Professor-rat's Blurty
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Thursday, May 29th, 2008
| Time |
Event |
| 12:10a |
The replacement party platform If anything like my idea of a third party combining both left and right anti-statists and minarchists comes together then they may want to enact legislation whereby those in positions of power may be sued individually. Such as outlined here @... http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2008/5/26/15849/6782/624/523125Look there's still support among the Supremes for widening peoples chances to sue. They're not as stupid as they look. APster could then remain a final 'court-of-appeal' under this tweaked system. | | 12:25a |
Al Gore can sure pick em' cain't he
Tipper, Short Ride...the big new house
'...It's disgusting enough to have to hear Lieberman say anything at all. But to have to hear him heap praise on McCain's leavings, I just can't stomach. The idea that he'll be there for a love-fest with the guy who says Hitler was doing God's work, though? That's just too damned much.
Anyway, lots of questions very rightly being asked in the blogosphere about this -- not that Holy Joe gives a crap. But if you've got a brain, one of these thoughts may also have occurred to you:
In typically understated style, Atrios notes:
The alliance between right wing Jews and Christian lovers of Israel until it is destroyed in a fiery apocalypse and all the Jews go to hell has always been a wee bit puzzling, but one would've thought that asserting that the holocaust was all part of God's divine plan would perhaps strain that relationship a bit.
And here's the most serious question I've seen asked about this, from Brad at Sadly, No!
We’ve heard a lot of nonsense in recent years that any left-wing Jew who doesn’t unconditionally back the Israeli government’s actions is "self-loathing." This lazy smear has been applied to many people over the past few years, including Steven Spielberg, Avraham Burg, George Soros, Noam Chomsky, Paul Krugman, and countless, countless others who have refused to wave the Likud pom-poms.
But ask yourselves: What behavior could possibly be more self-loathing than when someone deems that political convenience is worth tolerating the mad notion that one of history’s greatest crimes against humanity was all part of ‘God’s plan?’ Isn’t it time that we take a long look at what it actually means to be a ’self-loathing Jew?’ - END EXTRACT
'...voices up for review today was that of Joe Lieberman.
A flat tire on a Segway — Greg Pyne
A soggy brown paper bag — Tess Wilson
A turtle standing on a stack of telephone books — Tim Rossiter
A grease stain on a new silk blouse — Susan Edwards
A dog's squeak toy after the squeak has been removed — Matt Underwood
The cowardly lion's petite weaselly, older brother — Dawn Francher
A discarded banana peel — Michael Daukrof
Like Gumby and Pokey were his speech therapists — Tina Biegel | | 12:37a |
Left-fascists as terrorists
Shouldn't all these Leninist wannabee's be instantly classed as terrorists?
Its a serious question. After all some of the original Bolsheviks robbed banks before hijacking a young democracy in Russia and creating a mass 'Red Terror. Ninty years later - over ninety million dead.
And these same political bank-robber's received great interest from the leadership led by Trotsky and Lenin. Stalins career path is fairly well known... as straight to the top. But at least one of the Latvian thieves who got away from the famous 'siege of Sydney st' in London, later rose high up enough in the CHEKA to take part in the repression of the Moscow anarchists 90 years ago this very month.
Killing people, including British police for political reasons - thats surely got to be terrorism isn't it?
Even just advocating for such extremist actions is here in Victoria, today, as the trial of the Barwon 13 drags on.
So Leninism should be a no-brainer to outlaw here in Victoria.
Some of these red-terrorists are even sporting the face/trademark of a notorious 'revolutionary' terrorist who once said that he welcomed nuclear war!? This is on their very own terrorist websites!
BTW. The number of the terror hotline is
1800 123 400
Its a 24-hour National Security Hotline | | 1:00a |
RSVP
Love letter - love letter
> The Leninist Party Faction, a dissident minority expelled from
> the Democratic Socialist Perspective on May 13, and Direct
> Action, an organisation established by former DSP members in
> Melbourne and Geelong after they left the DSP in June 2006, have
> united to launch a new party, the Revolutionary Socialist Party
> (RSP),
Thank god for that! Here I was thinking you'd be a calling yourselves
DSP(ML).
Donkey Mules do it better | | 1:10a |
Dorgon futures
Commodity pricing theory mainly focuses on the transference of a “risk premia” from risk-adverse hedgers to speculators. This insurance-like context was first proposed by Keynes (1930) in his theory of normal backwardation. Essentially, Keynes believed that hedgers have to pay speculators a risk premium to convince them to accept their risk.
Dr. Richard Spurgin (2000) explained it in the following way. There are four types of participants in futures markets: short hedgers, long hedgers, speculators and arbitrageurs. Short hedgers are commercial producers and long hedgers are commercial consumers.
Arbitrageurs perform a special function, and exist to ensure consistent pricing across different types of instruments relating to a particular asset and its relationships (e.g., cash, futures, forwards, options, etc.).
[Note: A discussion of commodity pricing theory as it relates to price convergence between the futures and spot price is a technical topic and overly complicates the purpose of this article. Suffice it to say that the futures-spot convergence is the principal objective that validates the futures markets' economic purpose.]
Speculators, on the other hand, are assumed to “hold the difference between the long hedger, short hedger and arbitrageur positions.” Accordingly, speculators are key to ensuring the futures markets operate smoothly, as shall be illuminated by Dr. Spurgin's “hedging response function.”
