GRAPHIC: United States of Fatamerica

Topher Morrison
PurpleSerf.com

Image Source: polyvore.com

In the chart below you'll notice a frightening and endemic issue of which I though had already been covered in the media ad nauseam, I mean Oprah made a career out of it right?  However, if this graphic has anything to say, the American public evidently have not had their fill of cautionary tales.  I mean God man, even our animals are becoming alarmingly obese!


It is a well known fact that when Europeans or Asians visit the ol' US of A they are quite alarmed with the portion size and with good reason.  Something has happened since the 1950s when fast food hit the scene and when a Big Mac patty was a mere 3oz!  Much like how Walmart dictactes prices to its suppliers and changes the way they make products McDonald's, Burger King, etc. have revolutionized the way we raise and grow our food in this country much to the detriment of their avid customer.  


Quality has been compromised on mutliple levels as unnatural genetically modified organisms (GMO) are introduced to our diet, the effects of which are just now being understood in mainstream science, and as chemicals, viruses, bacteria are finding their way into our meals with increasing regularity.  It doesn't stop there either, the packaging our food often finds itself is laden many times with Bisphenol-A (BPA) which is linked to hormonal imbalances, cancer, and in men actually aids in repelling women.  What we mentioned here doesn't even address obesity!


Sometime between "eat your vegetables" and "...I'm lovin' it" Americans for the most part have stopped caring what they put in their bodies.  Just look at some of the startling statistics below!  From the way obesity disproportionally affects women to increases in the amount of fuel our airlines have to purchase in order to haul the mother load across the country our diets are evidently as out of control as our politics. 

++ Click to Enlarge Image ++

Image Source:MPHDegreePrograms.com & oBizMedia.com

State of California v. Video Games, 1st Amendment Trumps CA

First Amendment Trumps California in Supreme Court Battle Over Violent Video Games

Stephen Totilo 

Kotaku.com

5/27/11

The Supreme Court sided with the video game industry today, declaring a victor in the six-year legal match between the industry and the California lawmakers who wanted to make it a crime for anyone in the state to sell extremely violent games to kids.

In a 7-2 ruling Justice Antonin Scalia said the law does not comport with the First Amendment. He was joined by Samuel Alito and Chief Justice John Roberts, who had seemed sympathetic to California's concerns last year. Justices Clarence Thomas and Stephen Breyer, traditionally members of the court's right and left wings, respectively, joined in dissent. [Read the full decision - PDF link.]

The case was The State of California vs. The Entertainment Merchants Association and the Entertainment Software Association. That last party, the ESA, is the gaming industry. The trade group puts on the annual E3 video game showcase, the gaming business' biggest news event each year. The ESA's lawyers argued against the state of California's on Election Day last year, trying to convince the court that video games deserve the same breadth of First Amendment protections as books and movies. The decision, revealed today, was the first time the Supreme Court has weighed in on video games in any fashion.

The law in question would have made it a crime to sell ultra-violent video games to minors in the State of California. It had been ruled un-Constitutional by lower courts.

"The basic principles of freedom of speech . . . do not vary' with a new and different communication medium," Scalia wrote in the Court's opinion, citing an earlier speech case.

To read read more of this article visit Kotaku.com.   

World War 3: Covert, high tech, and still very expensive

Topher Morrison
PurpleSerf.com

Special operations forces span the globe in the War on Terror.  
Photo credit: ABP World Group LTD.

"The Special Operations Command's (SOCOM) overall strength now stands at 60,000.  Of these, some 13,000 were deployed last week in 79 countries."  - Kenneth McGraw, Spokesman for SOCOM, according to The Daily Beast - June 25th, 2011

With Osama Bin Laden now officially dead, the World Wide War on Terror has entered its next phase.  What began with relatively conventional warfare in Afghanistan and Iraq characterized by large troop deployments, aerial "shock and awe" bombardments, and the expensive ancillary civil reconstruction efforts has morphed into a multidimensional high tech operation blending covert and overt tactics extending into "79 countries" around the world.


The US military in Afghanistan allegedly still pursues the "Doctor of Death", Ayman Al Zawahiri, who has purportedly been tapped (by whom or by what mechanism it is not known) to take over as Supreme Ultimate Commander of all disgruntled Islamic radicals around the world (a.k.a Al Qaeda).  Yemen, however, is the US military's growing priority as it plays host to the enigmatic American, Anwar al-Awlaki of Las Cruces, New Mexico, commander of the Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP) franchise, and the US' new counterinsurgency warfare lab.


