...And the Winner Is...

GIANTS!

That's all, folks.

Mr. Kafka? Mr. Franz Kafka? Mr. Franz Kafka, To the Red Courtesy Phone, Please? Mr. Kafka, to the Red Courtesy Phone.

They need no reason for the seizin'.

Via Comrade Misfit.

In Memoriam

Jack Bruce, bassist, Cream et al.

In the Interest of Getting Rid of All Those Open Tabs So I Can Clear the History...

• Paul Bibeau at Goblinbooks has been on fire this week.
• Review of The Skeptic's Annotated Bible, pointing out some of the contradictions and inconsistencies of the Bible.
• Pat Robertson.
• How repulsive is Pat Robertson?  Yeah.  That repulsive.
• Kansas and marriage equality as well as the struggle for equal rights for LGBTQ folks.
• Hazmat training, Ebola, and the US healthcare "system."

  We have the technology, and we certainly have the money to keep Ebola at bay. What we don't have is communication. What we don't have is a health care system that values preventative care. What we don't have is an equal playing field between nurses and physicians and allied health professionals and patients. What we don't have is a culture of health where we work symbiotically with one another and with the technology that was created specifically to bridge communication gaps, but has in so many ways failed. What we don't have is the social culture of transparency, what we don't have is a stopgap against mounting hysteria and hypochondria, what we don't have is nation of health literate individuals. We don't even have health-literate professionals. Most doctors are specialists and are well versed only in their field. Ask your orthopedist a general question about your health -- see if they can comfortably answer it.

• Geoffrey Holder's last dance.

[Jumping Up and Down] Yes! This! Yes!!!

Greta Christina (at AlterNet) tells it straight.

A lot of factors go into [lower voter turnout among progressives], of course, including roadblocks to voter registration, voter ID laws, insufficient polling places, cutbacks on voting hours and early voting, and other forms of voter suppression. But voter disengagement, citizens' sense that government isn't about them and voting doesn't make a difference, sure doesn't help. And getting more people to the ballot box who can vote is one of the ways we can push back against the overt forms of voter suppression -- thus getting even more people to vote.

But being dismissed as "flyover people" doesn't instill folks with a burning desire to get involved in progressive politics. See 1 and 2 above. If we want more Americans to think of government as Us rather than Them, as the way a society pools its resources and makes decisions about those resources rather than as the evil cackling villains lording it over the plebes, we need to not play into the "plebes" narrative ourselves. Voter suppression and discouraging turnout is a major conservative tactic. Let's not help them.

Daisy Deadhead (Hi, Daisy!) and others have been saying this for ages.  (That's the Tumblr blog; the Blogger blog is in the sidebar.)

Comic Relief

Amid all the bad, scary, despairing news, there is one eternal truth:  stuff is still funny.

Invisible Accomplishments?

And I note this is framed as a PR Thing.

Via Zandar Versus the Stupid (who has other things to say), USAToday reports that the deficit is down.

The Obama administration hailed lower budget deficits as a "return to fiscal normalcy" Wednesday, announcing that the budget deficit ended fiscal year at $483 billion -- the lowest level since 2008.

That's $197 billion less than last year, and $165 billion less than even President Obama forecast in his budget.

"Philosophy is a Walk on a Slippery Rock"

Lance Mannion on a particular fault line in people and the ways defying the "social order" sometimes play out, with attention to some politicians and a Nobel Prize winner.

Not only have we handed over the running of the country to these sociopaths or, more accurately, stood by as if helpless while they took over, we seem to like and admire and celebrate them for it. Worse, we seem to have accepted that their sociopathic view of life is correct, that the point of all human endeavor and the reason for having any kind of society, never mind a civil one, is to make money and pile up treasure, that human beings exist only to work or be used toward that end. We’ve acquiesced to the idea that people are divided between makers and takers, although the terms are inversely applied, the true makers being most of us who feel bound by the laws of social gravity and the takers being the ones who don’t think laws of any kind should or do stop them from taking whatever they want.

"Fourteen Joys and a Will to be Merry..."

(Or, of course, "Yo Ho Ho and a Bottle of Rum.")

