Sunday, September 10, 2017

Climate Change Denial and Crimes Against Humanity

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At what point does global climate change denialism become a crime against humanity?

Furthermore, does a "crime against humanity" actually have any real legal meaning or is it more precious, politically correct bullshit from organizations such as the United Nations and therefore have no merit whatsoever  (see for example the "Zionism == Racism" or the Temple Mount has nothing whatsoever to do with Judaism bullshit)?

At what point is it recognized that the last election was invalid because of the intervention of a foreign intelligence operation? Does failure to acknowledge and address this issue make the so-called democratic process in this country a transparent fraud?

Many Americans, all of whom are wealthy and powerful, I notice, seem to believe that they can accept any corruption, and obvious criminal act, and still expect to have the American people support their corrupt system as if it was democratically elected.  What if that ceases to be the case?

Friday, September 8, 2017

Fashion Week 2017 in New York

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I was discussing Fashion Week in NYC with Ken Perlin and the recent trends in models to come from Eastern Europe or the Midwest. In both cases it was noted the high percentage of genetic material from Northern Europe which results in very tall, very slender women, at least when they are young.

As I read more about these trends and the issue of moral responsibility as poor, young women from the former Soviet Union literally starve themselves to death, starve themselves to fainting, throw themselves into hooking to make ends meet, resort to surgery to reduce weight, an industry observer, Emma Nussbaum, made the following observation:

A large number of the dominant fashion designers are homosexual men with pederastic interests and they insist that their female models lean toward the looks of boys in their early adolescence, which requires a very thin and lanky appearance, and the tall and masculine girls willing or forced to starve themselves to present such looks are going to disproportionately come from regions comprising of a large number of poor individuals with a Northern European appearance.

So I thought about that for a moment.

 Oh, I said.




You can read the rest of her comments here:




Tuesday, September 5, 2017

Restoration of Dr. Strangelove and the Triumph of the Free Market

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Growing up in America, I have been trained to believe that the “free market” solves all problems. That the invisible hand will inevitably lead to an equilibrium position that will be the optimal use of resources. Like any good cult, we are also taught to disregard any data or example that contradicts the central tenets. Any such example must be shown to be invalid because the free market is always right.

I have an excellent example here where the free market is one more time proven to not only find the optimal solution, it actually finds the only possible solution that could be acceptable to a right thinking American. No disgusting socialism or wooly thinking for us! The free market is always right.

Once upon a time, Stanley Kubrick attempted to put together a new print of his classic Dr. Strangelove: Or How I learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb (1964). The film is a classic of black and white cinematography and Kubrick was tasked to put together the best possible set of prints for a rerelease sometime long after the original release.

But he discovered that what should have been a straightforward task was not because the original negative of the film no longer existed. To explain this, I have to explain something about how distribution prints for film used to be made.

The way this used to work was this: when you have finished editing a film, you cut the various elements of the film together into an original negative. From this original negative, which you hope to touch as little as possible, you then create an interpositive (IP) and from that an internegative (IN). From the IN you strike as many prints as you need for exhibition.

Eventually the IN wears out, and then you strike another IN from the IP. In this way, you never touch the original negative any more than you absolutely have to. But this costs money you see, not much money, but money. So when the IN would wear out, instead of striking another IN from the IP, the studio (?) would save a few bucks by just cutting out the relevant parts of the neg and adding it to the IN and strike more prints. Which means that the original negative no longer existed, and the best that Kubrick could do was to go back to the IP.

In order to save a few thousand dollars, the original and best version of one of the classics of Western cinema was destroyed. As well it should have been. Nothing is more sacred than the profits issued to the shareholders. To even consider otherwise is sacrilage.

The idea that there are still morons out there who actually think that the profit-motive should have anything to do with cultural legacy or any other value driven topic, such as health care, education and justice, is clearly a person who has been driven mad by ideology and has nothing to contribute to the political process.

Looking to Rent a Monk's Cell




Sunday, September 3, 2017

Facebook Thinks We Are Worthless Scum

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I mentioned on Facebook (called FB so that we do not activate the incredibly annoying text recognition feature) how FB did not seem to mind changing the user interface whenever the fuck they wanted no matter how stupid the changes were and how much it inconvenienced their users.

And a friend pointed out that this was a completely valid thing for them to do and I was being wrong to complain because we are not paying for the service.

In fact, he said, this is the way it should be in the future because users are scum and we should choke down on that dick..

I think my friend is right, after all, FB only makes about $500 billion on us useless scum.