Although GQ noted that a May 5th attempt on al-Awlkai was the "first drone attack in Yemen in a decade" this "lab", according to the Daily Beast last week, is where a "covert war has raged for nearly three years" (keep in mind if this is true, it precedes both the Ft. Hood Shooting and the Christmas Day Bomber both of which al-Awlaki is charged with orchestrating.  Any argument using al-Awlaki and his purported connections with these events as a pretext for intervention in Yemen should be viewed as highly dubious).  


Working in tandem with US trained Yemeni forces is Delta Force, SEAL Team Six, CIA paramilitary groups, the amphibious mini-carrier USS Boxer, its cruise missile laden submarine chaperone, and "an armada of drones many of designs (and sizes) that are still classified."  We can, however, quantify the breadth of this drone army.  According to the New York Times, "from blimps to bugs...the Pentagon now has some 7,000 aerial drones compared with fewer than 50 a decade ago."  With names like Global Hawk, Predator, Reaper, Shadow, popularized names like the "Beast of Kandahar", and deploying nefarious sounding technologies like the "Gorgon Stare" one has to wonder whether the Armies of Freedom are in fact becoming viewed as something else.

Insect drones like this one will be designed

to hide in the shadows while recording in swarms. 

Posted at Wired.com

 A Predator drone armed for action.  
Posted at Wired.com.

As a part of a larger $45 million aid package to Somalia relatively new "Raven" drones are being outsourced in America's ever expanding shadow war to Burundi and Ugandan "peacekeepers" in order to cut costs and diversify the counter terrorism efforts there, according to Danger Room.  While it may seem odd that the US would give up operational control it looks as if the Pentagon is merely riding shotgun on this one as they are to purchase an unspecified $17.7 million aircraft for the US base in Djibouti, ostensibly a staging ground for the aforementioned drone war raging in Yemen.  


The larger portion of the foreign military aid package will be distributed to other corners of the empire, according to the Air Force Times, and will fund and equip foreign security forces with biometric instrumentation, weapons, night vision, armor, etc. in countries like Bangladesh, the Philipines, Maldives, Oman, Malaysia, Kenya, and Mali.  Evidently what we're seeing here is just another routine wealth and weapons transfer in the charitable business of military welfare. 


While some hawks may hem and haw over "cuts" to the defense budget because of a bad economy and the political appeal of austere budgets on Capitol Hill, most recently evidenced in the reduction of DARPA's budget (a paltry 5%), one must keep in mind the grand strategy of wartime finance.  Even though Secretary of Defense Robert Gates humbly claims "as budgets draw down, we have no option but to learn to fight smarter with less" these musings must be consumed while keeping in mind Gates recently ordered the Pentagon to come up with $100 billion in savings and redirected to combat forces (special forces included).  


Dubious statements like "budget draw down[s]" must be balanced with the facts.  Although DARPA may lose $150 million, Obama has on the other hand asked for a 5.7% increase in the Special Operations budget amounting to $6.5 billion on top of $3.5 billion already requested this year.  Therefore, not only is Sec. Gates to funnel massive savings back into various combat theaters around the world, Obama is doubling down on top of it - not exactly austere.  This can, however, be appended to Obama's stimulus package; it takes 19 analysts and one or two pilots to operate a drone's mission from take off to analysis.  If all 7,000 of the Pentagon's drones were called into action it would mean 133k jobs, imagine that!


World War is defined as "war that spans multiple countries on multiple continents, with battles fought in multiple theaters, and last for multiple years" according to Wikipedia.  With the United States officially involved in Pakistan, Yemen, Somolia, Iraq, Afghanistan, Libya and unofficially in the rest of the "79 other [unknown] countries" do we doubt at all that this is in fact a world war?  This is merely the style of war in the 21st century, fought not by proxy, but by small elite forces under the aegis of incredible technology.  The body counts may be lower, but the same principles remain.  One major difference between WWIII and its predecessors, however, is this war is also being fought on American soil so don't be alarmed when a swarm of insect drones accompanies you to a town hall meeting, its for your protection - see "Planes, trains, and automobiles: TSA's ever expanding jurisdiction."


For an excellent documentary on the issue of covert remote controlled war visit "Remote Control War's" Facebook fan page and find out how to watch the mind bending documentary. 


UPDATE 8/8/11:  New article by Al Jazeera details the US military's secret armies.

Climate Science is as Volatile as The Weather

Topher Morrison
PurpleSerf.com

"What's Past is Prologue" - William Shakespeare 

The biggest critique of climate science, which is by any measurement a relatively young discipline, is levied against its claim to be able to accurately, if not reasonably, predict our future climate with what John Cox of Discovery News calls "ingeniously devised model simulations."  This critique is appropriate and prudent given the following.

