Meanwhile Back in the Sandbox...

[lakedaemonian]

Re: Meanwhile Back in the Sandbox...

whoa... thats pretty freaky, eh?
imagine whats running thru the heads of the guys in the choppers...
thanks for posting, always appreciate images that show US a more realistic view of whats really going on in The Street over there.

The aircrew would likely be turning off their threat receiver(which warns on things like laser designators) from all the noise.

Not sure how much of a distraction it would be, or if their helmet visors offer any protection from those little laser pointers.

I read somewhere that business has been quite brisk in the square for laser pointers for some reason.

[GRG55]

Re: Meanwhile Back in the Sandbox...

The aircrew would likely be turning off their threat receiver(which warns on things like laser designators) from all the noise.

Not sure how much of a distraction it would be, or if their helmet visors offer any protection from those little laser pointers.

I read somewhere that business has been quite brisk in the square for laser pointers for some reason.

The laser pointers used at the protests and "Arab Spring" rallies throughout the Middle East are always green, because of the association of that colour with Islam. Very popular as you noted...

[reggie]

Re: Meanwhile Back in the Sandbox...

I am stunned at the level of rage I'm seeing from normally rational and intelligence people I respect when it comes to the Martin/Zimmerman case.

My frustration with it revolves entirely around the intentional use of the case to distract and divide the public.

And the public is letting them do it.

I wonder how much coverage the case received from non advertiser supported but paid/impartial news outlets?

Anywho......I don't want to take this off topic.

Martin/Zimmerman is just the obvious hook-in-the-public's-nose pulling. The problem is that the entire media is filled with nose-hooks, and even the educated-class regularly takes the bait, because there are think tanks designing propaganda for every class.

The aircrew would likely be turning off their threat receiver(which warns on things like laser designators) from all the noise.

Not sure how much of a distraction it would be, or if their helmet visors offer any protection from those little laser pointers.

I read somewhere that business has been quite brisk in the square for laser pointers for some reason.

Does anyone know who posted the referenced photo of the chopper with laser pointers pointed at it? Was it a mainstream media publication, or via a popular blog?

The reason I ask is because I view this type of imagry as Precession of Simulacra, a term coined by Jean Baudrillard meaning to predict a simulated future, or as described in the following wiki passage...

Simulacra and Simulation is most known for its discussion of symbols, signs, and how they relate to contemporaneity (simultaneous existences). Baudrillard claims that our current society has replaced all reality and meaning with symbols and signs, and that human experience is of a simulation of reality. Moreover, these simulacra are not merely mediations of reality, nor even deceptive mediations of reality; they are not based in a reality nor do they hide a reality, they simply hide that anything like reality is relevant to our current understanding of our lives. The simulacra that Baudrillard refers to are the significations and symbolism of culture and media that construct perceived reality, the acquired understanding by which our lives and shared existence is and are rendered legible; Baudrillard believed that society has become so saturated with these simulacra and our lives so saturated with the constructs of society that all meaning was being rendered meaningless by being infinitely mutable. Baudrillard called this phenomenon the "precession of simulacra".

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Simulacra_and_Simulation

Bottom line, the object/image is designed to facilitate a propagandistic goal whereby the public become aquainted with the future before it even arrives, so when it does arrive it is expected and "normal".

[Polish_Silver]

Re: Meanwhile Back in the Sandbox...

Reminds me of an old Carlin routine:

"This is the best we can do folks. This is what we have to offer. It's what our system produces: Garbage in, garbage out. If you have selfish, ignorant citizens, you're going to get selfish, ignorant leaders. Term limits ain't going to do any good; you're just going to end up with a brand new bunch of selfish, ignorant Americans. So, maybe, maybe, maybe, it's not the politicians who suck. Maybe something else sucks around here... like, the public."
http://youtu.be/9etoocgcWm8

Woodsman,

What choice do we have at the ballot?

Obama, Romney, or people with 0 chance of being elected?

Is that meaningful choice?

The outcomes are the result of the electoral system, especially these attributes:

1) No tax paid assistance for minor parties, including TV time, campaign resources, etc.

2) Winner take all in each geographic region, meaning the two entrenched parties have all the power, minor parties are merely symbolic.

Resulting in

(3) A new party with actual ideas and policies can never get critical mass.

Virtually every nation in europe has proportional representation, meaning that seats are chosen on a nation wide basis according to a parties vote percentage in the election. Think if we had that going for the senate. Right off we would have 5 green senators, 5 socialists, 7 libertarians, 5 anti-war, 5 anti-bank. Elections would start to be about issues, instead of "lipstick on a pig" arguments.

