Choose.

Chris Floyd - Empire Burlesque - High Crimes and Low Comedy in the Bush Imperium - Clowntime is Over: The Last Stand of the American Republic:

"So now, at last, the crisis is upon us. Now the cards are finally on the table, laid out so starkly that even the Big Media sycophants and Beltway bootlickers can no longer ignore them. Now the choice for the American Establishment is clear, and inescapable: do you hold for the Republic, or for autocracy?

There is no third way here, no other option, no wiggle room, no ambiguity. The much-belated exposure of George W. Bush's warrantless spy program has forced the Bush-Cheney Regime to openly declare what they have long implied -- and enacted -- in secret: that the president is above the law, a military autocrat with unlimited powers, beyond the restraint or supervision of any other institution or branch of government."

THE ABOLITION OF WORK

THE ABOLITION OF WORK:

"No one should ever work.

Work is the source of nearly all the misery in the world. Almost all the evil you'd care to name comes from working or from living in a world designed for work. In order to stop suffering, we have to stop working.

That doesn't mean we have to stop doing things. It does mean creating a new way of life based on play; in other words, a ludic revolution. By 'play' I mean also festivity, creativity, conviviality, commensality, and maybe even art. There is more to play than child's play, as worthy as that is. I call for a collective adventure in generalized joy and freely interdependent exuberance. Play isn't passive.

...Workers of the world. . . relax!"

Hey look. We're evil. Again.

Daily Kos: Torturing children:

"The Murray Torture Memos include this snippet:

At the Khuderbegainov trial I met an old man from Andizhan. Two of his children had been tortured in front of him until he signed a confession on the family's links with Bin Laden. Tears were streaming down his face. I have no doubt they had as much connection with Bin Laden as I do. This is the standard of the Uzbek intelligence services.

Greg Saunders comments:

To the fools out there who routinely praise the President for having the 'moral clarity' to call terrorists evil, how can you reconcile that with the chummy relationship he's made with tyrants? The lesser of two evils argument doesn't really work when you chide anyone whose view of fighting terrorism is more nuanced than 'smoke them out of their holes' and you verbally fellate the President for being 'right on the only issue that matters'. You're either in favor of moral relativism or you're not.

What's particularly hilarious is that the administration's apologists are turning a blind eye to one of the world's last stalinist regimes. They are cavorting with a brutal communist tyrant.

So who are the commie sympathizers? Who is supporting a tyrannical regime that runs rape and torture rooms, which routinely boils people alive and tortures children? Who is backing a country that regularly kills large numbers of its people?"

What the internet should be for... [say it with me kids; information wants to be free]

Boing Boing: Ignoring UK ban, bloggers publish leaked torture memos:

"Former ambassador to Uzbekistan Craig Murray has harnessed the Internet in his long-running feud with the UK Government. A forthcoming book covering his time as ambassador is currently being blocked by the Foreign Office, which has demanded he remove references to two documents from the book and his web site. Murray has responded by publishing the documents in full there, and by encouraging bloggers to disseminate the documents as widely as possible."

Happy New Year

You Say You Want A Resolution / What to do when the new year invites you in and plies you with drinks and slips you the tongue:

"...look outside, right now: Do you see it? It's a whole new year, all lined up and facing into the wind and waiting to play with you like an eager puppy, like a supple French hooker, like a shimmering glass of God's own tequila just sitting on the counter of possibility waiting for you to tip your head back and let that white-hot firewater slide down your throat like a snake of temptation straight into your undernourished id. Are you ready? Because get this: You need to be.

...if I'm here to tell you anything at all I am here to tell you this: Your energy is needed. Right now.

Energy of transformation. Energy of possibility. Energy of intellect and clarity and progress and joy and sex and kiss, of change and growth and defiance. Oh I know, it sounds all swoony and big-brushed and impossibly affected. It might sound all froufrou and New Agey and San Francisco. You know what? Who cares.

...So then, as the new year races to engulf us all, perhaps this is what you can choose, this is what you resolve to understand: that the Great Battle continues. The great surge toward enlightenment and evolution must go on, will go on, can't not go on, as those of us who choose to see it understand that we are already reeking gleaming teeming brimful with all the divine juicy godhead we will ever need. It is merely waiting to be, quite literally, turned on.

