You’d guess I’m not a good match with Facebook. I have an account and while I post pointers to blog posts on it daily, it’s not good for much. Facebook does not tell you how many people visit your profile daily. There’s a simple reason for it. If people actually knew how many times their hundreds of friends browser their posts — statistically speaking, not at all — users would desert en masse.
Facebook is a place for lickspittles — people who actually go to the pages of American businesses and hit the “like” button. It’s hard to imagine how lame that is but hundreds of thousands of my countrymen do it.
Another manifestation of the lickspittle is the Facebook meme. That is, the posting of the same deadening pictures and drawings, many with supposed-to-be funny (and sometimes actually amusing) captions over and over and over.
They count as spam.
And anyone who has been on Facebook long enough will regret having picked up “friends” who upload lots of these things, confronting you with a long stream of repetitive dogshit every time you log on and see your customized Facebook feed. Slowly you come to the realization you have to go back through your list of “friends” and surreptitiously “unfriend” a big bunch to divest yourself of it.
It’s a special brand of brainlessness, always replenished by an army of gullibles relentlessly posting pictures of the dog in Jugoslavia who had his jaw blown off by mean kids, or the poor cat in Manitoba, served anti-freeze by a cruel and heartless owner. To your wall.
James Denham does not have a strong social media following. He’s basically anonymous; type his name into Google, and you’re not going to find anything about him. But in January, Denham ran across an image of what appeared to be two teenagers cruelly hanging a puppy by a string and posted it to his Facebook wall. Text on the image implores users to “share this picture??? and contact authorities if they recognize the perpetrators.
The photo has since been shared over 70,000 times from this profile, making it among the most widely viewed content on the site. Yet what Denham didn’t realize at first is this image has been circulating on the Internet for years, and the culprits were identified long ago. The photo is completely useless at this point. It appears somebody eventually notified Denham of the image’s past, as he has left multiple comments on his post trying to alert other users to its history. But it’s been in vain. The photo continues to be spread around by oblivious people every day, despite the comments and despite being of absolutely no use to the world …
Facebook may now be America’s greatest entertainment, but the junk content that is increasingly working its way into our news feeds makes eHow articles look like the Great American Novel.
Facebook would be more enjoyable for some people if it went back to the basics and focused on its original role as a virtual hub for maintaining real-life friendships. As some have suggested, it could encourage users to take time to mass-unfriend people and prune their network into a group of true friends …
Mark Zuckerberg’s great innovation was to monetize and rebrand college dormitory and high school sucking up as “social networking,” quickly adopted by Americans from their thirties to sixties.
We’ve bought into the morality of the market completely. Economic success is a matter of morality, of working hard and doing all the right things. If you fail, you deserve all the hardships, degradation and shame you’ll get. If you don’t have any money, you are a loser. Watch CNBC personality Rick Santelli’s infamous rant about losers.
Whatever the rich have, they deserve to keep because they worked for it. Poor people don’t deserve help because it only makes them weaker. If we lend a hand to those who stumble during the race, it belittles the efforts of those who kept running …
This is the guiding governing philosophy in the House of Representatives. Rep. Paul Ryan, chairman of the House Budget Committee, has argued that his budget plan is guided by his Catholic faith …
In other words, budget cuts in programs such as food stamps, unemployment benefits, housing assistance and health care aren’t just a fiscal necessity; they are a moral mandate, Ryan says.
While US Catholic bishops are hardly ever good for anything, at least they couldn’t stomach Ryan’s rationalizations. Jesus didn’t suddenly transmute into Republican Jesus, scourge of the lepers and poor.
Blessed are the job creators/They can always hire way more waiters.
Fined $10,000 and 2 years probation for illegally bagging a black bear in Alaska. That makes two convictions in two years, making someone who constantly brags about being a great hunter, a hunting scofflaw in practice.
Rocker and wildlife hunter Ted Nugent has agreed to plead guilty to transporting a black bear he illegally killed in southeast Alaska.
Nugent made the admission in signing a plea agreement with federal prosecutors that was filed Friday in U.S. District Court.
The plea agreement says Nugent illegally shot and killed the bear in May 2009 on Sukkwan Island days after wounding a bear in a bow hunt, which counted toward a state seasonal limit of one bear.
According to the agreement, first reported by the Anchorage Daily News, the six-day hunt was filmed for his Outdoor Channel television show, “Spirit of the Wild.” In the hunt, Nugent used a number of bear-baiting sites on U.S. Forest Service property, according to the agreement.
The document says Nugent knowingly possessed and transported the bear in misdemeanor violation of the federal Lacey Act.
