Children overwhelm Egyptian doctors

Egyptian doctors report being overwhelmed with Palestinian children arriving into their care with bullet wounds to the head.

The official Israeli position is that any Gazan casualities are the fault of Hamas because they operate in the territory, thus rendering everyone a "human shield."

-- -- --

Considering the minimal casualties sustained by Israeli ground forces, it would appear Israel has used its "blame Hamas" approach to justify the indiscriminate killing of civilians in order to best protect its own forces -- an important part of sustaining domestic support for the operation. It has also maintained a ban on all foreign news reporting from within the Gaza strip.

Career profile '09: Senior Fellow for Muddled Eastern Studies

The Council on Foreign Relations hosted a "media conference call" on Gaza which, after an hour of blab about high-level Israel/Obama administration considerations, finally got to a question about the motivations of Hamas.

The answer was revealing in that it was at first incoherent:

Daniel Senor:

Look, there's the sort of stated objectives, or the short-term objectives that Hamas has -- or officials within Hamas have talked about, which include loosening the ease of entry from Gaza into Israel and back and forth, and ease within movement within the territories broadly, and there are a number of these various issues.

Presumably what Senor is trying to say is that Hamas would like an end to the economic blockade which has prevented food, fuel and medical supplies from entering Gaza for months. I would dare say this "irks" them. You see, because it is difficult for human beings to remain alive without such things, it is reasonable that they would factor into the "objectives" of Hamas, whether stated, short-term, "official" or whatever. Yet, this seems difficult for an adjunct senior fellow for Middle Eastern Studies to accept at face value.

At this point Senor shifts gears and attributes what is an Israeli preoccupation with "deterrence" to Israel's adversaries in the region. Personally, I have only ever heard the Israeli government speak at length on the topic of "deterrence" -- or the idea that Israel must remain so scary to everybody that no one would ever dare to challenge it.

It's worth noting that the track record on this is not so good. Israel routinely kills large numbers of people, assassinates resistance leaders and their families, kidnaps random people and detains them indefinitely -- and yet these groups never tire of needling Israel! It's almost as if people just aren't happy unless they enjoy the same rights of representation and self-determination as everyone else! They don't like being accepted at foreign universities only to the be prohibited from attending because somebody else's government won't let them leave! They prefer eating food to starvation, etc. You know, normal human stuff. But again, not so easy to understand for experts who have close ties to state policy in the US.

-- -- --

Common sense must be one of the first casualties of subscribing to a "war on terror" narrative when looking at the world. Anybody whose career is premised on a steady diet of government-sanctioned falsehoods is going to look uncomprehendingly at ordinary people, whose motivations are much less complex. Hamas is not a difficult organization to understand, insofar as you are not receiving a paycheck to analyze them on behalf of the United States or Israeli government. Under such conditions, the truth is rarely useful, except in hindsight.

Success in Gaza

Gaza is a case where the numbers really tell the whole story: 1,138 people dead in order to defend against a threat which killed less than 10 (4 Israelis died as a result of friendly fire). If that seems "necessary," then human beings have very little value -- or, rather, some have exponentially more value than others.

But to frame the issue this way is misleading. Israel's actions in Gaza have increased the threat to vulnerable populations everywhere -- in particular Jewish communities in Europe -- who are now the likely targets of those aggrieved by the Jewish state's attack on defenseless, trapped civilians. Israel may be able to claim military success against the region's weakest population, but it will also be claiming a victory for anti-Semitism in the years to come.

All modern governments exist to insulate privileged minority interests against the preferences their general populations. Israel is no exception. Israeli policy is not designed to benefit "Jews" or even average Israeli citizens; were this the case, the internationally prescribed solution to the Arab-Israeli conflict could have been implemented decades ago, and the granting of basic human rights to Palestinians -- which is really the heart of the story -- would have obviated radical groups like Hezbollah and Hamas. But the benefits derived from maintaining a conflict against a far weaker enemy portrayed as the second-coming of Hitler has a political utility that conforms nicely to the nation-state model: A population that is afraid is much easier to control and looks to its governors for protection.

The United States has helped maintain Israel's illegal occupation by providing the kind of military support which renders international law irrelevant. Israel and the US may be international criminals, but there is no one available to bring them to justice. The arrangement has given American defense manufacturers a bottomless market in supplying a country that is perpetually at war -- paid for by the generosity of the American taxpayer, as all defense projects inevitably are. It has also given the US a foothold in a resource-rich, politically unstable part of the world, though policy hawks have increasingly come to question how useful Israel really is to American "interests" given how much trouble it causes, and how little utility it extends.

The Great Leap Backwards

Somebody identified as the "secretary of labor" authored a piece in the Wall Street Journal today which aptly summarizes the legislative and policy goals of the US Chamber of Commerce and other business lobbies for the next four years.

The writer argues forcefully against "special-interest groups that purport to have worker's interests at heart," because these groups do not share the business goal of making US workers "more competitive in the world-wide economy."

On the other hand, if the "special-interest groups that purport to have worker's interests at heart" can persuade you to accept the going rate for Chinese peasants living under political dictatorship, then maybe they really do have your interests at heart: If every American would imbibe the twin-elixir of poverty and repression, the US might become the next China, and we'd finally be able to steal jobs from everybody else. Cool, man!

Also of note are past achievements of what is described as the "Labor Department": the reclassification of cheeseburger assembly as "manufacturing" work (giving a much needed boost to a lagging industrial sector); and the fact that "[t]oday we have record-low workplace injury, illness and fatality rates."

The bearable lightness of unbeing

"Terrorism is the war of the poor, and war is the terrorism of the rich."

-- Peter Ustinov

What is Hamas?

Endgame



With the death toll in Gaza quickly approaching the 1000 mark, and Israeli casualties hovering around 13, the necessity of Israel's latest campaign is becoming clearer by the day: They really want Hamas to gain control of the West Bank and Gaza. Then the peace plan can be scrapped for the beginning of an Obama administration, because Obama knows better than to negotiate with terrorists.

Playing doctor on TV

Sanjay Gupta for Surgeon General.

Consider his 2003 TIME piece where he asked the hard question: Since Prozac is so great, why aren't we all taking it?

Gupta makes a strong argument in favor of Prozac -- after all, even veterinarians have made it "the number one choice for dogs with the blues."

Of course, nothing's perfect. Some doctors may hesitate to mandate Prozac, in spite of its potential to make everyone feel "better than well." For instance, it might create disincentives for confronting life's challenges -- or it might hurt kids. But in the end, nobody really knows. It's so much speculation.

