And how ironic i find it that i (contrarily) can support the majority decision; despite holding my nose in low regard for the those particular justices (and hoping there is a special place reserved for that pompous one). What i hear them saying is protect a persons' right to free speech liberally and revoke the personhood of corporation to curb their enthusiasm and reach. That is what the 4 dissenters should be proposing in response. P.S. I wish a law existed mandating a 5yr minimum (in solitary) for any official convicted for corruption:) or 5 years community service on work-release.
"Painful though to watch as some errors are being made and thousands of lives are being lost because of it, the critical 72hr period is what they always tell us."
As of midnight last night, no relief of any significance had reached the victims in the city. 48hour on their own. News in MSM was of the difficulty of getting past the 'last mile' and the risk to responders' safety. I googled: "why no heli drops of food and water into port au prince?"
"We did it with the Kurds in Iraq and also in Bosnia so I don't know why it can't be done in Haiti. If not "drop" then how about lower by ropes from helicopters and have some troops on the ground to receive and administer? Something needs to be done and time is running out quickly. Another thing, why are there not buneral pyres to burn the corpses because there is not going to even be room to bury them and the health hazard is tremendous. Those are two things I would already be doing if I were in charge."
Quoting: Bluebird
Yes. 1) Airdrop water to ground troops for orderly dispersal to victims. 2) Dig large fire pits for the corpses, and burn them, asap. 3) Get medical supplies, trained medics and food in country, after 1) and 2) are well under way.
Someone noted that airdrops are against the Geneva Convention, while WHO claims that 3-4 days is all they can hold out.
Anonymous Coward User ID: 865986 1/15/2010 7:47 PM Re: WTH??? Why can't they DROP food , water and supplies over Haiti?????? Quote The argument that you can't do airdrops because there might be rioting is completely ridiculous. What are you people more concerned about, people rioting or people dying without food and water? Turn on your tv, you saw it today, it's just gonna get worse, if they don't get food and water, it will lead to rioting. So your solution of withholding food and water so the won't riot is not gonna work. Let's take a look at Sarejevo, Bosnia in the early 1990's. It was completely cut off, it was the longest city under siege in Europe since the Middle Ages. What did we let them starve? No, we did airdrops. We kept people alive for years with that. They'd drop them in the surrounding hills. Was there a scramble to get the food? Yes, there was. But they'd be dead otherwise. These people who say we can't drop them food or they'll riot, that we should just let them die instead, this is the same level of incompetence of George W. Bush and that Brown character he put in charge of Katrina.
Even some retired general has noted the same thing: http://www.usatoday.com/news/washington/2010-01-15-general-criticizes-response_N.htm "The next morning after the earthquake, as a military man of 37 years service, I assumed... there would be airplanes delivering aid, not troops, but aid," said retired Lt. Gen. Russel Honore, who coordinated military operations after disaster struck the U.S. Gulf Coast in 2005. "What we saw instead was discussion about, 'Well we've got to send an assessment team in to see what the needs are.' And anytime I hear that, my head turns red." The problem, Honore told USA TODAY, is that the State Department and the U.S. Agency for International Development, instead of the military, take the lead in international disaster response. "I was a little frustrated to hear that USAID was the lead agency," he said. "I respect them, but they're not a rapid deployment unit." USAID immediately dispatched an assessment team and search-and-rescue teams, but there has still not been widespread distribution of food or water, three days after the Haiti earthquake. In the first two days after Tuesday evening's quake, "we saw nati
lets not forget that almost all of this took place on Mo Greenberg's watch. I would be looking closely at Ironshore Inc and Iron-Starr Excess Agency Limited to see where the next bubble-making focus will be (purchase and bundling life insurance policies, agribusiness and water claims,...)
Remember Eliot Spitzer filing suit against Marsh & McLennan. The three insurers he named were the AIGroup, Zurich America Insurance Company and Ace Ltd. AIG under 79-year-old legend Maurice "Hank" Greenberg; son Jeffrey ran Marsh & McLennan, and son, Evan, was boss of Ace.
Then, lets not lose sight of the fact that AIG is not in the insurance business as much as they are in the intelligence business. Their 1993 purchase of Kroll Associates and 1997 hiring of Frank Wisner, Jr (of Enron fame) as Deputy Chairman (and son of a CIA founder) should be an indicator that AIG has the goods on a lot of people. Corporate spying has been going on full-court press for over a decade now; I just suspect people do not realize the full extent to which it has effected our lives.
traders are no more pathological than everyone who watches (and bets) on Monday Night Football or any other sport. These are the A-types for whom everything is "can-do" and the 'game' is the be-all and end-all of life's meaning.
I really think that this is what it's about for them. Not the money, though that's nice too, and is unfortunately the measurement of their success(es). It's being in the game, a player, a chance to be a Master of the Universe. In a world where 95% of the population doesn't matter.
