tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-52313686979161083692024-02-18T20:17:20.098-08:00Tell It Like It IsYour one-stop shop for news, views and getting clues. I AM YOUR INFORMATION FILTER, since 2006.Jay Tellhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10067522224772095450noreply@blogger.comBlogger2733125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5231368697916108369.post-16570395246104964252017-12-17T20:31:00.000-08:002017-12-17T20:33:54.031-08:00No sugarcoating it: Trump is a traitor
I was just listening to Bill Cunningham advancing the conspiracy theory that the Justice Dept. and the FBI conspired to get Hillary in office, and after that failed, to nullify the 2016 Presidential election and get Trump out of the White House. Fox and other conservative outlets are all saying the same thing; it's not clear if they are wagging Trump's tail or vice-versa.
First, do people Jay Tellhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10067522224772095450noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5231368697916108369.post-41321075009276037132017-11-09T20:48:00.000-08:002017-11-09T21:21:46.047-08:00America should belong to her citiesI've certainly posted about it before, but I still doubt most people recognize how big a deal urbanization is, economically and politically, around the world but also in the U.S.
For instance, consider the complexity and difficulty of being the Governor of Nevada (pop. 3 million), Kansas (2.9 million), New Mexico (2 million), Nebraska (1.9 million), Idaho (1.7 million), North and South Dakota (Jay Tellhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10067522224772095450noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5231368697916108369.post-58921345505655715962017-10-15T21:38:00.001-07:002017-10-15T21:57:24.807-07:00Is Trump a 'heel' or just become himself?
So WTH, I'm going to start posting stuff again, if only to document some of the insanity of the Trump Years. I don't know if I have any special insight, as I'm not a trained psychologist, but here goes anyway....
Here, Matt Taibbi and backyard wrestling's liberal "heel" Daniel Richards described what I've noted for a while now: Trump is all negative, all the time.
Even when Trump is forJay Tellhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10067522224772095450noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5231368697916108369.post-79367715876522859052016-12-11T20:36:00.000-08:002016-12-11T21:40:46.130-08:00'The Walking Dead' and MachiavelliFor a while I've been meaning to post about the political economy of one of my favorite shows, The Walking Dead.
Anybody who has been paying attention should understand the zombie apocalypse was just the catalyst for the breakdown of society. It could have been a plague, a nuclear war.... Over these 7 seasons, zombies have increasingly become background; the real drama is human. It is the drama Jay Tellhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10067522224772095450noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5231368697916108369.post-41621465616923791122016-07-31T02:03:00.000-07:002016-07-31T16:55:16.047-07:00Bayer: Trump, treason and Confederate rebelsThese days I don't post much to TILIS because I've just about blown my wad; I've said everything that I can possibly say about America's political economy that is not just blow-for-blow, he said/she said bullshit, or simple repetition with further supporting facts.
But Alexei Bayer's on-point op-ed in the Kyiv Post hit on so many ugly, uncomfortable truths about America that I just had to. [BoldJay Tellhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10067522224772095450noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5231368697916108369.post-49593916294137239962016-07-10T00:23:00.000-07:002016-07-10T00:26:09.617-07:00White-on-white murder is an epidemicDear White Folks, we've got to stop killing each other!! How're blacks supposed to see us as responsible and credible on the issue of racial profiling by police if they know damn well we're killing each other everyday in our all-white neighborhoods? How're they supposed to respect us if we don't respect ourselves? And it's not because we're inherently more violent: we're Christian, just like theyJay Tellhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10067522224772095450noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5231368697916108369.post-54958260507524376142016-07-10T00:19:00.002-07:002016-07-20T22:42:07.289-07:00OMG I agree with Krauthammer on BrexitThis might be a first: I agree almost completely with conservative pundit Charles Krauthammer.
I'm not sure why it is -- because of Trump? -- most Republicans seem to cheer Brexit, which indisputably harms U.S. influence in Europe, besides its other bad effects.
Brexit: Sovereign Kingdom or little England?
By Charles Krauthammer
July 1, 2016 | Freedom's Back
URL: http://freedomsback.comJay Tellhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10067522224772095450noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5231368697916108369.post-2761436432312957252016-05-05T22:19:00.001-07:002016-05-05T22:28:11.393-07:00Acceleration of generational changeIf I had the time I would write this book, or maybe the book already exists (?); nevertheless, I would write a book about the generations that have really mattered in human history.... And speculate about the generations that will matter in the future....