Nugent, identified in the agreement as Theodore A. Nugent, agreed to pay a $10,000 fine, according to the agreement, which says he also agreed with a two-year probation, including a special condition that he not hunt or fish in Alaska or Forest Service properties for one year. He also agreed to create a public service announcement that would be broadcast on his show every second week for one year, the document states.
“This PSA will discuss the importance of a hunter’s responsibility in knowing the rules and regulations …”
Ted went spastic the last time he was convicted, in California for illegal baiting.
In about a month he’ll be on some obscure good ol’ boy hunting show raving about the tyrannical government and how he was framed.
This one will be tough to blame on the enemy within, commies, Mao ZeDongs and Saul Alinsky’s, though. But there’s always PETA.
Ted often brags about playing for the US armed forces. In the last five years, part of his shtick has been portraying it as part of a noble obligation to support our warriors.
Citing inflammatory language while expressing his displeasure with President Barack Obama, the military has uninvited rock star and conservative political activist Ted Nugent from performing at Fort Knox in Kentucky, according to the U.S. Army post’s Facebook page.
“After learning of opening act Ted Nugent’s recent public comments about the president of the United States, Fort Knox leadership decided to cancel his performance on the installation,” it’s Facebook posting says.
Nugent, whose performance at Fort Knox has been canceled, blamed Obama. “I really believe that it was the President. I believe that the President said that when he went to the Memorial for these heroes, that Ted Nugent wouldn’t be allowed in the same area.”
This blog predicted the NRA rant would hurt Ted — business-wise — if it made big enough news. And it did. Try as he might, Ted just can’t call a visit from the US Secret Service a barbecue social.
Click on the top video clip. It’s stunning in its inadequacy.
Wherever did they get the idea to hire some fat agricultural scientist, someone who looks like he could cut down on the beef a bit, as an explainer? Worse, he speaks in a monotone.
Whatever money spent, down the drain, into the centrifuge, or the grinder …
Finally, at the end — another intrinsically unlikeable person, this time a woman, trying to sell the idea that the junking of pink slime hurts the environment.
You probably won’t get all the way there. Virtually unwatchable at any speed. I jumped on the whole thing so you don’t have to. Two minutes is more than enough.
Reader Chuck points to an article on the Apple needing three things China offers that the US does not — much cheaper labor, escape from environmental regulations and … rare earths as necessary materials in iPad manufacturing.
Even the latter is no particular surprise. Months ago DD blog went into a bit of detail over the abandonment of rare earth mining in the US.
Rare earth elements aren’t particularly rare. And they are strategic minerals. However, mining is labor intensive and messy, and it doesn’t fit short term American corporate business interests.
Not enough profit could be made instantly. So it was abandoned.
But there’s another important reason why Apple and other manufacturers have their heels stuck in Chinese mud. iPad manufacturing, like the manufacturing of other electronics, requires a significant amount of rare earth elements, the 17 difficult-to-mine elements used in all kinds of green technology …
Why is all this rare earth consumption a problem? China currently controls 95-97% of the world’s supply of rare earths and has repeatedly cut export quotas, sending already-high prices skyrocketing. Fearing dependence on China for rare earths, two companies—Molycorp in California and Lynas Corp in Australia—plan to begin mining rare earths this year …
None of this is new. Although iKit was mentioned specifically, the present and future uses of rare earth elements were discussed in the original series of posts. And the government report on rare earths as strategic materials specifically addressed the fact that abandonment of mining has contributed to the creation of a significant national handicap.
Once the US actually led the world in rare earth mining. But that was like, so boring.
This graph, from a National Science Foundation report, shows how the US totally abandoned rare earth mining just as its value and digging skyrocketed everywhere else it was done.
It was, what they call in the economic parlance, an abandonment of a value chain.
For what?
U S A! U S A! We’re number 15. We’re number 15. Or maybe lower.
Mitt Romney’s enthusiasm over endorsement weeks ago by Ted Nugent was only more proof that he’ll never be president of the United States. As I wrote earlier this week, it’s just another in a seemingly endless chain of weird gaffes, like getting stoked over a recommendation from flesh-eating bacteria or a deer tick.
Throughout the campaign season, Republicans have been fending off accusations of being more misogynistic than Archie Bunker meets Ralph Kramden. And yet Romney practically went all weak in the knees over Nugent throwing his 16th century support in his general direction.
Even odder, apparently Romney courted Nugent’s endorsement, which has to be a bit like seeking the nod of Pete Rose to get into Cooperstown.
Women are running away in droves from the GOP, yet Romney and his giddy sons thought the squeal of approval from the rocker was way cool.
Ted Nugent has a First Amendment right to stay whatever ditsy stuff he wants, including referring to many elected female Democrats as either b——, criminals, communists or “varmints.” Varmints? In a free country you’re free to be a bore.
