Saturday, October 30, 2010

Voids

In US politics, voids have a way of expanding.

Wednesday, October 27, 2010

Imagine

Imagine nothing!

Tuesday, October 26, 2010

Ill Wind

An ill wind blows in circles.

Monday, October 25, 2010

The Sky

Saying the sky isn't blue doesn't make it so.

Sunday, October 24, 2010

Infidels & Heretics

The only thing worse than an infidel is a heretic.

Saturday, October 23, 2010

Challenges

Too often a challenge is ignored until it becomes too large to solve.

Sunday, October 17, 2010

Comparisons

Historical comparisons are only valid for simplistic situations.  All else is propaganda or ignorance: which is it?

Monday, October 11, 2010

Fred Says

Fred says:
[D]emocracy works best when the population consists of near-catatonic morons drifting in a dense Prozac-induced fog, preferably in drumming circles where they process their issues—boomathump, bongeddybongo. Hypnotic video games like Sergeant Hemorrhage the Avenging Splattermeister help. These keep the public from interfering in public policy. The schools produce these cretins with the profusion of breeding oysters.

Surveys show that half the public never reads a book, and probably wouldn’t recognize one. If you ask these mouth-breathing suet globules “What are the three departments of government?” they say, Uh, JC Penneys, Monkey Wards, and, well, I think, Office Depot. The whole ingenious machinery of democracy aims at keeping them calm, calm, calm, since cattle, even Elsie the Borden Moo-cow, can fall into an uproar, or perhaps climb into a downroar—these are mysterious matters—and trample their trainers.
Bloat is control.

Sunday, October 10, 2010

Waste

Waste may be squandered.

Saturday, October 09, 2010

On Voting

“It’s painful to submit to our bosses; it’s even more stupid to choose them!”
-May 1968 graffiti

Beyond Voting by Ken Knabb succinctly describes the degrees of freedom with respect to governments:
Roughly speaking we can distinguish five degrees of “government”:

(1) Unrestricted freedom
(2) Direct democracy
(3) Delegate democracy
(4) Representative democracy
(5) Overt minority dictatorship

The present society oscillates between (4) and (5), i.e. between overt minority rule and covert minority rule camouflaged by a facade of token democracy. A liberated society would eliminate (4) and (5) and would progressively reduce the need for (2) and (3). . . .
In representative democracy people abdicate their power to elected officials. The candidates’ stated policies are limited to a few vague generalities, and once they are elected there is little control over their actual decisions on hundreds of issues — apart from the feeble threat of changing one’s vote, a few years later, to some equally uncontrollable rival politician. Representatives are dependent on the wealthy for bribes and campaign contributions; they are subordinate to the owners of the mass media, who decide which issues get the publicity; and they are almost as ignorant and powerless as the general public regarding many important matters that are determined by unelected bureaucrats and independent secret agencies. Overt dictators may sometimes be overthrown, but the real rulers in “democratic” regimes, the tiny minority who own or control virtually everything, are never voted in and never voted out. Most people don’t even know who they are. . .
I've always gotten a chuckle when a politician or some some other invested interest describes the current system as the pinnacle of the possible.  Maybe for them.  For the rest of us, it isn't even close.

Saturday, October 02, 2010

Water

Something clear may still contain impurities.