Posted by commenter SWB2 to a Washington Post story headlined “Skeleton of teenage girl confirms cannibalism at Jamestown colony”:
It just goes to show that people will be innovative and industrious in supporting themselves if we can just get rid of this safety net.
Sincerely,
Paul Ryan
Posted in Class, Economy, Health, History, Human behavior, Politics, Satire [duh]
Posted by commenter SWB2 to a Washington Post story headlined “Skeleton of teenage girl confirms cannibalism at Jamestown colony”:
It just goes to show that people will be innovative and industrious in supporting themselves if we can just get rid of this safety net.
Sincerely,
Paul Ryan
From ExtremelyDecentFilms via Corrente:
Posted in Corpocracy, Humor, MSM, Satire [duh], Video
A classic performed here in Demark in 1967 and written in 1965 — during another moment of crisis in the Catholic church — the song styling of Tom Lehrer, retired UC Santa Cruz mathematician and inventor of the Jello Shot:
Posted in Music, Satire [duh], Video
In light of our musings on medical cannabis, we provide an equal time response opportunity in the form of a Sundance-debuting, audience award-winning public service announcement:
The program notes:
Debuting at the 2013 Sundance Film Festival and available only on YouTube
Catnip is all the rage with today’s modern feline, but do we really understand it? This film frankly discusses the facts about this controversial substance.
Watch more short films curated by Sundance Institute.
Written and Directed by Jason Willis. Starring Giovanni Dominice, Neil Kight and Terry Easley.
It was, for those of us who grew up when the Cold War reached its peak, the perfect film, the blackest of satires about the bleakest of horrors, featuring a superlative cast and a riotous script.
Stanley Kubrick’s Dr. Strangelove or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb allowed an anxiety-rid generation to laugh in the face of horror.
Appearing 15 months after the Cuban Missile Crisis brought the world to the brink of nuclear apocalypse, the film’s dark vision show a glaring light on the horrors of life at a time when nuclear attack drills were a regular part of school life and monthly siren blasts served as a constant reminder of the daily proximity of disaster.
The film is inextricably linked to the time it was shot, and the scheduled initial screening date for critics was changed at the very last minute because on 22 November 1963 the world was in shock because of the assassination that very day of President John F. Kennedy.
We recall our own first impression of the film as a college student in Colorado. First we felt a momentary sense of outrage, quickly followed by the first of very many outbursts of cathartic laughter.
The most memorable character, the Peter Sellers creation whose name graces the title, was a former Nazi scientist, now enshrined as the nation’s leading nuclear expert — just as former SS rocketeer Werner von Braun had become the public face of the U.S. space program.
And Sellers himself, playing three distinct roles, was never better.
So enjoy this David Naylor documentary on the creation of the film, created in 2000, for its insights into one of the most remarkable films ever made.
Inside: ‘Dr. Strangelove or How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb’
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And it you haven’t seen the film, enjoy:
WeAreTheIntruders, a group of British activists, donned their formal best Thursday and popped in on a retirement dinner for Britain’s top tax man to present him with a well-earned reward for his service on behalf of corporadoes and banksters:
Matthew Sparkes of the London Telegraph reports on the dubious honors for David Harnett, formally known as Permanent Secretary for Tax at Her Majesty’s Revenue and Customs:
Mr Hartnett was giving a speech at New College Oxford on Thursday when a group calling themselves WeAreTheIntruders, posing as employees of Goldman Sachs and Vodafone, interrupted to present him with a bouquet of flowers and the “Lifetime Achievement Award to Corporate Tax Planning”, otherwise known as the “Golden Handshake”.
HMRC was accused of agreeing controversial “sweetheart” deals with large businesses over outstanding tax bills while it was still run by Mr Hartnett. The issue exploded last year after a whistleblower revealed that HMRC had waived as much as £20m of interest on a £30m tax bill owed by Goldmans on bankers’ bonuses. It was also accused of letting Vodafone off as much as £8bn in taxes by accepting a £1.25bn settlement.
It was cleared by a National Audit Office report in June, although it was told to clean up its processes to remove the suspicion of unhealthy relationships with companies. At the time HMRC said: “We welcome today’s report. We have always maintained that the settlements represented good value for the UK.”
David Leigh of The Guardian reported on that Goldman Sachs tax deal back in December:
Britain’s tax authorities have given Goldman Sachs an unusual and generous Christmas present, leaked documents reveal. In a secret London meeting last December with the head of Revenue, the wealthy Wall Street banking firm was forgiven £10m interest on a failed tax avoidance scheme.
HM Revenue and Customs sources admit privately that the interest-free deal is “a cock-up” by officials, but refuse to say who was responsible.
Documents leaked to Private Eye magazine and published in full by the Guardian record that Britain’s top tax official, HMRC’s permanent secretary Dave Hartnett, personally shook hands on a secret settlement last December.
>snip<
The £10m Christmas gift for Goldman was the culmination of a prolonged attempt by the US firm to avoid paying national insurance on huge bonuses for its bankers working in London.
