Saturday, August 30, 2008

Flagrant Fascism Fronts RNC Convention

Instead of waiting for scenes of peaceful protesters being outnumbered and surrounded by riot control police, or being sprayed with a pepper spray cannon that looks like a fire extinguisher, or being callously shoved to the ground as was the case in Denver, the police in the greater Minneapolis/St. Paul area have been proactive in suppressing potential problems. Instead, they have staged a series of raids on houses and meeting places of potential protesters, and confiscated computers and written materials. Of those arrested so far, the only charge that has been brought forth is a constitutionally questionable charges of "conspiracy to incite a riot." The St. Paul police spokesman Tom Walsh said that the cause for the search warrants that police were executing is not public at this time. Also targeted in the raids were journalists from other parts of the country in the area to cover the protests.

The group targeted, the RNC Welcoming Committee, which describes itself as "anarchist/anti-authoritarian," was described by Ramsey County Sheriff Bob Fletcher as "a criminal enterprise made up of 35 self-described anarchists...intent on committing criminal acts before and during the Republican National Convention."

For a bit of editorializing, the police are engaged in an active campaign to block freedoms of speech and assembly, which form the cornerstone of representative democracy is unabashedly loathesome. The fact that only a handful of those detained have been arrested is a clear indication that the authorities in Ramsey County are limiting their actions to those which rest in the ambiguous grey margins of the law, as evidenced by use of the 'conspiracy to commit riot' charges.

Friday, August 29, 2008

The Friday Bacon


Monday, August 25, 2008

Casual Observations

In my short time here in the great People's Republic of China, I have made one simple, yet probably overlooked, observation. In the U.S. before I left, every commercial outlet, ranging from department stores to shopping malls were offering deep discounts in an effort to support continued consumer spending. Here in Tianjin, the story is the same. Every outlet, regardless of place on the scale of value, is offering similar discounts. While this may just be a simple coincidence, it is at least anecdotal evidence of further economic problems if consumers are unwilling to assume their historic and necessary economic function. I would post a photo, but Google Images isn't cooperating here.

This, of course, is besides the worries of the larger financial institutions here in the PRC about Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac's balance sheet problems.

Saturday, August 23, 2008

Tazer Follow Up


That guy that was tazered on his own couch by the cops that broke into his apartment and continued to tazer him after he identified himself, ya he just got a settlement of $100,000. Too bad that after paying his lawyer and the taxes on that shit he will only see $40,000.


The important thing to remember is the cost of justice. The officers that did this will not face justice for their actions but the taxpayers of this burrow will be the ones that have to pay for the actions of the persons that they have stuffed into uniform. This is why every individual in the community should care about the quality of the police officers on their streets.

Friday, August 22, 2008

Thursday, August 21, 2008

The Security Situation

For those of you dealing with apologists for the foolish security measures of the Bush administration here are two direct examples of why innocent people do have something to fear from draconian security measures such as those that have already been enacted. Not only were these people not doing anything wrong, two of them fought to defend our freedoms.

Wednesday, August 20, 2008

Free The West Memphis Three


This article doesn't really offer anything new other than dates for the new hearings. I admire the press for holding interest even with the gag order which prevents the attorneys from speaking with the media. But I find my distaste for them increased by their repeating that the three were accused of being satanist. This is untrue and merely sensationalizes the story and promotes ignorance.

Sunday, August 17, 2008

Cleveland Ohio: Terrible American City, Or The Worst American City?


Remember five years ago when there was a massive blackout that left over 50,000 people in the North East United States without power for three days? There was the widespread fear that it was the result of another terrorist attack in the wake of 9/11. Afterward there was some news coverage about our vulnerable electric infrastructure and that this accident should never have gotten to this scale. That was all quickly forgotten and last week there was a power outage at the same electrical substation that caused the massive blackout right on the five year anniversary. The public response to the outage by the company was terse and full of self admiration. It was also devoid of any reference to the massive outage of five years ago and it appears the the MSM has failed the public again by refusing to ask any pointed questions.

Friday, August 15, 2008

The Friday Bacon


You probably have already seen this. Top bacon researchers have confirmed the six degrees of Kevin Bacon.

Friday, August 08, 2008

The Friday Bacon


Thursday, August 07, 2008

PETA


The important thing to remember is that PETA kills animals.

Cleveland Ohio: Terrible American City or the Worst American City


It seems like Forbes has its finger on the pulse of reality through just a few simple statistics. They looked at population change and some simple economics and come to the simple realization that there are city's that people are moving away from for good reasons. The mayor of Canton got all upset by his city being identified as one of those facing a rapid death. Its an attitude that I have encountered in Cleveland frequently. The residents of this terrible city have constructed their lives to avoid the worst parts of town and allow themselves to believe that it isn't that bad and act upset or surprised when they are told how awful the city is. As long as people are not only willing to accept how bad things are and get so upset when they are told how bad it really is, nothing will improve. Its like trying to convince an alcoholic friend they have a problem.

