May 12, 2013

Floral Tribute Paid to Statues of Kim Il Sung, Kim Jong Il

1. Delegations of different countries and regions Sunday visited the statues of President Kim Il Sung and leader Kim Jong Il on Mansu Hill. The delegations came here to participate in the 16th Pyongyang Spring International Trade Fair.
They laid a floral basket before the statues of the peerlessly great men who made immortal contributions to developing the friendly relations among countries before paying tribute to them.

2. Rodong Sinmun Warns against Japanese Society’s Lurch to Right

The Japanese reactionaries should awaken from the nightmare of realizing their ambition for overseas expansion, clearly mindful that their society’s lurch to the Right would lead Japan to ruin, warns Rodong Sinmun Sunday in a bylined article.
The Japanese ruling quarters are putting a group visit to Yasukuni Shrine on an official and regular basis and justifying it, the article says, and goes on:
Nearly 70 years have passed since Japan sustained a defeat in the war. Politicians of Japan are, however, thronging to the shrine to console the departed soul of the top-class war criminals and pray for “the soul of Yamato”. This is nothing but a wriggling of a venomous serpent of militarism keen to militarize Japan and avenge its defeat in the war. It is not without reason that Japanese society is rapidly veering to the Right. Steeped in the idea of denying history to the marrow of their bones, Japanese politicians are making confusion of people’s thinking in a sly method to attain their sinister political aim.

For more on the evil deeds of the West, go to www. watching politics.com and see the many headlines and links on the left side of the page.

Now, at last, we can go to bed. The Bad Guy is in the custody of even worse guys and we, the public, are delighted. We can call off the media drudges who thrill maniacally to each day’s dull pursuit of a minor criminal. Yes, the media drudges who do their best to promote hysteria.

The nation came close to saying freedom of movement is as nothing compared to the danger of a lunatic on the loose. We were inches away from accepting authoritarian martial law as national policy. Few were the complaints about the Boston lockdown. It was, in the minds of the dullards, worth it. A killer was on the loose. Blah, blah, blah. I was chastened in my home as a ridiculous cynic for my disgust with the media. TV pundits and gurus had confiscated all the major channels for what they thought was best and proper. Too hell with my preference for lamebrain situation comedies. You’ll watch what we tell you to watch and you’ll love it…from the safety of your living room. Don’t you dare go outside! And when those helmeted post-apocalyptic creatures with menacing batons knock on your door demanding to enter without search warrants you will be obedient. Otherwise they will bash your brains out. And don’t expect that to get any TV coverage. You were so glad the forces of law and order were on the job 24 hours per day.

Would it not have been better to try for as much normalcy as possible? Did TV, FBI and local governments have to make hysteria their byword? Well, of course, they did. Ours is a nation of lambs and sheep that needs to be watched over. First madness,then normalcy. Without the first, you can’t appreciate the second.

For the third time I revisit the great Budapest Open Access Initiative (BOAI) of 2001. The signatories to the Initiative wrote, By “open access” to this literature, we mean its free availability on the public internet, permitting any users to read, download, copy, distribute, print, search, or link to the full texts of these articles, crawl them for indexing, pass them as data to software, or use them for any other lawful purpose, without financial, legal, or technical barriers other than those inseparable from gaining access to the internet itself. The only constraint on reproduction and distribution, and the only role for copyright in this domain, should be to give authors control over the integrity of their work and the right to be properly acknowledged and cited.

A great beginning that went haywire in its end. I reject the need to acknowledge and cite my sources. So long as the person who uses the material of others
a. does not profit commercially from his “plagiarism”
b. does not interfere with the promotion of the original sources or inhibit them in any way
c. does not misrepresent the viewpoint of those sources and intends them no harm
d. is too small an operation relative to those from whom he borrows to have serious impact on the world
e. is greatly inconvenienced by the need to gain clearance for his use of “purloined” material or is, in his opinion, overcharged for its use

then he may take what he wishes and even, if it serves his vanity, represent the work as his own. Vanity and its revelation are minor character defects. Copyright and patents are evils and we need not respect them even when we may be forced to bow down before them under threat of great harm coming to us for defying them.

Very shortly after the 9/11 attack on the Twin Towers, aggressive comedians started to tell jokes about what had just happened. Their detractors groaned and and objected: “Too soon, too soon.” But was it too soon? Did we have to have a period of healing? I’m on the side of the comedians. It is never too soon. Nothing is better proof to the enemy of our so-called resilience than that we meet them so quickly and that we can stun them with our tough-minded responses.