One incumbent and fourteen aspirants to the office of Mayor of Oakland.

Mr. Orwell, Please Call Your Office

Via Comrade Misfit, some indications toward the end of privacy.  Any privacy.

From PrivacySOS:

According to an internal power point presentation, the FBI’s Data Aggregation Working Group (DAWG) is working to build a Data Aggregation Reference Architecture (DARA) that will “[d]efine a reference architecture that enables entity resolution and data correlation, and disambiguation across multiple data aggregation investments.” The goal is to “[d]evelop a reference architecture to support a consistent approach to data discovery and entity resolution and data correlation across disparate datasets.”

The FBI calls this process “resolving identities.” At a basic level, it will enable “[t]he process of determining whether two or more references to real-world objects such as people (individuals), places, or things are referring to the same object or to different objects. This concept is sometimes referred to as Entity Correlation, Entity Disambiguation, or Record Linkage, and includes related concepts such as Identity Resolution.” It will also enable the creation of “identity maps”: “Complete enriched entity data that includes the linkage of relationships between people, places, things, and characteristics of data resulting from an entity resolution process.”

See "Layers of Use of Biographic Identity" (it's the fifth header or the sixth slide down).

(The "Mr Costello, Hero" types among us probably don't think any of this is a problem.  They're wrong.)

The Playbook

Some of the things Republicans would like to accomplish.  (Republic of T.)

Thing I Am Noting

Democratic Vice Presidents after Truman who became President when the President died in office:  1.

Democratic Vice Presidents after Truman who became President after the President had served the full term:  0.

Technically, Republican Vice Presidents after Truman who became President after the President had served the full term:  2 (Nixon did not directly succeed Eisenhower, and Ford succeeded Nixon on the latter's resignation, so Ford doesn't count.)

Biden does not seem to want the job (smart man), and even if he did, he is rather notorious for gaffes.

One of the reasons that Hillary Clinton seems to be practically the anointed candidate (and the grueling horse race part isn't until late 2015; I'm sure the grueling fundraising part can wait until June 2015, and I don't want to hear about any of it until then, got that?) is that there don't seem to be a whole lot of loose ambitious Democrats out there.  Maybe Cory Booker.  [ETA:  There is apparently a movement to draft (there are consent issues involved) Elizabeth Warren.  Info via Shakesville.]

There are no Republicans I can support for the Presidency.

That is all.

In Memoriam

• Geoffrey Holder, actor/director/choreographer with one of the most distinctive voices on the planet
• Paul Revere, of Paul Revere and the Raiders, and yes, that really was his name.  (His surname was Dick.)
• Christopher Hogwood, conductor and musical historian.
• Jerrie Mock, first woman to circumnavigate (circumaviate?) the globe.
• George Shuba, who shook Jackie Robinson's hand.

On the Way

In the Kingdom of God, there is respect for all life, all dignity.

Whether the life in question is a fetus, a condemned prisoner, a pauper, a Person Not Of Your Tribe (on whatever axis), or Your Sworn Enemy.

We do not have the Kingdom of God.  We are still trying to get there.  That is why it is called "journey" and not "estimated time of arrival."

A Paradox

Failing upward, so to speak:

Perhaps it's worth thinking of those overlapping agencies as a fiendishly clever Rube Goldberg-style machine organized around the principle that failure is the greatest success of all. After all, in the system as it presently exists, every failure of intelligence is just another indication that more security, more secrecy, more surveillance, more spies, more drones are needed; only when you fail, that is, do you get more money for further expansion.

Article by Tom Engelhardt, the Tom of TomDispatch, for TomDispatch, reprinted at AlterNet.

But First I Need to Swamp Out the Augean Stables...

On the way to church this morning I found myself thinking in terms of political philosophy, which meant that I could actually articulate my problem with capitalism and why I wouldn't ever trust libertarians in power.

You'll be spared that.  You can thank me later.

The playoffs are on; last day games of the season, so catch it properly, on a transistor radio that you have to hide if anyone in authority appears.

Gone Geese

• Robert Reich (AlterNet) on the "recovery:"

  Corporations aren’t expanding production or investing in research and development. Instead, they’re using their money to buy back their shares of stock.

