“President Obama is going to have to decide: Is he an Erskine Bowles Democrat or a Nancy Pelosi Democrat?” — Representative Paul Ryan

Wait.  Is Obama an Erskine Bowles Democrat?  When did “Erksine Bowles Democrat” become something anyone would want to aspire to?

Erskine Bowle’s record of electoral success:

Although initially reluctant to seek political office, Bowles reconsidered a run for the United States Senate after the September 11, 2001 attacks and, in October 2001, declared his candidacy for the Senate as a Democratic candidate. Seeking to fill the seat being vacated by Jesse Helms, Bowles secured the party’s nomination, but was defeated in the 2002 general election by Republican contender Elizabeth Dole.

In 2004, Bowles campaigned again for the Senate, seeking to fill the seat being vacated by fellow Democrat John Edwards. He faced Republican Richard Burr and Libertarian Tom Bailey in a hotly contested race. The final month of the Senate campaign saw both Bowles’s and Burr’s campaigns turn strongly negative, with Burr’s campaign attacking Bowles’s associations with the Clinton administration, while Bowles’s campaign attacked Burr on his support of trade legislation and special interest donations. Both campaigns spent a great deal of money, making it one of the most expensive statewide races in North Carolina history.

Despite an early lead in the polls after the primaries, as well as fellow Democrat Mike Easley running for a second term as governor at the top of the state party ticket, Bowles was defeated in the 2004 race as well. President Bush’s comfortable electoral victory in North Carolina likely helped Burr considerably. During his concession speech in Raleigh at the Democratic headquarters, he thanked his supporters but seemed to indicate that he would not run for office again.

Though Nancy Pelosi’s campaign success is based off of a favorable electorate, her model does show some electoral success… somewhere… whereas the Erskine Bowles model is 0 for 2.

I get where Paul Ryan is trying to stake some ground, I guess… but it begs the question … does Paul Ryan want to be a John Boehner Republican, or a Chester Arthur Republican?

It was not a good radio station, but it passed for something in a “roll through the dial” kind of way when stuck with radio as the medium, poking in and out of impossibly narrow play lists and conscripted bottom line pursuals.  In this day and age, you can probably “KILL YOUR RADIO” anyway.  I swear by pandora, but someone suggested something else a week or so ago that I didn’t quite catch.

I care more than KUFO deserves anyone to care.  But there it was.  I moved down the fm dial, from the furthest ends with its classical and jazz, on to the more commercial popular fare of KNRK 94.7, on to a stop at that “name format” which swept the nation a few years’ back (Freddy FM, is it?  They still have yet to fill those giant holes to get to compliance for their mantra “We play everything”, in case you care), and then to the spot for KUFO.  Where I heard this big batch of climate change denialism, filling the air with corporate slotted ignorance.  And there it was, I knew what happened.  I winced and shrugged and shook my head, and turned the radio off.  Maybe I should have gone back to classical, jazz, the old familiar classic rock, emo-tinged semi-indy rock.  But it seemed better to turn it off.

It says something that the death of a rather lousy rock station legitimately brings down the quality of the market’s radio stations.  At the time ALPHA BROADCASTING bought a batch of Portland’s stations from CBS, they had the last version of the Rick Emerson show.  It seemed, from the beginning, an ill fit for Emerson, merging his talk show with the needs of morning rock radio dj, coming out of 311 songs with incrdulous “Really?”  Still, these intrusions were not on the level of the compromises he made with “MAX 910”, and in retrospect ENTERCOM did a service by providing an interesting case study in market segmentation hackdom.  For KUFO’s Emerson show, it is notable that I did regularly listen to it, but on something that is not the radio.

But ALPHA axed Emerson.  Too “Cort and Fatboy”, their long-time evening drive time hosts who were respectably creative in a basically uncreative media environment.  Throw in some odds and ends, “The Punk Show” as hosted by Sarah Dylan and a few others, and then load the station with the type of dj with “ATTITUDE” (or more properly, just “‘TUDE”), and there is a certain degeneracy that came with ALPHA’s changes in KUFO.  Clyde Lewis did sneak back in, so that’s something. 

The thing about Alpha, the thing about their press release announcing that they are now broadcasting on the fm dial their “Lars and Beck” am station, and then heralding this as the “FUTURE OF RADIO”, is that they are, depressingly, correct.  Here it is.  The future of radio.  Literally programming something already available on the radio dial.  I doubt that this is a ratings’ goldmine, but it is cheap.  And with that, Alpha is in the prime place to determine this as the future of radio.  I assume they will eventually get around to blowing up one or the other outlet, selling it as spare parts — maybe to a Spanish language company  (ie: do not compete).  Or they’ll find a way to other cheap programming with no real overhead.