This is just as true today as back in the 80's with the corporate raiders. They have no feeling for or appreciation of the blow-back and fallout of their actions. Nor should they if the Laws are crafted such that their only loyalty be to those like them.
"It's ridiculous when GM assembly line workers expect health care in perpetuity."
Well, at least they worked for it. What about coal miners who suffer long-term health problems for being underground? Or the steel-workers who are just as likely to end their careers being called 'lefty' or 'lucky'?
The global corporate world wants to make their shit where the workers have no protections against the hazards of the factory where the shit gets made.
So, is it any more ridiculous than GM exec's touting the miracles of their new China assembly plants while congress paves the way for Cerberus to purchase Chrysler just prior to the collapse, unload all the 'junk' (Detroit factories) to Fiat while retaining control of the Financial Services arm; soon to be consolidated into their new ownership of GMAC?
American Motor Companies have completely out-sourced making cars, recognizing that the money, their profits, lies in financing (services) more than assembly (production). Government bailouts gave them the means to complete the transition.
That Tahoe or S10 you lovingly polish every weekend will not be proudly "Made in the U.S.A." Those factory towns where every able-body could buy a harley and an affordable home will disappear as American-based manufacturing either cannot or will not provide for their workers.
Please refrain from blaming the poor for being too stupid to see that the apple was a plastic fruit. The basic idea of affordable home ownership is a noble one that got twisted by the excesses of corporatism and government. Republican and Democratic leadership both are/were just as culpable in sucking up to their 'vested interests' who keep their re-election war-chests brimming. For both groups, it was never about trying to help the poor, or get them into homes of their own, though the case makes for good dem P.R.. It was about promulgating consumerism to fuel international investments; growing the economy
with new construction and full lines at "Lowes and Home Depot"; buying shit from newly built Chinese factories to offset the massive loans made to US to pay for our warring habits.
Politicians are part of the investor class. They were glued to the DOW.
My octogenarian mother died (of a stroke), sadly enough on my birthday, 48 hours after receiving her influenza vaccination. No one thought to inspect the injection site at the time, but I suspect an adverse reaction to what otherwise was degrading health. It caused me to read up on the subject and my out-take is that everyone should be required to have signed a consent form that spells out the risks involved. All arguments of the vaccination's aside, dear old mom had taken the shots religiously, despite egg issues and as such never thought twice. The doctor administrating never thought twice. Seniors and kids: risks outweigh benefits, period. That's a good outlook when talking the big numbers and national prioritites. But on a personal level, well, people change. Their brain chemistry's degrade: they become more at-risk of reaction.
Or, to be more kind, they're fucked and they know it and they're opting out while they can. These kids are not stupid (for their age) and they know the score despite society not talking about it; let alone addressing it. They, in the collective abstract, are screwed. We (anyone not them) screwed it up. The system is broken, economically, ecologically. There is no social contract, it's everyone for themselves.
The cost of an education (bad as it may be) is a decade or more of saddled debt; and for what? Living in a cubicle? Punching a clock?
Though i feel girlintrainingbra is a bit mislead, he/she has points regarding hope for a better paradigm than what they currently are offered, which is nothing short of very un-good times ahead. I wish them all the luck and am glad that i won't be around to see it (the end of the industrial revolution) come crashing down around them.
HOpeFully, their children, or their grandchildren, will find the a way to survive in more meaningful ways than being just the consumers, worker-bees, and trigger-pullers for the "powers that be".
"I get more social interaction in the flesh on an average day that my baby boomer parents and aunts and uncles get in a week, sometimes a month! "
All those baby-boomers had the same 'life' as you when they were young. It's called getting old, surviving your youth. The friends you have now will become a distant memory and newer friends may criss-cross your life w/out lasting long.
That's what you can expect w/aging, much narrower social horizons.
Enjoy your scene while it lasts because if/when you grow older it takes on less importance; replaced by having a few really close friends and a place of one's own to retreat to when the rat-race overwhelms.
Enjoy yer life, but stop pre-disposing your mind to what older people have been through; its not as different as you may think.
out of 30 million baby-boomers only 10% were hippies, the rest were jocks, greasers, hard-hats, or 'cut from the cloth of their parents'. Hippies has largely no effect on their generation, they just got the most airtime.
"Single-taskers are probably under much more stress though as they aim higher even when multitasking." Or, just having more and more single tasks dumped onto their desks.
"...because they know from experience that it produces better results."...because they know from 'THEIR OWN' experience that it produces better results.
Your post is based entirely on your own subjective experience.
Generally speaking though, you are correct. The vast majority of people are wired the same way you are. Its' in the genes.
