I had my bank account hacked last week. Not fun. Everything I paid is all bouncing and the bank has frozen my account. Look for and report charges listed as ECHARGES.NET and CAM4FEE.COM- theyare related to 365 BILLING. All are an off-shore scam.
60 minutes did a report about the rash of these types of internet fraud and hacking crimes last night.... very scary stuff.
Monday, March 30, 2009
Thursday, March 26, 2009
Fluxion Issue 4: Expanded Notes- Part the Sixth
During the time I was looking for a stylistic method to render my visual essays for Fluxion 4,
I heard about the large traveling retrospective exhibit on the Dada Movement.
It was a "Eureka!" moment.
Up to that point I was still unsure how to go forward with my ideas.
Dada was the answer.
The Dada movement (1916-1922) was a rejection of the prevailing standards in art through anti-art cultural works. Dada activities included public gatherings, demonstrations, and publication of art/literary journals; passionate coverage of art, politics, and culture were topics often discussed in a variety of media.
Dada freed me up to be spontaneous, and to just do the layouts rather tan spend any more time trying to showcase the set of ideas I had compiled.
Leah Dickerson on Dada:
"I feel very strongly that this was a watershed moment in art," Dickerson says. "And I think that you can argue that Dada of all the avent garde movements has had the greatest impact on contemporary art. So every time you see things like collage or montage or assemblage, all of those things have their origins in Dada. And I think that if you want to understand where we are today, it's really important to go back and look at where these things came from."
"Dada is a state of mind" Spread from Fluxion Issue 4featuring the work of LA artist and filmmaker Dennis Woodruff.
"Post Post" Spread from Fluxion Issue 4"The beginnings of Dada were not the beginnings of an art, but of a disgust."—Tristan Tzara
I was already heavily featuring political graf artists like Eyeone and Make and it dawned on me that this kind of work is also interconnected. Everything started to fall into place.
"Grafitti is a lot like Dada. It is the anti-art of the 21st Century." —Make
I had agonized for three years on the slow pace of progress with the issue, and for once I was actually glad, as this approach seemed to tie the entire cultural criticism section together. It gave me a unified stylistic framework, and connected the current crises to so many similar ones fought in the past.
I really like linking ideas together... suggesting a tapestry of creativity that reflects and informs the culture and at it's best guides it toward a better future.
I wanted to include Marshall McLuhan's visionary ideas of The medium is the message and Global village. I wanted to put a slight spin on the former by suggesting it is time to "remix the message." (I plan to produce a few more images with this line along the lines of the Che symbol I created for this issue.) Combining it with a Dada style felt like a relevant and interesting juxtaposition.
So much of what is pushed at us in the media have become a gross manipulation, we need to be more vigilant in critically dissecting those messages. Don't miss McLuhan's seminal work Understanding Media) and Chomsky's Manufacturing Consent for more on this issue.
One last note on Dada....
Tristan Tzara, one of the architects of the Dada movement observed:
"Art is a private thing, the artist makes it for himself; a comprehensible work is the product of a journalist.... We need works that are strong, straight, precise, and forever beyond understanding."
which Marcel Duchamp embodied perfectly—
The embodiment of Dada: Duchamp's ready-made Fountain, 1917Tzara also went on to say in the text of his Dada Manifesto:
"We have had enough of the intelligent movements that have stretched beyond measure our credulity in the benefits of science. What we want now is spontaneity. Not because it is better or more beautiful than anything else. But because everything that issues freely from ourselves, without the intervention of speculative ideas, represents us. We must intensify this quantity of life that readily spends itself in every quarter. Art is not the most precious manifestation of life. Art has not the celestial and universal value that people like to attribute to it. Life is far more interesting. Dada knows the correct measure that should be given to art: with subtle, perfidious methods, Dada introduces it into daily life. And vice versa. In art, Dada reduces everything to an initial simplicity, growing always more relative. It mingles its caprices with the chaotic wind of creation and the barbaric dances of savage tribes. It wants logic reduced to a personal minimum, while literature in its view should be primarily intended for the individual who makes it. Words have a weight of their own and lend themselves to abstract construction. The absurd has no terrors for me, for from a more exalted point of view everything in life seems absurd to me. Only the elasticity of our conventions creates a bond between disparate acts. The Beautiful and the True in art do not exist; what interests me is the intensity of a personality transposed directly, clearly into the work; the man and his vitality; the angle from which he regards the elements and in what manner he knows how to gather sensation, emotion, into a lacework of words and sentiments."
