Benjamin Wallace: Does happiness have a price tag?

TED               top
Can happiness be bought? To find out, author Benjamin Wallace sampled the world’s most expensive products, including a bottle of 1947 Chateau Cheval Blanc, 8 ounces of Kobe beef and the fabled (notorious) Kopi Luwak coffee. His critique may surprise you.

Streisand: Principles, My Ass, You Fucking Hypocritical Douchebag

Maryscott O’Connor • My Left Wing                        jump to most recent post

I don’t know why so many people — INCLUDING, it seems, BARBRA FUCKING STREISAND — seem to have forgotten that George W. Bush is responsible for the indescribable misery — joblessness, poverty, orphaning, maiming, death — of countless millions.

He is a LIAR. He is a MURDERER. He is a WAR CRIMINAL.

And Barbra Streisand KISSES this douchebag? She eats DINNER with him?

This would be like Jane Fonda kissing Richard Nixon circa 1972. I don’t know why more people aren’t holding La Streisand’s feet to the fucking fire over this, but I, for one, am thoroughly disgusted with this self-righteous asshole.

GEMINI JIVE • The Hurry-Up-and-Bail-Me-Out-or-Else Blues

Maralyn Lois Polak   • Operation Itch Contributor        © 2008 ML Polak

I don’t know about you, but, like our formerly great nation, lately I’ve been experiencing a few horrific money problems of my own, too. Following the reported example of our president-elect, I’ve even developed a persistent facial twitch. Yes, I’m definitely concerned. Not only that, my stress level has escalated exponentially into overwhelm – every time the mailman comes, I get hives.

So I’ve been thinking. Wouldn’t it be fabulous if we could ALL get a Federal Bailout? Financial forgiveness for every American? I don’t mean just those Big-Butt Corporations or Fat-Cat Car-Makers. Bleep them! Where do you draw the line? I mean us, the everyday long-suffering citizens of this country. The workers and peasants! We’re the ones who need it. If not, all this fiscal-rescue stuff stinks. Heck, that’s not Socialism — it’s Favoritism– which is definitely Un-American!

Michael Moore: Save the Auto Industry and Kick Its CEOs to the Curb

Michael Moore • MichaelMoore.com
I drive an American car. It’s a Chrysler. That’s not an endorsement. It’s more like a cry for pity. And now for a decades-old story, retold ad infinitum by tens of millions of Americans, a third of whom have had to desert their country to simply find a damn way to get to work in something that won’t break down:

My Chrysler is four years old. I bought it because of its smooth and comfortable ride. Daimler-Benz AG owned the company then and had the good grace to place the Chrysler chassis on a Mercedes axle and, man, was that a sweet ride!

When it would start.

More than a dozen times in these years, the car has simply died. Batteries have been replaced, but that wasn’t the problem. My dad drives the same model. His car has died many times, too. Just won’t start, for no reason at all.

A few weeks ago, I took my Chrysler in to the Chrysler dealer here in northern Michigan — and the latest fixes cost me $1,400. The next day, the vehicle wouldn’t start. When I got it going, the brake-warning light came on. And on and on.

Philip Rosedale: Second Life, where anything is possible

From TED TALKS
Why build a virtual world? Philip Rosedale talks about the virtual society he founded, Second Life, and its underpinnings in human creativity. It’s a place so different that anything could happen.

Lebowski’s Libation –

FROM nytimes.com/video
Lebowskifest celebrates all things related to the movie “The Big Lebowski” — the Dude, bowling and, most importantly, drinking White Russians

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Calling all video creators, writers & bloggers

Operation Itch is on hiatus until after the Thanksgiving holiday. In early December, there are going to be some changes around here.  In the meantime, I am recruiting a collective of writers & video creators. Interested? Read more here.

ONE MAN, EVEN THE PRESIDENT, CAN’T DO ANYTHING BY HIMSELF

by Dennis Trainor, Jr

The election of Barack Obama is a moment of undeniable power and significance. A nation built on the backs of slaves, a nation that- two generations ago, forced African Americans to use separate water fountains- not only elected an African American to the highest office in the land, but we have done so with the zealous fanfare that calls to mind the adulation lavished on the Beatles and the Kennedys.

I was in the streets of Washington DC on election night soaking in the atmosphere and talking to people. One woman, an African American in her 30’s, told me that she had never felt like she belonged. In her entire life she said, she had always felt like an outsider. “Until right now.”  I soaked that in as much as I could. Then she got into her 2008 Mercedes Benz, gave me a “god bless” and a pulled into the traffic on 14th street, joining the parade of cars with beeping horns and rhapsodic torso’s thrusting out of windows and sunroofs and screaming into the night.

