun position, which he also successfully destroyed before collapsing from blood loss.

As his squad distracted the third machine gunner, Inouye crawled toward the final bunker, eventually drawing within 10 yards. As he raised himself up and cocked his arm to throw his last grenade into the fighting position, a German inside fired a rifle grenade that struck him on the right elbow, severing most of his arm and leaving his own primed grenade reflexively "clenched in a fist that suddenly didn't belong to me anymore".^[8] Inouye's horrified soldiers moved to his aid, but he shouted for them to keep back out of fear his severed fist would involuntarily relax and drop the grenade. As the German inside the bunker reloaded his rifle, Inouye managed to pry the live grenade from his useless right hand and transfer it to his left. As the German aimed his rifle to finish him off, Inouye managed at last to toss the grenade off-hand into the bunker and destroy it. He stumbled to his feet and continued forward, silencing the last German resistance with a one-handed burst from his Thompson before being wounded in the leg and tumbling unconscious to the bottom of the ridge. When he awoke to see the concerned men of his platoon hovering over him, his only comment before being carried away was to gruffly order them return to their positions, since, as he pointed out, "nobody had called off the war".^[8
]

ECONned: a book review

2010-11-02T00:47:00.000-07:00

An excellent book, from the cover I had feared it might be a little too poppy, but was surprisingly dense - as a warning to anyone looking for a more casual, pop-economics kind of read.

Places the blame for the financial crisis and the wide disparity between classes in American society less on specific policies maintained by Reagan republicans and Clinton democrats then on the STUDY of economics itself.

She condemns the neo-classical models that give what is essentially a soft science the airs of a hard science. These models assume perfect information and perfect competition, things which absolutely do not exist in American economic life. Despite their immediate and obvious lack of applicability, these models are used to inform policy decisions at the highest level.

Their veneer of mathematical inscrutability intimidates non "experts" from engaging in discussion, and cows the public into excepting too willingly the policy initiatives of the biased decision makers at the top.

CHECK THIS OUT FOR SERIOUSLY

2010-10-29T17:31:00.000-07:00

In our time with Melvyn Bragg is a wonderful podcast. i cannot recommend it highly enough. He is this brilliant guy who just talks about the most fascinating things ever with the world's leading experts on those things.

I just listened to his podcast on the oracle at delphi, the new one is about unicorns, also available for free - imaginary numbers, the spanish armada, german thinkers of the 1800s, it's so great.

Please listen to it.

Also: archives available for online listening here: http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio4/features/in-our-time/archive/a/all

did you know (courtesy of cracked.com)

2010-10-29T16:15:00.000-07:00

The doorknob was not invented until 1878

this is real:

Trotsky movie with Jay Baruchel

2010-10-28T12:16:00.001-07:00

Brian Wilson - ultimate goal

2010-10-27T14:38:00.001-07:00

“I’d like to be a crossword clue one day,” he said. “I want to be in The New York Times’s Sunday edition. Right now, the clue ‘Giants great’ is always Mel Ott. I want my clue to be down, not across. The down ones are usually harder. And when I’m the clue, I’ll fill it in — just that one — and frame it.

“How sweet would that be?”

San Francisco Ballot Measures

2010-10-27T13:35:00.000-07:00

Prop AA - 10 vehicle fee for roads, transit and pedestrians - YEAH - everyone with a car pays 10 extra dollars, this will raise TEN MILLION

Prop A - Yes - 46 million dollars to retrofit affordable housing units

Prop B - NO!!!!! - makes public employees pay way more for retirement and health care

Prop C - Yes - mayor appearances at board, the mayor has to show up once a month to answer questions in public

Prop D - YES - allows noncitizen parents whose kids are in public schools to vote in School Board elections, even if they can't vote otherwise, right now, 1/3 of all public school children have parents who are not legally allowed to help make school decisions!

Prop E YES - you can register ON election day to vote for local measures, easier to vote, harder to forget to register

Prop F - NO

Prop G - NO - seems to unfairly punish MUNI drivers

Prop H - NO - would bar some elected officials from political party committees, the word on the street is that Gavin Newsom wants to do this to punish people who have been attacking him from the left. Maybe not constitutional

Prop I - YES - Saturday voting - polls open the saturday before election day, makes no fucking sense to vote on Tuesday, weekend voting will help people work who feel like they cannot take the time off from work

Prop J - YES - raises the hotel tax b y 2% - raises 35 million dollars annually for SF

Prop K - NO - if it passes, prop J fails (weird)

Prop L - NO - illegal to sit on sidewalks

Prop M - YES - cops have to walk a beat, be more part of community, etc

Prop N YES - bring in 36 million dollars by increasing taxes on large property/ real estate purchases

I haven't seen a half person half monkey yet...

2010-10-20T14:05:00.001-07:00

This is one of the many reasons that we cannot, for a moment, pretend that religion (or any other faith in fucking nonsense) is anything other than a load of ethically irresponsible, intellectually untenable garbage.

When Glenn Beck says that evolution is silly because "[he has] yet to see a half man half monkey", we can all laugh/ shudder/ cringe. But what is essential to remember is that this sort of backwards, and either desperately confused or incredibly dishonest, thought process skews our entire conversation to a point where it cannot be. We spend time giving solace to the faithful by being forced to 'debate' this sort of claim, rather than treat him like the raving lunatic he is.

