And I mean LOUD.

All the folks 'round you at work can go like "What?!"

http://youtu.be/tnpYTMreJY4

I don't recall vomiting violently on our shoes for about 9 hours and then running away being a standard part of the script previously. Someone needs to look in to that code.

Ease
        I guess Destiny had stayed up and read or something. I woke up about six, started coffee and was glad the robots were almost as good at cooking as they were bad at making coffee. Unless it had to do with barbecue sauce, and who has barbecue in space? Especially for breakfast?
        Or pork, I remembered. I don't eat pork, it's too damned expensive these days and I like beef and chicken better, anyway, but George Wilson, one of our guys who hauls first class passengers, eats it sometimes because the company has pork on first class boats and he tells me the pork is as bad as the coffee. Odd that they cook bacon pretty good, but all you have to do with bacon is microwave it. The robots would have to be dumber than they already are to mess bacon up. Besides, only rich people eat pork bacon, normal people have turkey bacon and you cook them both the same way. I had a pork bacon sandwich with lettuce and tomato in a restaurant once and couldn't tell the difference. Except for the size of the bill, that was a damned expensive sandwich!
        But that one trip I was hauling frozen pork to that big science station in orbit around Venus I had plenty of pork. Too much damned pork. Especially since I can't cook pork much better than the damned robots can. Yeah, my parents taught me to cook when I was a kid but we were poor, had to print everything out and we damned sure couldn't afford a luxury like pork.
        I was twenty three before I ate my first ham and cheese sandwich, as a treat to myself on my birthday. I didn't see what all the fuss was about, I thought thin sliced turkey was better, and a hell of a lot cheaper...
        Huh? Oh, sorry, my mind wandered. Anyway, while coffee was perking and the robots were making breakfast and Destiny was sleeping I took my shower and got dressed.
        The smell of decent coffee that robots can't make must have woke Destiny up, because she walked in as I was pouring the first cup. I handed it to her, said "Good morning, sweetheart," and poured a cup for myself and kissed her. "Hungry?" I asked. "I had the robot make waffles and sausage."
        "Sausage? You have pork?"
        I laughed. "Of course not, it's beef sausage. The company sure isn't going to pay for pork unless there's rich passengers traveling first class. And I damned sure can't afford it on a Captain's wages."
        "That's too bad," she said, "I love pork sausage but it's way too expensive to eat very often, I feel guilty when I do eat pork. I usually just eat it on my birthday for breakfast."
        "I never ate any," I said. She switched the video on and we watched the "news" while we ate. There was one item about a robot probe that was on its way to Alpha and Proxima Centauri at five gravities thrust. I wonder how fast that thing would be going by the time it was halfway there? Compared to that, Neptune's right next door, and it's a long way off, even from Mars! It was already months ahead of its telemetry, and no, I don't know what "telemetry" is but that's what they said on the news. It sounded impressive to me, anyway.
        It was almost eight so I kissed Destiny and went to the pilot room. Everything was normal so I started my inspections. It would be a light day, since I didn't have to inspect quarters. I still had a hell of a lot of ion engines to check out, though.
        After the generator had blown out I'd reduced power to a third of the engines, and twenty four, the one I'd made sputter when I'd killed all them damned pirates in the rock storm, and sixty four and seventeen, the ones with the funny voltages, were offline.
        I plugged robots into all three of them and had them do a "twenty four hour diagnostic" which is what they tell me the robots do when you plug them in like that. I'd see the results tomorrow. I might need those motors when we were closer to Mars and pirates were more likely.
        I climbed the five damned flights of stairs, and walked past the commons on my way home. The German woman was in there eating, and four more were playing cards. I wondered what they were gambling for... oh hell, I'm a dumbass, they were gambling for drops, of course. What else would they be playing for? I pretended not to notice and went home.
        Destiny was reading, so I got a cup of coffee and started to sit down. "That's robot coffee," she warned.
        I poured it down the drain and started a new pot and turned on the video and watched an old Western. She put her tablet down when it started. I asked what she was reading.
        She grinned. "A history of fones. I was reading an old historical novel about a 1930s prison where they executed criminals by electrocuting them. Creepy book, but hard to understand in places, I have to look stuff up to see what the author is talking about. Back then 'fone' was spelled with a P H instead of an F and they weren't really fones, they only did speech and they were all wired together, either attached to a wall or by a wire than went into the wall.
        "That prison book was creepy, I haven't finished it yet. Barbaric back then. What are you putting in?"
        "An old western with that one guy from Rawhide, called The Outlaw Josey Wales," I answered.
        "I haven't seen that one yet," she said, which surprised me. She's the one that got me liking these old westerns. I said "There's a movie listed that says it's about a 1930s prison, I wonder if it could be from that book you're reading?"
        "Probably not," she said, "but anyway the movies are never faithful to the books and usually aren't nearly as good. Are you hungry?"
        "I could eat."
        She told the robot to cook a pizza and bring us some beers, and I started the movie.
        That was a long movie, but it was a really good one. We went to bed after it was over, well, after cuddling and listening to music a while...