For his part, all Romney could muster when he was informed he had just been endorsed by a guy who makes Ike Turner look like Phil Donahue was to issue a call for greater civility. It’s a little late for that, Willard …
Perhaps Romney is of the opinion the critical Nugent blessing will help with that rootin’-tootin’, gun-toting, good ol’ boy crowd. Maybe in Nugent, the uptight, pinched Romney can vicariously live out his inner Bubba yearning to keep women in the kitchen whipping up roadkill …
As for Deliverance’s answer to Cole Porter, for all the faux bravado and delusions of persecution, don’t you suspect when the Secret Service badges showed up, Ted Nugent turned into a whimpering, apologetic … well, let’s go with varmint?
[Mr. Emmanuel Saez], a professor at the University of California, Berkeley, has won the John Bates Clark Medal, an economic laurel considered second only to the Nobel, as well as a MacArthur Fellowship grant. [Mr. Thomas Piketty], 40, of the Paris School of Economics, has won Le Monde’s prize for best young economist, among other awards …
“The United States is getting accustomed to a completely crazy level of inequality,??? Mr. Piketty said, with a degree of wonder. “People say that reducing inequality is radical. I think that tolerating the level of inequality the United States tolerates is radical.???
Data that the two economists released in March showed that the top 1 percent of earners got nearly every dollar of the income gains eked out in the first full year of the recovery. In 2010, the top 10 percent of earners took about half of overall income.
Consequently, they argue for a much higher level of absolute taxation on the wealthy — 45 to 70 percent.
“Conservatives respond that high tax rates would stifle economic growth, at a minimum, and cause some businesses and high-income workers to flee to other countries,” it sez at another point.
Yes, of course. By all means go to Leichtenstein, Macau, Cayman, the wart on the tip of Malaya aka Singapore, or some small/US toady dictatorship on the southern side of the Persian Gulf.
With a total of 3.2 million staff members, the DOD tops the list of the world’s largest employers in a list put together by the BBC and compiled from global company and government information.
As the BBC points out, the information used to make the largest-employer list was far from standard, based on statistics provided by each entity. And in the case of the U.S. Department of Defense, the total number of employees includes civilian workers, as well as those in uniform.
All defense sector employment is protected labor, unlike its non-military domestic counterpart. Which can all go to China, or Bangalore, or wherever in Indonesia or Vietnam is the pseudo-slave labor hot spot currently.
Naturally, the soldiers employed by the Department of Defense don’t get paid nearly much as the private sector logistical and staffing labor furnished by various wings of the big arms manufacturers.
Now that’s truly protected labor — sacrosanct from any cutting. Food stamps, any social welfare programs, all the rest — all part of the rich man’s burden, the handouts that allegedly discourage and deter the blessed job creators.
“And DOD is also primed for some cuts,” continues the AOL bit. “With the goal of reducing America’s defense budget by $487 billion over 10 years …”
That’s about 49 billion a year, an almost trivial number, all things considered, probably one that won’t even move DoD back to pre-9/11 Bush war boom levels of spending achieved during the last decade.
You want entrenched immorality and root causes of national fail. It’s all wrapped up in this.
Here’s a question for readers. Do any think the US military structure is providing any significant material benefit at all — outside of the employment numbers, the salaries and wages they represent when filtered out locally — after more than ten years of war on terror and national decline?
I’m interested in sincere answers.
Is the 99 percent served by an alleged preservation of freedom, impossible to measure in dollar values because it’s an intangible, through the continued bombing of people in desperate places globally and the infrastructure required to make it happen everyday?
The GOP has repeatedly made the claim that the poorest Americans need more “skin in the game.??? Today, response to a question by ABC’s Jon Karl, Eric Cantor made it clear that Republicans are interested in raising taxes on the poor while lowering tax rates for everyone else as part of any comprehensive tax reform plan:
CANTOR: We also know that over 45 percent of the people in this country don’t pay income taxes at all, and we have to question whether that’s fair.
From the Washington Times, Ted explains how he was being a true patriot and it’s all those Mao ZeDongs, Che Guevaras and Saul Alinsky’s, the enemies within, who are responsible:
By no stretch of the imagination did I ever threaten anyone’s life, or hint of violence or mayhem. Metaphors needn’t be explained to educated people.
I passionately rallied the American civilian troops to stand up for what is right and demand that the U.S. Constitution and Bill of Rights be once again the measure of all laws and policies in America.
Then in their ever-desperate scramble to divert attention from the crimes of their communist leaders, the Saul Alinsky “Rules for Radicals??? left-wing media and terminally liberal Democrats circled their battlewagons of deceit and hate and unleashed their tsunami of lies about me and everything I said.