Today, we classify generations based on the pace of technological change. The truth is, for over 90% of human history, technological change Jay Tellhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10067522224772095450noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5231368697916108369.post-5440641920142125202016-04-29T20:06:00.000-07:002016-04-29T20:06:41.265-07:00Galeotti on Putin's preparations to stay in power forever
Prof. Mark Galeotti -- in Moscow! -- is brilliant on how an ageing, increasingly isolated, paranoid dictator with no way out except jail or the morgue is consolidating police-spy power around himself, and substituting regular army troops for expendable mercenaries, as Putin prepares his gov't. to overreact and "break heads" to head off any popular riots -- a Russian Maidan. Will the 100th Jay Tellhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10067522224772095450noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5231368697916108369.post-16469586240469034082016-04-04T23:01:00.001-07:002016-04-06T20:49:42.770-07:00Is the U.S. alone against ISIS? This old semi-satirical article from The Atlantic disturbed me:
Defeating ISIS: The Board Game
I read this and ask myself, who is our ally against ISIS? Nobody.
(Granted, this was before Russia entered the picture; but it's surprising how little Russia changed things in the regional calculus).
This started by asking myself, why is our #1 ally in the Mideast, "the only democracy in the Jay Tellhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10067522224772095450noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5231368697916108369.post-34918595196638012692016-04-04T21:45:00.002-07:002016-04-18T19:06:49.030-07:00THUNDERCLAP! Fox acknowledges class struggle Without a moment's pause for reflection, Donald Trump has done a cannonball into the cesspool of U.S. neoliberal consensus politics. He's upset the still, fetid waters with his bloated, self-unaware orange corpus and in reaction conventional politicians and pundits are floundering, saying and doing things you would never see or hear them do otherwise, when everybody sticks to the script.
Such Jay Tellhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10067522224772095450noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5231368697916108369.post-74870290589186989162016-03-22T20:59:00.001-07:002016-04-16T20:08:19.210-07:00Fox's ideas on fighting terror are a distinction without a differenceI'm going to quote FoxNews "security analyst" K.T. McFarland at length, with my comments, on her prescriptions for fighting violent Islamists... THINGS THE OBAMA ADMINISTRATION IS LARGELY ALREADY DOING:
KTM: "An economic component that bankrupts radical jihad by cutting off their oil revenues - attacking their oil fields, refineries and tankers -- while we also develop our own Jay Tellhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10067522224772095450noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5231368697916108369.post-77459581311693251142016-02-16T20:24:00.001-08:002016-02-16T20:24:54.992-08:00Anti-vaxxers aren't dumb, just wrongI agree, anti-vaxxers aren't stupid. They're by and large successful, well-educated, concerned parents. They're not negligent, and accusations that they are only offend them and harden their opposition.
This article falls short, however, because we must recognize that on the Internet, many "experts" and even people with medical degrees have an ax to grind against established medicine, and Jay Tellhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10067522224772095450noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5231368697916108369.post-67018218457533392912016-02-06T19:47:00.001-08:002016-05-01T21:02:06.394-07:00Trump sold old lie of health insurance across state linesTrump just said in New Hampshire that he's going to unleash competition on U.S. healthcare after he repeals Obamacare, specifically by allowing Americans to buy health insurance across state lines.
Trump said the insurance companies are making a killing on Obamacare. The fact is, insurance companies are taking about 3 cents of every healthcare dollar in profit.
The problem is that Jay Tellhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10067522224772095450noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5231368697916108369.post-18425343731606444302016-02-06T19:40:00.001-08:002016-03-18T17:41:41.784-07:00Ted Cruz: The first talk radio presidential candidateTed Cruz is the first talk radio presidential candidate, so it's no wonder Glenn Beck has endorsed him. Rush Limbaugh, Sean Hannity and others also gush over him.
I say that because Cruz, like a talk radio host, owes his popularity to staking out the "purest" (read: most extreme) views within his party, without any hope of ever getting what he wants.
Cruz has never compromised in the Jay Tellhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10067522224772095450noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5231368697916108369.post-10692631483076543202015-11-29T20:33:00.000-08:002016-02-06T20:00:21.701-08:00Call me a pessimist, but... (On Sustainable Development)The idea of "sustainable development" is not radical, crazy or hard to understand. Most anybody would have a hard time arguing against it, in theory. It just means economic development today that doesn't happen at the expense of future economic growth. Some people have called unsustainable development a "tax on the future" because it's indeed stealing prosperity from the young and generations Jay Tellhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10067522224772095450noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5231368697916108369.post-226407467054273012015-11-27T21:01:00.001-08:002016-03-18T17:43:17.902-07:00FearAmericans, I'm sad to say, are afraid. They're chicken shits. Because there was an attack on Paris. Over 100 people were killed.
