Paul leads in Iowa
Newt Gingrich's campaign is rapidly imploding, and Ron Paul has now taken the lead in Iowa. He's at 23% to 20% for Mitt Romney, 14% for Gingrich, 10% each for Rick Santorum, Michele Bachmann, and Rick Perry, 4% for Jon Huntsman, and 2% for Gary Johnson.
http://www.publicpolicypolling.com/main/2011/12/paul-leads-in-iowa.html#more
Sweet Fancy Moses!: Ron Paul Leads in Iowa!
Paulistas have been testing their organizational strength for years now, winning several straw polls. The overall campaign effort is better this time. The ads are professional and hard-hitting, as is the candidate himself. Paul this time around is more committed to the fight, having sworn off running another term for the House of Representatives.
The Paul campaign has thrown a marker down in Iowa and it has thrown it wisely: must win third place or better on Jan. 3. That way, if they take second, they beat the expectations game. And if they take first, it's a whole new race for New Hampshire a week later.
http://reason.com/blog/2011/12/19/sweet-fancy-moses-ron-paul-leads-in-iowa
What if Ron Paul wins in Iowa?
(CNN) -- The wild card in the Iowa caucus is Ron Paul, the libertarian congressman from Texas. As with all wild cards, his place in the top tier of candidates is itself unlikely and his ultimate effect on the Republican presidential nomination is unpredictable. But based on what I saw during my trip to Iowa earlier this month, no one should count Paul out.
http://www.cnn.com/2011/12/19/opinion/avlon-ron-paul-iowa/index.html?hpt=hp_c2
maandag 19 december 2011
Farewell Václav!
Respect is the most overused word these days. But this great man REALLY deserved it!
Vaclav Havel, former Czech president who helped bring down communism, dies at 75
Once a playwright, the avowed peacenik oversaw the country's bumpy transition to democracy and a free-market economy.
PRAGUE—
Vaclav Havel, the dissident playwright who wove theater into politics to peacefully bring down communism in Czechoslovakia and become a hero of the epic struggle that ended the Cold War, has died. He was 75.
Havel died Sunday morning at his weekend house in the northern Czech Republic, his assistant Sabina Tancecova said.
Havel was his country's first democratically elected president after the nonviolent "Velvet Revolution" that ended four decades of repression by a regime he ridiculed as "Absurdistan."
http://www.latimes.com/news/obituaries/la-mew-vaclav-havel-20111219,0,4502559.story
Keep on Rockin' in the Free World
How the Velvet Underground and Václav Havel built a blueprint for toppling totalitarians and other censors
..Charter 77, just like the Plastic People of the Universe, is a relatively obscure reference in twenty-first-century America. Yet, its 1970s-era call for freedom of expression in communist Europe is at the very center of the single-most foundational story of how supposed Western cultural decadence combined with dissident aspirations in the unfree world to produce not just unprecedented liberation but a useable blueprint for oppressed people everywhere to cast off the shackles of their masters. Standing at the center of that story is the literal author of the blueprint, a rumpled star child of the 1960s whose love and understanding of rock music helped free his country and inspire freedom in so many others: Václav Havel, the late leader of what came to be known as the “Velvet Revolution.”
That story begins with another story, that of the Velvet Underground, a band whose best-known member, Lou Reed, chafed not under the oppression of Russian tanks but the strictures of postwar Long Island suburbia. A hippie-hating countercultural figure, the teenaged Reed had been given electroshock treatments to “cure” his homosexual tendencies. Reed would later find a mentor in the legendarily alcoholic and writer’s blocked poet Delmore Schwartz, before gaining fame for singing about drug abuse and cross-dressing and fronting a band that openly sang about soul-sapping heroin rather than consciousness-raising LSD during 1967’s Summer of Love.
