My internet connection has been up and down all weekend, and is now more down than up. This started last Friday, which is enough to cause considerable suspicions as to the cause, particularly since this problem is with my DSL signal and appears to be specific to my line. I’ve scheduled this post to go live later this AM, and am adding material as I can. If this winds up being thin, go yell at Verizon. And you would have had another post too were it not for this. Aargh.
Bigger and brighter ‘supermoon’ graces the night sky BBC
Amish children are nearly immune to asthma and allergies Daily Mail (May S)
Roanoke Colony Revealed? Prof Finds The Mysterious Colony’s Capital Firedoglake (Carol B). For history buffs.
Advertisers uneasy with Facebook Financial Times
The only solution to the eurozone crisis Wolfgang Munchau, Financial Times
Vulgar, rude and egotistical, President Bling-Bling has met his Waterloo Daily Mail (May S)
Francois Hollande has ten weeks to avert a French bond crisis Telegraph
Tokyo Shares End With Biggest Fall Of 2012 On Yen’s Rise WSJ Marketbeat. Whoa, the pressure on the BoJ to Do Something is going to escalate.
Is Australia turning Japanese? MacroBusiness
Collapse in votes for main Greek parties Financial Times
Those Revolting Europeans Paul Krugman, New York Times
Look Out Below, French Election Edition Barry Ritholtz. Man, is this backwards, since austerity was going to drive Europe off a cliff. But the market has been trading on simple-minded, QE driven risk on, risk off trades, and now investors might have to think! No wonder they are panicked.
Put Palestine First Project Syndicate
Biden strongly backs gay marriage Guardian
In Scott Walker Recall Race, Organized Labor’s Pick Falls Short Daily Beast (MT)
Krugman compares Republican economic plan to blood-letting Raw Story
Protesters in Miami clean garbage from foreclosed homes and dump it at bank MSNBC
Foreclosed Houses Become Homes For Indoor Marijuana Farms New York Times
Dozens of Police Evict Georgia Family at Gunpoint at 3am Alternet (MBH)
There are few sparks in a sputtering US recovery Edward Luce, Financial Times
* * *
D – 124 and counting*
“I seen my opportunities and I took ’em.” –George Washington Plunkitt, on “honest graft”
“The [whose?] economy” on the talk shows: You could do worse than The Bobblespeak Translations: “GREGORY: Joe is this a jobless recovery? … BIDEN: We were losing millions of jobs when we were sworn in — since then we’ve slowly added hundreds of thousands” (cf. Dean Baker). HoHo: “much better shape.” Schumer: “steady hand on the tiller”. Toles not an antidote.
A Socialist wins the French election, so MoDo writes about the Fascist (more MoDo goodness).
Robama kicks off official campaign in OH with greatest speech ever. Overflow crowd or not? Not, actually. Axelrove: “14,000 is 11,000 more than the largest crowd that Mitt Romney has ever drawn”. Ouch! Robama: “I still believe in you. And I’m asking you to keep believing in me.” Obomney campaign site: “Believe in America”. One side is lying and the other is not telling the truth (hat tip: Chris Floyd). Which even our famously free press is starting to notice. Anyhow, here’s the transcript, which does, in fact, read well: CHILD: “We love you, Barack Obama!” Squee! But when you’ve lost Ezili Dantò…
Robama campaign “tailors message for key states and voters”. (Sun slated to appear in East.) Like college towns. In swing state VA, 2008’s coalition — youth, suburban Washingtonians, women, and blacks — is largely intact (though not clear how large “largely” is). Robama’s composite cartoon woman, “Julia,” appeals to all members of that coalition (except for blacks; he doesn’t need to bother). Thinking back to 2008’s key demographic, Julia is also a “creative class” professional: Her (suburban Washingtonian, i.e. Beltway) business might bid on building websites for ObamaCare, for example. Or the DHS. Eight time loser Robert Shrum (D): “What’s powerful about the Obama slide show [“Julia”] is that it deals in specifics that people very much care about.” Web site development?! Jobs, maybe. Robama’s hiring. But don’t take your work home with you!