That's not to say it applies to everyone. Shit, I've got 16 virtual desktops. 2 are email and IM 4 are for databases 4 are for web coding (xterms and editing sessions, browser windows, etc...) a couple are for research (more browser windows running as a different user, xterms of edit sessions containing running notes...) a couple more contain ssh sessions to remote hosts and may be related to other tasks (like firewalls, smtp, dns,...)
All this 'stuff' sits through uptime on my workstation every day and I'm constantly switching between them as needed. Keeping track of where I am in any given area is a task in and of itself. Step away from something for too long and, unless you take copious notes, the thread risks being lost.
But I would much rather have this env than say a windows box with only one 'screen' doing only one thing at a time. In fact, I could not work that way at all.
Doing this for 10 or 15 years has made me (IMHO) pretty good at doing 'stuff' that is more or less related but very different technically, but I also put a lot of time into making my 'way' work for me; above and beyond the 5-9, go home and forget the job, mentality.
"The only music that I can use as "background noise" is classical. No lyrics, not even very interesting. I don't particularly like classical music, but it doesn't overtly bother me like jazz does."
Well, everyone has different levels of filtering ability which determine if something is a counter-productive distraction, or not.
But people are multi-tasking all the time, unconsciously. Crossing the street at a busy intersection for (a simple) instance, better: rock climbing or scaling a cliff, or a martial arts move to thwart an attacker.
The better you become (through practice), the more unconscious the tasks/steps/process becomes.
Your 'changing focus' because of a distraction is still single-tasking to a different task until you are able to return to what you were doing. I do this all the time, switching focus among tasks (either different programming tasks, or say, stopping to IM someone and doing something else until
i get a reply, etc..). Fact is, I think we all do that to a greater or lesser degree as the
cost of entry to the rat-race; and for which sitting on a beach for a week, tasked to watch a sunrise and the tide recede as our reward.
Multitasking would be coding and watching CNN at the same time, or day-trading in front of 4 displays each with different market makers while on phone w/clients and trying to listen to boss. For most people, it's only sustainable for so long.
For a true multitasker it's a piece of cake (on prima-face evidence). Someone with ADD/ADHD, it's said, has something in their genes that predate agrarianism; a hunting instinct, as it were. It purportedly gives them an ability to hyper-focus for short periods of time; and I would conject that the hyper-focusing is necessary to multi-tasking. E.g. giving equal time to all sensory inputs, plus tracking, plus whatever other skills are necessary to make a kill.
It may suggest that ADHD/ADD individuals CAN multitask effectively, but it does not assert that they can sustain that level for extended periods of time. Worse, the assertion also includes the fact that the 'agrarian' gene dominates society and dictates the 'accepted', mainstream way of doing things; which is why ADD is treated as a disorder instead of simply a different, but equal, characteristic or trait.
I better get back to work now, or my 'tasking' performance will fall off.
Not to diminish the joy of taking a healthy dump, but i often talk on the phone during the process (bet nobody reading this will be calling me anymore!), and always shower and shave at the same time. How's that for multitasking?
Maybe not for Mexico, but my idea for the U.S. is to 1st convert the DrugEnforcementAgency into the DrugExchangeAgency; who better to regulate the flow and cost of drugs than those who are most intimately familiar with it? Next would be to hire off-duty cops to deliver drugs to drug-users who've gotten a valid prescription from a PrimaryPhysician after a consult. These cops are best equipped to deliver the drugs, can augment their salaries from it AND keep tabs on users for possible problems (like abuse).
Cops making $ from delivering dope to otherwise legal users who have nothing now to fear from cops means that the cops are now safer than ever before - turning an impossible job into an easy one.
LEA rationalizes their experiences in a way that is favorable to the State, as enforcers of the LAW and always in an adversarial relationship with the public they are supposed to serve. Most cops do not like this role, unless they are abusers, and would like to see the laws changed. But they generally will not speak out for fear of risking alienation among their 'brotherhood' for what would generally come to nothing.
Visit leap.cc Law Enforcement Against Prohibition the tide is slowly turning.
You're a bonehead. Fully 1/3 of all 'things' made under defense contracts never see the light of day. They were budgeted solely to bring jobs to some congresscritter's district. Of course, that's only after skimming, stealing, miss-appropriating, losing, a good chunk of it.
Sure, it creates/keeps some jobs. But this trickle-down is what's borking the system.
Both were handled exactly the way they wanted to be 'handled'; which is to say: making the lemonade from the lemons they so wonderfully grew (and insuring their profit at our expense as much as possible). One need only listen to the director of GM operations in China over a year ago spouting on about how they were growing in leaps-n-bounds to know where manufacturing was headed. Then followed the 'meltdown'. What is the result? Cerberus, the new dog in town, unloaded Chrylser onto Fiat but kept the financial services, then acquired GMAC. Look at who is in charge.
Point being that the services and financing sector is all 'Detroit' really wanted in the 1st place. Offshoring jobs and closing factories was the plan all along.
