President Barack Obama announced today that he will put the matter of U.S. military intervention in Syria before Congress. It is not clear what the President intends by this: if to consult Congress; to put the matter to a vote; if the latter, if the vote is to be binding, that is a congressional vote against whatever measure is presented would preclude military intervention in the manner that the British House of Commons vote precluded Prime Minister Cameron from acting militarily; or if the vote is to be non-binding. The President had stated previously that Syrian use of chemical weapons would cross a "red line" requiring military intervention and yesterday the administration stated publicly that limited air strikes were planned. Congress will not be in session until September 9. If the President sincerely means in this instance to withhold his power to act as commander-in-chief and under the War Powers Act by submitting to a binding congressional vote, then the President is supported here.

My son's a genius. He taught a dog to talk. He wanted Tippy to be able to give a proper greeting when he came home or when people came over.

So, for hours-for days-he taught Tippy: "Tippy: 'Hello,' 'OWWWW.' " Damn if it didn't work:

Never saw anything like it. Tippy's a genius too.

You know what I hate about champagne? It's sneaky. It sneaks up on you. I've heard it's because of the carbonation. In alcohol content it's just fortified wine so you think you can drink more of it than hard liquor ("Liquor? I hardly know her!" Heh-heh-heh.). You think. And it tastes better than unadulterated weeski so you take deeper draughts. I was at a wedding one time with a friend. His cousin or something was getting married. Reception outdoors, incredible food. Champagne. It snuck up on my friend and me. He tried to kiss me. There's a picture of that. Later we broke into his grandma's house (he forgot key). In between I threw up under a pine tree. Never had those experiences except with champagne. Sneaky SNEAK. Hate that stuff.

"Common sense speaks for itself: the Syrian government forces are on the offensive, and they have encircled insurgents in some regions, and it would be utter stupidity to give up a trump card to those who have been regularly calling for military intervention. It defies any logic, especially on the day when UN monitors came there," he told reporters.

-Vladimir Putin.

Putin's got a point there. The Assad forces have been doing well-thanks to Russian military assistance! It is not logical. There is no doubt that chemical weapons were used. It is more logical to believe that government forces have the weapons and the means to deliver them than the rebels. The Americans say there is proof it was the government. I do not trust the Americans, the British seemed to have doubts about the American claims. But I trust Putin less. I believe it was the Syrian government that used chemical weapons. 

I oppose American military involvement in Syria. I oppose American military involvement in Syria because American foreign policy is driven by its own best interests. Because President Obama has said that America's "core national interests" are threatened by the use of chemical wmd in Syria; Because I do not believe that the core national interests of America are threatened by the use of chemical wmd in Syria; Because American global military superiority is an American "core national interest;" Because I believe that global military superiority is illegitimate as a core national interest of any nation;  Because military involvement in another country as in the best interests of the intervening country is immoral, illegal and illegitimate; Because American military involvement in Syria is not motivated by any desire to stop a civilian people from being gassed.

Champagne can produce really bad hangovers. I hate fucking champagne.

Normal
wang guangmei

Abnormal
publik occurences
what is the final verdict of chinas corruption trial
319

http://whitehouse.gov1.info/

OH MY GOD!!!!!!http://whitehouse.gov1.info/

WHITE HOUSE OBAMA STORE

Obama Putter - $129.99

Oh my God. Oh my God! http://nsa.gov1.info/

"The British Aren't Coming! The British Aren't Coming!"-New York Daily News.

lol funny. Tremendous headline. Very clever.

Parliament to Cameron: Stay Home.

The Washington Post published a summary of more Snowden documents last night, these on the budget for all of America's "black box" activities: over half a trillion dollars. Included were "report cards" by the spooks themselves, the Public Occurrences summary of which is "WE DON'T KNOW SHIT!"  Which brings us back to the subject heading. Half a trillion dollars has not bought penetration of China, it did not prevent the Boston Marathon bombings, it has not even bought "penetration" of Britain! My God, the entire American government was caught flat-footed by the vote last night. Obama has gone this far on Syria presuming British participation; Feinstein confidently predicted it. They don't know shit.

Parliament to Cameron: Stay Home.

The British House of Commons issued a stunning rebuke to Prime Minister David Cameron last night, defeating military intervention in Syria by a vote of 285-272.

America used to have something similar to this Parliament thing. Now we have the War Powers Act.

Sergey, those glasses look fucking awful. They make you look like the Phantom of the Opera or something. Jeesh.

"Sergey Brin Love Quadrangle..."-Sydney Morning Herald.

Arresting headline. "Quadrangle." Heh-heh-heh-heh.

There they are the Fearsome Foursome of Mountain View:

Left to right, Bob, Carol, Ted, Alice...No, Sergey Brin, Anne Wojcicki, Hugo Barra, Amanda Rosenberg. Sergey and Anne, once in the throes of marital bliss are kaputnik; Hugo and Amanda once in the throes of pre-marital bliss are done; Sergey and Amanda are now "together" while Hugo is off to China. I forget what's up with Anne. Google, what's up with Anne? Heh-heh-heh-heh-heh.

Today:
     Abnormal
public occurrences
public occurrences adalah
what was public occurrences
what is public occurrences


     Normal
candid girls with skirts
mermaids
159 pageviews

America Out of Control: Michael Mandelbaum. "The Case for Goliath: How America Acts as the World's Government in the 21st Century."

Who is this jackanapes?

Michael Mandelbaum may be patient zero in the spread of this virus. Mandelbaum is a professor at Johns Hopkins, a friend and frequent collaborator of Thomas L. Friedman, with whom he co-authored a book. Mandelbaum is quoted by Friedman as distinguishing American foreign policy during the cold war which,

              “was all about how we affect the external behavior of states,”

from post-cold war foreign policy which is "largely about,"

             “affecting the internal composition and governance of states.”