As any scientist will tell you, a good model will be able to not only tell you what the future may hold, but should also be able to recreate accurately what has happened in the past.  According to Discovery News' report our current models, ostensibly as advanced as they are, are unfortunately unable to accomplish this.

GRAPHIC: Read from right to left; representation of temperatures 

in Greenland over 100k year period taken from 

Greenland Ice Core Project II. Originally posted at Discovery News 

by John D. Cox from the National Research Council.

As this graph shows, the Earth's climate is subject to abrupt and intermittent change with variations of almost 50 degrees.  Additionally, starting about 17,000 years ago, according to these ice cores, our planet has experienced a period of global warming with what has apparently culminated in a bit of global cooling.  

Discovery News' article claims the evidence shows Earth's "sensitivity to small changes" represented in the ice cores, ocean sediments, and other geological data.  I would submit, however, this is a difficult assertion to make at least from these core samples and obfuscates what is plainly obvious, that Earth merely experiences just what is represented, "wild weather" patterns.  What these wild variations are due to is exactly why Paul Valdes of the University of Bristol, the climate modeler and "paleoclimate" specialist mentioned in the article, calls for: 

"more computing power, better scientific understanding of the mechanism of change in the climate system, better data for the computer models, and concludes '[current models] are giving us a false sense of security.'" 

According to Discovery "this inclination toward 'abrupt climate change' - found in ice cores...suprised earth scientists as it was uncovered in the 1990s and still it remains outside of much conventional thinking on the subject." Almost 20 years later it is evidently still hard for our conceptual models to adjust to this "new" information and this is why solely operating within the paradigm of "man made global warming" is exactly what makes it so difficult for climate scientists to accurately predict what will happen in the future let alone provide us with the necessary information to legislate climate regulation.  It is time for all of us to emancipate ourselves, at the vary least momentarily, from this hyper-politicized framework and understand that climate change itself is the only constant we have, what it is due to we are all still striving to understand. 

While some uninformed conservatives and climate change nay sayers may balk at climate change at all we may in fact as Paul Valdes suggested be on the precipice a some radical changes in our weather if history is any precedent.  The fact that the sun next year is predicted to enter into an inactive phase and considering, as far as the last 100,000 years are concerned that we've been recently experiencing a warming spell, many signs now point to cooling.  

For those Chicken Littles out there still obsessed with impending Superstorms, rising seas, and generally catastrophic climate change don't worry your sky still may fall, it will just be a lot colder than you anticipated.

Dinosaur Media Man Anderson Cooper Tears Apart 22 Year Old

Topher Morrison
PurpleSerf.com

The following segment edited by Mediaite.com from Anderson Cooper's AC360 on CNN features the silver haired stallion lambasting a young blogger from The Daily Caller.  This wouldn't have been all that important if he didn't spend almost 5 minutes of his time doing it, especially over his own hilarious coverage of the bizarre marriage between super creep, actor Doug Hutchinson (51 yrs.) and Alexis Stodden (16 yrs.) pictured below.

 Looking creepy as ever, Doug Hutchinson

                                                         51 years young (picture by nndb.com.)

Alexis Stodden doesn't look like your average 16

   year old in this collage by popcrunch.com.

My point in all of this is while Anderson Cooper prefaces this segment with a disclaimer that he rarely engages in "media feuds" he indulged himself nonetheless.  It was obvious to anyone who watched AC360 that Mr. Cooper was being satirical, but obviously the ponderous Laura Donovan (22 yrs.) of The Daily Caller didn't immediately catch it - Mr. Cooper subsequently catches her on the chin for it.

No harm no foul I would say, but obviously Anderson Cooper with his bag of abysmal ratings and struggling to remain relevant in the super charged world of internet blogging and new media needed to mark his territory.  Watch the funny - turned uncomfortable AC360 segment blow:



Meanwhile our country crumbles...

RED STATE Vs. ALEX JONES & THE INFOWAR

Topher Morrison
PurpleSerf.com


While I may not always connect the dots Alex Jones puts out there on his sites Infowars.com or Prisonplanet.com he undoubtedly is a personality on the rise.  Alex Jones has been covering the "New World Order" or the "Globalists", as he calls them, for over 16 years.  Many times I have heard people refer to him as the Neo (referring to the blockbuster movie the Matrix) of modern day geopolitics, able to see through the Matrix and decode what is happening behind the scenes, but more importantly what will happen.  


The ultimate example of Jone's abilities was his uncanny prediction of 9/11 on July 25th, 2001.  Not only did this radio talk show host predict the targets (World Trade Center), he identified the weapons (airplanes), and who would ultimately take the blame before most of America knew of Osama Bin Laden.