No one is exactly sure how a copy of The Velvet Underground & Nico found its way to Czechoslovakia before Soviet tanks crushed the cultural opening of the Prague Spring in August 1968. After all, the March 1967 debut album by Andy Warhol’s nihilistic house band barely sold in America, peaking at just #171 on the Billboard charts before quickly disappearing. Rock critics would not come around to declaring it one of the best albums ever made until decades later. There is that famous line, variously attributed to superproducer Brian Eno or R.E.M. guitarist Peter Buck, that “only a thousand people bought the record, but every one of them started a band.” And though Czechs were starting bands right and left, as part of an all-too-brief cultural reemergence that saw artists such as filmmaker Miloš Forman and novelist Milan Kundera gain international prominence, there was a lot of catching up to do in 1967 and 1968 for a country that had recently outlawed William F. Buckley’s least favorite band. “It is so strange,” the singer of a Czech Velvet Underground cover band would muse a few years after communism’s demise, “that Prague was so up-to-date.”
http://reason.com/archives/2011/12/18/keep-on-rockin-in-the-free-world
Vaclav Havel, former Czech president who helped bring down communism, dies at 75
Once a playwright, the avowed peacenik oversaw the country's bumpy transition to democracy and a free-market economy.
PRAGUE—
Vaclav Havel, the dissident playwright who wove theater into politics to peacefully bring down communism in Czechoslovakia and become a hero of the epic struggle that ended the Cold War, has died. He was 75.
Havel died Sunday morning at his weekend house in the northern Czech Republic, his assistant Sabina Tancecova said.
Havel was his country's first democratically elected president after the nonviolent "Velvet Revolution" that ended four decades of repression by a regime he ridiculed as "Absurdistan."
http://www.latimes.com/news/obituaries/la-mew-vaclav-havel-20111219,0,4502559.story
Keep on Rockin' in the Free World
How the Velvet Underground and Václav Havel built a blueprint for toppling totalitarians and other censors
..Charter 77, just like the Plastic People of the Universe, is a relatively obscure reference in twenty-first-century America. Yet, its 1970s-era call for freedom of expression in communist Europe is at the very center of the single-most foundational story of how supposed Western cultural decadence combined with dissident aspirations in the unfree world to produce not just unprecedented liberation but a useable blueprint for oppressed people everywhere to cast off the shackles of their masters. Standing at the center of that story is the literal author of the blueprint, a rumpled star child of the 1960s whose love and understanding of rock music helped free his country and inspire freedom in so many others: Václav Havel, the late leader of what came to be known as the “Velvet Revolution.”
That story begins with another story, that of the Velvet Underground, a band whose best-known member, Lou Reed, chafed not under the oppression of Russian tanks but the strictures of postwar Long Island suburbia. A hippie-hating countercultural figure, the teenaged Reed had been given electroshock treatments to “cure” his homosexual tendencies. Reed would later find a mentor in the legendarily alcoholic and writer’s blocked poet Delmore Schwartz, before gaining fame for singing about drug abuse and cross-dressing and fronting a band that openly sang about soul-sapping heroin rather than consciousness-raising LSD during 1967’s Summer of Love.
No one is exactly sure how a copy of The Velvet Underground & Nico found its way to Czechoslovakia before Soviet tanks crushed the cultural opening of the Prague Spring in August 1968. After all, the March 1967 debut album by Andy Warhol’s nihilistic house band barely sold in America, peaking at just #171 on the Billboard charts before quickly disappearing. Rock critics would not come around to declaring it one of the best albums ever made until decades later. There is that famous line, variously attributed to superproducer Brian Eno or R.E.M. guitarist Peter Buck, that “only a thousand people bought the record, but every one of them started a band.” And though Czechs were starting bands right and left, as part of an all-too-brief cultural reemergence that saw artists such as filmmaker Miloš Forman and novelist Milan Kundera gain international prominence, there was a lot of catching up to do in 1967 and 1968 for a country that had recently outlawed William F. Buckley’s least favorite band. “It is so strange,” the singer of a Czech Velvet Underground cover band would muse a few years after communism’s demise, “that Prague was so up-to-date.”
http://reason.com/archives/2011/12/18/keep-on-rockin-in-the-free-world
maandag 12 december 2011
zaterdag 10 december 2011
“I’m all for raw milk,” he tells the crowd, a point he also made at an earlier stop on Thursday. “I think you should have a choice about whether you want to drink raw milk.”
Read more: http://swampland.time.com/2011/12/09/ron-pauls-army-eyes-an-iowa-caucus-upset/#ixzz1g9Almuyt
And so it did...