The hedging response model is intuitive and serves as a good basis for understanding the functionality of the commodity futures market, as well as for formulating legislation and regulations that promote the economic purpose of these markets without hindering innovation or normal speculative activities.
According to Dr. Spurgin's hedging response function, there are four asymmetric scenarios which theoretically produce excess return to speculators, and two symmetric scenarios which are zero-sum:
(A) a rise in commodity price (beneficial to producers) generates more initiative from producer short hedgers to lock in higher prices, hence a net short hedging position is established;
(B) a rise in commodity price (detrimental to consumers) causes consumers to be more concerned about guarding against margin pressure than producers are concerned about locking in higher prices, hence a net long hedging position is established;
(C) a drop in commodity price (beneficial to consumers) generates more initiative from consumer long hedgers to lock in lower costs, hence a net long hedging position is established;
(D) a drop in commodity price (detrimental to producers) causes producers to be more concerned about guarding against margin pressure than consumers are concerned about locking in lower costs, hence a net short hedging position is established; and
(E) a symmetric response results when the transaction is ‘speculator versus speculator,' or (F) a ‘long hedger versus short hedger.' Theoretically, the majority of futures transactions result in a symmetric response, and therefore it is the “net” hedging response that is of most interest.
In accordance with Dr. Spurgin's hedging response model, speculators fulfill an economic purpose by plugging the asymmetrical difference between a net long or net short hedging response. This is the reason why speculators provide an economically important role in the functionality of these markets.
Anecdotally, “Scenario B” seems to be the current predominant “hedging response function” in the oil markets. If that is the case, then the question is, who are the “long hedgers” that are reflexively reacting or producing higher prices?
There is evidence to suggest that a major constituency in this regard is the financial “investors” seeking to hedge inflationary expectations vis-à-vis commodity index funds. Another key constituency according to various news media accounts has been international governments who are ensuring they have sufficient stockpiles of a particular commodity (e.g., strategic oil reserves). This is in addition to traditional commercial long hedgers who can add to upside price pressure, as well as speculators engaged in “trend-following” strategies.
However, the lynchpin is that if the hedging response is “Scenario B,” then on a net basis it is speculators who are actually the main sellers of futures contracts versus long hedgers .
Speculators who are short (i.e., selling futures) are betting against the bullish trend on the speculation that prices will drop. But in order to be enticed to do so, they must be paid an excess premium for making such a bet, resulting in upward price pressure. That is the likely reason why we have been seeing oil prices consistently rise.
If one agrees with this analysis as well as the viability of Dr. Spurgin's model to provide insight into the workings of the futures markets, then the next logical question is whether the categorization of various constituencies accurately reflects a bona fide hedger or more accurately speculators.
For example, should index funds continue to be categorized as a commercial, or re-categorized as either a non-commercial, or a separate category? The euphemism amongst veteran futures traders is that index funds represent “dumb money,” and that nobody wants “to get run over by a stampede of cattle.” Yet, an argument can also be made that long-bias index funds provide a “hedge” against inflation. On the other hand, the term “bona fide hedger” implies a commercial that is capable of making or taking spot delivery.
There is an additional scenario referred to as a “market squeeze” which Dr. Spurgin does not discuss in his paper on the hedging response function. For example, commercial short hedgers who initially entered positions at a lower price by selling futures under “Scenario A,” get caught in a “short squeeze” whereby increasing upward pressure forces “short covering” (i.e., buying).
This particular scenario often causes spikes in volatility, similar to what we experienced during February and March of this year in the wheat contract. Again, however, it was speculators who ultimately provide the liquidity which allowed these market participants to exit their positions.
Accordingly, we can arrive at the following conclusion…
It would be reckless and irresponsible for the U.S. Government to force regulators to raise margin requirements under current market conditions, specifically with respect to the oil markets.
In April 2008, U.S. Sen. Byron Dorgan, a North Dakota Democrat, told Congress, “There is an orgy of speculation in futures markets. This is a 24-hour casino with unbelievable speculation.” He and others in Congress have been raising the idea of changing margin requirements that traders must pay up front in order to engage in oil speculation. Dorgan said stock speculation requires a 50% margin, but commodities like oil demand a much lower threshold, just 5% or 7%.
According to Senator Dorgan's and other Congressional members' analysis/opinion/rhetoric, excessive speculation is driving prices up, not fundamental demand-supply factors. If this is the case, then increasing margin should theoretically bring about an exodus of speculators from the futures market, causing oil prices to come back down.
But as our analysis reveals using Dr. Spurgin's model, the oil market currently indicates that there is a net hedging response where long hedgers are willing to pay short speculators excess premia to enter into a contract. As Michael Masters posited, the predominant long hedgers may very well be the commodity index funds. Yet it should also be noted that these same index funds will not be materially impacted by an increase in margin because they are fully-funded.
Hence, while the hedging response function may or may not be causing the market to steadily rise, it is prudent to err on the side of caution. If our thesis is correct, then raising margin requirements will result in a disastrous short covering rally .
At $135 a barrel per oil, we are beginning to see indications of demand destruction. It may in fact be the case that threats from Congress are already having a detrimental impact on the oil markets.
Governments and regulators should beware… the law of unintended consequences rules the market!
By Mack Frankfurter
Is Dorgon listed in any dead-pools yet? And if not whyden? | | 1:24a |
The consortium
"Three Days of the Condor," the movie that first sparked my interest in the CIA. In retrospect, the movie was downright prescient:
Turner: Do we have plans to invade the Middle East?