When is an Institution "to big to fail"? When it has the capability of exposing every little dark secret it's adversaries hope to keep closeted.
I don't know if I"m stating the obvious, and I've commented on this subject elsewhere on numerous occasions, but it is a miss-conception to think of AIG/AIU as an insurance company as much as it is to believe Goldman Sachs is a bank. AIU, and I would argue all mega-financial institutions, are primarily in the intelligence business.
Below are my slurped reference notes:
AIG founded by OSS operative Cornelius V. Starr, uncle of Kenneth Starr. Maurice Greenberg, CEO dealt in chinese trade in the 80s, Henry Kissinger was his representative.
In 1993 AIG became co-owner of the "private spy agency" Kroll Associates, rescuing them from bankruptcy with a cash infusion. Started in New York City in 1972, Kroll was employed for corporate espionage in takeover bids, as well as for destabilization of foreign nations.
Kroll was notorious during the 1980s as the "CIA of Wall Street" due to the prevalence of former CIA, FBI, Scotland Yard, British secret service and British Special Air Service. Kroll was also responsible for World Trade Center Security from 1993 to 2001 (what does that suggest?).
During 1996, Greenberg was deputy chairman of the CFR and chair of taskforce on intelligence, In December 1997, Kroll merged with armored car manufacturer O'Gara-Hess & Eisenhardt to form The Kroll-O'Gara Company. www.krollworldwide.com O'Gara is/was responsible for the security of all US-Presidents since 1945. in 1997 MG hires Frank Wisner, Jr. (a director of Enron) , as a boardmember of Kroll and Deputy Chairman for External Affairs.
FW's dad built the CIA. In Aug2001, Kroll Associates was renamed to Kroll Inc.
May 2004, Julius Kroll sold his business to Marsh & McLennan, the New York insurance broker which claims to be the world's largest, for $1.9 billion, Kroll CEO Michael Cherkasky became Marsh CEO replacing Jeffrey W. Greenberg. Cherkasky had brought Eliot Spitzer into the NY City District Attorney's Office way back when, and was a contributor to Spitzer's campaign to become New York Governor.
In October 2004, Eliot Spitzer filed suit against Marsh & McLennan, accusing the company of having, for years, colluded with big insurance companies to "cheat customers in an elaborate charade of price fixing and bid rigging". The three insurers he named were the giants AIG, Zurich America Insurance Company and Ace Ltd. AIG under 79-year-old legend Maurice "Hank" Greenberg; son Jeffrey ran Marsh & McLennan, and son, Evan, was boss of Ace.
In January 2005, Cherkasky persuaded Spitzer to drop the civil charges against the company by pledging to pay $US850 million to clients around the world - including Australia - that Marsh & McLennan had defrauded. We know what happened to the criminal charges, or the person who was going to file them.
There's plenty more evidence to suggest that AIG and it's ilk are neck-deep in corporate espionage; and also implicates these institutions in manipulating, if not the markets, the people responsible for shaping them.
hi - Thanks for responding and for sharing. I think we're both hearing the same tune, from similar if not same experiences, and have reached pretty much the same conclusions. I suspect you are a couple of years older than me ( and what a difference those couple of years can make when you're under 21!)
Nevertheless, I do agree that the citizenry of a land has the ability to shake off the yoke of armed occupation because a) the underdog usually has favorable odds and b) the Armed Forces is so preoccupied w/inter-departmental competition that they can't see the forest for the trees.
If it comes down to it, there will be scattered rebellions throughout the USA; more than can be effectively combated. It was known fact even back during the Cold War that the fear of Communist invasion was a joke - nobody in their right mind would believe the US can be occupied by force; like herding cats.
I do take some cold comfort in knowing that in winning their battles, those on the line doing the fighting for the war-mongers experience the lies 1st hand are the ones with the greatest credibility to stand truth to power.
I know I'm expressing this poorly, but I believe that unless one is defending their own backyard, the best thing a line soldier can do is bring back testimony to the LIE, as theirs is the only voice that has credibility. That, to me is the sole role for a soldier in today's imperial army.
It was just a little before my time, and I'm not into/asking-for stories, but your history prompts me to ask:
did you happen to find yourself attached to 3rd Battalion? Does "Light, Swift, and Accurate" hold any meaning for you?
Slashdot Mirror
"Do you actually do *most* tasks on a computer by running commands in a CLI?"
Yep, cuz my bin/ 's have so much utility goodness in them:)
And how ironic i find it that i (contrarily) can support the majority decision; despite holding my nose
in low regard for the those particular justices (and hoping there is a special place reserved for that pompous one). What i hear them saying is protect a persons' right to free speech liberally and revoke the personhood of corporation to curb their enthusiasm and reach. That is what the 4 dissenters should be proposing in response.
