A brief reflection on the NATO (so-called-)protests in Chicago

What do the phrases physical beating, armed gunman, added bonus, and police brutality all have in common?

Time’s up.

They are all completely redundant.

We live in a totalitarian police state (another redundant phrase!). Our freedom and autonomy are restricted by pervasive and invasive systems of control that penetrate all facets of our lives and demand our complete acquiescence. Our public and private activity is orchestrated and directed by “authorities” with (actual) armies of highly trained thugs who are sanctioned and equipped to use overwhelming force, and who have the power to remove any remaining vestiges of freedom and delusions of autonomy through direct physical means that include beatings, concussion grenades, tear gas, pepper-spray, electrification, and bullets made of rubber. These thugs can also, of course, use bullets made of lead to kill us at any moment and without repercussion if our obeisance is not sufficiently immediate, or if it does not conform to their bosses' ever-changing and arbitrary standards. And, if there is any suspicion that we might be the kind of people who harbor any notions of meaningful resistance (another redundant phrase), and we happen to live in Yemen or Pakistan (or in a year or two from now, South Chicago, East LA, or Cleveland Ohio) there is a good chance that we (and our family members—including our children) will be cleanly evaporated in the middle of the night with the aid of robotic aircraft flown by some obsessively masturbating military dickweed in a trailer in Colorado.

Now for the bonus round: what do the phrases military intelligence, same difference, business ethics, jumbo shrimp, and peaceful protest have in common?

First they came for the anarchists...

 But I didn’t speak out because I wasn’t an anar—hey, not so fast!

Question: What do the five “anarchists” accused of trying to blow up an Ohio bridge and the CIA secret-agent high-tech underwear bomber have in common?

That one’s too easy. They are both, of course, examples of the US government manufacturing “terrorists” so that it can continue to justify the expanding and increasingly invasive presence of the police state. Freedom and liberty simply wouldn't be possible if it were not for the FBI, CIA, DEA—and let's not forget the panty-sniffing TSA—courageously commandeering our freedom and liberty.

Next question: How soon before the first (publically acknowledged) drone strike on a "target" in the US?

War is peace, slavery is freedom, … vivisection is care

I was reading through the materials from a physiological psychology textbook and came across these four bullet points about the ethical treatment of animals by psychological researchers:

•          There is no excuse for mistreating animals in our care.

•          In fact, the vast majority of laboratory animals are treated humanely.

•          Pet ownership causes much more suffering among animals than scientific research does.

•          Fifty times more dogs and cats are killed by humane societies each year because they have been abandoned by former pet owners than are used in scientific research.

Point one:  The use of the word “care” is over-the-top euphemism for “hold captive, starve, torture, drown, maim, drug, poison, and/or slice into histological sections for analysis,” which makes the “mistreating animals in our care” part pure tautology. So the sentence means something like “there is no excuse for what we do.”

And I agree.

Point two: “Treated humanely” can be translated as “the animals haven’t been held captive, starved, tortured, drowned, maimed, drugged, poisoned, and/or sliced into histological sections for analysis unless we thought it necessary to do so.”  Or that’s true for more than 51% of laboratory animals.

Point three: More newborn infants test positive for mercury than test positive for cadmium.  So we really don’t need to worry about a pregnant woman’s exposure to cadmium.

Point four: Almost ten times as many infants test positive for mercury (83.9%) than test positive for cadmium (8.5%).  

Also note in point four that humane societies “kill” and pet owners “abandon” but that scientists (neutrally) “use”.