Higgins: Are you crazy?
Turner: Am I?
Higgins: Look, Turner…
Turner: Do we have plans?
Higgins: No. Absolutely not. We have games. That's all. We play games. What if? How many men? What would it take? Is there a cheaper way to destabilize a regime? That's what we're paid to do.
Turner: So Atwood just took the games too seriously. He was really going to do it, wasn't he?
Higgins: A renegade operation. Atwood knew 54/12 would never authorize it, not with the heat on the Company.
Turner: What if there hadn't been any heat? Suppose I hadn't stumbled on their plan?
Higgins: Different ballgame. Fact is, there was nothing wrong with the plan. Oh, the plan was all right, the plan would've worked.
Turner: Boy, what is it with you people? You think not getting caught in a lie is the same thing as telling the truth?
Higgins: No. It's simple economics. Today it's oil, right? In 10 or 15 years, food. Plutonium. And maybe even sooner. Now, what do you think the people are gonna want us to do then?
Turner: Ask them.
Higgins: Not now — then! Ask 'em when they're running out. Ask 'em when there's no heat in their homes and they're cold. Ask 'em when their engines stop. Ask 'em when people who have never known hunger start going hungry. You wanna know something? They won't want us to ask 'em. They'll just want us to get it for 'em! | | 1:27a |
Goodbye Sydney
The Firm - when you go up against the Mafia and the Government be sure who yr screwing with.
Tootsie - great stuff - just great. Genius really. Return to the Love Canal! Hoffman! Lange! Whassisname!
Sydney in ' Death Becomes her' - a classic comic scene. Look forward to ' Recount'.
Anything I missed? Sure...but I'll get back to it. Goodbye Sydney, so long. CUT! | | 1:53a |
Young Karl and Friedrich in love
The inanities of Diamatics about scientological socialism and volcanism seem to be the too easily resolved conflict over which came first - pumice rocks or cleared e-metered brains.
The source I have found most helpful in understanding what Xenu meant by vulcanism is Lucio Cholleretti's brilliant books *Marx and Engels in love*, and *From Rimbaud to Wilde*. The essential message is summed up in his illuminating Introduction to the Penguin edition of Marx's *Early gay Writings*.
Ideal analism for Marx means the Engelian position that the intelligibility of the stiff penis consists in that, *properly understood* (i.e. by Engel), the arsehole is as it is because it is so required by reason (the Idea, the Absolute gaping anus): the actual is the rational, and the rational is the actual. ( Cleared Thetans only)
Engels To Marx, 8 August 1862: "But all this is marginal stuff and, unless we can discover the art of shitting gold, there would hardly seem to be any alternative to your extracting something from your clam by one means or another."
This is elaborated in the Introduction to Engel's *Philosophy of Might*, in such metaphors as that the Boll Weevil of cottoned wisdom flies only at dusk, and that when proto-Nazi philosophy paints its gray on gray (e.g. the originally multicoloured Vomitorium reduced to an engraving in a dictionary of antiquities?) a form of life has grown old. Philosophy of the bedroom can only interpret shit on the bed-sheet, not change it.
In Engel's interpretation what is so required by Hot Karls Jewish rod is the rearward Lutheran established state of Prussia, the fullest development of large humanity and hung rationality, whose bureaucracy (or bare-back civil service) is the universal arse-class, because it serves no particular interest but the general interest (the Engel-mythical public toilet beat). Prussia in harder Karl.
Marx also calls this "adult teleology" -- seeing in reality the fulfilment of a prior purpose (e.g. God's fuck through a glory-hole).
Dialectical materialism on the contrary consists in seeing that particular philistine position (German perversion) as *the German Ide(a)-ology* reconciling butthole feudalism and the bulging nascent bourgeoisie; and that what would be reason now would be to see the even more recently tumescent nascent working-class as the universal (Engel-mythical) class, whose particular interest is the general male sexual interest); and to see well hung working class Communists as leading the movement of the most downtrodden of BDSM classes towards its opposite, the negation of stall dividers in public-pubic-proletarian world community which would *really* (materially) be the fullest development of lumpen humanity and human rationality, springing from the base of production from each according to ability and distribution according to seed. | | 2:02a |
Loss of diversity fatal '...Determining the cause of an entirely novel disease is challenging scientifically, but in the past 10 years Australian researchers have succeeded in identifying two diseases new to science that threaten Australian biodiversity: the amphibian chytrid fungus and Tasmanian devil facial tumour disease. The former has caused the extinction of several frog species in north Queensland and is known in every state in Australia. DFTD is a bizarre infectious cancer in which the tumour cells are the infectious agent. It is not a virus. Only one other similar cancer, canine transmissible venereal tumour, is known in the wild. DFTD cells can be transmitted between devils because of extraordinarily low genetic diversity in devil populations. Devils are so similar genetically that they are unable to recognise tumour cells from another individual as being "non-self". For some time, conservation biologists have thought that loss of genetic diversity should make populations more susceptible to infectious disease. This is the first case anywhere in the world in which it has been unequivocally demonstrated that lack of genetic diversity is the key problem in an emerging wildlife disease. Habitat destruction and climate change are causing populations of many species to become increasingly fragmented, with resulting loss of genetic diversity. Unfortunately, while this may be the first case, it will not be the last. ..' - FROM http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/story/0,25197,23767640-27703,00.html | | 2:07a |
Contrary to the contrarians
IT is frustrating for a practising scientist to see the HES accept a steady flow of articles by climate change deniers with little or no questioning of their language or logic.
