03.20.14
Posted in Bioterrorism, Ricin Kooks, WhiteManistan at 1:42 pm by George Smith
Spring is coming and a fresh bunch of America’s ricin kooks are stirring in the neighborhoods:
A Hatboro man was arrested Wednesday night for allegedly sending a scratch-and-sniff birthday card laced with ricin to a man now dating his ex-girlfriend, authorities said.
Nicholas Todd Helman, 19, was charged with attempted murder and risking catastrophe after lab tests allegedly showed that the card he placed in the man’s family mailbox March 6 was discovered this week to have contained traces of the toxic substance, Bucks County District Attorney David Heckler said …
Helman had bragged of the toxic card to a coworker at Target in Warrington on March 6, according to a probable cause affidavit. The coworker then notified police, the affidavit says …
When Helman was first questioned about the incident, on March 7, he told police that he had only coated the card with sodium hydroxide, the affidavit says, which he chose because it resembled the toxin anthrax.
Helman also admitted to sending threatening messages to the man via Facebook, according to the affidavit, and police seized from him what appeared to be sodium hydroxide and a notebook with a ricin recipe after questioning.
When a ricin mailing is found, everyone comes: the FBI, the local police, the Department of Homeland Security, the state and local hazmat and SWAT teams.
It must have been a thrilling day in the neighborhood.
And from the WaPost (no link), still another young bean pounder:
A white powder found Tuesday in a Georgetown University dorm room tested positive for ricin, school officials said Wednesday, and a D.C. police report indicates that a 19-year-old man told authorities he had produced the substance.
The “expert” who should have kept her mouth shut is deployed, emitting a comment that really has no relevance to what’s going on in America when ricin kooks are at work:
Amy E. Smithson, a senior fellow with the James Martin Center for Nonproliferation Studies who studies biological weapons, said that when ricin is produced with military precision, the substance can be highly lethal. “Ricin is one of the deadliest substances on the face of the planet, no ifs, ands or buts about it,??? she said.
The substance can be highly lethal. Military precision. It’s laughable, a factoid delivered entirely stripped of context. Nobody has died in the US from ricin poisoning in the last twenty years.
As in Hatboro, the Department of Homeland Security, the police, the firemen, everybody, came.
Why couldn’t I get a job like that? That’s real employment security.
The coincidence that, in these cases, both perpetrators are nineteen-year-old boys certainly leaves good work for graduate students in criminal psychology.
Surely both, as have others, have read enough about ricin on the internet to know they are just smashing castor seeds. But if they are caught with the result, which inevitably happens because they are compelled to — ahem — spill the beans, summoning a detachment from the full apparatus of the war on terror to their door, they will go to jail.
I suspect that in certain cases, not all, there is a juvenile hacker mentality at work, one you see in BitCoin altar boys, the old culture of virus-writers, and some hackers: I’m going to do it because I must prove to acquaintances, and by extension — the world, that it can be done! I’ll show everybody!
Addition: Why do ricin kooks seem to come in clusters in ‘Merica? Coincidences? Seasonal? This is the best time to get castor seeds?
Some underlying psychic network, connecting strands of bright, electric, vibrating mental illness?
I’ll probably never know the answer.
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Posted in Culture of Lickspittle, Fiat money fear and loathers at 12:06 pm by George Smith
Comment rescue:
Bitcoin is as a SCAM by design as I have voiced many times over several months in that even when a large percentage of people have their holdings stolen the price is stable enough to continue to entice new entrants into exchanging hard earned fiat currency for bitcoins via the ramblings of the clueless mainstream press.
From here.
I suspect it’s possible to scan the blockchain, or exchanges and their reported trades, for the purposes of getting an idea as to whether or not a significant portion of bitcoin hoarders are trying to stealthily and slowly unload their holdings onto others for US dollars.
The author above is right about the mainstream press.
The “Bitcoin beat??? has been created and most of its work is pumped out by editors and reporters who are either stenographers, blow-jobbers or writers just thinking up crap to put down so the news sites benefit from clickbait.
Like Bitcoin, it’s substantially detached from reality.