The sum was pocket change to Goldman, whose employees received $15.3bn (£9.5bn) in pay and bonuses last year. Its Wall Street head, Lloyd Blankfein, received $68m in 2008 and at the height of Britain’s banking crisis 100 London partners set their bonuses at £1m each. This level was considered a mark of restraint.
It wasn’t the first time Harnett was targeted. Back in November UK Uncut paid him a visit to “congratulate” him on the Goldman Sachs deal when he was delivering the keynote speech at the Corporate Tax Conference:
As the BBC reported in November, Parliament’s Public Accounts Committee accused Harnett of playing too cozy a game with corporateers, finding that, among other things, he:
As for Vodafone, which owns the lion’s share of Verizon, here’s what Andrew Buckwell and Martin Delgado of the London Daily Mail reported in March:
Britain’s top tax official accepted hospitality from a mobile phone company’s financial advisers only weeks before a deal which allowed the firm to avoid up to £6 billion of tax liabilities.
Dave Hartnett attended a supper at the headquarters of accountancy firm Deloitte while negotiations were still ongoing over the amount of tax its client Vodafone would have to pay.
Three months later, in what has been described as an ‘unbelievable cave-in’, Mr Hartnett agreed Vodafone was not liable for vast amounts of tax on profits racked up by a subsidiary based in a tax haven.
Yep, Harnett certainly deserved those awards.
Posted in Banksters, Class, Corpocracy, Economy, Europe, Politics, Satire [duh], Video, Wealth
A creative parody from Just New Productions, which notes: “We could have been so much more than just friends with healthcare benefits.”
H/T to Louis Proyect.
Posted in Music, Politics, Satire [duh], Video
Steve Almond, writing in The Baffler, about the insidious roles of Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert as court jesters of corpocracy:
The reason our discourse has grown vicious, and has drifted away from matters of actual policy and their moral consequence, isn’t because of some misunderstanding between cultural factions. It is the desired result of a sustained campaign waged by corporations, lobbyists, politicians, and demagogues who have placed private gain over the common good.
In a sense, these quacks have no more reliable allies than Stewart and Colbert. For the ultimate ethos of their television programs is this: the customer is always right. We need not give in to sorrow, or feel disgust, or take action, because our brave clown princes have the tonic for what ails the national spirit. Their clever brand of pseudo-subversion guarantees a jolt of righteous mirth to the viewer, a feeling that evaporates the moment their shows end. At which point we return to our given role as citizens: consuming whatever the quacks serve up next.
Posted in Corpocracy, Culture, Humor, MSM, Satire [duh]
Titanic, a German satirical monthly, is being sued by the pope for a pontifical pictorial portrayal that shows a Photoshopped Benedict XVI in need of Depends.
The front and rear covers were devoted to images of papal incontinence, a satirical play on the embarrassing leaks [including some allegedly perpetrated by the pope’s butler] revealing nefarious dealings by the Vatican’s bank — including money laundering for the Mafia.
The photo of the now-banned cover via RT, which reports:
The magazine’s editor-in-chief Leo Fischer denies the edition has violated the Pope’s personal rights and says the picture is offensive only in people’s minds, as it shows that the Pope has spilled a drink. “Everyone knows that the Pope is a big fan of Fanta,” Spiegel Online quotes Fisher as saying.
Spiegel reports on the legal action:
Heavenly justice can only be administered by God, but on Earth, it is a job for the courts. Which is why Pope Benedict XVI has now had a cease and desist order filed against the German satire magazine Titanic. Matthias Kopp, spokesperson for the German Bishops’ Conference, confirmed to SPIEGEL ONLINE that archbishop Angelo Becciu has contracted a law firm in the Western German city of Bonn in the name of the Pope.
The front and back covers of the current issue of the magazine are illegal and harm the holy father’s legal rights, says Kopp. “Titanic oversteps every measure of decency,” he says.
On Tuesday, a state court in Hamburg issued a temporary injunction against the magazine, a court spokesperson said. Under threat of a fine, Titanic is no longer allowed to distribute the issue and the picture is not allowed to be published on the Internet. Issues already in circulation, however, don’t have to be recalled, the court ruled.
In the current cover, Pope Benedict appears in a religious cassock that is soiled yellow below the waist. Above the picture appears the headline “Hallelujah in the Vatican: The leak has been found!” On the back cover of the issue, the pope appears from behind and the stains are brown rather than yellow.
The court action has forced the magazine to post a new cover, announcing the pope has made a “joyful noise.” The soda he holds, Fanta, was created after imports of CocaCola were halted during the Second World War. Click on the image to enlarge.
Yeah, it’s stupid, but filing a legal action is stupider still since it only guarantees stories like this one.
Stay tuned for further developments. . .