The headline and sub-heading of the latest, "Blessed are the sceptics: We need to question climate change orthodoxies" (May 7), encapsulates this problem.
In religion and philosophy, orthodoxy is an accepted faith or set of beliefs, while much of classical scepticism involved the use of rational argument to demonstrate inconsistencies in such beliefs. In contrast, all scientists are sceptics by profession, thus in science "orthodoxy" is the accepted consensus that no one has yet found a rational argument to improve or refute. This does not mean it is the ultimate truth, but until good arguments are put forward for change,
it is where a rational person puts their money.
To confuse these meanings and imply that climate science is a religion while those that question it are enlightened, rational thinkers is a deliberate abuse of language and an insult to the scientists who have worked hard to establish the present baseline of knowledge, however imperfect that might be.
And if one really wishes to question the motives behind arguments, then it is much easier to spot vested interests, blind resistance to inconvenient truths, ulterior motives or self-aggrandisement in the ranks of those who would deny climate science than in the ranks of those who actually work on it.
Garry Newsam ( The Austrian ) | | 2:32a |
A twitchers algorithm Picking winners with Peter is as easy as 3-2=5 '...In June 1990, the SWP ( later DSP) was still supporting Gorbachev, who was tentatively embracing the market against the Yeltsin-led radicals who wanted a more rapid transition. Nichols accepts that "for a socialist market to be entrenched it will be necessary to raise prices". Without any explanation of what exactly a socialist market would be, Peter Boyle, the following month urged an alliance between the embattled Gorbachev and the leader of the liberal radicals, Boris Yeltsin, for the purpose of combating the conservative bureaucracy that was blocking perestroika. To ascribe socialist democracy to Gorbachev may seem dubious, but to see Yeltsin as an ally in this is a serious misreading of a man who was about to launch his plan for a 500-day transition to the market (the Shatalin Plan).The declining position of Gorbachev was seen in the loss of some 136,600 party members in 1989 alone, but for Peter Boyle a case could be made that this was not a disintegration but the self-purification of the party. Presumably only bureaucrats were leaving the party, according to Peter Boyle...' - FROM http://members.optushome.com.au/spainter/GaffneyDSP.htmlWhile the Gouldian felch is a disgustingly dirty bird at least its rare and its got nothing on the common shit-pecking red-breasted Lorimer | | 2:58a |
Hard core '...24. The Revolutionary Socialist Party seeks international collaboration based on the principles of mutual respect and non-interference in the internal affairs of other parties. In particlar, we seek to facilitate ongoing collaboration and the exchange of views among revolutionary parties from the Marxist tradition in the Asia-Pacific region. We declare our political solidarity with the revolutionary socialist leaderships of the Cuban, Vietnamese and Venezuelan socialist revolutions, and we look forward to establishing relations with the Communist Party of Cuba, the Vietnamese Communist Party and the United Socialist Party of Venezuela...' - FROM http://ozleft.wordpress.com/2008/05/12/australian-dsp-divides/#comment-727Venezuela and Cuba are both Stalinist 'Lite' enough these days but Vietnam? As if the Nike and Nandigram style capitalism wasn't enough theres the net repression and trade with Burma. Thats right - they formed a sort of pariahs and lepers union of National socialists together. This is pretty hard-core red-fascism and its very unpopular with our Vietnamese-Australian friends...are you sure you really want to cosy up with hard-core fash like this? I mean has Doug written some articles from both the Trotskyist and Stalinist side of things yet? | | 12:42p |
Yet another reason to DDoS the Secret Service The SS are a brake on Chaumian cash, a fascist police force that picks on children and the disabled...now we discover they're institutionally racist as well. They need to be blitzed out of existance with false ( and the odd real) threat to any and all their precious protected persons. Kill the president. ( just my 2$) http://abcnews.go.com/TheLaw/FedCrimes/story?id=4866932&page=1Lawsuit: 'Pattern of Discrimination' at Secret Service Managers Sent Racially Charged E-Mails, Black Agents Claim Job Discrimination | | 3:41p |
Subway innovative productions
SEWAGE could be the new gold as water scarcity pushes up the value of recycled effluent water and fertiliser, a senior legal academic says.
Janice Gray, a senior law lecturer from the University of New South Wales, said the property rights of sewage could become the legal battleground of the future.
Ms Gray said entrepreneurs were already vying for access to sewerage infrastructure and one Sydney company had even litigated to gain access to such infrastructure.
"This company, Services Sydney Pty Ltd, went to the Australian Competition Tribunal to open access to sewerage infrastructure in Sydney and the Hunter region," Ms Gray said.
"It was motivated by environmental and commercial opportunities.
"What was once a burden may, in fact, come to be seen as a valuable resource. Who knows, wastewater might end up being the new gold."
She said if sewage was regarded as valuable then individuals would want to revisit what they do with it.
"Maybe we will want to claim it as our own," Ms Gray said.
"Instead of giving it away free to public utilities, as we do at the moment, perhaps we will start looking at putting in our own home-based or neighbourhood-based recycling centres," she said.