That’s the model of the tech press. Invariably, once a trend beat is invented or discovered, it separates from reality and exists only as p.r., troll pieces, processes to secure eyeballs, servant the subject and keep the beat going.
The grand-daddy of the phenomenon is defense and national security reporting.
The Winkdex: $592
Hat tip to Ted Jr.
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Posted in Ted Nugent, WhiteManistan at 10:17 am by George Smith
Three columns running, Ted Nugent still fixates on the great pure America he once knew. That’s the place unencumbered by the “bloodsuckers,” where WhiteManistan labored in united harmony, enjoying the fruits of shared upright Christian values and the money and success that comes from such piety.
And now, like last week, his heart is breaking. There’s his WhiteManistan, and everyone else.
“Can the ‘2 Americas’ ever unite?” he cries:
On my side of America are a–-kicking, hard-working, indefatigable, dedicated producers who cannot imagine taking possession of something we did not earn ourselves. And the proof of generosity and love from the producers is irrefutable and legendary, how we take care of our families, neighbors and truly needy fellow Americans and even strangers around the globe in time of need. We provide way more hands-up than we do hand-outs, for we know that able-bodied souls understand deep inside their responsibility to being assets instead of liabilities, and given a prod, will indeed get humping once back on their feet.
Heartbreakingly, as has occurred wherever the desouling scams of socialism and communism have been successfully implemented, weak, herds of uncaring people cut in line to take far more than the truly needy might have coming to them … The scammers’ war on poverty creates more poverty, the Great Society goes bust, the New Deal is a raw deal, and Social Security is antisocial …
“What will it take to wake up the takers to admit that they are destroying this once great, proud, ultra productive last best nation on earth?” Nugent asks.
It eludes Ted Nugent that FDR, World War II and the New Deal were responsible for much of the expansionary economy he so misses from his youth. And that nobody, except the Republican Party, considers Social Security “anti-social.”
Reading the rest, Ted sings the praises of the new tribe of WhiteManistan purity, the Tea Party. Of course he has it right. They hate Social Security, just as long as their checks keep coming. It’s everyone else who might get it coming afterwards that works them up so.
I had hoped Ted would deliver another rousing story of his Horatio Alger-like upbringing and personal tenacity. Perhaps a minder read this column and steered him clear of more anecdotes of chopping firewood, shooting varmints and stomping around the Spirit Wild ranch in Texas on his new surgical stainless steel knees, ignoring the pain and the stretching sutures to get the day’s work done.
Give it another seven days and I’ll be here to tell you the result.
In the mean time, Paul Krugman, explained the song of WhiteManistan in a Monday column:
Or we’re told that conservatives, the Tea Party in particular, oppose handouts because they believe in personal responsibility, in a society in which people must bear the consequences of their actions. Yet it’s hard to find angry Tea Party denunciations of huge Wall Street bailouts, of huge bonuses paid to executives who were saved from disaster by government backing and guarantees. Instead, all the movement’s passion, starting with Rick Santelli’s famous rant on CNBC, has been directed against any hint of financial relief for low-income borrowers. And what is it about these borrowers that makes them such targets of ire? You know the answer.
One odd consequence of our still-racialized politics is that conservatives are still, in effect, mobilizing against the bums on welfare even though both the bums and the welfare are long gone or never existed. Mr. Santelli’s fury was directed against mortgage relief that never actually happened. Right-wingers rage against tales of food stamp abuse that almost always turn out to be false or at least greatly exaggerated. And Mr. Ryan’s black-men-don’t-want-to-work theory of poverty is decades out of date.
“And as economic opportunity has shriveled for half the population, many behaviors that used to be held up as demonstrations of black cultural breakdown,” Krugman concludes.
Sing it, Ted, sing it loud.
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03.19.14
Posted in Culture of Lickspittle, WhiteManistan at 12:41 pm by George Smith
In e-mail, a ticket at the low price of $250, for a trip to Dante’s newly discovered 10th Circle of Hell:
What’s the surest way to make sure attendees are paying attention and absorbing your meeting’s key messages? Rock and Roll of course!
Don’t take our word for it though, check out this awesome article that Meeting Focus did on our Team Rock Stars program.