Here are some other Dadaist highlights:
The magazine of the Dada Movement
John Heartfield
Tuesday, March 24, 2009
The case for legalizing drugs
Harvard Economist Jeffrey Miron explains the case for legalizing drugs as the best way to greatly reduce violence.
"The U.S. and Mexican responses to this violence have been predictable: more troops and police, greater border controls and expanded enforcement of every kind. Escalation is the wrong response, however; drug prohibition is the cause of the violence.
Prohibition creates violence because it drives the drug market underground. This means buyers and sellers cannot resolve their disputes with lawsuits, arbitration or advertising, so they resort to violence instead."
"Prohibitions breed disrespect for the law because despite draconian penalties and extensive enforcement, huge numbers of people still violate prohibition. This means those who break the law, and those who do not, learn that obeying laws is for suckers.
Prohibition is a drain on the public purse. Federal, state and local governments spend roughly $44 billion per year to enforce drug prohibition. These same governments forego roughly $33 billion per year in tax revenue they could collect from legalized drugs, assuming these were taxed at rates similar to those on alcohol and tobacco. Under prohibition, these revenues accrue to traffickers as increased profits."
"The U.S. and Mexican responses to this violence have been predictable: more troops and police, greater border controls and expanded enforcement of every kind. Escalation is the wrong response, however; drug prohibition is the cause of the violence.
Prohibition creates violence because it drives the drug market underground. This means buyers and sellers cannot resolve their disputes with lawsuits, arbitration or advertising, so they resort to violence instead."
"Prohibitions breed disrespect for the law because despite draconian penalties and extensive enforcement, huge numbers of people still violate prohibition. This means those who break the law, and those who do not, learn that obeying laws is for suckers.
Prohibition is a drain on the public purse. Federal, state and local governments spend roughly $44 billion per year to enforce drug prohibition. These same governments forego roughly $33 billion per year in tax revenue they could collect from legalized drugs, assuming these were taxed at rates similar to those on alcohol and tobacco. Under prohibition, these revenues accrue to traffickers as increased profits."
How much corporate abuse will we (the people) tolerate?
Where is the line between fact and conspiracy fiction?Joe Conason targets the idea of reforming offshore banking, to see what untaxed wealth big business is hiding in overseas tax shelters.
some highlights:
"According to the Government Accountability Office, nearly all of America's top 100 corporations maintain subsidiaries in countries identified as tax havens. As the GAO notes, there could be reasons other than avoiding the IRS to set up branches in places such as Singapore, Luxembourg and Switzerland, where taxes are light or nonexistent and keeping clients' illicit secrets is considered a matter of national pride.
But what reason other than evasion could there be for Goldman Sachs Group to set up three subsidiaries in Bermuda, five in Mauritius, and 15 in the Cayman Islands? Why did Countrywide Financial need two subsidiaries in Guernsey? Why did Wachovia need 18 subsidiaries in Bermuda, three in the British Virgin Islands, and 16 in the Caymans? Why did Lehman Brothers need 31 subsidiaries in the Caymans? What do Bank of America's 59 subsidiaries in the Caymans actually do? Why does Citigroup need 427 separate subsidiaries in tax havens, including 12 in the Channel Islands, 21 in Jersey, 91 in Luxembourg, 19 in Bermuda and 90 in the Caymans? What exactly is going on at Morgan Stanley's 19 subs in Jersey, 29 subs in Luxembourg, 14 subs in the Marshall Islands, and its amazing 158 subs in the Caymans? And speaking of AIG, why does it have 18 subs in tax-haven countries? (Don't expect to find out from Fox News Channel or the New York Post, because News Corp. has its own constellation of strange subsidiaries, including 33 in the Caymans alone.)"
"...On the tiny island of Jersey in the English Channel, for instance, the authorities responded to political pressure from hedge funds, which have placed more than $80 billion in deposits there, by establishing a "zero regulation regime" last year that literally removed all restrictions and reporting on financial transactions. Jersey's counterparts in Guernsey and the Cayman Islands responded by assuring the hedge funds that they, too, would consider abolishing all regulation."