What we do know is how great Prozac works for millions of Americans. Maybe you shouldn't use a prescription drug to solve all of your problems -- but don't let this discourage you from taking prescription drugs to solve some of your problems!

Yes, this is just a small sample of the kind of hard-hitting medical journalism offered up by Dr. Sanjay Gupta.

Historical amnesia and Gaza

Stupid is as the nation state does

Israel's assault on Gaza seems like one of the least complicated conflicts in recent memory. A government is bombarding people in a confined space because they exhibit the kinds of anti-social tendencies which come from being condemned to a confined space.

In the narrative of the strong, the burden falls, predictably, on the weak. The strong claim they have no choice but to massacre the weak, because just look at how the weak behave! Rather than make good use of their confinement, they commit crime! They preach hatred, they hide weapons, they lash out at whatever is in their reach! Would you tolerate someone putting your children in harm's way? Of course, you would not. The behavior cannot be tolerated!

It must be a law of history, however, that what the powerful can tolerate is inversely proportional to what the powerful want to tolerate. This is illustrated splendidly by the manner of idiocy which says a small amount of death must be confronted with a massive escalation of death. In fact, small amounts of death -- even large amounts of death -- are tolerated by governments all the time in situations where there is a cost assigned to addressing them. That is to say, a political or economic cost. But human costs are not prohibitive alone: if the Israeli government was in the business of protecting Israeli lives, would it confront the deaths of 15 Israelis in 8 years time (the cost of tolerating Hamas rockets) by starting a war that would likely produce just as many casualties if not more in the space of several weeks? No: it would it negotiate terms that would reduce rocket fire -- just as it has under other circumstances in the past. But that would incur a cost for the Israeli political class -- and costs are meant to be borne by ordinary citizens, not their leaders. Lest we forget the meaning of patriotism.

The United States only has one Israeli advocate at a time

Obama has Tzipi Livni to say about 500+ dead in Gaza. This does not make him a bad guy. It just makes him the incoming President of the United States.

American politicians do not speak out in defense of Palestinians because there is no powerful, organized Palestinian constituency which might provide some incentive for doing so. On the other hand, the American Jewish community is large, wealthy, and influential. My impression is that they also tend to be rather reactionary when it comes to Israeli policy: you do not criticize it. You do not criticize it because of the Holocaust, but you also don't criticize it because you "aren't there" and therefore have no right. This must have been a piece of social engineering dreamed up by the Israeli state, and passed on to American Jews via intermediaries based here. It's my only explanation for how these American Jewish groups -- and I don't know if they are the majority, but they seem like it -- are so willing to back Israeli policy so uncritically. There is far more diversity of thought in Israel on these subjects than there is in the US.

Anyway, this is why I do not care about politicians, even black presidents of the United States. They are important to me to the degree that they are important to ordinary people -- but that only speaks to how impressed I am by ordinary people. They have no intrinsic value otherwise; as I say, they are mere barometers of what is happening within their societies. US politicians love Israel because they love winning elections, and they are not going to do that by antagonizing the groups best positioned to assist them. They are never free to do what is right except by coincidence.

Night in Gaza

Israel invades Gaza and the US blocks diplomacy at the UN. The powerful do not need to make concessions to the weak: they have a free hand to impose their political preferences, whatever the human costs.

There is no humanitarian crisis in Gaza, says Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni -- which is interesting considering the "humanitarian crisis" which existed before Israel started bombing the population. Perhaps the crisis is being addressed through the gradual depopulation of the territories. I eagerly await Elie Wiesel's parachuting on to the scene to remind us all of the lessons of the Holocaust. If I recall correctly, one of them relates to organized state violence against defenseless populations, and, like, "speaking out" against this, or something. Maybe I completely misunderstood the moral of Night, or a significant part of why "remembering the Holocaust" is important, but one might think these lessons applicable in other contexts -- even one in which a Jewish state is pursuing its politics at the cost of an entire community.

Stop me if you think that you've heard this one before

There are a few things that seem to characterize Israel's wars of late.

The first is that Israel describes its operations as defensive. In the summer of 2006, Israel responded to the kidnapping of two soldiers by bombing all of Lebanon. The ensuing conflict would claim the lives of over 1000 innocent Lebanese, and 43 Israelis. A popular slogan at the time, "Israel cannot afford to lose a single war" was offered up in response to international calls for a ceasefire. It was also claimed that Hezbollah's offensive arsenal (mostly Chinese-made, World War II-style Katyusha rockets) posed an "existential threat" to Israel, and could not be tolerated. Rather than negotiate with Hezbollah on a prisoner exchange, Israel decided to "defend" itself against this "existential threat" by opting for open warfare, thus ensuring that it would be on the receiving end of a barrage of Katyusha attacks.

A second element which characterizes recent Israeli military campaigns is that the official aims seem transparently implausible. Just as it was difficult to see how Israel would ever "defeat" Hezbollah without blowing up everyone in Lebanon, it is hard to understand how Israeli war planners expect to topple Hamas without killing most residents of Gaza in the process. To this end they are already enjoying success: in several days of bombardment, Israel has killed over 400 Palestinians; in constrast, 4 Israelis have died. But again, this has neither weakened Hamas nor slowed the rate of rocket fire into Israel -- in this case comprised of the rudimentary Qassam rocket. (Ending rocket fire into Israel is another stated goal of the offensive, though that is about as likely as banishing rock-throwing or the thinking of bad thoughts about Israel: as long as people have access to basic materials -- sugar propels the Qassam, for example -- and believe themselves to be in intolerable conditions, they will find means to attack Israel.)

For these reasons, it might be said that an additional feature of Israel's recent wars has been their tendency to undermine the credibility of official Israeli claims. It is hard to argue on behalf of a "defensive" war when one's capacity to inflict casualties is 100 times greater than that of one's adversary. It is also hard to make defensive claims when you are initiating open-ended warfare, and maintaining it single-handedly; in other words, when your preference is for military conflict, versus other alternatives. Also, one's ability to make sound evaluations on matters of "existence" must be called into question when "existence" is claimed to be threatened, the "threat" goes unaddressed, and one continues to "exist" with no greater difficulty than before.

My private view is that nothing is being accomplished in Israel's recent military campaigns, unless you consider the deaths of large numbers of people an "accomplishment." That is clearly the most significant achievement of Israel's methods thus far. In addition to this, the ruling Kadima party is enjoying a boost in the polls prior to election day.

