Examples Of What We All Already Know

9/24/2015 1:05 PM

Gotta get these grumbles and vents out of my head, because it’s getting too crowded up there.

Hard to believe, but there’s a thread that runs through VW, CentCom and Eli Broad’s wallet. Watch:

If you don’t already know about the VW “clean diesel” engine’s smoke-n-mirrors about its ability to meet anyone’s emission standards, read this to get caught up.

So VW’s lost about a third of its stock price, its CEO has resigned, and now some think Germany’s whole economy make take a serious hit, because the VW/Audi/Porsche industrial complex is such a large part of Germany’s export market, which in turn is why Germany gets to look down its nose at Greece. Yes, I mentioned Greece.

VW flat-out lied about its “clean diesel” engine’s ability, masking their inability to overcome the laws of physics by making the car’s software lie about performance when it knew it was being tested.

It was a neat trick, a new solution to the auto industry’s age old annoyance, no, anger, at external regulations. Not a single warning of the disastrous sales collapse that would follow any regulation ever appeared. Safety glass, seat belts, side-visible turn signals, third brake lights, unleaded gas, emissions standards, every one was going to be the end of the industry, making cars too expensive, causing sales to plummet. Nope. Never happened. Bad design, by the industry itself, caused the real problems. From the amazingly bad esthetics of the Ford Edsel, to Ford’s equally horrible exploding Pintos, from Roger Smith’s destruction of the Cadillac brand for 10 years, to Lee Iacocca’s executives selling over 60,000 cars they’d driven as company perks, with the odometers disconnected, the real sales problems have been caused by the company executives themselves.

Number One Lesson here: when a lobbyist or executive says a regulation will destroy her company, either she’s wrong, or she knows her company is doing something illegal, and the new regulation will expose it. You only need the history of the auto industry, at one point the largest industry ion America, to know this is true.

(Number Two Lesson: When you hear "Clean Coal" think "Clean Diesel". Same marketing needs. Same lies.)

In other news, Gregory Hooker, the Iraq analyst at the Defense Intelligence Agency and CentCom, who blew the whistle on the terrible situation assessments and terrible planning that went into Junior Bush’s invasion of Iraq, has called foul on the assessments and methods that the current CentCom leaders are using to run their war in Iraq and Syria, especially against ISIS, or ISIL, or whatever their brand name is this month. Back in 2005, he wrote a book about how badly Operation Iraqi Freedom had been planned. Because he and most of the rest of his group had been Iraq analysts since 1996, he got to see the whole thing up close.

And guess who’s doing the bad work now? Same positions as during Junior’s invasion: the guys at the top. Back then, it was the Bush Admin that wanted a small force, quick in-and-out, and no real consideration for the follow-on. Now, it’s the two most senior intel officers at CentCom, Maj. Gen. Grove and his deputy Greg Ryckman, who are changing the analysis, to prevent bad news from getting to the president and others. Maybe because the military doesn’t like criticizing its own operations. Here’s my favorite quote from the NYTimes article: “What are the strategic objectives here? There are none. This is just perpetual war,” said David Faulkner, the former targeting director at Centcom”.

Read the whole article. The idea that bad news needed multiple sources but good news just one source tells you all you really need to know about the management at the top.

How about something more local, more Los Angeles? How about that school up the street? You know, the incredibly awful cesspool of degenerate union teachers, only in it for themselves, and to hell with any of the children trying so desperately to learn in those overcrowded classrooms? Yea, me neither. But those are the schools that Eli Broad says we have. And he and his buddies are going to figure out a way to spend $490 million of ourmoney, not theirs, ours, on their pipedream of schools they run, the way they want to run them, with personnel only answerable to them, for the students they hand-pick as being worthy of their new methods, but with our money. Oh, and did I mention, no public oversight?

Here’s an idea: How’s about Mr & Mrs Broad, and the Gates’, and all their bazillionaire friends, put up the money, buy the properties, and build the schools they say are the future? Maybe put enough in a trust to pay the teachers at their new private schools for another twenty years. And then let in any kid who shows up. No charging the parents fees. No making the kids pay for supplies. Take it out of the money the Broads, et al, are making off their investments.

Hey, Eli, your silence is deafening….and expected. “Gimme the money, and don’t ask questions. I’m a billionaire, so I must know about how to teach seven-year-olds.” This sounds so much like Trump it’s scary.