I do have a certain sympathy with their annoying djs.  From what I could tell from my very limited listening, they were in the middle of a promotional contest — giving away tickets to a concert for a popular 90s “Nu-Metal” band, the band named with its proper genre definitional mis-spelling after Nebraska’s biggest cash crop.  It seems a noxious thing for a company to do that, allow for the contest to proceed while knowing they’re about to axe the station, and it’s oddly worse than standard.

Hey.  Look.  Fourth comment here shows that someone set up a “Save KUFO” website.  I don’t quite understand why it should be worth saving, even to someone who cares more than I about the format and radio as it exists.  Go cultivate your Pandora song list, and more than quadruple a song selection.

I’m seeking out a list of members of the House of Representatives who have gone to Washington, and have decided to convert their office space into their live in apartment building.

The best I can find is CREW’s list here:

The list of members who sleep in their offices appears to include, but likely is not limited to:

Reps. Dan Boren (D-OK), John Carney (D-DE), Steve Chabot (R-OH), Jason Chaffetz (R-UT), Hansen Clarke (D-MI), Sean Duffy (R-WI), Stephen Fincher (R-TN), Jeff Flake (R-AZ), Chris Gibson (R-NY), Tim Griffin (R-AR), Paul Gosar (R-AZ), Trey Gowdy (R-SC), Morgan Griffith (R-VA), Luis Guittierez (D-IL), Richard Hanna (R-NY), Joe Heck (R-NV), Bill Huizenga (R-MI), Bill Johnson (R-OH), James Lankford (R-OK), Dan Lipinski (D-IL), Kevin McCarthy (R-CA), Patrick Meehan (R-PA), Ben Quayle (R-AZ), Mike Quigley (D-IL), Todd Rokita (R-IN), Bobby Rush (D-IL), Paul Ryan (R-WI), David Schweikert (R-AZ), Steve Stivers (R-OH), John Sullivan (R-OK), Joe Walsh (R-IL), Todd Young (R-IN), and Tim Walberg (R-MI).

For the next Election, take this into account.  Though, I won’t quite say whether you should consider it a positive or negative — does this add or detract to your opinion of Ben Quayle?  It’s hard to say.

Or maybe there’s this number:

Mr. Clarke is one of as many as a dozen freshman House members who plan to bunk in their offices when Congress is in session. Though no one has hard numbers, anecdotal evidence suggests that at least 40 to 50 House members, both new and old, will be sleeping at work.

For many of them, joining the unofficial Couch Caucus is a practical way to save money and a symbolic gesture that they are both fiscally conservative and serious about changing how business is done in Washington.

Surely the House can conduct a Census?

It is probably “Tea-Party” Republican and Freshman laden, the Congress-critters rationalizing this by claiming that it’s akin to their budget-cutting ways with the federal budget.

Gosar said he is simply delivering on campaign promises, both in policy and his personal life. For the trim, tanned Arizonian, the U.S. Capitol isn’t just a place to work — it’s his bedroom, bathroom, living room and kitchen.

“I’m a dentist, I’m not a rich guy,” he said. “I’ve got to be fiscally responsible and that’s the same thing I am asking for from our government.”

He sleeps on an inflatable mattress in his office, next to his desk. To start the day, he heads downstairs to shower at the congressional gym. When he has time, Gosar whips up a batch of buckwheat pancakes on a hotplate in set up in his dusty office storage unit.

Like a lot of measures, it’s symbolism over substance — if you can call it that.

But, I love this:

Mr. Rokita simply found it unpalatable to pay $2,000 for the 600-square-foot basement apartment that his wife begged him to at least consider.

Sheesh.

The group of office sleepers, which stretches across party lines, is a male-heavy crowd. No one knew of any women who had gone public with plans to sleep in their offices, although Kristi Noem, a Republican from South Dakota, toyed with the idea before ultimately renting a small basement apartment near the Capitol.
Ms. Noem is “not afraid of roughing it,” she wrote in an e-mail.

The logistical nightmares:

Superintendent of House office buildings Bill Weidemeyer has said that members sleeping in their offices adds some burden to the housekeeping staff and has made building maintenance more difficult since members complain they can’t sleep through the noise of construction.

That would be a “You Problem” for the “unofficial Couch Caucus”.

This is a satire, by the way.  At least I think it is.  The 414 – 21 vote count kind of gives it away…

In the earliest days of this Republic, there were more formal dorm arrangements for Congress critters, and in the early pre-political party environment — party factions formed around living quarter arrangements.  As we hurled through history, well — there’s this.

Nothing particularly notable, but things do accumulate.

STORY NUMBER ONE:  Possible Vice Presidential Timber?

