I’m not one to reference positively the works of Ayn Rand…

… Indeed, I’m one to knock Ayn Rand…

but, there is something a little bit “Atlas Shrugged” about this:

State Tells Stores to Toss Old Water Bottles to Comply With Bottle Bill

The Legislature’s first expansion of Oregon’s storied 1971 bottle bill requires that all plastic water bottles be marked for a nickel deposit beginning Jan. 1.  But many stores continue to sell unmarked bottles, state regulators said Wednesday.   That means shoppers could pay their nickel deposit — checkout scanners don’t distinguish between marked and unmarked bottles — then have their refund refused. […]

The law does not require retailers to redeem them. However, manufacturers must properly label bottles and stores must clear their shelves of unmarked bottles. The OLCC, which enforces the bottle bill, could levy misdemeanor charges or suspend liquor licenses for violations.

Granted, the idea of bottle water is largely laughable, but it seems like a waste of perfectly good water.  Then again, maybe it’s no different than Farm Policy of paying to not grow such and such a crop or to destroy such and such a crop.

Ordinarily Bobby Wolff goes in for a sort of Bridge Beat poetry, but here I think it’s more along the line of hard-boiled noir, tapping the spirit of Mickey Spillane.

It was easy for the South American declarer, Gonzalo Goded, who played the hand as North on a club lead and won to play on trumps, to take a painless 11 tricks.

In the other room it was South who declared the hand after a Stayman auction. When Diego Brenner led the heart queen, declarer took it in hand and finessed in spades. East won cheaply and played back a low heart. Declarer rose with the heart king to avoid any accidents … oops. West ruffed, and back came a club. Declarer appeared to be out of danger, but appearances can be deceptive. […]
This was one of the unluckier pieces of declarer play we’ve seen in a while. But note that if declarer had simply unblocked diamonds at trick two, he might have succeeded, even though that would then have required him to play trumps from dummy. But maybe that is the correct line. It is easy to be wise after the event!
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From the Korean Central News Agency of DPRK comes word that…

The Korean people, who have achieved only victory and glory with the great tradition of the revolutionary upsurge, will create a new history of upsurge in the 21st century by giving full play to their infinite spiritual power and the superiority of the socialist self-reliant economy, under the militant slogan “Make the fullest development of Songun Korea by inheriting the great tradition of revolutionary upswing!”
My Imperialist American mind can not quite comprehend the glorys of the Hermit Kingdom, though it appears 2009 will be quite a year.:

On receiving the news that General Secretary Kim Jong Il kindled the torch of a new revolutionary upsurge in Kangson on December 24 last year, they are filled with firm conviction and enthusiasm to make a historic leap in all fields of the revolution and construction this year.

President Kim Il Sung, who called on the workers of Kangson in the crucial postwar period, earnestly appealed to them to bridge over the difficulties of the revolution, saying that he believed in them and they trusted him, and thus brought about a great Chollima upsurge.

The DPRK, racing at the speed of Chollima from the historic time, has turned into a powerful country, independent in politics, self-supporting in the economy and self-reliant in defence, and adorned the heyday of socialism with proud achievements.
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And finally, today’s Ziggy is a real pick me up:

Naturally the woman behind the counter appears to be having great jollies at mocking Ziggy.  But, as the appeal goes… Poor Ziggy. He’s perpetually one step behind, one nickel short, one lane away from the fast lane. But we love him for it, because everyone feels like Ziggy now and then.

3rd Century BCE:  In order to stop inflation, Roman Emperor Diocletian fixed prices on consumer goods and declared that anyone who charged extra would be put to death.  This led people to hoard commodities.  In response, Diocletian banned hoarding under punishment of death, at which time terrified citizens began shutting down their businesses altogether.  Naturally, the Emperor decreed they had to stay open.  The punishment?  Death of course.

This comes from the latest issue of Mental Floss, on the sidebar to “4 Other Times the US Economy Tanked”, a list of 3 good examples and one that shouldn’t belong, and a sidebar on World Historic Economic Tankings.  Cynics amongst us can tell us if the principals of Diocletian aren’t basically replicated in a softer, fuzzier version.