America Out of Control: Michael Mandelbaum.

The Case For Goliath: How America Acts As The World's Government in the Twenty-first Century, PublicAffairs (2006), 320 pages.

How does the United States use its enormous power in the world? In The Case for Goliath, Michael Mandelbaum offers a surprising answer: The United States furnishes to other countries the services that governments provide within the countries they govern.

-Amazon.com

There are some people who make "The Case for an American Goliath." Let them come to Berlin! There are even some who say we can work with the Americans, that America is "The World's Government." Sie sollen nach Berlin kommen, Let them come to Berlin!

America Out of Control: The view from Germany.

Since Friday, we have known that the British intelligence agency GCHQ is "worse than the United States." Those are the words of Edward Snowden, the IT expert who uncovered the most serious surveillance scandal of all time. American and British intelligence agencies are monitoring all communication data. And what does our chancellor do? She says: "The internet is uncharted territory for us all."

That's not enough. In the coming weeks, the German government needs to show that it is bound to its citizens and not to an intelligence-industrial complex that abuses our entire lives as some kind of data mine. The justice minister, Sabine Leutheusser-Schnarrenberger, hit the right note when she said she was shocked by this "Hollywood-style nightmare".

We have Snowden to thank for this insight into the interaction of an uncanny club, the Alliance of Five Eyes. Since the second world war, the five Anglo-Saxon countries of Great Britain, the United States, Australia, New Zealand and Canada have maintained close intelligence co-operation, which apparently has got completely out of control.

...

[The Americans and British] have no right to subject the citizens of other countries to their control. The shoulder-shrugging explanation by Washington and London that they have operated within the law is absurd. They are not our laws. We didn't make them. We shouldn't be subject to them.

The totalitarianism of the security mindset protects itself with a sentence: if you have nothing to hide, you have nothing to fear. But first, that contains a presumption: we have not asked the NSA and GCHQ to "protect" us. 

...

[T]he data scandal doesn't pertain just to our legal principles, but to our security as well. We were lucky that Snowden, who revealed the spying to the entire world, is not a criminal, but an idealist. He wanted to warn the world, not blackmail it. But he could have used his information for criminal purposes, as well.

...

So what should happen now? European institutions must take control of the data infrastructure and ensure its protection. The freedom of data traffic is just as important as the European freedom of exchange in goods, services and money. But above all, the practices of the Americans and British must come to an end. Immediately.

It is the responsibility of the German government to see to it that the programmes of the NSA and GCHQ no longer process the data of German citizens and companies without giving them the opportunity for legal defence. 

...

Germans should closely observe how Angela Merkel now behaves. And if the opposition Social Democrats and Green party are still looking for a campaign issue, they need look no further.

-Jakob Augstein, Der Spiegel.

More pageviews today than yesterday. 414. All those hits from Indonesia...those strange search keywords with "public occurrences" in them...What essay?...

Having a blog can be weird, man.

Dr. Weimin Mo posted a link on his website, http://weiminmopaintings.blogspot.com/, to a Stumbleupon site, "Street Art Utopia." The first two are from Lodz, Poland.
http://www.stumbleupon.com/su/324fat/:1FbDHKmNf:PeJZ8zOV/www.streetartutopia.com/?p=10554/

This one is from Manchester and is titled "Truth is coming and cannot be stopped:"

Heh-heh-heh.

SEA!
SEA!
SEA!

it tentang pablik accurrenc.

Jesus Christ.

Whoa!  Look at this. These are the search keywords and all the search keywords in the last couple of hours:



public occurrences, 4.
public occurrence adalah, 2.
public occurrences adalah, 2.
public occurrence artikel, 1.
artikel public occurrence, 1.
esai public occurrence, 1.
essay public occurrences, 1.
essay tentang public occurrence, 1.
public occurence adalah, 1.
public occurrence, 1.
public accurrence eadalah, 1.
public occurrences adalah, 1.
pelajaran public occurrence, 1.
penjelasan public occurrence, 1.
penjelasan tentang public occurrence, 1.

Pageviews by country:

Indonesia, 41.

China, 4.

Canada, 2.

France, 2.

United States, 2.

It becomes our disagreeable duty to file a claim of intellectual piracy against our soul mates at SEA. What SEA did was, the technical term is "mess with," the New York Times domain name, www.nytimes.com, which is merely a user-friendly name for the hard-to-remember string of numbers and periods that constitute a website's internet "address," I say what SEA done-did was redirect traffic from the Times domain name to its own SEA-worthy self. In fact, this tactic is so elegantly simple in conception that the undersigned idiot blogger his ownself conceived of it a few years ago. In response to Chinese government attacks on Google the undersigned I.B. proposed that all internet traffic to www.china.org.cn be redirected to www.BullishOnBalls.com or some like-named gay porn site. We would accept from our brethren at SEA acknowledgment of its debt of gratitude to us in full satisfaction of our claim.

P.S. SEA, do you realize what international ROCK STARS you would be right now if, instead of redirecting Times traffic to yourself, you had redirected it to Bullish on Balls? 

As a public service to readers we should like to advise that we understand The New York Times is attempting to get its newspaper out via...Facebook. Also that Thomas L. Friedman may be attempting to get the most out of this crisis by hawking the paper on the sidewalk. In preparation for his Showtime special.
Heh-heh-heh.

New York Times website still down, at least from an iPhone. Heh-heh-heh-heh-heh.

Hackers took over The New York Times website today, denying access to the DNS name nytimes.com. It has been a few hours and the Times website is still down. As I understand it one can access the Times by typing in its numerical address. The Syrian Electronic Army has claimed responsibility. I support the actions of SEA, if that is who it is, and of anyone else who can take down The New York Times.

