Thursday 28 June 2012

Krusty the Banker


Krusty the banker. She ain’t a politician any more, but a banker
Tune of Frosty the Snowman

Krusty the banker was a very happy soul
With candy floss hair
And tax free pay
And a broomstick up her quiff.

Krusty the banker never turns the sunlamp off
Her face is fried
Like a week-old bagette
Her chin a bag of jello.

[In honour of Robert Peston]
Krusty the Banker is a very charming lass
She can con a hack
To ignore the banks
And dream of her boney ass.

Krusty the banker is a very forthright chick
Cares more about Niger
Than her new nigers, Greece
Whom she prefers to kick.
extra later
Krusty
oyster shucker

Thursday 21 June 2012

Deutschland Uber Ellas, part 1

Thanks for Private Eye for this quip.
more later

The Smiths is Dead

AND SO IS THE QUEEN’S ENGLISH.

Whatever could be wrong with an accent that
makes 'hello' intowhat sounds like:

"HELLAY
that's the Ü sound
She is of German stock, you know?
there's also

FLAT A becoming an 'e'
Where else could 'HAT' & 'HEAD' rhyme?
[hang the bankers blog]

Seriously though, with all the changes in the language , with 
SMS and e-mail and emoticons this is a greatly creative period
for English and other languages.
So , the Rule-book Thumpers have gone away.
The Queen's English Society is no-more,
or is that 'no more'?
anyway, she dead!
IshitUnot: 2 texts
1 ENGLISH AT SFX
The Queen is Dead
Just as the British monarchy celebrates another milestone, with Her Maj reaching 60 years not out, the society that claims to defend her English - the Queen's English Society - pops its clogs. And of course, being her subjects, it's our language too. A bit like Buckingham Palace...which we're not allowed into and all those Crown Estates...hmm.... The professional contrarians over at Spiked Online, led by Brendan O'Neill argue that standards are good, because they allow you to communicate with more people in order to overturn the system: "There is revolutionary potential in having everyone adhere to the same linguistic rules; there is only the dead end of division and parish-pump platitudes in the promotion of a linguistic free-for-all in which eevn spleling doens’t matetr". [IT’S WORKING SO FAR. HOW’S YOUR BANK?]

English ain't what it was, but we should celebrate its cultural diversity
The demise of the Queen's English Society signals the end of a nostalgic fantasy
Margaret Reynolds
guardian.co.uk, Tuesday 5 June 2012 19.00 BST Comments (229) 
‘I do like your shallots!' Linguistic mistakes, and variety in speech and dialect, are among life's great pleasures. Photograph: Fox Photos/Getty Images
Who speaks the Queen's English? Certainly not the Queen. She has used many different kinds of English over the years and her way of speaking is now pretty much unique, the crossbred product of an old-fashioned upbringing and modern adaptation.
And what is the Queen's English anyway? Does it lie in pronunciation, in grammar, in correct use of terms, or in punctuation? Is it the same as Oxford English? Or received pronunciation, or BBC English? And who will help us to tell the difference?
Until this week, the Queen's English Society ("Good English Matters") did that job. But when only 22 members pitched up for a meeting, the chairman, Rhea Williams, declared the society closed. Finished, kaput, an ex-society. "People today", she said, "just don't care". Starbucks won't call her back when she tries to point out their incorrect use of less and fewer. Advertisers shrug their shoulders over misplaced apostrophes. So, felt pen in hand, she carries on her lonely crusade, adjusting notices all over the land.
Standards in English have always been going to the dogs. Once, it was too many American expressions ("I'm taking the elevator to put out the trash, dude"). Then, it was the mimicking of the Australian style of lifting the voice at the end of a sentence? As if a statement were a question? Now, it's text abbreviations, street slang, glottal stops and "it's gonna rain tomorrow" that are the problems.
Like many teachers, I sigh over essays that don't distinguish between effect and affect. I shout at the radio over improper use of "the public interest". Along with the Radio 4 announcer Harriet Cass, I don't really feel that it is polite to say toilet in a public broadcast.
But variety in speech and dialect is one of the delights of English. For more than a century now, we have been able to hear the voices of the dead, and they speak a language already strange. So Robert Browning (recorded in 1888) says, "'Pon my word, I've forgotten me own verses". And the Anglo-Irish writer Elizabeth Bowen, in a broadcast from the 1950s, recommends the need for "plorrt and kerekter".
Where I live in Gloucestershire the pronoun "it" is often replaced with "he" – "I'm offended with him", says my neighbour when his lettuce bolts. In Lancashire, people speak with a portentous emphasis – "You're a fool to yourself, Connie". In Bristol, classical music fans love the operal.
The linguistic mistakes immortalised by Shakespeare's Dogberry and Sheridan's Mrs Malaprop are among life's happy pleasures. There was the essay on Dracula in which he ends "with a steak through his heart". Or the acquaintance who commented on my divided skirt – "I do like your shallots". I didn't say anything. I expect Rhea Williams is rather more brave. Or should that be braver?
Yes, words are important, and correct usage does make for better understanding. Along with all English teachers, I correct trivial errors and general carelessness. But I care more that my students think for themselves, that they develop a critical understanding, so they can set up their own argument.
The other thing that I value is a respect for the interests and feelings of others. Mispronounced or miss-spelt words worry me a bit. But stumbling over names, or failing to remember them, bothers me more. Equally, I don't mind American phrases – provided we know that that is what they are. And let's add in words from other cultures too – key European monetary terms might be useful at the moment, along with the proper names for different dress codes and social expectations.
But cultural policing (even of this kind) is always dangerous, because it says that I am right and you are wrong. The magazine published by the Queen's English Society is called Quest. And that's about right. It strives to recover a nostalgic fantasy world that never did exist and never can.
 2
Spiked online
Brendan O’Neill  
The revolutionary potential of the Queen’s English
It isn’t only old farts who should stand up for standard English. So should those of us who want to understand the world, and change it.
... Reynolds’ outlook echoes the arguments put forward by an academic in the Times Higher Education Supplement in 2008, where it was argued that university teachers should stop losing sleep over students’ misspelling of words and instead embrace their ‘variant spellings’. So ‘truely’ wouldn’t be wrong, just a variant of ‘truly’.  FIND
As a young person might say (probably with the blessing of his university lecturer): OMFG. That even higher-education practitioners no longer feel comfortable correcting bad spelling and spasticated grammar speaks volumes about today’s cult of relativism. Apparently there is no proper way to write or spell, just endless variations of word-use that are all equally valid. Or perhaps vapid (that’s my variant spelling of valid, so don’t judge). Today’s discomfort with standard language is summed up in the slurs that have been invented to attack those who defend it: they are always ‘spelling fascists’ or ‘grammar police’ who, in the words of The Times (!), are leading a ‘pedants’ revolt’ against txtspeak.
Of course, defending standard English doesn’t mean defending a narrowly prescriptive idea of how one should sound or demanding that everyone be linguistically formal at all times, even when gassing with a mate on the blower (see what I did there?). No one is saying you must pronounce off as orf (piss orf!) or never again say the phrase ‘me bollox’. But in order to engage with society, with its public life and politics, you need to fully understand its language[AND ITS VARIETY AND DIALECTS]. You need to know that the sentence you just read contained a split infinitive, and that some people frown upon those while others think they are okay. You need to know how words are spelt and how they should be arranged in order to achieve both clarity and clout; you need to know what punctuation is for; you need to know what is the best way to write things down in order for them to be understood by the maximum number (not amount) of people. When it comes to language, the rule is that the more you know the rules, the more you can play around with them and twist them for effect, if you like. But you need to know the rules. And it is this knowing of the rules that is called into question these days, by people who think we should stop telling 19-year-old muppets at university that they have spelt things wrong and who even think it’s problematic to say: ‘I am right and you are wrong.’
... The refusal to uphold a standard language is really a refusal to be universal. It is the promotion of parochialism at the expense of public engagement, and introversion over expanding one’s horizons. I want to speak the Queen’s English not because I want to be like the Queen, but because I want to get rid of her, and to make numerous other changes to the society we live in,