Clearly these people were not wearing their seat belts. Ralph Nader would be horrified.

A few minutes later I spoke with another African American – a homeless man who was waiting for me as I parked my car in the street.  Willie, of course, was just after asking me for some money, but wanted a little conversation first. He was already setting the bar low for Obama: “One man, even the president, can’t do anything by himself”, he said. Even so, the smile on Willie’s face and the spring in his step nearly brought me to tears.

I said that one man, if he is the president, can – and has- take us to war.

But Willie was more concerned about domestic issues. “Poverty is not going anywhere, it is just gonna get worse.” Yes, he was obviously angling for some cash- and I gave him some. I almost made a joke about wealth redistribution as I took out what I thought was 3 bucks from my pocket, but (doh!) turned out to be a single wrapped around two twenty dollar bills. So Willie got $41 bucks from me.

Several forces collided in this election. A nation horrified into paralysis and embarrassment by the Bush administration, a country desperate- and ready- to wrestle the monkey of white guilt off of its back and smooth the scars of slavery and racism meet head on with the undeniably transformational figure of Barrack Obama. His ability as an orator to inspire hope is a rare gift. We could, and have many times in the past, settled for much less in a president.

But we also live in a time where marketing holds more sway over our lives than most of us will readily admit. For instance, and speaking of water fountains- in a land where the tap water would be the envy of most people in the world, we willingly pay more for a gallon of bottled water than we do for a gallon of gas. Marketing. Show business.

The presidential election was decided in this context, and Obama’s campaign will go down in history as a masterstroke of marketing. Show biz. In selling us change, the Obama campaign (with the cooperation of most major media outlets) was successful in getting most of us to suspend our critical thinking. Note that Chris Matthews of Hardball said on election night that it was his job to make sure the Obama presidency goes smoothly. A journalist with a news desk granted a major mouthpiece by MSNBC was comfortable enough to actually say this.

Now that we have bought the product of an Obama nation, we will spend the coming months opening the pretty package.  What will be inside?

In an ideal world, the American citizens, living as we do in a representative democracy, will (at least in part) get to fill up that package. By holding our elected officials accountable, particularly those members of congress who hold just as much constitutional power as the president, we can create the future.

Am I naïve enough to think that we live in an ideal world? My president elect is asking me to dream big. In Grant Park on election night Obama presented himself as proof that a government of the people by the people and for the people has not perished from the earth.

Now that Obama is elected, it is time for those of you who have been silent- those of you who want a shift away from the imperial, unilateral, bush doctrine foreign policy; those of you who want a single payer health care system, among many other things, to wake up. Making demands, actively shaping the change that Obama promises, that is the role that citizens play in this little pageant. Failure to play that role, to sit back uncritically and wait and see what a Washington DC controlled by the Democrats in the executive and legislative branch will do, cedes power to those who will not wait. Namely it cedes power to corporate interests. For all of your 5 and 10 dollar campaign donations it was Wall street that funded the Obama machine- and they will not will not sit passively back to “wait and see.”

Inauguration day is too late to mobilize.  The 1/20/09 bumper stickers have lulled us into a state of passivity worthy of sheep, not the energized and active electorate required to uphold our end of the promise of a government of for and by the people.

Contact your elected officials. Join congressional watchdog groups like NOVEMBER5.ORG.  Work with the Democratic majority. Making demands of the incoming administration and congress is not the same as making attacks.

“One man, even the president, can’t do anything by himself”, Willie said.

Well said, Willie. A sentiment worth much more than the $41 I paid for it.

Dennis Trainor, Jr is the writer & performer of “The Hermit With Davis Fleetwood”

US elections- Is the fox guarding the henhouse?

Spencer Overton: Claims about fraud will block thousands of innocent voters

from THE REAL NEWS NETWORK

Too Much Sex And Profanity In The HBO Presidential Debate?

ACORN’s Money Tree Has Many Branches

TRUTHDIG/ By Will Evans, Center for Investigative Reporting

(The Secret Money blogis a joint project of the Center for Investigative Reportingand National Public Radio.)

Conservatives are on the march against the community organization ACORN, accusing its massive voter registration effort of fraud and faulting Obama for having any connections to the group. As we reported this morning, ACORN doesn’t necessarily mind the attention. 

But what exactly is ACORN? Actually, it’s many, many things. The Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now has dozens of affiliated entities, from a home-buying assistance corporation to community radio stations to liberal research and training institutes. The giant web of ACORN organizations, primarily based in Louisiana, has been funded by a mix of labor union money, government grants (which really drive conservatives crazy) and charitable contributions from large foundations. See below for a breakdown of funding sources. 