Key players on Team Robama meet Sunday nights: David Axelrod, Stephanie Cutter, Larry Grisolano, Valerie Jarrett, Jacob J. Lew, Alyssa Mastromonaco, Jim Messina, Dan Pfeiffer, David Plouffe, Pete Rouse. Joe Biden (not on the list) is the “highest ranking official” who is “comfortable with gay marriage”. Alrighty then.
Paul surgelet: NV: “An organized contingent who easily took control of the state convention”. ME: “Paul’s backers took control of key parliamentary positions and the convention agenda”. “Other than [Governor] LePage, most of the names are relative unknowns”. IA: If Paul trend continues, the IA caucus will have had three winners: “Romney on caucus night, Santorum after the certified vote, and Paul in the delegate count”. The emerging narrative seems to meld Obama strategists’ focus on caucuses with Clinton supporters’ quest to be heard at the convention. And the only thing I can find on the Green’s Jill Stein is an upcoming speech in Humboldt County, CA.
Some long-form think pieces on politics from The Arch Druid (2012), Ian Welsh (2010), and Stirling Newberry (2009) (the last because Avedon keeps linking to it).
— Horse race-related tips, links, hate mail to lambert
* 124 days ’til the Democratic National Convention ends with an all-you-can eat shrimp buffet in Bank of America Stadium, Charlotte, NC. The longest kidney transplant chain ever had 124 links.
Cross-posted to Corrente.
Antidote du jour:
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i seem to be the only one upset about the falling unemployment rate…
“we would be quite willing to ignore these household survey numbers if not for the new formula for cutting off federal unemployment compensation, which was negotiated as part of the payroll tax cut extension early this year…under the new formula, which terminates eligibility for federal rations based on improvement in BLS unemployment rates, 17 states with unemployment rates above 6.5% have been triggered off of their federal extended compensation already this year, including california, which still has an unemployment rate near 11%…”
links in 1st paragraph, here: http://marketwatch666.blogspot.com/2012/05/us-eu-unemployment-ism-pmis-march-lps.html
well it’s not exactly the Lincoln-Douglas debates out there is it? “Alexrove” hahahah. Too funny.
Can you imagine if there were slavery today? Whoa! There is, almost!
“If there were slavery today in America, Mr. Obomney, what would you do as president?”
“Thank you for the question. Today in America too many are without too much. And too few have too much. And we need to fix that. We need to make opportunity for the many, not the few. We need every American to know, that they have as much opportunity as every other American. We are not a nation that sits by while work needs to be done. We are not a nation that cowers in the face of a challenge. As president I would appoint a commisson to study the challenges we face in brining opportunity to all Americans and we would do all we can, make no mistake, all we can to ensure that everyone has a chance to be everthing they can be, without going into the Army . . . oooops . . .”
Glad to see the Redskins picked up RGIII in the draft. I hope there’s something interesting to watch come November.
Sitting around snarkily moaning and groaning again. One day I’ll do something useful, after the commission comes back with its recommendations. haha ahahaha ahahahah
There hasn’t been a single ad on FaceBook I’ve ever clicked through on, not once. I can’t imagine why anyone would; they all look like cheesy Internet fly-by-night operations.
Yves, don’t feel bad, you’re not alone as fas as your DSL connection goes. AT&T has been doing it too. This is the tweeking phase, so to speak, to controlling what is & isn’t put out on the web, even perhaps a complete “going dark” as the saying goes. Someone once said, “an educated mind, is a dangerous mind”, as far as the government is concerned. It’s all about what the public will be allowed to see, but, as we have witnessed with the occupy movement, well, you get the picture, and for those who don’t, it’s not a conspiracy theory.
http://www.pastie.org/3867284
Can anyone confirm this stuff? It sounds a bit creepy and incredible, however the whois data does support it so…
A thousand thanks for that.
Granted I probably only know enough to be dangerous, perhaps somebody more knowledgeable about network administration will come along……..