In the 24-hour period just ended there were more pageviews, 410, of Public Occurrences than in any other day in many months. The average in that same approximate time has been about 150. Eighty-six percent of today's "audience" has been from the United States, the average for the last five years has been about 49%. The most viewed page today is "The Joy of America: Citizenship," 132. Second is  "The Chinese Cultural Revolution," 99. No other post had more than eight pageviews.

"Dancingoasis."

Just over two weeks ago, Obama made a promise to the world. "The main thing I want to emphasize is that I don't have an interest and the people at the NSA don't have an interest in doing anything other than making sure that (...) we can prevent a terrorist attack," Obama said...We do not have an interest in doing anything other than that."

...

Obama's public appearance was aimed at reassuring his critics. At the same time, he made a commitment. He gave assurances that the NSA is a clean agency that isn't involved in any dirty work. Obama has given his word on this matter. The only problem is that, if internal NSA documents are to be believed, it isn't true.

-Der Spiegel.

Trust, that is the crux of the matter. When the United Nations built its headquarters in New York City, it was because the world trusted America. Now America is bugging the UN.

It is no exaggeration to say that the worldwide web is headquartered in America, also. The world trusted America with the nerve center of the internet. To the American National Security Agency that was a fortuitous gift, it was a dancing oasis. As the early PRISM documents showed NSA used this hub to spy on foreign governments: not to surveil, to bug embassies-sovereign territory-of other nations and for purposes having nothing to do with preventing terrorism.

There is another news article today, it's on Germany's shaken trust in America since the first Spiegel report a month or so ago. The article appears in The New York Times. It was the Times that I looked to for confirmation that shattering Sunday. It was the Times a few days later who pooh-poohed European shock with a catty editorial breezily concluding that a trans-Atlantic trade "deal" was still in Europe's interests. I have not read today's article on Germany. I don't trust The New York Times now. I don't trust Barack Obama. I don't trust the United States of America.

"Ya feel me."

Yeah, I do. I feel them.

America Out of Control.

The NSA bugged the video conferencing system at the UN headquarters in New York and cracked its encryption in the summer of 2012, German weekly Der Spiegel reported Sunday, citing secret documents disclosed by former U.S. intelligence contractor Edward Snowden.

...

"The inviolability of diplomatic missions, including the United Nations and other international organizations, whose functions are protected by the relevant international conventions like the Vienna Convention, has been well-established international law. Therefore, member states are expected to act accordingly to protect the inviolability of diplomatic missions," Haq said.

-Xinhua

Pathetic. We bugged the UN's conference room. Just pathetic.

La Versailles in honor of La Reunion.

St, St-, Saint, Ste-. Wait, wait, don't tell me...French? 
Oui oui, Roland Garros, where zey play La tennis, no?
Le Tampon. Le-heh-heh-heh. Right next to La Petite Femme. La-heh-heh-heh.

La Reunion. Well, La-excuse moi!

Two pageviews from Reunion today. Reunion.

Was Obama always this slow, does anybody know? In the Senate? In law school? Was he special ed? Sorry, insensitive, racial overtones...Is he retarded?  A lot of non-special ed normal people concluded Asad had used chemical weapons previous to this latest incident. Is Obama the very last person on earth to have reached this conclusion? You look at the most recent attacks: the mass casualties, all those people suddenly dead, some just laying in the street, the casualties occurring in the same temporal period; look at the bodies: no wounds. Huh? How about that? No bullet or shrapnel wounds.  What could that mean?; some victims foaming from the mouth and nose; one I saw on the BBC, a haunting photograph of a man whose face looked frozen, eyes wide and fixed, like his facial muscles were paralyzed, which they were, by nerve gas, according to the Beeb.

He doesn't want to make a rush to judgment until he's sure. When not rushing means you always finish last and everybody else who rushed was right, then you gotta pick it up. You're just slow.

The Obamas have concluded that "there is very little doubt" government forces in Syria used chemical weapons against the opposition in the civil war there...It's as if information gets transmitted to the Obamas via horse-and-buggy. Now what is he going to do? Last year he said the use of chemical weapons would cross a "red line." That was last year, this year it's a blue line. They haven't crossed a blue line yet. He should not involve the US militarily.

And so we may see from our little scientific experiment that an obelisk that has discharged its energy is not proof against the distraction of desire. The time is now 2:22 pm.

"Tesla never married, claiming that his chastity was very helpful to his scientific abilities."

It is not the energy-spewing completed act but the desire that is distracting. Thus: completed act then...

Above, an energy-spewing obelisk, creation of Nikola Tesla, chaste.

"Yet [Marta Abba] does not seem to have ever become [Pirandello's] mistress...[T]he singular chastity of the relationship..."

George Bernard Shaw had a chaste marriage (at his wife's insistence) for fifty-two years, but did have affairs.

"I get up in good time every morning and usually work till twelve. After lunch, usually, I get to my writing table at 2:30 and remain there till 5:30, but after the morning hours I don't do any more writing, unless it is urgently necessary; rather, I read or study. In the evening, after supper, I enjoy conversation with my small family, read the headlines and article titles in some paper or other; then to bed."

Pirandello's routine is almost exactly that of Arthur Schopenhauer with the exception that Schopenhauer went to the theater at night whereas for Pirandello, "I very rarely go to the theater."

I sit reading but wanting to fuck. I can't concentrate.

Get up.

Friends and enemies, I think out loud here. I ask for your patience. My world changed on June 7, 2013. The NSA revelations. I struggle to articulate. In the statements below are some of the issues I've thought about:

If a tree fell in the forest and there was no one around to hear it, did it make a sound?

If I cheat on my wife and she doesn't find out has my wife been harmed?

If you don't get caught have you committed a crime, like Judah in Crimes and Misdemeanors?