Posted in Banksters, Culture, Europe, Satire [duh]
Robert Forster and the crew of Juice Media are back with a new edition of Rap News:
The program notes:
Juice Rap News: Episode XIII – A NEWS HOPE. Is an honest Fourth Estate the only Force than can restore peace and balance to the Galaxy? To find out, we consult two of journalism’s most influential and inflammatory figures: Rebel journalist, enfant terrible, Julian Assange, who awaits a verdict in London which could see him ‘Sextradited’ to Sweden. And, on the opposite end of the journalistic spectrum, Rupert Murdoch, head of the mighty NewsCorp media Empire, embroiled in legal scandals that go to the highest and lowest levels of celebrity in Britain. In the manichean manner of some ancient laser sword and forcery epic, join the most retro news-anchor in the Galaxy, Robert Foster, as he attempts to wrangle these two figures together for a rap-debate. Will the light or the dark side prevail – and is it really that easy to know which is which? How many Bothans died to bring us this information? Is the Force Estate with Robert? Will we see THE RETURN OF THE JOURNALI before the EMPIRE EXTRADITES BACK? For answers to all these questions and more, pull down your blast shields, switch off your on-board computer and feel the Force in this latest episode of Juice Rap News… or click play.
And here’s one we missed: Occupy 2012, with the real Noam Chomsky.
H/T to Jorn Barger, who found it here.
New Rumsfeld Scholarship Awarded To Student Who Demonstrates Potential To Ignore Geopolitical Consequences Of Armed Invasion
Posted in Humor, Satire [duh]
Well, not exactly new, but we can’t think of a better fight song for the self-anointed corporate elite from The Nation’s Greatest Public University, as administrators like Grinnin’ Bobby Birgeneau like to call the University of California’s Berkeley campus. And it’s just as suitable for the university’s national labs, especially Lawrence Berkeley, which has just announced its repurposing as a venue for the corporate profit.
So take it away, Tom Lehrer.
Posted in Corpocracy, Global Corporate U., Music, Satire [duh], Video
From satirist Ronnie Butler Jr., an update for our social media-obsessed culture of Gill Scott Heron’s “The Revolution Will Not be Televised.”
Here’s Heron’s 1971 original:
Posted in Culture, History, Media, Satire [duh], Video
The prognostications for 2012 from Robert Foster of Rap News.
The word:
RAP NEWS episode 10: The year we’ve all been waiting for – 2012AD (or 13.0.0.0.0, if you ask a Mayan) – is finally here. What will happen? Will we see the poles shift or a paradigm shift? Will a rogue Sumerian planet smash into our solar system, plunging us into serfdom under the iron fist of a race of gold-hungry aliens? Or are the aliens already here? Or are all these merely humanity’s collective projections of itself as it careens towards an ever-accelerating super-connected cyber-reality – whatever that means… One thing’s sure, if 2011 was a prelude of things to come, 2012 is going to be one hell of a year. Now that it has arrived, are we ready? Join your host Robert Foster and his guests, Terrence Moonseed and General Baxter, as they conduct an in-depth rap analysis into the future, and humanity’s place in it. Happy New YERA!
Posted in Culture, Politics, Satire [duh], Video
Raiders of the Lost Archives is a brilliant parallel shot-by-shot comparison by vlogger StooTV of the first minutes Steven Spielberg’s blockbuster Raiders of the Lost Ark with archival footage from 31 vintage films.
If imitation is the sincerest form of flattery, then Spielberg is a real crowd-pleaser.
All of which reminds us of one of a favorite songs from the venerable Tom Lehrer, the mathematician booted from the Harvard faculty for one os his satirical ditties:
Posted in Culture, Film, Satire [duh], Video
From a provocative Katherine Acosta post at The Smirking Chimp. comparing The Daily Show [TDS] tocourt jesters of yore, with Stewart and his crew performing the same role for today’s one percenters as their counterparts once did for royal courts:
Traditionally, the court jester served to amuse the monarch and his court, but also had a privileged position in that he was allowed to mock and ridicule the rulers when their behavior became too egregious or hypocritical. However, he could not go too far. His role was to admonish extreme behavior, but never to challenge the status quo. In her book, Fools Are Everywhere: The Court Jester Around the World,Beatrice K. Otto observes that the traditional court jester “is in a sense on the side of the ruler… [H]e is no rebel or revolutionary. His detached stance allows him to take the side of the victim in order to curb the excesses of the system without ever trying to overthrow it.”
Similarly, TDS ridicules and lampoons the excesses of the 1 percent, yet never really challenges the status quo. Indeed, TDS goes a step further than the traditional court jester by mocking not just the aristocracy, but also the peasantry, when the latter engage in direct action or civil disobedience to agitate for fundamental social change.
“Erika” was the favorite marching song of Hitler’s Waffen-SS, the armed forces of the racial elite created by Heinrich Himmler, originally as bodyguards for the Nazi leader.
Now Greek blogger omaden has transformed the song — with the help of a computer-generated avatar — into a critique of the role played by German Chancellor Angela Merkel in the ouster of elected Prime Minister George Panderou and his replacement by Lucas Papademos.
Posted in Culture, Europe, Politics, Satire [duh], Video
From the campus online TV station, an odd bit of subversion streamed Tuesday on Bearly Awake.
Posted in Academia, Culture, Global Corporate U., Law, Media, Satire [duh], Video