MarkMonitor is the registrar of all these companies. So, what does that mean? Well, companies must register the domain name they would like to use, e.g. “google.com” and have an IP number (group of numbers) assigned, before they can post a website. To do this, there are many companies that perform the required “registrar” services for ICANN – Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers, which is the global organization that assures everybody gets a unique name and IP number(s). ICANN’s services used to be run by the US govt, but about 15 years ago it was turned over to a non-profit private company. It should be obvious why it’s so important to ensure all assignments are unique. MarkMonitor is one of the US companies that acts as a registrar. All companies must use somebody as their registrar. A registrar doesn’t have any power over the Internet, per se, only access to the database that contains all the assigned domain names and IP addresses, one could compare it to having a copy of the Internet “phone book”, with all the names and numbers.
Apparently MarkMonitor has captured a very large part of the market, and I’m fuzzy as to the details of why. A quick look at their website says that they offer services that relate to “brand management”, protection against piracy, malware, and phishing, etc. I’m unsure if they actually do any network administration for companies or act more in a consulting manner, perhaps they do both depending on what companies desire. I can’t imagine though that a company such as google would delegate critical network administration tasks to another company. The big system admins I’ve known would have never gone for it.
That being said, the US govt could shut down the Internet if they ever decided to. Remember what happened in Egypt during the Arab spring? They sent out orders to all the ISP’s to shut down connections. Would the telephone and cable companies comply? Probably. Alternatively, the government has the ability to shut down traffic on the transcontinental cables that form the backbone that we use.
Who owns MarkMonitor?
Could the gubmint be stupid, or contemptuous enough to monitor the marks with a company by that name?
‘this problem is with my DSL signal and appears to be specific to my line’
And the internet problems I have appears to be specific to this site. Well there is another one, and it is even less establishment friendly.
I ask myself two questions:
first, could they?
then, would they?
Is imagining a room or two full of well paid techs at the NSA with a brief to ID ‘threats’ and then to throw sand in their gears shading into tin-hat territory?
JP Morgan would probably be happy to contribute to their pension fund.
Archrdruid’s all wet in this one. In his paean to fake democracy he’s ignoring the institutional baffles that keep elections from reflecting the free will of the electors, as required by the supreme law of the land. Chief among those built-in baffles are centrally-controlled party platforms that slice and dice your rights to thwart reform. Take a vote on subordinating war powers to the UN as well as Congress – 70+% want that. Take a vote on the International Bill of Human Rights in toto – that never gets polled, they wouldn’t dare. Take a vote on change.gov’s top-ranked demand on Obama, Will you end impunity for the crimes of government officials such as torture? With that kind of fundamental binary choice, Arrow’s impossibility theorem doesn’t apply and the result would be too lopsided to steal. But no. You get shitty little scraps of rights, fragments of articles from this covenant and that. And it’s not just what people want, it’s the law. Without it the government has no legitimacy, no sovereignty, no reason to exist.
Huh? How is a 30,000-foot view of anacyclosis over the last couple centuries a “paean to fake democracy”? Sounds to me like you’re prescriptive, he’s descriptive. Not that there’s anything wrong with either.
He goes, of course the US is a democracy, don’t be stupit. Only, factually, it’s not. The US fails to meet its own legal democratic standard, CCPR Article 25(b). Do US elections guarantee the free expression of the will of the electors? Course not. Is that just airyfairy crap and everybody who wants it should just grow up? Is institutional resilience what matters? Maybe, if his idea of resilience is really the only bulwark against anacyclosis. But anacyclosis is too glibly applied to be convincing.
Also he drags in repression, like democracy is really just the absence of repression. That, like “of course the US is a democracy,” is just familiar party dogma. I usually like archdruid’s stuff. And Aristotle, too. But in this case, world-standard governance has advanced a bit since Aristotle’s day. If anacyclosis exists, and something’s damping it, it’s sure as hell not US political theater.
His point, if you read the article with a little more care and a little less tendentiousness, is that the cycle of anacyclosis is the resilience.
