It's bad enough that Outlook (lookout) no longer works for me within a browser.
No that I've been forced to upgrade Messenger to Skype, I no longer can get to email period. Looks like it ain't just me -
http://community.skype.com/t5/Live-Messenger/Cannot-Access-Hotmail-On-Skype-After-Switching-from-Windows-Live/td-p/1245494
Priceless comments -
"Microsoft has this legendary reputation to introduce chances without the necessary Change Control process in place. "
"Where is the Change Management process here? ITIL should have pointed out that they need to first understand the features that users need and then incorporate those ones into the new product (Service Design). "
Doesn't Microsoft know anything about Design anymore?
Don't they even know how to test their software anymore?
How's converting all the testers into S-D-E-Ts working out?
Look, don't get me wrong. I understand that Skype is a new tool, voice over IP and all that, plus video conferencing and so on.
And I get that technology moves and people must move with it.
But the way Microsoft does it is by force and without any explanation of what's lost in doing so. It's a nice easy way for me to dislike Skype for all the wrong reasons.
They (MS) just don't learn.
2013-01-30
2013-01-29
2013-01-26
Processed food companies ready to throw in the towel on GMO labeling?
I won't hold my breath.
http://www.alternet.org/food/are-walmart-and-big-food-lobbying-gmo-labeling-law?paging=off
http://grist.org/food/are-walmart-and-big-food-pushing-for-gmo-labeling/
(thanks Buzzflash!)
Mr. Cummins from the OCA warning is one we should all take seriously -
"And even after we win mandatory GMO labeling on produce and processed foods, which will realistically take at least several years, we will still need to fight for labels on GMO-fed, factory-farmed meat, dairy, and eggs, a more comprehensive labeling law that even the EU does not yet have in place. At least 80% of GMO crops grown in the U.S. are destined for animal feed in factory farms. If we’re going to stop these environmentally disastrous farming practices, we’ll have to demand labeling of factory-farmed food. And that will require an unprecedented campaign of public education, direct action, and grassroots mobilization, similar to the campaign we are already waging for GMO labeling."
http://www.alternet.org/food/are-walmart-and-big-food-lobbying-gmo-labeling-law?paging=off
http://grist.org/food/are-walmart-and-big-food-pushing-for-gmo-labeling/
(thanks Buzzflash!)
Mr. Cummins from the OCA warning is one we should all take seriously -
"And even after we win mandatory GMO labeling on produce and processed foods, which will realistically take at least several years, we will still need to fight for labels on GMO-fed, factory-farmed meat, dairy, and eggs, a more comprehensive labeling law that even the EU does not yet have in place. At least 80% of GMO crops grown in the U.S. are destined for animal feed in factory farms. If we’re going to stop these environmentally disastrous farming practices, we’ll have to demand labeling of factory-farmed food. And that will require an unprecedented campaign of public education, direct action, and grassroots mobilization, similar to the campaign we are already waging for GMO labeling."
2013-01-25
He fucked up one sci-fi series ...
why not let him shit all over another?
http://www.usatoday.com/story/life/movies/2013/01/24/jj-abrams-star-wars-episode-vii-movie/1862849/
I never liked any of his TV shows or films. They have no substance. Watching them was like watching an episode of Las Vegas - expensive-looking trash.
He's a Spielberg wannabe, nothing more. And while he got the technical aspects of what made Spielberg down, all the subtlety and context is never there. Spielberg is a lot like Jackson in that they understood how expansive the setting, scenery, music and all that only matters if it truly matches up with the scene.
This guy has none of that - never has.
It's a lot like the more recent Batman film series - it's so horrible I can't watch it. The acting I saw in the previews was so one-dimentionsal and so lacking in depth and substance.
And I've commented before about how screwed up the Star Trek series is now under his watch.
What, are they going to do another alternate universe story where all the characters can be 're-imaged' as if they were new ones (also known as recycling)? Continue the trilogy on a parallel course and have new faces and so forth?
I have a bad feeling about this.
http://www.usatoday.com/story/life/movies/2013/01/24/jj-abrams-star-wars-episode-vii-movie/1862849/
I never liked any of his TV shows or films. They have no substance. Watching them was like watching an episode of Las Vegas - expensive-looking trash.
He's a Spielberg wannabe, nothing more. And while he got the technical aspects of what made Spielberg down, all the subtlety and context is never there. Spielberg is a lot like Jackson in that they understood how expansive the setting, scenery, music and all that only matters if it truly matches up with the scene.
This guy has none of that - never has.
It's a lot like the more recent Batman film series - it's so horrible I can't watch it. The acting I saw in the previews was so one-dimentionsal and so lacking in depth and substance.
And I've commented before about how screwed up the Star Trek series is now under his watch.
What, are they going to do another alternate universe story where all the characters can be 're-imaged' as if they were new ones (also known as recycling)? Continue the trilogy on a parallel course and have new faces and so forth?
I have a bad feeling about this.
I'm so glad I upgraded my Hotmail account to Outlook ...
... or as it was known in Microsoft, 'Lookout'.
Look at the funny things I get when I sign in now ...
Webpage error details
User Agent: Mozilla/4.0 (compatible; MSIE 8.0; Windows NT 6.1; WOW64; Trident/4.0; SLCC2; .NET CLR 2.0.50727; .NET CLR 3.5.30729; .NET CLR 3.0.30729; Media Center PC 6.0; InfoPath.3; .NET4.0C; .NET4.0E; MS-RTC LM 8)
Timestamp: Fri, 25 Jan 2013 17:48:19 UTC
Message: Object doesn't support this property or method
Line: 1
Char: 40483
Code: 0
URI: https://a.gfx.ms/c0a_hozdtiVspMTp-Tb3l-C6wQ2.js
Message: 'undefined' is null or not an object
Line: 2
Char: 367761
Code: 0
URI: https://a.gfx.ms/fullie7_mnLqm6Qo6vDc9DF9qnRLdA2.js
Surprise surprise, nothing really works.
