Showing posts with label China. Show all posts
Showing posts with label China. Show all posts
Monday, June 03, 2013
Friday, February 22, 2013
Friday, May 25, 2012
Stories to Watch: 5/25/12
Had to clean up the yard after a minor storm last night. No biggie, just a mess of branches. So that's why no roundup today. But here's the news...
A Democratic Governors Association poll has Scott Walker leading Tom Barrett in the Wisconsin recall 49%-46%. That's within the poll's margin of error and the trend has Barrett closing the gap by more than half since a week ago. Let's hope the trend continues. The pollster's report concludes, "In short, with eleven days to go, this election is very much up for grabs." Knock on doors, make calls, twist arms, put up yard signs -- this is entirely doable. In any case, we may be headed for a recount, so brace yourselves for that.
The bad news: CO2 emissions continue to rise, reaching a record 3.2% increase in 2011. This is bad, bad, bad, bad, bad, bad.
The good news: most of the rise is attributed to China, offsetting reductions in the US and elsewhere. As a result, China will spend $27 billion "to promote energy-saving products, solar and wind power and accelerate the development of renewable energy and hybrid cars." My question to the "climate change is a hoax" crowd; there's obviously a market for dealing with CO2 -- real threat or otherwise -- does it make sense to sit this market out and let China dominate it, just to satisfy your religious belief that liberals are always wrong?
How to smoke weed like a teenage Barack Obama. Hey, it's 4:20 somewhere.
Former GOP Rep. Connie Morella isn't a fan of today's Republican Party or its War on Women. As to the base's RINO-hunting, she says that moderate Republicans have become "an extinct species."
Speaking of RINO's, at least 27 GOP congressional candidates have refused to sign Grover Norquist's straitjacket of an anti-tax pledge. Someone call the Tea Party.
In New Mexico, making sense is forbidden speech.
Are the folks in the conservative gay organization GOProud just completely insane?
Bill Clinton still has an eye for the (wrong) ladies.
Finally, it's eminently clear that rightwing billionaires are trying to by the presidency for Mitt Romney. That makes it a fair question to ask; what do they expect to get out of that investment?
A Democratic Governors Association poll has Scott Walker leading Tom Barrett in the Wisconsin recall 49%-46%. That's within the poll's margin of error and the trend has Barrett closing the gap by more than half since a week ago. Let's hope the trend continues. The pollster's report concludes, "In short, with eleven days to go, this election is very much up for grabs." Knock on doors, make calls, twist arms, put up yard signs -- this is entirely doable. In any case, we may be headed for a recount, so brace yourselves for that.
The bad news: CO2 emissions continue to rise, reaching a record 3.2% increase in 2011. This is bad, bad, bad, bad, bad, bad.
The good news: most of the rise is attributed to China, offsetting reductions in the US and elsewhere. As a result, China will spend $27 billion "to promote energy-saving products, solar and wind power and accelerate the development of renewable energy and hybrid cars." My question to the "climate change is a hoax" crowd; there's obviously a market for dealing with CO2 -- real threat or otherwise -- does it make sense to sit this market out and let China dominate it, just to satisfy your religious belief that liberals are always wrong?
How to smoke weed like a teenage Barack Obama. Hey, it's 4:20 somewhere.
Former GOP Rep. Connie Morella isn't a fan of today's Republican Party or its War on Women. As to the base's RINO-hunting, she says that moderate Republicans have become "an extinct species."
Speaking of RINO's, at least 27 GOP congressional candidates have refused to sign Grover Norquist's straitjacket of an anti-tax pledge. Someone call the Tea Party.
In New Mexico, making sense is forbidden speech.
Are the folks in the conservative gay organization GOProud just completely insane?
Bill Clinton still has an eye for the (wrong) ladies.
Finally, it's eminently clear that rightwing billionaires are trying to by the presidency for Mitt Romney. That makes it a fair question to ask; what do they expect to get out of that investment?
Monday, November 14, 2011
Stories to Watch: 11/14/11
Short one today. Having some trouble with my social widgets on my blogspot blogs, which is why they look different right now. Hope to get the both back to normal, so I can have them match again. Now here's the news...
Hey, remember how we couldn't possibly elect Barack Obama president because he didn't have any foreign policy experience? Seems foreign policy experience (or even the lack of any evidence of basic competence) isn't such a big deal when the candidate's a Republican.
The Supreme Court has scheduled 5 1/2 hours of oral arguments for and against the constitutionality of the Affordable Care Act. In high school, I flirted with the idea of becoming a lawyer. Glad I didn't follow through.
