Author: Matthew G. Saroff

25 Years Ago Today

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The most famous news photo of the 1980s


The long shot


A ground level shot about a minute earlier (on the left side between the two trees in the background)

The Tienanmen massacre.

That’s all been swept under the rug, and to the degree that anyone in China thinks about it, it’s in the context of a highly restrictive media environment which mischaracterizes the events of that day.

One wonders when the people who did this will be made accountable through either the justice system or via the judgement of history.

If these guys are any indication:

It won’t ever happen.

Well, at Least Someone Has Put the Fear of God into the NRA

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Following the National Rifle Association’s declaring the Texas open carry maniacs weird, said maniacs organized a mass destruction of their NRA cards, and the NRA responded by folding like a bunch of overcooked cauliflower:

The National Rifle Association is walking back its statement criticizing gun activists who carry loaded assault weapons in public as a form of protest, with the NRA’s top lobbyist apologizing and calling the statement “a mistake.”

In recent months Open Carry Texas and several other gun activist groups have made headlines for openly carrying loaded assault weapons in public and into restaurants in the Dallas area. This tactic of attempting to “normalize” open carry of rifles has spectacularly backfired, as gun violence group Moms Demand Action for Gun Sense in America has persuaded several restaurant chains where open carry rallies were staged to ask customers not to bring firearms into their businesses.

On June 2, Mother Jones reported on a statement on the NRA’s website that criticized the open carry protests as “downright weird” and suggested that the practice was “downright scary” to onlookers and “counterproductive for the gun owning community.” The Mother Jones report was widely circulated in media as it was an aberration from the NRA’s typical absolutist position on firearm issues. Open Carry Texas called the NRA’s statement “disgusting and disrespectful” and some gun activists cut up their NRA membership cards.

The NRA’s top lobbyist, Chris Cox, appeared on the NRA’s radio show Cam & Company on June 3 to repudiate the NRA’s article criticizing the open carry movement. Cox said that the statement was “a mistake” and that “it shouldn’t have happened,” adding “our job is not to criticize the lawful behavior of fellow gun owners.” Cox also blamed the statement on a “staffer” who Cox said “expressed his personal opinion.” Referencing media interest in the statement, Cox termed it a “distraction.”

I’m beginning to think that we should start having people of color showing up at NRA meetings and maybe NRA headquarters, doing open carry.

See what that does to the state of their underwear.

How Much of a F%$#tard Gun Fondler do You Have to Be to Have the NRA Call You a F%$#tard Gun Fondler?

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Well, now we know:

The nation’s staunchest defender of the Second Amendment has told gun activists in Texas who insist on carrying assault-style rifles in public places to knock it off.

In a statement issued late last week, the National Rifle Association (NRA) called out so-called “open carry” groups in Texas that have been frightening restaurant customers and motorists by approaching them while carrying AK-47s and AR-15s.

The NRA applauded Texas for a “robust gun culture,” but noted that a number of activists had “crossed the line from enthusiasm to downright foolishness.”
“Now we love AR-15s and AKs as much as anybody, and we know that these sorts of semiautomatic carbines are among the most popular, fastest selling firearms in America today,” the statement said. “Texas, independent-minded and liberty-loving place that it is, doesn’t ban the carrying of loaded long guns in public, nor does it require a permit for this activity. Yet some so-called firearm advocates seem determined to change this.”

 “[I]t is a rare sight to see someone sidle up next to you in line for lunch with a 7.62 rifle slung across his chest, much less a whole gaggle of folks descending on the same public venue with similar arms,” the NRA continued. “Let’s not mince words, not only is it rare, it’s downright weird and certainly not a practical way to go normally about your business while being prepared to defend yourself. To those who are not acquainted with the dubious practice of using public displays of firearms as a means to draw attention to oneself or one’s cause, it can be downright scary.”

(emphasis original)

Seriously, this like that classic moment in Iron Man 3, when one of the henchmen says, “”Honesty, I hate working here they are so weird!” and runs away.

Catch Phrases VI

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On spies:
It is not the story of men and women who have a better and deeper understanding of the world than we do. In fact in many cases it is the story of weirdos who have created a completely mad version of the world that they then impose on the rest of us.


*The largest shark, and likely largest predator fish ever. It died out some 1.5 million years ago. The Genus is still in dispute, between either Carcharodon (Great White) or Carcharocles (broad toothed Mako). So in jumping C. Megalodon, you have jumped the biggest shark ever.

Self-regulation stands in relation to regulation the way self-importance stands in relation to importance.