"respondents have no actual knowledge of the Government's § 1881a targeting practices." (Clapper v Amnesty International USA, 133 S.Ct. 1138.)

"respondents can only speculate as to how the Attorney General and the Director of National Intelligence will exercise their discretion in determining which communications to target." (Clapper.)

"It can...be argued...that if the NSA Wiretapping Program had never leaked out, it would have caused no threat to intellectual privacy." (N.M. Richards, "The Dangers of Surveillance, Harvard Law Review, 2013.)

"Mere surveillance creates no harms." (Richards.)

"Challenges to the NSA’s wiretapping program have foundered because plaintiffs have failed to convince federal courts that secret surveillance has caused them any legally-cognizable injury." (Richards.)

No harm, no foul.

"if the Government were to prosecute one of respondent-attorney's foreign clients using § 1881a-authorized surveillance, the Government would be required to make a disclosure." (Clapper.)

Consent

"you and I haven’t figured out what it is we want our government to do or what it is we will let our government do." (Michael Hayden, former director of CIA and NSA.)

Why isn't government secret seizure and storage of personal data without consent of the owner theft? Because the government did it via laws. Is "because the government did it via laws" sufficient to make it...right?  Is what is "right," "moral" a test for government programs?  For this government program? If it was legal, does that end the "test?"

The Obama administration says NSA surveillance was legal, approved by Congress and thus indirectly consented to by the American people, and not "really" secret either because Congress was aware of  it. What crimes or misdemeanors are committed by one who makes really public a legal, not really secret program that was consented to by the American people?

"Edward Joseph Snowden (born June 21, 1983) is an American computer specialist who worked for the CIA and the NSA..." according to Wikipedia. Since Snowden worked for the CIA and NSA, was Snowden "the government?" If he was, then why weren't his disclosures "legal" as made by the government. If Snowden was not "the government" for NSA-disclosure purposes and his disclosures were therefore illegal, who is "the government" who can disclose legally? The Guardian is not the government. How can Edward Snowden be prosecuted for disclosure to Glenn Greenwald and Greenwald and The Guardian not be prosecuted for disclosure to the world?  Surely, President Obama is "the government." Could Obama then legally disclose the NSA programs? Did he do that indirectly when he confirmed the existence of the programs after Snowden's disclosures? Is Senator Diane Feinstein "the government?" Was her disclosure-by-confirmation therefore legal? Is every member of Congress "the government" for you-can-disclose purposes? Then why weren't they allowed to? Senator Ron Wyden knew of the NSA surveillance, was troubled by it, asked Director of National Intelligence James Clapper, "Does the NSA collect any type of data at all on millions or hundreds of millions of Americans?" (Clapper lied and said "No.") Wyden knew the answer was "yes," but didn't feel he could follow up. If Wyden had responded by telling Clapper he knew Clapper was lying, that NSA did collect data on millions of Americans, would Wyden's disclosure-by-confrontation have been legal? Or, are only those members of Congress who disclose and defend NSA "the government" who can legally disclose? Surely, Clapper, the Director of National Intelligence, is "the government?" Then why didn't he disclose-by-answering-truthfully? If Clapper is not "the government" then who is? If even "the government" can't disclose and Clapper gave the only "legal" answer he could by lying then did Obama, Feinstein, et al, illegally disclose?

China.

So, this is the scoop on Gu Kalai and Neil Heywood according to a summary in the BBC or like that:

-BoGu owned a villa in Spain or something.

     -Naughty, naughty. Can't let that get out. Everyday Chinese would go nuts, the Party would go nuts.

-Gu got Heywood to manage the property for them and Shhh!

- Heywood began complaining to Gu about the cost of the upkeep. Send more yuan.

- Gu became convinced Heywood was an "unreliable foreigner" and balked.

- Heywood became more and more insistent.

- Heywood became so insistent that he began threatening to un-Shh.

- Heywood became so insistent that he physically threatened BoGu's son.

-Gu had Wang get some of his henchmen to kill Heywood.

- I think Gu confessed.

It reads like a fable. Haven't we read this somewhere in some ancient morality play about greed and the greedy coming to no good end, of the peculiar evil of women, of an evil woman,-a witch!-of ambition thwarted,-Icarus-the depravity of the privileged, and of poison!

No. I don't believe it. They can't even prove Heywood was killed, much less murdered with poison (Body cremated when official cause of death was still "overconsumption of alcohol."). No, BoGu have been prosecuted because Bo was getting too big for his britches in Chongqing and for being too "red." The Center needs to work on their story when they purge someone. KISS: Keep it simple stupid. Lose the witch and the poison.

"Core National Interests."

The only place I could find quickly that defines America's "core national interests" is in a book called "Anti-Americanism: In the 21st Century:"

"America's core national interests--in maintaining strategic military superiority, constructing and maintaining a neoliberal globalized economy, protecting the flows of world trade in raw materials, money, commodities and labour--are beyond discussion and negotiation."

OBAMA: ... there is -- there is no doubt that when you start seeing chemical weapons used on a large scale -- and, again, we're still gathering information about this particular event, but it is very troublesome...

CUOMO: There's strong proof they used them already, though, in the past.

OBAMA: ... then that starts getting to some core national interests that the United States has, both in terms of us making sure that weapons of mass destruction are not proliferating, as well as needing to protect our allies, our bases in the region.

-CNN interview.

"Core national interests:"  The president mentions two, non-proliferation and protecting our allies and our own bases in the Middle East. Presumably, that would be the same in other parts of the world. What are America's "core national interests?"

Good morning ladies and genteelmen. How are you ladies and genteelmen. I am fine ladies and genteelmen. I throw you a bouquet of flowers ladies and genteelmen for it is FRIDAY. A holy day for Muslims, a blessed day for Anarchists, Epicureans, Hedonists and some Presbyterians. Let us fill our red solo cups up tonight. Let us dance, let us sin.