Look, I know our schools have problems. FOX News, the GOP, and Charter School executives, er, advocates have been pounding on this story ever since the Supreme Court decided we had to let blacks into public schools with the whites.

But every proven solution is being avoided with this proposal. Smaller classes equals better individual attention equals better learning and better grades. Better pay means a better pool of teaching prospects equals better teachers. More teacher involvement in class planning means better retention instead of 20% of new teachers bailing out within fiveyears. And mentor-teachers helping new teachers means better teachers means better learning from kids means better grades. And guess what every one of those proven solutions means. Money. Money we don’t want to spend. Money we have a hard time getting from taxpayers who’ve barely gotten a raise as a nation in almost forty years. Money that instead went to the billionaires and their hedge fund managers, money parked off-short to avoid any taxes at all.

 So hey, you cheapskates. Instead of trying for two bites of the apple, by first demanding and getting tax cuts from the politicians you own, and then trying to make a buck or gain political power by trying to take over the very institutions your tax cuts have impoverished, just put up or shut up. Don’t try to pick our pockets twice. Put some of your pocket into the game. Whatsa matta? Chicken?

I said there was a thread running through all these. Do you see it? Do you see the engineers, the analysts, the teachers and students, working as hard as they can, with what they’re given, and getting it right far more often than not? And do you see management, just as often, not wanting to hear bad news, not wanting to admit difficulties, or that they could be wrong about a subject they know nothing about? Whether it’s a military commander not understanding Iraqi cultural conflicts, or chairmen from Marketing not understanding the physics of diesel combustion, or a billionaire real estate developer thinking he knows something about teaching grade school, the hubris of thinking your ability in one field makes you an expert in another is a classic mistake of the high and mighty.

Donald Rumsfeld spoke of the “known unknowns, and the unknown unknowns”, and maybe his cohort of smug bastards ought to listen to that tiny bit of his wisdom. It may be the only wisdom he had.

And since quoting Rumsfeld leaves a bad taste in my mouth, let me end with a quote, said by both Katherine Hepburn and Jimmy Stewart, in the movie ‘The Philadelphia Story’:

“With the high and mighty, always a little patience.”

My patience with them, however, has just about run out.

9/24/2015 3:19 PM

The Evening Line: ‘Selma’ meets Charlie Hebdo

As I remarked yesterday, the marches in Paris, the huge crowds, were a unified response by modernity against a direct attack on the rights we’ve spent thousands of years taking for ourselves. We’ve taken them from the priests and imams, the kings and aristocrats, the landed,…the list goes on through history, as we’ve slowly taken them for ourselves. Rights for all of us, for each of us.

And those crowds were in the face of continued threats from fundamentalist reactionaries, threats to shoot, to bomb, to kill. Just like the millions of Americans, immediately after 9/11, that crowded into…oh, right, we didn’t do that. Not then.

We did it, at least in the thousands, back when we saw the rights of modernity being attacked by fundamentalist conservatives at the Edmund Pettus  Bridge outside Selma Alabama. Attacked with tear gas and ball bats, horses and truncheons. When Americans, white Americans, already secure in their right to vote, saw other Americans being beaten and gassed for trying to exercise their right to vote, to even register to vote, well, that was literally a bridge too far.

Whether a building is blown up, or a flag is burned, we can build another building, China will stitch us lots more flags. It hurts, it may even kill, but it doesn’t stop civilization’s forward march.

But try to end free speech, freedom of expression, freedom of religion, and a million people, of every age, ethnicity and religion, show up together to shout  ‘Je Suis Charlie’.

And try to keep people from voting, from choosing their government, from the right of self-determination, and America comes out and marches. Marches from Selma to Montgomery, marches on Washington, and marches to the ballot box.  It took a century, from the end of the Civil War, to the Civil Rights Act, 1865 to 1965, for America to be willing to enforce the rights of African-Americans.

Until 1965, it was the Democrats of the South that did the oppressing. It was liberals, in both the Republican and Democratic parties, that passed the Civil Rights and Voting Rights Acts.

And ever since, it’s been the Republican Party, giving in to its fundamentalist reactionaries, in so many states, that has worked to roll these rights back, with ‘Show Me Your Papers’ laws for voter registration,  and the poll taxes, er, fees, for those credentials, without funding the infrastructure needed to issue those papers.