Don’t know where this “party dogma” foo fra comes in. What party? The druid party? C’mon.
democracy?
http://www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=va&aid=29835
http://www.barefootsworld.net/admiralty.html
I don’t get that out of it at all. He says “democracy is resilient… so resilient that it can weather anacyclosis without cracking.” And that would be great. If we had one. I would think he’s getting (D/R) party notions of Democracy Freedom & A Pony by osmosis, the way everybody does. I submit that we’re in the Whatever zone now.
The 3th largest finantial entity in Spain, Bankia will be intervened next friday. Authorities estimate that the rescue will cost 7.000-10.000 million euros to the public. Approx. equivalent to 0,7-1% PIB.
WTF
Yves:
RE: Verizon, DSL
I’ve had similar complaints with them concerning my copper wire land line. Maintenance of these lines is a very low priority. My line was completely out of service for two weeks in 2010 (no disaster or weather event, just an individual line problem) while awaiting their service crew to get around to me. I was informed that the cause was squirrels chewing on the wires or fraying insulation causing loss of signal. Verizon hopes customers will become frustrated with the poor service and switch to wireless or fiberoptics, both higher priced and of course more profitable to the company.
I suspect you’ll be getting their sales pitch for FiOS.
No FIOS in my apartment building….it’s the first elevator apartment building in Manhattan, so it has lovely rooms and crappy infrastructure (including grandfathered power….).
Another story worth mentioning is the UC Davis protesters who are facing charges because of their role in shutting down a campus branch of a bank:
http://www.poetryfoundation.org/harriet/2012/05/poet-joshua-clover-and-11-students-may-face-prison-time-and-1-million-in-damages-for-shutdown-of-us-bank
I can’t imagine living in a big city and not having cable access/speed if I could afford it. That said, Verizon is likely choking ( a term I prefer over the more common “throttling”) DSL connection speeds since they are trying to eliminate DSL altogether.
http://www.dslreports.com/shownews/Consumer-Groups-Protest-Verizons-Murder-of-Standalone-DSL-119327
Yves,
A problem specific to your telephone line? Right in the midst of a high profile debate about the narrative of big banks responsibility in the Great Recession, ie. Frontline.
Call me paranoid.
http://www.salon.com/2012/05/06/surveillance_state_democracy/singleton/
Food for very deep thought!
Nah, Frontline would not be the trigger. If we are gonna get paranoid, I’d finger the Obama post of last Friday.
Yves: Don’t know how long you’ve had Verizon DSL but my experience, twice, may be instructive. Verizon is inexpensive, which is why I had the service–twice. But it ended the same way each time and I won’t go back again. For about a year, all was well. Then Saturdays were trouble. Then Saturdays and Sundays. Then Saturdays, Sundays, and Mondays. Then Saturdays, Sundays, Mondays, and Tuesdays. I figured it was throttling when it only and consistently occurred on weekends, but changing net carriers is a pain so I put up with it for awhile; however, I was paying for service I wasn’t getting, so I finally made the move. Once the outages began, the decline progressed quickly. The same experience twice, separated by a year or so of cable net service. I’m with cable now and until something reliable and cheaper comes along, I’m staying.
Simailarly, I’d love to move to satellite TV, but………. Anyone have Dish who would share your opinions?
I did have cable (years ago, then I had a tenant who switched the service back) and my experience was that it was down more often. Seemed to be related in part to heavy rainstorms.
Years ago, cable had a deservedly bad reputation. At least for Comcast, times have changed and their internet service is far better, somewhat faster and much more reliable, than Verizon’s. Ask around your building.
Verizon is launching LTE 4G fixed location service around the country as we speak. You might want to check it out. If you are in a 4G covered area, you’ll get broadband speed at a very affordable price. It’s a fixed antenna system, like dish and direct that uses the cell towers as an internet gateway.
Dish Network reception has greatly improved with their introduction of the 1000.2 and 1000.4 dishes. Any outages that occur are very short and very few these days. It is critical though that the system is installed by a trained pro. Don’t go through a retailer. Call Dish directly so they can have one of their certified technicians install the system for you. Also, I recommend that you insist on a western arc install if it is available in your area. You won’t regret it.
Good luck.