P.S. I wish a law existed mandating a 5yr minimum (in solitary) for any official convicted for corruption:)
or 5 years community service on work-release.
how about we just get a law passed that says any elected offical (or their proxy) convicted of corruption serves a mandatory 5-year prison sentence -
"Painful though to watch as some errors are being made and thousands of lives are being lost because of it, the critical 72hr period is what they always tell us."
As of midnight last night, no relief of any significance had reached the victims in the city. 48hour on their own.
News in MSM was of the difficulty of getting past the 'last mile' and the risk to responders' safety.
I googled: "why no heli drops of food and water into port au prince?"
Page1 of the results only had 4 links related to airlifts and/or helicopters. I found this formum interesting:
http://www.godlikeproductions.com/forum1/message965870/pg1
"We did it with the Kurds in Iraq and also in Bosnia so I don't know why it can't be done in Haiti.
If not "drop" then how about lower by ropes from helicopters and have some troops on the ground to receive and administer?
Something needs to be done and time is running out quickly.
Another thing, why are there not buneral pyres to burn the corpses because there is not going to even be room to bury them and the health hazard is tremendous.
Those are two things I would already be doing if I were in charge."
Quoting: Bluebird
Yes.
1) Airdrop water to ground troops for orderly dispersal to victims.
2) Dig large fire pits for the corpses, and burn them, asap.
3) Get medical supplies, trained medics and food in country, after 1) and 2) are well under way.
Someone noted that airdrops are against the Geneva Convention, while WHO claims that 3-4 days is all they can hold out.
Anonymous Coward
User ID: 865986
1/15/2010 7:47 PM
Re: WTH??? Why can't they DROP food , water and supplies over Haiti?????? Quote
The argument that you can't do airdrops because there might be rioting is completely ridiculous. What are you people more concerned about, people rioting or people dying without food and water? Turn on your tv, you saw it today, it's just gonna get worse, if they don't get food and water, it will lead to rioting. So your solution of withholding food and water so the won't riot is not gonna work.
Let's take a look at Sarejevo, Bosnia in the early 1990's. It was completely cut off, it was the longest city under siege in Europe since the Middle Ages. What did we let them starve? No, we did airdrops. We kept people alive for years with that. They'd drop them in the surrounding hills. Was there a scramble to get the food? Yes, there was. But they'd be dead otherwise.
These people who say we can't drop them food or they'll riot, that we should just let them die instead, this is the same level of incompetence of George W. Bush and that Brown character he put in charge of Katrina.
Even some retired general has noted the same thing: ... there would be airplanes delivering aid, not troops, but aid," said retired Lt. Gen. Russel Honore, who coordinated military operations after disaster struck the U.S. Gulf Coast in 2005. "What we saw instead was discussion about, 'Well we've got to send an assessment team in to see what the needs are.' And anytime I hear that, my head turns red."
http://www.usatoday.com/news/washington/2010-01-15-general-criticizes-response_N.htm
"The next morning after the earthquake, as a military man of 37 years service, I assumed
The problem, Honore told USA TODAY, is that the State Department and the U.S. Agency for International Development, instead of the military, take the lead in international disaster response.
"I was a little frustrated to hear that USAID was the lead agency," he said. "I respect them, but they're not a rapid deployment unit."
USAID immediately dispatched an assessment team and search-and-rescue teams, but there has still not been widespread distribution of food or water, three days after the Haiti earthquake.
In the first two days after Tuesday evening's quake, "we saw nati
lets not forget that almost all of this took place on Mo Greenberg's watch. I would be looking closely
at Ironshore Inc and Iron-Starr Excess Agency Limited to see where the next bubble-making focus will be
(purchase and bundling life insurance policies, agribusiness and water claims,...)
Remember Eliot Spitzer filing suit against Marsh & McLennan.
The three insurers he named were the AIGroup, Zurich America Insurance Company and Ace Ltd.
AIG under 79-year-old legend Maurice "Hank" Greenberg;
son Jeffrey ran Marsh & McLennan,
and son, Evan, was boss of Ace.
Then, lets not lose sight of the fact that AIG is not in the insurance business as much as they
are in the intelligence business. Their 1993 purchase of Kroll Associates and 1997 hiring of Frank Wisner, Jr (of Enron fame) as Deputy Chairman (and son of a CIA founder) should be an indicator that
AIG has the goods on a lot of people. Corporate spying has been going on full-court press for over
a decade now; I just suspect people do not realize the full extent to which it has effected our lives.
try googling Kroll Inc, a subsidiary of AIG
Corporate espionage has been around for 2 decades now.
traders are no more pathological than everyone who watches (and bets) on Monday Night Football or
any other sport. These are the A-types for whom everything is "can-do" and the 'game' is the
be-all and end-all of life's meaning.
I really think that this is what it's about for them. Not the money, though that's nice too,
and is unfortunately the measurement of their success(es). It's being in the game, a player,
a chance to be a Master of the Universe. In a world where 95% of the population doesn't matter.