How much more evidence do we need to prove that these corporations are greedy, pathological monsters that abuse the public interest with impunity!?
I thought the collapse of the financial system would bring them down a notch, but instead the FED is handing over trillions, and they we see daily that they continue the same practices.
Revoke the corporate "I."
some highlights:
"According to the Government Accountability Office, nearly all of America's top 100 corporations maintain subsidiaries in countries identified as tax havens. As the GAO notes, there could be reasons other than avoiding the IRS to set up branches in places such as Singapore, Luxembourg and Switzerland, where taxes are light or nonexistent and keeping clients' illicit secrets is considered a matter of national pride.
But what reason other than evasion could there be for Goldman Sachs Group to set up three subsidiaries in Bermuda, five in Mauritius, and 15 in the Cayman Islands? Why did Countrywide Financial need two subsidiaries in Guernsey? Why did Wachovia need 18 subsidiaries in Bermuda, three in the British Virgin Islands, and 16 in the Caymans? Why did Lehman Brothers need 31 subsidiaries in the Caymans? What do Bank of America's 59 subsidiaries in the Caymans actually do? Why does Citigroup need 427 separate subsidiaries in tax havens, including 12 in the Channel Islands, 21 in Jersey, 91 in Luxembourg, 19 in Bermuda and 90 in the Caymans? What exactly is going on at Morgan Stanley's 19 subs in Jersey, 29 subs in Luxembourg, 14 subs in the Marshall Islands, and its amazing 158 subs in the Caymans? And speaking of AIG, why does it have 18 subs in tax-haven countries? (Don't expect to find out from Fox News Channel or the New York Post, because News Corp. has its own constellation of strange subsidiaries, including 33 in the Caymans alone.)"
"...On the tiny island of Jersey in the English Channel, for instance, the authorities responded to political pressure from hedge funds, which have placed more than $80 billion in deposits there, by establishing a "zero regulation regime" last year that literally removed all restrictions and reporting on financial transactions. Jersey's counterparts in Guernsey and the Cayman Islands responded by assuring the hedge funds that they, too, would consider abolishing all regulation."
How much more evidence do we need to prove that these corporations are greedy, pathological monsters that abuse the public interest with impunity!?
I thought the collapse of the financial system would bring them down a notch, but instead the FED is handing over trillions, and they we see daily that they continue the same practices.
Revoke the corporate "I."
Friday, March 20, 2009
Thursday, March 19, 2009
Excellent post by Greenwald on the bonus controversy
Greenwald sorts out some critical details and offers the hierarchy of positions regarding executive compensation limits back in February:
Chris Dodd—advocated full-scale, no-exceptions limits on executive compensation for bailed-out companies
Obama administration—supported limits but advocated exceptions for already-existing employment contracts
GOP leaders—opposed all executive compensation limits as Socialist tyranny
Chris Dodd—advocated full-scale, no-exceptions limits on executive compensation for bailed-out companies
Obama administration—supported limits but advocated exceptions for already-existing employment contracts
GOP leaders—opposed all executive compensation limits as Socialist tyranny
underneath the anger: complexity
The Washington Post today has published an interesting article Inside AIG-FP, Feeling the Public's Wrath on employees of the despised AIG division that was one of the centers of the entire economic meltdown.
This smart article reveals the complexity underneath all the anger. such as this detail:
"The handful of souls who championed the firm's now-infamous credit-default swaps are, by nearly every account, long since departed. Those left behind to clean up the mess, the majority of whom never lost a dime for AIG, now feel they have been sold out by their Congress and their president."
So the ones who really deserve our wrath... where are they? will we ever be able to hold them accountable... or at least the executives and managers who directed them?
The article also points out another obvious detail:
"It would be impractical at best, dangerous at worst, to get rid of everyone at Financial Products, according to AIG officials. If everyone leaves, Pasciucco said, 'you don't have people that really, truly understand the book [of business]. We're still big enough that that matters.'
If they did walk out the door, who would volunteer to work at the Chernobyl of the financial world?"