Might be better to start marching again…before someone is, again, beaten or killed for trying to vote.

I had two wonderful experiences with Western culture today.

I had two wonderful experiences with Western culture today.

First, I got up at 6am and watched a million people gather in La Place de la Republique in Paris, marching in solidarity against those who had attacked their principles, our principles, principles of freedom a speech, and freedom of religion. It was a marvelous sight.

That’s been the difference between this attack in Paris, and the one in New York on 9/11. Not the number of casualties. Both countries lost millions in WWII, and still survived. No, on 9/11, terrorists attacked a giant symbol of money and power. In Paris, they attacked part of the philosophy of Western civilization: the freedom to speak, to criticize, to investigate and inquire, to seek new and better answers, both to old questions and to the new questions that result from the better answers.

As I said, a marvelous sight.

As was the turn-out among Democrats in our Assembly district, here in LA. Yes, I know, seems a poor comparison, yet this is where Western civilization starts, in freedom of assembly, and freedom to select our leaders, to the right to elect our government. Not to be dictated to by self-appointed religious leaders, or forced to cower at gunpoint under military juntas or mo. Granted, the billionaires are trying to run the country, as distasteful as that is, but until they attack our Western rights and freedoms (and don’t you think they aren’t trying,) participating in politics, as bad a reputation as it’s been given, is your right as a Westerner.

And watching people participate just thrills me every time. And, surprising even me, sometimes brings me to tears. Even after eight hours as one of a dozen volunteers, helping 450 Democrats vote for party delegates.

And now, we have elected seven men and seven women to represent the district to the state party, a party that has been successful and strong in recent years. And hopefully, more successful in future.

Our weird little display of Western philosophy: freedom of speech, and of assembly, and to elect our representatives and our government.  

Sure beats living in the ninth century.

“Rain fallin’ down, sun never shine..."

“Rain fallin’ down, sun never shine, got a lotta things, but none of them are mine.”

That’s the opening line to a Siegel-Schwall tune out of Chicago that always rolls around in my head when it’s raining in LA, and it’s been raining all day. My cat nonetheless refused to come in all day, just crouching miserably under a table on the back deck, the only dry spot outside.

Gonna make this a set of short notes and links to things I thought worth pointing out in today’s papers and such:

Some kids in Hyattsville Maryland won the right to vote. At age 16. And before you scoff, I’d point out a couple of things. Voting is a family tradition. If your folks voted regularly, you probably do too. And people who don’t vote have never been encouraged to…by someone they actually know. So what’s that got to do with this? If we could vote at 16, we’d be registered, and have voted, with friends, encouraged by teachers, before we left high school. High school’s the last place America makes an effort to mold us as citizens. Maybe we ought to add voting to the mix.  Hey, Padilla, here’s a #BoostTheVote suggestion for ya.

And then there’s who they might vote for: Jeb, Huckabee, Romney…all recycled. But there was a picture in the paper NYTimes today of Jeb, with governor Rick Scott, both of whom, as governors of Florida, consistently cut Medicaid, food stamps, and WIC. And there they are, handing out food baskets before Christmas. Now, I’m not a Scrooge, but this is the kind of photo-op crap that makes me want to scrape “Random Acts Of Kindness” stickers off every bumper they're on. I mean, first, create reliable streams of kindness, and support, like food, clothing, housing and education, to mention a few…THEN do some random acts. But don’t think that handing out a few food baskets relieves you of the miserliness of every other minute of your year. (Of course, the Times didn’t put the picture on-line with the article. Typical.)

Staten Island  may not have any higher percentage of assholes than Los Angeles, but its Republican Party has been showing them off more lately.  Now-Former Congressman Michael Grimm, R-NY, decided to step down a couple weeks ago, after being convicted of tax fraud. Like Jon Stewart mentioned, probably tough to represent from prison. So guess who’s running to replace him? Daniel M Donovan, Jr., the district attorney  who was so incompetent that he couldn’t get an indictment against the policeman who choked Eric Garner to death…on camera…while Garner gasped “I can’t breathe. I can’t breathe”. Yep, this is the best the GOP has to offer out on Staten Island. Kinda takes your breath away. 