—Willem Buiter

Behind every great fortune lies a great crime.

—Honore de Balzac


See full Tom Tomorrow cartoon here.

Shanda fur die Goyim!

To quote Freddie Dalton Thompson from The Hunt for Red October:


This Business Will Get out of Control. It Will Get out of Control and We’ll Be Lucky to Live through It.

Ronald Reagan, Jr. said about Dick Cheney, “[Not] a mindful human being. That’s probably the nicest way I can put it.”

New favorite German word: Backpfeifengesicht, a face that needs to be slapped.

SEC Rule 10b-18 allowing stock buybacks adopted in 1982


 

As the saying goes, “バカにつける薬はない”.*

*Pronounced in Japanese, “baka ni tsukeru kusuri wanai”, which means, “There is no medicine for stupidity.” Apologies for any inaccuracies in the text, I do not know Japanese.

That which can be destroyed by the truth, should be.

—P.C. Hodgell

How to embed a threadreader app thread:
Start with url: https://threadreaderapp.com/thread/1305261859155505153.html

Look at the number after the thread, and paste in the number sequence into this:

<iframe allowfullscreen=”” frameborder=”0″ height=”1500″ src=”https://threadreaderapp.com/embed/##############.html”  type=”text/html” width=”340 px”></iframe>

It’s Bank Failure Friday!!!!

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And here they are, ordered, and numbered for the year so far.

  1. Slavie Federal Savings Bank, Bel Air, MD

Full FDIC list

And here are the credit union closings.  I’ve redone the whole list, because I screwed up at some point this year, and missed some credit union closings, counted assisted mergers, which I shouldn’t have, and accidntaly counted a bank twice:

  1. Bagumbayan Credit Union, Chicago, ​IL, ​1/21/2014
  2. St. Francis Campus Credit Union, ​Little Falls, ​MN, ​2/14/2014
  3. Parsons Pittsburg Credit Union, ​Parsons, ​KS, ​3/21/2014
  4. Mayfair Federal Credit Union, ​Warminster, ​PA, ​3/31/2014
  5. Health One Credit Union, ​Detroit, ​MI, ​5/16/2014
  6. Life Line Credit Union, ​Richmond, ​VA, ​5/23/2014

Full NCUA list

So, here is the graph pr0n with last few years numbers for comparison (FDIC only):

What P.Z. Meyers Said

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He wrote a post complaining about business as usual at the Democratic Party titled, “Democrats: You suck.

His experience is that, following making a small donation to a Democratic candidate for office, he has been bludgeoned into something approaching PTSD from their repeated fund raising requests:

………

……… At least I think that’s what they’re doing; I now look at the incoming source, and if it’s the Democrats, I don’t bother to pick up. And here I am, entirely sympathetic to that party (if dissatisfied with their conservatism), and I have a conditioned aversion now.

I’ve had enough. I can learn. And the moral I have learned is to never donate to the Democratic party.

Who’s the idiot behind this campaign? Is it actually working for them?

Do Republicans do the same thing to their donors, or do they just scam them with things like gold coins and quack cures?

The Koch Suckers Win in Ohio

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They just got a bill passed in Ohio ending their renewable power initiative:

As renewable energy production has surged in recent years, opponents of government policies that have helped spur its growth have pushed to roll back those incentives and mandates in state after state.

On Wednesday, they claimed their first victory, when Ohio lawmakers voted to freeze the phasing-in of power that utilities must buy from renewable energy sources.

The bill, which passed the Ohio House of Representatives, 54 to 38, was expected to be signed into law by Gov. John R. Kasich, who helped negotiate its final draft.

It stands in marked contrast to the broad consensus behind the original law in 2008, when it was approved with virtually no opposition, and comes after considerable disagreement among lawmakers, energy executives and public interest groups.

………

Eli Miller, Americans for Prosperity’s Ohio state director, backed by the billionaire industrialists David H. and Charles G. Koch, called the proposed law “a prudent step” to re-examine standards that could be a “potential impediment to job creation and job growth here in the Buckeye State.”

Seriously, the Kochs are a cancer on American society in general, and American politics in particular.

Linkage

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Have a medley of Lewis Black:

Maybe the Taxi Business Needs to be Changed, but Until Uber is Out of the Picture, It Won’t Happen

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There are a whole host of issues of regulation, liability, etc., but the Objectivist Randroids at Uber are the sort of people who should be kept out of the business, because they are corrupt to the core:

It’s been pretty widely publicized here in San Francisco that Uber has just moved into fancy new office space at 1455 Market.