It is, after all, all about subtle energy, shifts in awareness, the decision to move forward no matter what. It is all about focusing on micro to affect macro. This much you probably already know. In which case, this year you can simply resolve to, well, continue. To keep on, even when it all seems bleak and fraught and impossibly constricted. Because, sometimes, merely refusing to stop cultivating an unquenchable lust for beauty and truth and orgasmic life is the most profound and important thing you can resolve to do."

Ah.... Blessed Quiet.

Sandy and Cindi are out worshipping the shopping gods.

The chattering has ceased, as I sip JD and gnosh on the [quite good] curry the wife whipped up yesterday.

Life is good.

"If you are not suffering, you are not Japanese." - The nationality summed up with a simple phrase

Outpost Nine :: Editorials :: I Am a Japanese School Teacher:

"I actually decided to pay attention to the daily morning meeting for once. The principal stood up and said something to the effect of 'Now, summer vacation is coming up. Of course, you are all entitled to your paid vacation time, and you're more than welcome to take it. But, the kids will be coming here everyday for their sports clubs, and I think they might be happy to come to school and see your smiling face. ...Of course, it's not *mandatory* to come to school, as I said, please, if you want to take your paid vacation, please do so. But I do think the students would be happy to see all your smiling faces over the summer.'

Run this through the Japanese Indirectness Translator...

'Come to work. Everyday. The kids will suffer, we will suffer, we will all suffer together splendidly. If you are not suffering, you are not Japanese.'"

And a little child shall lead them.

Outpost Nine :: Editorials :: I Am a Japanese School Teacher:

"Even the teacher was baffled by this, so they called me over to help. 'Well, resurrection means when someone who's died comes back to life.' I explained to the student. He nods in understanding. 'Okay,' he says, 'now, who's this Jesus character?' Again, Christmas in Japan is all about the man in the big red suit. 'Well, Jesus was a man...' I start to say. Before I can even finish my sentence, the boy looks up and me and says 'Oh! So, Jesus was a zombie then?'

........................................................Yes.

Puts an entirely different spin on the Good Book, don't it? "

Surreality

Outpost Nine :: Editorials :: I Am a Japanese School Teacher:

"It was only later that I realized what a truly unique position I was in. At one point, I had a 12-year old Japanese girl walk by me and say 'Hey Nigga!', and then the very next second, have a 27-year old Japanese woman react by saying '...What the fuck?!', all in English. This is something I'm pretty sure has never occured in the history of the universe, ever, and may never occur again. I feel kind of honored/special to have been witness to such a once in a lifetime event."

Work is sometimes tough on the Japanese.

Outpost Nine :: Editorials :: I Am a Japanese School Teacher:

"Later in the class, we could hear some kind of strange siren going off in the distance. The school isn't too far from the fire station, so I imagine it was some sort of fire alarm. But it sounded a lot like the old WWII bombing-raid alarms that you hear in movies. I turned to Ms. Americanized. 'Are the Americans bombing again?'* I asked.

*Normally, this is not a joke you'd want to make in Japan, as you can imagine they're still kind of sensitive to that kind of thing.

Ms. Americanized turns to me, and in all earnesty, says 'God I hope so.' ....Whoa! Homey say what now?! I didn't get to actually say that, but she must've read the expression on my face, so she elaborated. 'If they did, maybe, just maybe, I'd finally get a day off. C'mon America. Come bomb the shit out of us.'"

The essence of Japan.

Outpost Nine :: Editorials :: I Am a Japanese School Teacher:

"I was telling Ms. Americanized about this, and she laughed and nodded. 'We know it's hot, we don't need reports from every Japanese prefecture about it!' I laughed, and she added 'But that's Japanese people for you. We want to feel harmony in knowing that other people feel the same way we do. As long as everyone is feeling the exact same thing, then we're content.' This had me cracking up...because it's absolutely right. That news broadcast was essentially saying 'You are hot? We all are! We are one. Resistance is futile.'"

Outpost Nine :: Editorials :: I Am a Japanese School Teacher

"I Am a Japanese School Teacher" is the funniest, and occasionally most touching, writing about being an ALT on the JET Programme that I've come across. Great stuff. I've spent the last two days reading about his life in Japan.

If I was a third of the writer he was, this blog wouldn't quite... suck... so bad.

But hey, at least I link to cool stuff.