MOSCOW---Thousands and thousands of Russians gathered peacefully but determinedly Saturday afternoon in the center of Moscow demanding fair elections, the largest opposition demonstration ever to confront Vladimir V. Putin.
The entire political spectrum was represented--except the ruling United Russia party. But the crowd, estimated at 25,000 to 40,000, was decidedly apolitical.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/world/europe/thousands-of-protesters-in-russia-demand-fair-elections/2011/12/10/gIQAru4XkO_story.html
The entire political spectrum was represented--except the ruling United Russia party. But the crowd, estimated at 25,000 to 40,000, was decidedly apolitical.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/world/europe/thousands-of-protesters-in-russia-demand-fair-elections/2011/12/10/gIQAru4XkO_story.html
vrijdag 21 oktober 2011
Steve Jobs Biography Reveals He Told Obama, 'You're Headed For A One-Term Presidency'
Jobs' Meeting With Obama
Jobs, who was known for his prickly, stubborn personality, almost missed meeting President Obama in the fall of 2010 because he insisted that the president personally ask him for a meeting. Though his wife told him that Obama "was really psyched to meet with you," Jobs insisted on the personal invitation, and the standoff lasted for five days. When he finally relented and they met at the Westin San Francisco Airport, Jobs was characteristically blunt. He seemed to have transformed from a liberal into a conservative.
"You're headed for a one-term presidency," he told Obama at the start of their meeting, insisting that the administration needed to be more business-friendly. As an example, Jobs described the ease with which companies can build factories in China compared to the United States, where "regulations and unnecessary costs" make it difficult for them.
Jobs also criticized America's education system, saying it was "crippled by union work rules," noted Isaacson. "Until the teachers' unions were broken, there was almost no hope for education reform." Jobs proposed allowing principals to hire and fire teachers based on merit, that schools stay open until 6 p.m. and that they be open 11 months a year.
Aiding Obama's Reelection Campaign
Jobs suggested that Obama meet six or seven other CEOs who could express the needs of innovative businesses -- but when White House aides added more names to the list, Jobs insisted that it was growing too big and that "he had no intention of coming." In preparation for the dinner, Jobs exhibited his notorious attention to detail, telling venture capitalist John Doerr that the menu of shrimp, cod and lentil salad was "far too fancy" and objecting to a chocolate truffle dessert. But he was overruled by the White House, which cited the president's fondness for cream pie.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/10/20/steve-jobs-biography-obama_n_1022786.html
Jobs, who was known for his prickly, stubborn personality, almost missed meeting President Obama in the fall of 2010 because he insisted that the president personally ask him for a meeting. Though his wife told him that Obama "was really psyched to meet with you," Jobs insisted on the personal invitation, and the standoff lasted for five days. When he finally relented and they met at the Westin San Francisco Airport, Jobs was characteristically blunt. He seemed to have transformed from a liberal into a conservative.
"You're headed for a one-term presidency," he told Obama at the start of their meeting, insisting that the administration needed to be more business-friendly. As an example, Jobs described the ease with which companies can build factories in China compared to the United States, where "regulations and unnecessary costs" make it difficult for them.
Jobs also criticized America's education system, saying it was "crippled by union work rules," noted Isaacson. "Until the teachers' unions were broken, there was almost no hope for education reform." Jobs proposed allowing principals to hire and fire teachers based on merit, that schools stay open until 6 p.m. and that they be open 11 months a year.
Aiding Obama's Reelection Campaign
Jobs suggested that Obama meet six or seven other CEOs who could express the needs of innovative businesses -- but when White House aides added more names to the list, Jobs insisted that it was growing too big and that "he had no intention of coming." In preparation for the dinner, Jobs exhibited his notorious attention to detail, telling venture capitalist John Doerr that the menu of shrimp, cod and lentil salad was "far too fancy" and objecting to a chocolate truffle dessert. But he was overruled by the White House, which cited the president's fondness for cream pie.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/10/20/steve-jobs-biography-obama_n_1022786.html
zaterdag 15 oktober 2011
Vindt u het heel erg, lezers, dat ik toch maar niet naar Occupy De Beurs ga? Ik ben toevallig voor kapitalisme en Joden.