In the 2006 Lebanon war, Israel killed and wounded thousands of Lebanese; it strengthened Hezbollah within the society; it left Hezbollah's rocket-launching capacity intact; and it ultimately agreed to negotiate a prisoner swap -- something it could have done from day one, precluding everything else that came after.

In the present case, Israel has attacked a much weaker, mostly defenseless, population. It will likely kill large numbers of people, a big percentage of these children -- normal when bombing urban areas. It is not likely to dislodge Hamas.

Because of the vulnerability of the people in Gaza, reaction in the Arab world promises to be acute. This has the potential of destabilizing corrupt Arab regimes allied with the West. In any event, it will doubtless supply the motivation for future attacks on Israel and allies of Israel. It will increase the attractiveness of radical Islam for many, at least to the degree that this is perceived as a viable way of attacking Israeli and other western targets.

A basic commitment to human life requires opposition to policies which put it at risk. In this case, pressuring Israel to end its campaign would reduce casualties in this conflict by 99%. That gives some indication of where the focus should be.

The state of Israel

Is it me or has the Israeli government become the biggest long-term threat to Jews living in the Middle East?

Israel sponsored Hamas in the 1980's because it didn't want to negotiate with the secular PLO. Israeli strategy was premised on an acknowledgment that the powerful don't need to make concessions to the weak. However, in pursuing this line, Israel required a pretext for diplomatic purposes. This pretext was the idea that "there is no partner" for negotiations, because the "partners" are terrorists who want to destroy "the state of Israel." Israel then helped this along by giving aid to radical groups like Hamas who were, in fact, publicly committed to the end of Israel -- if transparently lacking the means to accomplish it.

Whatever consortium presently dominates the Israeli state apparently feels that the benefits derived from keeping the Palestinians in "the world's largest open-air prison" outweighs the inevitable harm that will likely come to the Jewish people as a result: more wars and increased hatred toward Jews. But then governments aren't really in the business of protecting their citizens -- as if this isn't obvious from 60 years of perpetual conflict over the concept that land and resources should be shared! At present, Israel's leaders appear prepared to send their youth into yet another bloodbath, the bombing of Palestinian neighborhoods not sufficiently murderous in their view. They will send Israel's children to their deaths in the probably futile attempt to overthrow the very forces they nurtured from infancy. If there are bigger anti-Semites left on the planet, I would like to see them.

Like it or not, Israel is the only actor with sufficient power to change the dynamic between itself and the Palestinians. This will happen only when Israeli policy is changed either by the Israeli citizenry taking control of their government for their own benefit, or when the US stops giving Israel carte blanche military support for its hopelessly self-destructive -- not to mention highly murderous -- campaigns. American citizens could play a critical role in the latter, and should work towards that end.

Change we can immaculately conceive in

Yes, friends, it would be a miracle if I could get some change around here. That said, I will settle for a ten, a five, and five ones. See you at the bar.

Iraq: Just not ready for shoes

The Iraqi government has condemned shoe throwing as a "barbaric and ignominious act" that may require another invasion to correct.

Oxymorons

It has been said that democracy is the worst form of government except all the others that have been tried.

-- Winston Churchill

It's true that I like to poke fun at capitalism from time to time, but, in all seriousness, Winston Churchill was right. "Democracy" -- which for most westerners means "democratic capitalism" -- has a compelling advantage over other systems: It is the only form of government which permits direct election of the people who don't represent you.

Age of discovery

It is a design of the class system that the people who work the longest and hardest for the least compensation will have neither the resources nor the energy to rebel against their conditions when they are not at work. Under such conditions, it becomes incumbent upon them to rebel against their conditions while they are at work.

It was this understanding that presaged the modern labor movement.

Methodology

The New York Times surveyed Iraqis about shoes and W.'s legacy, but as the sample group did not include anybody of the exploded persuasion, I did not find it wholly representative.

A reservation

I always suspected that Andy Stern's preference for running unions like a business held great career possibilities for Andy Stern. That said, it would not surprise me in the least if it also held great career possibilities for the many Milorad "Rod" Blagojeviches of America -- and let's not forget their spouses! But if Stern is not yet the power broker he portends, millions of nurses and janitors might still have their pensions, Bernie Madoff's spectacular financial fraud notwithstanding.

Increasingly, I wonder if there isn't cause for concern when it comes political devices like "card check" -- the Employee Free Choice Act, which would streamline union certification -- when you've got these big-box union wholesalers like SEIU and the Teamsters dominating the American scene, "organizing" by any means necessary because they basically see themselves as a business -- the corollary being that they see their members as "customers."

This is a world apart from the kind of organizing undertaken by syndicalist unions like the IWW, who don't even aspire to government recognition and are explicitly opposed to proxy unionism -- and perhaps for this reason barely exist. But their approach is much safer; when people are accustomed to acting for themselves, they are less susceptible to becoming suckers to somebody else.

Aristocrats of New England, Unite!

More of HBO's John Adams.

I must say I like this Thomas Jefferson fellow. It is pleasurable watching him spar with a man named Alexander Hamilton over questions of centralized power, especially regarding finance. I believe Jefferson may have been ahead of his time -- except that he owned slaves, expelled natives, and didn't adequately anticipate industrialism. Nonetheless, his philosophical affinity for anarchism stands out at a time when republicanism was still a heady trip. I suspect he eventually capitulates to the latter in practice -- he was president for crying out loud -- if not in philosophy.

What is lost in the constant obsessing over the founding fathers are the sort of people who got it right from the beginning. The problem is that very few were white, landholding males. This presents audiences with a choice: are you interested in historical figures who most share your contemporary values, or with white men who assumed authority and, by consequence, significance? If you think slavery was wrong, you may be surprised that many slaves shared this forward-thinking attitude. I am sure none of them thought "it had to be." The same goes for making native Americans extinct: they weren't explicitly opposed to sharing the continent, you know. But if our frame of reference is merely "what needed to happen to build the republic" with "the republic" being dominated by a European propertied class, then you end up with a bunch of historical necessities that were only "necessary" for a very small portion of the population.

All the shelter from the storm, and not an inch to retreat

Last week it was decreed that my shift would be assigned every unsheltered vehicle in the fleet, despite an idle abundance of closed-cab tractors, because somebody with an office and a college degree presumed to carve up what had previously been a "first come, first serve" distribution as practiced by employees. I tell you: if ever you should like to introduce inefficiencies into a system, just establish a hierarchy where decisions are made exclusively by those who are not affected by them -- especially when it means the difference between freezing one's ass off part of the time versus all of the time.