His is a dangerous opinion. The way we have put religion on a pedestal is A WAY BIGGER DEAL THAN ANYONE TALKS ABOUT. The fact that we need to "debate" stem cell research has retarded scientific progress for ten years in this country. At the rate at which scientific knowledge increases we are literally unable to conceive of the advances lost to this asinine - would be funny if it weren't tragic- debate. A debate that we WOULD NOT HAVE if it weren't for the fact that religion somehow demands our respect.

Alzheimer's. Cancer. Aids. Who the fuck knows. Religion is KILLING PEOPLE.

This is not about gay marriage or abortion. Of course I care about those things, but they aren't the biggest problem. Not by a mile. It is not about extremism, or terrorist bombers. Although of course I hate those things to. It is about the fact that religion in this country skews the dialogue and the debate to a point where we are not able to educate our citizens, save their lives through medicine, or ask honest and necessary questions to our potential elected officials.

Sarah Palin believes that the world is going to end in her lifetime. She believes that that is a GOOD thing, she was almost in a position to make crucial decisions on nuclear weapon deployment, war, the environment. How can someone who believes that the end of the world is good make responsible decisions about any of the above.

Christine O'Donnel is a joke. But not for the right reasons. She's a joke because she believes masturbation is adultery, so what, at least she is logically consistent. Harry Reid believes that "heavenly father" lives on the DARK SIDE OF THE MOON!

I don't respect religion, I won't pretend to.

inspired by Adam - voting

2010-10-20T10:53:00.000-07:00

prop 19 - legalize pot - yes on 19

prop 20 - CA redistricting - no on 20 (see comments on Adam's blog for why)

prop 21 - State Park Fee (18 dollars to get an annual license to get into state parks, would save 200 million dollars that the gov't would reinvest in schools, etc) Yes

prop 22- state borrowing local funds - someone help me understand this better

prop 23- NO (would remove regulations to address global warming until unemployment returns to 5.5% or lower)

prop 24- YES tax fairness act - stops businesses from finding tax loopholes

Prop 25- YES (majority vote on budget) - makes it possible to make decisions on budget with a 50% majority of state legislature, rather than a 2/3rd majority

Prop 26 - NO (would make it harder, by requiring a 2/3 vote at the local level, to make polluters clean up, increase state deficit, funded by Exxon and Phillip Morris)

Prop 27 - YES (see 20)

please read this book

2010-10-20T10:27:00.000-07:00

The Moral Landscape: How Science Can Determine Human Values

It's pretty phenomenal. for serious. read it. Fucking learn something for once.

sorry. I'm just really excited about this book.

poem for Manchester striker's by Shelley

2010-10-18T19:31:00.000-07:00

Rise like lions after slumber
in unvaquishable number
Shake your chains to earth like dew
You are many they are few

Aftershock

2010-10-17T21:29:00.000-07:00

I just finished reading Robert Reich's new book. It was an OK, he's about as far to the left as you can be and still be in the establishment (or about as far to the right as you can be and still be acceptable in your economic theory).

only 4'10'', the former secretary of labor requires only 40%
of the resources of a taller or "normaller" sized man

His platform for economic recovery. Thoughts?

1) reverse income tax: Workers earning 20,000 or less annually receive a wage supplement of 15,000. This amount to decline incrementally up the income scale, i.e., if you make 30,000, you get 10,000, if you make 40,000 you get 5,000, if you earn 50,000+ you get nothing.

tax rate for those who make between 50,000-90,000 is 10%

tax rate for people who make between 90,000-160,000 20%
(this would cost 620 billion- much of which would be moved back into the economy through increased spending)

2) Carbon Tax: to detailed to repeat here, would raise 120 billion a year at 35 dollars per metric ton

3) Higher Marginal Tax Rates on the wealthy: top 1% (410,000+) pay 55%, top 2% (260,000+) pay 50%, top 5%, (160,000+) 40%, this would raise 600 billion.

4) wage insurance anyone who loses their job and takes a new job that pays less will receive 90% of the difference from the government for 2 years - extra years to be added if those workers are engaged in re-training

5) School Vouchers based on income

6) College Loans linked to subsequent earnings: graduates pay a fixed 10% interest rate on loans for first ten years of full time work into fund that finances public colleges and provides loans to students attending private colleges, after ten years, loans would be considered paid.

7) Medicare for all

8) overturning that fucked up supreme court case that lets corporations give all that money!

interview with Tom and Jon

2010-10-04T23:05:00.001-07:00

http://www.yowie.com/show/18g

money!

2010-09-27T09:48:00.000-07:00

I just found out that the company for which I am teaching Econ online, will pay me for time spent reading materials that improve my teaching!

Bah-bah-bow!

Anyways, I'm reading Robert Heilbroner's Teaching from the Worldly Philosophy.

bad idea!

2010-09-17T11:39:00.001-07:00

the pope

2010-09-17T11:33:00.000-07:00

Christopher Hitchens wrote about this in a recent article on Slate.