This is just as true today as back in the 80's with the corporate raiders. They have no
feeling for or appreciation of the blow-back and fallout of their actions. Nor should they if the
Laws are crafted such that their only loyalty be to those like them.
"It's ridiculous when GM assembly line workers expect health care in perpetuity."
Well, at least they worked for it. What about coal miners who suffer long-term health problems
for being underground? Or the steel-workers who are just as likely to end their careers being
called 'lefty' or 'lucky'?
The global corporate world wants to make their shit where the workers have no protections against
the hazards of the factory where the shit gets made.
So, is it any more ridiculous than GM exec's touting the miracles of their new China assembly plants
while congress paves the way for Cerberus to purchase Chrysler just prior to the collapse, unload all the
'junk' (Detroit factories) to Fiat while retaining control of the Financial Services arm;
soon to be consolidated into their new ownership of GMAC?
American Motor Companies have completely out-sourced making cars, recognizing that the money,
their profits, lies in financing (services) more than assembly (production).
Government bailouts gave them the means to complete the transition.
That Tahoe or S10 you lovingly polish every weekend will not be proudly "Made in the U.S.A."
Those factory towns where every able-body could buy a harley and an affordable home will disappear
as American-based manufacturing either cannot or will not provide for their workers.
My understanding is that CA is held hostage by conservative San Deigo County
Please refrain from blaming the poor for being too stupid to see that the apple was a plastic fruit.
The basic idea of affordable home ownership is a noble one that got twisted by the excesses of
corporatism and government.
Republican and Democratic leadership both are/were just as culpable in sucking up to their
'vested interests' who keep their re-election war-chests brimming.
For both groups, it was never about trying to help the poor, or get them into homes of their own, though
the case makes for good dem P.R..
It was about promulgating consumerism to fuel international investments; growing the economy
with new construction and full lines at "Lowes and Home Depot"; buying shit from newly built
Chinese factories to offset the massive loans made to US to pay for our warring habits.
Politicians are part of the investor class. They were glued to the DOW.
My octogenarian mother died (of a stroke), sadly enough on my birthday, 48 hours after receiving her influenza vaccination. No one thought to inspect the injection site at the time, but I suspect an adverse reaction
to what otherwise was degrading health.
It caused me to read up on the subject and my out-take is that everyone should be required to have
signed a consent form that spells out the risks involved. All arguments of the vaccination's
aside, dear old mom had taken the shots religiously, despite egg issues and as such never thought twice.
The doctor administrating never thought twice. Seniors and kids: risks outweigh benefits, period.
That's a good outlook when talking the big numbers and national prioritites. But on a personal level,
well, people change. Their brain chemistry's degrade: they become more at-risk of reaction.
Or, to be more kind, they're fucked and they know it and they're opting out while they can. These kids are not stupid (for their age) and they know the score despite society not talking about it; let alone addressing it.
They, in the collective abstract, are screwed. We (anyone not them) screwed it up.
The system is broken, economically, ecologically. There is no
social contract, it's everyone for themselves.
The cost of an education (bad as it may be) is a decade or more of
saddled debt; and for what? Living in a cubicle? Punching a clock?
Though i feel girlintrainingbra is a bit mislead, he/she has points regarding
hope for a better paradigm than what they currently are offered, which
is nothing short of very un-good times ahead. I wish them all the luck and
am glad that i won't be around to see it (the end of the industrial
revolution) come crashing down around them.
HOpeFully, their children, or their grandchildren, will find the a way
to survive in more meaningful ways than being just the consumers, worker-bees,
and trigger-pullers for the "powers that be".
"I get more social interaction in the flesh on an average day that my baby boomer parents and aunts and uncles get in a week, sometimes a month! "
All those baby-boomers had the same 'life' as you when they were young. It's called getting old, surviving your youth. The friends you have now will become a distant memory and newer friends may criss-cross your life w/out lasting long.
That's what you can expect w/aging, much narrower social horizons.
Enjoy your scene while it lasts because if/when you grow older it takes on
less importance; replaced by having a few really close friends and a place
of one's own to retreat to when the rat-race overwhelms.
Enjoy yer life, but stop pre-disposing your mind to what older people have
been through; its not as different as you may think.
out of 30 million baby-boomers only 10% were hippies, the rest were jocks, greasers, hard-hats, or 'cut from the cloth of their parents'. Hippies has largely no effect on their generation, they just got the most airtime.
good point. you bring up the importance of the difference between taskers, single or multi, and people who just don't know how to listen.
"Single-taskers are probably under much more stress though as they aim higher even when multitasking."
Or, just having more and more single tasks dumped onto their desks.
"...because they know from experience that it produces better results." ...because they know from 'THEIR OWN' experience that it produces better results.