Resilience can be shown in lots of ways. In my own feeble way it is via my strong objection to the saccharine sweetness of the Kenyan’s reassurance that we will get the evils-doers, make no mistake about that. In the meanwhile, he solemnly declared, our thoughts and prayers go out to the victims and their families.

HOGWASH! Sickening hogwash. The word “will” can mean “resolve” or it can be used as a prediction. The president is either ignorant of the difference or chose to run roughshod over it. At best, he could have meant “We are resolved as a people to catch the freaks who blasted away at the Boston Marathon.” He did not have the guts to say that. No, indeed, he preferred “We WILL get the bad guys,” in the strongest sense of the term “will.” I coulld tolerate this standard obfuscation by the president had he not tagged on “…our prayers go out to all….” MINE DON’T. Millions of others join me. We don’t pray to a false SKYKING. We think that does more harm than good. Right or wrong, we deserve not to be ignored. When he is not mawkishly on parade, the president likes to proclaim there is plenty of room in a democracy for pluralistic values that include atheism. Every previous president was equally hypocritical. They are all false dogs.

The post-blast parade of VIPs straining to show they are the VIPS assaulted our intelligence and patience. Amazing to me is that Charles Schumer, the senator most passionate about being included in every photo shoot, was not there. Even he, for once, knew when to back off. A ton of others took their turns at the microphones to invoke God’s goodness. Other senators, other senators’ ex-sisters-in-law’s cousins, governors, et al, took a shot at the camera. Or course, forewarned is forearmed , so you can bet those cousins informed their ex-sisters-in-law that they were scheduled to have their three minutes of fame at whatever time they did manage to grab.

This is precisely the moment for good comedians to step in, and I hope they do. Gilbert Gottfried — where are you?

[I can plagiarize titles all I want. I don't usually give credit where credit is due but, for the benefit of the nosey, the above is by the master of wit, Noel Coward. Anyway, I changed "about" to "at," and that makes it all mine, Mine, I say, MINE!]

Tiger Woods is coming in for more than his fair share of criticism lately because he didn’t disqualify himself for something he did over the weekend in a golf tournament (whose name I refuse to give you out of spite). Actually, his fair share of criticism is zero, as it was for his multiple acts of adultery. So far as I can see, and I see better than an eagle, only his wife was entitled to go on a rampage against him. The rest of us can think what we want without the stupendous chutzpah of going public.

Here is the right view of the matter: Who gives a flickendoodle whether Woods was naughty? Who gives a flapendoodle over Lance Armstrong’s many indiscretions? What’s it to you that Barry Bond’s needle is not sharp enough to help him elude the OUCH factor? Who was so stupid in 1920 as to be mad that Shoeless Joe Jackson wasn’t smart enough to respond to the little boy’s “Say it ain’t so, Joe”? with a “What’s it to you, you little schmuck kid?”

Be a sports fan if you want but deep emotional involvement in games is a sign that you haven’t grown up. Worse is that you encourage the capitalist swine to take advantage of you and millions of others. Nothing feeds the sports machine more than idolatry. If you think worshipping God is crazy, consider worship of Lebron James. If you got caught up in March Madness basketball then you are a certifiable lunatic and you deserve a laminated plaque that attests to that. If you agonize over whether James and other low-IQ billionaires of that ilk deserve to be billionaires then you contribute to the manna that falls from the sky into their wallets. Dan Moynihan coined the expression “benign neglect” several decades ago and if ever we need to practice it, it is now and forever more.

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Jessica (and the script writer) converts this homosexual song to a hetero but she’s good…and better looking than Noel Coward.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QCWKzqfZr60

For over 10,000 years, the American flying public has complained, and rightly so, about the ridiculous regulations thrust upon it by the TSA. Now, in an absurd turnaround, the public is screaming for protection. The TSA wants to make it legal for travelers to take tiny knives aboard airplanes. These allowable-sized knives are so small that if somebody stuck one in your eye, you would hardly notice. Still, as one standardly gorgeous “newscaster” asked her guest, “Don’t we need protection against terrorists? What if a dozen or more terrorists came aboard a plane wielding these knives? What, then?” The guest had a good answer but didn’t make use of it: “You are a low grade prick.” Instead he took the question on in a most sober tone and gave a most solemn sort of answer. I guess he was a prick, too.