[Woodsman]

Re: Meanwhile Back in the Sandbox...

Well, you have the choice not to participate. You have the option to participate and vote as your consicence demands. Of course, all of this presuposses that voting is an effective means of making political/policy change and I no longer belive that.

[lektrode]

Re: Meanwhile Back in the Sandbox...

....The outcomes are the result of the electoral system, especially these attributes:

1) No tax paid assistance for minor parties, including TV time, campaign resources, etc.....

altho the rest of your thoughts i gen'ly agree with PS - methinks The REAL Problem is 'paid political advertising'
as the mere existence of it corrupts the entire process.

REMOVE THE PROFITS FROM IT and the realities of the requirements of raising money by the billions to pay for it, would go a LONG WAY to 'leveling the playing field'

the liberal-run editorial desks of lamestream media outfits and their stoking of false controversies (see: zimmerman trial, gun control issues, birth control issues, gay marriage issues... yada yada yada, ad nauseum, ad infinitum) are the primary instigator of all the DIRTY MONEY in US politix today, IMHO.

and none of these 'issues' affects more than 5 or 10% of the public, and its the LOUDLY-VOCAL who get all the attention, while
REAL, CRITICAL ISSUES - that directly affect 99% of The Rest of US, get ignored.

thats The REAL Problem.

[Polish_Silver]

issues vs Dollars

altho the rest of your thoughts i gen'ly agree with PS - methinks The REAL Problem is 'paid political advertising'
as the mere existence of it corrupts the entire process.

REMOVE THE PROFITS FROM IT and the realities of the requirements of raising money by the billions to pay for it, would go a LONG WAY to 'leveling the playing field'

the liberal-run editorial desks of lamestream media outfits and their stoking of false controversies (see: zimmerman trial, gun control issues, birth control issues, gay marriage issues... yada yada yada, ad nauseum, ad infinitum) are the primary instigator of all the DIRTY MONEY in US politix today, IMHO.

and none of these 'issues' affects more than 5 or 10% of the public, and its the LOUDLY-VOCAL who get all the attention, while
REAL, CRITICAL ISSUES - that directly affect 99% of The Rest of US, get ignored.

thats The REAL Problem.

I'd agree that gay rights is more of a distraction than a real issue. But there isn't corporate money on either side of the issue, and not that much on gun control either. Newspapers get paid for political advertising. But politicians also get "paid" for corporate decision making, either in campaign funds or in post-washington career opportunities. I don't think it's the advertising that's the problem. At least there is fine print at the bottom making it explitict. "advertisement". Now if you made that illegal, what is to prevent Goldman from acquiring majority control of ABC and just skewing all the news "pro wall street". To soom extent we already have that problem. You could go for "all media publicly owned" but that scares me quite a bit. You could make the FCC go back to a distributed/local ownership model, which I would approve of, and require some fraction of each day be for "non-conformist" ideas or something.

[Woodsman]

Re: issues vs Dollars

I agree that the controversies we're told are important (abortion, gay marriage, gun control etc.) are distractions. But this nostrom about the "liberal media" has run its course. While it might have been true a couple of decades ago, there's precious little that's liberal or left about it today. I really belive this notion muddies the waters and traps our thinking into a false dichotomy preventing us from developing a meaningful and useful critique.

I can't point to a functional left in this country. I don't believe there's been one in decades and in my opinion Obama was the last clod of dirt on the grave of leftism/liberalism in America. Once apon a time, we could vote for left wing Democrats and liberal Republicans, but no longer. Was was once center right is now far right. The center is now occupies what was once "the right" and the left is non-entity. What we see as left wing today is simply habit reinforced by window dressing. Look at the Snowden case. What's liberal about the media's monolithic position that Snowden is a traitor, etc? Which editorial board has gone on record supporting Snowden. The liberal Washington Post? New York Times? CNN? Cripes even MSNBC Maddow and O'Donnell piled on Snowden.

Gore Vidal had it right, mostly:
"There is only one party in the United States, the Property Party...and it has two right wings: Republican and Democrat."

[Polish_Silver]

Moving Left or Right?

. . .