Look at the funny things I get when I sign in now ...
Webpage error details
User Agent: Mozilla/4.0 (compatible; MSIE 8.0; Windows NT 6.1; WOW64; Trident/4.0; SLCC2; .NET CLR 2.0.50727; .NET CLR 3.5.30729; .NET CLR 3.0.30729; Media Center PC 6.0; InfoPath.3; .NET4.0C; .NET4.0E; MS-RTC LM 8)
Timestamp: Fri, 25 Jan 2013 17:48:19 UTC
Message: Object doesn't support this property or method
Line: 1
Char: 40483
Code: 0
URI: https://a.gfx.ms/c0a_hozdtiVspMTp-Tb3l-C6wQ2.js
Message: 'undefined' is null or not an object
Line: 2
Char: 367761
Code: 0
URI: https://a.gfx.ms/fullie7_mnLqm6Qo6vDc9DF9qnRLdA2.js
Surprise surprise, nothing really works.
2013-01-24
Memory
It seems to be a thing with me.
Maybe it's age; maybe it's circumstance ...
... but it seems that whenever I'm far away from a computer, I think up the best blog posts.
But when I finally get to a machine, the thought has gone away.
Of course, some would say that if I knew how to post on my mobile device ... WELL!!! ... then things would be easy right?
If only it were so.
No, it's more than just that. It's the same with music as well. In fact that's how I was able to largely write over the last two years. I did so completely away from a guitar and/or a microphone. It was all done in my head; but the difference between this and blogging, is that I learned to keep a pad of paper and pencil always nearby. I could then write down ideas at-will.
Perhaps if I had a better mobile device and weren't so technologically-inept ....
... and that's perhaps the sad thing. I've been using Information Technology for pretty much my entire work career. Indeed if you asked me in school what I'd be doing when I grew up, using computers wouldn't have been it.
But there you go.
Anyways .... where was I going with this .... oh yes.
So why is it I always come up with the best ideas away from the tools one would normally associate with to say jot down or write down or perhaps run the idea through (i.e. a guitar for music)?
Could it be it's my mind's way of telling me that not consciously think of the ideas, just let them come at their own pace? Or perhaps something else?
Just webnesia I guess.
Maybe it's age; maybe it's circumstance ...
... but it seems that whenever I'm far away from a computer, I think up the best blog posts.
But when I finally get to a machine, the thought has gone away.
Of course, some would say that if I knew how to post on my mobile device ... WELL!!! ... then things would be easy right?
If only it were so.
No, it's more than just that. It's the same with music as well. In fact that's how I was able to largely write over the last two years. I did so completely away from a guitar and/or a microphone. It was all done in my head; but the difference between this and blogging, is that I learned to keep a pad of paper and pencil always nearby. I could then write down ideas at-will.
Perhaps if I had a better mobile device and weren't so technologically-inept ....
... and that's perhaps the sad thing. I've been using Information Technology for pretty much my entire work career. Indeed if you asked me in school what I'd be doing when I grew up, using computers wouldn't have been it.
But there you go.
Anyways .... where was I going with this .... oh yes.
So why is it I always come up with the best ideas away from the tools one would normally associate with to say jot down or write down or perhaps run the idea through (i.e. a guitar for music)?
Could it be it's my mind's way of telling me that not consciously think of the ideas, just let them come at their own pace? Or perhaps something else?
Just webnesia I guess.
2013-01-23
Feeling guilty.
I fed the kids a Campbell's soup of pasta with tomato and cheese.
And it had HFCS in it. I was too lazy to give them much else (okay Campbell's Noodel-Os too)
I guess that makes me a bad parent. Bad in the sense that I'm really quite the hypocrite eh?
All this time ranting and raving about the dangers of HFCS and GMO, and yet I still fed it to them.
I guess I can take solace in the notion that my kids probably don't consume as much HFCS as other kids.
But still ... what was I not thinking?
Yeah, maintaining one's integrity is a bitch. It goes back to something I once heard from someone -
"Inconsistency is the surest sign of a double-standard."
And it had HFCS in it. I was too lazy to give them much else (okay Campbell's Noodel-Os too)
I guess that makes me a bad parent. Bad in the sense that I'm really quite the hypocrite eh?
All this time ranting and raving about the dangers of HFCS and GMO, and yet I still fed it to them.
I guess I can take solace in the notion that my kids probably don't consume as much HFCS as other kids.
But still ... what was I not thinking?
Yeah, maintaining one's integrity is a bitch. It goes back to something I once heard from someone -
"Inconsistency is the surest sign of a double-standard."
2013-01-22
Overheard on a bus - 01-22-2013.
African-American female ranting on a phone to her mother about how someone needed to be fired, how they fired the last person, and how easy it would be to just tell the person not to come back.
And hey Mom, you need to listen (or so I'm paraphrasing). Unfortunately so did most people on the bus.
And hey Mom, you need to listen (or so I'm paraphrasing). Unfortunately so did most people on the bus.
2013-01-21
I know ... that post I said I was gonna do.
Some things I've been thinking about changing.
Originally when I started this blog, it was about ... well me.
That is, I didn't really put much thought into it other than it was about stuff going on in my life.
After awhile, it became something a bit different. It became about what fascinated and interested me about life itself.
And then it became some even more different.
It became about many of the causes and beliefs I hold and why I think it's important to discuss those things in a somewhat public format.
