Good evening ladies and gentlemen, welcome to SDA Late Nite Radio. Tonight, for your delectation and pursuant to our Friday night old-time radio crime-detective show, here is the Crimson Riddle episode of Calling All Cars (1936, MP3, 6.3 MB, 27:27), brought to you by the Rio Grande oil company.
Deception, Fraud, & Corruption: should that be enough to indict Wall Street? Sure; but it’s worse: it’s actual Stupidity. What do you get when you pay big bux to people who are actually stupid? You get what you deserve, oh fool who has ignored caveat emptor secus emptor culpa.
What am I talking about? Well, I don’t usually sully the SDA Late Nite Radio shows with politics (Vitruvius’s Experimental Election Predictor excepted), but on occasion when slogging through the mud-fields of the Interwebothique prospecting for nuggets of wisdom one finds a true gem.
And so, in keeping with our Friday night crime theme, here is, in my opinion, a most insightful essay into the never-ending bevy of charlatans and shysters against which honest, productive, responsible people must always be on guard:
From Portfolio Magazine, here is Michael Lewis’s essay: The End.
My favourite line in the essay is: Outside it was gorgeous, the blue sky reaching down through the tall buildings and warming the soul. Yes, I understand, it is the single most contrapuntal line in the essay. Why do you think I picked it?
Your Reader Tips are, as always, welcome in the comments.
Pelosibile YouTube video – pull starting the “Big” Three.
Warning: Smokey and noisy.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rrIH8oE1hzA
Excellent article. Well worth the read.
I couldn’t help but laugh just a little. A news headline on Foxnews states that Hillary accepting the position of Secretary of State would “leave big shoes to fill in the Senate”. I agree but would add that she would leave even bigger ankles to fill than shoes. I know, I’m a bit of a turd for saying it but the truth is the truth.
An oldie but a goodie: “Burying the lede”
“If the Chronicle is truly unbiased in its coverage (which I doubt rather strongly: I know several Chronicle staffers, and have been in the Chronicle offices, and I can say that there is — as there is at most major newspapers — an overall left-wing/”progressive” atmosphere at the paper), and if it wants to increase readership, then it should take a close look at how it frames and reports on certain issues. Whitewashing potential controversies, or lazily presenting unchallenged the narrative of people or groups it is covering, only leads to a bland paper and a bored readership.”
http://www.zombietime.com/sf_rally_september_24_2005/anatomy_of_a_photograph
Is it just me who finds it an upside down world to see Nancy Pelosi [correctly] chastising the Big 3 Automakers whereas the Bush Administration is condemning her and The Congress for not giving them the $25 Billion?!?
More on the derivative mess.
This bill, by the way, was 11,000 pages long, was never debated by Congress and was signed into law by President Clinton a week after it was passed. It lies at the root of America’s failure to regulate the debt derivatives that are now threatening the global economy.
Please forgive me for possibly being late to the party, but I’m wondering about the Weather Underground and it’s name. Since it appears that the latest worldwide “scare” is about weather (our favourite, recently absent media panic Global Warmi…err, Climate Change), might the decades-old, never-came-true, media-driven hysteriafests come from just one source?
Up too late:
Under normal circumstances, success has a thousand fathers and failure is an orphan; in the world of intelligence gathering, nothing could be further from the truth. Weiss worked down the hall from me [Safire] in the Nixon administration. In early 1974, he wrote a report on Soviet advances in technology through purchasing and copying that led the beleaguered president — detente notwithstanding — to place restrictions on the export of computers and software to the USSR. The CIA mounted a counter-intelligence operation that transferred modified hardware and software designs over to the Soviets. They instigated an operation of disinformation and faulty technology transfer. The most famous incident was the sabotage of the new trans-Siberian pipeline, which delivered natural gas from the Urengoi gas fields in Siberia into the West. The Soviets needed sophisticated control systems to automate the operation of the pipeline’s valves, compressors, and storage facilities. As the United States was unwilling to provide the necessary technical infrastructure to operate the pipeline, a KGB operative was sent to infiltrate a Canadian software supplier in an attempt to steal the needed software. The CIA was tipped off by Farewell and informed the Canadians about the attempted theft. The U.S. then delivered doctored software through Canadian software firms into Russian hands. This software, designed to run the pumps, turbines, and valves, was a logic bomb programmed to malfunction after a period of smooth running. The malfunction would reset the pump speeds and valve settings to produce pressures that were far beyond those acceptable to the pipeline joints, and welds. [4] The result, in the summer of 1982, was the greatest non-nuclear explosion ever seen from space. There were no casualties of the pipeline explosion, but it has been argued that significant damage was made to the Soviet economy. In time, the Soviets came to realize that they had been stealing faulty technology, but this only exacerbated the situation. As they did not know which technology was sound and which was doctored, all became suspect.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Farewell_Dossier
Will there ever be a movie?