 

Milly Dowler zombie saves free speech

It's always been my belief that the Conservatives were about
to allow innocent old man Murdoch to buy up the whole media
landscape in the UK, were it not for the growing shit-storm
from the Milly Dowler voice-mail hack.
It's like they had a shit-sensor on their noses.


IshitUnot: sturdyblog 
 A Quasi-Disgraced Government
The truth of the Hunt affair is buried in a lot of waffle.
Sturdyblog clarifies.

After the bunting has come down and the union jacks have become just colourful litter, after the last cake on the last stand has been sold, cut-price for being as stale as our growth forecast, after the last drop of champagne has been drained from the crystal flutes and we begin to count the cost to our economy of the extra holiday, questions will persist over the Jeremy Hunt affair.
... There's more. The man who decided to replace Judge Cable with Judge Hunt is also a big ACME fan. He owes them big for their support in securing his position. He has secret meetings with the Head of ACME. He goes horse-riding with ACME executives. He has a close relationship with the ACME CEO. He has hired an ex-ACME man to be his Head of Communications. As a matter of fact, he discusses the case with top ACME people at a private ACME Christmas dinner, only two days after appointing Judge Hunt.
.... He bleats that he has "compartments" in his mind which, the moment he was appointed, isolated his personal views. So why did he continue calling, emailing, texting BSkyB dozens of times a week throughout the process, the rational observer may ask? "I wanted to be courteous" comes the response. Well, if Courteous Bending Over Backwards Gymnastics is an event in the upcoming Olympics, 532 text messages ought to secure Team GB their first medal. And if Pole-Vaulting Over All Propriety is an event, Hunt is going for the Gold.
His apologists point out that Hunt may have said the wrong thing, but actually did nothing wrong. Or to put it more simply, when it came to Vince Cable the paramount factor is what he said - not what he did. But when it came to Jeremy Hunt - ignore what he said and look at what he did.
... Let us not forget that, as the telephone-hacking scandal exploded over the heads of this poisonous posse like a rancid piñata, forcing NewCorp to withdraw their bid, Hunt was about to wave it through. And that, ultimately, is the only action of real relevance.

No more Afghan stogeys

It's sad to remember that between all the invading arm periods
in Afghanistan's history:

The Greeks of Alexander the Gr
the Brits
The Russkies
The US, Brits, Poles and assorted Keystone Units

it was possible to go there for some of the best smokeable hallucinogens
in the world. It was the Hippy Trail to Kabul, through the Khyber pass,
which is, itself, very high. And the locals used to love infidels dropping in.

IshitUnot: Independent 
6 jn 2012
Former Doctor feelgood guitarist Wilko Johnson slipped in a caustic comment about the use of drones in Afghanistan....Wilko followed the hippy trail through Afghannistan and India in the 1970s. On stage ...he remarked “we were dirty hippies and stoned most of the time- but we never massacred any wedding parties! I think it will be a long time before an Englishman can go through Afghanistan again and get stoned with the locals.”

Scarpe Diem, part4- Crazy Spanish politicians. Ole'

Crazy Spanish politicians is what the Shoe-throwing index need.
They are delusional and not a little nationalist. Ole'

I know that this is just the perspective of people from outside
Spain, but their politicians seem crazy.
PM Rajoy was telling the FINMin to hold out and not accept
the bailout, out of national pride.
So, they're the 4th biggest Euro economy. Who cares?
The only thing I know is that they're being chopped up into
Tapas De Banco


IshitUnot: DENNINGER

So It Was Blackmail, Eh?
Now this is amusing.... and not surprising.
    According to El Mundo, Spanish PM  Mariano Rajoy sent a stunning text message to FinMin Guindos prior to the  bailout negotiations.
    He said, according to El Muno editor  Pablo Rodriguez: "Resist, we are the 4th power of the EZ. Spain is  not Uganda."
    Translation: We're a major power, not some random IMF-case banana  Republic.
    The followup message (according to Google  translate) "if you want  to force the redemption of Spain will prepare 500,000  billion euros and  another 700,000 for Italy, which will have to  be rescued after  us."


Wednesday 20 June 2012

show me the money! blip,blip

[williambanzai7]
This kept me up nights: How can you bail out somebody if you’re broke?
 Banks are broke. They're being bailed out continuously.
And yet their market manipulation is making countries give them
higher interest for the loans banks give to countries. But, banks
are broke!
 