You may scream conspiracy theorist until you are blue in the face, but conspiracy theories are usually hatched after the fact.  In the following video Alex Jones pleads with his audience to call the government out in order to avert government sponsored terrorism or what Alex Jone's refers to as another Reichstag. 


Watch below:


Those on RedState.com, a conservative blog of note, apparently do not like Alex Jones.  His stories are commonly linked by news powerhouse Matt Drudge of DrudgeReport.com, a wildly popular conservative news aggregator, and apparently the right is getting a little annoyed.  


Recently the InfoWars team posted an article on Rick Perry (R), governor of Texas, called "Bilderberg-Approved Perry Set to Become Presidential Frontrunner" and in classic form (which I'll let you read yourself) Jones and Co. heavily critique the ostensibly conservative small government Republican.  The commenters of the Red State Army (as they call themselves, ironically Soviet sounding) evidently find it distasteful, although you wouldn't know it, as they spend most of their time attacking Jones calling him a "charlatan", "conspiracy theorist", "left wing", and a whole host of other ad hominems without really addressing any of his arguments. 


I am a registered member of Red State and have re-posted some of their commentators' work here on Purple Serf.  When I tried to add my comment this evening, I was told I hadn't been a member long enough.  Well, this is what you would have seen:


"Rick Perry is a former Democrat himself, albeit a Texas Democrat, to be sure he was branded a "pit bull" for his austere budgets in the Texas legislature.  Remember, however, Gov. Perry was the chairman of the '88 Gore campaign in Texas, what does this say about his ideological strength?  I mean Al Gore,  Mr. Carbon Tax!   


Alternatively, how does Rick Perry stand on two legs in an argument over a healthcare mandate when in 2007 he mandated that Texas girls receive the HPV vaccine Gardasil, granted the executive order ostensibly carried with it an opt out provision for parents.  Nonetheless this expensive vaccine was shouldered by Texas taxpayers!  What precedent does this set if he becomes president?  As far as the race, we'll officially have three candidates (Romney, Huntsman, and Perry) who have from one degree or another backed government intervention in health care.  How can Perry say with a straight face government doesn't belong in your doctors office?


See I didn't even touch Bilderberg, well... What's wrong with a "staunch states' rights advocate" meeting with a bunch of sycophantic global government pioneers?  It makes total sense."


- Purple Serf


Alex Jones' has predicted openly that Gov. Rick Perry will indeed run for the White House based on moles inside the Perry offices and due to Perry's purported vetting by the Bilderberg Group.  Red State enthusiasts claim Alex Jones and by extension Matt Drudge lose credibility by posting and linking about Bilderberg - we shall see.

Gaia Won't Save You, Neither Will the Government or Big Media

Topher Morrison
PurpleSerf.com

Originally posted by Inights at 9GAG.com.

I always like to think of Mother Earth as having just a little more insight on things than most people give her credit for.  While I don't necessarily subscribe to the notion our world is warming entirely due to pollution I do understand and feel it is critical to tell everyone how much we can and do damage our planet.  


In recent news the Associated Press (AP) trolled the records of the US Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) and found that dangerous radiation leaked from three-quarters of U.S. power plants!  According to the Daily Mail, it is claimed that for decades regulators had weakened safety regulations in order to keep the country's power plants operating within the rules.  In other words, they made it easier for them to pass the test in order to pass them on - sound familiar?


Photos by the AP

High levels of tritium are thought to have been leaked 

via rusted pipes like this one. 

This particular leak in 2007 allowed 10 gallons

of water per minute to spill out.

While this is only a claim at the moment nonetheless the Daily Mail reports industry bosses and regulators view this revelation as a public relations problem not a public health threat!  As unbelievable as this sounds it makes sense considering we have other recent reports of the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and its European Union equivalent planning to elevate the limits of accepted radiation exposure in food, feed, water, and the general population.  According to Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility (PEER) the new standards allow:


“nearly 1000-fold increase for exposure to strontium-90, a 3000 to 100,000-fold hike for exposure to iodine-131; and an almost 25,000 rise for exposure to radioactive nickel-63”


Our regulatory agencies evidently do this in order to prevent hysteria and maintain the status quo not to provide citizens with critical information they can use to plan and protect their families.  If you don't believe as the Kansas City Star reports that nuclear industry and its regulators maintain a cozy relationship look at what happened in Japan, regulators first lied as long as they could until they absolutely had to admit that there were 3 full blown meltdowns and that radiation was hundreds if not thousands times more serious than originally admitted.