“Party’s over at CBC, says network chief”
http://www.ottawasun.com/News/National/2008/11/21/7493551.html
Red Orympic Fraud with the MSM as a co-frauder.
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“Lay of the Olympic land: 1020 communities, 106 days Globe and Mail
Torch lights up Canada Toronto Sun”
expect mass emigration of 51% of the population
http://www.forbes.com/2008/11/11/best-countries-women-lead-cx_mk_1112gender.html
can they send margarate atwood ahead?
Sarah Palin’s ‘Great Turkey Massacre” won’t die. What do these leftards think, their Thanksgiving turkey dinner was originally a cucumber? Tim Blair’s roundup:
“Palin had “no worries” over being filmed at the tragic turkey massacre site. Even worse – bloodlusting bird-hater Palin admits she’ll actually cook a turkey for Thanksgiving. Among MSNBC’s captions:”
• TURKEYS DIE AS GOVERNOR PALIN TAKES QUESTIONS FROM MEDIA
• GOV. SARAH KEEPS TALKING WHILE TURKEYS GET SLAUGHTERED BEHIND HER
• GOV. PALIN APPARENTLY OBLIVIOUS TO TURKEY CARNAGE OVER HER SHOULDER
What did they expect her to do? Intervene?
blogs.news.com.au/dailytelegraph/timblair/index.php/dailytelegraph/comments/as_bad_as_it_gets/
Bring on the coming civil war.
“About 88% of Americans eat turkey on Thanksgiving, according to the National Turkey Federation, with an estimated 46 million birds cooked for the holiday last year.”
Pass the gravy and blame it on Palin. Retards.
Re: the global economic meltdown. Gee, I hope my 1 share in Mountain Equipment Co-op doesn’t crash. There goes my $5.
Who’s going to be in the big zeros cabinet? Well, just look who’s helping to round them up (from mother jones):
“Sarah Sewall is leading the transition’s national security team. She works at the Carr Center for Human Rights Policy at the John F. Kennedy School of Government. And one of her specialties is the ethics of fighting terrorism. Just think about that for a moment. The ethics of fighting terrorism?”
With regard to the article, vitruvius, about Wall Street as outlined by Lewis (Liar’s Poker), isn’t this a description of the ah, contrapuntal relation that is a basis of both natural and social reality, i.e., the ‘dance’ between the virtual and actual realities.
The virtual is the realm of the hypothetical, the potential. The actual is, well, hard factual reality located in time and space.
And there’s the exchange between the individual and the collective, yet another harmony, as exemplified in the individual CEO passing off losses by settin up a corporation.
What happens when the counterpoint of exchanges loses the exchange, when actual reality is no longer heard or above all, experienced, by the virtual world? The polyphonic world, which we necessarily live in, crashes.
We are seeing similar crashes in the global economic structure, which is having to restructure its ‘musical composition’ to enable other ‘individual voices’, particularly from China and India, to compose and participate in the song-of-the global planet.
My point is only that both realms, the virtual and the actual, the individual and the collective, are necessary. We, and that’s physical, biological and human realities, cannot live in only one side of these binary realms; we have to balance both. The crookedness or rather implosion emerges when the counterpoint is silenced.
The Queens University retard brigade is getting even more bold. No longer just pc conversation enablers, but now declaring without nuance:
(from The Globe and Mail):
Students at Queen’s University who sprinkle their dialogue with an assortment of “homo” or “retarded” could find out the hard way that not everyone finds their remarks acceptable.