………

In any case, what has attracted slightly less publicity is the fact — mentioned only in passing by Re/Code — that on the same day, Uber opened a second office, on Vermont Street in Potrero. According to Uber’s blog…

We’ve heard a lot from our Uber SF partners about wanting easier ways to reach our team including parking and streamlined access to the office. With a new dedicated driver center in Potrero Hill, we are aiming to better connect with our partners and help make getting started with Uber, attending office hours and safety education processes more seamless.

Euphemistically called a “driver center,” one Uber driver told us the second office is actually more of a decoy: allowing the company to fulfill its promise to be more accessible to drivers without, you know, actually having them make Uber’s real office look untidy.

So the way of dealing with issues with drivers, things like insurance, liability, and complaints, is to hide from them.

The way to deal with customers is price gouging, and explicitly violating the law.

The founder of Uber is big into Ayn Rand, a woman who wrote that the philosophy of a serial killer who strangled and dismembered a little girl, was an inspiration to her.

If a company founder demonstrates compete contempt for the very concept of business ethics, and the company is in a consumer centered business, regulatory easements are simply not justified.

This is Prize

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I don’t hear a single here

An indy band needed to raise money for their tour, and the payments received from Spotify weren’t cutting it.

They came up with a remarkably innovative way to monetize the streaming service:

Last month, indie band Vulfpeck wanted to go on tour. Like most indie bands, though, they didn’t have the money. With streaming dominating the industry and music streaming giant Spotify paying a grand $0.007 per stream (Vulfpeck sights it at $0.005), it didn’t look like they’d be making money anytime soon. Spotify had been promising they’ll start paying more — just as soon as they grow their Premium user base from 6 million to 40 million. In short: never.

 So scrappy soul band Vulfpeck came up with a plan of their own.

 They uploaded 10 tracks of silence to Spotify under the name Sleepify. Then, they put out this video, urging fans to stream the album on repeat while they slept. The band pledged to use the royalty revenue they racked up to fund a tour, where all shows would have free admission. And it worked.

Short version, the netted over $20K before Spotify sent a C&D for violating their TOS,* but they have the folding green to tour.

I will note that while musicians compare about the rates for streaming, they typically compare it to selling an album, which a user can listen to many times, to a single streamed song listened to once.

Of course, bands have been f%$#ed by the middlemen since ……… forever ……… And the real question is how a model that disintermediates between them and the fans.

*E-I-E-I-O

This is an Interesting Theory of Why the Obama Administration F%$#ed Homeowners

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I was thinking that Obama (About Geithner, I know) was captured by the banksters.

Well, Bob Kuttner thinks that is an artifact of Obama trying to distance himself from his skin color:

I’ve been very critical of Obama and I think his administration’s handling of mortgage relief was a disgrace, but I will offer a more charitable interpretation of why the administration turned its back on the victims of the mortgage bust. Race is still such a divisive issue that America’s first black president did not dare to look as if he was extending special help to blacks.

I disagree with the thesis.

I think that Obama is not so much Black as he is Crimson (Harvard) as are the banksters, and nothing binds like those old school ties.

I Had an Epic Day at Work Today

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I generally embargo anything that happens at work, on the theory that it’s my employer’s business, and with a few exceptions, blogging about is just not a good idea.

However, what happened today breaks this embargo:

John at work came in limping today.

 He had a Brown Recluse bite on his leg, and he said that the doctor had prescribed steroid and Sulfa drugs (probably Dapsone).

 I told him that he should drink lots of water, because Sulfa drugs tend to accumulate in the kidneys.

 Then as I was walking away, I turned and said:

 Wait for it…

 Wait for it…

 Wait for it…

 Wait for it…

 Wait for it…

 Wait for it…

 Wait for it…

 Wait for it…

 You know where this is going, don’t you…

 Wait for it…

 Wait for it…

 Wait for it…

 Wait for it…

 I’m an Engineer, not a Doctor, Dammit!!!!!!

I haz a happy!

I’m Not Sure What I Can Say About the Santa Barbara Shootings

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But I do agree with the response of Richard Martinez, the the father of one of the victims, Chris­topher Michaels-Martinez, makes a powerful and heartfelt statement

He’s asking members of Congress to stop calling him to offer condolences but nothing more for the death of his only child, Chris­topher Michaels-Martinez, who was killed in the rampage Friday in Santa Barbara, Calif.