These regulatory agencies are out of control.  In the U.S. they operate for all intents and purposes outside of Congressional oversight, if not, definitely outside of public debate in creating "policy."  The regulatory culture is also incredibly incestuous allowing for rampant corruption and favoritism evidenced across the spectrum from the FCC to the FDA.  Should these types of regulations be deliberated on the house floor in front of God and Country increases in "acceptable" levels of radiation would be given a more thorough vetting and I doubt very seriously that keeping nuclear power plants open for business would trump the public interest. 


If you think big journalism is going to save you, think again.  Here is a story of a nuclear power plant under water in Nebraska that has barely received any ink or air time for that matter.  Granted, everything seems under control according to the NRC, but given the governments propensity to elevate the threshold of what qualifies as an emergency I'd keep a watchful eye on the Cooper Nuclear Station. 

Al Gore Calls for Population Control

Topher Morrison
PurpleSerf.com

"The power of population is indefinitely greater than the power in the earth to produce subsistence for man." - Thomas Malthus 1766 - 1834

What is it with the neo-Malthusians?  Thomas Malthus asserted that man would outstrip the resources available to sustain him - he was wrong.  How did we do it?  We found out people are a resource unto themselves.  Who knew we'd visit the moon, fly around the world, touch the bottom of the ocean, and map the universe?  Mankind is not a blight on this world, we are a blessing. 

Al Gore gave the keynote address at this years Games for Change festival in New York.  The embattled climate guru laid out his ideas on how to arrest population growth and by extension control the problem of man made global warming.  

Mr. Gore in the following clip argues that you have to have "ubiquitous availability of fertility management" and need to "educate girls and empower women" in order for them to properly control how many children they have and how often they have them.  According to the former Vice President this is "the most powerful leveraging factor" in stabilizing the population.  Once this is accomplished "societies begin to make better choices and more balanced choices." 


What does this mean?  What is a better choice?  What is a balanced choice?  It may sound lovely and reasonable, but the ultimate answer is totally arbitrary, isn't it?  Mr. Gore makes an incredible assumption here, that there needs to always be someone there to teach the huddling masses about the birds and the bees (and birth control), but who taught us?  How did we manage to make it this far without Gore and Co.?


It was the relentless revolution of free peoples which created the wealth we enjoy today in America, throughout Western civilization, and now in East Asia and beyond.  There is a definite correlation between wealth creation and family size.  Carl Zimmer of Wired Magazine shows when nations become wealthier they tend to have less children:

"Rising living standards seem to have something to do with it. It's certainly true that as living standards rose in England -- as children died less from diseases, as the country overall became richer -- the size of the English family shrank. When other countries became wealthier, their families shrank, too. These days, affluent countries tend as a rule to have smaller families than poor ones."

Better and more balanced choices necessarily precede the creation of wealth, therefore it is quite obvious Mr. Gore has it backwards.  No doubt we should educate people, but education comes in many forms none of which are more valuable than reading, writing, and mathematics - the foundation of all other knowledge.  It seems to me that before we let loose the hordes of NGOs, UN peacekeepers, and Peace Corps members we should begin by empowering people not just women so they may run their own lives.  Too many third world nations struggle with rampant corruption and little economic growth.  Maybe we should start with teaching people about free representative democracy and offer a real education before buying hook line and sinker that a sex-ed class is going to change the world - or the climate for that matter. 

Breitbart: Scandal Invites Corruption

Topher Morrison
PurpleSerf.com

While attending the progressive Netroots Nation event Andrew Breitbart was the non-victim in an obvious attempt at a gotcha moment to be spread all over the internet.  Breitbart counters impressively, but not as you would think.  In a rare incidence the conservative attack dog actually offers a sound opinion instead of merely reacting to liberal bias evidenced in the fact he blatantly quells this ostensible progressive vlogger.



Breitbart brings up a wonderful point thereby adding a more interesting and teachable dimension to what would otherwise be just another standard political sex scandal.  What if other potential scandals were able to be hijacked before they were exposed by the media and then used against a politician for a nefarious, if not, merely contemptible reasons?  Do you think for a moment this has no potential or doesn't happen at all in American politics?

This is a tangible reason why our elected representatives need to meet the highest moral standard, at least while they're in office, in order to secure our national business.  Sure, Anthony Weiner broke no laws (as far as we know) and he technically doesn't have to leave office, but his lavishness and disregard for basic standards leaves him and others who engage in similar actions vulnerable.  Anthony Weiner did the best thing for himself, his family, his party, and the American Republic by leaving.  This subject has sucked enough air out of a room better dedicated to other matters.

John and Lindsey Should Shut Up!