The Kingston university has hired student facilitators to step in when they overhear homophobic slurs, remarks bashing women or racially tinged insults, along with an array of other language that could be deemed offensive.
“If people are having a conversation with offensive content and they’re doing it loud enough for a third person to hear it … it’s not private,” said Jason Laker, dean of student affairs at Queen’s.
The initiative, believed to be the first of its kind in Canada, is part of a broader program begun at the school this fall to foster diversity and encourage students to think about their beliefs.
irwin daisy – ahh, now Queen’s is moving into the era of hidden conversations, of furtive glances over the shoulder in case Big Brother is watching. The fascist/communist systems have taken over at Queen’s.
By the way, there are two interesting opinion pieces at the National Post today, The Bush Legacy: the Five Best Things Bush did by Guelzo and the Five Worst by McElvaine.
The Guelzo piece is very good, including the Iraq War, where he states that Al Qaeda feeds on failed states, eg, the Taliban takeover of the carcass of Afghanistan, and that Iraq was moving into that via Hussein. I disagree that Al Qaeda is only about moving into failed states, for this doesn’t analyze the reasons for the existence of fascism, aka Al Qaeda. After all, Al Qaeda is energized by the tribalism of oil-rich states such as Saudi Arabia and Iran.
Then, he also credits Bush with the courage to use the term of ‘evil’ and to recognize that evil actually exists in the world. I fully agree. And with recognizing that faith plays a huge role in the lives of people – while still acknowledging the separation of church and state.
And, ‘blunting the metastasis of abortion’, i.e., the expansion of the ‘myth’ and danger of any assumptions of the right of total control over life. And, with rejecting court activism by his judicial appointments of judges who upheld the constitution rather than ‘wrote’ legislation.
The McElvaine critique is, as expected, against the Iraq War, with an incredigly weak argument that this War turned the global opinion against the US (since when are state actions about popularity?); declared that America is now less secure as a result of Iraq (now, that’s a stretch of opinion!); declared that he trashed the economy and also, the constitution, and finally, changed Hurrican Katrina from a natural disaster compounded by internal gubnatorial and mayoral incompetence…into ‘the Gulf Coast War’ and blamed all problems ..on Bush.
Sheesh – and this second author is actually an historian. Oh well.
Quite an interesting set of opposites. I refrain from links because I sometimes get sent to sit in the corner (aka Forest Gump land) for them.
The Big Fat Obese State: Our Enemy, The State.
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“Parents of Obese Children Charged with Abuse in Britain
In early November a six-year-old boy from Derby was taken into care by social workers for being overweight. This is the first time that obesity has been listed by social workers as one of the reasons for taking a child away from its family. But behind the scenes more and more families are targeted by social services. Last month it was reported that seven obese children have been put into care and that obesity was a factor in at least 20 child protection cases last year.
In recent years public officials and child protection experts have taken upon themselves to police the weight of youngsters. Many of them take the view that parents who allow their children to become overweight or obese are actually guilty of child abuse.
Back in February 2007, when two men in Cambridgeshire were convicted of causing unnecessary suffering by allowing their dog to become obese, child protection entrepreneurs responded by inviting the state to react the same way to abusive parents…”
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2136554/posts
Jimmy Kimmel on how to make fun of Obama. He interviews blacks at a local barber shop:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6LqxEhC9EEg&eurl=http://jewishodysseus.blogspot.com/2008/11/poking-fun-at-obommunism.html
irwin – what’s the purpose of making fun of Obama, other than the always necessary action of never, ever, allowing a leader to be viewed as a saviour/messiah.
I think that it’s an important historical step in the great history of the US, that it can elect a black president. This affirms the intent of the Declaration and Constitution of the US.
I hope that this will enable people like the Rev. Wright and his followers to move out of playing the very lucrative role of Perpetual Victim.
As for his policies, we’ll have to ‘wait and see’. He seems to be focused on domestic policy and stability and within a centre rather than left focus, which he can do thanks to Bush’s ensurance of foreign stability by the American driving of Islamic fascism back into the Middle East.
And certainly, it’s now time to attend to the domestic situation. So, we’ll see.
Socialist “Elders” and socialist Mugabe: Tickle me Robert.
What are comrades for?