Plus, Project Vote—the voter mobilization organization that works closely with and draws its leadershipfrom ACORN—paid ACORN and an affiliate $5.4 million in 2006. But where does Project Vote get its money? Normally it’s hard to tell, but we obtained a 2006 tax return showing the nonprofit’s funders, including: $4.5 million from the charitable trust of the investment management firm Vanguard; $425,000 from the Bauman Family Foundation, which also gives to the League of Conservation Voters and People for the American Way; and $396,000 from the liberal phone company Working Assets.  

Stop Being a Narcissist — It’s Time to Quit Facebook

By Carmen Joy King, Adbusters

In march, at the peak of Facebook popularity, I quit. with four swift clicks of the mouse, I canceled my account. Gone was the entire online persona I had created for myself — profile pictures, interests and activities, work history, friends acquired — all carefully thought out to showcase to the world the very best version of me, all now deleted.

The Shock Doctrine by Alfonso Cuarón and Naomi Klein

DIRECTED BY JONÁS CUARÓN. Alfonso Cuarón, director of “Children of Men”, and Naomi Klein, author of “No Logo”, present a short film from Klein’s book “The Shock Doctrine: The Rise of Disaster Capitalism.” http://www.shockdoctrine.com

More in NEWS

They’re Stealing from You and Me — Where’s the Outrage?

By Garrison Keillor, International Herald Tribune

Where were the cops?

It’s just human nature that some calamities register in the brain and others don’t. The train engineer texting at the throttle (“HOW R U? C U L8R”) and missing the red light and 25 people die in the crash — oh God, that is way too real — everyone has had a moment of supreme stupidity that came close to killing somebody. Even atheists say a little prayer now and then: Dear God, I am an idiot, thank you for protecting my children.

It is not just a Beatles song….

Today actually IS my birthday. Thanks to everyone for the support & well wishes. Wanna bail me out? I don’t need 700 billion of anything, but I’m well equipped to accept your well wishes in the form of a donation. See the handy dandy button below. See you on Monday.

This is viewer supported Political Action Entertainment. Whatever the F&^K that is!
Thank You for the support.

Operation Itch produces The Hermit with Davis Fleetwood with viewer support. Your donations support this site. Enjoy the videos? Consider a donation. Thank you- D

WEAR YO’ POLITICS! POLITICAL ADS 

the cock and the bull #1

PROUST QUESTIONNAIRE: GEORGE W. BUSH

Forty years after George Bush was head of the cheerleading squad at Phillips Andover, and almost seven years after jumpstarting the rhapsodic “Apocalypse of the theologian” as described in the Book of Revelations, George Bush is coasting across the finish line of his second term with a grin on his face.

Below the fold, the forty-third President of the United States of America, with the wax imprint of his mark on history still undefined, talks about Skull and Bones, Steve Perry, and the SAT’s failure to measure multiple intelligences.

The Scratch. 29 september

Is it possible that in this historic election that the first debate featuring McBama was actually overshadowed by other news? As lawmakers prepare to vote on the $700 billion dollar bailout (and McCain maneuvers to take the credit), the House approves a trillion dollars in spending- not for the bailout, but to expand the empire.

A few people actually put their money where their mouth is, so to speak, when it comes to speaking out against the war, but most people just can’t spare a bowel movement. Others, exhausted by the marathon election cycle (I mean- I stopped working for Kucinich when his campaign shut down- 9 months ago!) have finally reached the breaking point and will go to any length not to discuss politics.

Al-Queda is not going anywhere, GWB is singing his swan song, and the GOP may have to fire this bitch soon, if stuff like this keeps popping up.

I’d say the next month is going to be pretty wild. Hold onto your hat as The Hermit breaks it all down for you.
FREE ISRAEL. FUCK PALESTINE! 

If you have got what it take to wear this in public- I want pictures. 

Operation Itch produces The Hermit with Davis Fleetwood with viewer support. Your donations support this site. Enjoy the videos? Consider a donation. Thank you- D

 WEAR YO’ POLITICS!    POLITICAL ADS   NETWORK  MORE HERMIT

George W Bush “MY WAY”

From Rx2008 - another great crashup

Arrested at the RNC

Thanks REAL NEWS

Amy Goodman talks about being detained at the RNC

Inside story- Gaza blockade- 24 Aug 08- Part 1

From ALJAZEERA:  Activits arrive in the Gaza strip to stress the plight of the people in that area. Inside story asks: Is this another failed attempt or the beginning of a process to end the siege?