I walk into a brokerage today and demand to be shown the money
that they're lending to countries. The broker guy says,
"there it is. on the screen. it's electronic."
I ask: "who made it? God?"
the answer: "we did. Lloyd was busy. Central banks allow us to make money
out of thin air. E-money is easier , especially if you don't have
a printing press"



This reminds me of Abbott and Costello 'who's on first?'

Banks seem very capable of helping out their friends in some countries. 
But for other banking problems, they need government help. 
Who’s giving money to the banks? 
Countries. 
Where are they getting the money? 
From Banks. 
Which banks? 
Those banks. 
Which are they? 
Those. 
The ones seeking government money? 
Yup. 
So they’re using free money from governments to lend to governments 
at a big profit and then they go back for more money every so often? 
Yup. 
Who pays for all this? 
The people. 
These people? 
And their grandkids. 
Are they at least getting jobs and house loans? 
No. 
What are they getting? 
Austerity. 
Don’t they know they’re paying for it all? 
I think so. 
So, they're paying to get less?
Yup
Why aren’t they on the streets, protesting? 
They’re busy finding food to eat.

at 1:35 (live!)

Tuesday 19 June 2012

the gates of hell open at jubilee celebration

At the temple of Gozer, did Beelzebub a hat rack
erect!
Take me to your leader.
Who is the gatekeeper of Skull & Bones?

"I worship the Devil...and the Queen" -Telegraph

"I am a royal, of the people married to a commoner- horns of a dilemma"
-Sun

I suppose Zara Philips was trying to keep
prying eyes off the broken nose of her husband,
the retired rugby star.
It worked.

Friday 8 June 2012

wars are just part of nature

Ever wondered why you cannot stop wars.
You protest, you march, you write letters to politicians,
and still, blood is spilt in your name.
Let's start working on this, and try to make it stop, with
the Internet on our side, that is, until they shut it off.

It's a force of nature.
The first problem is that we are part of the animal kingdom,
adn that kingdom is worse that Saudi, even. It's got violence
going on at every level.
The fact that we don't see it means that we are too insulated.
That is, until you go to a beef processing plant. It's now illegal
for people in the US to report on such things, because it's
bad for business, AND because laws are being broken,
due to a lack of regulatory oversight.

It's that same lack of oversight that allows humans
to do what they do best. Killing other humans.


"Now is the season,
for war for no reason. 
My idea of fun,
 is killing everyone." 
The Stooges 
 


believe it or not, this was a Vietnam protest song, like
much of the Stooges list. They don't put flowers in
guns. They threaten to kick ass!

how one flesh eating zombie can affect a country's image


Just when you've had enought of vampire movies and tv shows,
zombies of one sort or another are now all the rage. One
LSD-addicted, naked,face-eating die-hard in Miami and the
 whole world is starting tofreak out, just like in those zombie
movies. One of my favourite zombie movies is the  
.....of the Dead series, with their zombies
screaming "brains", even though they have no lips.
'b' is a bilabial plosive, I do believe.



Anyway, there was, until recently, another type of
zombie on the loose.
He was a bisexual, multicultural zombie with a
Chinese "boyfriend" (read: carcass), with a sideline in modelling,
gigoloing and porn.
He recorded his butchering of the unlucky Chan and posted
it online, which is what anybody would do @sarc. And then
posted (snail mail) limbs to Canadian government parties.
The 'foot' supposedly signalled his desire to kick the
Conservatives' asses. Lots of those to go around.
BTW, you're supposed to throw a shoe at government, not a foot!
The hand sent to the Liberals was not one of help, but a slap.

In short, some have said he was a self-loathing and self-abusing
nutso, and others are seeing him as a fame-hound.
He video-recorded the killing of his 'boyfriend' (sorry, he's not here
to defend himself) with an ice-pick. Then he took off to Paris and
then Berlin. He was caught at an internet cafe because
he was looking at media coverage of himself.

Anyway, he's Canadian. Lucca Rocco Magnota.
His real name is Something Newman. Of course,
this works out wonderfully for us mischievous Canadians.
We're generally quiet, and don't get noticed, especially when
there's an American in the room. So, folks think we're pretty
milktoast. Well, thanks to Magnota, we’ve gone from
boring to potentially-psycho, in one gruesome act.
I can't wait to see how friends and associates will change their
behaviour. And, I'm quite ready to play on any discomfort with some 
ace jokes.
This will be fun. Boooo! 

the moral of the story:
In the Black Dahlia history of the world, people want to be
famous just to be famous. Like Warhol said about the 15 min.s
of fame. Is it worth all the effort chopping up bodies? Idunno.




IshitUnot:
AlterNet / By Kristin Rawls
What Does Our Obsession With Zombie Stories Tell Us About Our Politics?

Between widespread feelings of political disenfranchisement and growing economic inequality, it's easy to feel as if we're facing a zombie apocalypse.

Zombie chatter reached unprecedented cultural prominence last week when reports of two murders involving cannibalism appeared in the national headlines.



But since the 2008 financial crisis, zombies have had quite a resurgence in popular culture. First, it was the comedy film Zombieland, followed by 2010’s sleeper hit, AMC’s "The Walking Dead." During the summer, we’ll get two youth-themed zombie flicks, the high school film Bad Kids Go to Hell and a stop-motion film called Paranorman from the creators of Coraline.



Zombies are everywhere these days – there’s even an Osama bin Laden zombie film coming to the big screen this summer. But why might zombies be so omnipresent at this moment in time? Maybe between widespread feelings of political disenfranchisement and growing economic inequality, it’s easy to feel as if we’re facing, say, a zombie apocalypse.



A year ago, a CBS poll suggested that, “Americans have long felt they have little say in government. But the trends are troubling: While 58 percent said they have little say in what government does in 1990, that figure has risen to 69 percent today. In the new survey, 85 percent say that people like them had too little influence on American life.”

Thursday 7 June 2012

installation artists don't do real art, cuz they can't


When the new boys roll in, they kick the piss out of the old order.
Well, now the new order is finally receiving it's kicks.

I always thought that Damien Hirst was the cash end of the movement
who always knew what easy stuff would get him millions. That's fine
but then art critics, who feel the need to kiss the ass of those on
the ascendant, tried to legitimise last weeks garbage when it
showed up as an installation. So, they tried to insult our intelligence
by telling us why Tracey Emin's panty liner was art.

Otherwise, I'm in favour of making money for nothing. I hope to
do so myself. It's the attitude that goes with it that makes me think
"I gotta take these f%^&^kers down a rung or two"
My wish has come true.