Ladies and gentleman there is one public occurrence that Public Occurrences has neglected even to mention in I don't know how long: Syria. It must be a year since the word has been mentioned here. You know better than I what is going on: hundreds perhaps over 1,000 have been murdered, most recently yesterday and today, by government attacks on civilian populations using chemical and nerve agents.  You have seen the many videos of the victims of these attacks, which the BBC describes as "shocking," "disturbing," "horrific." That's good enough for me, I will not watch them. The consensus, it appears to be overwhelming, is that there was previous proof of government use of unconventional wmd and the recent developments are beyond any reasonable doubt.

United States Senator John McCain has labeled Obama's hesitancy to call a chemical attack a chemical attack in Syria as of a piece with Obama's pusillanimity to call a coup a coup in Egypt. My inclination is to agree with McCain on Obama. He says Obama drew a "red line" at Syrian use of chemical wmd and now he won't call a red line a red line. Obama has no credibility in the Middle East generally, says McCain. I agree with that.

If I recall, the last time I opined on Syria was to urge that the US stay out. That is my general inclination on US involvement most everyplace in the world. That's my general inclination with Syria. To the Obamas, where the only homegrown American philosophy, pragmatism, is doctrine, there is no US national interest at stake in Syria. The Obamas do not know what they are talking about when they invoke the pragmatism of William James, John Dewey, Wendell Holmes and Richard Rorty. That pragmatism did not counsel inaction, paralysis by analysis, it urged a questioning of action that would lead to loss of life for the principal of the thing, for "causes." Holmes came to question the American Civil War for godssake on the basis that hundreds of thousands of American dead and wounded were not justified by the causes of abolition and the forced re-Union of the anti-bellum nation. That is to harbor serious misgivings for causes. Captain Holmes himself was thrice wounded in the Civil War.  Richard Rorty got his tit in a ringer when a century later he seemed to excuse slavery as a pragmatic response to the times, not as inherently immoral then, now and for all time. Rorty had to beat a hasty retreat on that one. There is then in the Obamas hesitancy to the Syrian atrocities a distinct whiff of this flaw of amorality or relativistic morality in true American philosophical pragmatism for as Louis Menand wrote pragmatism explains everything except what a man should die for.

In my neglect of this subject, even with my belief that the Obamas, like the pragmatists, do not sufficiently believe in moral absolutes I do not believe sufficiently that American military intervention is pragmatic. Like a good pragmatist however I am open to opposing views and may change my mind.

Dagger art.

There is no message there. The above has nothing to do with the below...Yesterday's Nike "Just Fuck It," that had a message.

"Gu Kailai hot."

NOT. Goodness gracious. Nonetheless, that is the search keyword of the day and it was used twice! Men are such cockroaches. Gu's first laddie, Bo Xilai, is on trial this week. Good luck with that.

Mubarak, Freed from Prison, Still Hosni.

Bradley Manning, 35 Years Prison, Now Chelsea Manning.

"And if people can’t trust...that we’re abiding by the Constitution, due process and rule of law, then we’re going to have some problems here."-President Obama, June 7.

People, trust your government:

American gov't=democracy=gov't of, by, for people; American gov't=people.
Spying=no trust.
American gov't spying on American people=American people spying on American people=American people don't trust American people=American people don't trust gov't.

Mr. President, we're going to have some problems here.

From Eric Schmidt's Wikipedia entry:

President Barack Obama

Schmidt was a campaign advisor and major donor to Barack Obama. And when he announced he was leaving that perch, he planned to remain at the forefront of Google’s government relations team. Obama has considered him for Commerce Secretary.^[43] Schmidt was an informal advisor to the Obama presidential campaign and began campaigning the week of October 19, 2008, on behalf of the candidate.^[44] He was mentioned as a possible candidate for the chief technology officer position, which Obama created in his administration.^[45] After Obama won, Schmidt became a member ofPresident Obama's transition advisory board. He proposed that the easiest way to solve all of the problems of the United States at once, at least in domestic policies, is by a stimulus program that rewardsrenewable energy and, over time, attempts to replace fossil fuels with renewable energy.^[46] He has since become a new member of the President's Council of Advisors on Science and Technology PCAST.^[47]

'"If you have something that you don’t want anyone to know, maybe you shouldn't be doing it in the first place."
-Eric Schmidt, Google, 2009 interview.

President Obama does that statement apply to your spying?

I'm gonna google the Bloody friggin Beet Roots and give you my EXPERT opinion on the frigging bloody beet roots.
     Oh here we go, no way your liking this lol. 

I'm watching the first video on Bing, Deathcrew 77 Domino, something. It's very well done, son. I'm only ~1:30 into it but it looks very good. Really.
    They're also film makers, Italian electronic artists. I did NOT think you'd like them their music can be very heavy sometimes.

But then the music started. What is that sound? Chipmunks on a synthesizer?
     Lol that's an accurate way or putting it. I didn't expect you understand DAD, you don't understand me! 😭. Haha. 

Ha! I'm down to the last 40 secs or so. That is THE best done music video I've ever seen! The music, no I don't like but I am exploring Anarchism now so I do understand the message. It is heavy.
     Anarchism? Seriously?

Yes. The NSA revelations. Worst crisis of faith of my life. Shattered so much of what I thought America was, who Obama was. Shattered me. I'm reading Chomsky on Anarchism.
     Wow. Well don't go crazy on me or start blowing things up and stuff. I understand where you're coming from.
     
All my email correspondence with Chinese: read by them (potentially, and I think actually). Every keystroke in my blog, published or not, read by them. I got a bunch of weird visitors a few months ago, some .mils, the Department of State, us.doj, weird, inexplicable at the time. Now I know. 