In all my speculation for the post Larouche death presidential bid, which centers on the congressional candidates of Kesha Rogers,  Rachel Brown, Summer Shields, Diane Sare, Dave Christie, and Bill Roberts — Kesha Rogers the obvious Front-runner, I’ve not come up with any idea of who might fill out the bottom half of the ticket.  The Vice Presidential selection needs to be someone used to subordination who won’t outshine the top of the ticket, who can do the retail politicking that you see at the Cardtable Tour, and probably should follow the tradition of Spiro Agnew in slinging shots at anything that might be construed as “The Media”.

San Rafael brings us Possibility number one. 
It gets really weird at the 1:30 mark, where the Larouche representative shares that he is 2,000 years old.  His partner in the performance, in his “Thou Shall Not Wank” (crosses the pond) comment, skips toward, rather randomly, twitter.  Why did twitter pop in his head?  Who knows?  And no, I can’t make heads or tails of this. 

This is a little strange.

As we walked out onto Meridain Street after getting our hands stamped, I noticed a Tea Bagger with a three foot by four foot sign of our president on a stick. On the photo of Barack Obama they had painted a Hitler mustash. I was transfixed by this. I felt a violent anger rise in me. It’s one thing for these Glen Becker’s to blindly follow what Limbaugh and Glen Beck tell them to do all with the belief that Jesus Christ is behind thier self-rightousness, but to do this right where families and kids are merrily anticipating fun is another.

I was torn. I wanted to stay open to this man’s viewpoint. Maybe I could finally learn the True nature of Jesus Christ by inoculating myself into the Glen Beck, MIchael Savage, and Rush Limbaugh crowd, and fight for things that go against my own best interests. Canda had other ideas.

Okay.  Confusion with the Tea Party.  Happens here and  abouts — Berkley for instance, and they deign a bit of this confusion.   But later…

 The glazed over look in his eyes reminded me of the woman in the lynchmob of a crowd for John McCain referring to Obama as a Arab. As Mr. Sheep moved, so did Canda. She got right in his face. I was surprized. Amused too. To act like he could not hear her he started using a trick that I’d seen kids use. As Canda talked he started sing songing to cover her voice. Da ta data da ta da ta da, he sang. I stood there studying this guy trying to figure this out. What would make someone think it would be a good idea to get a sign of Obama with a big Hitler mustash and go down to Meridian thinking he could get people to jump on the Lyndon LaRouche band wagon? He looked like a trapped parakeet. I started to feel sorry for the unmade bed.

So he’s identified the Larouche.  Does he think his org is an organic part of the “Tea Party”?  And so…

Lots of weird shit has come my way in supermarket/strip mall parking lots. Yesterday some Lyndon LaRouche people were hanging in one I was at  with pictures of the current lying asshole “president” with a little Hitler mustache on him and a table with a banner that said “Re-Enact Glass Steagal.”     I headed right over to meet these interesting people with the good ideas.  I didn’t know how it really is with old Lyndon..     I checked him out to see what the fuck he wanted to do and my “Elron Hubbard Sun Myung Moon Peoples Temple” alarm went off.    So, anyway……never mind, just another rich fuck with a cult to pound on.
[…]  I never will again, unless they try out the topless dancing girls to attract minions.

STORY NUMBER TWO:  SPOTLIGHT ON PRO LAROUCHIE SENTIMENT

Ace Revenire Retour once, or twice, griped — incorrectly — that I (and xlcer) leave out pro-larouche commenters and give out only anti-Larouchie commenters.  Once again, here I go:

Pro Larouchie Number One, who links to “How Venice Rigged the First and Worst Global Financial Collapse” — as published by the Schiller Institute.:  WORLD HISTORY as grabbed by Larouche.  The crash, which peaked in A.C.E. 1345 when the world’s biggest banks went under, “led” by the Bardi and Peruzzi companies of Florence, Italy, was more than a bank crash ~ it was a financial disintegration. Like the disaster which looms now, projected in Lyndon LaRouche’s “Ninth Economic Forecast” of July 1994, that one was a blowup of all major banks and markets in Europe, in which, chroniclers reported, “all credit vanished together,” most trade and exchange stopped, and a catastrophic drop of the world’s population by famine and disease loomed.
Regretably, the links to other articles covering this lost history, Jewish Sabbateans Rule the World for Satan Parts 1 and 2, have been removed for violation of service.  Hard to say what wordpress objected to jewsribsinbearjaw.wordpress.com.  But, you know,  to quote Thoreau … and hey de ho.

Pro Larouchie #2:  Commenting on the film “House of Rothschilds“, an old youtube video which robotic aggregators plopped 25 comments into a splog.