• Tangentially related:  Driftglass quotes Politico and Rod Serling on race and politics.

  ...[T]his country will still be politically divided amount three groups.
  

  • Exhausted Liberals, for whom this is all brutally self-evident and has been since forever.
  • Conservatives, go to bed at to the reassuring, brain-killing hum of Fox News them over and over again that the real racists are those damn Liberals who keep talking about race.
  • And the Centrist/Independents...who hide in the No Labels political sock drawer and reflexively shriek "BothSides!BothSides!BothSides!" anytime anyone starts bringing up the sordid history of modern Conservatism.

  This berserk monster that the Right built and then set loose in order to win elections has been running amok in plain sight for my entire life.

  [Emphasis in original.]
  
• Wisconsin Poll Watcher Militia now claiming it was all a hoax because federal felony charges might be in store for them.  Voter intimidation is illegal.  Who knew?  [Via Xopher Halftongue at Making Light in comments.]
• Via Zandar Versus The Stupid, a Rolling Stone exposé of the Koch brothers.  Rolling Stone has featured some of the best political writing of the decade.  I just got out of the habit because I seldom read music writing.  *sigh*

Not Quite Over Yet

San Francisco faces Pittsburgh and Oakland faces Kansas City in a one game playoff for the Wild Card slot.

And then we can actually start the postseason.  My neighbor is a St. Louis fan.

*Boggle*

Sadly, No! examines a National Review Online article which appears to align with reality.

A National Review article that actually allows someone to note the tragic reality of how women, children, and those with diminished power are targeted by abusers and how their abusers are protected by social institutions are about the way women and children are treated in society and the way that abuser voices are privileged because of their station?

Oh, Let's See...

• This is the 2,400th post.  Conspiracy theorists take note, and then take off.
• Via Comrade Misfit, from Madison.com:

  A self-described militia group claims to be checking names on the 2012 Scott Walker recall petition and plans to confront those found to have outstanding warrants or tax defaults at the polls on Nov. 4.

  (Warning: Madison.com wanted to leave tentacles on this machine. Do not allow them; I did not allow.)  As it happens, they are only targetting Democrats.  So Republicans with tax defaults and outstanding warrants are safe.  This is still voter intimidation, though, and I believe it is illegal, and, frankly, the police should arrest every single one of these bozos.
  
• Jon Carroll views with alarm (and R.I.P.s two of his cats).
• Six reasons to cut out meat from factory farms.  (AlterNet.)
• The Rude Pundit, as a general rule, is Not Safe For Work.  So read these at home:
• Kansas selling sex toys for back taxes (yes, a bit more complicated).
• Murder in a Walmart.  (Somebody told a lot of lies.) Republic of T wants justice and explains why people have less trust in the police and the justice system.
• History lessons in school.  How this country was made.  [ETA:  Somehow I missed Orcinus on this subject:

  The only reason that conservatives want to eliminate students from learning about episodes such as this is that they make clear that the white-bread narrative of valiant white pioneers forging a greater America is a farce. Learning about Sand Creek might make young white Coloradans uncomfortable, just as learning about the internment of Japanese Americans during World War II -- another subject likely to be dropped -- does.

  So glad Dave Neiwert is Back.]
• Culpability of Iraq war supporters for the IS situation (I will say, once again, that if the "We want a war right now" people want boots on the ground, it should be their boots.  Mr. McCain, that means you.  Mr. Cheney, likewise, and no, I don't care about your medical condition.  Any more than you care about the troops you put in harm's way.)
• Jesse Curtis asks "Why Can White Evangelists Only See Discrimination Against Ourselves?"

  Try actually talking about God's will being done here on earth as it is in heaven. Yeah, Jesus said it, but White evangelicals will tell you to calm down and realize that the world is going to hell in a handbasket anyway.

Yeah. Hermitting is the best plan.