To me, my family and thinking America, the dysfunctional left-wing hate hysteria was laughable. I became the No. 1 global tweet entity, while every newspaper and America-hating television and radio gang literally tripped over themselves in a feeble attempt to out-lie each other.
I personally have never been prouder …
Tell it to the Secret Service. And we’ve noticed you’ve left out the metaphor about shooting the coyote urinating on the couch.
“Those who despise me blindly chant Mao Zedong and Che Guevara rants, and the difference between our good and their bad is glaring,” Nugent finishes. “Choose your side carefully, America. The shining city on the hill is under attack from within.”
Yep, we all know the writings of Mao Zedong and Che Guevara by heart. It’s a conspiracy. You saw through it, too. We, the Americommies — guilty as charged.
And he did. Off the hook. On the other hand, perhaps not feeling real good about the sentiments exposed in its controversial video of the Nugent interview, the NRA removed it from YouTube today.)
Rocker Ted Nugent has been summoned to meet with Secret Service officials after making threatening statements aimed at President Barack Obama at a National Rifle Association convention in Missouri over the weekend.
The staunch conservative, who endorsed Obama’s leading rival, Mitt Romney, for the presidency last month, will meet with agents on Thursday to discuss what he said …
Confirming the news that he’ll be speaking to Secret Service agents during a radio interview with broadcaster Glenn Beck on Wednesday morning, Nugent said, “We actually have heard from the Secret Service and they have a duty. I support them. I salute them. And I look forward to our meeting tomorrow. We’re going to have a little barbecue get-together.
“I’m not trying to diminish the seriousness of this, because if the Secret Service are doing it, they are serious. They are dedicated and I will be as polite and supportive as I possibly can be, which will be thoroughly.”
The Secret Service won’t be having barbecue with Ted Nugent, no matter how he dresses it up. He won’t be laughing it off.
Perhaps nothing will come of it. (Eventually, so it was. Ted Nugent off the hook, from the LA Times. On the other hand, the NRA — perhaps not feeling so strongly about the great sentiment expressed in the interview, removed it from YouTube the same day as the Secret Service interview. )
But the Secret Service is not chatting with Ted because they wanna be his pals and pin a medal on him for being a swell free speech-exercising American. They will be trying to make a determination on whether he was threatening the president or contributing to the creation of a threat environment.
Ted is being probed for a potential crime and while it may make him popular with other right wing radicals it’s not something for you resume.
Average Americans get a big case of worry and anxiety if they’ve done something that has triggered the Secret Service to come calling.
The mainstream news has done kind of an iffy job on the story, reporting only Ted’s most attention getting lines from the NRA show.
But I’ll bet you the Secret Service has looked at the video carefully, beginning to end. And they’re going to ask Ted what he meant, right at the conclusion, when he told the crowd: “Keep your eyes peeled, I may need you soon.”
I bet the Secret Service will ask something like, “What exactly did you mean, Mr. Nugent, and what are you planning to need these men for?
It would be interesting to hear this interview. Is Ted going to have his lawyer present? He might think about it. Given the context of his appearance and calling for war against criminals said to be infesting the government. At a big gun show. In a country which has a history of presidents and politicians getting shot.
I’d bet the Secret Service is also interested in plumbing how much may constitute rhetorical incitement of an audience to commit violence against the president. And the intent.
I’ve emphasized before that Ted’s speech is functionally indistinguishable from the words of the right wing extremists, put into FBI affidavits when they’re banged up — at the rate of a couple times a year — for domestic terror plots.
These people don’t view themselves as terrorists. Like Ted, they invariably speak of themselves as patriots. They are defending the Constitution against violations, coming to the decision that a violent solution is necessary to correct the wrongs. They exhort each other in this.
And that’s just what Ted Nugent has been doing for the last few years. He’s a panderer and this part of his career, which has nothing to do with his music or rock and roll legacy, is all about goading an audience of right wing extremists, all armed. He knows exactly what he’s doing. He knows what they want. He regularly plays to their worst instincts.
They want to hear Ted walk up to the line and call for violence against the opposition while he hides behind linguistic tricks that don’t work for those who do the same thing everyday, but who aren’t public figures, some of whom become targets of FBI investigations for it.
And here it has backfired on him. If you have read this blog, it’s not like Ted acted differently at the gun show than he normally does. Finally, perhaps out of coincidence and the luck of the draw, some started looking at his words a little more intently.
Watch that video. I know it’s tough to bear. It’s horrid, twenty pounds of excrement in a ten pound bag.
But you tell me if the crowd is really up for Ted Nugent while he goes on in his way. Why is the NRA host looking just a tad uncomfortable, adding “What a silent crowd.”