Back in the early 1990s, when CD Roms were first invented, on major use of them was for the conspiracy dial up bulletin board system. With a CD Rom online on your bulletin board, you could "host" a CD full of downloadable text files on everything from government cover-ups to UFOs.

I was into such things at the time, and read many of these files.

Fast forward to today- and Pope Francis gives us a conspiracy theory: that rich first world nations are promoting war in the third world as a prop to economics. All over the first world Catholic blogosphere, there is outrage- how dare the Pope tell us capitalism is supported by warfare?

Of course, Dwight Eisenhower, upon leaving the U.S. Presidency said the same thing,- warned us about the military industrial complex.

But I seem to remember a "secret" document passed around those old BBSs from the Vietnam Era that basically said the same thing, only actually recommending it as a policy. Does anybody else remember this document? Can you remember something I can google on? I'm coming up empty.

The Counter-Revolution of 1776
Slave Resistance and the Origins of the United States of America
Gerald Horne

363 pages
April, 2014
ISBN: 9781479893409

The successful 1776 revolt against British rule in North America has been hailed almost universally as a great step forward for humanity. But the Africans then residing in the colonies overwhelmingly sided with London. In this trailblazing book, Gerald Horne complements his earlier celebrated Negro Comrades of the Crown, by showing that in the prelude to 1776, the abolition of slavery seemed all but inevitable in London, delighting Africans as much as it outraged slaveholders, and sparking the colonial revolt.

In the prelude to 1776, more and more Africans were joining the British military, and anti-slavery sentiments were deepening throughout Britain. And in the Caribbean, rebellious Africans were chasing Europeans to the mainland. Unlike their counterparts in London, the European colonists overwhelmingly associated enslaved Africans with subversion and hostility to the status quo. For European colonists, the major threat to security in North America was a foreign invasion combined with an insurrection of the enslaved. And as 1776 approached, London-imposed abolition throughout the colonies was a very real and threatening possibilityâ"a possibility the founding fathers feared could bring the slave rebellions of Jamaica and Antigua to the thirteen colonies. To forestall it, they went to war.

The so-called Revolutionary War, Horne writes, was in large part a counter-revolution, a conservative movement that the founding fathers fought in order to preserve their liberty to enslave othersâ"and which today takes the form of a racialized conservatism and a persistent racism targeting the descendants of the enslaved. The Counter-Revolution of 1776 drives us to a radical new understanding of the traditional heroic creation myth of the United States.

http://www.amazon.com/The-Counter-Revolution-1776-Resistance-Origins/dp/1479893404