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“Zimbabwe refuses Annan group visa
Former UN head Kofi Annan and the former US president Jimmy Carter have cancelled a planned trip to Zimbabwe.
They said the government had not granted them visas, making their two-day visit, with Nelson Mandela’s wife Graca Machel, impossible.
The three international figures are part of a group called the Elders, set up to tackle world conflicts.”
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/in_depth/7743351.stm
“New life for huge Life photo collection on Google
Suddenly one of the great photography troves in history is available online, free, and even ready for your download and manipulation.
The Life magazine photos archive went up this week, hosted by Google (images. google.com/hosted/life), chronicling the 20th Century in a breathtaking series of frozen moments.
To Joe the Computer Surfer, this means you can download not only Alfred Eisenstaedt’s glorious Marilyn Monroe-in-black turtleneck image that ran in the magazine, but also the other frames he shot that day.
You can download images of the (last) Great Depression to your computer and, if you disagree with the original cropping, frame them in your own way and use them to illustrate your school report. You can print them up—the resolution is good enough for 8-by-10 prints—and decorate your house with, as Life President Andrew Blau says, “world history seen through American eyes.””
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2136535/posts
ET,
It’s the nature of comedy. Somebody has to be the brunt of the joke. The problem that Obama presents is, how do you send him up without being called a racist?. Check the video out. It’s not only funny, it’s insightful.
I do agree with you on the problem black people (am I allowed to say that?) now face in playing the perpetual victim card.
Posted by irwin daisy re the thought police at Queen’s:
“‘If people are having a conversation with offensive content and they’re doing it loud enough for a third person to hear it … it’s not private,’ said Jason Laker, dean of student affairs at Queen’s.
“The initiative, believed to be the first of its kind in Canada, is part of a broader program begun at the school this fall to foster diversity and encourage students to think about their beliefs.”
I suspect that far from “foster[ing] diversity” this initiative is going to foster people going around talking in whispers. In other words, it’s going to foster furtiveness.
And, then, what will the thought police do? Will they go up to the whispering conversationalists and demand that they “SPEAK UP” so they can hear if what they’re saying is “offensive”?
As far as students “thinking about their beliefs”: What if they think about their beliefs and decide that they’re sticking with them? ‘Sounds like “thinking about one’s beliefs” is supposed to change them if they’re not pc.
These draconian tactics to police students’ thoughts and speech are absolutely preposterous. Queen’s students should be strenuously protesting. If I was a Queen’s alumna, I’d be screaming bloody murder.
Where Were You 45Yrs Ago Today?
I was in public school when an annoucement came over the classroom speakers that school was being suspended for the day & students were to go home.
I arrived home in 5min(we were only a block from the school)to find my mother staring at the TV our one & only channel(ch8 Wingham,On)reporting a Shot in Dallas.
Where Were You 45Yrs Ago Today?
I was in public school when an annoucement came over the classroom speakers that school was being suspended for the day & students were to go home.
I arrived home in 5min(we were only a block from the school)to find my mother staring at the TV our one & only channel(ch8 Wingham,On)reporting a Shot in Dallas.
Yes, bryanr, 45 years ago today both John Fitzgerald Kennedy, aka JFK, and Clive Staples Lewis, aka C.S. Lewis, died, JFK of an assassin’s bullet and C.S. Lewis of natural causes (and a broken heart).
I was in my grade nine Geography class. I can still remember the announcement over the PA about the shooting and our being told that school was over for the day. It was a Friday afternoon. All the kids with transistor radios rushed to their lockers and began hearing all of the conflicting news coming out of Dallas, saying that Texas Governor John Connelly was also dead.
We were all glued to our TV sets, in black and white, that weekend. ‘Not a dry eye in the house.
batb
You think about it today & that was a scary time since we had just gotten over the cuban crises, still in a cold war. Many parents & children that were old enough were scared of what may happen next.
I was only 8 at the time but can remember that day as the same thing in my house my mother crying & dad thinking about another war.
They always say that you remember where you were when a major event in history happens EG: 9/11, man on the moon & some even Elvis Dying.
Besides like i said 1 & only channel(not sure we could have had 2, we started recieving ckco in kitchener around that time too)
And that was all that was on 24hrs a day at that time, so it was burned into the mind.