Topher Morrison
PurpleSerf.com

Some would say John McCain (R-AZ) and Lindsey Graham (R-SC) are some of the most independent Republicans on Capitol Hill.  Many used to call John McCain the "Maverick Republican" for this very reason, the thing is, you don't hear it much these days.  Why do you think that is?  Because it's not cute anymore!  That little catch phrase that was used to market and prop up this barnacle of American politics has lost its meaning due to his political failures and ideological betrayals.  Plus, nobody takes John McCain seriously especially after being soundly defeated twice in the last decade once by fellow Republican George W. Bush and once again by Democrat, Barack Obama.

Today men like John McCain and Lindsey Graham make headlines by annoying us and pissing off the electorate not by expanding the debate or proffering novel ideas.  Both Graham and McCain are military men and currently serve as members of the Senate's Armed Services Committee.  Both epitomize the rife incongruencies festering within the neoconservative wing of the Republican party.  That "Big Tent" Republicans have been talking about over the years is purportedly composed of one thing; the distaste for "big government." The problem with Republicans like Graham and McCain is that for some reason while big government fails in every other area of American life (taxes, healthcare, business, you name it) it miraculously succeeds in the Pentagon!  How do they make this phenomenal leap in logic?

In the clips bellow McCain and Graham tag team the "isolationist" wing of the Republican party and tell the Congress of the United States, the most important and powerful body of American government to "shut up!"  What is more un-American than telling the representatives of the American Republic to shut up?  Moreover, Sen. Graham calls the War Powers Resolution, passed in 1973 by a super majority over the veto of President Richard Nixon, unconstitutional!  Wikipedia provides a quick summary:

"The War Powers Act requires the President to notify Congress within 48 hours of committing armed forces to military action and forbids armed forces from remaining for more than 60 days, with a further 30 day withdrawal period, without an authorization of the use of military force or a declaration of war."

How is this unconstitutional, the war powers rest with the Congress! Article 1, Section 8 of the Constitution gives Congress the power to declare war, raise and support the armed forces, control war funding, etc. This guy is supposed to be a lawyer!

The War Powers Act, as it is called, gives the President the room he needs to make quick descisions in a time of need to repel an invasion or some imminent threat to the US.  Ghaddafi posed none of this!  Presidents from both parties have ignored this provision and what began as a "Kinetic Action", a laughable euphamism, is now slated to become a full blown ground invasion by October!  The US is now engaged in 4 wars throughout the Middle East and is also posturing to tackle the Syrian conflict.  American interventions are causing a global realignment between Iran, Russia and China; moves which will not benefit our national security position.  We are on the brink of World War 3 and these hawks cry for more blood!

This isolationist rhetoric is preposterous.  Words unfortunately have very specific meanings and in this case McCain and Graham use "isolationist" to achieve what they cannot in truth.  To "isolate" means to cut off, segregate, quarantine, or sequester.  Japan for 200 hundred years isolated themselves from the outside world - no wars, but also no trade.  Rep. Ron Paul (R-TX) and other properly termed non-interventionist Republicans advocate leaving other countries alone, but engage the entire world in free trade!  This does not sound like isolationism to me.  The best diplomats we have in this country are in business, men and women who build, innovate, and grow our society businessmen who exchange ideas, goods, and services.  These associations made within free trade create interdependency which mitigates the danger of countries with mutual interests from annihilating each other.

John McCain may have invoked (albeit incorrectly) the almighty Ronald Reagan as some kind of hawk, which is another argument entirely, however I shall invoke bigger heavyweights since unconstitutionality is at hand.  In the words of Thomas Jefferson "Commerce with all nations, alliance with none, should be our motto" and when it comes to giving a sh*t about the future of NATO or the UN for that matter I defer to George Washington who said "I am for free commerce with all nations; political connection with none; and little or no diplomatic establishment."  Perhaps John McCain and Lindsey Graham should crack open a history book instead of cracking skulls in the Middle East, or least using our young men and women to do it for them.

Watch politicians embarrass themselves and our Constitution below:



For McCain to scold anyone these days is like when your grandfather interrupted an argument between you and your dad - its annoying and both of you end up telling him to leave.

Joe Scarborough Loses It Live

Topher Morrison
PurpleSerf.com


The Morning Joe last Friday awkwardly exemplified how and why the dinosaur media is passing away before our eyes.  You couldn't write a more awkward scene if you tried. The show hosted by Joe Scarborough and Mika Brzezinski suffered a Fukashima sized meltdown by what seemed to be a blitzed Morning Joe.