You are a poorly informed individual filled with conditioning & prejudice. Who financed the Slave ships? Who brought Opium from India to China to enslave them? The Rothschilds. on YT “1932, a true history of the United States” from L La Rouche. Read “Timeline of the Rothschilds” by DB Smith & A Hitchcock. Watch the Lecture on “Brotherhood of Darkness” by Dr Stan Monteith (Google)
Dubya and Kerry were “Bonesmen” , Obama is a “Prince Hall Mason”
The Mason Albert Pike brought us the KKK

Pro Larouchies Number Three — another old youtube video now in splog form:

Start with some pro Tarpley that reads like pro Larouchie!  Tarpley’s ideas come from the American School of Economics>Austrian/Chicago>Keynesian
Webster Tarpley has obviously not read anything at all about Agenda 21

What a fertile intelligence… Tarpley is a true visionary.

@MrHarry46 The difference in himself and you is he isn’t absolutely pessimistic and is offering some solution to the problems.
You’ve already turned over and accepted defeat. That is not healthy.

And hey.  Here’s a crazy idea!  Who could ever think up this one?  Webster Tarpley is one of the very few and as a matter of the fact the Only to save USA, He speaks truth , he is a genius , loyal , a Man of integrity.
He should join Larouche because he speaks exactly the same philosophy.
Love the guy , Bless him!

I have the utmost admiration for Webster Tarpley. I am glad that he mentioned
Henry Ford, who absolutely HATED Wall St. and the Banksters of his day. I
wish that Webster would have also mentioned Alfred P. Sloan, who built General
Motors into the world’s largest company.
It’s sad that we no longer have manufacturing geniuses (or the manufacturing)
with us that we had in bygone years. I sure hope that the USA wakes up soon.

And for another old youtube video — A whole Slew of Pro-Larouche sentiments, as against a few antis!  Wait.  When did the larouche people become a personality cult?

Larouche people have become some sort of personality cult. Its not as bad as they say but even Tarpley sees them in this light. Tarpley is by far more credible than LLR. 

I like Lyndon Larouche, I wish he n Ron Paul would get together be elected president n vice president. LaRouche is even more open than Ron about how the feds are screwing the states n the people. I think our only hope at getting good fed gov though is by putting pressure on all of our state govs to put the feds in their place. Besides if enough states were to be pushed into secession the fed wouldn’t have many toys to use against us. Hopefully it won’t eve come to that though, again.  (So much for the “American System”.)

Yes, he’s on the mark. Even as a hardcore Libertarian (mostly), I see LaRouche’s ideas and policies as largely sound. Including his take on Obama’s personality.

I agree with LaRouche’s assessment of Obama. LaRouche may have his own issues, but he’s RIGHT about the president and current situation. I agree with you that there is no one else who is not a puppet with whom we could replace Obama. I would not go with LaRouche himself as a replacement (which I’ve never heard discussed), but instead go with, perhaps, some of those who are calling out the problems with Goldman Sachs etc. Far fetched, but maybe Ed Griffin Tarpley or G Edward Griffin’s crowd?  

And another Pro- Larouchie

That said, what erked me was the author’s unfounded barbs against me regarding the late Dr. Rashad Khalifa and the American thinker, Lynden H. LarRouche, Jr. The slanders that he flung at these fine individuals does not bear repeating and does his reputation no good. Needless to say, I am no slavish follower of any leader or thinker.

So, some blame to the Jews, some support more for Ron Paul and Webster Tarply, and throw in some qualified support that mentions “Cult”, which seems to be the way the cult itself rolls these days – Dateline Rhode Island College:

One of the activists, who declined to give his name, admitted that the LaRouche group is a cult, but then said, “Catholicism started off as a cult, so you know, in that sense, it is one.” […]
According to Bob Baker, a field correspondent for the LaRouche PAC, they believe Hitler was not responsible for World War II. Instead, it was “the machine.” When asked just what “the machine” was, Baker said it was “The big, nationwide banks who are just trying to make a buck.”

And here is one m0re person, who considers Alex Jones a disinformationalist figure.  …
This article which references Larouche in offering up Obama as the AntiChrist Beast in the Book of Revelations seems to be on friendly terms, though it’s up to you to decide if it qualifies as “pro”.

STORY NUMBER THREE:  WIKIPEDIA MADNESS!

This is pretty amusing.  The last several edits on the David P Goldman wikipedia article were made by David P Goldman.  And the David P Goldman article now reads like a press release.
Causation and Correlation:  Together at last!

As for the cult itself, let’s see what we have here.  Javen466 works hard to get extensive coverage of the Verdi Tuning Initiative into the article.  Will Beback objects with the suggestion that this “deserves less (attention) than the Mars Initiative and much less than the AIDs Initiative.”  Javen466 explains part of the need for the Verdi Tuning Initiative’s place in the scheme of things, and the reason that some of the people backing the idea should have their ethnicity referenced, by suggesting that (paraphrase) “one of the complexities of this man is that he makes statements that many people feel are anti-semitic or Nazist, yet manages to attract Jews and African Americans as personal friends and as members of his organization.”