That was then, and how it's been.
Along the way ....
... I've gotten married, have a couple of kids, become more entrenched in the world of IT, made some strides in musical endeavors, gotten older, etc., ... well life really ...
... and this blog isn't what it was meant to be. Well that, and there are far many more and better up-to-date blogs of a political and progressive nature; at least better so than me. Don't get me wrong, there are a number of posts I'm proud of, and I stand by every post I've made along those lines.
But somehow ... I seem to have lost track of something.
So this year (2013), I'm going to see if I can bring the blog more in line with what I originally intended - random thoughts about culture, life, and other shit I can rant about.
Does this mean I'm completely abandoning all that I've done over the last few years? Perhaps so, but not completely (do I sound like the guy from Dodgeball?). It's just that not every post can (or should) be about something going wrong in the world or life, or humanity (now I'm sure I sound like an episode of Star Trek: The Next Generation). The reason for this are many-fold:
Along they way, I hope to also do some formatting and updates on the overall look of the blog. So expect that many things might turn into pages and so forth, along with other surprises. When and where those changes will happen is to be determined ...
Originally when I started this blog, it was about ... well me.
That is, I didn't really put much thought into it other than it was about stuff going on in my life.
After awhile, it became something a bit different. It became about what fascinated and interested me about life itself.
And then it became some even more different.
It became about many of the causes and beliefs I hold and why I think it's important to discuss those things in a somewhat public format.
That was then, and how it's been.
Along the way ....
... I've gotten married, have a couple of kids, become more entrenched in the world of IT, made some strides in musical endeavors, gotten older, etc., ... well life really ...
... and this blog isn't what it was meant to be. Well that, and there are far many more and better up-to-date blogs of a political and progressive nature; at least better so than me. Don't get me wrong, there are a number of posts I'm proud of, and I stand by every post I've made along those lines.
But somehow ... I seem to have lost track of something.
So this year (2013), I'm going to see if I can bring the blog more in line with what I originally intended - random thoughts about culture, life, and other shit I can rant about.
Does this mean I'm completely abandoning all that I've done over the last few years? Perhaps so, but not completely (do I sound like the guy from Dodgeball?). It's just that not every post can (or should) be about something going wrong in the world or life, or humanity (now I'm sure I sound like an episode of Star Trek: The Next Generation). The reason for this are many-fold:
- I'm lazy.
- I'm tired at the end of the day
- It's hard to post from the office.
- Technology has vastly changed since 2004, and I've not kept up.
- I've not mastered the ability to post from a mobile device.
- I'm superficial and self-centered.
- I'm a complete git.
- I've largely given up on the fact that humanity can really save itself from it's own destruction of the planet due to global warming; and have cognizant of the fact that my previous, current and subsequent generations are leaving behind a horrible world for our future generations.
- It's a lot of time and effort which is hard to do given all the things that have changed in my life.
- There are a ton of things I both want and need to do and I'm going to spend more time doing those things.
- Other things that are going on subconsciously.
- Every possible permutation of none of the above, and all of the above.
Along they way, I hope to also do some formatting and updates on the overall look of the blog. So expect that many things might turn into pages and so forth, along with other surprises. When and where those changes will happen is to be determined ...
2013-01-17
Ever have one of those days where ...
... you want the day to end, but you're not really ready?
I mean you're tired, you're sore, you're aching, and yet you feel like there is more you can do (no wait, more you should do)?
That's how I feel now.
I mean you're tired, you're sore, you're aching, and yet you feel like there is more you can do (no wait, more you should do)?
That's how I feel now.
2013-01-16
Quote of the day - 01-16-2013.
Jerry Weinberg - "You have to be willing to risk making a fool of yourself, otherwise you're sure to make a fool of yourself."
That may sound farfetched by itself, but let Jerry give you the rest to truly understand why I in fact agree.
http://secretsofconsulting.blogspot.com/2013/01/auld-lang-syne-by-gerald-m.html
That may sound farfetched by itself, but let Jerry give you the rest to truly understand why I in fact agree.
http://secretsofconsulting.blogspot.com/2013/01/auld-lang-syne-by-gerald-m.html
2013-01-15
I've said it before and will say it once again.
The American Right-Wing is the greatest threat to the survival of the planet. They stand in the way of progress being made to solving global warming.
A close second is the Israeli Right-Wing - http://www.thenation.com/article/172102/triumph-far-right-israel
"The rise of the hard right and the fragmentation of the left are not just isolated phenomena within the political system; they are the result of long-term demographic and social changes that have altered Israeli society in the past couple of decades. The Israel-born secular camp is shrinking, while the number of religious and ultra-Orthodox is on the rise. With immigrants from Russia supporting the right as well, the odds of a centrist candidate becoming prime minister are falling with every election. As a result, the settlers’ most important victories are taking place not on the ground in the West Bank, but within Israel’s institutions. "
Not a good sign. Reminds me a lot of what happened in the US, and what's currently going on in Canada.
A close second is the Israeli Right-Wing - http://www.thenation.com/article/172102/triumph-far-right-israel
"The rise of the hard right and the fragmentation of the left are not just isolated phenomena within the political system; they are the result of long-term demographic and social changes that have altered Israeli society in the past couple of decades. The Israel-born secular camp is shrinking, while the number of religious and ultra-Orthodox is on the rise. With immigrants from Russia supporting the right as well, the odds of a centrist candidate becoming prime minister are falling with every election. As a result, the settlers’ most important victories are taking place not on the ground in the West Bank, but within Israel’s institutions. "
Not a good sign. Reminds me a lot of what happened in the US, and what's currently going on in Canada.
2013-01-13
Hey Seattle Weekly ...
