This was the slogan of the british government during WWII when Germany was actually bombing their cities. Compare that to the American rhetoric of the last few years:

• SARS will kill you! BE AFRAID
• The Bird Flu will kill you! BE AFRAID
• OBAMA’s death panels are coming for Grandma! BE AFRAID.
• The Muslims are coming to kill you! BE AFRAID.
• The New Black Panthers are coming to kill you. BE AFRAID.
• Mexicans are beheading people in the desert! BE AFRIAD.

Detect a pattern? Authoritarian governments and their agent constantly menace the public with imaginary and ginned up threats, but when things actually get out of hand, they switch to trying to keep us calm.

For more than a week now, the Japanese government has urged its people to stay calm as, while grave, the situation is under control. Think about that.

The purpose of the healthcare system is to keep people from getting sick in the first place, and, if they do get sick, to make them better as quickly and inexpensively as possible.

The purpose of business is to make money.

There is no money in keeping people from getting sick, and curing the sick ASAP.

The way to make money through healthcare is to get people sick as soon as possible and keep them sick as long as possible, meanwhile draining them dry of funds for the “treatments.”

The healthcare system is fundamentally incompatible with profit motives. We must abandon private healthcare thinking as quickly as possible.

Update (25Jul2009): See Bill Maher’s piece in the Huffington Post, New Rule: Not Everything in America Has to Make a Profit. FTA: “If conservatives get to call universal health care “socialized medicine,” I get to call private health care “soulless vampires making money off human pain.” The problem with President Obama’s health care plan isn’t socialism, it’s capitalism.”

This problem cannot be solved through elections. Most often, elections comprise a choice among two or more immoral, unethical, rich adversaries, none of whom have any intention to upset the status quo if elected, because the status quo leans sharply in favor of those in power. Thus, vote all you want – nothing will change.

With the fundamental equalizer of democracy (elections) gone, a disenchanted public must turn to other means. I hate to say this, but peaceful protest don’t do shit. Worse, violent protests will only attract more violence. (UPDATE: Worse still, some so-called western democracies are working to criminalize dissent.) And just forget about overthrowing the government of any modern country. Unless you manage to hypnotize the military, all the rifle-toting rednecks in the Southern U.S. won’t mean dick-all.

One thing that’s left is jury trials, and herein lies the power. As a juror it is your right to find a defendant “not guilty” for any reason you like, regardless of the judge’s instructions. So here is the plan: if you are an american and are called for jury duty, find the defendant ‘not guilty’ on the basis of discrimination, then get on the news and explain. Until Bush, Cheney, Rumsfeld and the rest of the cast of The Torture Show are held responsible under the law, no one will be.

I recommend this same method of protest in any country where those in power purport to be above the law. I don’t know if it will work, but it will damn well get some attention.

The strange thing is, grad schools seem to be constructed around the assumption that grad students are desperately inept and have no idea what they want to do for their thesis or beyond. This premise has so profoundly affected the structure of graduate programs that when a student does know what he’s doing and has a clear idea of how to go about it, the program seems to work against his initiative at every turn.

To understand just how silly this is, consider that only the most elite students are supposed to do PhDs in the first place. Thus, assuming that PhD students will be inept and confused is either the heights of cynicism or just plain nuts.

So let me get this straight, Judge Tomas ‘the tit‘ Norström, is asked to take on a case where the defendants are essentially arguing that copyright law is an obsolete pile of shit that’s been rendered meaningless by the digitization of information, and he doesn’t think that being a member of “the Swedish COPYRIGHT Association” is a slight conflict of interest? WTF?

To be fair, I can understand why the tit ruled against The Pirate Bay. He’s a legal type, after all, and legal types aren’t exactly known for their deep insight into modern technology. But legal types are known for understanding conflicts of interest, bias, perceived bias, and how being in a club with the lawyers representing the plaintiffs makes you un-fucking-fit to take the case!

I hope this guy can’t walk down the street for the next five years without being egged by pissed off swedish teenagers.

11/May/2009 Update: This just keeps getting worse!

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Dear Environmentally-Conscious but mathematically challenged bureaucrats,

Please stop with the eco-theatre. If you want to make a real impact, try starting with the things that create the most pollution. Start with the enormous amounts of methane produced by the livestock that satiate our meat addiction (not that meat is bad – we just eat too much of it.) Start by reducing sprawl so people don’t travel as far. Start by improving building codes so we stop building inefficient structures. Start by improving the emissions standards for all the buses and heavy construction equipment spewing diesel fumes night and day. Start with the coal- and oil-fired power plants.

And for fucksake do the math before you open your mouth.

Prostitution may be the oldest profession, but men made war before money was invented to pay prostitutes.