In this case, the cost to be paid was a shift full of pissed-off employees, who variously did not comply, cursed management, and plotted revenge. Unfortunately, as much as we may have "third-party" representation, we do not have a union: we are not in the practice of formulating our own responses to the day-to-day issues that may not be covered by contract language. Thus, we have bitch sessions and individuals acting out in ways that invite disciplinary action -- and of course the ever-ready threat of calling in our "shop steward," who just acts as messenger.

In this case, the shop steward successfully appealed to our immediate managers, who are seasoned enough to know their own self-interest when they see it. But they could easily have pursued a hard line, and punished dissenters with impunity, since I am confident they are free to allocate their equipment any which way they choose. As workers in their "employ" and on their property, our rights to fairness or even consideration are confined to whatever words are recorded in our collective bargaining agreements, or in workplace regulation -- and that is only if the government has any interest in enforcing them. As always, people are best served by learning to how to defend themselves directly.

But will it get you dates, young lady?

In her own words:

"I first went to prison on September 23 and served 35 days. I am lucky, after 2 times in jail, I got a medical discharge, but I'm the only one. By the time you read this, many of my friends will be in prison too: in for three weeks, out for one, and then back in, over and over, until they are 21. The reason? We refuse to do military service for the Israeli army."

How to make a Somali pirate

What you will need:

One fisherman from a coastal community dependent on fishing

Too few fish due to overfishing and waste dumping by foreign operators

Omit the Somali Navy

Add guns to taste


How to unmake a Somali pirate

Two views:

1) Blow him up (favored by the commercial shipping industry, the defense industry, the private security industry, and "non-Somalis" generally)

2) Change the ingredients in the mix to include more fish and less dumping in Somali waters (favored by Somalis)

SO... which will approach will prevail? I can hardly wait to find out.

Entrepreneur by another name

The governor of Illinois wanted to sell Obama's Senate seat so bad he couldn't help but talk up it's worth to potential buyers. "It's fucking golden... and I'm not going to give it up for fucking nothing," he declared.

His best efforts have since erupted in scandal, owing namely to how "fucking golden" the governorship of Illinois is to aspiring governors and the political parties of aspiring governors.

His crime is severalfold: One, he exposed politicians as corrupt and self-serving. Two, he antagonized other powerful groups by openly flouting agreed-upon protocols when "selling" something of political value: he got caught. Three, his failures may cast a negative light on others who are "in it" solely "for the money."

This leads me to conclude that if only Rodney Blagojevich had pursued a career in the private sector he could have made these kinds of deals with the protection of the law, and made a lot more money doing it, too. Offending the powerful is a crime, but denying kids with HIV antiretrovirals is a perfectly legal, patent-protected money maker? Often the biggest crimes aren't in violation of the law but in compliance with it.

Kinship

At the last meeting this guy got up and told everyone how much they mean to him -- that the company was "like a family."

This time the guy is no longer with the company, and not to be mentioned.

This is one of the ways in which employers are not "like a family."

Don't tread on me patience

HBO's John Adams. Or, as colonial America's first revolutionary rapper, NoToryAss, hailed his full-length debut, John Blabbums and Abigail's Grab'ems. The hits are all here: "Nuthin But a Tea Thang," "Better Dead than Red (skinned, coated, whatevs)," and the plantation club hit "Spinnin in Yo Slave."

Pig vomit makes a fine founding father, though it is my opinion of modern entertainment that putting millions of dollars behind anybody who does not work a day job will permit them to do things the rest of us can't. Look at "Ashlee" Simpson -- or, for that matter, Sarah Palin. Just put an orchestral score behind my ass getting out of bed every morning and I promise it will bring you to tears! We are all stars, I say -- if only the world would listen! And patriots? Negro please! I haven't seen a single black face in the entire five hours of farce thus far! Did black people exist in colonial America or not? Was Morgan Freeman not available to reprise his role as the elder Barack Obama of America's pearly white soul? I trust HBO will come to these subjects in their own good time, not unlike the government they portray.

Help wanted -- in more ways than one

True to form, Wall Street cons the pros of government employment after single-handedly precipitating the global meltdown of "employment" period. Nobody wants to be associated with Hurricane Katrina or Pentagon-contracting scandals, right!?

Speaking for the many friends I know presently in a private sector holding pattern just to apply for a government job: Good luck with that, you bankrupt bastards.

Pragmatism we can believe in

Politicians are like barometers of how power is distributed at any given moment. Quite apart from being "leaders," they take their lead from whatever group or alliance of groups wields the greatest domestic power. This misconception about where power lies informs a lot of confusion over why politicians "say one thing but do another" when they are supposedly "in charge," free to pursue whatever course they desire. The corollary of this is that people wind up devoting all their time to the individual personalities of the political class -- i.e., what is promoted through party politics, and adopted wholesale by news media -- as if this reveals anything important about policy outcomes. A 14-page feature in The Atlantic or The New Yorker on Barack Obama's "character" may be informative, but that does not make it particularly useful in anticipating his decisions, themselves contingent on the choices which bigger forces will impose.

To illustrate the connection between politics and power, consider that Barack Obama won election to the presidency by campaigning on a progressive platform, none of which can be identified in the political history of anybody he is appointing to his cabinet. So, why the "betrayal," to use the word being thrown around among certain liberals? Well, under one set of circumstances -- electoral process -- power was surrendered temporarily to the general population, which required appealing to them on some level. That was called "change." Now that the process has ended, the public is out of the loop, and power returns to the institutional actors who shape day-to-day policy, which means a quick shift to "pragmatism" -- which is another way of saying that the ownership class must be appeased. Obama has no control over this, except to say that he is smart enough to acknowledge the reality: he does not need the editorial board of every major newspaper in the country to register their "grave concerns" about the direction his administration is headed before it even takes office.

Hard power

There is no relationship that can be mended by one party signaling a desire to "restore [their] leadership" over another. Leadership is not arrived at through presumption; or, rather, when it is, it is little more than a euphemism for control.

Should any gentleman hope to test this theory, get together with an ex-girlfriend sometime and tell her of your sincerest intent to "restore [your] leadership" over her genitalia. You will not wait long before you have an answer.

Bidnis skillz 101

Knowing how to take orders is an important part of being at the bottom of the corporate chain of command. However, knowing how to take orders and passing them on to those at the bottom is an important part of earning a much larger salary.

The advantages to earning a large salary should be self-evident; however, the advantages of earning jack shit are not to be overlooked. For one thing, you never have to order other people around, which makes interacting with them as pleasant as you choose -- especially in cases where you choose it to be infrequent, a luxury the manager does not have.