I don't object to the concept of genetic engineering in food. What I don't trust is these companies who are behind the technology and their inadequate testing of their products, which they then turn around and drop on the public. We then pay the price with our bodies.
Absent knowing how safe the food products they produce really are for my and my family's health and well-being, as a customer I have the right to know whether it was genetically-engineered before I pay for it.
I trust an initiative to have food products labelled as genetically engineered far more than I trust the food, chemical, drug, and agribusiness industries to say their products have been adequately tested and safe. It's in these companies' financial interests to get their products out to the public quickly in order to reap incredible billions of dollars, which is why a great many of them spent a great deal of cash to defeat the initiative in California last year. If their products really aren't a threat, where are the long-term studies and test results to validate that? Frankly if they are as safe as they claim, they should be able to provide the scientific analysis to back it up. It is because this isn't readily available that the public needs a way to know that this unknown is out there in their food supply.
I believe these companies truly fear such a label because 1) it would expose just truly prevalent GMO is in the American food supply, and 2) force the issue into the public about just how their bad their testing is, and how bad their safeguards really are.
It's quite frankly disturbing to see educational institutions and media outlets shilling for these various industries in this country, when other countries require such labelling.
Absent knowing how safe the food products they produce really are for my and my family's health and well-being, as a customer I have the right to know whether it was genetically-engineered before I pay for it.
I trust an initiative to have food products labelled as genetically engineered far more than I trust the food, chemical, drug, and agribusiness industries to say their products have been adequately tested and safe. It's in these companies' financial interests to get their products out to the public quickly in order to reap incredible billions of dollars, which is why a great many of them spent a great deal of cash to defeat the initiative in California last year. If their products really aren't a threat, where are the long-term studies and test results to validate that? Frankly if they are as safe as they claim, they should be able to provide the scientific analysis to back it up. It is because this isn't readily available that the public needs a way to know that this unknown is out there in their food supply.
I believe these companies truly fear such a label because 1) it would expose just truly prevalent GMO is in the American food supply, and 2) force the issue into the public about just how their bad their testing is, and how bad their safeguards really are.
It's quite frankly disturbing to see educational institutions and media outlets shilling for these various industries in this country, when other countries require such labelling.
2013-01-11
Going into the weekend ...
... and check this out ... one of my favorite twisted sites is back online.
http://www.awfulplasticsurgery.com/
Truly fucked up shit for sure.
http://www.awfulplasticsurgery.com/
Truly fucked up shit for sure.
2013-01-10
Ah the Onion .... humorous, intelligent, and making a point.
Pretty absurd eh? That's how I look upon the gun nuts.
http://www.theonion.com/articles/gorilla-sales-skyrocket-after-latest-gorilla-attac,30860/
News • animals • News • ISSUE 49•02 • Jan 10, 2013
SAN DIEGO—Following the events of last week, in which a crazed western lowland gorilla ruthlessly murdered 21 people in a local shopping plaza after escaping from the San Diego Zoo, sources across the country confirmed Thursday that national gorilla sales have since skyrocketed.
“After seeing yet another deranged gorilla just burst into a public place and start killing people, I decided I need to make sure something like that never happens to me,” said 34-year-old Atlanta resident Nick Keller, shortly after purchasing a 350-pound mountain gorilla from his local gorilla store. “It just gives me peace of mind knowing that if I’m ever in that situation, I won’t have to just watch helplessly as my torso is ripped in half and my face is chewed off. I’ll be able to use my gorilla to defend myself.”
http://www.theonion.com/articles/gorilla-sales-skyrocket-after-latest-gorilla-attac,30860/
Gorilla Sales Skyrocket After Latest Gorilla Attack
News • animals • News • ISSUE 49•02 • Jan 10, 2013
SAN DIEGO—Following the events of last week, in which a crazed western lowland gorilla ruthlessly murdered 21 people in a local shopping plaza after escaping from the San Diego Zoo, sources across the country confirmed Thursday that national gorilla sales have since skyrocketed.
“After seeing yet another deranged gorilla just burst into a public place and start killing people, I decided I need to make sure something like that never happens to me,” said 34-year-old Atlanta resident Nick Keller, shortly after purchasing a 350-pound mountain gorilla from his local gorilla store. “It just gives me peace of mind knowing that if I’m ever in that situation, I won’t have to just watch helplessly as my torso is ripped in half and my face is chewed off. I’ll be able to use my gorilla to defend myself.”
2013-01-09
The guy just knew .... and in honor of that ...
I hearby host those lyrics here today as a rather stark and grim reminder to myself on how my day and life has been up till now.
"Synchronicity II" (by Sting)
Another suburban family morning.
Grandmother screaming at the wall.
We have to shout above the din of our Rice Crispies
We can't hear anything at all.
Mother chants her litany of boredom and frustration,
But we know all her suicides are fake.
Daddy only stares into the distance
There's only so much more that he can take.
Many miles away something crawls from the slime
At the bottom of a dark Scottish lake.
Another industrial ugly morning
The factory belches filth into the sky.
He walks unhindered through the picket lines today,
He doesn't think to wonder why.
The secretaries pout and preen like cheap tarts in a red light street,
But all he ever thinks to do is watch.
And every single meeting with his so-called superior
Is a humiliating kick in the crotch.
Many miles away something crawls to the surface
Of a dark Scottish lake.
Another working day has ended.
Only the rush hour hell to face.
Packed like lemmings into shiny metal boxes.
Contestants in a suicidal race.
Daddy grips the wheel and stares alone into the distance,
He knows that something somewhere has to break.
He sees the family home now looming in the headlights,
the pain upstairs that makes his eyeballs ache.
Many miles away there's a shadow on the door
Of a cottage on the shore
Of a dark Scottish lake...............