60 Minutes drops the ball in their exposé of the legal insider trading by members of congress.
Oakland Mayor Jean Quan loses her top legal adviser over her city's handling of the Occupy Oakland protest. "The city sent police to evict this camp, arrest people and potentially hurt them," said mayoral legal adviser Dan Siegel, who handed in his resignation. "Obviously, we're not on the same page. It's an amazing show of force to move tents from a public place... I am really disappointed [with Oakland, which has become] the most hostile city to the Occupy movement. Where else are they having 600 police officers take down some tents?"
Finally, what are these big public works projects out in the desert in China? One of them sort of looks like a solar farm, until you look at it up close and see big freakin' jets parked out there. Weird.
Hey, remember how we couldn't possibly elect Barack Obama president because he didn't have any foreign policy experience? Seems foreign policy experience (or even the lack of any evidence of basic competence) isn't such a big deal when the candidate's a Republican.
The Supreme Court has scheduled 5 1/2 hours of oral arguments for and against the constitutionality of the Affordable Care Act. In high school, I flirted with the idea of becoming a lawyer. Glad I didn't follow through.
60 Minutes drops the ball in their exposé of the legal insider trading by members of congress.
Oakland Mayor Jean Quan loses her top legal adviser over her city's handling of the Occupy Oakland protest. "The city sent police to evict this camp, arrest people and potentially hurt them," said mayoral legal adviser Dan Siegel, who handed in his resignation. "Obviously, we're not on the same page. It's an amazing show of force to move tents from a public place... I am really disappointed [with Oakland, which has become] the most hostile city to the Occupy movement. Where else are they having 600 police officers take down some tents?"
Finally, what are these big public works projects out in the desert in China? One of them sort of looks like a solar farm, until you look at it up close and see big freakin' jets parked out there. Weird.
Wednesday, August 03, 2011
Stories to Watch: 8/3/11
I made some pitas today. I found a recipe that uses a griddle and it was crazy. They blow up like little balloons. Now here's the news...
Remember when Rick Perry was going to be the next big thing that shook up the GOP presidential race? Yeah, turns out a lot of people aren't sold. Media hype strikes again.
What is it with the right and their all-consuming hatred of hamburgers?
Did I mention that President Obama also had the gall to have a birthday? It's an outrage! Geez, you'd think he was sharing a birthday cake with John McCain while New Orleans was being washed away.
China's been cyber-attacking... Well, everyone.
This is becoming a regular feature her, but the American people hate the debt limit agreement.
We really dodged a bullet when Robert Bork's confirmation to the Supreme Court failed. Unfortunately, he's an advisor to Mittens Romney now -- and no less insane.
Eric Holder on his Murdoch-9/11 phone hacking probe: "this is something we are taking seriously."
Finally, here's the new normal in politics; Sen. David Vitter takes a hostage.
Remember when Rick Perry was going to be the next big thing that shook up the GOP presidential race? Yeah, turns out a lot of people aren't sold. Media hype strikes again.
What is it with the right and their all-consuming hatred of hamburgers?
Did I mention that President Obama also had the gall to have a birthday? It's an outrage! Geez, you'd think he was sharing a birthday cake with John McCain while New Orleans was being washed away.
China's been cyber-attacking... Well, everyone.
This is becoming a regular feature her, but the American people hate the debt limit agreement.
We really dodged a bullet when Robert Bork's confirmation to the Supreme Court failed. Unfortunately, he's an advisor to Mittens Romney now -- and no less insane.
Eric Holder on his Murdoch-9/11 phone hacking probe: "this is something we are taking seriously."
Finally, here's the new normal in politics; Sen. David Vitter takes a hostage.
Saturday, June 04, 2011
Stories to Watch: 6/4/11
Gotta go mow the lawn. I hate mowing the lawn. Who talked us into growing a crop that we harvest every week, just to throw it away? Now here's the news...
Mitt Romney's admission that global warming is real and that humans have a hand in it gets the predictable response from the rightwing blogosphere; "OH MY GOD, MITTENS IS A COMMIE BASTARD!" Reality must never be allowed to intrude on Wingnutopia.
In other "wingnut-blogosphere-freaks-out!" news, the religious right news source CNS News reports that China has divested itself of 97% of its US treasury bills. Needless to say, the rightie blogs are going nuts. Just as needless to say, no one else is reporting this. The closest I could find was a Financial Times story reporting that "China reduced its holdings in March to $1,145bn from $1,154bn in February, and down from a peak of $1,175bn in October" -- i.e., nowhere near 97%. CNS is a bullshit factory.