I can't point to a functional left in this country. I don't believe there's been one in decades and in my opinion Obama was the last clod of dirt on the grave of leftism/liberalism in America. Once apon a time, we could vote for left wing Democrats and liberal Republicans, but no longer. Was was once center right is now far right. The center is now occupies what was once "the right" and the left is non-entity. What we see as left wing today is simply habit reinforced by window dressing. Look at the Snowden case. What's liberal about the media's monolithic position that Snowden is a traitor, etc? Which editorial board has gone on record supporting Snowden. The liberal Washington Post? New York Times? CNN? Cripes even MSNBC Maddow and O'Donnell piled on Snowden.

Gore Vidal had it right, mostly:
"There is only one party in the United States, the Property Party...and it has two right wings: Republican and Democrat."

I don't feel there is a left or right with moral or intellectual integrity. I don't feel that the public, or the media discourse has "moved right". If it had, there would be a much greater groundswell of support for Snowden, and much more nuanced treatment of the Tea Party and more criticism of Tarp, financial corruption, etc. (By "right" I mean anti-government , pro constitution, pro- civil liberties, pro 4 amendment, pro personal freedom, etc) We have obama care, huge military, patriot act, corporate welfare, all of which are a massive expansion of government, though not what a "quality left winger" would want.

The government is expanding the way a fascist military state would--more and more control over citizens.

[jk]

Re: Moving Left or Right?

I don't feel there is a left or right with moral or intellectual integrity. I don't feel that the public, or the media discourse has "moved right". If it had, there would be a much greater groundswell of support for Snowden, and much more nuanced treatment of the Tea Party and more criticism of Tarp, financial corruption, etc. (By "right" I mean anti-government , pro constitution, pro- civil liberties, pro 4 amendment, pro personal freedom, etc) We have obama care, huge military, patriot act, corporate welfare, all of which are a massive expansion of government, though not what a "quality left winger" would want.

The government is expanding the way a fascist military state would--more and more control over citizens.

you need to distinguish between the libertarian right, which gets a lot of lip service in right wing intellectual circles, and the statist right, which has all the power. it reminds me of something written by joe queenan:

The way our society works is this. Leftist intellectuals with harebrained Marxist ideas get to control Stanford, M.I.T., Yale and the American studies department at the University of Vermont. In return the right gets I.B.M., D.E.C., Honeywell, Disney World and the New York Stock Exchange. Leftist academics get to try out their stupid ideas on impressionable youths between 17 and 21 who don't have any money or power. The right gets to try out its ideas on North America, South America, Europe, Asia, Australia, and parts of Africa, most of which take Mastercard. The left gets Harvard, Oberlin, Twyla Tharp's dance company and Madison, Wisconsin. The right gets Nasdaq, Boeing, General Motors, Apple, McDonnell Douglas, Washington, D.C., Citicorp, Texas, Coca-Cola, General Electric, Japan and outer space. This seems like a fair arrangement.

[Polish_Silver]

Academia more diverse

you need to distinguish between the libertarian right, which gets a lot of lip service in right wing intellectual circles, and the statist right, which has all the power. it reminds me of something written by joe queenan:

The way our society works is this. Leftist intellectuals with harebrained Marxist ideas get to control Stanford, M.I.T., Yale and the American studies department at the University of Vermont. In return the right gets I.B.M., D.E.C., Honeywell, Disney World and the New York Stock Exchange. Leftist academics get to try out their stupid ideas on impressionable youths between 17 and 21 who don't have any money or power. The right gets to try out its ideas on North America, South America, Europe, Asia, Australia, and parts of Africa, most of which take Mastercard. The left gets Harvard, Oberlin, Twyla Tharp's dance company and Madison, Wisconsin. The right gets Nasdaq, Boeing, General Motors, Apple, McDonnell Douglas, Washington, D.C., Citicorp, Texas, Coca-Cola, General Electric, Japan and outer space. This seems like a fair arrangement.

I'd say the corporations maximize their profits in thier legal and political context. People would gravitate to ideas that justify their commercial success. But many of the corporations have interests in conflict with each other. For example, manufacturing corporations with international markets would want to lower US operating costs by reducing health care costs. But the insurance agencies and pharma would want the opposte. (some of the congressional battles over mal-practice do show these battle lines) And then you have GE deciding to promote green energy.
And Paul O'Neill criticizing both the TARP and the Iraq war.

As for academia, it is very diverse. My undergraduate advisor never discussed politics. I always presumed he was right wing because some of his research was defense related. My graduate advisor was far left wing. My undergraduate economics department was very laissez faire, judging be the readings they gave us. A history student told me that the faculty thinking divides in interesting ways along their specialties. "Social History" (women's history, working class history, etc) tends to attract left wing people. Traditional "narrative history" (dynasties, intellectual history, great cultural, economic, military transformations) tends to attract more right wing people. Harvard is famous for having celebrity left wingers. But they also have far right people.