“Creating a program that guides and helps attendees have a good time, giving them permission to let their hair down and rock out, makes a real difference in retention and repeat attendance.??? says Kerry Wawrin, CMP,program manager for BCD Meetings & Events.
Invigorate and reward your employees through the power of Rock and Roll. Amp up your team’s camaraderie with the help of our Rock stars. Team Rock Stars delivers lasting results and is guaranteed to impact your group in the most productive and fun way possible.
Team Rock Stars is an ideal fit for your company’s next corporate retreat, training seminar, convention, sales meeting or dinner.
Build corporate team skills to cripplingly wretched dad rock.
What’s the best choice: A case of pink eye, a carbuncle on the back of your neck or a day or two of this? Not a trick question.
If you have any pride left after being given the treatment, you quit before they get to you.
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Posted in Bombing Paupers, Culture of Lickspittle, War On Terror, WhiteManistan at 11:13 am by George Smith
Iraqi Freedom commemorative music and art! Read it!
Great stuff. The record, I mean.
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Posted in Culture of Lickspittle at 10:45 am by George Smith
Not satire but great comedic potential if buffered with two aspirin.
Theme music, rock on.
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03.18.14
Posted in Culture of Lickspittle at 3:13 pm by George Smith
Like Gregor Samsa, I’ve turned into a giant beetle. In The Metamorphosis, Franz Kafka tells the story of Samsa, who awakens one morning to find himself as a big cockroach. His voice has changed. His family no longer understands him and is repelled.
Samsa tries to adapt. His room is cleared so he can more easily scuttle up and down the walls. But everyone he comes in contact with is driven away. Unable to work, his family’s finances are crippled and they try to bring in boarders. The tenants get a glimpse of Gregor and run.
He comes to the conclusion it would be best for everyone if he died. So Gregor withers away. The giant dead beetle is discovered and disposed of.
That’s what the job market, the current economy, does to you. Once unemployed, you’re repulsive, more and more so the longer it lasts. If you’re over fifty, you are in a shunned class.
Few want to have anything to do with you. You lose friends, perhaps make one or two new ones — others who, like you, have found they’ve morphed into untouchables.
I decided to share this with you. It’s not an unobvious thing, particularly after the latest job fair experience at the Convention Center in downtown Los Angeles.
This was a STEM job fair, you know — STEM — that universal magic word meant to mean “science jobs,” uttered by people who are either lying or who don’t know from excrement.
There were about twenty “businesses” at the STEM job fair. Four rows, five kiosk/displays per row, with one on the end for on-the-spot interviews. There were no on-the-spot interviews during the time I was there.
I suspect there were none during the fair’s four hour duration.
And that’s because there weren’t any firms that were obviously looking to make hires in science. What they were mostly interested in was public relations, a kind of social networking where the human resources people sent to staff the booths hand out glossy paper and refer you to the company’s website to upload a resume.
The Environmental Protection Agency was there and was honest about it. The reps said up front they weren’t making any hires, that all of it was processed through usajobs dot gov, the omnibus website for federal hiring.
They were taking e-mail addresses so that you would received blasts when something opened up.
A firm that handled logistical and civilian staffing services for the US Air Force was looking for interns, presumably free. Which, in the current economic climate, isn’t really a job at all, but a way for a private sector company to offer outsourced contract work at a lower rate than the military would have to pay if it actually had to hire and train its own people.
Boeing was the big cheese corporation everyone was in a line to talk to. Boeing doesn’t do science. It does jets and arms manufacturing, engineering applications.
As far as I could tell, the Boeing desk wasn’t actually spreading any love to all the people hoping for some.
There was also a company, another private sector firm doing work for the US military. They were, according to their display, looking for people who could help develop underwater minefields and, reciprocally, sensors for the detection of the same.
This should make you laugh. Yes, everyone gets science and math schooling so they can get in on the exploding American industry of naval mine warfare.
It’s an inspiring vision of the future.
Picture a remake of The Graduate, a young man by the swimming pool in southern California for an evening formal party. A wealthy corporate executive puts his arm around Ben:
“I have one word to say to you, just one word … are you listening? Minefields. ‘Nuff said! That’s a deal.”
