The Binary Circumstance

As men, most of them very young, and a few women, continue to die in Iraq, the Democrats and Republicans continue to play political games here at home.

From the Chicago Tribune:

WASHINGTON — The war spending bill passed by the House on Friday is officially called the U.S. Troop Readiness, Veterans’ Health and Iraq Accountability Act. But Republicans would say that it could also be called the Spinach Growers, Peanut Storage and Dairy Farmers Rescue Act.

President Bush asked for $103 billion for expenses related to fighting the war on terrorism in Iraq, Afghanistan and elsewhere. He got that and more: not only a series of deadlines for withdrawing U.S. troops from Iraq, but also $21 billion in additional spending, much of it unrelated to war.

Republicans were quick to accuse the Democrats of buying some of the 218 votes that the bill received, enough to pass by just six votes.

[…]

Spinach growers got $25 million because the fall E. coli scare depressed sales. The shrimp industry received $120 million for Hurricane Katrina losses. Federal support for peanut storage, due to expire after 2006, was extended one year at a cost of $74 million. Shellfish producers were compensated $5 million for losses from a disease, viral hemorrhagic septicemia.

“Spinach, shrimp, peanuts and shellfish?” said Rep. Mike Pence (R-Ind.). “That’s not a war funding bill, that’s the salad bar at Denny’s.”

It’s the murder of young Americans so that politicans can get richer and more powerful.

Inflation is not caused by the actions of private citizens, but by the government: by an artificial expansion of the money supply required to support deficit spending. No private embezzlers or bank robbers in history have ever plundered people’s savings on a scale comparable to the plunder perpetrated by the fiscal policies of statist governments. — “Who Will Protect Us From Our Protectors”? The Objectivist Newsletter, May 1952

Source

From the New York Times [reg. req.]:

LEXINGTON, Ky., March 22 — W. L. Carter knew there was something fishy going on when he went to his lawyers’ office a few years ago to pick up his settlement check for the heart damage he had sustained from taking the diet drug combination fen-phen.

The check was, for starters, much smaller than he had expected. And his own lawyers threatened to retaliate against him if he ever told anyone, including his family, how much he had been paid. “You will be fined $100,000, you will go to jail and you will be sued,” Mr. Carter recalled them saying.

Mr. Carter was right to have been suspicious. The lawyers defrauded their clients, a state judge has ruled in a civil case, when they settled fen-phen lawsuits on behalf of 440 of them for $200 million but kept the bulk of the money for themselves. Legal experts said the fraud might be one of the biggest and most brazen in legal history.

As Ayn Rand asked, “Who will protect us from our protectors?”

Over the years I’ve been involved in a number of class action lawsuits pertaining to the stock market. There are always a lot of forms to fill out. Time goes by and in the end I’ve never received more than a few dollars from any of it. Now, when I receive those forms in the mail from law firms, I don’t even waste my time filling them out.

While browsing YouTube this afternoon I came across some amazing guitar players.

For some lightning-fast rock guitar riffs see this video. There are others like him with similar videos. They’ve got amazing technique but I’d like to hear more musicality.

I’m always fascinated by people who can play a traditional instrument in a non-traditional way and so t-cophony immediately captured my interest. I’ve never seen anybody play guitar like this. It’s as much fun to watch as it is to listen to. He gets sounds out of the strings using both hands, but not like you’re used to seeing. He also makes extensive use of harmonics, hitting and plucking the strings along the fretboard, rather than plucking down by the sound hole.

Here he’s playing with two capos which I would have thought was impossible since a capo is supposed to block the vibration of the strings above where it is placed. It’s normally used for changing the key. Here he’s playing a double-neck guitar.

I think he must be using open tunings since as some points he’s getting good harmony without any chord changes.

I wonder why he never shows his face in any of his videos. There are quite a few of them out there and I haven’t seen his face in any of them.

He’s got his own site.

POSTED LATER: It’s called guitar tapping and here’s another guy who’s really good at it. Better quality video, too.

Here’s another one. Awesome.