I Am a Japanese School Teacher

Outpost Nine :: Editorials :: I Am a Japanese School Teacher:

"The worst part is, even I stopped caring too! That last little shred of American sanity is screaming at me 'Dude, that was fucking weird! That boy aint right! Do something!' But the rest of my brain, which is slowly but surely being assimilated by Japanese culture, is saying 'Oh, ha ha ha! He tried very hard to grab my big black American penis. I admire his 'gambatte!' spirit! Now, I must remember to pick up some tentacle rape animated porn on the way home from work, and see if I can't grope a few high school girls on the train as I go.'"

Tough girl.

Under the Wagon: Dichotomy:

"The Management hereby announces the penalties for the following statements:

'Deep down, you're not that tough.' 'You only act all hard-bitten to keep people from getting close to you.' 'I know that underneath it all you're a softy.'

Penalty: I stab you in the eye with a fork

'Jesus, you really don't have any feelings at all, do you?' 'You just hate romance and love and anything nice.' 'You're not interested in a normal relationship.'

Penalty: Either a nut-slap or a titty twister, depending on gender."

"The Straw Man has become the default argument." God, I do not miss American politics.

Kung Fu Monkey: New Year's Resolution:

"There are times I feel like we've reached a tipping point, where all the progressive and conservative grown-ups just looked at each other and said 'Right, time to step in here' ... orrrr I'm Ian Holm in The Day After Tomorrow: 'Save who you can.' It is very, very hard not to discuss other people's reasoning facilities without coming across an an arrogant prat, but here's my point:

-- There were no WMD's in Iraq. At all.
-- The Administration, it's been proved, used intel they knew was bad during the run-up to the war.
-- The Administration sent our troops to war with insufficient equipment, and has both cut funding for their medical care and undermined their families' abilities to survive financially with the Bankruptcy Bill
-- The Administration has rained tax cuts down for the rich, while just recently cutting benefits for the middle class and students -- not to mention the insanity of tax cuts for the rich during wartime.
-- The Administration did not plan adequately for the post-war period.
-- The Department of Homeland Security is a joke. (Oh, and let me be another voice in the chorus: when's the last time we had a terror alert?)
-- This Administration has openly argued that it must retain the right to torture people, even if they don't. Honest. To defend the American Way.
-- The Administration has been illegally monitoring our electronic communications, circumventing even the rubber stamp from the sluttiest Court in the land. Not only that, when confronted with this, the Administration used the opportunity to push the idea that this was okay, because the President has unlimited powers during war. And if that 'war' happens to last for another twenty to fifty years, oh well ...

... all this, and people still aren't, well, pissed off. Jesus, people, what'll it take? By any objective standards, standards set by Republican and Democratic lawmakers alike, these folk have done a bad job of securing the Homeland, running a war, and protecting the Constitution in both spirit and deed. What's more, we're not even being allowed to have reasonable, sober discussions about policy because this Administration has validated the "scream and finger-point" methodology for dissent.

Listen, I may well be all for the goddam Iraq War if someone, anyone, could lay out the operational goals and specific strategies, with progress benchmarks, for the conflict. You may scream at me, you may think I'm a traitor for even asking, fine, but my point is even if you think I ought to be in a John Aschcroft Re-Education Camp, you ought to be able to answer the question. But no, that's "defeatist" thinking. Or, I'm "Monday Morning Quarterbacking" the "fine patriotic folks who are working so hard." Because it's not results that matter in this Bizarro World we've wound up in, it's intent. It doesn't matter that the President's broken the law, it's okay because he meant well. A rationalization we wouldn't let our eleven year old get away with, we let the President slide.

The Straw Man has become the default argument. If I want to know the benchmarks, I'm for "cutting and running." See, in my world, the real one, without benchmarks we can't know if something is working, or not working, and if it has to be adjusted so we can acomplish our goal of, say, winning. But nothing is ever adjusted with this Government. It's Plan A, all the time, all the way through to the bitter end, with lots of announcements about how wonderfully Plan A is working right now. "You're doing a heckuva job, Brownie" 24/7."

"...it’s going to be very hard for you to get along with other people." Jesus, welcome to my life.

"Question everything, even questions. Then question why you would want to question everything. Then question why you would want to question why."