At least four of the slots at the STEMS job fair made no bones about not being there to look for workers at all. Three were from local colleges looking to enroll people in graduate work. So, like, you could spend another year and a half or longer in school, perhaps going deeper into debt before emerging into the modern labor market.
Another was the Employment Development Department of California, the state agency present to inform job-seekers without jobs of what they might be able to take advantage of in terms of their unemployment benefit and further re-training programs.
It’s really no secret that job fairs in the US are more aptly described as places where many frustrated people go, dressed in business attire, to totally waste their time.
You can hand out resumes but, for the most part, it’s desperation participation in more American corporate scamming.
One suspects there is a corporate federal income tax deduction that can be invoked once a year (or perhaps even a subsidy to apply for) if one can document some trivial outreach to the American labor pool.
It is a hard thing to make people understand. Once you’ve been transformed into the American economy’s equivalent of insect vermin, you cannot make anyone understand what is happening. You even have a hard time explaining it to yourself.
Will you be ready for the metamorphosis?
Yeah, here’s the misery jar.
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03.16.14
Posted in Culture of Lickspittle, Psychopath & Sociopath, WhiteManistan at 8:44 am by George Smith
Push it up, folks. Wealthiness is next to Godliness, that’s what Jesus taught.
The paradox with American Jesus, Paul Ryan, and his crap stories about what the poor need, the dignity of work and their culture of dependency, is that no matter how often he’s exposed as a charlatan, called out as a Flim Flam Man, compelled to issue a public apology for fabrication or insulting African Americans for citing a notorious racist as an expert on American society, nothing changes.
Six months will pass and Ryan always emerges for another round, unharmed and totally intact.
And that’s because WhiteManistan loves his story-telling about poverty as a morality tale, one in which they’re on the winning side.
In WhiteManistan, God’s favorite tribe lives in harmony, working hard, justly rewarded for its purity of essence.
And the poor are such because they are sinful, lack morals and have made all the wrong decisions in life. To help only makes them worse. What they need is a good whipping, to be administered by the taking away of food and health care, which will certainly make them understand proper values and that nothing in life is free.
Plus, they’re the wrong color, live in the inner city and, as Ted Nugent regularly put its, are bloodsuckers leaching off the system, tearing the place down.
And that’s all there is to it.
Even if Walter Cronkite were alive today and declared Jesus of America to be just the opposite, a Pharisee, on the evening news it wouldn’t make a lick of difference. And that’s because WhiteManistan’s identity is bound up in its regular judgments of others as inferior and wicked.
Diseased as this is, it’s part of national character of the United States, ideologically and spiritually.
Today, the New York Times’ Tim Egan spends a Sunday opinion driving nails into American Jesus, literally crucifying Ryan on his own heritage.
Excerpted:
But you can’t help noticing the deep historic irony that finds a Tea Party favorite and descendant of famine Irish using the same language that English Tories used to justify indifference to an epic tragedy ….
In 2012, Mitt Romney, made the Tory case with his infamous remark that 47 percent of Americans are moochers, “dependent upon government.??? Part of that dependence, he said, extended to people “who believe that they are entitled to health care, to food, to housing, to you name it.??? Food — the gall!
You can’t make these kinds of heartless remarks unless you think the poor deserve their fate …
Where have I heard that before? Ah, yes — 19th-century England. The Irish national character, Trevelyan confided to a fellow aristocrat, was “defective.???
Egan goes onto add you never hear WhiteManistan, in his column — Republicans, cast any aspersion on the wealthy.
Just in time for St. Patrick’s Day, too. Incredible timing, that.
Jesus of America says don’t feed the poor! They are just too lazy, they’ll never work at all!
Republican Jesus! Hey, amen!
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03.13.14
Posted in Ted Nugent, WhiteManistan at 3:56 pm by George Smith
Poor Ted Nugent, propped up in bed or on the sofa, dosed with pain-killers so he can bend his new metal knees a little bit more everyday.
What comes into his mind?
