A Prayer of Thanksgiving*

To my feet I have returned,
To my limbs I have returned,
To my body I have returned,
To my mind I have returned,
To the dust of my feet I have returned,
To my saliva I have returned,
To my hair I have returned.

My feet are restored to me,
My limbs are restored to me,
My body is restored to me,
My mind is restored to me,
The dust of my feet is restored to me,
My saliva is restored to me,
My hair is restored to me.

The world before me is restored in beauty
The world behind me is restored in beauty
The world below me is restored in beauty
The world above me is restored in beauty
All things around me are restored in beauty
My voice is restored in beauty
It is finished in beauty
It is finished in beauty
It is finished in beauty
It is finished in beauty

--A Shaman's Prayer (Navajo)

*A trifle delayed.

Why Didn't I Think of That?

Italian far-right party offers parents 1500 Euro to name their children after Mussolini or his wife. The party denies that it is racist and "says that the names Benito and Rachel are merely 'nice.'"

Hey, You Know What's Depressing?

This: Project Censored's Top 25 Stories You Won't Hear.

#1. Over One Million Iraqi Deaths Caused by US Occupation
# 2 Security and Prosperity Partnership: Militarized NAFTA
# 3 InfraGard: The FBI Deputizes Business
# 4 ILEA: Is the US Restarting Dirty Wars in Latin America?
# 5 Seizing War Protesters’ Assets
# 6 The Homegrown Terrorism Prevention Act
# 7 Guest Workers Inc.: Fraud and Human Trafficking
# 8 Executive Orders Can Be Changed Secretly
# 9 Iraq and Afghanistan Vets Testify
# 10 APA Complicit in CIA Torture
# 11 El Salvador’s Water Privatization and the Global War on Terror
# 12 Bush Profiteers Collect Billions From No Child Left Behind
# 13 Tracking Billions of Dollars Lost in Iraq
# 14 Mainstreaming Nuclear Waste
# 15 Worldwide Slavery
# 16 Annual Survey on Trade Union Rights
# 17 UN’s Empty Declaration of Indigenous Rights
# 18 Cruelty and Death in Juvenile Detention Centers
# 19 Indigenous Herders and Small Farmers Fight Livestock Extinction
# 20 Marijuana Arrests Set New Record
# 21 NATO Considers “First Strike” Nuclear Option
# 22 CARE Rejects US Food Aid
# 23 FDA Complicit in Pushing Pharmaceutical Drugs
# 24 Japan Questions 9/11 and the Global War on Terror
# 25 Bush’s Real Problem with Eliot Spitzer

My Thoughts on the Auto Industry

For what they're worth (approximately .0000001 cent).

So, it's true that the Big Three have been systematically stupid over the past thirty years or so. They have spent most of their time earnestly lobbying against things that would actually help them (fuel efficiency standards, universal health care, environmental regulations), while pursuing short-term profits. In this way, they are exactly like the American People.

That being said, I don't see why, if we're dismantling our country and selling it to the Chinese anyway, we can't throw a few bones towards companies that actually employ Americans, pay pensions, and give health care benefits to people. If these companies go under, the burden on public resources will be enormous (not only because of the burden of at least 100,000 people losing good jobs, but also because they will definitely default on their pension and health care obligations for retirees). In other words, we'll pay one way or the other. Might as well keep the few factories left in the United States rolling.

After all, we bailed out irresponsible and profligate bankers and stockbrokers whose main job it is, seemingly, to socialize risk while privatizing gain. These people don't create jobs, they don't provide healthcare--in fact, I'm hard pressed to say what they do, except move imaginary numbers around to the benefit of themselves and other rich people. They produce nothing real. And we're on the hook to bail their immoral asses out. So why not support industries that, however imperfect, actually put rubber on the road at the end of the day.

Oh, This Schadenfreude is Delicious!

Yes, I will have a second helping, thank you!

At the meeting of Republican governors, Tim Pawlenty speaks truth:

“We cannot be a majority governing party when we essentially cannot compete in the Northeast, we are losing our ability to compete in Great Lakes states, we cannot compete on the West Coast, we are increasingly in danger of competing in the mid-Atlantic states, and the Democrats are now winning some of the Western states,” Pawlenty said. “That is not a formula for being a majority governing party in this nation.”

It certainly is not.

How to Get Money From the Federal Government

Step One: Have a company, preferably one which is large and somehow critical to the national interest and/or economy.

Step Two: Make a reasonable amount of money, but decide that it is not enough. Get greedy.

Alternative Step Two: Look at what Japanese automakers are doing, and decide to make cars that are total crap instead. Even when it becomes apparent that this is a losing strategy, keep it going. Remember that America did not become the country it is through wisdom and foresight, but through sheer stubbornness and stupidity.

Step Three: Start trading imaginary things to other people who have imaginary things they would like to trade you in return. Imaginary things like "credit default swaps" and "mortgages." Do things like "bundling" such "mortgages." Essentially, act like people on vacation in Las Vegas gambling with other people's money.

Step Four: When you run out of other people's money, go ask the casino bosses for more money. Tell them their whole casino will go down without an "infusion" of more money. Promise them you will definitely for sure behave this time, and also, you will definitely for sure spend the money they give you only in this very same casino.

Step Five: Take the money and spend it in other casinos. Then ask for more. This time the casino bosses might suggest that security follow you around, to make sure you spend the money, you know, in the place you said you would. But you promise promise promise that you'll be good this time, for reals.

Step Six: Repeat step four and five, forever.

P.S. The picture doesn't have anything to do with the post. It's just funny. I stole it from Wonkette.

Better than Stata

A WORD ON STATISTICS
by Wislawa Szymborska
(translated from the Polish by Joanna Trzeciak)

Out of every hundred people,
those who always know better:
fifty-two.

Unsure of every step:
almost all the rest.

Ready to help,
if it doesn’t take long:
forty-nine.

Always good,
because they cannot be otherwise:
four — well, maybe five.

Able to admire without envy:
eighteen.

Led to error
by youth (which passes):
sixty, plus or minus.

Those not to be messed with:
four-and-forty.

Living in constant fear
of someone or something:
seventy-seven.

Capable of happiness:
twenty-some-odd at most.

Harmless alone,
turning savage in crowds:
more than half, for sure.

Cruel
when forced by circumstances:
it’s better not to know,
not even approximately.

Wise in hindsight:
not many more
than wise in foresight.

Getting nothing out of life except things:
thirty
(though I would like to be wrong).

Balled up in pain
and without a flashlight in the dark:
eighty-three, sooner or later.

Those who are just:
quite a few, thirty-five.

But if it takes effort to understand:
three.

Worthy of empathy:
ninety-nine.

Mortal:
one hundred out of one hundred –
a figure that has never varied yet.