[reggie]

Re: Moving Left or Right?

you need to distinguish between the libertarian right, which gets a lot of lip service in right wing intellectual circles, and the statist right, which has all the power. it reminds me of something written by joe queenan:

The way our society works is this. Leftist intellectuals with harebrained Marxist ideas get to control Stanford, M.I.T., Yale and the American studies department at the University of Vermont. In return the right gets I.B.M., D.E.C., Honeywell, Disney World and the New York Stock Exchange. Leftist academics get to try out their stupid ideas on impressionable youths between 17 and 21 who don't have any money or power. The right gets to try out its ideas on North America, South America, Europe, Asia, Australia, and parts of Africa, most of which take Mastercard. The left gets Harvard, Oberlin, Twyla Tharp's dance company and Madison, Wisconsin. The right gets Nasdaq, Boeing, General Motors, Apple, McDonnell Douglas, Washington, D.C., Citicorp, Texas, Coca-Cola, General Electric, Japan and outer space. This seems like a fair arrangement.

Acutally, the military industrial intellgence complex controls all of them, then uses framing theory propaganda in order to present these institutions to the public, creating irrelevant segmentations that give the media and "thought leaders" an appropriate diversion to discuss and pontificate.

[GRG55]

Re: Meanwhile Back in the Sandbox...

How does a new form of "chaos theory" sound? With the US military and State Department supplying the "butterfly effect"...

The descent into hell continues. It may be worth recalling that it was in Cairo, Egypt that President Obama chose to make his debut Middle East address.

Egypt crisis: 'we didn't have space in the fridges for all the bodies'

As the death toll rises, a report from Cairo's main mortuary after the police massacre of pro-Morsi supporters

Sunday 28 July 2013 21.07 BST

The sand-filled forecourt outside the Zeinhom morgue, Cairo's main mortuary, was a carousel of coffins. From the left-hand door, out came families carrying dead relatives to their funerals, stray dogs sniffing at their heels. Through the door on the right, in went still more bodies for their autopsies. By the end of Sunday, officials had assessed 82 corpses, as the death toll from Saturday's police massacre of pro-Morsi supporters kept rising.

So too did the mourners' feelings of isolation. "If this was animals being killed, people would care," said one of those outside the morgue, lawyer Islam Taher, alluding to the indifference of mainstream Egyptian opinion to the death of Morsi supporters. "But because it's us, they don't."

On Friday 28 June, Taher had pitched camp with his childhood friend Mohamed Fahmy, a 28-year-old unemployed commerce graduate from a small village in eastern Egypt, at the Rabaa Adawiya sit-in in east Cairo, near where Saturday's massacre took place. On Sunday, exactly a month later, both arrived together at the the Zeinhom morgue – but this time Fahmy was dead in a battered brown coffin, shot through his right temple by a police marksman, after a night-time pro-Morsi march on Saturday morning turned into a massacre.

"Suddenly, he had a bullet through the front of his head, and a hole out the other side," said Taher, holding out a picture taken on his phone of a brain-dead Fahmy breathing his last hours earlier. "He didn't have any weapons. He just had his bare chest."

State officials said Saturday's deaths took place after pro-Morsi protesters fired first – and even claimed that police only used teargas to disperse them. But protesters told of a state-initiated bloodbath and a subsequent cover-up. "We asked them to record his death as a murder by police," said Ashraf Mamdouh, loading the body of his brother-in-law, Hegazy Zakaria, into a van that would take him to his funeral in a village outside Cairo. "But they forced us to accuse anonymous sources."

Inside the morgue, the scene had been one of mayhem. "We didn't have enough places in the fridges to fit all the bodies," said Dr Hazem Hossam, an official at Zeinhom.

"We had to do autopsies on the floor. At some points we had to ask families to help us with the process. It was chaos."...

...Following Saturday's shootings, members of the international community expressed concerns about Egypt's current predicament.

EU foreign policy chief Catherine Ashton said she "deeply deplores" Saturday's deaths, while a senior representative of Human Rights Watch said the killings connoted a "criminal disregard" for human life.

US secretary of state John Kerry also released a statement noting his "deep concern about the bloodshed and violence". But for lawyer Islam Taher, bristling at the US's implicit support for Morsi's removal, and mourning his friend Mohamed Fahmy outside the Zeinhom morgue, these words meant little. "He was just a man searching for a job, trying to earn enough to get married," said Taher of Fahmy. "Trying to live as a human."


