Noir with …

Review by Martin Langeland 

Bruno Heinz Jaja's PunktContrapunct was introduced at the Hoffnung Interplanetary MusicFestival as a sort of kaffee with flagellated cream.
If it weren't a tautology, I might call Roy's book a Noir with … but you see the problem. Fortunately you can read this delightful yarn available at several locales [Itunes, Smashwords, B & N], cheap, and enjoy the whipping as a bystander. From one sentence to the next he will surprise you with wry laughter, or conjure a rueful sigh, at a sharpish observation, while he slips in the necessary info to keep the plot humming along and your ratiocinative powers nicely misdirected. This is that rarity, a book that has been intelligently edited. No wasted effort. No windmilling. Just graceful, skillful language deployment in service of the muse. The sex is nice too. I give it five stars only because a one to four star system permits no higher accolade.
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The MBA Culture Defined

 Atrios muses:

I don't have a fully fleshed out point here, but it occurs to me that there are certain people in politics who are like the finance guys in business. They're so removed from the actual product that they're selling that they forget that customers actually need to like and buy their crap.

That's how the Plundecrats go to work this past thirty years and more.
--ml

Diaspora!

Actually that should read "I've Joined".
Intermittent blogging continues here. But those seeking a social network experience should look for dumluks@diasp.org.
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Bela Lugosi Slurps Again

The fortnight of seasonal tricks and treats quickly, but stealthily, approaches.
To aid your mayhem quest and spread the cheerful dread I offer this virtual haunted house tour through the cobwebby passages of Dum Luks.
Bela Lugosi fans look here for the tale direct and here for the flourishes and details of incipient verisimilitude which warm the cockles while chilling the spine.
Muse on all the likely comers.
When the hobgobblins and haints depart it will be timely to make our penitient orisions with this carefree ditty.
Yet one dry squib remains to delight as our guide turns on his peg leg to ask a penny for the guy.
As the children's radio show host said: That ought to keep the little bastards. Alas the mic was still on and so that was his last show. Fear not. This omnibus score card is neither final nor farewell.
--ml

A Dirty Secret

What price a turn of phrase?

Dailykos posts a diary recommending some counter actions to ameliorate the unhappiness of local merchants over toilet use at the Wall Street demos: OWS. It concludes with the above photo of a mural depicting a common cliche.
Thing is, carpets are dirt traps. Dirt arriving on top from boot soles, shedding animals, plants and so forth, wend their way through the warp and weft of the carpet to the floor where continued traffic turns it into an abrasive. I suspect that many a tweeny has been unjustly accused of sweeping it under the carpet when nothing more than normal activity by the occupants of the room caused the pile. No justice for the lower 99%.
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A Sweet New Year!

Just out of the oven for Rosh Hasanah.
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The Cat Will File You Now

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New Chair

Left to Right:LapSang Souchong, Bruiser James and Smedley Q. Clangwheedle take the seat while Ozma Tiamat Mehitabel, with suitable disdain, turns her back to all above.
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Consult Consultants Consulting

Earle: "The job of a consultant is to restate the client's question in such a way that the problem states its solution."

Problem:
At present we have a depressed economy with too little demand.
Unemployment is unconscionably high.
Major corporations are awash in cash.
Income inequality is at the highest level in generations.
Manufacturing has moved offshore.
Research is moribund.
Our greatest innovations are fraudulent financial instruments.
Infrastructure -- roads, bridges electric grids, water supplies and sewage systems, et. al. -- are antiquated and crumbling.

So: Government should tax the rich to get money to build infrastructure, providing demand to employ people, increase investment in manufacturing, spur innovation by increasing research, and regulate the banks to make them the servants of capitalism they are meant to be rather than the piratical bosses they claim to be now.

Plutocrats own the government.

Geez! It was working so well until that last line!

So maybe the real solution is to get new elected officials -- ones who serve the public rather than the plutocrats?
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Curiouser and Curioser

Saw this ad on my morning Krugman:

What caught my attention was the graphic. Circles with lines taking various controlled paths. In three colors. Red. Blue. Yellow.
Reminds me of ...
oh, yeah. A stylized color offset press.
Just the thing to bring the digital world to mind.
--ml