Ze willen dus vandaag, hier in Amsterdam, ook het Beursplein bezetten. Net zoals men in New York Wall Street bezet houdt met de actie Occupy Wall Street.
Het kapitalisme heeft het namelijk gedaan. De banken hebben het gedaan.
En zal ik u eens wat vertellen? De Joden hebben het gedaan.
Dit las ik op de website van Welingelichte Kringen: 'Eén van de drijvende krachten achter Occupy Wall Street is Kalle Lasn. (...) Van hem staat vast dat hij een wantrouwen heeft tegen Joden. En dat hij denkt dat Joden steken achter de deplorabele staat van de VS en de wereld. Volgens hem zitten de neoconservatieven achter de slechte toestand van de VS. Hij meent dat er vijftig leidende neocons zijn. En volgens hem zijn daarvan 26 Joden.'
Vindt u het heel erg, lezers, dat ik toch maar niet naar Occupy De Beurs ga? Ik ben toevallig voor kapitalisme en Joden.
Lees verder...
Het kapitalisme heeft het namelijk gedaan. De banken hebben het gedaan.
En zal ik u eens wat vertellen? De Joden hebben het gedaan.
Dit las ik op de website van Welingelichte Kringen: 'Eén van de drijvende krachten achter Occupy Wall Street is Kalle Lasn. (...) Van hem staat vast dat hij een wantrouwen heeft tegen Joden. En dat hij denkt dat Joden steken achter de deplorabele staat van de VS en de wereld. Volgens hem zitten de neoconservatieven achter de slechte toestand van de VS. Hij meent dat er vijftig leidende neocons zijn. En volgens hem zijn daarvan 26 Joden.'
Vindt u het heel erg, lezers, dat ik toch maar niet naar Occupy De Beurs ga? Ik ben toevallig voor kapitalisme en Joden.
Lees verder...
woensdag 12 oktober 2011
zaterdag 8 oktober 2011
Wees.
En ineens begrijp je een beetje wat je voelt als je naar je geliefde MacBookje kijkt.
Hij is wees.
En hetzelfde gebeurt als toen met Marvin Gaye en Kurt Cobain en Michael Jackson. De muziek wordt mooier en beter en nog meer gewaardeerd.
En hetzelfde gebeurt als toen met Marvin Gaye en Kurt Cobain en Michael Jackson. De muziek wordt mooier en beter en nog meer gewaardeerd.
De producten van Steve ook.
Ze waren al mooi en ze zien er nu nog mooier en waardevoller uit.
Mijn liefde voor Apple begon eigenlijk met de MacBook van mijn moeder, die ik na lang wikken en wegen tussen Windows machines voor haar had uitgezocht. Ze kon toch niet goed met haar tien jaar oude PC omgaan dus ze kon net zo goed ‘om’.
Binnen drie maanden was ik ook om.
Het was wel even wennen in het begin en nog steeds heb ik moeite om in een keer de umlaut te vinden op de Mac. Maar het zag er tenminste mooi uit.
Als je Windows PC crashte dan keek je naar een lelijk ding met een blauw scherm.
Als iets van Apple het niet deed dan verzuchtte je ‘ach wat ben je mooi, we proberen het wel opnieuw.’
Jaren eerder had mijn vader een van de eerste iMacs gekocht. Als ik bij ‘m was wist ik bij God niet hoe ik een website moest opzoeken of een file. Maar cool was het wel.
Nu zijn we allemaal Apple. Vriendin ook, mede dankzij mij.
En toen ze me een keer belde in grote paniek, dacht ik dat er een groot ongeluk had plaatsgevonden. Dat was ook zo. Een vaas was over de MacBook gegaan.
Ze was ontroostbaar. Gelukkig was er Time Machine en verzekering.
Wat later heb ik nooit een groter iPhone verslaafde meegemaakt dan mijn geliefde.
Steve Jobs, pro-business, pro-globalist, maar verschrikkelijk geliefd onder wereldverbeteraars. Hij haalde het beste uit de combinatie van perfectionisme en kapitalisme.