What I Learned About Religion in 2005 - Pop Occulture:

"1. I don’t know as much as I think I know. And I make mistakes all the time. Recognizing this has allowed me to keep moving forward, rather than stagnate. It’s kept me flexible, open to correction and alternate viewpoints (er, usually anyway).
2. Trying to understand what things mean can become a negative addiction which can become so overwhelming intellectually that it can cut you off from the simple experience of what things actually are.
3. Words are different from things. If you dig down deeply into these relationships, you’re likely to find that the things and the words that represent them are connected on a more or less arbitrary basis. Over time and across cultures, these relationships modulate very drastically.
4. Just as meaning may cut you off from simple experience, words have a tendency to cover up or replace the things they represent. Since these relationships are basically arbitrary, it’s important not to get too wound up in the maze of words. If you have trouble or get frustrated, remember that these aren’t “words,” they are lines and shapes on a screen, which refer to phonetic sounds made by the mouth of a primate, which have arbitrary connections to something totally vague called “meaning” which varies from primate to primate and from herd to herd. For an even better illustration of this, pick any word and repeat it to yourself out loud really fast until it loses meaning and starts to sound really strange. Try it now. “Primate,” “Primate,” “Primate.” primateprimateprimate pri ma tepr imat eprim ate….
5. If numbers 2-4 above are correct (which they may not be, based on number 1), then chances are good that we can’t trust words or meaning too far. We could maybe use them on a provisional basis, but not in any kind of absolute way. Even if we were to make an absolute “factual” statement, such as “All humans are primates,” it’s still just a string # of gibberish syllables assigned an arbitrary value by culture.
6. If assertions that we make are always questionable at a base level, then maybe it’s better to always question them (or maybe not, see number 1 above). What I mean by that is, by phrasing things as questions rather than assertions, we recognize that maybe they aren’t true, or at least maybe not in the way we thought they were...
10. If we are people and we agree that people are things rather than mean things... then this very likely indicates that people don’t actually make sense. Or more broadly, life doesn’t make sense. We do things and things happen but they just are. They don’t, in themselves, mean anything.
11. So where does meaning come from? One possible answer out of many is that meaning is something that we invent or project onto things. And it modulates from person to person across time and across cultures. But where and do we do the inventing or projecting? Many religions, philosophies and occult traditions offer different answers to and ways of exploring the implications of this question. If we can hold all of their answers to be equally true, equally gibberish, both true and gibberish and neither true nor gibberish, then we’re probably getting somewhere. But the question is: where?
12. The reason we have religions, philosophies and other story-systems is that these types of questions are weird and confusing. While we might get a charge out of the uncertainty, it can also be extremely difficult. If you live your life according to the principle that nothing means anything and nothing makes sense, then it’s going to be very hard for you to get along with other people...
18. The term zetetics is a reference to the ancient schools of philosophical skepticism, as opposed to modern scientific skepticism. Scientific skeptics typically question things until they can be proven (or not disproven), whereas philosophical skeptics tend to question whether anything can really ever be proven at all. The philosophical or zetetic mode of skepticism is not well understood or widely known today. People mostly think of scientific skeptics when they think of skepticism at all. Philosophical skepticism, however had a very different goal. The goal was not to find the answer, but to achieve peace of mind."

My kinda role model.

Under the Wagon:

"I drink a lot. I’m probably drinking right now. Unless I’m having sex or something. In which case I’m probably drunk.

According to major studies, I drink more alcoholic beverages in a month than 93% of the population. Why? Because I can‘t stand 93% of the population.. Booze is my friend. Not only does it make people attractive (and myself invincible) it’s also provided me countless opportunities to make an ass of myself."

Consistency is, as always, the key.

JayPinkerton.com:

"There's an unspoken understanding state-side that, no matter how viciously one might attack America's governmental policies or socio-economic problems, having been born on American soil logically entails a deep, abiding love for the country, in spite of one's spiteful rants to the contrary. This was a steep learning curve for me when engrossed in casual talk with coworkers or my girlfriend: namely, that when a True American states their displeasure with something about the U.S., it's innately understood that they hate this one thing about the country while still cherishing it with passion; but if a Goddamn Immigrant agrees with their displeasure, it's because they're an ungrateful foreigner, unacquainted with the solemn majesty that is George Washington's America.

'The occupation of Iraq was a blatant exploitation of post-nine-eleven goodwill to wrest control of the oil industry,' someone at work would say.

'Bush is a war criminal,' another would agree. 'Pure and simple.'

'Yeah,' I'd add. 'It sure is a complicated issue.'

'If you hate America so much, why don't you go home?' it would be pointedly suggested.