Your post is based entirely on your own subjective experience.
Generally speaking though, you are correct.
The vast majority of people are wired the same way you are. Its' in the genes.
That's not to say it applies to everyone. Shit, I've got 16 virtual desktops. ...)
2 are email and IM
4 are for databases
4 are for web coding (xterms and editing sessions, browser windows, etc...)
a couple are for research (more browser windows running as a different user, xterms of
edit sessions containing running notes...)
a couple more contain ssh sessions to remote hosts and may be related to other tasks
(like firewalls, smtp, dns,
All this 'stuff' sits through uptime on my workstation every day and I'm constantly switching
between them as needed. Keeping track of where I am in any given area is a task in and of itself.
Step away from something for too long and, unless you take copious notes, the thread risks being lost.
But I would much rather have this env than say a windows box with only one 'screen' doing only one thing at a time. In fact, I could not work that way at all.
Doing this for 10 or 15 years has made me (IMHO) pretty good at doing 'stuff' that is more or less
related but very different technically, but I also put a lot of time into making my 'way' work for
me; above and beyond the 5-9, go home and forget the job, mentality.
"The only music that I can use as "background noise" is classical. No lyrics, not even very interesting. I don't particularly like classical music, but it doesn't overtly bother me like jazz does."
You may want to look into binaural beats:)
Well, everyone has different levels of filtering ability which determine if something is a
counter-productive distraction, or not.
But people are multi-tasking all the time, unconsciously. Crossing the street at a busy
intersection for (a simple) instance, better: rock climbing or scaling a cliff, or a martial arts move
to thwart an attacker.
The better you become (through practice), the more unconscious the tasks/steps/process becomes.
Your 'changing focus' because of a distraction is still single-tasking to a different task until you
are able to return to what you were doing. I do this all the time, switching focus among tasks
(either different programming tasks, or say, stopping to IM someone and doing something else until
i get a reply, etc..). Fact is, I think we all do that to a greater or lesser degree as the
cost of entry to the rat-race;
and for which sitting on a beach for a week, tasked to watch a sunrise and the tide recede as our reward.
Multitasking would be coding and watching CNN at the same time, or day-trading in front of 4 displays
each with different market makers while on phone w/clients and trying to listen to boss.
For most people, it's only sustainable for so long.
For a true multitasker it's a piece of cake (on prima-face evidence). Someone with ADD/ADHD, it's
said, has something in their genes that predate agrarianism; a hunting instinct, as it were.
It purportedly gives them an ability to hyper-focus for short periods of time; and I would conject that
the hyper-focusing is necessary to multi-tasking. E.g. giving equal time to all sensory inputs,
plus tracking, plus whatever other skills are necessary to make a kill.
It may suggest that ADHD/ADD individuals CAN multitask effectively, but it does not assert that they
can sustain that level for extended periods of time.
Worse, the assertion also includes the fact that the 'agrarian' gene dominates society and dictates
the 'accepted', mainstream way of doing things; which is why ADD is treated as a disorder instead of simply a different, but equal, characteristic or trait.
I better get back to work now, or my 'tasking' performance will fall off.
Not to diminish the joy of taking a healthy dump, but i often talk on the phone during the process (bet nobody reading this will be calling me anymore!), and always shower and shave at the same time. How's that for multitasking?
Maybe not for Mexico, but my idea for the U.S. is to 1st convert the DrugEnforcementAgency into
the DrugExchangeAgency; who better to regulate the flow and cost of drugs than those who
are most intimately familiar with it?
Next would be to hire off-duty cops to deliver drugs to drug-users who've gotten a valid
prescription from a PrimaryPhysician after a consult.
These cops are best equipped to deliver the drugs, can augment their salaries from it AND keep tabs
on users for possible problems (like abuse).
Cops making $ from delivering dope to otherwise legal users who have nothing now to fear from cops
means that the cops are now safer than ever before - turning an impossible job into an easy one.
How's that for counter-intuitive solutions?
LEA rationalizes their experiences in a way that is favorable to the State, as enforcers of the LAW and always in an adversarial relationship with the public they are supposed to serve.
Most cops do not like this role, unless they are abusers, and would like to see the laws changed. But they generally will not speak out for fear of risking alienation among their 'brotherhood' for what would generally come to nothing.
Visit leap.cc
Law Enforcement Against Prohibition
the tide is slowly turning.
You're a bonehead. Fully 1/3 of all 'things' made under defense contracts never see the light of day. They were budgeted solely to bring jobs to some congresscritter's district. Of course, that's only after skimming, stealing, miss-appropriating, losing, a good chunk of it.
Sure, it creates/keeps some jobs. But this trickle-down is what's borking the system.
Both were handled exactly the way they wanted to be 'handled'; which is to say: making the lemonade
from the lemons they so wonderfully grew (and insuring their profit at our expense as much as possible).