Tuesday, August 05, 2008

Terrorism

Earlier this week I was thinking about the racism that is frequently concealed within anti-terrorism rhetoric. Particularly among Fox pundits. People are so willing to forget that Timothy McVeigh bombed the federal building in Oklahoma City, and the Anthrax scare was perpetrated by a white American. Then I came across this story which recounts that the Bush administration tried to get the FBI to ignore the whole investigation thing and blame it on al Quaeda. You know, because they care about security. The images are mostly things i have come across on the Internet related to 9/11 and making light of the situation. The one with the Muppet's was a joint creative venture between Th'Dave and APPhilosophy.









Saturday, August 02, 2008

Wally World


That's what they used to call Wal-Mart where I grew up. I worked for Wal-Mart for two years in various departments so I know first hand about their anti-union practices, among other things. When I was first hired I was taken into the HR office where I was shown some orientation videos. These were poorly written propaganda where the opinion the company wished you to have was told to you with the not so subtle undertone that your job depended on not openly disagreeing. Mostly these videos cheered how great the founder was and how powerful and efficient the company is. Next they claimed that the dead-end job you were hired into was a golden ticket to the high life as long as you keep your head down and keep your mouth shut.
The most inelegant of the propaganda videos was the anti-union video. It laid out Wal-Mart's corporate line on unions: unions will lie to you, you will pay huge dues and loose all your company benefits, unions don't help workers they are just out to run national political campaigns that are against your best interest. Even as a kid the threat wasn't lost on me. Wal-Mart was saying directly to each new hire, if you try to unionize we will take away the meager benefits we have graciously seen fit to give you. Any idiot could see that the benefits were terrible, dead peasant insurance and health care that only the management could afford. Wal-Mart is so anti union that they even closed a store where the employees voted to unionize in order to prevent the unions from getting a foot hold in the company.
The Wall Street Journal recently ran an article detailing how Wal-Mart warned its employees against voting Democratic this fall while matching that with a renewed parroting of the company line against unions. The funny thing is that these speeches are probably the first thing most of these employees heard about the Free Choice Act. From my experience working at Wal-Mart the people there aren't particularly political and would have to be pretty fed up with working there to even be considering the union option enough to know about the Free Choice Act. I know its the first I have heard of it and extra publicity for the act is probably the last thing Wal-Mart wanted. What can you expect from a company that has such an unrefined propaganda machine?

It is repeated many places on the log cabin so I wont go into much detail here but it is important to recount what is bad about Wal-Mart. The low prices at Wal-Mart aren't from some magic that Sam Walton pulled out of his ass. Lowering prices to out perform your competition is an old tactic. the problem with it is that you cant do that forever unless you have some way of making your cost go down. Two ways Wal-Mart saves cost(lowers overhead) is by getting lower prices from manufacturers and reducing labor costs. They cut prices from manufacturers first by buying in huge volume, Wal-Mart is the largest retailer in the world and has the power to negotiate(dictate) their own prices from their suppliers. The problem with this is that the suppliers and manufacturers have their own costs to cover and in order to lower prices they have to close factories in the U.S. and send them overseas. Master lock is one brand this happened to, Wal-Mart also drove the entire television manufacturing industry overseas. This is one way Wal-Mart destroys American jobs and lowers the wage of the American worker. Wal-Mart keeps its labor costs low by paying a wage that is below the poverty level (a living wage in the U.S. is over $11/hour) and offering few benefits and pricing the benefits they do offer out of the reach of their average employees. Then they force the American taxpayer to subsidize their employees by referring them to state and federal well fare programs. Think that over, you are subsidizing Wal-Marts low prices and their astronomical profits with your taxes, whether or not you shop there. At about 4:30 into the video it gives you numbers on this.





When I first started working at Wal-Mart management at the store I worked at would wait till someone punched out at the end of their shift and then tell them to clean up a department before they left. At least they weren't locking us in overnight. There was an audit by the government and that practice stopped only to be followed by a tricky hiring practice. The manager didn't hire any full time employees. That alone saved on lunches since an eight hour employee gets two fifteen minute breaks and a half hour for lunch while a four hour employee gets only one fifteen minute break. It also saved on benefits since only full time employees were eligible for them. These new employees were all hired for the lowest paying job in the store and then trained for the jobs that got paid twenty five cents per hour more. That's a small dick in the ass of each employee but twenty five cents an hour for fifty employees over a an eighteen hour business day seven days a week adds up to over $80,000 in labor cost savings a year.

So Wal-Mart comes to town playing its game of dirty pool, drives local businesses out of business, and forces self sufficient former entrepreneurs to work for poverty wages while taking dollars out of the local economy and sending them to their corporate offices in Arkansas and overseas. That's why when people suggest I shop at Wal-Mart I say, "Sorry, I love America too much."


The Friday Bacon







There are always good bacon images on Fark. I don't know if I should be mixing humorous bacon satire products with images of real delicious bacon food.

Friday, August 01, 2008

He Fell Thirty Feet And Broke His Back! Quick Taze Him For His Own Good! Nineteen Times

The headline here is basically the whole story. The most darkly humorous part of the story is the way the cops change their story when pressed and claim that the psychologically traumatized kid with the broken back was threatening them. But really they tazed him for his own good. You know, to keep him from hurting himself. Or is it even more tragically laughable that the effects of the electrocution delayed the boy's surgery by two days?