I can't believe it's not a democracy!

Third leg of the trifecta...

One last holiday visit to the family.  Yes, it is getting a bit tiring, but this Friday evening is our cousins' party, where the first cousins (and aunts and uncles) get together and we make sure the kids know who their cousins are.  Most of the family live in the same town, but there's the east side and west side and, well, one has to make an effort if the family is going to get to know one another.  So I do the trek.  The party itself should be fun, the traveling is getting a bit old.  I'm getting really tired of people who text while walking or talk loudly on their cell phones.   After this weekend, there is one January visit for my eldest niece's birthday, then nothing for a while.  Ah. 

I hope that you all have a lovely New Year's Eve.  As for 2012...man, it has to get better.  If not, we will have to force it to get better.  After all, sooner or later matters must be resolved.  I'd rather that we not wait. 

Did you read about Anonymous hacking a security "think tank"? Here's why they did it:

Why Stratfor was Really Hacked. If you read about this story, you know taht Anonymous hacked Stratfor and using the credit card numbers of various clients made donations on their behalf to the American Red Cross, Save the Children, etc. Anonymous was shocked that Stratfor didn't even bother to encrypt the credit card information. Using the cards to make the donation was for fun. Hacking Stratfor was for a higher purpose, however. According to Barrett Brown:

Stratfor was not breached in order to obtain customer credit card numbers, which the hackers in question could not have expected to be as easily obtainable as they were. Rather, the operation was pursued in order to obtain the 2.7 million e-mails that exist on the firm's servers. This wealth of data includes correspondence with untold thousands of contacts who have spoken to Stratfor's employees off the record over more than a decade. Many of those contacts work for major corporations within the intelligence and military contracting sectors, government agencies, and other institutions for which Anonymous and associated parties have developed an interest since February of 2011, when another hack against the intelligence contractor/security firm HBGary revealed, among many other things, a widespread conspiracy by the Justice Department, Bank of America, and other parties to attack and discredit Wikileaks and other activist groups.

At least someone is working on providing the transparency that liar in the White House promised his desperate base. If the Nobel Committee had any decency, they would make up for their shameful award of the prize to Obama by giving the peace price to Wikileaks and Anonymous. Now, that would be one interesting reception, no?

Krugman, the radical:

The Defeatism of Depression. Says Krugman: There is nothing — nothing — in what we see suggesting that this current depression is more than a problem of inadequate demand. This could be turned around in months with the right policies. Our problem isn’t, ultimately, economic; it’s political, brought on by an elite that would rather cling to its prejudices than turn the nation around.

Not really radical, is it? Yes, it is. As George Orwell said: In a time of universal deceit, telling the truth is a revolutionary act. Krugman and Taibbi are two of the last honest men in the media. At least we have them.

No question mark needed:

‘Security Theater’? TSA Confiscates Woman’s Frosted Cupcake. Yes, ABCNews.com, it is security theater, and I, for one, am convinced that the same vile assholes making money off of the "I can see you naked cancer machines" are probbly heavily invested in drug companies that manufacture chemotherapy likely to be used 20 years from now when an "unexplained" cancer spike suddenly appears. And I repeat: Michael Chertoff and Janet Napolitano should be forced to walk through those filthy 4th amendment violating machines for the amusement of the criminally insane until they drop from exhaustion or radiation poisoning. Then they should be nursed back to good health, and the walk of shame can continue.

Soon to be off to spend time with family and friends

in nervous anticipation at the arrival of the christian god, Santa Claus.  

Hope you all have a fabulous holiday weekend, whatever you practice or not.  Hey, everyone needs to celebrate something at the end of another tumultuous year.   I'll be back on Monday.

The law of unintended consequences:

Occupy The XBox: New Tom Clancy Video Game Targets Wall Street Fat Cats. Except it doesn't. You see, according to my friend Jim, Clancy is a giant rightwing, Reagan loving asshole. And he apparently made this video game to paint the OWS patriot heroes as terrorist douchebags. But things backfired, and it seems that the trailer makes one cheer for the group that isn't protecting the bankers. You read that right. The kids and adults playing this game are supposed to want to protect the fucking bankers. Said one viewer of the trailer: “I hope you get to play as the terrorists in this game,” writes one viewer on the game’s YouTube trailer. “At least, you know, massacring bankers.” Bet the banker assholes get this game pulled, pronto.

Light posting ahead.

This weekend I go down to S. Jersey to celebrate my Uncle Bob's 75th birthday.  Uncle Bob married into my family.  At first my brother and I were not exactly thrilled when he married my Aunt Mary because she moved out of the house we lived in (with our grandparents), and it meant that we had to share her.  But then he helped filled the obviously empty spot where my father should have been (divorced parents and many complications).   My mother's family is not athletic, so Uncle Bob was the one who went out back to toss a baseball around to me and my brother, or show us how to properly throw a football.  And he has always stood in our corner.  Always.  So posting will be light, as we all get together for a fabulous birthday celebration for a fabulous uncle.  

I hope you have a fabulous weekend too. 

A Fucking Disgrace:

Census shows 1 in 2 Americans are poor or low-income. The republicans are bastards, but the democrats--who did nothing to address the Wall Street created fiscal "crisis" during the first two years of Obama's president WHEN THEY HAD A MAJORITY IN BOTH FUCKING HOUSES--should hang their heads in shame. No, they should resign since it is obvious that most of them are either unwilling or unable (or both) to do their fucking jobs. Richest nation that ever existed, my ass.

It's not the crime that gets them, it's the cover-up:

Murdochgate: Today's NYT ABOVE the Crease: James is Going Downnn. Long and short, James said he didn't really read an e-mail he read. Said he didn't know about the widescale "criminality" at News of the World. But, oh dear, e-mails prove otherwise, so his tiny dick is caught in a ringer. I want to see him go down and his old man's empire crushed before daddy's golddiggng wife holds the pillow over his evil fucking face. Because Fox has destroyed what little decent media we had in this country and has made civil political discourse impossible. I want them all to suffer and serve as an example of what one must never do.

Here's some good news. Reason finds a foothold:

Atheist messages displace CA park nativity scenes. Displace? The atheists got the right to display spaces because they got them by lottery. The churches apparently had little or no competition for the spaces, which they used for nativity scenes, etc., for decades, but this year there was more interest and the atheists got most of the spaces through the lottery. About fucking time. Kudos atheists friends. Probably short lived. Cue the Fox outrage, three, two.....