Disclosure: I’ve worked in the industry for many years as a technician.
Thank you. I shall take your advice. If I have Verizon LTE 4G fixed location service and Dish satellite TV will I have two dishes?
I agree that the article that Lambert links to and highly recommends by Sterling Newberry is well worth reading.
It is full of brilliant gems. Such as “Obama’s money mandate is to Do Bush Right”. (Remember that he nailed this in July 2009.)
I would add two points.
First point: The move from the old economy to the new economy will be a larger shift because it will be a shift from rules evolved for the production of things to rules for the production of knowledge. The shift from petroleumism to CleanEnergyism that Newberry foresees is theoretically possible but highly unlikely without the deeper transformation. The current elite derives much of its power not from increasing productive forces but from throttling the development of the knowledge economy. Therefore, it is unlikely that they will be able to play a forward-moving role even in the material sector of the economy.
This biggest problem to solve for any knowledge-driven economy is this: It must do two things at the same time: compensate those who do the work and turn the knowledge totally free. I strongly suspect that neither private property + corporations nor state property + government can do this, but that something new will be required.
Progressives are connected with the emergent knowledge producing class (in a broad sense). This is one reason why the relationship between “Progressives” (advocates for the next economy) and “Moderates” (advocates for rationalization of the old economy to prop it up longer) is more complex than Newberry presents. (Note too that Newberry is using these terms somewhat different from their usual usage. In particular, “moderates” are not watered-down progressives or pragmatic progressives, but a separate opposed pole, rational conservatives. Really, go read the article. After you finish my post) In particular, many who are genuinely progressive are nonetheless following supposed “Progressives” who are actually “Moderates”. Actual progressives have comparatively little (miniscule) institutional support. As a result, leadership among progressives often goes to those “progressives” who are subsidized by “moderate” opponents of progressivism in return for helping keep progressives as a colony of the “moderates”.
This “undercutting” of progressives at the very top mirrors what happens in the real economy. Within the knowledge producing class, the greatest resources are given to “creatives” who work in one form or another as propagandists for the old economy and technologists who themselves have become part of the rent-collecting elite (Microsoft and Apple, for example).
This contradiction between the actually existing knowledge producing sector and the potential of knowledge producers, both as a social force and as an expression of expanded human development, is an under-recognized factor, particularly in politics and culture. I believe it goes a long way in explaining why the elite has so far been so paralyzed by corruption and is driving us along a path that will not be sustainable for long even for the elite themselves.
If you read Obama’s history, it was plain that he has always been status quo with a little decorative stitching around the edges. I rummaged thru the web before the 2008 election and everything I read made that clear. I just never expected him to be as bad as he is: extending Bush/Cheney the way he has, with embellishments of his very own. The reliance on drones should have been obvious, I guess, from his dishonesty and sneakiness, but I admit I didn’t see how enthusiastically he would embrace faceless murder. I gather from comments here and there that Obama in private is a very different sort than Obama in public and he much prefers to operate in private, where he can’t be seen or heard. No “fingerprints.” Unsurprising now.
I have no problems with the drones – anything that minimizes servicemen deaths I will support. But I have a huge problem with his economic policy. He ran on Change but has been Status Quo.
That’s why his numbers are where they are.
President Obama did everything possible to ensure that as few “titans” as possible lost their privileges. And this is not lost on the American people.
“Change” , often proceeded by “time for a” is the cheapest, most meaningless political slogan there is.
Clinton was the more left wing candidate. If you wanted less of the pro-rich status quo, you ought to have voted for her. She might have shifted things further.
Don’t make the same mistake and imagine Romney won’t be a whole lot worse.
Regarding Palestine:
Due to the aggressive actions of the proto-fascist genocidal and apartheid state of Israel, there is no longer any way that there is going to be a two-state solution.
Once everyone gets that through their head the more quickly we can move forward.
So, as Israel has basically destroyed that option let’s see what we have to look forward to:
A single apartheid state where the Jews are in a vast minority unless – that is – they forcilby remove the millions/exterminate the remaining Palestinians.