Engineering
        The company's co-founder, largest stockholder, and CEO was annoyed; this was certainly not his best day, golf aside. He'd spent too much time on the course and only had time for a little more of Knolls' report, and now he had to chew out that incredibly stupid chief engineer, who was knocking on his door and in danger of losing his job. This could have crippled the company. "Come in," the CEO said.
        It seemed the company he and Charles had practically built from scratch was falling apart. God damn it, quality was deteriorating badly, and he was starting to think he needed a new head engineer.
        "Talk to me, Gene."
        "Sir?"
        God damn it, he thought. He opened a folder and handed a piece of paper to the engineer. "I'm talking about this schematic wiring diagram. How in the hell did this happen, and why was it spotted by someone who wasn't even an engineer?"
        Richardson said "I honestly don't know, sir."
        "Your teams are getting really sloppy, Richardson. This has been built into ten ships already and they're all going to have to be rewired because engineering screwed up on the blueprints. How in the hell could your team miss this? How the hell could you miss it? An intern discovered it! And he wasn't even an engineering student, he was just an electronics hobbyist."
        Richardson hung his head. The CEO continued. "If these ships had been operational a lot of people would have died and it would have caused the company great financial hardship; we're self-insured. One more mistake like this and you're fired, Richardson, and I'll get someone competent.
        "Now tell me, who programmed our robots to make coffee?"
        "Sir?"
        "Robot," Mister Green said, "Make this man a cup of coffee. Richardson, I got a report from a ship's captain complaining about the coffee so I had one of the ship robots sent here to check. He's right, this is the worst coffee I've ever tasted."
        "Well, sir, I don't like coffee myself, I had Larry Jones program it."
        "Why in the hell didn't you test it? That's the kind of sloppiness I'm talking about."
        "We did do chemical tests, sir..."
        "But you never thought of having anyone who actually drinks coffee try it? Look, Richardson, I'll be blunt: you're on the verge of losing your job. We have paying customers booking passage on our boats and they don't expect to make their own coffee and they expect the coffee they're served to be good coffee. I want a program for a robot to make not just drinkable coffee, which this isn't, and not just good coffee, but great coffee. I want the program in a week and a demonstration in two weeks and updates sent to all the coffee robots as soon as it's tested, and by that I mean by a group of people who enjoy coffee. Put Jones on a project he's good at. This is unacceptable. Am I understood, Richardson?
        "Yes sir."
        "And I want you to weed out the incompetents in your shop. This sloppiness is inexcusable."
        "Sir, the union..."
        "Tell the union that if they give you any trouble there won't be a new contract, I'll replace every engineer and programmer in the shop as soon as the contract expires. The union is supposed to give us quality employees, and it doesn't look to me like we're getting them.
        "Now, one more screw up and your career is over, Richardson. Now get out of here and get to work, I have a report to finish reading."
        After Richardson left, he buzzed his secretary. "Get Human Resources on the fone. And schedule a meeting with all the department heads for nine tomorrow morning. And I don't want to take any calls unless it's the company President, my wife, kids, or an emergency after I talk to Human Resources." He drummed his fingers for a few seconds and the fone buzzed again. It was Osbourne.
        "What's up, Charles?"
        "Have you tasted our robots' coffee, Dewey? I was curious after reading Knolls' report. That's the nastiest coffee I ever drank. And I was in the Army."
        "Yes, I did, and Richardson got a good ass chewing. I threatened to fire him, and I might still. And his might not be the only head to roll, Knolls' report was an eye opener. I want reports from all the Captains after each run from now on."
        "So do I, I already ordered it. I'm leaving for Mars tomorrow on whatever of our first class passenger boats can get me there the fastest right after the meetings. I wish I could skip the board meeting.
        "I'm especially worried about engineering, that's our most important function. I'm not too happy about financial, either. How did we let this slip past us, Dewey?"
        "Hell if I know, Charles. Both of us are going to have to be more vigilant. Look, I have to finish reading this report. I may not finish it this afternoon so I want you to mostly take charge in the meeting since you've read the whole thing and have more information. I'll see you in the morning. Goodbye."
        "See you, Dewey."

Sorry I haven't been here lately, but I've been working furiously on the book. There are five more chapters ready to post, followed by a few that haven't been written yet, then six more written chapters that go at the end of the book. The manuscript stands at 40,261 words as of this writing.

Today Donetsk, tomorrow Detroit.

A leaked memo attributed to RAND corporation think tank suggests the Ukrainian govt should engage in an all-out war in the east, including shutting down all communications, putting citizens in internment camps and killing all who resist such actions.