I know I am preaching to the choir (hah!) here, but why is it that no moves are being made to hold the Catholic Church responsible for the large sale organized rape and subsequent cover-up of children?

The Pope is going to be in the UK this week, and a number of humanists/ atheists, etc are lobbying hard for his arrest. Of course there is a 0% chance of this happening, and for any number of reasons, those in favor of the legal persecution of the pontiff have been marginalized as fringe radicals.

a new book is coming out in the US in October (already out in UK). The case of the Pope: Vatican accountability for Human Rights Abuse. It was put together by Geoffrey Robertson, a human rights lawyer in Britain.

the blurb reads

""The Case of the Pope" delivers a devastating indictment of the way the Vatican has run a secret legal system that shields paedophile priests from criminal trial around the world. Is the Pope morally or legally responsible for the negligence that has allowed so many terrible crimes to go unpunished? And, should he and his seat of power, the Holy See, continue to enjoy an immunity that places them above the law? Geoffrey Robertson QC, a distinguished human rights lawyer and judge, evinces a deep respect for the good works of Catholics and their church. But, he argues, unless Pope Benedict XVI can divest himself of the beguilements of statehood and devotion to obsolescent canon law, the Vatican will remain a serious enemy to the advance of human rights."

Wait, why do we even need to BE a country

2010-09-16T12:10:00.000-07:00

So recently I read Plain, Honest Men, a book about the constitutional convention, I have read several thousands of pages (really!) of pages on the constitution over the past two years, and I have read wildly divergent takes on its "true meaning", and on what can and should and MUST be done with it.

No one seems to question the idea that the constitution, and its subsequent ratification are good things. They may be abused, they may have flaws, but it is essentially...well, essential to our history that they were eventually agreed upon by the states .

If it hadn't been so brilliantly written (and it was brilliant, if only from a political and political-philosophy standpoint), it would not have been adopted by all the states, and today, we would most likely simply be a large conglomeration of countries.

My question is, so what? why is it necessarily so great that I have to live in the same country as people from jerk states!

If we were all different countries...would it be so bad? Would Alabama be in the third world? Would we have better rail systems and more backpackers? Would we all hate immigrants from the Dakotas?

3/5ths

2010-09-15T12:16:00.000-07:00

The 3/5ths clause is one of the most misunderstood aspects of the US constitution. It is, for those of you who do not recall, the idea, written into our founding document, that African Slaves would be counted as 3/5ths of one human being.

This is always discussed as a mark of the racism of the period, "black people were treated so poorly, that they were only worth 60 percent...." In fact, its more complicated, and maybe more racist than all that. Black slaves were not "valued"at 3/5ths, they were valued at 0. They certainly did not recieve 60% of property rights or basic liberty, they received 0% of those things.

3/5ths is only the degree to which slaves would be counted in southern states in order to determine the correct number of representatives each could send to the house.

The slave owning planter class of the south, who were certainly (by and large) more racist than the northerners at the constitutionally congress, wanted slaves counted just like everyone else - why? It would give them more votes.

Charles Cotesworth Pinckney was one of the leading spokesman of the slave-owning southerners (S. Carolina), ironically, he was 3/5ths forehead

It was the men of the north, none of whom were slave owners who did not want African slaves counted at all. The more that slaves were valued at, the more power and influence the south would have to expand the slave trade. - As I mentioned in my previous post, Thomas Jefferson would not have won the election of 1800 were it not for the extra votes apportioned to the Southern States due to the black population. -

The 3/5ths compromise is not a compromise on the true worth of a black slave, that was not on the table, it was a compromise over how to measure the property of the states in order to properly apportion the representatives sent to the House.

Tim and Eric

2010-09-15T11:07:00.000-07:00

are going on tour, pre-sale starts today. Who's in?

why is it that blogging

2010-09-15T10:58:00.000-07:00

is so hard when I have nothing to do, and becomes so easy when my schedule is packed.

Now that I'm working 40+ hours a week again, I feel like blogging all the time!

want to know

2010-09-15T10:56:00.000-07:00

basically everything about the US between 1789-1815.

Read Gordon S. Wood's Empire of Liberty.

God knows I am.

shit is authoritative son.

the supreme court and term limits

2010-09-14T23:10:00.000-07:00

Something I've been thinking about recently, is why there has never been any traction to revisit the notion of lifetime appointments for Supreme Court Judges.

This is really not any issue often discussed, but it is a tremendous problem, and has been throughout American history.

A long lived Supreme Court justice, is almost ALWAYS out of step with the rest of American Society. There have been some exceptions (Earl Warren - ironically appointed by a Conservative Republican administration being the most notably example), but take a gander at some of these I-just-wasn't-made-for-these-times judges.

John Marshall

appointed 1801 by John Adams.

The Federalist party was the first "party" in American History, Washington, Hamilton, Adams were Federalists. 1800 was the first truly brutal presidential election in the US, Adams vs Jefferson, Jefferson won (he would have lost if it were not for the extra votes apportioned to the south by the infamous 3/5ths clause - more on this later). The Federalists were basically done as a real party by the end of TJ's second term. Madison and Monroe ran basically unopposed.