IshitUnot: 2 texts
Guardian:
From above- Quite possibly, for this is the age where everything is not just of itself but about itself. We are all meta now, darlings! Thus it's possible to walk around the Hirst exhibition and pinpoint precisely the stage when the art goes from being about the big concepts (life-and-death kind of stuff) to being about art or the art market itself. This may work for some as a huge conceptual joke (mega meta), though not a new one. And it's interesting that Hirst himself as well as his critics are again asking the quaint question of whether he can actually paint.

Guardian 23 May
Jonathan Jones Review of Two Weeks One Summer- White Cube.

a message to Damien Hirst: stop now, you have become a disgrace to your generation

Seriously, Mr Hirst- I am talking to you. ...stop now. Shut up the shed. I say this as a long-time admirer, not an enemy. [this reveals the art critics own embarrassment at kissing DH's ass- Cos67]

BUT these paintings are abominations unto the lord or Art. ...Each of these paintings.. takes on the difficulties of repsentational painting and visibly fails to come close, not merely to mastery, but to baic competence



Eurovision vs the UK

Before the Jubilee, the UK was involved in its yearly
I-Hate-Europe Festival, otherwise known as
Eurovision.

More later

For you viewing pleasure, a song that includes the word
Eurobeat. Surely this is sacrilege for a British band.

God/gotta save those banks

The thing next to royalty in the hearts of the British government
is their gruesom, world-killing banks. So, let's do it all together
now: God save those banks, because they sure as hell
can't save themselves.

Let's  cut to the video:




IshitUnot: Private Eye 1281
“Bankers such as Peter Sands, CEO for Standard Chartered...dire warnings at the World Economic Form in Davos about the impact of tighter banking regulation. Meanwhile in New York ...Lloyd Blankfein...
Had he been at Davos, no doubt that keen observer of capitalism Bertolt Brecht would have been reminded of his reference to Hitler; “For though the world stood up and stopped the bastard, the bitch that bore him is in heat again”” [i.e. the banks are loose again.]

Wednesday 6 June 2012

Scarpe Diem, part 3 Spain steps forward

Spain is now on that slippery slope known as
Bailout escarpment, heading for the cliff, a
little further below.
[flamenco shoes]

Farage reviews the Spanish Job (by ECB/EC)


Part of my theory about Spain revolting was
the fact that the government is very proud.
They will lie about their problems and not seek
help in avoiding them, out of pride.
When you accept a handout, you lose your pride.

Well, now, they will be taking a massive kick in the butt
from Germany, from now, on.
Germany will start making a football out of the egos of
Spaniards and Spanish politicians, like they've been
doing to Greece.
The rest of us know that they're doing it in order to play
the Euro exchange game, and to confuse the public, but
the Spanish are going to be taking it personally.
And they're gonna be pissed off. Nobody has talked to
them in this way in the Modern era. Greeks, for their part
are accustomed to ignoring that sh*t, but Spain is going
to start reacting badly.


I'll say, in an extreme case, they may start massing their
army on the border with Gibraltar, and if all is lost, will
occupy it, just to get back their feeling of self worth.

New shoe-throwing index for Europe, including
chances of warfare (New and improved).
So, what about a STI index in four parts
-likelihood of blood being spilt
-likelihood of government killing of protestors
-likelihood of societal breakdown
-chances of international First-World conflict

STI: Eurozone 
graphics later, from the department for graphics
Greece- 100%/ 85%/ 35%/ 5% [war with Turkey]
Portugal- 78%/ 50%/ 15%/ 0%
Ireland- 65%/ 65%/ 20%/ 0%
Italy- 100%/ 60%/ 35%/ 2% [North vs South Italy]
Spain- 100%/ 60%/ 35%/ 7%[Gibraltar]

I think that Gibraltar just got on my radar. As the Spaniards
start stewing over this El Troika stuff, they'll start looking
for easy victims that they've left lying there, for too long. 

Here, the Spaniards are going nuts, on a hate trip vs
Mrs Merkel, because of the offering of a bailout.
This is just a taste of the bruising of a national ego.
It's gonna get messy.


IshitUnot: 2 texts
1
MISH Shedlock [before Spain's bailout]
"Madrid has insisted it will not need an international rescue,
with the government in complete opposition to any form of
externally imposed programme as seen in Greece, Portugal and Ireland.

2 zerohedge
Spain Caves, Admits It Needs European BailoutSubmitted by Tyler Durden on 06/05/2012 07:32 -0400
And so those lining up at the bailout trough are now 4: remember all those lies Spain spoon-fed the gullible press that it didn't need a European bailout as recently as yesterday? You can now forget them....
[REUTERS] The source added that ministers would discuss the situation in Spain on the call and confirmed that Germany was pushing Spain to accept an EU rescue to help it recapitalise its stricken banks.
"They don't want to. They are too proud. It's fatal hubris," the source said of the government in Madrid.

Monday 4 June 2012

Greece is just the mezze. Merkel wants the Steppes

Is it just a woman with bad sense of direction, or a certain
nationalistic furvour for lebensraum?
You figure it out. Here's Merkel's geography lesson, gone bad:



She thought Germany was well within the borders of Russia, and for a while it was,
in 1941.

Russia's response, via Zerohedge in cyrillic:

фак иу...ви ар гоинг ту ентер ЕУ

translation: "F^&k you. Ve (we) are going to enter EU."
[If you can read Russki letters, it reads like English words]

Seems eerily similar to when Bush43 used to go to schools
and struggled to read his favourite kids’ book.
I mean he liked kids’ books, and still couldn’t read them.

The President of the United States, Ms Rosanne Barr

I like the sound of that. I'll bet she'd come on with a quip,
making fun of the White House journalists. But, truth be told,
she has many of theideas that the US needs to get it out of
this massive economic funk that it's in.
How?
she's patriotic:


If she puts across enough of an argument to get a crowd
going, she's going to attract different kinds of attention.
negative attention, like Ron Paul. It's not enough that there
are only two possible winning parties, they also want
everyone else to shut-up and die.



on the Keiser Report:


Anyway, here are parts of an interview where she lays out her
wickedly justice-filled programme for the 99%.