My list of restaurants to avoid.
- Applebees
- Jimmy Johns
- Papa Johns
- Wendy's
- Five Guys
- Denny's
- Olive Garden
- Red Lobster
Granted in some of these cases it's the franchise restaurant and not the chain doing what they're doing. Knowing what I know about retail operations (even though franchise operations are a bit different), typically on the retail side, they don't operate too far outside the guidelines set by the corporations. The key measurable is financial performance. How they meet those numbers typically rests on the retail side provided they aren't breaking the law or doing anything unethical or attracts negative visibility.
2013-01-08
The reality we hardly notice.
http://my.firedoglake.com/tomengelhardt/2013/01/08/nick-turse-a-war-victims-question-only-you-can-answer/
If we only we could just imagine it -
If we only we could just imagine it -
Imagine a country in which your door might be kicked down in the dead of night by heavily-armed, foreign young men, in strange uniforms, helmets and imposing body armor, yelling things in a language you don’t understand. Imagine them rifling through your drawers, upending your furniture, holding you at gunpoint, roughing up your husband or son or brother, and marching him off in the middle of the night. Imagine, as well, a country in which those foreigners kill American “insurgents” and then routinely strip them naked; in which those occupying troops sometimes urinate on American bodies (and shoot videos of it); or take trophy photos of their “kills”; or mutilate them; or pose with the body parts of dead Americans; or from time to time — for reasons again beyond your comprehension — rape or murder your friends and neighbors.
Imagine, for a moment, violence so extreme that you and literally millions like you have to flee your hometowns for squalid refugee camps or expanding slums ringing the nearest cities. Imagine trading your home for a new one without heat or electricity, possibly made of refuse with a corrugated metal roof that roars when it rains. Then imagine living there for months, if not years.
Imagine things getting so bad that you decide to trek across the Mexican border to live an uncertain life, forever wondering if your new violence- and poverty-wracked host nation will turn you out or if you’ll ever be able to return to your home in the U.S. Imagine living with these realities day after day for up to decade.
2013-01-07
Quote of the day - 01-07-2013.
Thank you Mr. Lambert (http://sports.yahoo.com/blogs/nhl-puck-daddy/forgive-nhl-lockout-never-forget-happened-learned-153022672--nhl.html) -
"Never forget this was a lockout. Never forget this was put upon you and the players and the sport by the owners. Never forget the two biggest engines in all this weren't poor, put-upon teams in tough markets, but rather financial giants whose sole motivation was greed and the desire to squeeze just an extra dime or two out of every dollar spent. They certainly accomplished their goal."
"Never forget this was a lockout. Never forget this was put upon you and the players and the sport by the owners. Never forget the two biggest engines in all this weren't poor, put-upon teams in tough markets, but rather financial giants whose sole motivation was greed and the desire to squeeze just an extra dime or two out of every dollar spent. They certainly accomplished their goal."
Selecting an Image no longer works.
Every time I click the 'Insert Image' link, when trying to drop in a file the browser simply opens it.
How fucked up.
How fucked up.
2013-01-01
The American Empire - the meeting of the Establishment, the Military and Government (i.e. The Iron Triangle comes alive).
The confirmation from 20+ years ago
Producing the Proper Crisis
Note the reference to Harry Truman.
" In 1950 the Truman administration adopted a program to vastly expand the U.S. and West European military services under a National Security Council document called NSC-68. This document was Top Secret for 25 years and, by error, it was released in 1975 and published. The purpose of military expansion under NSC-68 was to reverse the economic slide that began with the end of World War II wherein during five years the U.S. GNP had declined 209S and unemployment had risen from 700,000 to 4.7 million. U.S. exports, despite the subsidy program known as the Marshall Plan, were inadequate to sustain the economy, and remilitarization of Westem Europe would allow transfer of dollars, under so-called defense support grants, that would in turn generate European imports from the U.S. As NSC-68 put the situation in early 1950:
The solution adopted was expansion of the military. But support in Congress and the public at large was lacking for a variety of reasons, not least the increased taxes the programs would require. So Truman's State Department, under Dean Acheson, set out to sell the so-called Communist Threat as justification, through a fear campaign in the media that would create a permanent war atmosphere. But a domestic media campaign was not enough. A real crisis was needed, and it came in Korea. Joyce and Gabriel Kolko, in their history of the 1945-55 period, The Limits of Power, show that the Truman administration manipulated this crisis to overcome resistance to military build-up and a review of those events shows striking parallels to the Persian Gulf crisis of 1990. Korea at the end of World War II had been divided north-south along the 38th parallel by the U.S. and the Soviets. But years of on-again, off-again conflict continued: first between revolutionary forces in the south and U.S. occupation forces, then between the respective states established first by the U.S. in the south and then by the Soviets in the north. Both states threatened to reunify the country by force, and border incursions with heavy fighting by military forces were common. In June 1950, communist North Korean military forces moved across the border toward Seoul, the South Korean capital At the time, the North Korean move was called "naked aggression," but I.F. Stone made a convincing case, in his Hidden History of the Korean War, that the invasion was provoked by South Korea and Taiwan, another U.S. client regime. For a month South Korean forces retreated practically without fighting, in effect inviting the North Koreans to follow them south. Meanwhile Truman rushed in U.S. military forces under a United Nations command, and he made a dramatic appeal to Congress for an additional $10 billion beyond requirements for Korea, for U.S. and European military expansion. Congress refused. Truman then made a fateful decision. In September 1950, about three months after the conflict began, U.S., South Korean, and token forces from other countries, under the United Nations banner, began to push back the North Koreans. Within three weeks the North Koreans had been pushed north to the border, the 38th parallel, in defeat. That would have been the end of the matter, at least the military action, if the U.S. had accepted a Soviet UN resolution for a cease-fire and UN-supervised country-wide elections. Truman, however, needed to prolong the crisis in order to overcome congressional and public resistance to his plans for U.S. and European rearmament. Although the UN resolution under which U.S. forces were fighting called only for "repelling" aggression from the north, Truman had another plan. In early October U.S. and South Korean forces crossed the 38th parallel heading north, and rapidly advanced toward the Yalu River, North Korea's border with China where only the year before the communists had defeated the U.S.