“Mohamed Sifaoui: ‘Islamism is Fascism’
Mohamed Sifaoui was born on July 4, 1967, and spent most of his childhood in Algeria. He holds a master’s degree in political science and studied theology for two years at the University of Algiers and for two additional years at Zeitouna University’s Institute of Theology in Tunis. In 1994, he began work for the Algerian daily Le Soir and survived a February 11, 1996 bomb attack at Le Soir’s headquarters at the Maison de la Presse. In 1999, the French government granted him political asylum after he received death threats both from Algerian Islamists and the military. In Paris, Sifaoui works at the French weekly Marianne. Between October 2002 and January 2003, he infiltrated an Al-Qaeda cell in France in order to research his book, Mes frères assassins: Comment j’ai infiltré une cellule d’Al-Qaïda. (My assassin brothers: How I infiltrated an Al-Qaeda cell).[1]
Sophie Fernandez Debellemanière, a former intern at Le Figaro and The Weekly Standard, interviewed Sifaoui in Paris on September 12, 2007, after meeting him at a 9-11 ceremony on the Champ de Mars.
In Islamism’s Cross Hairs
Middle East Quarterly: Did you flee Algeria because of the terrorist attack on Le Soir?
Mohamed Sifaoui: No. Throughout the 1990s, I was determined to stay. I only left in 1999 when I was sentenced to one year in jail for insulting the head of state. I had criticized President Abdelaziz Bouteflika’s reconciliation policy because I considered it unfair to grant amnesty to a terrorist without even judging him. The Algerian government talked about peace without ever recognizing there was a war. The terrorists suddenly got themselves released with the same rights as the victims’ families. Bouteflika’s behavior towards his people was criminal. They wanted to send me to jail at the same time they were releasing criminals.
MEQ: You stayed longer than most. Were people right to leave Algeria?
Sifaoui: The intellectuals and journalists who left Algeria when the murders started in 1992 were right to do so because the risk was real. Survival instinct is natural and legitimate. It would be indecent to judge them because fear is a legitimate human feeling. In this sense, I was the one being unreasonable by risking my life to stay.
MEQ: Why did you stay in Algeria?
Sifaoui: I didn’t want to leave the country under pressure, because of the possibility of another terrorist attack. Nor do I believe that I was especially brave to stay. It is not a question of being brave or weak. The only thing that matters is the message and the values that you want to transmit. As a journalist, I felt that I had to stay. We never obtained press freedom in Algeria, but I wanted to struggle to get a small part of it. We made some progress, but then, Islamism took us backward. By staying, I wanted to show that I would not accept submission to Islamist censorship and its diktat.
MEQ: Are you still worried? After all, two bodyguards are supervising this interview.”
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2136620/posts
The whole Queens University business may be a gift.
Young people are naturally rebellious and chafe at parental type authority. What better time to form counterculture clubs for subversive behavior. Forget about boring high brow organizations emphasizing freedom and liberty. Go low and raunchy – A Campus Knuckledragger Society. A place where kids can be unabashedly politically incorrect and ruthlessly mock PC policies.
Convicted Child Killer Paroled To Regina Halfway House
Killed 5 Year Old Girl in ’80s
Story Tools
ShareThisReported By Brendan Wagner
Posted November 5, 2008 – 5:19pm
A Regina halfway house will soon be home to a convicted child killer.
Harold David Smeltzer will spend the next six months at the halfway house after being granted day parole.
The National Parole Board’s Arti Jolly says Smeltzer told the board that he is imposing restrictions on himself, because he feels a great deal of pressure from the public not to re-offend.
Smeltzer was not given overnight residency, so he will have to report back at a certain time each evening- and if he fails to do so, would be considered unlawfully at large.
Smeltzer was convicted in 1981 of the murder of five-year-old Kimberley Thompson in Calgary.
It was January of 1980 when the then-24-year-old Smeltzer kidnapped the child as she made her way to kindergarten.
Police say she was drowned and stuffed in a garbage can.
http://www.newstalk650.com/story/20081105/8185
The fecking lunatics now really ARE in charge of the asylum!
