The insidious role of granny-babes

“…Actresses who look sexy at 60, or women who are now Quintastics or evergreen granny-babes, must have a demoralising effect on most women. It is expensive to keep the ageing self feeling and looking fantastic and, for those who can’t afford it, these role models must be distinctly irritating. Those who can afford it should either be truthful about it or keep quiet about it; it is not something to celebrate.”

Tattoo illiteracy

As a couple of earlier posts make clear I can’t stomach tattoos in general, let alone those  big chest or back word tattoos, especially on women (Angelina Jolie and Amy Wiinehouse come to mind). So what could be worse than a big garish body ink word splash? Try a garish misspelled one.

Here’s a good example from the link.

The way of the world since 4 billion BC

You see, Henry Fonda does not like harmonica music and what makes matters worse, well Charles Bronson only knows one tune on his little mouth organ.

This grotesque story could almost make an atheist believe in devil possession

The elder boy replied: “No. I can’t see and I can’t move my body.”…He went on: “You go and I’ll just die here.” Read story here.

Haiti: progress-resistant culture

From a NY Times op ed piece: “…to put the thorny issue of culture at the center of efforts to tackle global poverty. Why is Haiti so poor? Well, it has a history of oppression, slavery and colonialism. But so does Barbados, and Barbados is doing pretty well. Haiti has endured ruthless dictators, corruption and foreign invasions. But so has the Dominican Republic, and the D.R. is in much better shape. Haiti and the Dominican Republic share the same island and the same basic environment, yet the border between the two societies offers one of the starkest contrasts on earth — with trees and progress on one side, and deforestation and poverty and early death on the other…There is the influence of the voodoo religion, which spreads the message that life is capricious and planning futile. There are high levels of social mistrust. Responsibility is often not internalized. Child-rearing practices often involve neglect in the early years and harsh retribution when kids hit 9 or 10.”

“Mondo Hollywood”

Watched this late sixties movie (120 minutes) last night on Hulu. It was supposedly once banned in France as a “danger to mental health.” Personally I don’t see the connection, but then again this is 2010. The best I can say is it’s a series of seedy vignettes about life in Hollywood. It seems to chronicle that period when society’s anti-sexual/anti-self expression  fascade of hiding fantasized sexual or secretly indulged behavior began to give way–to drug use (LSD), topless fascination, long hair, hipster indulgence, and astral projection, etc. The movie’s intermixed with famous stars of the day as they descend their limos at movie premiers in typical overindulgent style. Oh and look for Ronald Reagan complaing in a speech that UCLA reeks of  reefer madness.

Google video

Hulu

“Digital disobedience”

From The NY Times: “…They are using a variety of tools to evade government filters and to reach the wide-open Web that the Chinese government deems dangerous — sites like YouTube, Facebook and, if Google makes good on its threat to withdraw from China, Google.cn. It’s difficult to say precisely how many people in China engage in acts of digital disobedience. But college students in China and activists around the world say the number has been growing ever since the government stepped up efforts to “cleanse” the Web…”

“The Saudi Way”

From Front Page Mag:  “…My first experience with Sharia Law occurred more than a decade ago, shortly after I had deplaned from the British Airways 777 that deposited me in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia, in the course of a consulting project involving the Kingdom’s oil industry. Waiting to pass through customs, I observed a Saudi soldier swinging a machete, casually decapitating a score of Kewpie dolls that an unsuspecting westerner had tried to bring into the country. The torsos were returned to the traveler and the heads were dumped in the trash, all in accordance with Sharia Law. As a “how do you do?” there are better ways to make a first impression…”

Tales from the finance crypt

NY Times: “…Well, if you were hoping for a Perry Mason moment — a scene in which the witness blurts out: “Yes! I admit it! I did it! And I’m glad!” — the hearing was disappointing. What you got, instead, was witnesses blurting out: “Yes! I admit it! I’m clueless!…”

Business Insider: Tim Geithner on AIG’s payout to corporate banks.

Economix blog (NY Times): A growing underclass.

Mother Jones: Wall Street’s moral bankruptcy

Huffington Post: Goldman Sachs says financial crisis an act of god (which god?).

Huffington Post: Record year for foreclosures.

NY Times: J P Morgan’s profit pool up 21%.

A view to a kill

From across the water: “…Never mind that the 10pm slot is widely known within the broadcast industry as a “deathscape”, a terrain so inhospitable, so utterly unfavourable to all forms of ratings life that only the most cockroach-like of formats, the procedural crime drama (Law & Order, CSI: Miami, etc.), can hope to survive it. Nevertheless, Leno was moved, and O’Brien, a pale, freckled 46-year-old — whose quiff is brushed up at such an angle that it looks like a kind of advancing ginger tsunami — got the job that had reportedly been promised to him in 2004. It must have taken all of, oh, a couple of weeks before Zucker realised that he had made a mistake of truly collossal proportions. O’Brien wasn’t just crushed. He was turned to vapour. And then, to the horror of both O’Brien and NBC, the David Letterman scandal broke…” More.

“Abusive relationships”

Like broker, like monkey–or bananas VS big bonuses

Yes, it’s true, proven once again by testing: a monkey outperforms professional investment brokers (in this case Russian ones):

“They are paid a fortune for their ability to make complex decisions about where to invest millions of pounds every single day. But perhaps the job of an investment banker is not quite as difficult as it might seem. A monkey in Russia has out-performed 94 per cent of the country’s investment funds with her portfolio growing by three times in the last year. Moscow TV reported how circus monkey Lusha chose eight companies from a possible 30 to invest her one million roubles – around £21,000…” Here.