But there was always John Marshall, he was on the bench until 1835...THIRTY FIVE years after the last member of his party was elected to national office outside of New England.

The specifics of his cases are not the exciting, but he made a career out of ruining the days of Jefferson, Madison, Monroe, Quincy Adams, and Andrew Jackson - none of whom were members of his party.

By the time of his death, there was not a single congressman identifying as a Federalist.

Roger Taney (avenue)

my street is named after this scumbag.

nominated by Jackson in 1835 (the year of Marshall's death), He was on the court until his death, during the Civil War (1864). He was the deciding vote on the Fugitive Slave Law - wherein (to paraphrase Jon Stewart), Dred Scott fought in court for years to gain his freedom, finally, his hard work was rewarded when it was decided that he was A - still a slave, and B - not a person, but a piece of property to be bought and sold.

Melville Fuller

appointed by Grover Cleveland. 30 years later, he declared INCOME TAXES UNCONSTITUTIONAL!

William Rehnquist

appointed by Reagan. opposed gay marriage, wanted to overturn Roe V Wade, and so on.

These are not random examples. They are the four longest tenured Chief Justices, in descending order of length (and convenient chronological order).

They were all older than Chief Justice John Roberts was when he was appointed.

He fucking crazy are that guy's anti-gay wingnut positions going to seem in 2030?

hah

2010-09-09T14:06:00.001-07:00

Brett Gelman is Zoe Saldana for Calvin Klein - watch more funny videos

Jon wurster retweet

2010-08-13T09:26:00.001-07:00

jonwurster

The city just denied me a permit for a drumming contest for local youth. Sorry to announce there will be no Teenage Beat-Off this fall.

the pod f tompkast

2010-07-31T21:41:00.001-07:00

pft's podcast. launched tonight.

download it.

action movie lines

2010-07-30T11:00:00.000-07:00

Just blow up a Russian/German/vaguely Middle Eastern bad guy? Don't know what to say?

I think it's a fine idea for everyone to have a reserve of snappy action film witticisms prepared in advance.

For example. If you ever have to shoot a pop star, you could say, "your next single's gonna be number one...with a bullet".

The Long Ships

2010-07-29T22:25:00.000-07:00

I don't know if I am really ever ready to write about this yet. The Long Ships was written (but not published in 1939) by Norweigen writer Frans G. Bengtsson

He refused to publish in his own language as long as Germany occupied Norway.

Ultimately, it is one of the greatest adventure stories of all time, a classic three part Viking Epic, a modernist work that manages to tell the stories of Orm Ortesson with such a slight contemporary tough that a quick reading would leave the reader feeling that they had simply read a non-stop page turning, brilliantly written epics.

Further examination shows a subtle modern touch, commentaries on the essential lunacies of all dogma (particularly religious), biting humor, and a defiant statement on the essential freedom that the author refused to give up, in the face of Extraordinary pressure on the part of the Nazi controlled Norwegiens.

Sarah Silverman's book

2010-07-29T22:24:00.000-07:00

was funnier, more endearing, and better written than I had expected.

Worth an hour in Borders.

oh my god oh my god

2010-07-28T20:09:00.001-07:00

I talked to Rachel Maddow tonight. Many of you know this, because I called you or texted you. But basically, she was so awesome, we shook hands, she was great, and our waitress said she was an "amazing tipper".

Inception

2010-07-26T23:14:00.000-07:00

let's get the inception conversation started....whenever you're ready in the comment section!

incriminating photo!

2010-07-25T00:51:00.000-07:00

plane thoughts/ plain thoughts

2010-07-25T00:47:00.000-07:00

I'm on a plane. I can't complain.

All I can drink.

I'm reading a book called the long ships. It's a viking epic written in 1941. It's one of the most entertaining things I've read in a long time, and I really can't recommend it highly enough, particularly to Chris, and then...maybe Sterling.

It's awesome.

I have a row to myself. But I still cants sleeps.

The new Real World is just the best. Knight? C'mon for a second with how much I like that guy already!

J.S. season 2 premiers on Thursday - Wi and Anno - too much to ask for you to wait a few days to watch the first eppy with me? c u sune!!!!

Thanks the for the ride Julie!

Look at the size of this fucking stingray

2010-07-22T00:01:00.001-07:00

David Wain's show

2010-07-20T15:04:00.001-07:00

how have I never heard of this. He has like 30 of them

2010-07-19T14:31:00.001-07:00

Conan

2010-07-17T23:40:00.000-07:00

Tonight, my buddy Kyle and I saw Conan live in conversation with Patton Oswalt and Andy Richter.

it really was one of the best things I've ever seen live.

They spoke for over 3 hours.

Conan talked about the monorail episode of the Simpsons for 25 minutes.

Andy was hilarious.

Conan did a very funny Jay Leno impression.

