the prophet speaks

George Carlin - Do You Have Freedom Of Choice? - video powered by Metacafe

I don't think Krugman understands what that phrase means...

When someone says, "...like rearranging the deck chairs on the Titanic," they mean doing something pointless during a crisis. It has nothing to do with doing pointless things to avert a crisis.

Krugman is saying the Obama Administration's plan won't work. But he does it ass-backward:

"It's a plan to rearrange the deck chairs and hope that that keeps us from hitting the iceberg," the Nobel Prize-winning economist said of Geithner's bank plan.

Before the iceberg hits, there is no crisis, so it wouldn't be that foolish to rearrange deck chairs, if they needed to be rearranged. It is only after the iceberg hits that deck chair rearranging becomes idiotic.

I am not commenting on the plan or criticism of the plan . . . just talking about the use of the phrase.

bathtub

Bathtub IV from Keith Loutit on Vimeo.

ze frank finds the best stuff. zefrank.com

periodic table of controllers V.2 UPDATED

I've been procrastinating since the mid-nineties.

Every morning I check account balances, using the Internets to do something useful. But after that, probably twenty minutes of mindless clicking around news sites, wondering what the hell is going on. Anything interesting happen overnight? How's that bailoutrage going? Has Great Depression II started in earnest? Who's screwing us now? What's the hot celebrity gossip? Which starlet got drunk and showed her VAG last night? Any famous people do anything stupid lately?

And I realize (at least today I realize) I bought a computer (a long long time ago) for the first time for the word processor. Oh, what a simpler time that was. I wouldn't have to use a typewriter. That's what led me to spend an extraordinary amount of money on a Packard Bell PC many many years ago.

But I don't write with it. I click around like a zombie on stupid shit for most of the day instead of writing awesomeness.

Monday RANT

During the Iraq war, after they figured out there were no WMDs, when we figured out there wouldn't be a "smoking gun . . . in the form of a mushroom cloud", after they showed really homo-erotic (when did the Army turn so gay?) photos of us torturing prisoners, after I realized that Cheney and company were ruining our country, I was ALARMED and OUTRAGED. I wondered how any of these lunatic war criminals (in our own government) weren't thrown in jail.

When Obama was elected President, I was EUPHORIC! Now everything is going to be okay. Reason and logic would rule the day. We had a cross between Mr. Spock and Buddha himself in the driver's seat. Bring on the War Crimes tribunals! Bring on the free healthcare!

But it turns out that no, Mr. Obama wasn't telling the truth (gasp). How many lobbyists did he say he would allow in his administration? Zero. How many are in his administration? At least a dozen. Probably more. Oh well, LOBBYISTS have essential expertise in their field . . . bla bla bla whatever. He won't swear off the torturing. He won't pull us out of the desert. Makes fun of retards. Bullshit.

And then CAPITALISM COLLAPSED (with the side benefit that everybody forgot about the two wars/occupations we're still fighting)and I wondered if it was time to purchase a gun and stock up on non perishable foods and ammunition. Here come the bare grocery store shelves. Here comes the mass looting. Where were the bankers in handcuffs? Where was the justice?

No, don't throw them in jail, give them billions of dollars.

Then AIG took our tax money and gave it to the ASSHOLES IN SUITS that collapsed capitalism in the first place. These were the guys who counted imaginary dollars and turned everything on its head. And now they were getting bonuses, bonuses that WE THE PEOPLE had to pay.

Wasn't there something about "taxation without representation"? Well these rich douchbags are enjoying something like the opposite. The enjoy REPRESENTATION WITHOUT TAXATION.

Well, here it is: another half-assed, poorly thought out rambling Rant posted for all to see.

Sometimes he wonders if he should have got down on the floor like everybody else.

A few days later, sitting in front of a crowd of reporters ands television cameras, Keith finally gets the chance to say the line: "The guy with the gun isn't always the craziest guy in the room." And later, during another telephone interview he refined the quote, saying: "The guy waving the gun isn't always the craziest person in the room." He toyed with the idea of using, "Sometimes the guy waving the gun isn't the craziest one in the room," but he didn't like it. His favorite version was, "The craziest guy in the room isn't always the guy with the gun." He came up with this one right about the time the twenty-four hour news cycle lost interest, and he never got to use it.

He was glad the bank's security camera caught his brief moment of glory. He spent the next week between interviews watching it on the Internet news channels and on television. The surprisingly good surveillance video, complete with sound, showed the masked gunman burst into the bank lobby, waving his gun, demanding everyone hit the floor. Keith starts to comply, but when the masked man turns his attention to the bank tellers, Keith springs into action. He is like a blur across the screen, and he tackles the gunman. A few moments later, other bank patrons pile on, and the situation is under control. The police arrive minutes later. Keith had taken the guy down with a textbook tackle.

He was a hero.

But after a couple of days the newspapers and television stations stopped calling, and so he sat and waited. The video was on YouTube, but the hit count barely moved. The comments became cruel.

He wondered, from his wheelchair, if it was worth it. The crook had time to get one shot off before the other bank patrons had piled on, a single shot directly into Keith's spine.