Over at the Vatican, some woman-hating, abortion-opposing racist was sworn in as the new Papa of Roman Catholicism. The crowd below the balcony at the Catholic compound cheered wildly, probably because they were beginning to starve to death while waiting for the thrilling announcement to find out WHO’S on first. The crowd settled to learn WHAT’S HIS NAME was on third and “I Don’t Give A Damn” was in the batter’s box. Lou Costello, one of the great foul shooters in New Jersey high school history did not attend. Hey, I’m not making that one up. It’s good to get in a bit of reality when one is chasing after religionists.

Jorge Mario Bergoglio was born in Buenos Aires, so he is pure Spic despite the fact that his parents were Dago immigrants. With a background like that, he is a threat to your wallet. Be wary of his granting you an audience. He trained the Rome gypsies. Don’t worry about that, ladies, you will be dead from a failed illegal abortion long before his Wholeiness gets his perverted fingers inside you.

Encouraged as you are by the state of American stupidity, you don’t mind bragging about it or, at least fessing up to it. Unfortunately, Pew Research Center did a survey in which, per usual, embarrassed people lied their heads off making wild claims concerning how much they knew. The consequence is this: YOU ARE MUCH MORE STUPID THAN YOU ARE PREPARED TO ADMIT. The statistics you are about to read may be described like this: BALONEY. To get a more accurate picture of what Americans know just reduce their acquaintanceship with the people they were asked about by three-quarters in most cases. Then even if you place yourself well ahead of that godawful group called Americans, just stop bragging. Admit you are dumb or, at least, uninformed.

Pct (that means “percentage, Dummy!) of people who could identify…

Star of David as something to do with Judaism – 87%. Real pct (as determined by Sidney Gendin, Master Statistican, 22%. To make it easier for people, four symbols were shown to them: Cross, Crescent and Star, Om, Star of David.
Photo of John Boehner – 73%. Real pct 15-18%.
U.S. map highlighting the states Obama won in 2012. [Uh, duh. Won what in 2012? A lottery? 75%. Real pct 5%.
Euro currency symbol - 69% [!!!] Hey, does anybody out there need a worn but still solid bridge, circa 1883? Real pct 2%.
Flag of China – 57%. Real pct between 5 and 15%.
Photo of Eric Holder – 55%. Real pct 10-15%.
Syria highlighted on a map of the MidEast – 50%. Gendin’s correction – pct of people who can find the Mideast on a map 20%.

Soundest conclusion of all: Time for PEW to get out of the survey business.

On its masthead, the NY Times brags, ALL THE NEWS THAT IS FIT TO PRINT. On www.watchingpolitics.com, the editor [that's me!] has an alternative boast, ONLY THE NEWS THAT’S FIT TO PRINT.

You are faced with a terrible dilemma, but Phædrus, because of his training in logic, was aware that every dilemma affords not two but three classic refutations, and he also knew of a few that weren’t so classic… He could take the left horn …. Or, he could take the right horn…. Or he could go between the horns and deny that (there are only two choices).

The Times, to be safe, tells us that some Notre Dame footballer had a nonexistent girlfriend who died (or didn’t) last October, that Beyonce may have lip-synched the Star Spangled Banner, and Lance Armstrong’s bicycle made an unseemly number of revolutions in Lance’s days as a Tour de France champion. Watchingpolitics pretends to a more well-mannered exclusiveness in its front page braggadocio but the careful reader takes note of the fact that Mr. Gendin, B.A., M.A., Ph.D., frequenter of Belmont Avenue pushcarts, Professor Emeritus in philosophy of law at some university not worth giving free publicity to, and graduate of P.S. 175, P.S. 66, and some high school about one mile to the east of 66, furtively provides links to about 1500 newspapers around the world. Que lastima! Worthy of Una furtive lagrima.

In less simple terms, Gendin is a phony freak. [Of course this will not surprise anyone who once prowled the streets of Brownsville.] He is actually more inclusive in his coverage than the NY Times. This is nothing of which to boast. What to do? Nothing, I suppose. He must take his lumps as a man and soldier on.

Now the astute philosophical reader [there is only one - Dr. Theodore Drange, B.A. , M.A. Ph.D, winner of the Matchette Prize for genius in his golden undergraduate days, champion GO player, world's leading atheist drudge, and extraordinarily lousy runner] will notice that Gendin has not escaped between the horns of a dilemma. But that is for the good Doctor to explain, if he chooses.