Also, don't forget that while taking orders is a crucial part of what makes your national economy tick, carrying them out is entirely up to you. Courteous agreement with superiors over methodology yields the most liberty to do things how you prefer -- or as a 60 year old Italian package handler once said, "I just nod my head when they talk and do what I want when they're gone."

Mumbai

Most man-made conflicts of the modern era pose a basic question. Should social wealth be owned and managed by particular groups, with everybody else assigned to an ancillary role, or should this responsibility be shared?

The first model offers unparalleled freedom and reward for whatever group or alliance of groups -- read: whatever class -- exercises this authority. Under various "communist" systems this has been executive officials in government; under the so-called "free-enterprise" or "democratic" regimes it is the domain of investors and managers within corporate institutions; while most of what is described as "socialist" involves a kind of middle ground between the two, with government controlling some industries and the private sector others.

All of these models claim to be "representative" in the sense that the governing class derives its authority, somehow, from the population it governs; and, moreover, that it governs in the best interests of all. For instance, in constitutional republics -- of which the above examples include -- there is a piece of paper which lays out the rights of the people and the responsibilities of the rulers, and this paper -- in addition to future bits of paper doodled by legislators -- will form the basis of that nation's "legal system," which can be summed up as an elaborate attempt to conceal power disparities by filtering them through a supposedly neutral institution known as "the judiciary." It is one example, along with elections and other devices, of how legitimacy is explained.

All of this can be very impressive in form, and yet it brings along with it many horrible dimensions, best observed when the people in charge fail to deliver a basic means of survival to the population. The ensuing desperation plays itself out in many different ways, with violent outbursts -- such as terror attacks on financial centers, or civil war -- coloring the most extreme -- you might say, "poverty-stricken" -- examples. Where people have food, and some means of stability -- as in the wealthier nations -- they may simply riot or partake in crime; where they are sufficiently affluent and educated, they may petition their government more politely, or seek to enter its ranks.

India is a hugely unequal society with a big domestic terror problem, whether linked to the most recent attacks or not. And like many modern societies, it is organized in a way which makes poverty for many the basis of incredible wealth for a few. Thus, that wealth becomes a big target, in various ways, by the many. It can continue to be the monopoly prize of competing groups, or it can be diffused to address basic needs. One guarantees more terror attacks; the other guarantees resistance from privileged groups who would rather bomb the world and all its inhabitants in a "war on terror" before ever relinquishing an inch of their privilege. We should never confuse their interests with our own.

Thanksgiving

There are times when your only recourse is to congratulate people on the purchase of their portable touch-screen appliances before they will leave you alone.

However, if they also got a good deal on the item, forget it: you're screwed.

The rich man's burden

I have read a series of articles detailing how poor people suffer when the very wealthy suddenly become less wealthy, principally because they have less wealth to with which to promote their own charitable foundations. Apparently, wealthy people do far more good with their wealth than poor people can ever do with their poverty; in fact, the amount of good done is directly proportional to the dollar amount that appears alongside their name in related news coverage.

If there's any question left as to whether poor people can possibly compete with the wealthy when it comes to selfless do-goodery, just tell me the last time you heard of a poor person parting with a million dollars in stock dividends in order to fund a cure for cancer? It is to laugh! Poor people suck, man! Let's worry about getting the wealthy back in the black so they can go on saving us all. Tax cuts all around!

Heels in low places

I would love to know by what argument American women were induced into walking on stilts so to affect a more "professional" appearance. "Make your legs appear longer, your breasts more available, be at all times slightly off-balance -- only then you will be taken seriously by your colleagues."

It would be easy to blame women for ever accepting this (at least if you share the view that high heels do not make sense as everyday footwear), but my guess is that the practice must have coincided with women's breakthrough into the workplace, and for this reason was not anticipated as a problem; or perhaps it was already so closely associated with the business world that it possessed an emancipatory appeal. Also, because the victory for women in the workplace did more to challenge the authority of the men at home than it did to challenge the authority men at work, it was in this respect quite limiting: men merely consolidated their authority over women in a new domain.

No doubt men sought common cause with the more parochial thread of feminism, which they viewed as manageable -- certainly preferable to the idea of women's equality overall -- and which granted them more extramarital options, besides. One might even view it as a net gain for professional men, if not for husbands: Women want to work? Sure, just create a distinct standard of "professionalism" for women, loaded with whatever men want -- less pay, upscale hooker wear, whatever. It's not by force; the women who want to succeed will know what to do.

Legitimacy

Power makes anybody respectable. Give the terrorist an air force and he becomes a nation-builder.

The burdens of "private" property: A case study

The neighbors have a private garage in an area of Philadelphia where parking is scarce, and visitors frequent. What a luxury! They never have to look for a spot like the rest of us.

Now if only they could find the owner of the vehicle who has blocked their driveway on any given day. They knock on doors and check the bakery. They fret over what to do. They are nice people -- they'd rather not tow -- but they have things to do.

My spouse searches for a spot after working all day, and sometimes all night. But she has 150 or so potential spots to work with, often with reasonable success -- occasionally not. It can be annoying, but look at the bright side: she can leave whenever she wants. Moreover, she did not pay a premium for this freedom, bundled as it might have been into the cost of her housing. Compared with the amount of time and energy our neighbors spend trying to "enforce" access to their garage, I expect my wife spends considerably less just by parking on the street. What a luxury!

***

It is often the case that when perceived community rights -- for example, sufficient parking -- are subordinated to private property rights -- the right of individuals to purchase exemption from collective problems -- the community ends up winning one way or the other. This is inevitable in my view: No matter how many signs my neighbors post, without a broader solution to the parking problem, there will always be somebody who needs to just "pop out for a second" to grab something in the Italian Market. You can say that is wrong, or illegal, or whatever; but in practice, that does not count for very much: people still need to park.

If individuals have rights, then all individuals have rights, not particular individuals. This is widely misconceived in our society, premised as it is on the inviolability of private property rights. The fact that words are written on paper to insulate one group of individuals from the plight of a majority of individuals has never in history proven very persuasive to the majority, which is why riot police are necessary to make the point. Human groups that work through problems by consensus don't normally devolve into violence -- which is why nobody attempts to tear gas Grandma over the Thanksgiving turkey, even if they don't eat meat.