As for the rest of Mental Floss — if you’re not interested in this, maybe you’d be more interested in the article listing examples of Famous Feral Children?

And, incidentally, the magazine got his year wrong by a suffix — AD, not BCE.

One good thing about the passing of the Bush Administration:  the end to having to hear about gawd-danged Prescott Bush.  Were you aware that Prescott Bush funded the Nazi War Machine?  Why, the Bush Family is responsible for the rise of Nazi Germany!!

It is there that this awkward passage dangles in wikipedia’s “Prescott Bush” entry.:
 On July 23, 2007, the BBC Radio 4 series Document reported on the Business Plot and the archives from the McCormack-Dickstein Committee hearings. The program made no allegations about Prescott Bush.

I would think the statement “BBC documentary made no allegations” would land in the discussion page, but apparently a whole mass of people roll to wikipedia seeking BBC’s verification that Prescott Bush was in the middle of Smedley Butler’s claimed conspiracy of a coup attempt against Roosevelt to justify its requirement.  So Prescott Bush gets to be post-humously shoe-horned into the picture:  Jules Archer’s rather repetitive book on the subject doesn’t have Butler fingering Prescott Bush.

The entry on the “Business Plot” is seen here, and I suppose I’d argure for Raymond Swing’s contemporaneous dismissal of said plot in “Forerunners of American Fascism” to be included somewhere along the lines, but his thoughts are pretty much summised in Arthur Schlesinger’s reaction, at any rate Schlesinger not obscure as Swing.
In the discussion section for this, one question is suggested:  Isn’t this just an International Jewish Bankers’ Conspiracy?  Oh, I’d say Not quite.  But one can be forgiven for saying it is, and the right archtypes are there, it fits the Grand Narrative and quickly can be applied in subverting the history of the rise of Hitler.   Note that listed in the “Historians Reaction” on this wikipedia page, right next to Schlesinger, is Hans Schmidt, I suppose appropriate for writing a  biography on Butler , though some further background I’d think might be approrpiate — he doesn’t have a wikipedia page to link to, so I have to scrouge up  this.  I will also note that a google search reveals Schmidt is in ill health at the moment, hence a supplier of nazi paraphenilia features a well wish greeting.

Curiously discussed in the discussion page, issue acknowledged with a “Wow” by an editor with no clarification left on the page itself.
Also interesting to note — deleted from wikipedia here.  I know where this fits the Larouche cause of last year; I don’t know enough of what the organization was shilling in 1994 to know what they were attempting then.

So the sudden burst of Larouchite sock-puppets at the “Larouche Criminal Trials” wikipedia discussion over the issue of clarifying some used as a Larouche Credentialist at the time of Larouche’s Imprisonment, Von der Heydt, “Huge in Europe and a Political Prisoner!” — bring Dennis King to task for — hypocrisy? — over not taking on the real Nazis of history — namely Prescott Bush – right about here…

This is all a big fraud. Dennis King has no credentials as an actual opponent of Nazism *  — when has he ever spoken out against the Americans and Brits who actually supported Hitler, such as Prescott Bush, Averell Harriman, Montagu Norman, or Joseph Kennedy? When has he ever opposed the Germans who really <i>and etc. etc.</i>
This article isn’t about King, Bush, Montagu, or Kennedy. Nor is it about Heydte. We have plenty to cover without bringing in extremely tangential characters. Heydte is a side-show. ·:· Will Beback ·:· 10:28, 9 December 2007 (UTC)

I like the phrase “Actual Opponent of Nazism”.   That covers most of us — though, I guess not all of us.  Is there anyone out there who does not believe that Dennis King opposes Nazism?  And if it takes credentials to get that, where can I get these credentials as cheaply as possible?  In politics, anyone who is discovered to be otherwise is electorally dead in the water – witness the case with Tony Zirkle.