As for Gendin, he is going downstairs to drink his morning cup of Java.

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One furtive tear – Straight from the streets of Philly, USA.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ypHcP-O_10s

Not until the intrepid David Runciman, a frequent contributor to the prestigious London Review of Brooks, who calls ‘em as he sees ‘em, exposed Lance Armstrong last year and explained the full extent of his ignominy did we appreciate how awful a human being Armstrong is. Until 1996, Mr. Armstrong was merely a very fine professional bicyclist, perhaps in the top 10% of those in his profession. However, to quote Runciman, “Armstrong got a lucky roll of the genetic dice when he contracted the testicular cancer in 1996 that nearly killed him…. Cancer changed his body shape, making him much thinner and leaner.” It was cancer, even more than the drugs he used, that turned Armstrong into the superstar of superstars. Armstrong was outed once and for all.

Hell hath no fury like a scorned American public. It is true that few persons in the American public are bicycling fans. It is true that fewer than 2% of them can name a professional bicyclist other than Armstrong and Greg LeMond. It is true that under 1% of those who line the highways to see pro bikers whiz by would pay even 50 cents to watch if they were charged. It is true that Frenchmen who watch the Tour de France and many lesser competitions would not pay 5 Swiss francs to watch. [Also about 50 cents.] Still, what does it matter? Cheaters and liars must be brought to task.

Ignore the fact that in the U.S. there are few baseball or football fans. The average American cannot name three baseball teams that have minor league status. Nor does he know what leagues those teams he has heard of are in. He does not know because he does not care. Nor does he know why he has joined a chorus of nabobs who are nay-sayers to lying and cheating. He hates Lance Armstrong but does not know who Armstrong may have harmed by cheating. [I use "harm" in the technical legal/philosophic sense to mean much more than "offend." You cannot harm a person who has no stake in a matter under investigation.]
It was Spiro Agnew who rightly called out journalists for being nabobs of negativism. He could well have included John Q. Public.

Suppose a minor league baseball player performs seeming miracles before being called up to the majors. He confesses that he has been using performance enhancing drugs. Suppose he is lying. Why does he make this confession? Police know that is not uncommon for people to confess to murder and other crimes they did not do. The psychology of this is complex and we need not explore it. In the recent case of Armstrong, if Lance is indicted for his foul deeds, the prosecutor knows that the confession would be only part of the case he must build. People do retract their confessions.

It is not inconceivable that the baseball player who confesses to using drugs is a liar. He lies because all his teammates are using drugs and he is slightly embarrassed by his extraordinary God-given talents. Many a professional athlete (Michael Jordan is a good example) denies he is gifted. Black athletes in particular are offended by the idea that it is anything but hard work that makes them the successes they are.

Much more to the point is why the public, 98% of whom are not dedicated fans, care at all about who uses drugs and who doesn’t, and why are they so outraged by liars? If we discover that Cindy Crawford, who makes a very fine living promoting some wonder cosmetic as a facial cream, is a liar and never uses the stuff, would we be maddened to the point where we wish she would die? We know she is paid handsomely for those daily TV ads about her loveliness but is that why we excuse her lies? If we discover that the minor league baseball player does not use PEDs, do we want him dead? Does it matter in which direction an athlete lies if we have no stake in the matter? Should we turn with blind fury on Lance Armstrong now that we know he got so fit and strong because he had to battle against a lethal form of cancer? Should we say, “Mr. Armstrong, why weren’t you a good sport? Why didn’t you just die?”

If using drugs is of very little interest to us, why are we crazed about Armstrong’s lies? Were we crazed when Bill Clinton said he never had sex “with that woman”? Since most of us who are not cousins of Ken Starr did not give a damn about Ms. Lewinsky’s stained dress, we did not give a damn about Clinton’s unwillingness to pay for the martinizing. He lied and we expected nothing less. Lies can exacerbate a wrong but cannot convert innocent remarks to being bad. At least, not usually. If I say that I voted for Smith to be dog-catcher but I didn’t, do you want to end our friendship? How mad is your madness?