Een groot Apple fan schreeuwde vlak na Steve’s dood uit: “So the lesson of Steve Jobs’ succes is; Try LSD when you’re young. Drop out of college and live like a tramp for a while. Be ambitous and obnoxious at work. Be arrogant enough to think you can make a dent in the Universe.. and oh yeah.. Let’s find a cure for cancer.’
Die Apple fan was ik.
maandag 3 oktober 2011
In effect, the banks socialized risk and privatized profits. Securitizing mortgages, for example, made many bankers wealthy while ultimately leaving governments indebted and citizens homeless.
AFTER flying around the world this year to cover street protests from Cairo to Morocco, reporting on the latest “uprising” was easier: I took the subway (...)
I don’t share the antimarket sentiments of many of the protesters. Banks are invaluable institutions that, when functioning properly, move capital to its best use and raise living standards. But it’s also true that soaring leverage not only nurtured soaring bank profits in good years, but also soaring risks for the public in bad years.
In effect, the banks socialized risk and privatized profits. Securitizing mortgages, for example, made many bankers wealthy while ultimately leaving governments indebted and citizens homeless.
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/10/02/opinion/sunday/kristof-the-bankers-and-the-revolutionaries.html?_r=1&src=me&ref=general
woensdag 28 september 2011
Behind Che Guevara’s mask, the cold executioner
A revisionist biography has highlighted Guevara’s involvement in countless executions of “traitors” and counter-revolutionary “worms”, offering a fresh glimpse of the dark side of the celebrated guerrilla fighter who helped Fidel Castro to seize power in Cuba.
“Attacking an almost legendary figure is not an easy task,” said Jacobo Machover, author of The Hidden Face of Che. “He has so many defenders. They have forged the cult of an untouchable hero.”
The Argentine-born Guevara has become ever more fashionable, his prerevolutionary adventures as a medical student dramatised to great acclaim in the film The Motorcycle Diaries and his bearded visage an icon of chic on T-shirts and even bikinis.
Machover, a Cuban exiled in France since 1963, blames the hero worship on French intellectuals who flocked to Havana in the 1960s and fell under the charm of the only “comandante” who could speak their language.
They turned a blind eye to anything that did not fit in with their idealised image of Guevara. A prolific diarist, Guevara nevertheless wrote vividly of his role as an executioner. In one passage he described the execution of Eutimio Guerra, a peasant and army guide.
“I fired a .32calibre bullet into the right hemisphere of his brain which came out through his left temple,” was Guevara’s clinical description of the killing. “He moaned for a few moments, then died.”
This was the first of many “traitors” to be subjected to what Guevara called “acts of justice”...
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/us_and_americas/article2461399.ece
dinsdag 27 september 2011
zondag 18 september 2011
Zo conservatief zijn die Republikeinse kiezers nog niet..
'Yet in stark contrast to the positions taken by some presidential candidates, three-quarters of Republicans say global warming exists — either as a result of human activity, natural patterns in the earth’s environment, or both. Nearly 6 in 10 favor allowing same-sex couples to either form civil unions or marry. And only one-third of Republicans support a ban on abortion'
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/09/17/us/politics/obamas-support-is-slipping-poll-finds-but-his-jobs-plan-is-well-received.html?pagewanted=1&hp
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/09/17/us/politics/obamas-support-is-slipping-poll-finds-but-his-jobs-plan-is-well-received.html?pagewanted=1&hp
vrijdag 16 september 2011
De Snor heeft gelijk..
“ If you want construction workers on the worksite, pass this bill. If you want teachers in the classroom, pass this bill. You want small business owners to hire new people, pass this bill. If you want veterans to get their fair share of opportunity that they helped create, pass this bill. If you want a tax break, pass this bill."
Just this week, the President said “pass this bill” 90 times. Politico put them on this video.
The president is wrong. Hiring doesn’t come from new laws. It comes when government gets out of the way and leaves all of us with simple and predictable rules.
Given time, an economy, unless crippled by government intervention, will regenerate itself. An economy is not a machine that needs jumpstarting. The economy is people who have objectives they want to achieve. They will not sit on their hands waiting for government to “fix” things. Free people continually work to overcome obstacles to get what they want.
zondag 11 september 2011
De Wereld Staat Stil
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