They got really, really (charmingly) drunk. Really.

retweet (Patton Oswalt) pattonoswalt

Leaving Andalu Restaurant -- heading for the Herbst. @conanobrien and @andy_richter are seriously hammered. about 4 hours ago

this just popped up on facebook

2010-07-17T10:26:00.001-07:00

this song

2010-07-12T18:27:00.000-07:00

is way crazy if you listen to it as a dramatic confession about sleeping with his daughter

plus it's the best song ever

boy this is funny

2010-07-12T17:58:00.000-07:00

argentina and brazil

2010-07-03T09:23:00.000-07:00

across the street from out apartment in Buenos Aires

these are our apt in BA

this is the street are apartment was on

the club

2010-06-25T22:54:00.000-07:00

alie and I went to the club tonight with our cousin Kiko. The whole scene is a little...off, sort of like a key school dance, but with, yknow, plastic surgery and indescrimante machete violence.

It was Michael Jackson tribute night, which is rad, the DJs main ``move`` was playing 1.5 minutes of michael jackson songs, muting the volume during the chorus and making 300 brazilians shout ``rock with you``.

Sao Paulo

2010-06-25T14:11:00.000-07:00

There are 18 million people here. We are staying on the 25th floor of a giant building in our cousins apartment. She has views of the city, and it basically looks like of Manhattan was 25 times larger than it is. Its sort of hallucinatory and futuristic in that in seems to never end, and a polluted haze rests over everything.

In spite of that, I like the city, it feels very distinctly south american, in that their are giant ferns everywhere and things that look like asparagus but inside have wierd banana goop.

Last night we had dinner with 15 cousins.

on translating

2010-06-23T06:01:00.000-07:00

I was reading an essay by Borges the other day, and he was talking about different translations of the Odyssey. It was really interesting, because he was saying there are basically two ways to translate, being true to the language, or being true to the spirit of the text.

By this I mean, when someone...I dunno, let's say Homer (whether or not that's true), wrote them Odyssey, he did not intend (obviously)for the text to sound antiquated and "classic", he meant for it to be exciting and new.

Some translators think that the truest way to translate something is to (without verging on parody), making it sound contemporary.

I don't know how I feel about that at all, but I think it's reasonably interesting.

la boca

2010-06-22T15:30:00.000-07:00

futbol

2010-06-22T15:29:00.001-07:00

Watched argentina beat Greece

everyone in the bar got free drinks

I've been enjoying

2010-06-22T15:26:00.001-07:00

translating childish jokes into pidgin Spanish

for example (por ejemplo)

Q: Puedo Hacer el Bano?
A: No Se. Puedes?

Feliz Dia Padre

2010-06-20T15:08:00.000-07:00

places I went today:

San Telmo

Recoleta

things I ate today

Jose Saramago

2010-06-20T15:06:00.000-07:00

was the world's greatest living writer until yesterday.

1922-2010

argentina

2010-06-19T21:56:00.000-07:00

we flew overnight to buenos aires. Business class. These are the seats. They are beds. It was crazy. My dad and I played episodes of 30 rock that we started at the exact same moment so we could laugh at the same time and drank several glass of complimentary port.

I saw the andes.

We are staying in Palermo. its fantastic (let's live here). this google picture is 40 feet or so from our apartment

we had coffee at cafe tortoni this morning, where Borges and Lorca used to meet every day.

We saw all kinds of famous government buildings (Junta free for 27 years!)

there are no stop signs. Literally. None. not a single one. How do people know how to stop, you might be asking. They don't. its terrifying. But really, this isn't some skewed take on how fast people drive in buenos aires. They literally don't have stop signs.

back to blogging

2010-06-16T11:09:00.001-07:00

I was pretty busy for the last 6 months or so. Now it's summer vacation, and I'll be blogging more.

I'm going here today:

Tomorrow I'm going here:

why I don't like that podcast that we all used to like

2010-06-16T09:54:00.000-07:00

I've thought about it a lot, did we all just grow up a little bit at the same time? Did listening to the best show just redefine what I want out of a radio/podcast so much that we all left it behind?

I went back recently and listened to some old episodes, ones in the 40's and 50's, and I liked them a ton. I think what really happened is that the eponymous host really DID become a boring [too-pleased with himself] public radio guy, just like he said on the phone to tom scharpling 3 years ago.

I think that really started to struck me when I saw that he interviewed Jim Lehrer, and then today, seeing his Hanson interview. I loved his show because he interviewed basically my favorite comedians and musicians every week. Ugh.

I know what your thinking, am I talking about recently retired Texas Public Radio David Martin Davies!

Now, instead of continuing this thread, lets talk about this boring fucking pig until our ears bleed.

RIP

2010-06-13T20:36:00.001-07:00

Richard Dunn 1935-2010

I don't give a RIP!

2010-06-13T10:19:00.000-07:00

RZA retweet

2010-06-09T14:04:00.001-07:00

RZAWU

You know the Wu is coming to England this summer, right? http://ht.ly/1Wmqd I hope the Queen is ready for the swarm!!

Liquid Swords 2

2010-06-03T11:31:00.000-07:00

RZA just announced on his twitter that he and the GZA are in the studio working on Liquid Swords 2.

Baby President

2010-05-28T21:29:00.000-07:00

http://babypresident.tumblr.com/

Brian and Ngoc had a baby today!

I was the first non-parent/ medical person to see her (I walked ahead of Julie)

She is super cute.

I held her.