Lance Armstrong has given millions of dollars to cancer-fighting causes. What kind of awful person does that? It is a clear-cut case of self-promotion and literally dozens of writers have called him out for that. Lance’s face does not show he is contrite. So his protests to the contrary count for nothing. Where is his genuine repentance? [Never mind that we don't know what he should repent.] He is cold and calculating, and there are no worse sins than that. He will turn his cancer battles to his advantage (which, of course, you would never do) and that is proof enough of how super-saturated with evil he is. Yes, in time, Lance will die. Good riddance. Let his good deeds be buried with him. Remember only how horrible he was. Remember how the wheels of his bicycle turned. Much too quickly.

Remember that a person as bad as Armstrong comes along once in a lifetime.

As Mr. Shelley might put it, that is all you need to know.

1. I think the tongue-in-cheek crowd is outsmarting me. Someone wrote to me to say that there is no such expression as “bits and tids” and I must have meant “Tidbits.” I am not sure cleverness is at work, however. When I was a teenager i ran a community center newsletter and my featured columnist, Don Kagan, had a column called Kagan’s Korner. Someone complained that we were misspelling “corner.” I know for a certainty that this person was not pulling my leg.

2. A couple of hours ago, some political genius, billed as a “CNN analyst” said on that network’s Ashley Cooper 360 that nobody in America disputes that cops should be allowed to carry guns. In that case, where do I live?

3. Paul Krugman, Robert Reich, and a few others with general paresis, but who retain a love for seeing their names in print, write articles every day for Reader Supported News. General paresis is a neurological form of insanity usually caused by syphilis. If that is not what is responsible for their headlong rush into print, I can’t imagine what it is due to.

4. Jacob Lew is on his way to being Secretary of Treasury. People who know the Dragon variation of the Sicilian Defense and know how it compares to the Giuocco Piano variation of the Ruy Lopez will know why it matters who gets the Treasury job. The rest of us are in the dark. However, this much we are certain of. However good Mr. Lew may be at this job, he is a Harvard insider who has had a lifetime switching intermediate level jobs just below where you and I can observe his work. We can be sure that fewer than 20,000 people can do the job as well or better than he can. Although, to say 20,000 can do the job as well, is like saying thousands can drink water as well as he can. In short, we don’t know what that means, even if we have a grudging inkling to suspect he really has some mysterious competence. Newspapers never give us a find-grained description of what a government official does each day when he arrives in is his office. We can say with certainty, that Lew’s abundant talents, whatever they are, did not have much to do with his appointment.

5. The irrepressible, internationally respected forensic psychiatrist, Erin Burnett, who doubles each evening when the moon is high as the sexpot who shoves her legs and slightly tousled hair as close to our face as she dares, told us last night that whatever the official word, mass murderers of the sort we have recently encountered are all indisputably suffering from severe mental problems. Depressing news, indeed, because I had been trained in a tradition in which I had been taught mental illness eliminates and/or reduces culpability. So I suppose Dr. Sexpot would like to cradle bad guys and hold their heads close to her crotch while she offers them soothing relief. I am sorry I haven’t killed 400 or so 5-year old children, myself. One per crotch go-round with luscious Erin. Erin has forgotten that when the big boys of forensics say of a criminal that he is sick, Sick, SICK and needs to be put in a prison hospital for a long time, that the rest of us cheer loudly but when this same crowd announces only 18 months later, the villain is cured, and they let him rush out into the world to kill more people, we go crazy with denunciations of psychiatry, calling the whole profession fraudulent. So what should we believe about forensic psychiatrists? Believe the worst, under the simple principle that being right beats being wrong.

6. A report in today’s newspapers says 80% of guns that bad guys buy are bought illegally from other bad guys. There are more guns out on the streets than there are people. Let us say, 320 million guns. That means 256 million guns are on the street for the purpose of shooting and robbing people, not for taking target practice at soda cans. To date, the only proposal the good guys have come up with is asking people to surrender their weapons. BE NICE is the motto. I expect this will work well, and over 25.6 million guns will be handed over to the police (who will love it). The other 90% will be used to kill or rob people. Any other bright plans out there? How about one that won’t cause bad guys to think, “Hey, we’re the only guys left with guns.”?

7. I am still waiting for Day One in the War Against Guns, when somebody who hates crime will say, “Of course, I hate hunting and we need to get blood-letting machines out of the hands of deer-head collectors who boast, “I always eat my kill.” Is there one loud-mouthed opponent of guns who has said that? Spare yourself a search. I’ve done it for you. the answer is “NO.”