The personal friends reference points to another reference that Javen466, along with ISP #, wants in — a transparent name drop to a CBS article on Larouche’s presidential run at the age of 83 which was more an inference, “I have a dear friend, almost 92, who was beaten up marching across a bridge in support of MLK.”  Meantime, Javen466 made a buttressing project out of Amelia Boytin Robinson’s article, making several edits on her wikipedia page.

They found some quotes from work by John George and Laird Wilcox to emphasize Dennis King’s PLP past and suggest that he and Chip Berlet are essentially engaged in a long-term Left-wing doctrinal dispute — “this section also explains taht Larouche came from a hotbed of extremism where people fell out with each other very badly and then started criticizing each other.”  Further deigns at qualifying Dennis King’s criticism came in with Daniel Pipe’s quotation.

ISP # and a “Silver Siren” rejected to Will Beback’s assertion, in arguring against references to people as “rivals”, that “Larouche was also expelled from the Democratic Party, but I don’t think that all Democrats are Larouche’s rivals.”  This may be a point of precision, I suppose, as technically nobody’s “expelled” from a political party — even when they can be denied entry into any party function.

On the Views article, they slid in a reference to Ashara Al-Awat for a citation, and on Executive Intelligence Review a reference to Malaysian politician Ahmad Kassim in naming EIR as “just like Reuters”.  Also, say hello to the Larouche published articles “Yes, Hitler Killed Millions of Jews” and “The Murder of 6 Million Jews” [ultimately done by “the machine”, right?], and sought to minimize their associations with the Liberty Lobby — ultimately Javen466 was satisfied with its place in the section in chronology.  A battle moves on over citing something from holocaustresearchproject.com regarding notes taken by Jeremiah Duggan at that infamous Schiller Institute retreat.  Coming shortly, I expect Javen466 and ISP #s will quarrel over Will Beback putting in references from Abraham Foxman’s “Jews and Money: the Story of a Stereotype” under the “Accusations of anti-semitism” sub-heading.

For comedy relief’s sake, in arguing for Larouche to be referenced as an “Economist” in the lede (ultimately defeated — all good and well, as Javen466 decided “I would rather work on adding a sentence to describe what influence he has had abroad”), the “pro” side offered up the bonafide academic peer review article reference in the review from American Economic Review on Dialectical Economics. 

STORY NUMBER FOUR:  ORG SHAMELESSLY SHOVELS JEREMIAH DUGGAN INTO THEIR STUPID “ANALYSIS” ABOUT QADDAFI.

These guys just can’t help themselves, can they?  Somehow they must turn the attention directed at their cult as stemming from a drive to stop their “World Historic Purpose”:

Symons was and remains a point person for Blair and the monarchy, in their “Duggan Affair” campaign against Lyndon LaRouche, a still-ongoing libel campaign that heavily overlapped with the smear campaign against British scientist and weapons inspector Dr. David Kelly, who exposed the “sexed up” Downing Street dossiers on Saddam Hussein to BBC, and was soon after, in July 2003, found dead, an alleged suicide. A group of British doctors has demolished the official Hutton Report that ruled Dr. Kelly’s death a suicide, and their demand for a proper coroner’s inquest is soon to be ruled upon by a British court.

In some ways it’s just one more item in the dizzying assortment clip for cut and paste jobs to any news events.  It dangles there whenever they feel a need to reference the Iraq War and Baroness Symons.  I suppose we have a better idea of the recent Qaddafi image they spit out — the analysis that brings Jeffrey Steinberg onto Iran’s Press TV.  He says nothing, but in his defense there’s a lot of talking heads bobbling up on various tv outlets that say nothing.  Amusing comments to this posting, though.  The first comment here says “Steinberg works for Wall Street. Trust nothing he says. I am disappointed that Press.TV would respect his opinion.”  It’s the advantage and disadvantage of working for something called “Executive Intelligence Review”, I guess.  Second comment more anti-Obama than Steinberg:  GADDAFI IS GOING TO STAY BECAUSE USA IS GOING TO INTERFERE WHICH THE PEOPLE OF LIBYA INCLUDING THE ANTI GADDAFI FORCES CANNOT TOLLERATE — which maybe the org will gravitate toward if Qaddafi does, indeed, pull through — if not for the over-riding need to see a global mass strike through, they probably would.

For the coming reports on Japan and Nuclear power — there’s a three or four step process to this.  Step one is something like this, and a gratuitous reference that anyone opposed to nuclear power is “worse than useless”.  I suppose they’re left standing with Obama’s support of nuclear.  Meantime, people are mining old Larouche material to smash it with other conspiratorial pieces to blame the earthquake as on the “West”, or the British, via HAARP. 