My neighbors, being the least influential of the "propertied" class -- i.e., mere homeowners -- may enjoy the benefit of an odd zoning officer lending a sympathetic ear to their troubles. Yes, it is a shame people have no respect for the law, he will tell them. But because they have no clout -- neither in property nor in numbers -- they will have to deal with the problem themselves; he will say this in so many words, if not explicitly: Not all property is created equal.

This is just one mundane example, but I believe the principle can be extrapolated generally -- to health care or the environment, for example, and many others in which private property claims exist in conflict with perceived public needs.

Don't hate the player, hate the game

Business professionals must secretly love stories about "greedy executives," probably because the trend assigns culpability to individual, rather than "corporate," behavior.

Personally, I don't believe there is such a thing as a greedy executive. There are only "executives."

For example, nobody uses the term "corrupt mobster" because they understand what the mafia as an institution implies. Sadly, such "understanding" is too often precluded by a big enough salary, a claim to some reputation of importance, or the hope someday achieving these.

Having said all this, I nevertheless would like to point just how poorly old, white dudes fare on the more, how shall we say, "extreme" end of the executive continuum. Represent.

Holla!

Worship by Southern Protestants and other evangelicals could face increased oversight by federal regulators should an Obama administration commitment to reduce CO2 emissions be realized, a spokesperson for the US Chamber of Commerce told the Wall Street Journal today.

Many business groups, including the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, oppose EPA regulation of CO2. "They're [EPA officials] willing to regulate everything from the industrial sector to warehouses, offices, schools and churches," says William Kovacs, vice president of the Chamber of Commerce.

Congress vetoes Christmas; New rules deprive youngsters of their favorite lead-based toys

With the economy reeling, many Americans have scaled back their expectations this holiday season. But even the most modest consumers are making some allowance for the happiness of their children, particularly around Christmastime.

"My kids love Christmas," remarked Cassandra Wilson of Chicago, Illinois: "They can't get enough of it."

Getting enough of Christmas may prove difficult for some of America's smallest consumers this year, thanks to a controversial new ban on the sale of lead-based products in the US. Many retailers and manufacturers are lobbying to relax enforcement of the "Scrooge Act," which they say will dampen the enthusiasm of America's youth at a time of national crisis.

"The last thing you want to do in the middle of an economic downturn is tell kids that Santa Claus is being held hostage by communists," said Philip Blowery, president of the US Chamber of Commerce. "Hell, when I was kid, my brothers and I -- we practically ate lead toys for breakfast. After all, what's childhood without the smell of an action figure being cooked over an open flame? It's a sham, that's what."

Marlene Sparks of the National Association of Manufacturers agrees. "Look, nobody is telling the little tykes: you have to purchase toys with lead in them. All we are saying is, we have a large inventory of lead and non-lead based products, and the government shouldn't be making this choice for you."

Taylor was bipartisan

For liberals, a cautionary tale of science in the service of power. For conservatives, more proof their college-educated betters have the wrong "values."

Death with dishonor

Lest we think the Republican Party has been routed by Barack Obama's small donor fund-raising coup without taking the appropriate lesson: They are suing to overturn the ban on large donor contributions.

Nomenclature

It is fair to say that the purpose of pursuing power is to eliminate competition, not to create it.

This is why when I hear George W. Bush defend "free-market enterprise" I can only conclude he likes these words so much that he has appropriated them to describe his economic philosophy, characterized as it is by government advocacy for his own concerns.

I imagine that when Hu Jintao does the same in China, he calls it "socialism."

4.

So it is that the citizens who speak loudest become the voice of the nation. Everybody else can either fall in line or be baptised anti-American; "Americanism" is whatever the powerful have endorsed.

Without a committed examination of either power or class, Americans are often vulnerable to importing their priorities, prejudices and fears from those who "speak loudest" domestically. This leads to strange preoccupations among working people about topics as irrelevant to their daily existence as whether China will someday pose a challenge to US global supremacy. This cannot by any stretch of the imagination be the natural concern of an auto-worker or retail clerk who does not know if they will have a job tomorrow. These are concerns that arise solely within the ranks of a foreign policy apparatus whose mandate is to guarantee markets and resources for American investors abroad. The fact that they even enter into anybody else's head owes to the near-monopoly control that corporate ownership places over information in the United States. "If this is what the prominent figures of public life are concerned about, then it must be important" -- this is the effect that such power centralization produces in any society. One can hardly imagine it being very different for citizens in the former Soviet Union.

The concerns adopted by the average person which find their origins among elite constituencies span so many areas of human life that they deserve examination on a case-by-case basis. But just to illustrate the scope of the problem: consider the defining characteristics of female beauty in the United States, a wealthy society, versus those existing in poorer societies. In the United States, the prevailing "standard" of female beauty often approaches something not unlike malnourishment. But since this is what appeals to wealthy men, it is a standard which has a certain to "appeal" to us all: it puts us in closer proximity to rich men. On the other hand, in nations where food is scarce, a different preference among the affluent may be observed.

To come directly to my point, most of what we have come to accept as the elemental conflict when it comes to electoral politics is really just an imported feud between groups who presume the right to run the country on behalf of everyone else. The is summed up very well by the whole sordid "red state," "blue state" construct. First, let's recognize it for what it is: a carving up of the nation in the image of elite differences, as embodied by the Democratic and Republican parties. Either you are committed to "victory," or you feel the "true war" is in Pakistan -- not Iraq. Either you want to keep corporate taxes low, or you want to bribe specific corporations to keep jobs in the United States. You want the energy industry to "drill, baby, drill" or you want to pay the energy industry to not merely "drill, baby, drill" but also pursue a longer-term conversion to alternatives, which they will enjoy similar monopolization over. As Ralph Nader recently suggested on Real Time with Bill Maher, what wins is war, nativism, pollution, monopoly; what loses is public health, plurality, peace and democracy.

3.

All of this has left us in a precarious place. With the Obama win, the technical experts will resume the roles they have traditionally held in the American executive branch since WWII, just as they occupy the executive positions of most contemporary US institutions. Under conditions of popular democracy, such expertise could be put in the service of addressing popular concerns: How do we make health care efficient and universal? How do we make schools safe and productive? How do we retool our energy infrastructure over the long-term to produce energy, not poison? How do we produce the things we need without becoming slaves to the process of producing things? How do we reasonably integrate raising children into the work/life balance? How do we take the deteriorating conditions of our communities, on the one hand, and the thousands of people without reliable work, on the other, and sensibly put the two together to create a common solution? How do we stop putting vast amounts of our national wealth into war projects that empirically make us less safe?