Yet every year, over 10,000 Americans are killed by guns. We don't care. It's not that Americans die, it's HOW they die. Jealous husband -- that's life. Crazy guy -- it happens. Kid playing with dad's gun -- it's a tragedy. Depressed teen -- it was hormones. Black Jay Tellhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10067522224772095450noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5231368697916108369.post-1006310611281173982015-09-08T13:48:00.001-07:002016-04-16T20:13:42.687-07:00ISIS is Islamic, but we should still shut up about them
Islam has never been united. For one thing, there is no Muslim pontiff who speaks for the world's 1.6 billion Muslims living on six continents. Yet even the Roman Catholic Pope speaks for only about half of the world's 2.2 billion Christians; and millions of those Catholics choose to disregard him on such crucial matters of the faith as birth control, premarital sex, divorce and gay Jay Tellhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10067522224772095450noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5231368697916108369.post-61304599159418604722015-05-30T20:28:00.000-07:002015-05-30T20:30:48.488-07:00A few more lessons from Bernie Sanders' run for President
I don't disagree with Jeb Lund on the positivity of Sen. Bernie Sanders' run for President, but there's a bit more to say here.
First, about being the right-looking "blowdried" candidate with a red tie: yes, true, alas. But let's not swoon over Bernie just because he "doesn't give a f--k" about his image. Let's swoon over him because he does give a f--k about the right things. And he Jay Tellhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10067522224772095450noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5231368697916108369.post-7586412754938133012015-04-16T19:07:00.000-07:002016-02-06T20:24:40.936-08:00Putin's skewed view of WWII threatens his neighbors and the West
Here's a key point from Lucian Kim's op-ed that most Russians and those who haven't spent time in Eastern Europe do not understand [emphasis mine]:
For most countries that emerged from the Soviet empire 25 years ago, independence from Moscow exposed messy, overlooked histories. The small nations of east central Europe had been pushed and pulled by the Nazi and Communist Jay Tellhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10067522224772095450noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5231368697916108369.post-50740410841371317762015-02-28T18:39:00.000-08:002015-05-30T20:43:33.183-07:00The murder of Russian liberal reformer Boris Nemtsov
Yours truly has been more active lately on Twitter than his blog, even though I am on record saying Twitter is dumb. Mea culpa. So I want to get a post on the books for February.
The murder of Russian liberal "reformer" Boris Nemtsov seems like a good thing to comment on in more than 140 characters.
Most of you will never see the snarky left's or the Jay Tellhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10067522224772095450noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5231368697916108369.post-25888091846194337312015-01-25T22:42:00.000-08:002016-02-06T20:03:34.088-08:00The myth of tech-economy 'makers'
This short little piece struck a nerve. As a result I'm gonna ramble far and wide here, so get ready....
If you want, ignore the feminist stuff in Debbie Chachra's essay. I did.
First, let me adduce my frequent correspondence with a Tea Party libertarian, John Birch Society dues-paying member, Silent Generation curmudgeon and Hayek-Pinochet admirer, who says that every American Jay Tellhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10067522224772095450noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5231368697916108369.post-564799585097755812015-01-21T21:20:00.001-08:002015-01-21T21:20:17.863-08:00Taibbi: 'American Sniper' too dumb to criticize
No comment here except to kind of echo Michael Moore's comment... At least in my youth we had movie war "heroes" like Stallone and Schwarzenegger who actually got their hands dirty and (sort of) risked death, as opposed to a covered sniper on a roof shooting women and children.
Sean Hannity went nuts over this movie before it was even released, which instantly made me suspicious. I Jay Tellhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10067522224772095450noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5231368697916108369.post-14217728403122231062015-01-14T18:47:00.002-08:002015-01-14T18:47:38.362-08:00Bill Maher is wrong about Muslims
For the record, Bill Maher is wrong. And he probably knows it. He's right that all religions are irrational and most of their sacred texts espouse violence and outdated morality.
Where he's wrong is the liberal response. The liberal response to radical Muslims should be the same as what it has been to radical Christians from the days of the Ku Klux Klan onward: condemn the criminals, not the Jay Tellhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10067522224772095450noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5231368697916108369.post-1759319364504967022015-01-12T07:08:00.000-08:002015-01-12T07:08:50.623-08:00David Brooks: I'm not Charlie HebdoOMG, I agree with David Brooks.
I Am Not Charlie Hebdo
By David Brooks
January 8, 2015 | New York Times
URL: http://mobile.nytimes.com/2015/01/09/opinion/david-brooks-i-am-not-charlie-hebdo.html?hpw&rref=opinion&action=click&pgtype=Homepage&module=well-region&region=bottom-well&WT.nav=bottom-well&_r=2&referrer=Jay Tellhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10067522224772095450noreply@blogger.com0