I'm not going to kill or blow up but I have written and published that the US government should be overthrown. 
     Well they could easily track our two smartphones right now for this conversation. If you think you are on their radar you have to be careful what you say. I feel slightly worried that I joked about blowing stuff up.

They know everything  so I've just decided to be open about it. They know anyway!
     Dad, I'd like to talk more about this. Ill call you in the afternoon of the next couple days you can give me some more info.

Ok son, love you.
      Love you too!

Fuck you, Obama. Fuck America.

For a month now there has been a modest but noticeable increase in readership from China. China is third in pageviews over the last 30 days while in the last five years it is fourth. China overtook Germany this month to become fourth "all-time." Kdnet is one of the sites contributing and Mr. Zhang Mu's book, serialized (poorly) here has been the recipient of many of these pageviews, for which I am happy for Mr. Mu. The "evergreens," the posts on Songie and Liu Shaoqi, always have done relatively well. It has been a long time since I've written at all on China, especially on Educated and Gentle. The last time, a year ago?, curiosity got the best of me and I googled her. There was that article on the Seven(?) "royal" families of China of which the Song family was one. I wrote about that but it upset me to revisit the subject. Now, I've got too much that I'm existentially upset about with my own country to look for upsets abroad. The Chinese people are a part of my life however; they are writers, they are readers, and vastly more so than the people of any other country, including those in the U.S., Chinese reach out to those, especially foreigners I think, who take an interest to write about their country. I have not gotten any emails from any new communicants in the PRC in I don't know how long, only an occasional light-hearted email from one consistent friend there. To all Chinese who know the name Benjamin Harris, I have not forgotten you, I will never forget you. My interest is abiding, for you are the most interesting people on earth. I care very much. You are a miracle people.

Barack Obama Desert Classic.

Egyptians.

Barack Obama using his influence in Egypt.

Dude, man, that's cold.

Barack Obama Desert Classic.

Mr. President, is this your plan: Have the Egyptian junta call new elections sometime before the expiration of the eight-month period as required by the aid law and you won't have to call it a coup?

That is Glenn Greenwald, Guardian reporter who broke the Edward Snowden story.

That is David Miranda, Mr. Greenwald's partner, who was detained today at Heathrow airport for nine hours before being released under Great Britain's Terrorism Act of 2000.

And that was a big chill you just felt.

Barack Obama Desert Classic.

"Obama's Dangerous Passivity on Egypt, Syria on Display."-Washington Post.

                           In a sand trap, August 19, 2011

The Barack Obama Desert Classic.

"Obama Struggles to Find Effective Egypt Policy."-NPR.

 

August 11, 2013.

Golf is complex, too.

It's "complex."
That's a complex question, isn't it Metamodern?

Egypt.

1,000+.

“The million-dollar question now,” said one American military officer, “is where is the threshold of violence for cutting ties?”

The First Metamodern President.

Barack Obama makes a tremendous connection with the American people. I felt I knew him. I remember during the 2012 campaign hearing a radio show, man-in-the-street interview kind of thing. A small business owner said, "I feel like I could call him up and say, 'Barack, could you help me out a little bit.' I know I can't do that, but I feel like I could.'"

Yet, who of Obama's counterparts on the world stage feels that way about him? Not Putin. Not Xi, not Hu. Who is Obama's Tony Blair? Not David Cameron. Not Angela Merkel. Not Francois Hollande. Not Benjamin Netanyahu.

He has nobody. Barack Obama has nobody on the world stage with whom he connects as he does with the American people. They don't know what to make of him: the Chinese. They find him weak: the Chinese again, and the Russians. He's pedantic: the British. Not wholly competent: the Chinese, the Russians, and a respected American observer, Bob Woodward. They laugh at him over his handling of Edward Snowden's flight. Obama provokes the kind of contempt that only Jimmy Carter did. And, as Carter had with Iran, Barack Obama has in Egypt his own incompetently handled desert fiasco. He has no deep beliefs: that comes from his own former and perhaps future advisor, Lawrence Summers. He's not trustworthy: After the Snowden revelations nobody on the world stage trusts him. A larger segment of America distrusts him too. 

Go Obama. Just leave. Resign. Don't call, don't write. Just get out of here.

Seeking the Soul of Barack Obama

Why did he want to be President of the United States? All that power, why want all that power if not to try to do the right thing? Why did he even want to be a lawyer, a constitutional lawyer, right? Why, if he thought he could just ignore, like, THE LAW? Maybe it's like that ribaldry, "Why does a dog lick his balls? Because he can." He wanted to have power so he could have power? He wanted to be a constitutional lawyer so he could eviscerate the Constitution and ignore laws he's sworn to uphold as a member of the bar and as President. Just because he can. He just didn't seem that kind of man to me. He's probably licking his balls now. I thought I knew this guy. I really did. Shame on me. I'm having the supreme crisis of faith of my life at 58 years old because of that mother-fucker. You're not supposed to be having supreme crises of faith at 58 frigging years old! GOD DAMN IT!

I don't know how Barack Obama lives with himself, sleeps at night. The whole NSA thing: he has made so many false statements, a couple of news outlets have "Obama Fact Checks" now. Either he didn't know or he lied. I would be so embarrassed if I had made those statements not knowing they were false, I couldn't show my face! If they were lies, I can't put myself in his place; I would not lie like that. And Egypt: We're up to ~700 or so killed, right? Officially. It's much higher than that. I could never so cynically just IGNORE a law like that. Bodies get to me. The law doesn't apply to me? The hell it doesn't. How can he be so cynical? If I had been "pragmatic," cautious, "don't jump to conclusions," and had waited, like, a day, I would have been so outraged the next day, I would have run into the press room and yelled, "COUP! COUP! IT'S A COUP!" I would have been humiliated by myself for having waited a day. Outraged: Where is this man's moral outrage?