We do not live, day to day, under conditions of popular democracy; we live under the conditions set for us by the investor and managerial classes, whose legally sanctioned object is to do what is best for themselves, regardless of what it does for anybody else. What it does for others is incidental. The "economy" is the name they give to themselves. When the economy is doing well, it does not mean you have a job; it means profit and market share have grown for investors, bonuses have increased for executives. Sometimes this happens by depriving you of work, sometimes not; either way, you are not in charge. The experts who monopolize wealth -- they are in charge. They offer you a dream, an American dream: one day you will be like them, giving orders, doing to others what has been done to you for so long.

Even when we elect a man -- so far, a man -- to the nation's "highest office" who is modestly committed to social justice, he is constrained by the economic straitjacket of private monopoly control. Any public project which takes from investors their daily bread, or from managers their just reward or total autonomy, without their consent, is an attack on the rights of the "individual" -- which is to say, that minority of individuals who have assumed the right to infringe on most basic requirements of all others. Insofar as this class owns the newspapers, the cable news networks, and employs the radio personalities, analysts, and entertainers; their grievances will clamor louder than every empty stomach in America. They will make the unreasonableness of a "populist" president the headline of every printed page in the republic.

2.

The technocratic manager, being the face of economic monopoly, is a useful target for those who aspire to administrate on behalf of that monopoly. Even the most undereducated American understands that government does not represent his or her interests, and subsequently is receptive to explanations which explain why this is so. Of course, nobody interested in attaining power over others is going to attack the principle of monopoly on which their bid for "leadership" is premised: the problem, therefore, is not how power is distributed, but instead the "quality" of whatever minority wields it.

George Bush enjoyed eight years in office because the Republican Party successfully advanced the argument that the technical administrators of the nation -- the media elites, the academic community, the leaders in government and in the corporate class -- suffered from an affliction of "liberal values" which, by definition, compromises one's moral legitimacy. These people may be well-educated and knowledgeable, but they lack the kind of basic decency that can be found most of the American electorate; so the solution is to elect leaders who are more "like" the average person -- someone like George Bush, for example; and now, Sarah Palin.

Conversely, much of the reason why Barack Obama won this time around owes to the fact that the Democrats had eight years of anti-intellectualism on which to anchor the reintroduction of the technocratic ideal -- that "having smart people run things isn't such a bad idea, after all." In ways that mirror the right-wing attack on "liberalism," liberals predictably attacked the Sarah Palin crowd as intrinsically deficient by the measure of liberal standards; and this time around, the argument proved persuasive -- namely after Bush's two-term catastrophe.

We have seen before the dangers that lie ahead

The defeat of John McCain represents for many a triumph of educated secularism over the malign forces of parochialism and superstition. We are living in 21st century America, after all, not medieval Europe; and though most of us are not uncomfortable with some conception of god, at the very least let us use the fruits of human endeavor -- like science and reasoning -- to address our problems. Faith is fine in its place, and that is not the White House. Get some smart folks in there who've kept up on world affairs since the Bible and we are good to go. This characterizes a perspective which has held a number of disparate groups in alliance against a Republican victory this year.

It's a manifest tragedy that recent US history has only served to confirm this view. These are not lessons that should need revisiting, having been championed rather handily by the Enlightenment, and later weaved into the fabric of the American system, or so the story goes. But the Enlightenment went much further than merely advocating for rule by scholars or specialists -- in other words, by technocrats. It advocated rule by the subjects themselves. In other words, not "rule," but self-governance.

I'm fond of the idea that every victory poses a new set of problems, and this has informed much of my reaction to the defeat of superstition by technocracy. Technocracy is, frankly, a very dangerous thing. Because while knowledge and expertise may always trump ignorance and naiveté, power trumps them all. Remember that the Vietnam War was conceived and executed by the "best and the brightest": Henry Kissinger and Robert McNamara hailed from the best universities and the biggest corporations. If this is meant to be what we are returning to, it should not be regarded with anything less than apprehension.

Rule by the educated and experienced, though different in form, is not itself a solution to rule by the idiot. The problem is "rule," not the personal quality of rulers. History knows no dearth of "exceptional" leaders who ground the powerless into a fine pulp when the occasion asked of it. This is why it is important to challenge the premise on which every "rulership" resides. It is quite often illegitimate in relation to the people it affects.

Perhaps a real life example can capture the concern best. A large portion of our time is taken up by submitting to the whims of one or another moron in order that we might afford the food we eat and the roof we keep. The process can take eight or more hours of the day; only if we are lucky do we find some modicum of satisfaction in the exchange. Mostly it is a time-consuming burden which almost invariably steals from our lives the chance to do what we would prefer to be doing, had we any choice in the matter. Thus we play the lottery, or smoke weed in the parking lot, or go so mind-bogglingly into debt that in several decades we may profit monetarily from the whole fucked-up situation that we refer affectionately to as a "career." Whatever the case, we are subjected to one or another variety of abuse, usually in the form of a superior who exercises authority over us, sometimes legitimately, but with little to no recourse in the event that they do not. We are told in response that we have the "freedom" to go elsewhere.

Are these social arrangements -- which nearly everyone dreams to escape, or at the very least aggressively solicits bribes to endure -- the result of GED aspirants chasing Jesus in executive suites? Or are they the rational product of an educated, secular class pursuing privilege and power for themselves? I submit that history has shown the phenomenon to be no safer when practiced in government than when utilized in the economy.

Veteran's Day

Whenever you find yourself in mixed company, try not to draw too hard on the patriotism-pipe. Sure, it gets everybody high. But it can leave the uninitiated in a compromised state, more vulnerable to predatory suggestion.

Don't stand so close

It might be said of the Republican Party that one of the hazards of having too many resources while sporting an ideological straitjacket is that you're never really required to face the music if you don't want to.

As long as Barack Obama was the likely victor in the race for the presidency, the conservative intelligentsia was happy to anoint him the second-coming of Karl Marx. But now that he has won office, they have quickly reversed course and claimed a victory for Reaganism, which Obama's optimism and tax-cuttery -- "for just about everyone" -- allegedly invokes.

It would seem everybody wants a piece of Barack Obama these days. This is not unusual for a public figure with such widespread appeal -- if the KKK could only book him as keynote speaker for their annual white pride parade! But one wonders how long the honeymoon will last, and with which suitors. From this writer's perspective, it would only take a few steps towards easier unionization for the whole of corporate America (and their Republocrat allies) to launch what one observer has called "political World War III." Karl Marx may get his Republican due yet again.

The feel good fool of the year

Tom Friedman informs us:

America is surely the only nation that could — in the same decade — go to war against a president named Hussein (Saddam of Iraq)...and then elect its own president who’s middle-named Hussein.