One need only listen to the director of GM operations in
China over a year ago spouting on about how they were growing in leaps-n-bounds to know where manufacturing
was headed. Then followed the 'meltdown'. What is the result? Cerberus, the new dog in town,
unloaded Chrylser onto Fiat but kept the financial services, then acquired GMAC. Look at who is in charge.
Point being that the services and financing sector is all 'Detroit' really wanted in the 1st place.
Offshoring jobs and closing factories was the plan all along.
When is an Institution "to big to fail"? When it has the capability of exposing every little dark secret it's adversaries hope to keep closeted.
I don't know if I"m stating the obvious, and I've commented on this subject elsewhere on numerous occasions, but it is a miss-conception to think of AIG/AIU as an insurance company as much as it is to believe Goldman Sachs is a bank.
AIU, and I would argue all mega-financial institutions, are primarily in the intelligence business.
Below are my slurped reference notes:
AIG founded by OSS operative Cornelius V. Starr, uncle of Kenneth Starr.
Maurice Greenberg, CEO dealt in chinese trade in the 80s, Henry Kissinger was his representative.
In 1993 AIG became co-owner of the "private spy agency" Kroll Associates, rescuing them from bankruptcy with a cash infusion.
Started in New York City in 1972, Kroll was employed for corporate espionage in takeover bids, as well as for destabilization of foreign nations.
Kroll was notorious during the 1980s as the "CIA of Wall Street" due to the prevalence of former CIA, FBI, Scotland Yard, British secret service and British Special Air Service. Kroll was also responsible for World Trade Center Security from 1993 to 2001 (what does that suggest?).
During 1996, Greenberg was deputy chairman of the CFR and chair of taskforce on intelligence,
In December 1997, Kroll merged with armored car manufacturer O'Gara-Hess & Eisenhardt to form The Kroll-O'Gara Company. www.krollworldwide.com O'Gara is/was responsible for the security of all US-Presidents since 1945.
in 1997 MG hires Frank Wisner, Jr. (a director of Enron) , as a boardmember of Kroll and Deputy Chairman for External Affairs.
FW's dad built the CIA. In Aug2001, Kroll Associates was renamed to Kroll Inc.
May 2004, Julius Kroll sold his business to Marsh & McLennan, the New York insurance broker which claims to be the world's largest, for $1.9 billion, Kroll CEO Michael Cherkasky became Marsh CEO replacing Jeffrey W. Greenberg.
Cherkasky had brought Eliot Spitzer into the NY City District Attorney's Office way back when, and was a contributor to Spitzer's campaign to become New York Governor.
In October 2004, Eliot Spitzer filed suit against Marsh & McLennan, accusing the company of having, for years, colluded with big insurance companies to "cheat customers in an elaborate charade of price fixing and bid rigging".
The three insurers he named were the giants AIG, Zurich America Insurance Company and Ace Ltd.
AIG under 79-year-old legend Maurice "Hank" Greenberg; son Jeffrey ran Marsh & McLennan, and son, Evan, was boss of Ace.
In January 2005, Cherkasky persuaded Spitzer to drop the civil charges against the company by pledging to pay $US850 million to clients around the world - including Australia - that Marsh & McLennan had defrauded. We know what happened to the
criminal charges, or the person who was going to file them.
There's plenty more evidence to suggest that AIG and it's ilk are neck-deep in corporate espionage; and also implicates
these institutions in manipulating, if not the markets, the people responsible for shaping them.
hi - Thanks for responding and for sharing. I think we're both hearing the same tune, from similar if not same experiences, and have reached pretty much the same conclusions. I suspect you are a couple of years older than me ( and what a difference those couple of years can make when you're under 21!)
Nevertheless, I do agree that the citizenry of a land has the ability to shake off the yoke of armed occupation because a) the underdog usually has favorable odds and b) the Armed Forces is so preoccupied w/inter-departmental competition that they can't see the forest for the trees.
If it comes down to it, there will be scattered rebellions throughout the USA; more than can be effectively combated. It was known fact even back during the Cold War that the fear of Communist invasion was a joke - nobody in their right mind would believe the US can be occupied by force; like herding cats.
I do take some cold comfort in knowing that in winning their battles, those on the line doing the fighting for the war-mongers experience the lies 1st hand are the ones with the greatest credibility to stand truth to power.
I know I'm expressing this poorly, but I believe that unless one is defending their own backyard,
the best thing a line soldier can do is bring back testimony to the LIE, as theirs is the only
voice that has credibility.
That, to me is the sole role for a soldier in today's imperial army.
It was just a little before my time, and
I'm not into/asking-for stories, but your history prompts me to ask:
did you happen to find yourself attached to 3rd Battalion? Does "Light, Swift, and Accurate" hold any meaning for you?
Be well brother, and don't forget to duck!