 “I don’t care about your sympathy. I don’t give a s— that you feel sorry for me,” Richard Martinez said during an extensive interview, his face flushed as tears rolled down. “Get to work and do something. I’ll tell the president the same thing if he calls me. Getting a call from a politician doesn’t impress me.”

 Saying that “we are all to blame” for the death of his 20-year-old son, Martinez urged the public to join him in demanding “immediate action” from members of Congress and President Obama to curb gun violence by passing stricter gun-
control laws.

 “Today, I’m going to ask every person I can find to send a postcard to every politician they can think of with three words on it: ‘Not one more,’ ” he said Tuesday. “People are looking for something to do. I’m asking people to stand up for something. Enough is enough.”

Of course the small number of people who possess a lethal juxtaposition of small penisises and revenge fantasies have immediately jumped on the grieving father, because they are deeply evil ratf%$#s.

Rahter unsurprisingly, Joe the Plumber led the hit parade:

I am sorry you lost your child. I myself have a son and daughter and the one thing I never want to go through, is what you are going through now. But:

 As harsh as this sounds – your dead kids don’t trump my Constitutional rights.

I am not particularly surprised that this is not the worst thing said so far, but the worst thing said so far actually stunned me:

F%$# him. He is a piece of shit. His tragedy sucks, but he blamed me for it and wants to take away my rights. The guy is trying to take away my rights to protect my family. F%$# him every day of the week and twice on Sunday.

(%$# mine)

This is Todd Kincannon, who is perhaps the perfect demonstration about how the people who have been drawn to the NRA’s increasing insanity are a priori (in a Kantian sense) unsuited to possess anything more dangerous than a plastic spoon,

I know that there are responsible firearm owners out there, but the folks that the NRA speaks to are not in that group.

I would add that it appears that the shooter was closely tied into the pick-up artist/mens rights community, which is a group of people who make furries seem sane.

Lean In, My Ass!

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Sheryl Sandberg, Facebook’s COO, is due to speak at Harvard.

Harvard is also landlord at Hilton DoubleTree Suites, where management is engaged in an aggressive anti-union drive.

The union asked Sandberg to host a “Lean In”, she turned them down:

With Facebook executive Sheryl Sandberg coming to town next week, a group of housekeepers, nightclub servers, and other employees of a Boston hotel are trying to turn her now-famous campaign for empowering women in their favor as they move toward forming a union.

 Unite Here Local 26, which is organizing workers at the Hilton DoubleTree Suites hotel near the Charles River, said it wanted to enlist Sandberg’s help after facing resistance from Hilton and receiving no encouragement from Harvard University, which owns the property where the hotel is located.

 So, the union decided, why not appeal to the author of the bestseller “Lean In: Women, Work, and the Will to Lead”?

 Organizers asked Sandberg to meet with the hotel’s female workers. They started an online petition calling for her to become involved in their cause. And they created leaflets depicting the book’s cover, with faces of housekeepers replacing Sandberg’s, and a message that reads, “Sheryl Sandberg, will you lean in with the women of Harvard’s hotel?”

 The Facebook chief operating officer, who is scheduled to deliver a Class Day address at Harvard Wednesday, has sent word she does not have time to host a “Lean In circle” with the hotel employees. Undeterred, the workers are planning to hand out the leaflets during Sandberg’s speech in Harvard Yard.

(Emphasis Mine)

Note that a “Lean In Circle” would probably take less time than the inevitable parties and meetups that are a part of her speaking gig.

I guess that “leaning in” means being born to well to do parents, going to Harvard, becoming an acolyte of Lawrence Summers, etc.

When a commitment to “equality” is juxtaposed with an indifference to labor organizing rights, there is no commitment to equality, which is why, “Sandberg has been criticized for creating a movement aimed at financially well-off women.”

Memorial Day Cookout Blogging

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We came back from the SCA event yesterday, an we were concerned about whether the chicken we brought there, but did not cook, was good.

We (actually Sharon) looked at it and adjudged it not lethal, but as a precaution, I marinated it, because the high acidity will kill anything lurking there.

So, last night, I made a marinade of balsamic vinegar, olive oil, soy sauce, mustard, cayenne pepper, some unsweetened cocoa, brown sugar, molasses, garlic, ginger, and some other herbs and spices I can not recall as I write this.

I let it all marinade over night, and then I put the chicken in the bullet smoker (the one pictured is much higher end than what I use) and used the marinade in the water pan to add some flavor.

Once the chicken was done, I took the contents of the water pan, now marinade and drippings, and reduced it to sauce consistency.

I then put the sauce on the chicken, and caramelized it under the broiler.

It got fairly good reviews from the family.