Before he waded into the circus on Capitol Hill on Wednesday, Liddy e-mailed a letter to the employees of Financial Products, asking them to "step up and do the right thing." He asked that anyone who received more than $100,000 in retention payments return at least 50 percent.
"The Financial Products staff met twice Wednesday inside one of the firm's large, glass-walled conference rooms to discuss the boss's letter. Numerous employees indicated that they would be willing to return the money, but most wanted nothing more to do with the firm. It was a preview of the possible exodus to come, one that concerns Liddy himself."
"My fear is that the damage is done," he told a congressional subcommittee. "That they will return [the money], but that they will return it with their resignations."
"There is little doubt within Financial Products that he's right about that."
"'Nobody is going to give it back and then stay,' said one of the firm's employees. 'If they give back the money, then they will walk.'"
Given that these employees are not the ones who set up this mess, why would they take the heat for someone else's epic disaster?
Clearly, AIG is beyond repair. The name is synonymous with corruption and greed. Who in their right mind would want to do business with them now?
The company should be dismantled, assets sold off and it's corrupt managers and executives who quit were fired or fled, where ever they are—should be held accountable for their crimes.
This smart article reveals the complexity underneath all the anger. such as this detail:
"The handful of souls who championed the firm's now-infamous credit-default swaps are, by nearly every account, long since departed. Those left behind to clean up the mess, the majority of whom never lost a dime for AIG, now feel they have been sold out by their Congress and their president."
So the ones who really deserve our wrath... where are they? will we ever be able to hold them accountable... or at least the executives and managers who directed them?
The article also points out another obvious detail:
"It would be impractical at best, dangerous at worst, to get rid of everyone at Financial Products, according to AIG officials. If everyone leaves, Pasciucco said, 'you don't have people that really, truly understand the book [of business]. We're still big enough that that matters.'
If they did walk out the door, who would volunteer to work at the Chernobyl of the financial world?"
Before he waded into the circus on Capitol Hill on Wednesday, Liddy e-mailed a letter to the employees of Financial Products, asking them to "step up and do the right thing." He asked that anyone who received more than $100,000 in retention payments return at least 50 percent.
"The Financial Products staff met twice Wednesday inside one of the firm's large, glass-walled conference rooms to discuss the boss's letter. Numerous employees indicated that they would be willing to return the money, but most wanted nothing more to do with the firm. It was a preview of the possible exodus to come, one that concerns Liddy himself."
"My fear is that the damage is done," he told a congressional subcommittee. "That they will return [the money], but that they will return it with their resignations."
"There is little doubt within Financial Products that he's right about that."
"'Nobody is going to give it back and then stay,' said one of the firm's employees. 'If they give back the money, then they will walk.'"
Given that these employees are not the ones who set up this mess, why would they take the heat for someone else's epic disaster?
Clearly, AIG is beyond repair. The name is synonymous with corruption and greed. Who in their right mind would want to do business with them now?
The company should be dismantled, assets sold off and it's corrupt managers and executives who quit were fired or fled, where ever they are—should be held accountable for their crimes.
Wednesday, March 18, 2009
And now a word from the AIG staff...
From TheHill.com
AIG staff: "We deserve this money."
Unbelieveable.
Maybe it's time for some pitchfork justice?
AIG staff: "We deserve this money."
Unbelieveable.
Maybe it's time for some pitchfork justice?
The last nails in the coffin of Capitalism
Duncan Niederauer the CEO of NYSE Euronext, received a $4 million bonus in 2008.This is despite the fact his company lost $738 million and its stock price fell 69%
This system is DEAD. Capitalism consumes everything to excess then despite wave after wave of collapse, rewards the LOSERS, the rapers of the public trust, the profiteers in corporations who rewrite the rules so that their crimes are 'legal.'
Take a look at this slideshow of a few of the corporatisms shining stars at Huffinton Post.
It's time to reinvent capitalism.
If we are going to survive, if people are to have any confidence in the system, its excesses must be rooted out.
We need a hybrid economic model.
blending successful practices while eliminating the kind of greed, and self-regulated excess the corporations have enjoyed for decades.
Revoke the Corporate 'I," discourage extreme wealth, reward responsibility and productivity, not profits at the expense of the public good.