-backed Kuomintang regime. The Chinese communist government threatened to intervene, but Truman had decided to overthrow the communist government in North Korea and unite the country under the anti-Communist South Korean dictatorship. As predicted, the Chinese entered the war in November and forced the U.S. and its allies to retreat once again southward. The following month, with the media full of stories and pictures of American soldiers retreating through snow and ice before hordes of advancing Chinese troops, Truman went on national radio, declared a state of national emergency, and said what Bush's remarks about "our way of life" at state recalled. Truman mustered all the hype and emotion he could, and said: "Our homes, our nation, all the things that we believe in, are in great danger. This danger has been created by the rulers of the Soviet Union." He also called again for massive increases in military spending for U.S. and European forces, apart from needs in Korea. Of course, there was no threat of war with the Soviet Union at all. Truman attributed the Korean situation to the Russians in order to create emotional hysteria, a false threat, and to get the leverage over Congress needed for approval of the huge amounts of money that Congress had refused. As we know, Truman's deceit worked. Congress went along in its so-called bi-partisan spirit, like the sheep in the same offices today. The U.S. military budget more than tripled from $13 billion in 1950 to $44 billion in 1952, while U.S. military forces doubled to 3.6 million. The Korean War continued for three more years, after it could have ended, with the final casualty count in the millions, including 34,000 U.S. dead and more than 100,000 wounded. But in the United States, Korea made the permanent war economy a reality, and we have lived with it for 40 years. "
And now from today -
How America Became an Empire
Note the reference to Truman again -
"When Roosevelt died, Truman felt overwhelmed, since he had only been VP for three months. Because Roosevelt had been ill during those months, the two men did not see each other very much.
The Hardliners Emerge
Once Roosevelt was dead, the hardliners on the Russia issue took over, including Secretary of State James F. Byrnes, Navy Secretary James Forrestal, Gen. Leslie Groves, and Churchill.
Truman began to favor Churchill and England in the allied relationship, something Roosevelt tried to avoid. (Stone and Kuznick, p. 182) Byrnes, a South Carolina politician with little foreign experience, told Russian Foreign Minister V. H. Molotov that Truman planned on using the atomic bomb to get the USSR to comply with American demands on post-war behavior. (ibid. p. 184)
Wallace, who stayed on as Secretary of Commerce, was being marginalized. Truman nominated financier Bernard Baruch to head the Atomic Energy Commission, which oversaw development of nuclear strategy. Baruch laid down terms that all but eliminated the Soviets from joining in the effort.
Finally, Truman invited Churchill to America to make his famous “Iron Curtain” speech in March 1946. As the authors note, it was that militant, bellicose speech which “delivered a sharp, perhaps fatal blow to any prospects for post-war comity.” (p. 191)
A few months later, Henry Wallace tried to counter the sharpness of Churchill’s speech at Madison Square Garden. There, appearing with Paul Robeson and Claude Pepper, Wallace pleaded for a foreign policy that tried to understand the fears of Russia, that tried to meet her halfway. After all, he argued, Russia had been invaded twice by Germany in less than 30 years and had suffered over 20 million dead by the blitzkrieg alone.
Wallace also asked that America not follow the British imperial model in the developing world. And he added that the proper body to have far-flung foreign bases around the world was the United Nations, not the United States. (p. 201)
The speech was sharply criticized in the mainstream press as being a straight right cross to the chin of Byrnes. Even though Truman had read the speech in advance, he fired Wallace, thus eliminating one of the few remaining voices for a more conciliatory approach toward the Soviet Union. (Pgs. 202-04)
The ouster of Wallace also was the death knell for any hope that FDR’s more balanced strategy toward the World War II alliance would survive into the post-war era. The same month of Wallace’s speech, Elliot Roosevelt published an article in Look detailing how Truman and Churchill had derailed his father’s plans for peace after the war. (ibid, p. 200) Churchill feared Wallace so much that he placed spies around him. (p. 138)
This aspect of the Stone-Kuznick book directly ties into the decision to use the atomic bomb. The first point to recall is one that is mentioned by the authors in passing, that the Germans had abandoned their atomic bomb research. Yet, that research was the reason that FDR approved the Manhattan Project in the first place. (p. 134)
Therefore, by the time frame of 1944-45, when the testing of this devastating new weapon was approaching, the reason d’être for the bomb – to serve as a deterrent to a German bomb – had disappeared. But Truman still used it on the remaining Axis Power belligerent, Japan.
Why Hiroshima and Nagasaki?
The question has always been: Was it necessary to use the bomb to induce Japan into surrendering? Or were diplomacy and a second-front invasion by Russia in 1945 enough to get a surrender without either the bomb or an American invasion? (A particularly good polemic against using the bomb is the late Stewart Udall’s The Myths of August.)
Soviet leader Josef Stalin had promised Roosevelt that he would open up a second front against Japan three months after Germany was defeated – and Stalin kept his promise. On Aug. 8 – two days after the first U.S. atomic bomb was dropped on Hiroshima and one day before the second bomb destroyed Nagasaki – the Soviets launched a three-pronged invasion of Japanese-held Manchuria.