Is this a great country or what?

America is surely the only nation that could -- in the same decade -- launch a cold war against a dictator named Joseph (Stalin of the USSR), and then elect a senator named Joseph (McCarthy of Wisconsin). What's more is that both received their Christian forename at birth!

Is this a great country or what?

Hot investment opportunities for 2009

People always see me reading the business rags and then ask where the smart money goes from here. Here is my advice: Invest in the kind of person you want to become, because, in the end, everything else is funny money. Nobody likes hearing this.

US says Taliban endangers civilians

The US military has accused Taliban insurgents of endangering civilians by operating in populated areas where airstrikes lack precision targeting. The official statement came after a wedding party was bombed in Afghanistan on Thursday.

The US account -- in this case, that the Taliban prevented civilians from escape -- deserves scrutiny for several reasons. The first is the fact that the military offered no argument or evidence to support it, and was short on details generally. This is not unusual in and of itself; but, then, neither is the time-honored practice of "making shit up" to deflect responsibility to an enemy in the event of war crimes -- like when you bomb villages in order to "get your man." It's worth noting that the US has done a lot of this lately, killing scores of civilians, though rarely offering commentary except in high-profile cases like the above; or in response to cumulative popular outrage among Afghanis via the Karzai government.

The second is the disparate accounts coming out of Afghanistan from civilian witnesses and others, who have not ascribed to the Taliban a definitive role in the casualties. The bomb crater, on the other hand, is relatively straightforward as material evidence; it is not a mystery to the victims where it came from.

As a general observation, it is the nature of guerrilla warfare that insurgents "immerse" themselves in civilian populations. This is well understood by anyone in the US command. To the extent that the US military attacks the Taliban with bombs, they are communicating either an inability or an unwillingness to pursue the Taliban in ways which would minimize civilian casualties: in other words, bombs aren't the way to go if people matter. (Personally, I would extrapolate the argument to say that war is not the way to go if innocent people matter, especially when other options exist. And that is because whatever it is that war may not accomplish -- quite a lot, normally -- it will readily make up for in widespread suffering among non-combatants.) Clearly, the military has a mission to pursue al-Qaeda and the Taliban; it's also become apparent that they have few ways to do this outside of air power at the present time. Presumably this is why president-elect Obama favors redeploying ground troops to Afghanistan: but this will only reduce civilian casualties at best.

A better option would be to abandon a military approach to Afghanistan altogether. It is not a region with a history of submitting to foreign power; it is better to draw the Taliban into some kind of political compromise rather than postpone that inevitability in a vain attempt to defeat them militarily. A military victory is unlikely, and what will be produced in the meantime is more civilian deaths and a heightened hatred of America.

Cashing in on Joe the Baptist

To get anywhere in the international relations biz, it's helpful to know the basics.

First, when the United States pushes to create an expansive missile infrastructure on another continent, it does so in defense of its "strategic interests," by definition.

Second, when an affected country like Russia announces the internal redeployment of its own arsenal should the US project go through, this constitutes an unbearable provocation aimed squarely at the new president -- thus fulfilling the Joe Biden Prophecy, and so on and so forth.

Stick to this script and you can make a lot of money writing op-eds, dude.

Nobomba



Dude, Madeleine Albright is going to hate this. What's the point of having a military if we don't use it?

The Bradley defect

Well, that was a waste of news coverage.

But not to let a bad thing die, now we hear of the "reverse Bradley effect" in which voters don't admit to voting for candidates they don't like -- or something. Personally, any social theory premised on the notion that Americans would be bashful about airing "controversial" opinions to anonymous data collectors ignores a rather compelling body of evidence pointing to the contrary. Have these people never watched Jerry Springer?

Obama is not the poor

Barack Obama's electoral victory is hugely important on a symbolic level, and symbols matter, especially for the most vulnerable among us, who are routinely deprived even the most non-material of comforts. The significance of someone who 200 years ago would have been legally regarded as sub-human, the private property of another, now "running the country" surely cannot be overstated. The evidence for this is that the occasion has moved the world.

However, Barack Obama is one person, and symbols do not fill children's stomachs or keep them healthy, or give their parents the material means to raise them. Part of Obama's appeal has been his explicit commitment to address these kinds of issues, and it is reasonable to take him his at his word that he will try. But there is no guarantee that any of this will transpire; it will depend entirely on the level of public support for concrete policies aimed at confronting these issues.

This is very different from pledging allegiance to Obama as a politician, because politicians can and will be compromised. Wall Street, the defense and reconstruction firms, pharmaceutical companies, the energy industry -- these profit-driven concerns have all lobbied the Democratic Party intensely in the lead up to this election, and in many cases have openly embraced Obama as a competent and potentially malleable manager. It is not an exaggeration to say that these businesses are in "the business" of interfacing with government in order to shape policy around their concerns; they have more money, more technical expertise and more general knowledge of how "the system" works than most Americans -- a group that is likely to include Barack Obama himself.

Americans will able to advocate effectively on behalf of specific issues only if they remain loyal to specific issues, not to politicians or other individuals in power positions. To the extent that public officials support the things we care about, they deserve support; in the event they fall short, they deserve to be called on it. Politicians invariably shift their attention to whatever issues clamor loudest; rest assured, the profiteer is always clamoring, even if you, your friends, and your community are not. Anybody interested in "change" will have to identify the central institutions which thrive on established practice and attack them in ways that both expose and undermine their role in society. This usually means making a commitment to popular organizations which are designed for this purpose. Barack Obama's role should be viewed as marginal compared to our own; we control our own actions, not his; and even if he was not here we should be committing to the same things.

Is America post-nonsense?

Any society which logs hundreds of hours asking itself whether it has issues with a particular topic probably has some very serious issues with that topic.

Adding insult to comedy

If Al Franken unseats incumbent Republican Norm Coleman in the Minnesota Senate race, it will be the funniest part he has ever played.

The shit: One day closer to hitting the fan

Don't quit your bidet job

Companies are grappling with a new kind of systemic risk according to the Wall Street Journal: a younger generation of workers who aren't interested in climbing the corporate ladder.

A new study suggests Japanese firms have some of the least ambitious younger workers. These employees do not feel the added pay or "prestige" of promotion is worth the costs of working longer hours or juggling extra responsibilities.

This has nonplussed upper managers and labor consultancy groups, who rely on recruitment for the health of their firms. Some companies have even pursued legal grounds to fire employees who refuse advancement.