Smoking Gun has the skinny on @Goatsred, one of the Tea Party nuts behind the "Weinergate" story. Suffice it to say that hardcore conservatives are very, very strange people.
Donald Trump renews his threat to run as an Independent.
RIP Lawrence Eagleburger.
Finally, Michele Bachmann continues to be ridiculous.
Mitt Romney's admission that global warming is real and that humans have a hand in it gets the predictable response from the rightwing blogosphere; "OH MY GOD, MITTENS IS A COMMIE BASTARD!" Reality must never be allowed to intrude on Wingnutopia.
In other "wingnut-blogosphere-freaks-out!" news, the religious right news source CNS News reports that China has divested itself of 97% of its US treasury bills. Needless to say, the rightie blogs are going nuts. Just as needless to say, no one else is reporting this. The closest I could find was a Financial Times story reporting that "China reduced its holdings in March to $1,145bn from $1,154bn in February, and down from a peak of $1,175bn in October" -- i.e., nowhere near 97%. CNS is a bullshit factory.
Smoking Gun has the skinny on @Goatsred, one of the Tea Party nuts behind the "Weinergate" story. Suffice it to say that hardcore conservatives are very, very strange people.
Donald Trump renews his threat to run as an Independent.
RIP Lawrence Eagleburger.
Finally, Michele Bachmann continues to be ridiculous.
Tuesday, August 12, 2008
Griper Blade: A Potemkin Olympic Village
China is evil. Freakin' evil. Of that, there should be no doubt. We all remember Tiananmen Square and the brutal way a student protest was put down there in 1989. Prior to the Olympics, China also put down unrest in Tibet. As the Olympics are happening, China fights Uighur separatists in the western province of Xinjiang -- although there's very little coverage of that.
How should we respond to the oppression in China? President Bush, who never misses an opportunity to kiss the religious right's butt, cast China's entire human rights record as merely religious oppression -- as if China were guilty only of shutting churches.
Of course, part of the problem is that Bush -- who's used his term as president to spend money like a drunken sailor in a strip club -- has basically sold the US to nations like China. It's one thing to embarrass them slightly, it's another to call a criminal regime a criminal regime. Being part of a criminal regime all his own doesn't help Bush's position any, either...
[CLICK TO READ FULL POST]
Friday, April 11, 2008
Griper Blade: A Beautiful Disaster
Like anyone who appreciates film and, especially, photography in film, I have a love/hate relationship with documentary filmmaker Leni Riefenstahl. A visionary fimmaker, Riefenstahl created what many consider to be the best documentary of all time -- Triumph of the Will.
Unfortunately, Triumph of the Will was also a masterpiece of nazi propaganda. This was the genius of the nazi movement -- they understood that the most successful propaganda had to either be really, really scary or really, really cool and they went with cool. Riefenstahl helped build the nazi movement into a national campaign and later claimed she didn't know about all of the horrific crimes the party committed. Her access to the highest levels of the party makes this claim hard to believe. When Riefenstahl died at the age of 101 in 2003, I thought it proved the old saying -- only the good die young.
Another great documentary by Riefenstahl is Olympia, a film about the 1936 Olympics in Berlin. Like Triumph, Olympia was pro-nazi, using the Olympics to showcase Hitler's vision of a physically perfect people and casting the nazis as the direct descendants of the ancient greeks who were seen as the creators of western civilization. Nazi design looked Roman for a reason -- you were supposed to see a direct line from Athens to Rome to Berlin. The propaganda had it that Germany was the last, proud stand of the civilization that the Greeks began. Nazi supermen were the next step in the evolution of western civilization.
There may be two kinds of propaganda. There's the N. Korea "Everyone on Earth wants to kill you" model and the nazi/soviet "Trust this government, we're the best thing that's ever happened to humanity" model. Some governments, like the Bush administration, use a little of both -- although, in Bush's case, it's mostly the former.
All of which brings us to the Olympic torch relay. That's all Hitler. He turned the 1936 Olympiad into a "best thing that's ever happened to humanity"-style propaganda outlet. Olympia's breakthroughs in film technology, like mobile tracking cameras on pulleys and cables (which are still used in filming sports today), were meant to show the genius of the Master Race. And the torch relay was meant to symbolize the passing on of the torch of civilization from the ancient Greeks to the modern nazis, not the passing on of the Olympic ideal. Ignited by a parabolic mirror using "the rays of Apollo," the torch supposedly carried the light of civilization through benighted Europe to its new home in Berlin.
