Modesty is a form of
dishonesty.
Mostly Downers: Even the Realtors had to acknowledge that pending home sales declined in June, blaming it on increased mortgage rates. Stocks declined on the news, then late in the day the blame for the fall in stocks was blamed on Ben and the Boys getting together. Manufacturing activity increased a bit, but slower than desired. None of this matters much and it certainly doesn't explain anything of significance.
Down To The Sea In Slips: Some hackers from UT/Austin managed to 'spoof' an $80 million yacht's GPS system. This time they had the owner's permission. And a federal court has blocked researchers from explaining how they can hack into a car's computer system. Pretty soon some junior Edward Snowden at NSA will notice you've paid for too many drinks and will electronically take your keys away. Not possible? Well, maybe not yet.
Innocence Is No Defense: A court employee was fired for perverting the course of justice when she gave a wrongfully convicted man copies of court papers that proved his innocence. No, it wasn't Scalia, not directly, although it smacks of his view of justice.
Another Precinct Heard From: Maryland officials say that in many cases insurance rates under the Affordable Care Act will be... affordable. This is one more of an growing number of states that have found, counter to what the Republicans are preaching, that Obamacare is going to lower insurance premiums for most people. Even so, Marco Rubio claims that Obama's insistence on implementing the law (as he is required to do) will force Rubio to shut down the government and blame it on Obama. Set that to music.
Laurels: About the only real accomplishment of the Republicans over the past couple of years is their triumph in destroying the US Postal Service through their legislation requiring the USPS to fully fund 75 years of health care benefits in a ten year period. Bet you can't do that, either.
Chimera: In the 30-plus years since Ronnie confused the movies for reality and decided to build a Star Wars missile defense system, the US has spent $250 billion and to date has come up with nothing. Nada. The prototypes cannot hit their target even when the game is rigged. But that is just a minor inconvenience to the military and their space-war civilian contractors. All they need is more money. Much more.
Vocabulary Builder: Disemployment: The Obama policy of encouraging people to leave the work force as a way of decreasing unemployment while decreasing employment thus creating customers for the bread and circus society.
The Parting Shot:
Moth Mullein, Verbascum blattaria
4 comments:
Regarding your observation on modesty: Is this a corollary to Mohammed Ali's "It ain't bragging if it's true"?
Blame the pres for failing tests as long as they have been testing, even when they didn't want to test in w's 2nd term because it looked so bad. And the pres doubled the number of missiles a while back if I recall, payoff to the contractors and repubs I'm sure.
Was reading in another place about the massive excess of transport planes that congress keeps pushing to the AF, similar to the tank inventory that they insist on increasing. All while we are scrapping most of the monster trucks in afghanistan because it's not worth it to fly them anywhere.
It's only money, we'll just print more or steal yours.
Down To The Sea In Slips: ....
Small patatas. Just imagine what havoc disgruntled, unemployed, futureless geniuses will create when they have access to home biotech and nanotech labs: Bill Joy, Why The Future Doesn't Need US
http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/8.04/joy.html?pg=9&topic=&topic_set=
Gee, even regular "normal" geniuses might do us in. Oh well...ho hum....
Innocence Is No Defense: ....
The rot and corruption in the courts could certainly match, if not out do, that on Wall Street. Robbers' Court, of course, right at the top. They have various tricks they use. One favorite is to actually alter the court transcripts of a case. Another is just to lose papers. Many opportunities for the crooks to blow up your case. Just have to pay for a bit of grease.
Here's a great passage by a lawyer regarding the Legal Show you pay for:
"What I now refer to as the "courtroom holodeck" is the scene of the crime, and the stage where this chimera is played out. In this virtual reality the judges and attorney(s) are holograms (mere images of justice), all working in the labyrinth of a "Litigation Vortex." The unsuspecting public who either gets sucked into the vortex (unwillingly brought into court) or suckered into the maelstrom (thinking that justice would be received through the legal system), are real characters, but they do not realize they are on the court holodeck, nor do they realize that they are not being protected, or zealously represented as was taught to them in our government-funded elementary schools. They do not realize that nothing is as it appears."
http://www.ejfi.org/Courts/Courts-4.htm
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