(Gee, a war against Iran would be a nice pretext for that, huh?)
A single apartheid state in which the Jewish minority is slowly ripped apart by the secular/religious divide amongst its own population – the religious don’t pay taxes, work or serve in the military.
A single apartheid state that will be devoid of secular and reasonable Jews as many will undoubtedly begin to leave the apartheid state – imagine that, people not wanting to live in an apartheid, police state, huh?
So, when we start talking about Palestine let’s be serious:
Israel has nullified the two-state solution through its actions over the last number of decades.
Now it is up to the rest of the world to try and deal with a nuclear-armed apartheid state.
Suggestions?
Suggestions? jsmith
Put together a huge international peace fund and bribe the Jews to leave Israel till the Lord’s return. Even many Jews believe their return is premature.
F. Beard, please publish it. Say it on You Tube. Is this your original idea?
As far as I know the idea is original but no, I’ll not promote it further:
Like one who takes a dog by the ears is he who passes by and meddles with strife not belonging to him. Proverbs 26:17
re: amish allergies
yves, this quote: “The study did not determine why the kids who grew up on farms were less likely to develop asthma and allergies, but other research has pointed to exposure to microbes and contact with cows, in particular, to partially explain the farm effect.”
WTH? So what was the point of the study? To just run numbers? ‘Yes, this swiss kid has allergies, this amish kid doesn’t. Let’s all become Amish!’
Just sounds like more propaganda, Yves. The study probably was funded by Zyrtec or Claritin, so the researchers couldn’t state reasons that would cause those expensive brand anti-allergy meds to lose millions in sales.
When I was growing up, I did not have any allergy problems. But when I turned 20, they started and have gotten worse every year. I have lived in the same area for all my life (lansing Michigan). But, it wouldn’t have anything to do with the fact that I started working in a factory at 20 and spent 7 years there, where there was aluminum dust and machining coolant in the air.
The hypothesis for this is something I accept and adhere to: the Hygiene Hypothesis. It suggests that too many modern people are “too clean” and worried about dirt to such an extent that children are no longer being properly exposed to the actual world around them with all its glorious organisms, molecules, particles. As a result, the immune systems of these children are not being exposed to the things they need to be exposed to in order to produce a healthy individual. Kids NEED to be out in the dirt, out in nature. They NEED to be laying in the grass and inhaling spores, dirt, airborne bacteria, etc. Their digestive systems NEED to be exposed to environmental “stuff” (yes, eat dirt, chew grass, etc). They NEED to be exposed to pet/animal hair and skin (dander) – to as much as possible.
Hell, I grew up in the country and at a time when we were ALWAYS playing outside in nature. Crawling and running in the forest, picking up and smelling frogs (when they were far more abundant than today), horned toads, toads, snakes, lizards, etc. We SMELLED them. We handled them. We had dirt clod fights, horse manure fights, had dogs, cats, birds for pets. You know what? NO ONE I grew up with had any allergy problems, any asthma issues. NO ONE. Here’s another cool tidbit: hookworms. Hookworms are your friend. If you have allergies and asthma you should go out and give yourself a nice, temporary hookworm infection. Seriously. It is known to cure many such allergic over-reactions. Why? Still a question but the idea is that your immune system is supposed to be exposed to such parasites and other environmental allergans early and fairly often because if not, then the immune system doesn’t learn what is real and what should be ignored. You end up with hyper-reactions from your immune system: allergies and asthma (the same thing). Exposure to hookworms (even in adults) can retrain and restrain your immune system and thus tamp down, even eliminate its reaction to nonsense (various benign pollens and molecules and pet dander, etc). You get a hookworm infection, give it a wee bit of time, then you get treated and eliminate it. Many people have lost their ridiculous allergies as a result.
http://www.gizmag.com/hookworms-prevent-asthma-allergies/12969/
I tend to agree with the bubble wrapped baby hypothesis. And the bubble wrapping seems to increase with each passing year.