IshitUnot:
AlterNet / By Joshua Holland

413 COMMENTS

Roseanne Barr on Presidential Run: Two Major Parties Are a 'Bunch of Prostitutes Who Work for Big Money'

The irrepressible comic is trying to bring attention to electoral issues that are too often ignored.

Roseanne Barr leveraged her comedic skills to become a household name. But while she's known for her biting humor, and some critically acclaimed acting in the film adaptation of Fay Weldon's novel, The Life and Loves of a She-Devil, Barr's life experiences also left her with an appreciation of just how hard it is to climb the ladder today. It was reflected in her writing; in her standup routine and on her hit TV show, Roseanne was always most comfortable breathing life into the struggles of working-class families. An outspoken small “d” democrat, Roseanne is now running to head the Green Party's presidential ticket on a platform that stresses empowering the “little guy.”

....
Another reason why we don’t have free elections is a thing called the Electoral College. The Electoral College was this thing forced on the American people, just like the Fed was forced on the American people, that came after the Declaration of Independence.

The Electoral College made sure that people do not elect their own representatives. That is like a Banana Republic way of having an election, and it needs to be corrected. Election after election goes by and nobody even mentions it. I’m running to shed light on things in the electoral process because it’s corrupt from top to bottom. I have suggestions on my Web site, RoseanneWorld.com. Those suggestions include a new way of tallying votes and paper ballots. As Stalin, who was a bad guy, said, “it isn’t who votes; it’s who counts the votes.” That’s number 1. Overturning the Electoral College.

.....I think this government is broken and unfixable, and it needs to be tossed out and replaced with a parliamentary government. This one is just a whored-out bunch of prostitutes who work for big money. Big money is what’s in the saddle and the citizens of this country are down on all fours.
......

RB: We turned all of their dead economies around also. We don’t seem to bring the good things we do there back here. I’m reminding you and everyone that the Electoral College once counted black people as three-fifths of a human being.

JH: Roseanne, whenever I talk to Green Party members I hear that we just have to overcome our fear. Jill Stein said that during our interview. I guess the idea is that if progressives -- or whatever you want to call us -- voted for the candidates who best reflected their positions they’d vote Green.

One thing that strikes me about this is the idea of lesser-evils. What’s wrong with the idea of voting for the lesser of two evils if the alternative is electing the eviler of two evils? When I look at what the GOP is doing in terms of domestic policy, from the Ryan budget, to all of these insane anti-woman laws, to voter disenfranchisement, and harsh anti-immigration legislation. Should one not be frightened of Mitt Romney appointing a couple more right wing justices to the Supreme Court?

RB: What we should all be afraid of is that both the Democrats and the Republicans went for the same guy, so let’s not BS ourselves. Let’s put the blame on both parties and everybody in this government. They both work for the elite bankers of the Federal Reserve. They do not work for the American people. That is a sad fact. You are indeed voting for the lesser of two evils because you’re voting for the exact same party. The money party which has two faces – we should throw the bums out.

Obama is not a populist and he never was. He’s masquerading as one. Obama is Wall Street’s favorite candidate, and make no mistake: they’re going to yank everybody and work everybody so that we think there’s a real chance Romney is going to win, and he isn’t. Nobody is going to vote for Romney. This is just all theater, and at the end Obama will win by a landslide -- unless I win which would be fantastic for this country. It’s all just a charade. They all work for the same guys.

Obama signed the NDAA [National Defense Authorization Act]. He doesn’t want to get rid of DOMA [Defense of Marriage Act]. He says gay rights are a state’s rights issue. His healthcare program is Romneycare, so what’s the difference? I’ll tell you what the difference is. Obama is the hand-picked person from his masters at Wall Street whose job and task is to tell the American people that their jobs and money are not ever going to come back. The American people will be pacified hearing that from a face that looks like Obama far more than a face that looks like Romney. It is all a scam from top to bottom.

the last word on jubilees for queens

Here's  a few ideas on all the blah-blah in the UK over the
royal family vs. UK republicans


[surprisingly life-like. Madame Tussaud's]

Royalists have the upper hand. They use stupid arguments,
but they get all  the attention.

Having a president in place of the queen is not an issue.
It's royals, or not.
We can figure out the rest, later.

She’s a figurehead who waves.
And people imply from this that she is dutiful.
They imply character from that wave. Sounds stupid to me.

Republicanism is failing because either they’re idiots
or they don’t care enough to put forth a consistent, attractive option.
They just seem to climb out of their cupboards
every 25 years or so.

Protesting the queen is stupid. Why ruin a good party?
Making fun of the queen and Charles is the right thing.

The royals are quite obviously inbred. When they speak at events,
their mental flabbiness is there for all to see. Did you listen to
Chuck talking about his mother?

-"they bring in the tourists and in case you haven't noticed we need tourists and their cash" from Guardian letters

The queen got the idea for a flotilla from the Sex Pistol, who in 1977
went on the Thames to play because they had been banned from
every venue on land:
original footage of the flotilla (crappy sound):



flotilla at 5:00-


royalty is a point of reference for the continuation of culture.
The question is how long will this anachronism reflect that for enough people?
 I think there are enough idiots in the UK to keep the parade going forever.

ditch prince Philip. Scrounging Greek King Papadopoulos is a  foot-in-mouther and an embarrassment

bunting is not embarrasing. The word itself sounds funny. Say it quickly and loudly in a room
and people will think you're talking about booties or booty calls.or , in Manchester,
that you're talking about butties, or sandwiches.
Even though it’s just an excuse for a party, and I’ll bet no more than 1% of them will ever even play God Save the Queen (ironic for an atheist country), let alone sing it, at attention. Still to avoid embarrassment, I’d get drunk, and enjoy, perhaps getting laid by a gal in plastic tiara.

just take the two extra days off and shut up. It's bad enough that the UK has bank holidays, so that lowly workers don’t even get holiday pay. That stinks. If the UK was more royal and religious, working on holidays would pay handsomely.

The anthem of the UK is "God Save the Queen", earily similar to the
Sex Pistol's tune. Wow. Who knew?
Anyway, the anthem is only about the queen, and for the queen.
I suppose her extended family and assorted courtiers
and sycophants won't mind. What about the rest of them?
What about an anthem for the other 61 million Brits? Is
queenie so important that they equate national pride with the queen?
That's truly medieval. On the bright side, it is a sign of culture.