Wander further into this underbrush and we see documents posted at “laroucheplanet” being challenged for being posted at such a slanderous site, and then there’s what I guess is a lesson in the economics of the Larouche Cult from one of the Larouche sock puppets:

The LaRouche movement is anything but typical, so the supposition that publishing someone’s book involves a financial transaction is unfounded. And it is worthy of note that the LaRouche trial generated an international hue and cry. I don’t see two German professors, by the way. And why is it that they are only “obscure” when you disagree with them? —Terrawatt (talk) 16:21, 23 December 2007 (UTC)

The LaRouche Movement doesn’t pay its authors? Do you have a source for that astonishing assertion? The second professor is Albert Bleckmann. Niether German professor is famous in their field in the U.S. and neither is known to have attended the trials. There’s no apparent relation between themn and the case, except that they have opinions. ·:· Will Beback ·:· 19:16, 23 December 2007 (UTC)

Okay.  The rest of my day’s ramblings are here.  I don’t want too much more of this to be sitting here on this blog. 

In other news:  appropriation of phrases — the cult is pushing for Fusion with the phrase, (ahem) “Yes we can”.  These guys may want to be a bit more careful.  And this is mildly interesting.

This is interesting.  Alan Colmes has left the Hannity and Colmes show, changing the show’s format.  The new program starts with a “Great Americans” panel — guest hosting for the departed Colmes is… Al Sharpton.  Alan Colmes has been replaced by Al Sharpton.  Sitting in the panel are Michelle Bachman and Meat Loaf.

So… the panel looks like this:

Should be a good panel discussion?

Larry Flynt and Joe Francis and…

hyuk hyuk

hyuk

hyuk.

hy… ugh.

Good fodder for morning radio deejays.  If I assume they still exist.  Good quick blogging yukkers.  The CNN post has… 43? blog track-back links.  You can see for yourself.

What else is circulating around “the blogosphere” worthy of leaving aside…

Ann Coulter and her ordeals in the media hawking her new book, and…

Hm.

Okay.

Wow.  Shocking, ain’t she?

Damned tooting.

I already posted on Obama’s appearance in Spiderman, so I think I’m done with this one.

The Spiderman and Barack Obama story is rolling around the Internet.  Good for ratings, you’d think.  Apparently The Chameleon is out to stop Barack Obama from being president.  I don’t know how this plot runs — I think it starts with The Chameleon joining up with that group trying to get Obama disqualified for a forged birth certificate.  After that… this story synopsis has to be a joke, right?

The comic starts with Spider-Man’s alter-ego Peter Parker taking photographs at the inauguration, before spotting two identical Obamas.
Parker decides “the future president’s gonna need Spider-Man,” and springs into action, using basketball to determine the real Obama and punching out the impostor.
Obama thanks him with a fist-bump.

I see that commenters at “newsbusters” have soused out the liberal bias here, and — the horror of these things — the edgy anti-hero Punisher had a threat against Bush.  The liberal slash is spelled out here:

just like I *knew* MTV would not be allowed to fail. A ten year old reading Spider Man today will, in eight years, be an indoctrinated voter for the Democrats. As a child he gets Nickelodeon and childrens books at Target stores trumpeting Democrats, they are the first product and viewpoint he sees. A teenager gets Spider Man, and MTV, Democrats giving him easy cop-outs to his emerging adulthood and identity issues and pander to his narcissim and impatience and hormonal imperatives. Comedy Central finishes up to the high school/college crowd into his voting career. 
the comic books are just to appeal to the illiterate, the unaware of larger social issues and history, much like ACORN appealed to the homeless, as well as the prison pedo/pimp/pusher crowd. 

The bias against how comic books historically portray Democratic presidents versus Republican presidents is so pronounced, and what else do you need to see except this:

… which, given a choice between Spiderman / Obama and Scaly Orange Aliens / Nixon, I think I’d prefer the latter.  Which, incidentally, given the Comics Code Authority provisions, there is no other way to depict him:

Criminals shall not be presented so as to be rendered glamorous or to occupy a position which creates a desire for emulation.

Missed one, though:

I can recall the Challengers of the Unknown in their eponymous comic book saving Henry Kissinger in the Bermuda Triangle during the mid’70s. Kissinger wasn’t even a monster in it, but was given the proper respect he deserved, too.

Proper respect for Kissinger. 

At any rate, if you’re fuming over liberal bias in comic books, there are outlets from both the Reagan Era and the Bush Era.  So there.

UPDATE:  Here’s how Superman dealt with John F Kennedy:

So there.