Poor, poor, corporate executives....
AIG CEO Edward "we-had-to-to-it" Liddy and fansNow Isn't that special?
Why don't I just pay HALF my taxes? or HALF my credit card payments... that will be an interesting experiment.
How long would it take you or I to land in court or jail? Not fucking long.
But these guys get bonuses for helping to drive the ENTIRE U.S. ECONOMY into an ever deepening hole!
I want to know why the recipients of these handouts haven't been fired in the first place. They were the ones who led us in to this disaster for their own profit.
Who striped the provision to block bonuses? Huffington Post asks too.
CNN reports
"The AIG chief executive noted that he believed the retention bonuses at the financial products unit were necessary, so that competition would not take AIG's best minds away.
"I am trying desperately to prevent an uncontrolled collapse of that business," he said. "This is the only way to improve AIG's ability to pay taxpayers back quickly and completely and the only way to avoid a systemic shock to the economy that the U.S. government help was meant to relieve."
Liddy added that the financial products unit has been successful at unwinding the company's derivatives business to $1.6 trillion from $2.7 trillion. Paying $165 million in bonuses is "a large number, but in the context of $1.6 trillion, I think it's a good trade," he said.
But lawmakers disagreed, arguing that AIG was fighting to retain the wrong people.
"These are not the people you want to retain -- you need to get people who understand the mistakes and undo them," said committee chairman Barney Frank, D-Mass.
Mr. Liddy, please release their names so we can share our appreciation of their labors.
Oh! and then there is this nugget:
Huffington post reports on assclown Limbaugh DEFENDING the bonuses.
You just can't make this shit up!
Monday, March 16, 2009
WRITE YOUR REPRESENTATIVES, EXPRESS YOUR OUTRAGE!
- Yesterday AIG paid out $450 million in "retention bonuses" to executives in its Financial Services Group, the out-of-control derivatives trading arm that looted the company, destroyed its stock and contracted for huge bonuses even after they saw the risk of collapse.
- The $450 million was just a portion of the $1.2 billion AIG paid out in bonuses across the board within a company that lost $100 billion last year.
- Rep. Barney Frank, chairman of the House Financial Services Committee, wants to try and recover these bonuses.
- American taxpayers now own $80% of AIG after paying $173 billion to keep it afloat.
- Larry Summers says the government simply can't break the contracts that AIG had with executives, even as the Treasury is forcing auto companies to break their labor contracts as a condition of receiving TARP funds.
- Meanwhile, 21% of Americans are struggling to pay for the health care, and going without treatments they need.
Tell Congress—no more money for banks until they tell us where it has all gone.
Firedoglake be delivering comments personally to members of Congress this Wednesday, when Barney Frank's Financial Services Committee holds an AIG hearing on Capitol Hill:
Please take a moment and sign their petition.
Speaking of Accountability....
FAILBank Criminals continue to give corrupt executives millions in bonuses.
Despite Obama's outrage, the assholes have the nerve to defend the practice and even make threats if forced to stop.... Read on at firedoglake.
Is there any Accountability?!
First everyone at BushCo walks away filthy rich and free and then Fuld and Thain and GM walk away with as much cas as they can lie to get and now this?!??!!!
This is the last straw for the idea of 'justice' in this country... unless these executives are removed from office, return the money and many others actually go to jail, then the legal system of this country is devolves into one great big fucking joke.
I've long believed that justice is a convenient fiction (like old, angry, white-man god), random at best, too often in favor of monied interests, but if these banksters keep this cash it is an open endorsment for criminal behavior.
I'm not optimistic.
More from Salon.
Just in case anyone doubted that BushCo tortured prisoners
"Enhanced Interogation techniques" of Middle ages
Will there be any accountability?
Wednesday, March 11, 2009
Socialisms is ur friend!
It's okay, Barney will lead the way...Recently, republicians have been foaming at the mouth about Obama's Stimulus bill, claiming it is "socialism" (READ: BOO!! SCARY!) The only think more absurd than comparing Obama's economic plans with Soviet Socialism is the state of the GOP itself. (Go ahead let make that ass-clown Limbaugh your supreme leader....)