“The EPA didn’t neglect planes and trains either, down to rules for how aircraft can taxi on the runway. Guidelines are proposed for boat design such as hulls and propellers. “Innovative strategies for reducing hull friction include coatings with textures similar to marine animals,” the authors chirp. They also suggest “crew education campaigns” on energy use at sea. Fishermen will love their eco-sensitivity training.”
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB121642309337666613.html
lynnh: “A Campus Knuckledragger Society. A place where kids can be unabashedly politically incorrect and ruthlessly mock PC policies.”
LOL!!! I really like that idea.
Like you say, bryanr, where we were on November 22, 1963 and 9/11 is seared in our memories. They’re like DVDs playing in our heads, in very vivid detail.
It would be a riot. A place were readings from The Onion or the People’s Cube start every meeting, mandatory smoking spaces, coffee collected by peasants exploited by heartless capitalists in an unsustainable manner and only non-vegetarian food allowed. Other must-have’s would be deer antlers and bear skin rugs. Of course $$ signs would have to be the official club symbol. heh.
Yes Vit, that was an excellent analysis on Wall Street problems.
It very much reminded me of a Time article on Japan’s economic meltdown in the 1990s.
‘(Japanese) Businesses started using this bubble of inflated stock and real estate values as collateral to raise capital for expansion.
.. The bubble began to deflate, and the Tokyo Stock Exchange went into a 2 yr swoon that has not yet ended (as of March 1992); it is currently down 47% from the peak of 38915. Real estate prices fell by as much as 30% in Tokyo and 40% in Osaka.
‘It’s fortunate that we could deflate the bubble’, says Yamazaki (senior director of the Export-Import Bank of Japan). ‘IT WAS NOT HEALTHY THAT PEOPLE EARNED SO MUCH WITHOUT REAL WORK’.”
(that’s my caps)
Ironically some new reports say that Wall Street executives have taken over $21 billion in salary and bonuses in the last 5 yrs.
Mostly by paper shuffling and not much real work?
BTW, an interesting observation from the Daily Reckoning pointed out that a Japanese investor who bought stocks in 1982 when he was 35 yrs old would now be 61 yrs old.
And his investment is not worth one penny more than it was in 1982.
Something to think about when people compare the present US meltdown to the 1990s Japanese one, eh.
“Australians urged to follow NZ lead on ETS review
The Carbon Sense Coalition today called on the Queensland Government to follow the lead of New Zealand and initiate a complete review of the science and the cost-benefits of the proposals to levy a new tax on coal and petrol usage.
“All over the world, three factors are triggering a revolt against the lemming-like rush led by the Anglo-Saxons to commit carbon suicide via emissions trading schemes,” said Viv Forbes, Chairman of the Carbon Sense Coalition.
“Firstly, the science behind the scaremongering forecasts from IPCC computer models has been shown to be deficient by a growing band of independent scientists.
“Secondly, the globe itself is sending a warning as daily reports of unseasonal frosts, snow and ice make a mockery of the global warming hysteria. We certainly have climate change, but it is natural global cooling, not man-made global warming.
“Thirdly, the world financial collapse has forced alert politicians to focus on the immediate concerns of voters – real jobs, and the security of supply for food and power.
“The revolt against new carbon rationing and taxes affecting New Zealand now encompasses much of the world including India, China, Indonesia, Brazil, Poland, Italy, Germany and the whole Ex-Soviet bloc. There is naturally no support for carbon rationing from the OPEC world, and falling support from Canada. There is also scant chance that the US Congress and Senate will embrace any expensive new Kyoto pact.
“Soon the only true believers will be the blinkered political and Green zealots in UK and Australia, with cynical support from nuclear-powered France.
“Queensland has more to lose from carbon taxes and rationing than any other place in the world. And there has been no unbiased assessment of the costs and benefits of such moves. Any government honestly representing the real long term interests of the carbon capital will lead the push to review where we are headed, why and at what cost?” Mr Forbes concluded.”
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2136325/posts
http://www.cbc.ca/canada/story/2008/11/21/cbc-reports.html
CBC: Sounds like Liberals; entitled to their entitlements
Liberals in the Church are no less deluded than there political comrades, nor do they take defeat well. Just like the prop 8 folks who where against it. Seems they like the Obama way of politics as well.
http://touchstonemag.com/archives/article.php?id=21-09-043-r