Of course it makes sense to avoid unnecessary risks, but the extent of the fear of everything seems excessive and the severe protection of the young is not just stunting the development of immune systems but of emotional and psychological maturity. I honestly feel sorry for these kids. I dealt with most of the disappointment of realizing the world is not always such a nice place when I was in my early teens, which was probably better because of the resilience of youth (distant analogy, a two year old recovers from open heart surgery faster than you can imagine). I now see this disappointment happening to much younger cohorts hitting their early 30s and they don’t seem to be handling it so well.
At the same time, I think this is mostly an upper middle class problem. Not sure how much it is moving the dial for immune systems (or emotional systems) on a nationwide basis across classes.
Hook may eliminate allergies, altho I’m going to wait on incontrovertible evidence, but if such evidence appears, I’ll still decline, thanks very much. I agree that germ phobia is rampant and ridiculous.
While I agree with your hygiene hypothesis to the extent that we’ve gone overboard and thus affected immune systems, I don’t believe this is the basis for allergies. In fact, the younger one is exposed to allergens, the more likely there will be a reaction. For example, I was exposed to cow’s milk at 4 weeks, having developed teeth. I developed a severe allergy with eczema and asthma that persisted long after the allergen was removed, but was left with severe nasal allergies until an adult when I outgrew those also. I grew up around horses and animals, as did my children. And I grew up in Florida, often went barefoot (not around the horses though, hurts too much when horses periodically step on your feet), thought nothing of eating food that fell on the barn floor. Never got hookworms though (horses don’t get them). It’s not unusual for allergies to change during college age years, either start or radically improve, per my allergist from way back when who talked me out of pursuing vet school. Since I’ve known two vets who had to give up their practices due to allergies changing and preventing them continuing on. They had to give up lucrative practices to pursue administrative fields, one with the USDA, another with an insurance claims company. Repeated exposures worsen allergies once they appear. Bee sting allergies can become fatal. It was recommended I use soy milk with my children until they were much older, and neither has a problem with cow’s milk. Unfortunately, they both developed asthma and allergies like their mom. One outgrew them, one didn’t. I was far from an over-protective mother when it came to the outdoors, my children also grew up around horse barns and playing in fields….. and developed nasty cases of hayfever. My youngest is allergic to animals. Sometimes genetics trump everything else. I wonder if that might be why the Amish don’t get allergies? It sure would be worth finding out what it is.
I agree though that parents are far too protective about germs. My children regularly got dirty and were sick no more than any other children, outside of their allergy-related issues. I could never keep their sneakers white, and I didn’t buy them white clothes. At least my children would always come clean in the bath tub.
It’s possible you can look to genetics for the Amish resistence to allergies: a small group that mostly marries among its own. The Amish are far from monolithic in beliefs and social habits, but they mostly marry other Amish.
Facebook
caveat
not and never will be a techie
several months ago i suddenly started having microsoft drop a number of sites i randomly read
the site would be recovered or i would be more often be sent back to the last site as the recovered site
major hassle
i noticed at the bottom of many of these sites in the small blank toolbar before fully loaded a flashing series of messages as waiting for a number of non related sites to load mostly the junk advertising/spam that now crowd the margins of most sites
however in addition amongst the list were references to facebook almost always and twitter often widgets
on any experimental basis i went into tools/internet options and specically added these sites as prohibited
presto
80 percent of my problem disappeared
RE: Robomenanamany
Yves, I still think that the democrat party/Obama are going to use the excuse of “the presidential election will be a tight race” so they can hoard all the money. Either this is just stupidity or a strategic plan. I suspect they think that the Congress is a foregone conclusion as lost, even if democrats hold on to a 51/49 edge in the Senate. And so the plan is (because remember how successful Slick Willy was with a republican congress, nearly destroying SS) to shift all donations to the presidential campaign and let local, state, governor, congress campaigns fend for themselves. Which will cause an even larger shift to right wing republican control. And with an outright win by obama (u know, 53% to 47% with 360 electoral votes, with is not really a strong victory) that all the stupid liberals will all celebrate the great “at least the other guy didn’t win” victory. Yet, obama will pronounce, probably on the nite of the election, that America has spoken and that the way business has been done in the past must end and the way forward will have change. Which means that a democrat president will work with a right wing republican congress to dismantle SS Medicare and the rest of medicaid, as well as cutting taxes.