Her name is Pascale.

lost (no spoilers unless you click through)

2010-05-23T23:55:00.001-07:00

spoiler alert!

see comments

hilarious

2010-05-22T17:29:00.001-07:00

Dio

2010-05-17T08:10:00.000-07:00

you have songs of wildebeasts and angels
you have soared on the wings of a demon

I passed

2010-05-05T17:21:00.000-07:00

my 85+ page paper that was the biggest part of my teaching program.

whew. I'm celebrating my sweating out this fever!

sort of book review: Lenin: State and Revolution

2010-05-05T16:07:00.001-07:00

note: the caption reads "comrade Lenin sweeps the filth from the earth"

I started reading this because I want to try and develop my thoughts on revolutionary violence. I had never just sat down and read Lenin prior to this, only bits and pieces, official statements, speeches, quotations and the like.

What troubles me the most about this book is the idea (so pervasive, and so damaging in the twentieth) century, that there is a correct, and an incorrect or somehow perverted reading of Marx.

Certainly it is valuable to examine Marx and Engels texts and to try to determine exactly how they would have responded to certain situations, or to try to decide exactly how they felt about certain ideas. But I have little interest in the notion that someone's understanding of the world is incorrect BECAUSE it diverges from what Marx was really trying to say. This sort of doctrinairism was the reason for (or at least the excuse behind), a massive number of deaths, and a massive amount of human suffering during the 20th century.

If somehow is ipso facto incorrect because they're interpretation of an event or phenomenon differs from Marx's, then the greatest social commentator of the 1900's is rendered an absurdity and his texts eventually (if not already) an anachronism, no different from other, more easily mock-able texts.

If Marx is viewed as having absolutely authority in the realm of political science, philosophy, or economics, then anyone who disproves one tenet of Marxism, has thrown doubt on the entire body of work, perhaps more dangerously, anyone who diverges in any way from Marx may feel that the rest of the system must be thrown out with the proverbial bathwater.

I have no interest in being right because I agree with someone, I am interested in being right because the facts dictate that I am right. Following Marx to the letter, ridiculing and exiling anyone who diverges in any respect, demotes his system to the level of religious faith.

sometime, teaching econ

2010-05-04T17:47:00.000-07:00

can be really rad.

On thursday, I'm teaching a lesson in econ about immigration in arizona.

We're watching clips from Rachel Maddow and the Daily Show, and the Simpsons season 7 episode "Much Apu about nothing"

Then we are reading two articles about the economics of immigration

then they have the option of either writing a quick write on their own thoughts on the law for me, or writing a protest letter to the governor of Arizona

Rousseau

2010-04-28T23:02:00.003-07:00

This was a very well written biography in its ability to illuminate the psychology of the subject, I did find it someone lacking in that it had relatively little to say about Rousseau's politics or philosophy.

When reading biographies, it becomes difficult not to, in some sense, root for the subject. You become so connected to the life of an individual, that you begin to root for them, even if you would ordinarily be entirely opposed to their goals or ideas. This was not the case with Rousseau. I found J.J. to be impossible to like. Consumed by paranoia and self-indulgent bitterness, he alienated almost everyone in his life, including many of the leading thinkers of the period (Hume, Diderot, and Voltaire included).

My relationship with Rousseau's system is unique (for me) in that I am largely sympathetic to many of his conclusions, but not at all to his process. I have the opposite relationship to many thinkers (particularly of this period), in that I appreciate their methods, or their system, but disagree with their ultimate conclusions.

In some ways, Rousseau's philosophy can be seen as a skewed sort of proto-Marxism. He exhibited a strongly negative reaction to Modernity (even beginning the social contract by writing, "everywhere, man is in chains..." a line echoed a century later in the Manifesto), but rather than view Modernity/ Capitalism as an essential step on the way to ultimate progress, he saw it is the original betrayal, forever alienating man from his natural state. He (like Marx) felt that European religion was a tool to keep the people confused and complacent, but rather than desiring the eradication of superstitious fate, desired a pared down, spiritual interpretation of reality, believing himself to be more Christian than the Christians.

While I was aware of Rousseau's (at the time) radical pedagogical theories, I as unaware of the powerful impact he had on the development of psychology. In the confessions, he was the first memoirist to ascribe any importance to early childhood development.

Rousseau

2010-04-28T23:02:00.001-07:00

paul f

2010-04-21T18:24:00.000-07:00

Used Used Car Lot starring Paul F. Tompkins from The Midnight Show

snookie snookie I got hookie

2010-04-21T18:01:00.000-07:00

Jersey Shore

Snooki Dumped Me in a Voicemail, Says Boyfriend

April 21, 2010

On Monday, he Tweeted that he was back on the market and now, Emilio Masella, the Gold’s Gym trainer who began dating Nicole “Snooki” Polizzi in January, is speaking out about his breakup with the Jersey Shore star.

“I told Nicole I tried out for Real World and she was upset,” Masella tells PEOPLE. “She thought I was using her to get on the show which is ridiculous.” An argument ensued, and at 6:30 a.m. on Sunday, he received a voicemail from his angry girlfriend saying, “You’re nothing. You’re single.”

Masella was confused and tried to call her back, but she hung up on him. What he didn’t expect were the allegations of infidelity — “I’d never cheat on her–I love her,” he says — and the rumors that Snooki hooked up with her costar Mike “the Situation” Sorrentino on Monday.