...Despite my routine acquiescence, however, there's still one American policy to which I remain vocally opposed, and that is healthcare; and that's only because it sucks so bad that I'm simply unable to applaud it with a straight face.

...In Canada, when I went to the doctor for an ear infection, I was given a thorough check-up and prescribed antibiotics. In America, when I went to the doctor, I was given a one-minute cursory check-up and asked if I wanted seven different kinds of antibiotic, including an anti-depressant, then hurried out after being given a shopping list of prescribed medicines and two further appointments at weekly intervals.

..."It's not like Canadian healthcare is perfect either," Karla said, after I'd returned home and started ranting about everything. "At least I can go see a specialist without a two month wait," she added, referring to a long waiting list I'd been on in Canada to see an ear specialist.

And yes: the waits are longer. The best doctors get siphoned off to the U.S., where they can start charging prices for their expertise that 1% of the population can afford. But the fact remains that Canadian healthcare might be slow, and expensive, and under-skilled comparatively; but it works. Everybody puts money into the pot like it's a big medical lottery; if you get hit by a car, you win.

You don't have to worry about having enough money to ensure you get better if you get very sick. You don't have to be concerned about your doctors having ulterior motives when they suggest return appointments and prescribe medicine. And you don't get sold antibiotics on TV, as if a drug weren't a complex chemical compound prescribed to you as the result of a trained professional's diagnosis, but rather some new and exciting vacuum cleaner you don't want to be the last one on the block to own."

Hey look. We're evil.

U.S. No Longer Promoting Landmine Ban - Yahoo! News:

"In 1994, the United States was the first nation to call for the elimination of landmines that killed and maimed hundreds of thousands of innocent people around the world.

But that was then. Today, Washington not only stands in opposition to an international treaty that bans the use and production of antipersonnel landmines, but intends to make new ones too."

New Year's Resolutions

So. New Year's Resolutions are a tricky thing. Most talk of them in terms of failed resolutions, pie-in-the-sky wishes for what you'd like to do. Not what you'd really do. In fact, as you pass outta the youthful idealism of youth and start to climb into your more cynical years, "New Year's Resolution" becomes shorthand for things you didn't follow through with.

And the idea that New Year's Resolutions have more import than any other decision you make is, inherently, false. Calendars are culturally arbitrary configurations, New Year's Day varies according to where you live and what calendar you go by to begin with. [The most obvious examples, of course, the Chinese New Year and the Jewish and Islamic calendars...]

But here's the thing. I've come to the idea recently that while all ritual is essentially meaningless, the meaning you consciously [and subconsciously] decide to imbue and impart to any ritual can be highly significant. If you decide to give a ritual a powerful meaning, and invest it with belief [regardless of whether it's true, per se], it can have profound effects.

And the changing of the year, the winter solstice, the coming newness and eventual "rebirth" in spring, can all be helpful, psychologically speaking, in enacting behavioral change.

So, let's give it a shot.

New Year's Resolutions

Categories: Health and Fitness, Financial, Work, Relationship

Health and Fitness
Goal: Radically improve awareness, strength, endurance and flexibility
Concrete steps: Twice daily workouts incorporating Millman, Pavel, Atlas, Furey, Scrapper, Rutten. Bodyweight exercise, meditation, shadowboxing, stretching/yoga.

Financial
Goal: Become debt free
Concrete steps: While impossible to become debt free within a year, implement the following two steps - begin paying more than minimums on 1 [of 2] credit cards. Absolutely refuse to use that credit card for any future purchases. [Amazon.com, you are now my sworn enemy! Or the enemy of that credit card, at least.]

Work
Goal: Take better advantage of the opportunities presented by living in Japan
Concrete steps: Hit up Ohmichi-sensei to teach me kendo in the next year. Train with the Jr High Kendo Club.

Relationship
Goal: Better communication
Concrete steps: Active daily effort to listen and not interrupt.

Well, there it is for the world to see. And I can guarantee that failure to follow through will result in merciless ridicule by my wife, family and friends. Thusly, psychological leverage.

Ah, sweet, sweet time off...

Through the judicious application of nenkyu [vacation days], Japanese holidays and weekends I now am work free for the next 13 days.

Aaaaaaaah... that's nice.

And only had to take 4 vacation days at that.

[Course I'll need all that rest to prepare for the arrival of Typhoon Cindi tonight.]

It's a joke mom and dad Snider!

I love my baby sister!

[Even if she is crazy.] :)