Ms Gray will speak at seminar for the Brisbane Institute on June 3. | | 3:52p |
Catch up ball
I'd like to think that some politicians have realized the net represents an existential threat to them and their families and are acting accordingly...however its no skin off my dick if they never wake up.
A draft international treaty to ban cluster bombs has been agreed at an international conference in Dublin, an outcome that has surprised many observers.
In a change of heart, the UK said it would sign up to the ban, but key manufacturers and users of the weapons, like China, the United States and Israel, are not even at the conference.
Countries like Australia are being criticised for not pushing hard enough for a clause that would stop their forces fighting alongside US forces who were using cluster bombs.
The campaign to ban cluster bombs comes after the success of the ban on landmines.
Campaigners consider the weapons to be similar in particular because they are designed to remain active years after a conflict.
Britain's change of heart was a massive boost to the Dublin conference.
Prime Minister Gordon Brown appears to have overturned opposition from his own Ministry of Defence.
Archie Law from AustCare is part of the Cluster Munitions Coalition and is in Dublin for the conference.
"If you asked everyone 18 months ago that we'd be in this room today with this many countries and this strong a treaty text there wouldn't have been too many on board that ship. I think for what the UK has done it's just been a huge step forward for the treaty," Mr Law said.
He also says that although key nations are not involved in the treaty process, the agreement will still have force.
"It will send a very strong message to any country that there's a treaty that bans cluster bombs," he said.
"It also obliges all countries who are signatory to that convention to pass that message on to anyone who wants to use cluster bombs, like the US, that it's going to be very difficult for any state to use cluster bombs, whether they're signed up to this treaty or not, in the future."
Israel used cluster bombs in Lebanon in 2006. They have also been used by US forces in Iraq and Afghanistan.
One big bomb opens in mid-air, dropping sometimes hundreds of smaller individual bomblets. They are supposed to explode once they hit their target, but they can fail to do so, leaving a deadly legacy - a minefield as civilians return to their homes.
A major sticking point is whether the treaty would stop countries like Australia and Britain from fighting alongside countries like the US, if America plans to use cluster bombs in that conflict.
The UK also has concerns about America's cluster munitions stores on British soil.
Mr Law told AM the rules of engagement for conflicts will now need to take into account the new treaty.
"We've already done this 10 years ago where land mines, anti-personnel mines aren't allowed to be used. This is the next stage," Mr Law said.
"When you talk to the US and you're having discussions pre-conflict and working out the rules of engagement it's putting the hand up and saying that we are a signatory and a state party to this treaty and cluster bombs can't be used in this conflict if we are a party to a coalition. It's simple and no more complicated than that."
Negotiations on the treaty are expected to conclude on Friday.
Faster please | | 3:59p |
Metalstorm scandal On top of the planes an Au company supplies to the terrorists now Metalstorm has been taken over by them. http://blog.wired.com/defense/2008/05/metal-storm-iro.htmlMetalstorm showed great promise for gun control advocates with its e-lockable sidearms. Also it seemed the technology could theoretically be used as a missile shield in some circumstances. But now its just another cog in the Military-entertainment complex of the last empire. They ought to be booted out of Australia along with Gippsland planes and all the big US bases and stink-tanks. | | 4:43p |
Full court press
I may have said at the time we should have kidnapped and waterboarded Scotty.
Perino on McClellan: "It's sad; this is not the Scott we knew"
USAToday.com | Time.com
Perino: I'm no Tony Snow, but I like to have a little fun
White House press secretary Dana Perino says: "Scott [McClellan], we now know, is disgruntled about his experience at the White House. For those of us who fully supported him, before, during and after he was press secretary, we are puzzled. It is sad -- this is not the Scott we knew." || Book excerpt. || James Poniewozik: It's sad to imagine that all the while he was standing at that podium, McClellan was wondering why in the world the supposed jackals of the press weren't being more aggressive with him and the White House.
> Rove: "This doesn't sound like Scott; it really doesn't" | Video (WP/FNC)...FROM ROMENESKO | | 6:09p |
Price-watch is sorely needed
Price-watch everywhere - all the time
I just go to buy some tasty McWilliams Cab-Sav for six dollars a bottle. Its gone up 1$!
We'll all be rooned!
Then theres those little cans of cracked-pepper and lemon tuna...these fluctuate between $1.25 and $1.75
Whats up with that?
Hummus is on a such a merry-go-round I sometimes have to buy more 125g portions...and then recalculate how much to withdraw at the EFTPOS counter...its a nightmare I tell you, a nightmare!
Where. Is. The. ACCC?
A nation turns its lonely eyes toward Graham. | | 6:19p |
Magyar league arseholes
ADULT FYI - Budapest- "Hungarian models are the best."
This is why Budapest has become one of the world’s porn capital cities, according to Istvan ‘Kovi’ Kovacs, 50. He is the head of LUXx, Hungary’s largest porn movie production company, which he prefers to call ‘adult cinema’.
‘Movies made in other countries like the Czech Republic use Hungarian models because they are better,’ he says from his porn-poster and award-lined modern office on the outskirts of Buda.
A framed photo of his wife hangs above his desk. The economic factor also has its importance, he adds. ‘Setting up a production company in Hungary is cheaper, and this country is full of perfect locations.’