“I talked to her yesterday and I was like, ‘You know I’d never cheat on you; I’d never do something so low,’” he says. “She said she hadn’t hooked up with anybody [either] — but she freakin’ lied to me. She put out there that I cheated, which is ridiculous, and now the tables have turned. It sucks.”

Reps for the Jersey Shore star have not return calls for comment.

Masella is equally confused by his ex’s anger toward his Real World audition — as he assumed she’d be supportive. “I never asked her for anything,” he says. “She’s the one that pulled me into the spotlight, bringing me to all these places. It seems like she’s starting to get jealous.”

Masella adds that Polizzi was also worried that he was hanging out with girls — but he claims 80 percent of his friends are female.

“I talked to her yesterday afternoon and I fought with her,” he says. “I [told her] she has no reason to be mad — and she hung up on me. I told her, ‘You can’t expect me to stay home and never go out if you’re gone for two months.’”

“But I’m not a scumbag,” he says. “She said, ‘If you want to have fun, bye,’ and she hung up. She’s being very jealous and spiteful.”

After hearing the rumors of the hook-up with The Situation, Masella tried calling her Wednesday morning, but Snooki was sleeping. “I don’t know if she [broke up with me] on purpose so she could hook up with Mike,” he says. “I knew [her time on set] was going to be crazy, but I didn’t think it was going to be this crazy.”

Though he doesn’t have confirmation of the hook-up, Masella believes that it happened. “I trusted her and I trusted all the kids in the house too — I was friends with them too,” he says. “I thought they’d have more respect for me than that.”

So is there a chance for reconciliation?

“Only time will tell,” Masella says. “But I don’t care who you are — I’m not going to let a girl step all over me and cheat on me.” –Lesley Messer

short book review

2010-04-14T17:08:00.000-07:00

The Red Flag: A history of Communism

I imagine (in part because it was published in 2009) that this is one of the more complete surveys of the communist movement available, in that in covers a lot of territory. It is not particularly challenging, which is useful for someone hoping to gain a sort of "101" understanding of certain movements (for example, I knew very little about Pol Pot and about certain 1970's and 1980's African communist movements). However, it does not go intro great depth, and I found it almost useless when covering topics that I was more familiar with (French Revolution, Marx, USSR). It also has very little to say about theory.

I would recommend this to anyone who is looking to become more fluent in the history of communist movements, or to gain a more thorough understanding of the role of communism in particular times and places. For someone with a reasonably developed understanding of the topic, this book is a fine reference, but the reader may grow weary.

finished

2010-04-12T12:18:00.000-07:00

Today I finished a 91 page paper that I had to write over the last week to finish up my teaching credential. It's 14 parts, and includes 34 pages of supplemental materials and lesson plans.

Writing it was awful.

Now I'm on Spring Break.

dj pauly d

2010-04-12T12:17:00.000-07:00

Dawkins on the pope

2010-04-12T09:16:00.001-07:00

No, Pope Ratzinger should not resign. He should remain in charge of the whole rotten edifice - the whole profiteering, woman-fearing, guilt-gorging, truth-hating, child-raping institution - while it tumbles, amid a stench of incense and a rain of tourist-kitsch sacred hearts and preposterously crowned virgins, about his ears.

CUBA!

2010-04-01T23:37:00.000-07:00

So I'm watching the documentary 638 ways to kill Castro with my World History Class.

My favorite part so far:

One of Fidel's spurned lovers was sent to his room by the CIA to put poison pills in his water. He caught her in the act and said, "I know you've come to kill me", he handed her a loaded gun, sat down on his bed, lit a cigar and demanded that she shoot him.

She pointed the gun at him for a few seconds, broke down in tears and said, "oh Fidel, I cannot kill you"

He took a puff on his cigar, laughed and said, "of course you can't kill me, NO ONE CAN!"

VIVA!

CUBA LIBRE!

CDR

2010-03-31T21:33:00.001-07:00

Comedy Death-Ray: The Comic Book (taken from some comedy blog)

Big news from this year’s Comic-Con! From Variety:

American Original has assembled a lineup of established comics to produce the graphic novel series “Comedy Death Ray.”

Bob Odenkirk, Sarah Silverman, Patton Oswalt, B.J. Novak, David Cross, Janeane Garofalo, Paul Scheer and Zach Galifianakis are among some of the first to contribute to the anthology, for which each comedian will create a comicbook.

The goal is to see individual books in the “Comedy Death Ray” series, shepherded by Scott Aukerman, generate spinoffs for TV or film that would be produced by American Original.

today at school

2010-03-26T21:47:00.000-07:00

the librarian told me that the staff and administration agree that I'm the best student teacher they've been running the program at the high school (15 years). That made me feel super awesome.

Lost

2010-03-16T23:04:00.001-07:00

sucked tonight.

Next week's episode is about Richard.

if it doesn't blow me away.

I'm just going to lose it.

I've never been this angry

2010-03-05T11:03:00.000-08:00

Creators of 'Lost' say they won't tie up all those loose ends

By Lisa de Moraes

Washington Post Staff Writer
Tuesday, March 2, 2010

Many of the questions posed during the run of "Lost" that have been keeping you up at night are never going to be answered on the show but will instead be tossed on the compost heap like an old turnip, because, the writers say, they have run out of time.