The Soviet invasion was so successful that the Manchurian emperor was captured, and the offensive spread to Korea, Sakhalin Island and the Kuril Islands. Stone and Kuznick note that Japan, which had already suffered devastating fire-bombings of major cities, seemed less concerned about the destruction of Hiroshima and Nagasaki than the dramatic loss of territory to an old enemy, the Russians. Emperor Hirohito announced Japan’s surrender on Aug. 15, after the Russian offensive had secured Manchuria.
The book also notes that in the war’s final months, the hardliners in Truman’s administration, like Byrnes, insisted on an “unconditional surrender” by Japan. To the Japanese, this meant the emperor had to go and that Japanese society would have to be completely restructured.
Yet, there were voices outside the White House, like Gen. Douglas MacArthur, who advised Truman to let the Japanese keep the emperor in order to make it easier for them to surrender. MacArthur was confident that maintaining the emperor would be a help and not a hindrance to rebuilding the country.
The irony of this protracted argument is that, after Hirohito’s announcement of surrender, the allies did let the emperor stay. And he reigned until his death in 1989. Indeed, Hirohito had been looking for a way to surrender since June 1945.
Today it seems fairly clear that the combination of the Soviet invasion and an altering of the unconditional surrender terms could have avoided the hundreds of thousands of deaths and maimings brought on by the two atomic bombs, and perhaps stopped the dawn of the atomic age."
I disagree with that last sentence. I think getting the Russians to start building atomic weapons was by-design. They wanted a crisis, to justify building of the arms and all military expansion.
Producing the Proper Crisis
Note the reference to Harry Truman.
" In 1950 the Truman administration adopted a program to vastly expand the U.S. and West European military services under a National Security Council document called NSC-68. This document was Top Secret for 25 years and, by error, it was released in 1975 and published. The purpose of military expansion under NSC-68 was to reverse the economic slide that began with the end of World War II wherein during five years the U.S. GNP had declined 209S and unemployment had risen from 700,000 to 4.7 million. U.S. exports, despite the subsidy program known as the Marshall Plan, were inadequate to sustain the economy, and remilitarization of Westem Europe would allow transfer of dollars, under so-called defense support grants, that would in turn generate European imports from the U.S. As NSC-68 put the situation in early 1950:
"the United States and other free nations will within a period of a few years at most experience a decline in economic activity of serious proportions unless more positive governmental programs are developed ..."
The solution adopted was expansion of the military. But support in Congress and the public at large was lacking for a variety of reasons, not least the increased taxes the programs would require. So Truman's State Department, under Dean Acheson, set out to sell the so-called Communist Threat as justification, through a fear campaign in the media that would create a permanent war atmosphere. But a domestic media campaign was not enough. A real crisis was needed, and it came in Korea. Joyce and Gabriel Kolko, in their history of the 1945-55 period, The Limits of Power, show that the Truman administration manipulated this crisis to overcome resistance to military build-up and a review of those events shows striking parallels to the Persian Gulf crisis of 1990. Korea at the end of World War II had been divided north-south along the 38th parallel by the U.S. and the Soviets. But years of on-again, off-again conflict continued: first between revolutionary forces in the south and U.S. occupation forces, then between the respective states established first by the U.S. in the south and then by the Soviets in the north. Both states threatened to reunify the country by force, and border incursions with heavy fighting by military forces were common. In June 1950, communist North Korean military forces moved across the border toward Seoul, the South Korean capital At the time, the North Korean move was called "naked aggression," but I.F. Stone made a convincing case, in his Hidden History of the Korean War, that the invasion was provoked by South Korea and Taiwan, another U.S. client regime. For a month South Korean forces retreated practically without fighting, in effect inviting the North Koreans to follow them south. Meanwhile Truman rushed in U.S. military forces under a United Nations command, and he made a dramatic appeal to Congress for an additional $10 billion beyond requirements for Korea, for U.S. and European military expansion. Congress refused. Truman then made a fateful decision. In September 1950, about three months after the conflict began, U.S., South Korean, and token forces from other countries, under the United Nations banner, began to push back the North Koreans. Within three weeks the North Koreans had been pushed north to the border, the 38th parallel, in defeat. That would have been the end of the matter, at least the military action, if the U.S. had accepted a Soviet UN resolution for a cease-fire and UN-supervised country-wide elections. Truman, however, needed to prolong the crisis in order to overcome congressional and public resistance to his plans for U.S. and European rearmament. Although the UN resolution under which U.S. forces were fighting called only for "repelling" aggression from the north, Truman had another plan. In early October U.S. and South Korean forces crossed the 38th parallel heading north, and rapidly advanced toward the Yalu River, North Korea's border with China where only the year before the communists had defeated the U.S.-backed Kuomintang regime. The Chinese communist government threatened to intervene, but Truman had decided to overthrow the communist government in North Korea and unite the country under the anti-Communist South Korean dictatorship. As predicted, the Chinese entered the war in November and forced the U.S. and its allies to retreat once again southward. The following month, with the media full of stories and pictures of American soldiers retreating through snow and ice before hordes of advancing Chinese troops, Truman went on national radio, declared a state of national emergency, and said what Bush's remarks about "our way of life" at state recalled. Truman mustered all the hype and emotion he could, and said: "Our homes, our nation, all the things that we believe in, are in great danger. This danger has been created by the rulers of the Soviet Union." He also called again for massive increases in military spending for U.S. and European forces, apart from needs in Korea. Of course, there was no threat of war with the Soviet Union at all. Truman attributed the Korean situation to the Russians in order to create emotional hysteria, a false threat, and to get the leverage over Congress needed for approval of the huge amounts of money that Congress had refused. As we know, Truman's deceit worked. Congress went along in its so-called bi-partisan spirit, like the sheep in the same offices today. The U.S. military budget more than tripled from $13 billion in 1950 to $44 billion in 1952, while U.S. military forces doubled to 3.6 million. The Korean War continued for three more years, after it could have ended, with the final casualty count in the millions, including 34,000 U.S. dead and more than 100,000 wounded. But in the United States, Korea made the permanent war economy a reality, and we have lived with it for 40 years. "
And now from today -
How America Became an Empire
Note the reference to Truman again -
"When Roosevelt died, Truman felt overwhelmed, since he had only been VP for three months. Because Roosevelt had been ill during those months, the two men did not see each other very much.