I don't drop in to watch Scarborough's show very often and if the Neilson ratings have anything to say neither does anyone else you know.  Scarborough was incited into a peculiarly theatrical tirade after playing a clip of Newt Gingrich claiming that Obama wants to "redesign our lives by letting him and his bureaucrats do it for us" and asserting this stratagem for America "is the opposite of freedom!"  Scarborough dramatically screams in disagreement "Ghaddafi...now that's the opposite of freedom!" and "Al'Qaeda is the opposite of freedom!"


Scarborough screams "He's been doing it for 20 years!"  And asks melodramatically "When is he going to stop!?" Continuing, Joe bemoans Gingrich's "socialist machine that wants to chew up Jesus and spit out the American flag!" Can anyone say baggage!?  Boy what did Newt do to this guy?


Watch this bizarre episode:

Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

Corporate Tax Cuts Won’t Work, Really?

Topher Morrison

PurpleSerf.com

President Obama’s advisors apparently think a corporate tax cut will make America more competitive, which makes me wonder where these guys have been, but Marshall Auerback writing for the Daily Beast yesterday disagrees:

“[Cutting the corporate tax rate] represents a fundamentally flawed approach. Why? Because corporate tax cuts represent a supply side response to a problem that is fundamentally one of poor aggregate demand.”

Auerback argues that should the corporate tax rate be cut or abolished that it would not necessarily result in cutting unemployment.  He reasons:

“…Given that [the] prevailing historically high profit margins and high profit rates already in place have done little to reduce unemployment.”

It may seem succinct and professorial to juxtapose words like "supply side" and "poor aggregate demand", however, reality is a little more complicated.  Auerback doesn't address the reason for the disparity between profits and unemployment and therefore prevents his audience from appreciating a crucial facet of the business cycle.  


When growth is robust and our economy is at full sail people are fully employed and profits are solid.  When the seas start to rise and a storm hits the sails are trimmed to maintain the ship, its heading and hopefully its speed.  In the same manner our businesses shed employees, but this doesn't preclude them from maintaining their goals and earning a profit, quite the contrary.  According to the New York Times late last year:

“…Companies have been able to make more with less — as well as the fact that some of the profits of American companies come from abroad.  Economic conditions in the United States may still be sluggish, but many emerging markets like India and China are expanding rapidly.”

This efficiency evolution is a natural result of the increase in productive technologies and strategies developed during the preceding economic booms. This is the case subsequent to many economic expansions and why we see abundant profit while unemployment rises. Look at previous downturns in the economy over the last 60 years corporate profits have been measured and you will discover this tendency.  


Companies discard antiquated business models and modes of production and while the latter obviously involves an unfortunate human element it is a necessary result of the natural respiration and life cycle of an economy.   Even when profits are high, in other words, even when the ship may actually improve its speed, the situation remains precarious until the economic turbulence subsides and the captain is able to establish his bearings in order to again set full sail. 

I don't care to unduly dehumanize the unemployment situation in this county (Auerback, as many others do, conservatively puts it at 9.1% while it is in many instances appropriately measured at well over 20%), however, the moral, economic, and fiscal dimensions of the corporate income tax, in and of itself, don't involve me covering the necessities of the American public to increase their savings rate or to increase their ability to adapt new skill sets – both of which would greatly mitigate the adverse affects posed by these predictable and periodic episodes all economies face.

When anyone says the word “corporation” is it not reasonable to assume most who hear it think: “multinational”, “special interest”, “robber baron”, “profit hungry”, “greed”, “bankster”, and all the other negative connotations our society has imbued upon the term?  In reality, corporations are simply put, a vehicle to deliver goods and services and to reap  profits.  The profits or the monetized success of the corporation are subsequently handed over to some entity be it government, shareholders, partners, employees, suppliers, or some combination thereof.  The blog Spellchek laid it all out in March:

“Let’s remember exactly who pays corporate taxes in America. You do. The consumer. Corporate taxes are simply a portion of the cost structure that goes into pricing a product or service. Corporations do not pay these taxes. They are merely the middleman [sic] who collects the tax from the consumer and pays it to the government.”

Depending on classification corporations can be both large and small and take in profits across the spectrum and most often these companies don’t exceed the boundaries of the state in which they are incorporated.  Corporations as such are hardly parallel to GE, Google, Exxon-Mobil, or Microsoft whom regularly skirt American tax law and as Auerback aptly states “do not pay anywhere near the current prevailing marginal rate.”  These corporations do not benefit from swanky K Street lobbyists, hordes of savvy accountants, or the elephantine loopholes both help to create and more often than not these corporations reside nowhere near Wall Street.