In other words, the torch relay has jack to do with the Olympics. It was born as propaganda and continues as propaganda's twin sister, marketing. The Greeks never did anything remotely like this.
So, I wouldn't lose any sleep of the politicization over the torch relay on its way to Beijing. It's nothing but an ad for the 2008 Olympics and a marketing campaign for China. It's meant as spectacle, so kick back and enjoy the spectacle. Adding to the fun is that this spectacle isn't the one that Chinese propagandists had planned for it to be...
[CLICK TO READ FULL POST]
Unfortunately, Triumph of the Will was also a masterpiece of nazi propaganda. This was the genius of the nazi movement -- they understood that the most successful propaganda had to either be really, really scary or really, really cool and they went with cool. Riefenstahl helped build the nazi movement into a national campaign and later claimed she didn't know about all of the horrific crimes the party committed. Her access to the highest levels of the party makes this claim hard to believe. When Riefenstahl died at the age of 101 in 2003, I thought it proved the old saying -- only the good die young.
Another great documentary by Riefenstahl is Olympia, a film about the 1936 Olympics in Berlin. Like Triumph, Olympia was pro-nazi, using the Olympics to showcase Hitler's vision of a physically perfect people and casting the nazis as the direct descendants of the ancient greeks who were seen as the creators of western civilization. Nazi design looked Roman for a reason -- you were supposed to see a direct line from Athens to Rome to Berlin. The propaganda had it that Germany was the last, proud stand of the civilization that the Greeks began. Nazi supermen were the next step in the evolution of western civilization.
There may be two kinds of propaganda. There's the N. Korea "Everyone on Earth wants to kill you" model and the nazi/soviet "Trust this government, we're the best thing that's ever happened to humanity" model. Some governments, like the Bush administration, use a little of both -- although, in Bush's case, it's mostly the former.
All of which brings us to the Olympic torch relay. That's all Hitler. He turned the 1936 Olympiad into a "best thing that's ever happened to humanity"-style propaganda outlet. Olympia's breakthroughs in film technology, like mobile tracking cameras on pulleys and cables (which are still used in filming sports today), were meant to show the genius of the Master Race. And the torch relay was meant to symbolize the passing on of the torch of civilization from the ancient Greeks to the modern nazis, not the passing on of the Olympic ideal. Ignited by a parabolic mirror using "the rays of Apollo," the torch supposedly carried the light of civilization through benighted Europe to its new home in Berlin.In other words, the torch relay has jack to do with the Olympics. It was born as propaganda and continues as propaganda's twin sister, marketing. The Greeks never did anything remotely like this.
So, I wouldn't lose any sleep of the politicization over the torch relay on its way to Beijing. It's nothing but an ad for the 2008 Olympics and a marketing campaign for China. It's meant as spectacle, so kick back and enjoy the spectacle. Adding to the fun is that this spectacle isn't the one that Chinese propagandists had planned for it to be...
[CLICK TO READ FULL POST]
Tuesday, September 04, 2007
Griper Blade: Wal-Mart's High, High Prices
First there was poisoned dog food, then lead paint on toys, toothpaste with antifreeze in it, on and on. It's easy to blame China for these things and we should, but the US shares part of the blame. Asked about the safety crisis with chinese imports by Chris Matthews on Harball, CNBC's Erin Burnett did a little truthtelling.
Of course, the way she put it suggests that Erin has the priorities of a pre-ghost Ebenezer Scrooge and the value system of a serial killer. I mean, how low can you really say these prices are when they're accompanied by a casualty count? Who's out there brushing their teeth with antifreeze and thinking, "At least it's cheap?"...
[CLICK TO READ FULL POST]
A lot of people like to say, uh, scaremonger about China, right? A lot of politicians, and I know you talk about that issue all the time. I think people should be careful what they wish for on China. Ya know, if China were to revalue it's currency or China is to start making say, toys that don't have lead in them or food that isn't poisonous, their costs of production are going to go up and that means prices at Wal-Mart here in the United States are going to go up too. So, I would say China is our greatest friend right now, they're keeping prices low and they're keeping the prices for mortgages low, too.
Of course, the way she put it suggests that Erin has the priorities of a pre-ghost Ebenezer Scrooge and the value system of a serial killer. I mean, how low can you really say these prices are when they're accompanied by a casualty count? Who's out there brushing their teeth with antifreeze and thinking, "At least it's cheap?"...
[CLICK TO READ FULL POST]
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