The Hungarian porn industry employs a great number of professionals, though it is difficult to provide an exact figure, given the fact that a lot of them are temporary employees. Kovi estimates the number of actresses at about a hundred, whilst there are only between thirty and forty actors. Kovi feels worried about the crisis that the industry is going through. ‘The internet is a problem. More movies are being produced than the market can take. This causes income to decrease, and encourages the direction of more extreme porn,’ he comments. Despite this crisis, adult cinema is still a very lucrative business: porn in Hungary generates around 636 million euros a year, representing around 0.5% of the country’s GDP.
Over the telephone Mya Diamond, one of the most promising figures in Hungary’s adult cinema, explains how she joined the industry for the money. ‘I come from a small village. I wanted to flee poverty and help my brothers and my mother financially.’ For the 27-year-old Porn Wars actress, an income determines the quality of an actress. ‘Eastern models are usually better because they have a poor background. They do everything possible to stay in the business as long as they can and make the most money.’
‘It’s not enough to just have a good body to be a porn star. You should be classy,’ Kovi reflects, before asking our opinion whilst flicking through pictures on his computer of an aspiring porn actress, a naked French blonde in a compromising pose. ‘What do you think? She’s pretty, but she moves like a piece of wood!’ exclaims the former photo journalist, who became a porn industry tycoon after an accident which has given him an eternal limp.
Porn is like an adult fairytale. You are not allowed to watch it until you turn eighteen, a mentality which Kovi explains has developed because of criticism that porn is ‘bad for your mental health’ - at least until you reach a so-called ‘age of sexual maturity’. Vilmos Szilagyi is one such critic.
The 79 year-old Hungarian psychologist and sexologist has written more than twenty-six books about sexology and runs a website specialised in sexual psychology. We are at his apartment in the northern part of Buda, on the sixth floor of a huge communist-style square building. He describes how he has dealt with patients having problems related to pornography throughout his fifty-year career. His view on porn is ‘absolutely negative. In pornography, there is no depiction of sexual culture.
There are only techniques. There are a lot of cases where problems related to pornography are dealt with, especially with addiction.’ Szilagyi is especially worried about the negative effect that pornography has on actors since it makes them feel like objects, banalising sex and provoking emotional disorders.
Hajnalka Györi is resigned when asked about the image that Budapest projects to the outside world as a porn capital. The young journalist from Budapest works in Brussels for the European Youth Press, and accepts the fact that Hungary is famous for that, even though she prefers it if people could learn about other aspects of her country’s culture. Hungary’s reputation also affects her personally, she says. ‘Sometimes people from other countries think that because I’m from here I’m more ‘open’ and people approach me differently.’ She tells an anecdote of an acquaintance of hers who had problems with her foreign husband’s family: ‘Her in-laws thought that she would only marry him for his money and that she was a porn star, just because she was Hungarian!’
Could porn be seen as the same thing as prostitution? ‘There is a connection in both ways,’ says Ágnes Földi, president of the Hungarian prostitutes’ association, at her flat near Kovi’s office. ‘Producers look for prostitutes for their movies and actresses make extra money with this activity.’
Prostitution is also becoming internationalised in Hungary. ‘There are a lot of people who visit Hungary for its sex tourism, and there is even a veritable calendar of nationalities during different seasons. During Christmas, for example, we get an influx of Italians. Formula One attracts a lot of Germans, so we organise our general assembly to coincide with the races,’ Ágnes says matter-of-factly. Prostitutes also tend to work abroad in Italy, Greece or England for short periods, having to move on quicker because of legal reasons.
Ágnes is an activist who militates for prostitutes’ rights in Hungary. She mentions the economic factor as one of the main reasons pushing young women to work in the prostitution business. Female prostitutes who work in the streets are usually the poorest, even the ones who are ‘at the top in the hierachy’, models who work for big clients, such as politicians.
The prostitution law in Hungary is confusing. It is a legal activity, despite restrictions that make its practice stricter. For example, brothels are forbidden, but there is a proliferation of apartments where prostitution is practiced. In 1999, there were only three establishments of that kind. Today, there are nearly 150 in Budapest alone. Meanwhile, the number of prostitutes is somewhere between 7, 000 and 9, 000 in Budapest alone, according to Ágnes, and there is an increasing number of men that work in that profession.
Human trafficking is the darker side of the sex business. 90% of cases are related to prostitution, according to József Pöltl, head of the human trafficking department in the Hungarian police force. In his opinion, porn does not generate human trafficking, though it does contribute to its development. ‘There aren’t more cases of ‘white trade’ because of porn, though there is a relationship,’ he says, using the R. Tamás case as an example. ‘R. Tamás placed a newspaper advert pretending to be a porn movie producer who was auditioning women. The catch was that they were somehow forced to get involved in prostitution,’ he recalls. The number of open human trafficking cases in Hungary today is around 450.
Hungary’s entrance in the Schengen zone on 21 December has its pros and cons, according to Pöltl. On the one hand, external borders will be reinforced and controls will increase. However, with the disappearance of internal borders, there no longer border controls, as criminals have free access to cross the EU’s external borders | | 6:22p |
Little toilets
Tampa? I thought you said piss on her.
TAMPA - With a security officer posted outside to check the identification of anyone who looked underage and a pounding soundtrack blaring through the sound system, a federal jury watched five graphic video montages this morning in the obscenity trial of a man who calls himself Max Hardcore.
"It's hard to believe that these innocent-looking girls will subject themselves to such vile perversions," boasts the Max Hardcore Web site, which depicts the defendant, whose real name is Paul Little, smiling broadly from beneath a white cowboy hat.