As far as preventing mega corporations from, as Auerback puts it: “buy[ing] back shares, issu[ing] a special dividend, or initiat[ing] a merger to get their stock price up pronto”, why should we?  That’s what corporations do and that is what they are supposed to do!  No doubt that megabanks like Wells Fargo, JP Morgan Chase, Bank of America, and Goldman Sachs and the aforementioned mega-multinationals are in aggregate devoid of conscience, but they are systems designed to be that way.  They are as much a function in our economy as they are on a math exam.  You may get mad at Microsoft Word for auto correcting (as I am right now) or at Donkey Kong for freezing at the final board (should you ever get there), but it is ultimately the system's design.  Taxation of this corporate system merely hurts everyone in the economy and opens the floodgates of corruption.

As Megan McCardel of The Atlantic explains the corporate income tax merely reduces wages, as corporations cannot offer larger salaries and benefits let alone more jobs.  The tax promotes risky debt financing and wastes corporate dollars better spent on any number of things other than lobbyists and accountants.  It is a double tax, first levied on the entity (further depressing wages, jobs, investment, savings, etc.) and then on employees incomes and shareholder's dividends. 


Do you get it!? These are the necessary results of the corporate tax.  Sure, lifting it won’t necessarily bring back jobs tomorrow, but our corporate income tax, the second highest in the world next to that slug Japan, is preventing us from attracting a legion of foreign direct investment (FDI) and preventing corporations from functioning as massive consumers on the macroeconomic level.  


The biggest benefit we all will derive from abolishing the corporate income tax, however, is incorporeal - the abundance of respect we will discover for our form of government when the line of lobbyists preventing us from visiting with our elected representatives disappears.

To be fair, however, Auerback does echo some great ideas to boost employment and I don't care to bury that part of his opinion, namely: “cut all marginal tax rates significantly” and “embrace a suspension [of] a full payroll tax holiday for every employer AND employee in the nation.”  Albeit, a holiday is just that, a temporary solution, we’re all hopefully looking for long-term results.

Visualize a world with low corporate income taxes:

Dubai

Hong Kong

Malaysia

Miami Police Kill Man, Attempt to Steal/Destroy All Evidence

Mike Briggs

Reason.com

June 8th, 2011

Miami Police Shoot Man to Death, Attempt to Steal/Destroy All Video Evidence of Shooting Man to Death

Miami Police shot up a vehicle and its occupant in the middle of a crowded neighborhood last Memorial Day weekend because they thought the driver was armed. Police chased Raymond Herisse to a stretch of Collins Street at 4 a.m., where more than a dozen officers unloaded their clips into Herisse's parked car (and Herisse). 

However, it's what Miami PD did after shooting Herisse that's got the department up against the wall.

Several people filmed the incident, one of them being West Palm Beach resident Narces Benoit, who captured the entire episode with his cell phone:

From the video: When the cops notice Benoit filming, they demand that he stop. Benoit puts his phone down by his side and returns to his car. As he's walking, he repeatedly says that he's filming the police and not doing anything wrong. The area is well lit, and Benoit isn't the only person filming. He is, however, the only person ignoring police commands to stop filming. 

The next time Benoit raises the camera, it’s to capture an adrenaline-fueled and agitated-looking Miami police officer circling his Ford Expedition, pointing a gun through the windows at Benoit and his girlfriend. Pretty soon, cops swarm the car and force Benoit and his girlfriend to exit the vehicle. 

Benoit’s girlfriend told the Miami Herald that police then “put guns to our heads and threw us on the ground.” According to Benoit, one officer handcuffed him, grabbed his phone, “smashed” it on the ground, and then put it back in Benoit’s pocket.

A week later, Miami PD is denying not that an officer took Benoit’s phone for no legally justifiable reason, and not that Benoit was arrested despite having done nothing wrong, but that the officer “smashed” Benoit’s phone:

[A]n unsigned statement issued late Tuesday by a city spokeswoman took issue with Benoit’s statements. The statement said police stopped him not because he was filming but because he matched the description of a man seen fleeing the shooting scene, and that he ignored officers’ demands to stop. He was taken in for questioning as a witness, the statement said.

The statement also questioned Benoit’s account that an officer “smashed” his phone — the city e-mailed photos of the phone’s front and back showing only small cracks on the lower right front screen — and said Benoit didn’t turn over a copy of the video until he was served with a subpoena.

“This damage does not appear consistent with Mr. Benoit’s statements to the media that his phone was ‘smashed,’ ” the statement said.

The statement added that several other cellphones were seized by police during the investigation. Benoit’s allegations — coupled with a WPLG-ABC 10 report that an officer temporarily seized one of its video cameras after the fatal shooting of Raymond Herisse — have spurred criticism from photojournalists and the American Civil Liberties Union.

Reason.tv on the war on cameras: