FBI & Wall Street conspire against Occupy Wall Street

Check out this story by Naomi Wolf. She reports that the Partnership for Civil Justice Fund filed a Freedom of Information Act request to the FBI inquiring into its investigation of OWL. The documents produced are at the PCJF site lined above. The documents prove that not only the FBI and local police checked into OWL but they coordinated this with the very banks OWL was protesting. WTF?

Morton's book on hyperobjects

Just checking Morton's blog it appears he'll have a new book in 2013, Hyperobjects. I'm looking forward to it. I'm guessing though that his shentong is going to metaphysicalize hyperobjects in ways I've already explored in IPS OOO thread. For example, from this Morton post:

"Hyperobjects are nonlocal: they do not manifest at a specific time and place but rather are stretched out in such a way as to challenge the idea that a thing must occupy a specific place and time."

In the same post he notes HOs cannot be perceived directly and that they create their own time. Hence they do exist in a specific time and space, albeit self-generated, but the fact that we cannot perceive it is not evidence of its non-locality, only of our inability to locate it in our limited space-time frame of reference. His first claim to non-locality smacks of a shentong prejudice that implies some kind of transcendent realm and/or consciousness as foundation for the whole shebang. Granted my thesis is not evidenced by this comments in the referenced post on HOs but garnered from my criticisms in the thread on how he mixes his shentong with his OOO.

Krugman on growth and industrial revolutions (plus Rifkin)

Krugman's recent blog post, Is Growth Over?, is of interest. He questions the assumptions of some, like the CBO, that growth will continue as it has in the past. He cites Robert Gordon's claim that growth will in fact continue to decline. Gordon shows that growth was spurred by the various industrial revolutions. The first based on steam power, and the second on fossil fuels, evidenced considerable growth. He argues though that the third, based on info tech, has not produced such a growth cycle.

Krugman though disagrees with his analysis on the third revolution and thinks smart machines might indeed lead to another cycle of growth. What Krugman did not address, nor did Gordon, is that Rifkin has also discussed these 3 revolutions, and that the energy source for the 3rd is renewable. However like Krugman the tech to organize and distribute it is indeed smart grids that are in development and making advances quite quickly.

Justice Department proves drug war is a joke

I'm coming late to this story, probably because it's from Matt Taibbi and I've not heard of it in any major news outlet, including liberal (except of course Taibb's Rolling Stone). HSBC is a British banking giant that laundered billions of dollars for drug cartels and terrorists, yet the US Justice Department accepted a monetary settlement and chose no criminal prosecutions. Yes, it was a record financial settlement of $1.9 billion, but that translates to about five weeks of their income. Not to mention the billions of dollars bank officials likely received as bribes to do the deed.

The Justice Dept's excuse?

Disseminating the marginal

I found this Bryant talk on You Tube: Texts are a factory. It's a common theme in his blog but an important one, and to see and hear him adds a personal dimension otherwise missing. Basically text as factory is how texts disseminate or not, and how academia in particular is a very insular world that does not disseminate ideas antithetical to its program.

End of the world paranoia wrong, again

We just had the Mayan nonsense proven wrong. Yet this will not stop believers, since they find some way to rationalize and maintain their false beliefs. We can let facts get in the way, now can we? So Krugman compares this to those conservative economists who have predicting doom and gloom for ages. And they too are always wrong and don't let that get in the way of their ideology. So it goes with the deficit hawks claiming interest rates will skyrocket during this recession. Given they cannot accept the cognitive dissonance and change Krugman says perhaps it's time we stop taking them seriously.

Btw, recall this phenomenon is not equally applicable to all people. Recall this study (#12), but one of several, that shows progressives just don't have this problem to anywhere near the same degree as regressives.

Merry Christmas

And per the onticological Santa, O O O!  May your ipseity be unique yet always bound to all your relations. (Thought I'd throw in a little native American there too to balance tOOOp-heavy onti-Santa.)

Monster

Paramore

Michael Moore on guns

He offers some surprising and astute analysis. For example, this:

"And here's the dirty little fact none of us liberals want to discuss: The killer only ceased his slaughter when he saw that cops were swarming onto the school grounds -- i.e, the men with the guns. When he saw the guns a-coming, he stopped the bloodshed and killed himself. Guns on police officers prevented another 20 or 40 or 100 deaths from happening. Guns sometimes work."

This doesn't stop him from supporting banning assault rifles or high-capacity clips. He goes to note that Canada has a lot of guns with a lower murder rate. And kids in the UK watch the same violent movies and games, yet their murder rate is far lower. So he examines some of the deeper and accepted American behavior that might be instrumental in our astounding murder rates. Very eye-opening. Give it a read.

Radioactive

Imagine Dragons. Very interesting video, given the theme of Les Miserables (opening tomorrow) and the proletariat revolution, coming soon.