Egypt restores feared secret police units

Military-backed government seems to have no intent of reforming practices that characterised both Mubarak and Morsi eras

Monday 29 July 2013 20.44 BST

Egypt's interim government was accused of attempting to return the country to the Mubarak era on Monday, after the country's interior ministry announced the resurrection of several controversial police units that were nominally shut down following the country's 2011 uprising and the interim prime minister was given the power to place the country in a state of emergency

Egypt's state security investigations service, Mabahith Amn ad-Dawla, a wing of the police force under President Mubarak, and a symbol of police oppression, was supposedly closed in March 2011 – along with several units within it that investigated Islamist groups and opposition activists. The new national security service (NSS) was established in its place.

But following Saturday's massacre of at least 83 Islamists, interior minister Mohamed Ibrahim announced the reinstatement of the units, and referred to the NSS by its old name. He added that experienced police officers sidelined in the aftermath of the 2011 revolution would be brought back into the fold.

Police brutality also went unchecked under Morsi, who regularly failed to condemn police abuses committed during his presidency. But Ibrahim's move suggests he is using the ousting of Morsi – and a corresponding upsurge in support for Egypt's police – as a smokescreen for the re-introduction of pre-2011 practices.

Ibrahim's announcement came hours before Egypt's interim prime minister was given the power to place the country in a state of emergency – a hallmark of Egypt under Mubarak...

[GRG55]

Re: Meanwhile Back in the Sandbox...

The descent into hell continues...

U.S. issues global travel alert, to close embassies due to al Qaeda threat

By Chris Lawrence. Barbara Starr and Tom Cohen,CNN
updated 4:24 PM EDT, Fri August 2, 2013

(CNN) -- A global travel alert issued Friday by the State Department said al Qaeda may launch attacks in the Middle East, North Africa and beyond in coming weeks, and the U.S. government prepared to close embassies and consulates in the region Sunday as a precaution.

The steps showed the heightened concerns about what U.S. officials said was intelligence in recent days that indicated a potential attack emanating from al Qaeda in Yemen.

Britain's Foreign Office warned against travel to Yemen and advised British citizens to leave the country, while a senior Yemeni national security official told CNN that the government was "on high alert against possible attacks in the days to come."...

...A State Department list made public Friday showed the 21 embassies and consulates that will close Sunday, normally the start of the work week in the countries affected.

They included embassies in Iraq, Egypt, Libya, Saudi Arabia, Afghanistan, Yemen and 11 other countries, as well as consulates in Iraq, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates.

Other embassies to be closed were in the United Arab Emirates, Algeria, Jordan, Djibouti, Bangladesh, Qatar, Kuwait, Bahrain, Oman, Mauritania and Sudan.
A senior State Department official said the embassies and consulates could be kept closed for additional days...



Baird says Canadian embassies at 'elevated risk' after U.S. issues alert over al-Qaeda threat


WASHINGTON — The Associated Press
Published Friday, Aug. 02 2013, 8:48 AM EDT
Last updated Friday, Aug. 02 2013, 4:00 PM EDT


The United States issued a global travel alert Friday, citing an al-Qaeda threat that also caused the State Department to close its embassies Sunday around the Muslim world.
The State Department warned American citizens of the potential for terrorism particularly in the Middle East and North Africa, with a possible attack occurring or coming from the Arabian Peninsula...

...Canadian Foreign Affairs Minister John Baird said both Canadian travellers and diplomats should exercise extra caution over the weekend.
Mr. Baird said Canadian embassies are at “an elevated risk,” but they had not been ordered to follow the U.S. lead and shut their doors on Sunday. He would not discuss the nature of the threat, but he noted that neither Britain nor Australia have announced a plan to close their missions.

“At a bare minimum, we‘re at an elevated risk, and encouraging a higher degree of caution,” he said in a conference call with reporters from Chile. “Obviously, between now and Sunday, we’ll continuously review the situation.”...

[reggie]

Re: Meanwhile Back in the Sandbox...

How does a new form of "chaos theory" sound? With the US military and State Department supplying the "butterfly effect"...

YES!!!

Now we're getting some where.

And just think about the power the military-industrial-intelligence complex would have if they figured out how to control the Chaos??? Who would be able to rise-up against their desired trajectories when everyone is just busy trying to survive the chaos?

Well folks, welcome to the 21st Century of Cybernetics & Complexity Theory applied to the Social, with the deployment of GATT & the Internet just in time for the party.