There's Still Shouting

The Giants are one game from elimination, and naturally, they're playing the Dodgers.  Pittsburgh (!), for the first time since the glory days of Bonds and Bonilla, is about to make the playoffs.  The Angels have clinched, but since they have the most wins (97 wins is tops in both leagues), they will probably flake in the playoffs.  Meanwhile, Detroit and Kansas City are still duking it out in the AL Central.  Everyone else is looking down the wild card matchups, which may be Oakland v. Kansas City (yes, I get the irony there) on the AL side and Pittsburgh against whichever of the contenders wins tonight.

Rosh HaShona is tomorrow (well, tonight), and as soon as the regular season is over, fall can commence.

He Just Figured This Out

Eric Schmidt of Google has discovered that ALEC lies.  Ties have been cut.

ALEC's response:

“It is unfortunate to learn Google has ended its membership in the American Legislative Exchange Council as a result of public pressure from left-leaning individuals and organizations who intentionally confuse free market policy perspectives for climate change denial.

Freddie Mercury's Stunt Double

• Milwaukee has (division-race-wise) joined the choir invisible, and the possible wild card matchups are intriguing.
• Peter Van Buren (TomDispatch via AlterNet) explains the historical situation of Iraq and why the United States should have refused to have anything whatsoever to do with it.  Which reminded me that the late Steve Gilliard had written about military history and Iraq and extensively quoted gjohnsit of Daily Kos, who wrote:
  

  The first trick to learning from history is not to learn the wrong thing from history. For instance, Bush and the rest of the pro-war, right-wing liked to reference Neville Chamberlain before WWII as reasons to invade Iraq (and now, Iran). The Republicans are right to compare WWII and Iraq, but not for the reasons they think.
  If the Republicans weren't so ignorant about history they would have compared Yugoslavia to Iraq. No, not Yugoslavia in the 1990's. I'm talking about Yugoslavia during WWII.
  
  Like Iraq, Yugoslavia was artifically put together by the victorious allies after WWI, and combined several ethnic groups that had long, hostile relationships. They managed to live together for decades until Hitler decided that he didn't like their current government in April, 1941. Hitler invaded for no other reason than he wanted "regime change". Yugoslavia's army collapsed quickly. However, that was mearly the beginning.
  
  Hitler did not have enough troops available to contain any outbreak of ethnic strife, and Yugoslavia decended into civil war.
  

  In Croatia [in 1941] the indeginous fascist regime set about a policy of "racial purification" that went beyond even Nazi practices. Minority groups such as Jews and Gypsies were to be eliminated as were the Serbs: it was declared that one-third of the Serbian population would be deported, one-third converted to Roman Catholicism, and one third liquidated.
  - Encyclopaedia Britannica, 15th Edition

  In the end, three times as many people died in Yugoslavia during WWII as died in the Yugoslavian civil war in the 1990's. The trigger was the overthrow of the government without the military force to enforce its will on an ethnically diverse people. Republicans learned the wrong lesson from history. Saddam Hussein wasn't Hitler. Saddam was King Peter II.
  
  Well, not really. But you get the idea.

• Together for 72 years, married this month.  Is your marriage threatened yet?
• See if this sounds familiar:

  We are better, we are more entitled, we are different or at least less interested in the people around us, or the tribes or nations around us, because we’re worthier than they are. Our people are the prettiest, our language is the most musical, our clothes are the most stylish. And these people are barbarians or at the very best civilized but crude. We are deserving of resources just as I, as the individual, am deserving of the raise, or deserving of the job or deserving of the hottest girl at the party because I’m better than the other guys around me.

  It's an article on narcissism, individual and tribal.  (Sarah Gray interviews Jeffrey Kluger for Salon, excerpted in AlterNet.)

In Memoriam

Polly Bergen, actress/singer/activist.

When I was small, she was a panelist on I've Got A Secret, and I could never figure out what she did.  I have to say that between the early '70s and now, I did not remember her at all.  I had no idea she was a feminist.