The musicologists…

misspoppet77

This is Mozart. Does anyone know what the name of the original is?

bnknd

Actually, this is based on Bach’s “Air”, not on a Mozart piece.

FrostyA1

bnknd, Just wondered, would that be Bach`s `Ginger hair on a G-string` or Mozart`s `Cod-piece on a Jock-strap` ?…..the FFer.

The musicologists (the skinny models uppity version …directly quoting now from Howardtripper:” skinny is awesome i hate fat it stinks and looks gross they sweat and there toes make windows when they open them…”)

Britain’s old turning into violent yobs at an alarming rate

Call it yobinazation by cross cultural affinity osmosis but here it is on video. The question is, how many old Brits are affected?

A couple of wilted Clockwork Orange yobs

Leno VS Conan VS The Peacock

NBC says Move over Conan–or get outta town: “…Conan’s team has told NBC that he’s considering the offer. However, Conan’s people are probably roasting marshmallows on his ass cheeks, because the ginge is fuming mad. Conan does not appreciate the peacock shitting all over his head without warning. If a peacock threw a diarrhea party on your head without asking first, you would be mad too…” Quote from here. In this stage of the game it looks like, speaking now strictly in war terms, Conan is Hannibal to Leno’s Scipio Africanus. You’ll remember from your ancient history that Hannibal crossed the Alps with his thirty seven elephants, made some big inroads in Italy but alas, the Romans, under Scipio, finally defeated him and drove on to Carthage. So if Conan is Hannibal and Leno is Scipio who or what is NBC? The battlefield of course.

A cute little snapshot from our colonial past

During a winter in 1697 Hannah Duston of Massachusetts and her family were attacked by indians. After they brutally killed her infant son they dragged her to their indian camp some fifteen days distance. Along with a few other prisoners they had captured they told them they would probably be tortured and then used for target practice by hatchet-throwing young warriors. At midnight Duston and another woman and a young boy gathered the hatchets from the dozing indians and, quoting now from the excellent Underground Education by Richard Zachs, “killed ten of their twelve Indian guards. The captives fled but then decided to return and take the scalps…of two Indian men, two women and six children.” After their escape by canoe the General Court of Massachusetts awarded them £50 for the bounty.

Amerikafka

From the pen of Paul Craigh Roberts (Taki’s mag): “…Hashmi is a U.S. citizen but his government has violated every right guaranteed to him by the Constitution. The U.S. government, in violation of U.S. law, is also subjecting Hashmi to psychological torture known as extreme sensory deprivation. The bogus ‘‘evidence’’ against him is classified and denied to him.  Like Joseph K. in Kafka’s The Trial, Hashmi is under arrest on secret evidence. As the case against him is unknown or non-existent, defense is impossible…”

Sometimes survival means giving yourself an enema

Survival rules, especially with the bad economy.

Note 1: I’m not saying it’s for certain but this technique could become a component under Obama Care.

Note 2: Without doubt, without any hesitation, Man VS Wild with Bear Grylls is my favorite TV show (second, Myth Busters; third, Modern Marvels)

“The God Fraud”

From the pen of Sam Harris: “I can’t quite remember how we got it into our heads that jihad was linked to violence. (Might it have had something to do with the actual history and teachings of Islam?) And how could we have been so foolish as to connect the apparently inexhaustible supply of martyrs in the Muslim world to the Islamic doctrine of martyrdom? In my own defense, let me say that I do get spooked whenever Western Muslims advocate the murder of apostates (as 36 percent of Muslim young adults do in Britain). But I now know that these freedom-loving people just “want to see God reflected more clearly in public life…I will call my friend Ayaan Hirsi Ali at once and encourage her to come out of hiding: Come on out, dear. Karen says the coast is clear. As it turns out, those people who have been calling for your murder don’t understand Islam any better than we do.”

Red-Green-Blue

With the latest Muslim terrorist attempt in the sky the government has finally put in place sort of a profiling system by country. Tavelers to the U.S. from Yemen and Nigeria, for example, will be given a higher level of screening than travelers from, say, Sweden or Norway. Though the profiling does not specifically target Muslims (as it should) it’s at least a start… And so the controversy over profiling has been renewed.

Profiling makes sense. Just look at the easy logic of it: Imagine three groups. One wears red shirts, one blue, and one green.

It turns out that whenever airliner hijackings or bombings occur or at least are attempted the ones wearing red turn out to be the culprits. Neither a green or blue shirted person ever hijacks a plane, or rather, let’s just say that in 99.9 percent of the cases the latter two shirt wearers do not commit such a crime. Now without profiling red, green, and blue shirt wearers would be given the same level of scrutiny. Once on the plane and in the air, however,  you can be sure  passengers would be keeping their nervous eyes on the red shirted guys. It’s simply psychologically instinctual that they would do that. I would. It’s doubtful anyone would be worried about the guys wearing the green or blue shirts (well, at least 99.9 percent of their worry would be directed at the red).

A child has been kidnapped. Law enforcement knows that in 99.9 percent of such crimes people wearing green shirts are responsible. Again, since profiling by shirt color is verboten the authorities cannot concentrate their resources on individuals wearing green shirts.

Likewise, it statistically turns out (again, 99.9 percent of the time) that blue shirters are seriel killers, but police cannot especially concentrate their efforts on those in the blue. As with the previous cases it would be prejudicial.

Of course, in our examples those wearing red, blue, or green would be, legally speaking, of no more concern than people wearing any color shirt.