And speaking of incompetent Republicans, Mittens is thinking of running for president again. Hoping third time's the harm, I guess. For you Psy fans of Korean music, here’s a little callback to the 2012 campaign, Romney-Style.

Finally, about the rain outside here in LA. Could be worse. You could live on Hawaii right now…and be an astronomer.  A foot of snow has come down on the volcano Mauna Kea, and the road to the observatories is an ice slick. It’s been below zero up there for over a week. 

Oops. Almost forgot. A long time ago, I grew up in the Midwest, largely in Ohio. And Ohio State was all there was. Football built character. Football built men. And Coach Woody Hayes was God in Ohio. Here’s God’s last game at OSU, playing Clemson in the Gator Bowl in 1978. OSU’s in white. God is wearing a maroon jacket and a black ballcap. It’s a close game, but this play’s what lost it for OSU. And for God. And that’s why I say: Go Ducks!

PS: I didn’t post yesterday. I wrote something, about a skeevy bit of op-ed writer, who’s not fit to print, and yet is, twice weekly. But responding to what he wrote yesterday would play into his hand, showing that people read him, and I hadn’t, in years, until yesterday’s,… well, until his bowel movement yesterday.  Sorry. It was that bad. It’s still in my wastebasket, and I can smell it from here.

‘Scuse me while I take out the trash.

Charlie Hebdo? Surely You Jest. (And stop calling me Shirley)

Tuesday night, Rachel Maddow had a great time making fun of Kirby DeLauter. Who?, you ask. Well, he’s a low-level elected bozo (need I mention, Republican) in Fredrick County, Maryland, who went bat-shit on facebook at a reporter for mentioning him by name in an article in the Frederick News-Post. Well, this being America, we know who’s in the wrong here, him being an elected official, and her being a journalist with (still) some First Amendment rights.

He threatened legal action, and maybe worse, if she ever used his name in an article again. So her paper’s editorial page issued a screamingly funny rebuke, titled “Kirby DeLauter, Kirby DeLauter, Kirby DeLauter”. And they went to town on his name, using it about 27 times, as well as mangling his name, so as to not use it, but make it clear who they were talking about, coming up with variations such as, and I’m quoting the editorial here,  “Shirley DeLaughter (and don’t call me Shirley)”. You gotta read it. 

But they finished by making a strong point. We have a First Amendment, and journalism, and elected officials are exactly who needs to be watched, and reported on, for the good they do, and the bad.  

At least Kirby DeLauter didn’t decide to attack the publication that he felt had injured him by driving up and opening fire on the staff.  Especially after the management made so much fun of his objections that he became a laughing-stock on a national news show.

The editorial also rebukes another councilman who defended DeLauter by calling journalists “cowards”. Said the Editorial, “Cowards? Tell that to the families of the 60 journalists killed in 2014 or the 70 in 2013, or the 74 who died in 2012, according to the Committee to Protect Journalists.”  Or the 12 killed to start off 2015, in Paris yesterday, at the offices of Charlie Hebdo .

Charlie Hebdo looked at the same objections over being written about, from similarly small minds, and continued to poke fun at them. At Catholics, Muslims, nationalists, homophobes, any self-important boobs who made themselves the center of the world and who called everyone else sinners or infidels or unfaithful to the nation.

I’m glad I live under the US Constitution, and its Bill of Rights, which let me write these small thoughts and send them out into the world.

But the same folks that shot up Charlie Hebdo live here. They blow up women’s health clinics, kill doctors and firebomb churches. They set off bombs at NAACP offices and shoot officials at rallies. They blow up government buildings, and shoot forest rangers, and threaten to shoot anyone enforcing range-land regulations.

Some talking head on the news last night said, “they can’t shoot everyone who disagrees with them.” And I did some quick math on America. 320 million people,  about 300 million guns, each gun with at least half-a-dozen loads.

Yep, they can shoot everyone that disagrees with them. And from what I’ve seen, they may just try.

But Charlie Hebdo is planning on publishing next Wednesday, and they’ve ordered a million-copy run. That’s sixteen times the usual run. Because these terrorists, instead of causing fear, created solidarity and determination.  And I’ll buy a copy, just to show I’m for free speech, our First Amendment, and the future. Because #JeSuisCharlie. I am Charlie Hebdo.