And if you're expecting they will nonetheless come through with some kind of post-finale TV special, online chat, tweet -- anything! -- to answer their rabid fans' lingering head-scratchers, you need to think again. They have no intention of discussing the show after the finale airs on May 23, co-creators Damon Lindelof and Carlton Cuse blithely informed nearly 2,000 "Lost" fans attending the annual TV festival of the Paley Center for Media (formerly Museum of Television and Radio, formerly Museum of Broadcasting) in Beverly Hills, Calif.

the office

2010-03-05T10:56:00.001-08:00

hey!

remember when this used to be a fucking comedy?

Jesus Christ. Like most of you, I realize the office has been going steadily downhill since probably...season 3. But last night's episode must be the worst one I've ever seen.

2010-02-21T11:14:00.001-08:00

duh headlines

2010-02-19T11:20:00.000-08:00

SEAN PENN TO BE CHARGED WITH BATTERY

(doy - so is my computer!)

that's what she said

2010-02-16T20:01:00.001-08:00

That's What She Said from Megan Mullally

sometimes grading papers

2010-02-11T14:43:00.001-08:00

can be very frustrating.

The Spanish Civil War, was not in fact, a war between italy and Germany.

living longer?

2010-02-06T12:42:00.001-08:00

So this should be a comment, but I'm a couple days behind on the blogs and thought that it might get buried if I posted it now. My question is on the link posted by Whannt is Coffie that suggests that vegans and vegetarians live 6-10 years longer.

My question is, beyond the obvious issues with a diet heavy in red meat, is this a statistic with any value? I have no doubt that vegetarians live longer than meat eaters, I also have no doubt that vegetarians have better health care, get higher salaries, have more advanced degrees, have fewer drug addictions, get shot less, etc. see what I'm saying? are there any studies with controlled variables on this at all?

rad story

2010-02-04T08:48:00.000-08:00

former first baseman Vic Power was black, and played in the '50s and '60s. One time in the early fifties, he was in Kansas City at a restaurant, and was approached by the manager.

The manager said, "I'm sorry, but you have to leave, we don't serve black people"

Power said, "well that's good, cause I don't eat black people, now go get me a burger motherfucker".

Jerri Blank

2010-02-03T22:46:00.001-08:00

I cried because I had no shoes

and then I met a man who had no feet

and I laughed and laughed and laughed

careful Dan

2010-02-03T13:15:00.000-08:00

A San Francisco man claims he was high on a double dose of medical marijuana cookies when he screamed, dropped his pants and attacked crew members on a cross-country flight, forcing its diversion to Pittsburgh, the FBI said Wednesday.

Kinman Chan, 30, was charged in a criminal complaint with interfering with the duties of a flight attendant on allegations that he fought with crew members of US Airways Flight 1447 from Philadelphia to Los Angeles on Sunday. His federal public defender, Jay Finkelstein, declined to comment.

hey

2010-02-02T23:17:00.002-08:00

the new

2010-02-02T23:17:00.001-08:00

sound of young america interview is with...

my man...

Aubrey Plaza

2010-02-02T00:05:00.001-08:00

doing a pretty funny sarah silverman impression

Adam Green - Minor Love

2010-01-30T13:58:00.000-08:00

I haven't stopped listening to this since i got it 3 days ago. Get it.

Jersey Shore has been renewed

2010-01-30T11:15:00.000-08:00

"the cast may be removed from the cold northeast and taken to a warmer destination"

mr president addressing republican retreat

2010-01-29T19:16:00.001-08:00

its an hour, but its worth watching if you've got the time

Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

this looks so good- Funny or Die HBO Show

2010-01-28T17:06:00.001-08:00

undefined

a thing that I hate

2010-01-26T19:10:00.000-08:00

I hate it when people say that 'blank' happened to them, but 'they turned out all right'. No, they probably didn't. Everyone who isn't in prison or a desperate drug addict pretty much turns out "all right"...right? Or maybe everyone is fucked, I just find it irritating when people say that they turned out all right, as though the alternative would be for them to be curled up in a ball, excreting fluids and weeping.

jury duty

2010-01-25T17:55:00.000-08:00

Phew.

So I got out of jury duty, but I was pretty seriously stressed out about it, because when we arrived we were told that the trial would be lasting through mid-march. I got released because of "personal hardship" –- if I had to miss 23 school days I wouldn't get a teaching credential.

So all in all, it was pretty good. I can't get called in again for another year, I got to read 87 pages of A.J.P Taylor's origins of the second world war, and watched a neat-o instructional video on why we should be excited to get called in for Jury Duty.

Also, Pauly Shore -

george bernard shaw

2010-01-25T12:06:00.000-08:00

on cultural elitism,

"What we want is not music for the people, but bread for the people, rest for the people, immunity from robbery and scorn for the people, hope for them, enjoyment, equal respect and consideration, life and aspiration. When we get that I imagine the people will make tolerable music for themselves"

I have this today

2010-01-25T10:46:00.000-08:00