The Hardliners Emerge
Once Roosevelt was dead, the hardliners on the Russia issue took over, including Secretary of State James F. Byrnes, Navy Secretary James Forrestal, Gen. Leslie Groves, and Churchill.
Truman began to favor Churchill and England in the allied relationship, something Roosevelt tried to avoid. (Stone and Kuznick, p. 182) Byrnes, a South Carolina politician with little foreign experience, told Russian Foreign Minister V. H. Molotov that Truman planned on using the atomic bomb to get the USSR to comply with American demands on post-war behavior. (ibid. p. 184)
Wallace, who stayed on as Secretary of Commerce, was being marginalized. Truman nominated financier Bernard Baruch to head the Atomic Energy Commission, which oversaw development of nuclear strategy. Baruch laid down terms that all but eliminated the Soviets from joining in the effort.
Finally, Truman invited Churchill to America to make his famous “Iron Curtain” speech in March 1946. As the authors note, it was that militant, bellicose speech which “delivered a sharp, perhaps fatal blow to any prospects for post-war comity.” (p. 191)
A few months later, Henry Wallace tried to counter the sharpness of Churchill’s speech at Madison Square Garden. There, appearing with Paul Robeson and Claude Pepper, Wallace pleaded for a foreign policy that tried to understand the fears of Russia, that tried to meet her halfway. After all, he argued, Russia had been invaded twice by Germany in less than 30 years and had suffered over 20 million dead by the blitzkrieg alone.
Wallace also asked that America not follow the British imperial model in the developing world. And he added that the proper body to have far-flung foreign bases around the world was the United Nations, not the United States. (p. 201)
The speech was sharply criticized in the mainstream press as being a straight right cross to the chin of Byrnes. Even though Truman had read the speech in advance, he fired Wallace, thus eliminating one of the few remaining voices for a more conciliatory approach toward the Soviet Union. (Pgs. 202-04)
The ouster of Wallace also was the death knell for any hope that FDR’s more balanced strategy toward the World War II alliance would survive into the post-war era. The same month of Wallace’s speech, Elliot Roosevelt published an article in Look detailing how Truman and Churchill had derailed his father’s plans for peace after the war. (ibid, p. 200) Churchill feared Wallace so much that he placed spies around him. (p. 138)
This aspect of the Stone-Kuznick book directly ties into the decision to use the atomic bomb. The first point to recall is one that is mentioned by the authors in passing, that the Germans had abandoned their atomic bomb research. Yet, that research was the reason that FDR approved the Manhattan Project in the first place. (p. 134)
Therefore, by the time frame of 1944-45, when the testing of this devastating new weapon was approaching, the reason d’être for the bomb – to serve as a deterrent to a German bomb – had disappeared. But Truman still used it on the remaining Axis Power belligerent, Japan.
Why Hiroshima and Nagasaki?
The question has always been: Was it necessary to use the bomb to induce Japan into surrendering? Or were diplomacy and a second-front invasion by Russia in 1945 enough to get a surrender without either the bomb or an American invasion? (A particularly good polemic against using the bomb is the late Stewart Udall’s The Myths of August.)
Soviet leader Josef Stalin had promised Roosevelt that he would open up a second front against Japan three months after Germany was defeated – and Stalin kept his promise. On Aug. 8 – two days after the first U.S. atomic bomb was dropped on Hiroshima and one day before the second bomb destroyed Nagasaki – the Soviets launched a three-pronged invasion of Japanese-held Manchuria.
The Soviet invasion was so successful that the Manchurian emperor was captured, and the offensive spread to Korea, Sakhalin Island and the Kuril Islands. Stone and Kuznick note that Japan, which had already suffered devastating fire-bombings of major cities, seemed less concerned about the destruction of Hiroshima and Nagasaki than the dramatic loss of territory to an old enemy, the Russians. Emperor Hirohito announced Japan’s surrender on Aug. 15, after the Russian offensive had secured Manchuria.
The book also notes that in the war’s final months, the hardliners in Truman’s administration, like Byrnes, insisted on an “unconditional surrender” by Japan. To the Japanese, this meant the emperor had to go and that Japanese society would have to be completely restructured.
Yet, there were voices outside the White House, like Gen. Douglas MacArthur, who advised Truman to let the Japanese keep the emperor in order to make it easier for them to surrender. MacArthur was confident that maintaining the emperor would be a help and not a hindrance to rebuilding the country.
The irony of this protracted argument is that, after Hirohito’s announcement of surrender, the allies did let the emperor stay. And he reigned until his death in 1989. Indeed, Hirohito had been looking for a way to surrender since June 1945.
Today it seems fairly clear that the combination of the Soviet invasion and an altering of the unconditional surrender terms could have avoided the hundreds of thousands of deaths and maimings brought on by the two atomic bombs, and perhaps stopped the dawn of the atomic age."
I disagree with that last sentence. I think getting the Russians to start building atomic weapons was by-design. They wanted a crisis, to justify building of the arms and all military expansion.
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