Egypt.

Dozens (BBC), at least 82 (Businessweek) killed today. I can't believe this. I can't believe that any man, a good man as I thought Barack Obama was, would let aid continue to the military responsible for this massacre, would ignore American law and not call this a coup; he is just ignoring the law: a lawyer. If I don't call it a coup, it ain't a coup. Who ya gonna believe, me or your lyin' eyes? It is shameful, cynical, shameful.

"It is not in the interests of the United States to make that determination."

Deputy White House press secretary Josh Ernest, when asked yesterday if a coup had occurred in Egypt.

Egypt.

The death toll is now up to 638. Two days. Two days.

"Obama on Egypt: Interests Over Values."-Politico.

“Given the depths of our partnership with Egypt, our national security interests in this pivotal part of the world and our belief that engagement can support a transition back to a democratically elected civilian government, we’ve sustained our commitment to Egypt and it’s people,” said Obama, whose policy in Egypt has sometimes seemed as incoherent as that country’s internal politics.

In other words, he has chosen America’s interests over its values
...
[Senator Rand] Paul and some lawmakers in both parties have tried in vain to get Obama to call the recent ouster of Egyptian President Mohamed Morsi a “coup,” a designation that would trigger an automatic suspension of aid. But Obama, for the reasons he detailed on Thursday, has declined to make a determination on whether a coup occurred.

“It’s this kind of split-the-middle approach where Obama constantly hedges: ‘We made a determination not to make a determination,’” said Shadi Hamid, director of research at the Brookings Institution’s Doha Center. “That kind of thing belongs in an Onion article, not in a statement from a senior U.S. official.”
...
“What does it really matter what Obama says at a recorded presser that announces no new shift in policy?” Hamid said. “We’re in a post-rhetoric era. People are looking for action and a real shift in policy and not seeing that.”


I agree with everything said above and wish I had said what Shadi Hamid said and would add: We, the American people, have chosen interests over values. I am confident that most Americans--Not this one in this instance, but most other Americans--agree that we should choose interests over values. And what are those interests? We don't need to ask:

"'Traditional Cooperation' Between U.S. and Egypt Based on Geopolitics and Money."-NBC News.

[T]he current dimensions of the U.S. relationship with Egypt were set by the 1979 peace treaty between Egypt and Israel, which President Jimmy Carter helped negotiate...[T]he continuation of the Egypt-Israel peace accord is an anchor of stability in that volatile region.


Another dimension of the U.S.-Egypt relationship is geopolitical and based on access to the Suez Canal. The Egyptian government allows the U.S. Navy to use the canal on an expedited basis.
...
Of course, oil tankers also transit the Suez Canal. In 2012, more than 3,600 tankers passed through the waterway. According to the U.S. Energy Information Administration, last year nearly 3 million barrels per day of total oil transported in both directions. “This is the highest amount ever shipped through the Suez Canal"...the EIA said.
...
Egypt expert Jason Brownlee at the University of Texas noted last month after President Mohammed Morsi was toppled that “unlike the American public, the Egyptian military knows that the U.S. gets far more out of the relationship than it puts in: over-flight rights, prepositioning at Cairo West Air Base, intelligence on al Qaida.”
...
Then there is the U.S. money that goes to Egypt. Between 1948 and 2011, the United States provided Egypt with a total of $71.6 billion in aid. Egypt is the fifth-biggest recipient of U.S. foreign aid, after Israel, Afghanistan, Pakistan and Iraq.

For the fiscal year that begins Oct. 1, Obama has requested $1.55 billion in aid to Egypt, $1.3 billion in military aid and $250 million in economic aid.
...
General Abdel Fattah al-Sisi, Egypt's de facto leader and defense minister, graduated from the U.S. Army War College in Pennsylvania. U.S. military schools train between 500 and 1,000 Egyptian officers every year.

(It would have to be Pennsylvania.) That's who we are. The soul of America is the pursuit of happiness and overwhelmingly that means the pursuit of money. "To get rich is glorious!," as that great American Deng Xiaoping said. Or,"America should use its aid and influence with the army to get the most out of this crisis," as that other great American Thomas L. Friedman said. 

"Seeking the Soul of America."-Public Occurrences, July 14, 2013.

The United States seeks influence in other countries to pursue greater happiness for the United States and, if possible, happier local conditions. When those happinesses are in conflict, usually the United States will try "to get the most out of" the local situation for America. Thomas L. Friedman, Eric Cantor and others who urge continued aid to the Egyptian military apply the right to the pursuit of happiness in the Declaration of Independence to America's foreign policy.

It was a declaration of independence. It was a declaration that the American British had the right to be free from the "influence," the control, of Great Britain. It was a foreign policy document above all. The right to be left alone, to be free from others was the foundational right to secure the rights of life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.

This foundational concept of foreign policy restrained the United States sometimes. She was wary of "entangling alliances," of involvement in "foreign wars." The echo of this foundational concept of American foreign policy is found in the statute of the moment: America, in pursuit of its national interest, may dispense aid to a foreign country unless the government of that country was a democracy that was replaced in a coup d'etat. The American pursuit of happiness in foreign affairs gives way to the locals pursuit of happiness in that circumstance; America recognizes in the foreign country its own declaration to be left alone.

I wish the United States conducted its foreign policy more in keeping with the foundational right to be left alone. I wish the United States pursued its happiness abroad less aggressively. I wish the United States would call a coup a coup, suspend aid to Egypt and leave the Egyptian people alone.