STORY NUMBER FIVE:  WEBCAST Held heralding Irish Election Results, blaming things on Venetians, NOTICED BY NOBODY

Okay, here’s a review.  So there’s something.
In the old days, that is the 1980s — long past the evolution of punk rock into politics and before the rise of cable, the cult would purchase half hour infomercial times on network television.  When I looked it up in news database archives, it appears to have been a smattering of weekend time slots (nobody watches tv Saturday nights) and the Thursdays when NBC had, like, 50 shares with Cosby — Cheers — LA Law.  The Nielson ratings are a hoot — Larouche’s infomercials were last in the ratings, with an audience half the size of the next to last network program.

The virtue of the webcasts is, I guess, they can be done more often.  Also it is the niche aduience, so really only the targetted audience knows the marching orders:   The only alternative to a total dark age, which has been uniquely proposed by economist Lyndon LaRouche, and the Congressional slate of six LaRouche Democrats, is the positive solution you must now fight for Whatever — NAWAPA, maybe?. 

Wait.  Robert Barwick in Australia noticed. 

BONUS FEATURES:  Quiz question.  Quiz Answer.  Really, I think Larouche’s role in Tax Fraud history ought to be in the lede of his wikipedia article. 
One more question:  Will DaRos Democrats take the place of Larouche Democrats?
Jay, I understand the situation you face. These people are dominated by DaRos. They are DaRos Democrats. They are as fanatical and bizarre as LaRouche Democrats. All are willing victims of a personality cult. And the older and weirder the cult leader becomes, be it LaRouche or DaRos, so too the followers engage in more inexplicable acts of contemptible behavior.
Part of it is to prove their loyalty to their Dear Leader. But more and more, its just the tight circle of degeneracy in which they co-exist.
The only way to help these people, and ourselves, is to treat them like patients in need of medical treatment. Isolate them from their highly addictive narcotic (In this case, DaRos) and undertake immediate deprogramming techniques, such as repeatedly telling Chapman-Carbone “There is life after DaRos. The sun will rise even if DaRos says it won’t,” and so on.
There is hope for these poor people! Well, Madam Lambert may have stepped beyond hope into total DaRos worship; but for the rest of the bunch, let’s help them out of the RTM at the next election time, where they will have time to recover from being… “DaRos Democrats.”

It’s in the thought process of this:
Why is anyone paying any attention to has-beens? Lyndon Larouche, Newt Gingrich, Mike Huckabee…….has-been losers of yesteryear. Let’s move on to new & improved losers & gasbags. Tell em, dott

As always, if you feel I missed a big story, let me know.

Why do al Qaeda’s publication ventures always sound like Onion parodies?

Radical Islamists have launched a new magazine publication on the internet especially for women.

The first edition of the magazine uses fierce language similar to that found on Sawt-al-Jihad.

One of its encouragements to jihad reads: “The blood of our husbands and the body parts of our children are our sacrificial offering.”

The main objective of the magazine seems to be to teach women married to radical Islamists how to support their husbands in their conflict with the authorities.

It also gives them specific advice on how to bring up their children in the path of jihad, how to provide first aid and what kind of physical training women need to prepare themselves for fighting.

Most of the articles are written as if by women, although it is not clear if they actually were.

Some take a somewhat patronising attitude, dwelling on supposed female weaknesses that must be overcome in the cause of jihad – such as over-dependence on home comforts like TV and air conditioning.

Okay.  That may be different from Cosmo by 180 degrees.  Who’s advertising in this thing?

A section on current affairs also devotes some space to an attack on the recent development of having women presenters on Saudi TV, suggesting it is a kind of prostitution.

The issue of Saudi women’s rights also comes in for scorn.

Sounds like a good time to point to an Onion parody about Cosmoplitan, actually.  (I particularly draw your attention to the historical issues of Cosmo starting at 1:10.)

Dubbed ‘Jihad Cosmo’, the glossy magazine’s front cover features the barrel of a sub-machine gun next to a picture a woman in a veil.

Cosmo has never done that, though they have…

And the ‘beauty column’ instructs women to stay indoors with their faces covered to keep a ‘clear complexion’.

They should ‘not go out except when necessary’ and wear a niqab for ‘rewards by complying with the command of Allah Almighty’.

A woman called Umm Muhanad hails her husband for his bravery after his suicide bombing in Afghanistan.

And another article urges readers to give their lives for the Islamist cause.

It advises: ‘From martyrdom, the believer will gain security, safety and happiness.’ 

More traditional content for a women’s magazine includes features on the merits of honey facemasks, etiquette, first aid and why readers should avoid ‘towelling too forcibly’.

A trailer for the next issue promises tips on skin care – and how to wage electronic jihad.

Eventually they’ll have to amp up the words “Sex” so as to stand out at the supermarket check-out line.

Anyway, on one of these links you can take a look at the magazine and compare and contrast with our Cosmo.