Well, he drifts back to the halcyon time of 1955 America, when everyone knew their place, fondly recalling youthful work pumping gas and, today for WND, delivering newspapers on his Huffy bicycle.
No job was too menial for Ted to take, he rants. And that’s the problem with Americans, he continues in a screed exactly like the one yesterday.
Too damn lazy and entitled! Especially the other people — like in Detroit!
The old man does get-off-my-lawn and the bigot’s dog whistling, for the second time in 48 hours, showing that the prescription pain-killers are, certainly, having some kind of effect:
There was no hesitation then for me to get more jobs at the tender age of 11 or 12. I started delivering the Shopping News newspaper to my 100 or so customers from the elevated seat of my Huffy “StumpJumper??? bike …
I continued to increase my workload with a second paper route delivering the Detroit News to over 90 customers seven days a week, hunting big, fat, slimy night-crawlers in the middle of the night and selling them for fishing bait around the neighborhood …
If someone would have dared to claim back then that someday America would accept an official category of the American workforce as “those who have given up looking for a job,??? or worse yet, a list of “jobs Americans are not willing to do,??? you would have been laughed out of town …
Negotiate for sick days instead of better quality products, and continue to punish the producers while rewarding the bloodsuckers.
Bloodsuckers that won’t work, that’s the problem! Repeat it again and again because not enough are paying attention. Especially the two hundred or more lined up for two part-time jobs, one as a dishwasher and one as a meat-wrapper, at Whole Foods a week or so ago.
These bloodsuckers, dragging down the great nation Ted knew. It breaks his heart.
Next week, another column of Horatio Alger-like tenacity, Nugent writing about his days shoveling snow and chipping ice off the sidewalks before the sun came up so old folks wouldn’t slip and fall in the Motor City. And he took that ice and snow, put it on his wooden sledge, named Rosebud, carting it back to the house where it was melted for the sweetest free drinking water.
Tapped out on Ted’s tablet as he stomps around on his new knees, now the size of cantaloupes, blood leaking slowly into his boots but bulling through the pain, tending wild game, clearing brush and picking up the brass from the morning machine-gun firing at the ranch.
America! My America! Where have you gone!!!
Effin-ay, the man’s pathetic to the third power.
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03.12.14
Posted in Culture of Lickspittle, Fiat money fear and loathers at 12:16 pm by George Smith
From the Financial Times:
By rights, Bitcoin’s community of enthusiasts, venture capitalists and start-up companies should now be occupied with how it can re-establish credibility after a series of unfortunate events. Instead, much of its energy over the past week has been taken up by fulminating about the magazine’s treatment of Mr Nakamoto …
Online forums have filled with virulent criticism, and a lot of sexist abuse, of Leah McGrath Goodman, the reporter who found the man she believes … is “Satoshi Nakomoto??? …
“The recurring theme of Bitcoin is that it is exciting but it has been difficult to find good entrepreneurs. There is a set of guys who got lucky by setting up companies in the early days before it really took off. They were in the right place but were the wrong people,??? says one venture capitalist.
Winkdex: $638, recovering.
From the LA Times:
Los Angeles County sheriff’s deputies say that a Newsweek reporter’s story exposing what the magazine claims is the founder of Bitcoin did quote them and the man featured in the article accurately, a spokesman said.
The San Gabriel Valley suburb of Temple City was inundated by reporters Thursday after Newsweek alleged resident Dorian Nakamoto was really “Satoshi Nakamoto,” the man behind the virtual currency. In the Newsweek article he is quoted as telling the reporter “I’m no longer involved in that and I cannot discuss it” while deputies are present.
But on Thursday he denied to the Los Angeles Times and the Associated Press that he was the founder …
Capt. Mike Parker said he has spoken to both deputies who responded to the suspicious persons call on Feb.20. He said “one of the two deputies had heard of bitcoins but only knew vaguely about them” prior to the call. He said the reporters’ statements and questions about Bitcoin prompted the conversation.
“Both sheriff’s deputies agreed that the quotes published in the March 6, 2014, Newsweek magazine Bitcoin article that were attributed to the resident and to one of the deputies were accurate.???
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