    In the shocking letter, which has been leaked to online media, the advice offers a step by step brutal guide in how to deal with the population in eastern Ukraine. The authenticity of the document which bears the RAND corporation logo, however, could not be independently verified.

    The RAND Corporation is non-profit global think tank which offers
    research and analysis to the US armed forces.

http://rt.com/news/170572-rand-east-ukraine-plan/

I just lost a long post explaining why, suffice it say that two sources of modern liberalism, the creole revolutions in the US and Spanish colonies and JS Mill's philosophy, are central to imperialist ideology.

Liberalism appeared "progressive" among other reasons because it sought the transfer of power from European monarchs to colonists. Often, as in the US where the War of Independence was led by a land speculator who risked losing tens of thousands of acres of illegally "purchased" land, the basic issues had to do with the fate of aboriginals. The Royal Proclamation of 1763, banning the purchase of Indian land except by the Crown and preventing colonists from crossing the Alleghany mountains, was a major grievance. In Spanish colonies there were similar issues. Colonists wanted the liberty to plunder-and enslave- on their own account without restraint from Europe.

As to Mill, who was a key figure in the East Indian Company's rule of India, he was an ideologist of both imperialism and representative democracy. The Liberals shared a contempt for non-European cultures with a cynical and ruthless justification of the employment of military force in order to bring foreigners under imperial rule. Their attitude towards workers was equally contemptuous.

Then there was the great French liberal de Tocqueville, author of Democracy in America and one of the leaders in colonising Algeria, a fervent defender of the theft of North African land and the enslavement of muslims.

Conservatives often opposed imperial adventures, Burke being a prime example, while liberals wrecked civilisations, and caused untold millions of deaths, by tearing down, for example, China's government in order to impose liberal trade policies. In China among the disasters was the imposition of opium on a government which rightly feared mass drug addiction. This was a policy carried out under the direction of one of Bentham's executors and disciples. In India the demolition of controls over grain storage and distribution, and a refusal to allow famine relief, born of market monomania, were policies imposed by liberals, often liberals of the highest distinction. Macaulay, for example, who held the view that a shelf of English literature was worth all the books ever written in Asia- a judgement of astonishing ignorance but the founding principle of an educational system which still exists.

  All those American college professors who joined the CIA in the late forties were real inheritors of the liberal tradition. Their ideology lives on in Samantha Power, Obama and those vast swathes of the Democratic party's leading cadres who cannot get their heads around the notion that imperial wars are never justifiable and that imperialism is, and always has been, a force for evil, dyed with the blood of those it has wiped out in serial genocides.

Of course there is much more to it, as their always is, but my assertion, far from being bullshit is hard to deny: Liberalism is the wellspring of western imperialist ideology.

Posted by: bevin | Jul 3, 2014 9:32:10 PM | 71

I must offer cryptic laughter at the peevishness on display. You stay beautiful, child.
Alternately, you could grow up.

Check out what entry-level salaries at Walmart look like in a state without a minimum wage
What a blasphemous affront to Holy Progress.

It means, in the end that corporations, at least until they are sold out to the stock market, have to actually be ethical and live by the ethics of the entrepreneurs who created them.

Aw, yeah:
http://games.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=5346379&cid=47358261

From some FA on the Hobby Lobby ruling:

Earlier this month we learned that the FAA decrees that it's legal to use drones for fun, but not for profit.

Why do I lose rights in America simply by virtue of trying to make money on my own time, or with my own association with others?

Good article:

Read the whole thing.
I know there are some on here who like to equate this oligarchy with "conservative" politics, though I disagree with that entirely.
Past all that, though, what matters is what we're going to DO about it.
If Mississippi teaches us anything, I submit that http://conventionofstates.com/ is the way to go. Forget DC, and its Progressive overlords.

The two rulings are not a big surprise considering who is on the bench. The downstream repercussions of the Hobby Lobby ruling will be interesting to see played out, however.

In particular, if no insurance company wants to offer a plan that excludes every imaginable type of "contraception", then what would happen? Will Hobby Lobby take them to court to force them to offer a plan that meets their particular belief system?