But seriously, there hasn't been an intelligent dialogue about Socialism in this country in ages, if ever. GOP memory isn't a fraction as good as their national symbol. Here's a reminder: Reaganist capitalism has failed (tax cuts for Richy-rich, trust the magic of the market, Deregulation, repeat until filthy rich)
Since Republicans don't generally respond to logic, reason, and a collapsed economy, then perhaps a rebranding is in order.
Maybe something a little more age appropriate to guide them along—imagine if socialism got a new symbol— like Barney!
Check out Joan Walsh's amusing blog post on socialism at Salon.
Some highlights:
"There is no 'truth' about socialism, there are truths; just as there is no socialism, but many socialisms."
"CNBC's crazy Jim Cramer recently called Obama a "Bolshevik," an even older, more obscure, more irrelevant slur."
But seriously, there hasn't been an intelligent dialogue about Socialism in this country in ages, if ever. GOP memory isn't a fraction as good as their national symbol. Here's a reminder: Reaganist capitalism has failed (tax cuts for Richy-rich, trust the magic of the market, Deregulation, repeat until filthy rich)
Since Republicans don't generally respond to logic, reason, and a collapsed economy, then perhaps a rebranding is in order.
Maybe something a little more age appropriate to guide them along—imagine if socialism got a new symbol— like Barney!
Check out Joan Walsh's amusing blog post on socialism at Salon.
Some highlights:
"There is no 'truth' about socialism, there are truths; just as there is no socialism, but many socialisms."
"CNBC's crazy Jim Cramer recently called Obama a "Bolshevik," an even older, more obscure, more irrelevant slur."
cnbc: FAIL!
Salon has an excellent piece on CNBC's utter failure and uselessness.
Who watches this @#$%/!?
and another good one on Open Salon's Saturn Smith blog.
and this explosive nugget from the Huffington Post! A highight:
"Jim Cramer gave [an interview] to TheStreet.com's Aaron Task.
In it, the host of Mad Money says he regularly manipulated the market when he ran his hedge fund. He calls it "a fun game, and it's a lucrative game." He suggests all hedge fund managers do the same. "No one else in the world would ever admit that, but I could care. I am not going to say it on TV," he quips in the video.
He also calls Wall Street Journal reporters "bozos" and says behaving illegally is okay because the SEC doesn't understand it anyway."
How does this idiot stay employed?
Who watches this @#$%/!?
and another good one on Open Salon's Saturn Smith blog.
and this explosive nugget from the Huffington Post! A highight:
"Jim Cramer gave [an interview] to TheStreet.com's Aaron Task.
In it, the host of Mad Money says he regularly manipulated the market when he ran his hedge fund. He calls it "a fun game, and it's a lucrative game." He suggests all hedge fund managers do the same. "No one else in the world would ever admit that, but I could care. I am not going to say it on TV," he quips in the video.
He also calls Wall Street Journal reporters "bozos" and says behaving illegally is okay because the SEC doesn't understand it anyway."
How does this idiot stay employed?
Monday, March 9, 2009
DO NOT WANT!
Okay, This is a guilty pleasure, but the "Do Not Want" mistranslation from that Chinese version of Revenge of the Sith has apparantly become a popular catch phrase.... here are a few choice examples that have had me in stitches all morning.
Enjoy!
Lost in translation
Fail.from winterson.com
"a couple of years ago when i was living in shanghai i bought a revenge of the sith dvd off the street. it came with hilariously mangled subtitles that ranged from somewhat close to what the actors were saying to far, far away...."
Hilarious!
Some highlights:
Thursday, March 5, 2009
Wednesday, March 4, 2009
If you think Death will settle your bills....
Think again.... now the corporate goons are going after relatives of the recently deceased. It wasn't enough that they have made bankruptcy impossible for average people, now they want to collect from next of kin! And the sickest part is—it's working.Remember relatives are not legally responsible, yet they take on that responsibility out of a sense of honor or obligation. Being responsible while you are alive is of course important, but it is really reprehensible that the corporations are now harassing the living for the debts of the dead.
Monday, March 2, 2009
Mexico security seriously threatened by drug violence
60 Minutes reports on the exploding drug war in Mexico. Hella Scary.One of the most disturbing details is that most of the guns are purchased in the US- particularly Texas.
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