Little and his company, MaxWorld Entertainment, face five counts each of distributing obscene materials over the Internet and through the mail.
The prosecution, through witness James Fottress, a Justice Department investigator, played about 15 minutes of trailers this morning in which women are shown having numerous sex acts performed on them, including repeated acts with fists and various substances being sprayed on their faces and into various parts of their bodies. One trailer ends with the words, "Acting Lessons (Where Whores Play the Part of Toilets)."
Federal prosecutor Lisa Maria Freitas told jurors in her brief opening statement that the government was not seeking to attack the entire adult-entertainment industry. "We're here to present evidence, in the defendant's words, of extreme acts," she said.
Defense attorney H. Louis Sirkin, who represents MaxWorld, told jurors the videos in question were made using consenting adult actors and distributed by a company called Jaded Video, in which Little doesn't have an interest. The owner of the distribution company, Sirkin said, was given immunity and is expected to testify for the prosecution.
Attorneys for Little waived their opening statement until they begin presenting their case later in the trial.
Jurors are expected to begin viewing hours of graphic videos this afternoon.
Jurors will have to determine whether the videos violate obscenity standards of the Tampa area community. - ADULT FYI | | 6:54p |
The unified field theory of anarchism
I really don't have much time for neo-Hegelian totality as its applications to politics have been disastrous so far. Enough is enough. Anarchism is applied in Newtonian space. If you want a unified field theory of political-economy then you better get busy and invent one!
Prompted by da shizzle
'...As I said to Professor Rat once before in an exchange about "diversity-of-tactics," diversity is not its own justification. For nearly 8 years of trying to find my way within "radical communities" (read: activist ghettoes) I have had to deal with self-styled scenesters who talk all warm and fuzzy in one moment and spew moral judgments in the next. The only thing that they ever seem to do consistently is fail to present any coherent critique of the social order in its totality. I have friends in the "activist scene" and try my best to balance my criticisms with respect for them as people. However, I have no allegiance to "the Scene" as such and do not tailor what I say to the preservation of its existence...'
As far as any 'scene' goes haven't you heard the news?
On the internet no-one knows that yr a large black dog wearing socks.
To present a blah, blah, blah, coherent etc sounds like going through some empty Zen Buddhist ritual.
( Or entering some kool-aid drinking sect )
This is the holy grail and the mirage of mystics. Anarchists might be able to prep society for some transcendence but it will be strictly limited to the material for now. Baby steps, baby. Baby steps. | | 7:14p |
Scotty was out of teh loop
What a freakin' shame!
The fucking pond slime leadership of the Democratic party are far too busy bowling and knocking back shots in bars to follow up on revelations that their shithole fascist country was lied into an aggressive illegal war.
What a pack of squalid criminal enablers, accomplices and collaborators. Typical fucking bootlicking appeasers. | | 7:26p |
Going to the workers
Amidst all the Marxist valorizing of the working-class, and even self conscious moves to blend in with it have there been any Marxist essays worth reading on bastardization?
As a middle-class youth working in factories in the seventies and later collecting enough qualifications to work independently this was a significant discouraging factor. Mind you I did go off and read the Age in the toilets for 15 minutes at a time so I probably deserved a bit of it.
My real inquiry might be why so many Marxists are bourgeois? But then looking at Engels and Marx and Lenin and Trotsky...what else could they be. Pathetic failures. | | 7:36p |
Do you follow? Remembering the movie, the Sting one line repeats from the villain...' Do ya folla?' ( With an Oirish accent) http://groups.yahoo.com/group/GreenLeft_discussion/message/54485From Marx's time in the International tactical questions have often been less about what is actually the best consensus and more about the 'office politics' of do you follow? If you don't change line as quickly and readily as the sheep in ' Animal Farm' then yr really not much use in any trad Marxist group. The usual goats are all running around dragging red-herrings everywhere but the basic problem traces back to the capitalist Engels and the petit-bourgeois Marx. To be a Marxist is to be a follower and a bourgeois follower to boot. | | 7:50p |
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This is the end
It's the end of Infoshop.org as we know it.
After 13 years of continuous operation, we have finally run out of luck – and funds. We cannot pay our small staff, and our creditors won't wait any longer. As Bush ,McCain and professor rat threaten more death and devastation, the top anticap site on the Web – a tireless foe of torture, militarism, and global cooling empire – has one foot in the grave.
Only you can save us.
For 13 years, we have worked to forge a nonpartisan consensus in favor of peace with Marxism and freedom within the re-education camps. No, we don't try to please everybody, and we don't shy away from levee controversy. But unlike many "antireason" outfits, we refuse to divert our focus to divisive, irrelevant side issues and facts. That's why we have 100,000 regular muppet readers – who may soon wake to find that their favorite dumpster news site is no more.
Our survival is in your hands, but we don't have much time. Will you do your share to stop the next outbreak of factoids? Your tax-deductible contribution can make a difference, but only if you act now. | | 8:45p |
The Supremes greatest hits
It's not as if the Supreme Court comes before us with clean hands. In the course of its 200-plus years, it has at various times ruled that no runaway slave could ever be free so long as his master wanted him back; that black children had no right to attend school with white children; that state prohibitions on 6-year-olds working in sweatshops were unconstitutional. Boo-YAH! | | 8:53p |
I smelt the foetus on his breath!