Later on, he provided a lesson to all great men and women who surpass their peers and earn the right to believe themselves entitled to an irrational level of exalted treatment.  This delusion may be unavoidable in those who move the world.  Evidence speaks to that lamentable conclusion.  It is always sad to see the greatly gifted, the geniuses, the truly exceptional turn into honking jerks parading around like pheasants exulting in their plumage.  And yet, in the end, this was what became of Caesar.  His grandiosity stripped the Republic of the illusion of its importance, and that the puffed-up linens of the Senate could not abide.

Before we get there, though, there is a tale of accomplishment that could well be studied by every executive who seeks to be a constructive force, to use power in such a way to transform his or her little corner of the world for the better.  Here are just a few of the things Caesar did in the time that was alloted him — a scant five years at the helm:

Hired experts to create the 365-day calendar, featuring a month named especially after him
Filled vacancies in the Senate, stacking the upper house with his guys, much the way Franklin Roosevelt tried to jam the Supreme Court with partisans, and filled a variety of other posts throughout the infrastructure
Brought back a bunch of executives who had been persecuted by the patricians for diuciary irregularities, mostly bribery.  Since payoffs werre about as common in the Roman corporation at that time as they are now in the Far East and the Mob, prosecution of these offenses were highly selective, and usually focused on guys the suits didn’t like.  In communicating a clean slate, few actions could have been more meaningful to probusiness types
Took control of the electoral process just as surely as the Bushes took Florida in hand, giving the people the right to elect about half of their representatives, as long as they made up their slate from a list of guys he liked
Cut down the number of people on welfare — they received free grain from the state — from 320,000 to 150,000, and better regulated who got put on that list
Decreed that no citizen between the ages of twenty and forty should be out of Italy for more than three years at a time unless it was on military service, keeping the corporate center well stocked with the hale and hearty who might otherwise have gone exploring in the vast world Rome had conquered
Passed a law mandating that all in the business of grazing must make sure that among their herdsmen were at least one third of free birth, ensuring that enterprise did not become solely dependent on slaves, a move somewhat akin to Citibank deciding that some of its telephone representatives must in the future come from somewhere other than Bombay
Made doctors and teachers citizens, improving the status of Rome as a good place to pursue those professions
Regulated the paying back of debts, not canceling them altogether, but eliminating the usurous hikes that had resulted from the innumerable civil wars in recent years
Stiffened penalties for crimes, particularly murders committed by the rich; and enforced existing laws on extravagance that limited the kinds of foods that might be sold and served at Roman tables.  This fit in nicely with one of Caesar’s other traits — a general lack of interest in food and wine
Imposed duties on foreign products, strengthening local operation
Kept the citizenry busy with a bewildering array of public works and projects, including the biggest temple to Mars ever, the filling in of a gigantic pool he had himself created for a mock sea battle he had mounted for the public entertainment; the construction of an enormous theater; the regulation of the proliferation of statuary — some of it quite bad — and their location throughout the corporate center; the opening of more and better libraries with the very best Greek and Latin books; the draining of assorted marshes; the construction of a highway across the Apennine Mountains from the Adriatic to the Tiber; the building of a canal through the Italian isthmus; and many, many more, the number of which were limited only by his prodigious imagination

Many of these endevors were put on a back burner when he was, which seems a shame.  And yet, better men than Casca and Cassius believed it was right to kill him.  Not one or two, but some thirty senators took part in the drill, including the noble fellow who amounted to his stepson, the high-minded Marcus Brutus, descendent (supposedly) of the man who had freed the corporation of its Etruscan kings.  A lot more of those dignificed patricians knew about the plot to murder the leading man of their day, and said nothing.  Why?

Because in the murder of Caesar, we have the perfect interface between self-interest and morality, the killer combination of factors that throughout history, from the Crusades to today’s computerized versions, has fueled more depredations than all others combined.

And our boy?  Like many a chief executive of more recent vintage, sitting with the weight of the world on his shoulders and, perhaps, an intern on his knee, Caesar gave his foes exactly what they wanted.

He accepted all honors that were heaped on him, including the title of Dictator for Life, a position enjoyed in our day only by guys who own, not simply run, their corporations.

He allowed the forname Imperator to be given him, as well as teh name of Pater Patriae — the Father of His Country.  This was very obnoxious to guys who thought their fathers were the fathers of their country.

He was careless in his speech, stating egregious (if true) opinions — like the state was an empty shell, more form over substance; that he was the supreme ruler whose word should be counted as law, that favorites of the past, such as Sulla, were morons, that kind of thing.