Internet refugees . . . day two

The Internet has been down for two days now, and the girls and I are at Bigsbee's using their wireless. I have an appointment set up for Comca$t to come and fix the Internets tomorrow between "noon and three" whatever that means. I can't believe it's been down this long. We had a lot of wind yesterday, and apparently the wind broke the Internets. My next door neighbor has Internets, but I do not. That makes me very sad.

I only had one call today, and that was at four PM, so I had a lot of time on my hands. I got some writing done (in this very coffee shop) but that gave me a coffee buzz and I was really buzzing for awhile. It is cold, the Internets is down, and I can't play World of Warcraft. What am I to do? READ??

I am Dan the Prophet, and here is my message:

I'm in the coffee shop again, and again there's somebody within earshot talking about "fasting" and "bible study" and all this hocus pocus bullshit. The guy isn't annoying, he seems intelligent, he's sitting with a young woman and her child, and they're talking about a bunch of religious stuff. What a waste. What a total waste. What the hell could they possibly have to "study" about regarding kindness toward other people? How much study does that take? Here's a college class: "Don't be a dick."

That's it. The entire bible could be written on one page:

"Don't be a dick."

That's it. How is there an entire industry, colleges and books and CDs and churches based on constantly trying to remind people to be decent to each other? How much time does it take to figure that out?

How many trees have died for bibles, pamphlets, booklets, hymnals, tracts, worksheets and posters telling people to basically act with kindness toward one another?

The couple is talking about using a highlighter to "go through the booklet" to figure out the "teaching" involved in whatever hooba-jooba they're talking about.

Here's a religion:

"Don't be an asshole."

These four words will be the Old Testament.

Here's the New Testament:

"Be Nice."

Okay, bind that in leather and distribute it to the masses. It should be translated into every language.

I am Dan the Prophet, and here is my message:

"Don't be a douchbag!"
"Cut each other a break once in awhile!"

And yes, I've broken my own rule about a million times. I'm not perfect.

How hard is that to figure out? Every time I come here there are people are talking about the ins and outs of being kind to one another. It's not a science. How much time does it take to learn how to act decently with one another? You need some guy the sky looking over your shoulder to know better than to cheat and steal? You need something carved into stone in order to realize that killing is wrong?

I see the upside to going to church. Lots of people to spend time with. A support group. If it wasn't for the religious part, I'd probably go myself (as long as could skip the really long lecture part). But to be surrounded by people who believe all this crazy shit is too much.

And they only believe it because their PARENTS probably believed it, or their friends believe it. It's a crazy groupthink that is hard to get away from. It's a cult so gigantic that there is no one out there to deprogram all these cultists. It isn't that bad of a thing, I guess, but I wish there was a comparable thing except without the hocus pocus.

(Don't get me wrong, this young couple is not annoying like the paster-loud-cell-phone-talker yesterday. That guy was a total douchbag. At least these two people have discovered their inside voices. I am NOT annoyed by these two people).

word.

THE WORDS IN MY HEAD AT 6:15AM, TUESDAY, MARCH 3 2009

~

When shall I grasp these fleeting rings of gold
That flit about the chambers of my mind?

When merchants count imaginary coins,
The host does tremble for its daily bread.

I punch the keys that do not open doors,
While Senators doth babble into air.

While rich men beg for other people's gold
And panels flat do entertain the host.

When will I grasp these fleeting words of truth,
That rattle round my long deficient mind?

When can I bind these fleeting dreams in ink,
And set them to a much beguiling rhyme?

When schools begat the unillumined host,
That twitter tiny thoughts into the air.

When alchemists do waste their precious gifts
On vanities and multi-headed births.

When will I grasp these fleeting thoughts that fly
About my mind that cannot hold a theme?

A mind that has one million tiny glints
Of genius that add up to nothing more
Than tiny lines that flicker on a screen
These tiny lines that will remain unseen
The only thing I know is "wear sunscreen".

When will I grasp these ravings by the arm,
And put them down on paper, safe from harm?

~

Reading The Iliad

It is March and it is twelve degrees. Today I did a great deal of nothing, and I did it in sweat pants. I am reading The Iliad, and there is a great deal of killing and armor rattling. The gods love screwing around with people, and there is a lot of describing people as "aegis-bearing" as in

"They call you the son of aegis-bearing Zeus . . ."

I’m trying to figure out what "aegis-bearing" is supposed to mean, and I've put off using The Google. For something written around 8 or 9 hundred years B.C., it is violent. It's like a prose version of the movie "300". As in:

"Meriones overtook him as he was flying, and struck him on the right buttock. The point of the spear went through the bone and into the bladder, and death came upon him as he cried aloud and fell forward on his knees."

Or:

"The son of of Phyleus got close up to him and drove a spear into the nape of his neck: it went under his tongue all among his teeth, so he bit the cold bronze, and fell dead in the dust."

Oh yeah.

And there is a lot of armor rattling:

" . . . and his armor rang rattling around him as he fell heavily to the ground."

Anywhoo, this Homer guy has a great future ahead of him, if he keeps this up.