In 2006 I went to my doctor for a routine checkup, the result of which was the discovery of a cancer that had been secretly in place for some time and had slowly spread a little. I had not noticed; the presence of the cancer had not altered my life until it was discovered, at which time I had surgery. The cancer was the doctor's fault.

Egypt.

500+.

As the day nears its close in Washington, D.C., killings of supporters of the democratically elected president of Egypt by the Washington-funded military junta number at least 278 according to the Wall Street Journal. But...how can we get the most out of this?

Above is Pyramid of Skulls (1901) by Paul Cezanne who thought the skull the most beautiful of objects. Egypt is a beautiful place tonight.

Scores (Jerusalem Post), nearly 100 (USA Today), at least 95 (Reuters), pro-Morsi sit-in protesters have been killed by the Egyptian military junta in the long-threatened crackdown that began near dawn today. That's the "influence" that $1.4 billion in annual US military aid has got the Egyptian people. That's the American pursuit of happiness abroad.

The Pursuit of Happiness.

Americans: Look! There's happiness over there.  Pursue, America! Release the hounds! Sic 'em boys and girls! Europe has got some happiness, to you they're "markets."  Bugging embassies, stealing negotiating strategies, that is EFFICACIOUS "pursuit of happiness," isn't it, New York Times
Editorial Board? Isn't it, American people? That's. What. You. Do. That's what you are. Money makes you happy above ALL. Bugging, stealing, spying-so much more efficacious than "negotiating."  Egypt's Passion: America's "opportunity!" Isn't it Thomas L. Friedman? We have to "make the most out of that crisis."  Bug as all. U.S.A.: It's not a country, it's a corporation, isn't it? United Surveillance of America. Sounds like a corporation. Obama, Holder, you got any more touching anecdotes of surveillance you want to share with us? Go, go lecture the Chinese about human rights when you have hollowed the right of privacy at home. Go threaten the Chinese over theft of intellectual property while you steal from Europe, Japan, Brazil, anybody you can steal from. Be happy, America. PURSUE your happiness! Dance. Dance, America, to the pursuit of happiness.

That's the first Google-and Bing-image under search keyword "pursuit." The-American-cop car is in pursuit of a high performance car. High performance cars are cherished symbols of American happiness. Get 'em cop car! Get that four-wheeled instantiation of your mindless birth right.  Be happy, pursue your birth right aggressively Americans. That's what you're all about. There's never enough happiness, enough bling for Americans. Just more, whatever the financial, moral, human costs. "Whoever dies with the most toys wins." Give that the patina of Latin and make it the official motto of the American democracy of pursuit.

"The Dangers of Surveillance."

"The Dangers of Surveillance."  Neil M. Richards, Washington University in Saint Louis-School of Law, March 25, 2013. Harvard Law Review, 2013.

[S]urveillance is harmful because it can chill the exercise of our civil liberties. With respect to civil liberties, consider surveillance of people when they are thinking, reading, and communicating with others in order to make up their minds about political and social issues. Such intellectual surveillance is especially dangerous because it can cause people not to experiment with new, controversial, or deviant ideas. To protect our intellectual freedom to think without state oversight or interference, we need what I have elsewhere called “intellectual privacy.” A second special harm that surveillance poses is its effect on the power dynamic between the watcher and the watched. This disparity creates the risk of a variety of harms, such as discrimination, coercion, and the threat of selective enforcement, where critics of the government can be prosecuted or blackmailed for wrongdoing unrelated to the purpose of the surveillance.
...
[W]hile government regulation might be one way to limit or shape the growth of the data industry in socially beneficial ways, governments also have an interest in making privately collected data amenable to public-sector surveillance. In the United States, for example, the Communications Assistance for Law Enforcement Act of 1994 requires telecommunications providers to build their networks in ways that make government surveillance and interception of electronic communications possible.

...
Scholars working in surveillance studies have explored the phenomenon of surveillance in all of its contemporary complexity, going beyond the Panopticon to consider private surveillance, the relationships between watchers and watched, and the wide variety of dangers that modern surveillance societies raise.

...
[S]urveillance has a purpose, but in the modern era this purpose is rarely totalitarian domination. All the same, most forms of surveillance seek some form of subtler influence or control over others. Even when surveillance is not Orwellian, it is usually about influencing or being able to respond to someone else’s behavior.

...
The bottom line about surveillance and persuasion is that surveillance gives the watcher information about the watched. That information gives the watcher increased power over the watched that can be used to persuade, influence, or otherwise control them, even if they do not know they are being watched or persuaded.
...
Many kinds of surveillance are routinely used to sort people into categories. Some of these forms of sorting are insidious...[C]onsider the power that data-driven marketing gives companies in relation to their customers. The power of sorting can bleed imperceptibly into the power of discrimination.

...
The power to treat people differently is a dangerous one, as our many legal rules in the areas of fair credit, civil rights, and constitutional law recognize. Surveillance, especially when fuelled by Big Data, puts pressure on those laws and threatens to upend the basic power balance on which our consumer protection and constitutional laws operate.

...
[W]hat sociologists call “sorting” has many other names in the law, with “profiling” and “discrimination” being just two of them.

...

Democratic societies should prohibit the creation of any domestic surveillance programs whose existence is secret. In a democratic society, the people, and not the state apparatus, are sovereign.

...
[B]ecause of its relationship to First Amendment values and political freedom, surveillance of intellectual records — Internet search histories, email, web traffic, and telephone communications — is particularly harmful. In practice, this means that surveillance by government that seeks access to intellectual records should be subjected to a high threshold before a warrant can issue.

...
The technological, economic, and geopolitical changes of the past twenty years have whittled away at those rules, both formally on their substance (for example, the Patriot Act and the expansion of National Security Letter jurisdiction) and in practice (for example, the pressure that the technological social practices of the Internet have exerted on privacy).