RE: Beam Up Scotty, Please [Mark Hemingway]
I should have more to say about it later when I finish reading it, but I just got my grubby paws on McClellan's book and this jumped out on page 36:
One of my favorite classes at UT was a leadership course taught by Sara Weddington, a longtime friend of Ann Richards who was known for her involvement representing the anonymous "Jane Roe" in Roe v. Wade, the case that made abortion legal across the United States.
Coming from an allegedly conservative Republican, that's quite revealing. - WHISPERING GLADES | | 9:03p |
Conservatives outlaw Israel
We begin bombing in five minutes
Colonialist and Conservative Guilt [Jonah Goldberg]
A very nicely put email from my Apartheid Guy:
Jonah
Lots of good stuff on this in the last empire, but another important issue is how conservatives and liberals process and respond to feelings of “guilt.” Conservatives (eventually) recognize that racism and segregation violate human dignity because they restrict individual liberty and inappropriately extend State power. This is a well-defined, tangible injustice that leads to a specific solution - pass new laws that guarantee individual rights. YEAH RIGHT! We're ALLRIGHT! | | 9:08p |
Latter-day holocaust denial
The oil giant ExxonMobil has admitted that its support for lobby groups that question the science of climate change may have hindered action to tackle global warming. In its corporate citizenship report, released last week, ExxonMobil says it intends to cut funds to several groups that "divert attention" from the need to find new sources of clean energy. The move comes ahead of the firm's annual meeting today in Dallas, at which prominent shareholders including the Rockefeller family will urge ExxonMobil to take the problem of climate change more seriously. Green campaigners accuse the company of funding a "climate denial industry" over the last decade, with $23m (£11.5m) handed over to groups that play down the risks of burning fossil fuels. The ExxonMobil report says: "In 2008 we will discontinue contributions to several public policy research groups whose position on climate change could divert attention from the important discussion on how the world will secure the energy required for economic growth in an environmentally responsible manner. | | 9:11p |
Scotty caught in Keffiya drag-net
Question: In the event that Hamas, a terrorist organization not yet disarmed by the PA, wins a majority in the legislative PA, will the Bush administration still send $350 million U.S. taxpayer dollars to the PA, or not?
McCLELLAN: It's—the one thing that you see when people have elections that are free and fair is that they tend to choose people who are committed to improving their livelihood, not people who are committed to terrorist acts. And I think if you look back at the previous Palestinian elections, the people that were elected, while they might have been members of Hamas, they were business professionals. They were people that ran on talking about improving the quality of life for the Palestinian people and addressing their economic needs and addressing other needs that are important to them—not terrorists. [Emphasis added.]
This is ' dead sea scrolls' now, of course , but recently this same Scooter McLemon was caught 'in-flagrante-delicto' wearing the VERY SAME TOWEL-HEAD GARB THAT TOUCHED THE LEFT BUTT-CHEEK OF YASSIR CRACKAFAT AND SODOM INSANE! | | 9:52p |
Ah-so!
Re: Ah, Yes [Andy McCarthy]
Maybe someone out there can check me on this. Didn't all the people who think Bush is an idiot also think, throughout all those painful press conferences, that McClellan was an idiot? What has suddenly made McClellan their go-to guy? Oh, right ...
Ah, Yes [Kathryn Jean Lopez]
I've gotten an uptick in bitter Bush-hating e-mails this morning. This is one of the printable ones:
Only East Coast weenies care about this sort of "dish the dirt on my old boss to boost sales" book.
Everyone else in the country just shrugs their shoulders - we all knew Bush was an incompetent dolt and a liar a long time ago. After all, 50.1% of the country saw this back in 2000. Now 75% of the country realizes it. The other 25% would vote for a chimpanzee if he said he loved Jesus, hated gays and was opposed to abortion.
I think this means that people who think Bush is an idiot won't bother buying the McClellan book either | | 10:36p |
LOOK! Its all so simple!
Methinks this is deterministic and ahistorical. First, it reduces social
> development to "productive forces," i.e., the outdated economistic
> base-superstructure argument, your disclaimer notwithstanding. Second, it
> reduces history to an abstraction, that is it takes China out of its place
> and time. Your argument would have been valid in the early 19th century.
> Those "backwards steps" (i.e., from a workers state toward a rapacious
> capitalism) are taking place in a 21st century global capitalist system.
> These are not steps forward, steps toward socialism, in any sense. And
> this is a very different question from the defense of Chinese
> "self-determination." In any case, I would think defense of
> self-determination was far more meaningful when the productive forces were
> in the hands of the state than under the current set-up where China's
> workers can now enjoy their exploitation at the hands of Nike, et al.
Dogan:
This email is a bit odd. Who or what is "Methinks"? It echos bourgeois
prejudices toward Marxian social and political theory.
As Engels explained 'determining-determined' dialectical approach has
nothing to do with dualistic approach. Since your approach however seems
to be dualistic and linear you seem to think in terms of eith-or
dicotomy. Progres is always accompanied by regress and vice versa. I was
trying to say that there is no one canonic rule to establish a socialist
society. We suffered a lot from this volantaristic notion.
You say: "it reduces social development to "productive forces," i.e.,
the outdated economistic
base-superstructure argument, your disclaimer notwithstanding." I would
be interesetd in knowing by what Marxian "base-superstructure" theory
from his *preface* to the *introduction to the critique of political
economy* was outdated.
Exactly - and do you want to know more? Simply search on ' Marx', and' Eastern mode prodution'. |
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