Friday 1 June 2012

Lagarde touché. Robert Peston is smitten with Christine Lagarde

This was heard on the BBC programme Pick of the Week as a
repeat of a show earlier in the week.
Just when we need Peston to keep his composure,
he goes all googley over
The Moneybags Lady
The over-baked bagette with floss on top
He said something like, "she's a very charismatic lady",
and then lost the plot completely.
He was supposed to press her for solutions to the crisis
and instead he was watching her cross her legs.
did that creep you out?
I let out a long eeeeeeeooooooow



Unfortunately, the Beeb doesn't keep recordings online for long, lord knows why.
and I'm busy, so what can we do?
So, the address with the damning evidence is/was

IshitUnot: sturdyblog

Christine Lagarde’s “tough love”
By urging Greeks to pay up without whingeing the IMF chief has revealed her deep historical and cultural ignorance.....
In an interview for the Guardian, Christine Lagarde did exactly that. She chose to tell Greece it was payback time. “That’s right”, she said calmly, “Yeah.” She chose to talk about starving babies in sub-Saharan Africa to strengthen her call to Greece to stop whingeing and pay up. She chose to pinpoint tax evasion by a fraction of the population of a country which accounts for less than 0.5% of the world’s GDP as the sole source of the world’s economic woes. She chose to bury her head in the sand.
But, while her argument has been loudly lauded as “tough love” in many a luxurious Northern European dinner-party, over a glass of cheeky Beaujolais Nouveau, the most rudimentary scrutiny reveals it to be strategically, economically and intellectually flawed....
There are very few ways one could make such a move even more cack-handed. One could choose, as the vessel of such sentiments, an ex-Finance Minister of a Eurozone country; perhaps someone who left France with its highest deficit in 60 years. One could choose someone currently under investigation for not just one but two cases of fraud in shady financial deals. One could even accompany this interview with a pictorial which showed her dispensing thrift advice, while displaying a deep tropical tan, heavy jewellery and expensively tailored clothes.

And from such a throne of non-credibility, came the attractively packaged but intellectually hollow arguments.
First, the insidious idea that the misery engulfing the people of any nation is to be ignored, on the basis that there is even worse misery elsewhere. That in some way helping Greece – a member of the European Union for thirty years – is a direct alternative to helping “little kids from a school in a little village in Niger”. There is no such proposed programme to help little kids in Niger, you understand. This is a fictional programme, part of the IMF’s varied portfolio of fictional charitable work, that could, possibly, maybe happen, if only Greeks stopped being so selfish.
The hollow nonsense continued to flow freely. Faced with the question of women without access to a midwife when they give birth, patients dying without access to drugs, the elderly dying alone for lack of care and children starving, Lagarde’s response is simply to say that it is very easy for them to help themselves. How? "By all paying their tax. Yeah."
That’s right. Because, plainly, it is the same mothers without access to midwives, the elderly without care, the sick who cannot afford the newly introduced €5 hospital admission fee, the children without food, who have hoards of taxable income and are busily trying to send it to banks in Switzerland, while starving. Greece as one homogenous, tax-dodging mass responsible for its own downfall.
Which all enforces the grand illusion that all this is nothing to do with a global financial crisis, brought about by the very interests that the IMF represents. Instead, it was a Greek time-bomb waiting to explode. This, however, creates some difficulty in explaining the IMF’s assessment of Greece in May 2008. It boasted headlines like; “The Greek economy has been buoyant for several years and growth is expected to remain robust for some time”; “The Greek banking sector appears to be sound and has thus far remained largely unaffected by the financial market turmoil”; and “in view of Greece’s membership in the EMU, the availability of financing for the external deficit is not a concern”.
Presumably, what is implicit in Lagarde’s comments is: We got it wrong then, but you should take our advice now. We’re definitely, definitely right this time. The IMF is, after all, the forensic scientist of the world’s financial woes. “It's not either austerity or growth, that's just a false debate”, Lagarde explains. “Nobody could argue against growth. And no one could argue against having to repay your debts. The question and the difficulty is how do you reconcile the two, and in which order do you take them? I would argue that you do it on a country by country case.”
I invite Christine Lagarde to name one example, one country, one case where the IMF decided that repaying a debt came second to growth.
It certainly was not Malawi – ordered by the IMF to sell its grain reserves in 2001 to private companies in order to repay a debt with 56% interest (which it had been advised to take by the IMF); a move which directly caused hundreds of people to die the next year.
It certainly was not Argentina which, having been the busty centrefold of IMF policies throughout the 1990′s sticking religiously to all IMF advice – privatising everything but their anthem, liberalising industries, lowering corporation taxes while tightening public spending, suffered one of the most catastrophic economic collapses in 2001. The IMF demanded it got paid first and actively lobbied against discounts to creditors.
As a matter of fact, there appears to be not a single example of the IMF’s Structural Adjustment policies applied to a crisis situation where they haven’t brought more misery and stagnation. Its obsession with austerity has recently been described as “dangerous” for European recovery, by the OECD.
Nobel-winning Joseph Stiglitz, put it at its bluntest: “When the IMF arrives in a country, they are interested in only one thing. How do we make sure the banks and financial institutions are paid?... It is the IMF that keeps the speculators in business. They’re not interested in development, or what helps a country to get out of poverty.”....
what is being advocated, then do precisely the opposite.
Many Greek voters certainly plan to. That’s right. Yeah.

Lagarde sings Manilow

Thanks to the Private Eye magazine, Jubilee edition, I've discovered
how much Christine Lagarde (the over-baked bagette) looks like Barry Manilow.



So, she has recently been on a F^&*k Greece World Tour,
I thought I'd give her some songs to croon:

"Break Down the Door (Where's your money, Greekos?)"
"Fools Get Lucky, but Not on My Watch" 
"I Was a Fool (To Lend You Money)"
"I Write the Rules"
"Seven More Years of Austerity"
"Looks Like We Made it (Lotsa Money)"

 Here's a younger Christine on a Karaoke night:
All singing aside, she's not the fat lady. If she wanted to convince
Greeks of the importance of paying taxes, you'd think
she would give some to her compatriots in France. But, she pays
none.

IshitUnot: Zerohedge
Lagarde On Taxes And Diplomacy: It's All TurboTax To Me
Submitted by Tyler Durden on 05/30/2012 14:19 -0400

What is it about IMF heads and inserting foot, or some other appendage, in mouth, or some other orifice?
The Forelash (sic): It's payback time: don't expect sympathy – Lagarde to Greeks
Using some of the bluntest language of the two-and-a-half-year debt crisis, she says Greek parents have to take responsibility if their children are being affected by spending cuts. "Parents have to pay their tax," she says.
Lagarde, predicting that the debt crisis has yet to run its course, adds: "Do you know what? As far as Athens is concerned, I also think about all those people who are trying to escape tax all the time. All these people in Greece who are trying to escape tax."

She says she thinks "equally" about Greeks deprived of public services and Greek citizens not paying their tax."I think they should also help themselves collectively." Asked how, she replies: "By all paying their tax.

"Asked if she is essentially saying to the Greeks and others in Europe that they have had a nice time and it is now payback time, she responds: "That's right."

And the Backlash: Christine Lagarde, scourge of tax evaders, pays no tax

Christine Lagarde, the IMF boss who caused international outrage after she suggested in an interview with the Guardian on Friday that beleaguered Greeks might do well to pay their taxes, pays no taxes, it has emerged.
As an official of an international institution, her salary of $467,940 (£298,675) a year plus $83,760 additional allowance a year is not subject to any taxes.
Lagarde, 56, receives a pay and benefits package worth more than American president Barack Obama earns from the United States government, and he pays taxes on it.
The same applies to nearly all United Nations employees – article 34 of the Vienna convention on diplomatic relations of 1961, which has been signed by 187 states, declares: "A diplomatic agent shall be exempt from all dues and taxes, personal or real, national, regional or municipal."

According to Lagarde's contract she is also entitled to a pay rise on 1 July every year during her five-year contract.
The managing director of the International Monetary Fund is paid a salary of $467,940 (£298,675), automatically increased every year according to inflation. On top of that she receives an allowance of $83,760 – payable without "justification" – and additional expenses for entertainment, making her total package worth more than the amount received by US President Barack Obama according to reports last night.

Other benefits include rent subsidies, dependency allowances for spouses and children, education grants for school-age children and travel and shipping expenses, as well as subsidised medical insurance.

or many years critics have complained that IMF, World Bank, and United Nations employees are able to live large at international taxpayers' expense.

spexit, coming right up

Spain's debt, so far? 143 % of GDP
You know that when Timmie Geithner shows up in your country,
he's trying to open up the sluices of liquidity in your country
to keep the economy of the world seizing up. Timmie thinks
the Europeans are gonna drop the ball. So, he's getting involved.
The Brits are also now getting involved.

I wonder. 
has Germany's dithering been about
trying to get its puppet masters to reveal 
their faces? It's always been the US/UK
behind all the German and French banks,
and their politicians.

In the end,
it seems that the Spanish bank problem
is so big that the ECB is standing very still
so that the bank vigilantes don't tear it to bits.
They can't move for fear of unleashing
 the mother of all bank runs.
'cuz that's "the Goodnight Euro Show"


It's a tough job, so the Hefe is gonna do it himself:

IshitUnot: 4 texts
1 Zerohedge

Be Afraid Europe, Be Very Afraid - Tim Geithner Is Now "Helping" You


Submitted by Tyler Durden on 05/31/2012 17:51 -0400

If there was one piece of news that could force an all out panic in a market already on the edge, it is that outgoing (as in finally departing) US Treasury Secretary, Tim Geithner, was getting involved in the European Crisis. Sadly, this is precisely what happened.

SPAIN DEPUTY PM: US TREASURY'S GEITHNER AGREES TO WORK WITH SPAIN TO RESOLVE BANK CRISIS - DJ

SAENZ DE SANTAMARIA SAYS GEITHNER URGES SPAIN BANK SOLUTION

SPAIN'S SAENZ DE SANTAMARIA TOLD GEITHNER OF REFORM EFFORTS

GEITHNER DISCUSSED SPAIN'S PLANS TO STRENGTHEN FINANCE SECTOR

SPAIN'S SAENZ DE SANTAMARIA TOLD GEITHNER OF REFORM EFFORTS


and This is why:

2 Zerohedge:
IMF Begins Spain's Schrodinger Bail Out

Submitted by Tyler Durden on 05/31/2012 12:38 -0400

Update: as expected, "IMF Says Spain Discussions Internal, No Talks With Spain"

Wondering what prompted the most recent "month end mark up" ramp in stocks? Look no further than the IMF, which one month after failing miserably to procure a much needed targeted amount of European bailout funds as part of Lagarde's whirlwind panhandling tour, hopes that markets are truly made up of idiots who have no idea how to use google and look up events that happened 4 weeks ago. So here it is: the Spanish bail out courtesy of the IMF. Well, not really. Because according to other headlines the IMF claims no plans are being drafted for a bailout. Why? Simple - if the IMF admits it is even considering a bailout, it will launch a bank run that will make the Bankia one seem like child's play, as the cat will truly be out of the bag. So instead it has no choice, but to wink wink at markets telling them even though it has been locked out from additional funding by the US, UK, Canada and even China, it still has access to funding from... Spain.


3 Ritholz:


Worries Over Spain … SPexit?

By James Bianco - May 30th, 2012, 10:00PM

MarketWatch.com – 6 reasons Spain will leave the euro first

The Spanish are a lot more likely to pull out of the euro than the Greeks, or indeed any of the peripheral countries. They are too big to rescue, they have no political hang-ups about rupturing their relations with the European Union, they are already fed up with austerity, and there is a bigger Spanish-speaking world for them to grow into.  [and you forgot that most of Spain's former colonies have been 'visited' by the IMF and the Chicago School goons, and managed to send them packing. They must have spoken to one another- Cos67]


4 Slog blog  [Good morning, Westminster. The bailers need a bailout-Cos67]


CRASH 2: Why has the Treasury revoked debt-trading sections of a 1939 Act – without telling Parliament?

How a hidden order could be used to bankrupt the UK

... So: what are negotiable instruments? Well, although they come in all the sizes and colours, basically NIs are funny money: that is to say, the paper with which Draghi performs bailouts, and Geithner fills bazookas. Listed under the definition I’ve found most useful so far are Bills of exchange, Promissory notes, Share warrants, Circular notes, Bearer debentures and – just to keep the reader awake – Railway Receipts.