In Memoriam

• Jackie Cain, singer (Jackie and Roy; Roy died in 2002), who had a particularly fine version of "Lady Madonna" that I used to hear on the station I used to listen to back in the late '60s.
• George Hamilton IV, singer (I'd heard of him before I'd heard of the actor, and confused the two well into my teen years)

Johnny and The Moondogs

• Johnny:  San Diego, the Cubs, Cincinnati, Atlanta, Miami, the Mets, and Philadelphia have joined the previously eliminated National League teams.  Washington has won the division (which means they'll punk out in the playoffs).  Baltimore has won the equivalent division in the American League (yes, that means the Yankees were eliminated, and yes, I'm sad about Derek Jeter) over Toronto and Tampa Bay (Boston, Céspedes notwithstanding, having bitten the dust earlier).  Minnesota, the White Sox, and Seattle also go home early.  Meanwhile, the Wild Card stats are firming up.
• The Moondogs:  Miss America interned for Planned Parenthood.  (Salon, via AlterNet.)  The "conservative" press is shocked!  Shocked!  to discover she worked there for three! months!  The pearl-clutchers would  be even more horrified to learn that plenty of Miss Americas were pro-choice for women.  As it happens, I have a spare strand of pearls, but I will not be loaning it to conservatives; I might not get it back.

Social Studies

• Amanda Marcotte (yes, I know) at AlterNet spotlights seven women misogynists.  
• Samhita Mukhopodhyay (Feministing) wrote, for the Guardian, reprinted at AlterNet, another one of those articles about *gasp* how many people are single and how awful that is, although the middle of the article tries for a more nuanced view.  

  ...the stereotypes about single people are usually inaccurate and don’t take into account dating in today’s complex cultural and financial realities.
  
  Single simply means unmarried – not that anyone counted in singlehood’s ranks is not in a relationship. You could be in a seven-year relationship, going strong and still check the box for “unmarried” and decide never to participate in the institution of marriage, but only the government (and maybe your interfering mom) will think that you’re single. [...] Marriage has long been a mostly-financial transaction anyway: from when marriages were exclusively a deal brokered between a father and his son-in-law to be, to the ghastly cost of modern weddings, there’s always been money involved.

  And then the wrap-up:

  Many single people not in relationships have to navigate being caught between two worlds: one in which everyone gets married and it’s the standard organizing principle of our society; and one in which we can allegedly just “have it all” but can’t even pay our rent and are wondering if he’s ever going to text again.

  Only two? Really?
• Janee Woods (AlterNet) on the difference between discomfort and danger in racial settings.

In Memoriam

• 110 Stories, by John M. Ford.
• Terrance (Republic of T) reposts his essay from the fifth anniversary, eight years ago.

Their Lips Are Moving...

Straws.  Without which one's bricks are rather goopy...

• On the mawwiage (thank you, Impressive Clergyman) front:
  • Still trying. Still ridiculous.

    Allowing gays and lesbians to wed, Stewart said, creates "genderless marriage" and "weakens the social expectation of the child's bonding right," leading to a likely increase in fatherless and motherless children.
    
    Judge Ronald Gould asked Stewart where children's "bonding rights" could be found in the law. The attorney acknowledged he had no legal source, just the messages that states and social institutions send to men and women.
    
    If you really want to send a message, Berzon said, "put up a billboard."

    No, really.
  • This marriage is between a man and a woman.  But folks are...concerned.
  • ETA (Just went up at Republic of T):  Marriage as panacea.  Unless, of course, you're gay.  Or not having children.  Or not possessed of a college degree.  Or or or.
• Zandar calls it:  The Mask Slips Again.  Or alternately, Pennywise the Clown does not dress at home.

  Like I keep saying, Republicans want fewer people to be allowed to vote. This is a solid plank of their platform, to make sure a few people vote as possible. When that happens, they win. When people vote, they don't. Therefore, they must stop people from voting by any way possible.
  
  Especially if those people are black.
  
  This is why when I see people declare there's no difference between the two parties and that voting doesn't matter, I want to slap them. If voting doesn't matter, why are Republicans trying so hard to stop people from doing it?

  [Emphasis in original.]
  

Mathematical Elimination Fever!

Now that September has spent a week in residence, let's check on teams playing out the string or acting as spoilers, because otherwise there would be a lot of links and ranting, even now.

American League:  Boston, Houston, and Texas are out, with Minnesota poised to join them.  National League:  Arizona and Colorado are in Wait Till Next Year territory.  The Cubs will be there by the end of the week.

My team, of course, is mired in a slump.