When elected officials died in office — even the consul of the corporation — he took it upon himself simply to name a temporary successor, not paying the hereditary dudes the respect they thought they deserved by asking for their opinion.  The irony of protecting a republic through its non-representatives did not seem particularly piquant to the grouchy elite.  He was also fond of:

The commisioning of statues of himself for holy locations
Lounging on a raised couch in a special section of the theater
The wearing of offensively royal purple at all times when a nice magenta would have sufficed
Sitting in state on a specially constructed golden throne while conducting business in the Sneate, whose members continued to maintain a touchy attitude about such gross displays of monarchical splendor
Constructing temples to himself and placing them beside those reserved for the gods…

… and plunging assorted big fat thumbs into the eye of the ruling political and religious pooh-bahs, acts that certainly must have pleased and amused him while being of virtually no utility to the people he had always championed.
[…]

Then there was the talk of formally naming him King of Rome.  Sure, he had indicated his unwillingness to take that title… but since of late he had accepted every other title with great pleasure, there were those who doubted his sincerity.  There were even those who believed he was engineering the move.

Rome had had no kings since Junius Brutus thrust them out hundreds of years ago.  The fact that there was no king was a matter of huge pride to the aristocracy that had filled the power gap and benefited from the rise of the Republic and the eviction of a strong, dictatorial monarchy.  There was a lot they would suffer to butter the ego of Caesar.  But some things they could not live with, and being the generation of elite who allowed the return of kings to the corporation was one of them.  As a group, they shared this conviction above all others, and it had the added benefit of making them feel good about themselves.  No kings.  Period.

But Caesar’s grandiosity and narcissism was expanding exponentially, like one of those parade balloons on Thanksgiving morning.  Pretty soon there was no stopping it.  So they began meeting, and in order to appear ethical and moral to themselves, they began mapping out the high tone of the enterprise almost immediately, calling on concepts of liberty and tradition and all kinds of very noble stuff.  In this effort, they were immesurably helped by the participation of several big sheets whose notion of their role in the world were scarcely less elevated than Caesar’s.  In particular, there was Brutus, whose life Caesar once saved on at least one dramatic occasion, and whose mother was a great friend of the great man.  Once Brutus was on board, there was no question in anybody’s mind that they were all doing the right thing.

— Stanley Bing
Rome, Inc.
2006
pgs 118-124

“There’s no question at times of my life, partially driven by how passionately I felt about this country, that I worked far too hard and things happened in my life that were not appropriate.”
Bill Clinton loved his Country too, apparently.

Anyway, as always the question with Newt Gingrich is not really running for President — he’s just using the presidential run as a commercial venture.  As evidenced by his announcement that he was exploring the possibility of launching an exploratory commission.

On this note, to be honest, this is the only funny item in the “Newt Gingrich in Front of Stock photos” I can find.

Tim Pawlenty promotes his political book with a campaign style commercial.  A self-parody itself, it deserves a parody.

Sarah Palin has let it be known that should she run for president, she will be adopting Arizona as her campaign center, to avoid Alaska.  Or maybe a Senate bid?  Well, she has the whole state of Arizona aflutter in speculation.
Really, she can’t run.  Because Michele Bachamann … is?  I assume this puts her in the lower tier of presidential aspirants, whose presidential runs are essentially Vanity Projects, righ?

Wait… What?

Cain received some good news this weekend as he won the straw poll at the Tea Party Patriots meeting in Phoenix. Cain edged out the likes of Ron Paul and Minnesota Gov. Tim Pawlenty. Former Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin was a distant fourth.

Don’t those things usually belong to Ron Paul?  Paul is slipping.  He’ll be in Trump level before long.  (Trump never did try for that bid for the Reform Party in 2000 — party was falling the hands of supporters of Pat Buchanan at the time, and I guess that was a hard nut to juggle.)

Coming off of Technocracy (the movement currently shaking things up in fighting for their wikipedia articles), KPOJ just keeps rolling in the advertisers of spurious movementarian purpose, bouncing around radio drive prime time — so it is Zeitgiest and ZDAY!!!!

Might as well throw in the “endofamerica some numeral or other which if you google the phrase will show up 9 different numbers in the prompt dot com” under the voice of, I think, Alex Jones (unidentified, and if so that seems to be a decision made) — but this, I think, is heard too — along with other on the edge of doomsday ads — on, for instance, 970 AM — all the standard conservative talk host drek and Phil Hendrie in the late evening.

The Zeitgiesters invite you to an Orientation video that will change your whole worldview and lead you to escape the machine and work toward meaningful work envisioning a world without currency.  The End of America leads you to a video inviting you subscribe to a newsletter that will show you how to survive in the coming post-apocalyptic world we’re entering.

Today I listened to someone discuss the earthquake in Japan, somewhat giddy at the Biblical Prophecy this portends — the “only Holy book” with “Prophecies baked in” with all the prophecies in the Old Testament “having come true” and…

… and…

… and…

Profiting off that vision is probably for a different radio audience.

Incidentally, if you google up your Z Day, the first hits you’ll get Zombies.  I think the Zeitgiesters have a lot of work to do to jump above the zombies.