Leaving aside receipts from the Rangoon Railway Company, they could loosely be termed ‘debt’, or even more accurately – bonds.

Now those of you who imagine the dwindling EU members in any kind of state to bail out other members actually do so with real cash readies would be in error. Every government in the world bar China and one or two others owes money bigtime. So all of us who are Brussels’ Little Helpers just issue more debt bonds in order to help fellow Sovereigns with unrepayable debt. (You can sort of see how all this nonsense got out of hand, can’t you?

how to beat the spy bots

As we know, having our lives reflected on the net means that we are
vulnerable to thieves, snoops and government spies. This is illegal
but who's gonna sue?

What this means is that net people need to stop revealing themselves,
or start learning a new language, with their friends. You see,
it's English words they're looking for, so write in Spanish, for e.g.

Or make up your own palabres in your bario, hommes.

There's also a letter below, which shows you how
you can track your trackers.
If you read Zerohedge, chances are you're being followed.

IshitUnot: Zerohedge
Guest Post: Uncle Sam Admits Monitoring You For These 377 WordsSubmitted by Tyler Durden on 05/31/2012 17:19 -0400
Submitted by Simon Black from Sovereign Man
.. Facebook, a.k.a. the US government’s domestic intelligence center, is the primary target for this monitoring… though it’s become clear so many times before that various departments, including the NSA and FBI, are monitoring online activity ranging from search terms to emails.
[here are some words from the list, and why they've been chosen, IMHO-Cos67]

Pork – [POLITICAL slush funds. US politicians don't want their gravy train derailed]
FBI, etc [too obvious]
Food Poisoning, e.coli- [to stop protests against the out of control meat packing sector that causes thousands of deaths a year]
Body scanner- [to stop protests against TSA groping]
Iraq, Afghanistan, Iran, Pakistan- [to stop anybody who's against US military policy]
Earthquake- [to stop opponents of fracking]
Cain and abel- fratricidal goons

LETTER
Paul Atreides
Vote up!
1
Within 1 week of visiting this site (and a few others) my ISP routes you through a DOD network in Ohio and I'm in Canada. It isn't a glitch either because I have moved twice in the past year and I see the same switchover a week after moving and my regular browsing.
CMT Canada
DOD Ohio US
Back to my municipality ISP network Canada
Regular hop to requested IP/Domain Canada

fear and loathing in Lhasa

of the invaders in Tibet.

more later

whistles and catcalls vs Mr Right




more soon

law of averages

Vikings vs broker-bots

The ultimate financial war has just begun. Norsemen are taking on the algo bots.
It's getting bloody, but the bots have stupid human handlers, so the
Vikings are striking it rich. They're raping the Wall Street brokers
and pillaging their bank accounts.

IshitUnot: Financial Times
Norway’s day traders take on the algos
By Michael Stothard in Stockholm
Sophisticated algorithmic trading systems have become the bane of
an equity day trader’s life, reacting faster to news than any human
can and spotting price irregularities across thousands of stocks at once.

Nearly 40 per cent of all share orders in Europe are sent by algorithmic trading computers, up from just 20 per cent five years ago, according to the Tabb Group, a capital markets consultancy. In the US the figure is 37 per cent.

Yet despite the prevalence of these supposedly smart machines, some traders are making a tidy profit getting the better of these systems, which can make costly mistakes if they are not set up correctly or if their trading patterns can be understood.

Svend Egil Larsen, a Norwegian day trader, worked out in 2007 how the computer algorithm of Timber Hill, a unit of US-based Interactive Brokers, would respond to trades in certain illiquid stocks. The stocks would change price in a uniform way regardless of how much was bid.

He found that he could bump up the price with very small trades and then sell with much larger trades for a profit. He was not the only trader who worked out this flaw, which he called “painfully obvious”. But he still made $50,000 in a few months.
...Meanwhile Mr Larsen – and others – continue to beat algorithms. A few months ago he says that UBS failed to set a bottom limit on one of its trading algorithms and he picked up some stock at a discount. He estimates he made $14,000 in a few minutes....
“Every few weeks an algorithm is going wrong, and there is always someone making money from it,” says Kjell Jørgensen, associate professor at BI Norwegian Business School....
But this makes it all the more satisfying when they outwit one of the big financial institutions. “We feel like Robin Hood, or David beating Goliath,” says Mr Larsen.
http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/ff2db7bc-9f40-11e1-a455-00144feabdc0.html#axzz1wYJG2aO2

Press the button, Jamie

It appears that the funny derivative and gambling gimmicks that made
JP Morgan's fortune have started to turn on their father. JPM is stuck
in some bad deals which will keep getting worse. Stuck!
They've fallen and they can't get up.
They're selling off some of the good crap they have, just to plug the whole.
Can it be true? Are they reeling from the punches.
Is JPM done?
Here's a helping hand:

The Greek vote. a futile gesture?

As is being made quite clear, by the IMF and Christine Lagarde
(the over-baked bagette with floss for hair)
the ECB
Barosso (unelected ball-scratcher)
the Troika (Shock troops of the NWO)
As it is apparent to me and many others, Greece is actually the mouse that roared.
If Greece leaves the Euro, mayhem will ensue. So, that means the Troika  can
not pressure Greece, or it will be harming its own bosses, the bankers.
Tsipras, the Syriza leader, has basically said so, with an air of blackmail.
Does this mean that the Troika is going to bring out the heavy weapons?
Until they do, Greece will be living its Arab Spring, having the feeling that 
they have the world around their little finger. It seems like a stunt,
considering what sore-kneed felatio-artists the New Demo and Pasok
politicians have been, bending to the Troika's every demand. Those
old corksuckers are joining in the international wailing about Armageddon
that will ensue, encouraging everybody to wake up and smell the napalm.

Syriza has already seen the napalm. The police throw it around Syntagma
like it's air freshener. The internal war has begun. Syriza will just be
helping the public thumb their noses at the Paper Nazis running the country.  
Futile?
On the one hand, the election could become a victim of fraud, as the whole
EU superstructure wants ND to win.

On the other, whether or not Spain explodes before the Greek election,
I think Spain will Spexit before Greece Grexits.   
From the Think Tank (ex-Drunk Tank):  First Bluto & then Otter (1:55)


Otter:
"We could use conventional weapons. That could take years and cost millions of lives. This situation really requires a futile and stupid gesture so large... we’re just the guys to do it.