I have no idea whether or not some “they” is following this game plan, but if someone did want to gut SS, Obama + a Republican congress would be the optimum combination. You got that right, for sure.
By published reports, Obama’s election campaign has already told the states they’re on their own. Last year, in fact. Obama is for Obama, there is no appropriate party label for him. Whatever he perceives to be in his best interests.
Krugman said the real economic problem was mass unemployment.
“I would say shelve the deficit discussion,” he said. from http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2012/05/05/krugman-compares-republican-economic-plan-to-blood-letting/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+TheRawStory+%28The+Raw+Story%29&utm_content=Google+Feedfetcher
Why don’t you leave your gold-standard thinking behind, Mr. Krugman, and DENOUNCE the fact that the US, a monetary sovereign, is borrowing its own money supply?
Look, what’s wrong with paying the banksters to lend us our own money? What are you? Some kind of communist?
The Lost Colony of Roanoke. Lost in 1587; speculation that they were assimilated by the Native Americans. DNA Testing has been unable to clearly establish descendants. 100 people disappeared. And now their original traces could be buried under a golf course subdivision. Isn’t this the same corner of North Carolina referred to as “the Dismal Swamp” which was the bane of settlers for 300 years? George Washington thought about developing part of it into a rice plantation but found it too difficult. Not to mention malaria. Is this patched map new information? I don’t get the significance.
Huffington Post’s net traffic numbers are abysmal. While other aggregators do send traffic to source sites, Huffington Post receives far more than it sends. And I can’t stand Arriana.
Therefore, I refuse to patronize that site. So when I placed the cursor over that story and realized it was a HuffPost one, I skipped it.
NYT Link-
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/05/04/us/map-markings-offer-clues-to-lost-colony.html?ref=global-home
Thank You.
Bravo to the Miami protesters. Wonderfully to the point and a real reminder of the at -the -neighborhood -level damage the banks have wrought.
Money quote from the Georgia eviction story:
DeKalb County Sheriff Thomas Brown told an Atlanta talk radio show a day after the raid that a dozen squad cars and dozens of deputies were needed for the dead-of-night raid because Occupy Atlanta had set up tents on Frazer’s property, and his perception of the Occupy activists in other cities led him to believe they could be armed. He also said he timed the eviction to avoid media coverage.
Armed, really?
If it wasn’t for the pain needlessly inflicted on the evicted family, the sheriff’s department’s behavior would be comical.
Big bad sheriff’s deputies afraid of some old women, a toddler, and maybe a few protestors? Let’s see, pistols, bullet proof vests, rifles and shotguns in the squad cars vs. eh … a old lady swatting them with her cane? A vicious toddler with a potentially lethal binkie?
What happens if they need to go after an actual criminal? A squadron of Abram’s tanks and tactical air support or they refuse to roll? Forget calling them Gestapo. They might take a perverse pride in being compared to such “tough guys”. Instead ridicule them as the comical cowards they are.
“perception”
Meaning that if you can’t plug into his brain,you have to take his word on it. Even if he’s a known liar or he can’t point to anything specific. It’s why a lot of right wing is about “feelings”.
Here’s hoping the delicate little flower doesn’t panic at the sight of a dachshund.
Yves: “My internet connection has been up and down all weekend, and is now more down than up.”
I had the same problem, and continue to have it. I am a govt whistleblower who has been targeted for surveillance and harassment.
I have thought for awhile that you either already have been targeted, or would be fairly soon, as you and your blog are a threat to the system.
Be aware that the Patriot Act allows you to be observed and tracked, as you travel to Europe and other countries, and publish things on your blog that the current intelligence POSs do not agree with.
If you are having excessive noise at night preventing sleep, and many things are going wrong lately (i.e., more than usual for NYC), these are part of the pattern of observation and harassment by these POSs who pose as “patriots.”
Funny picture of a mock wedding between Merkel and Hollande. Hollande looks happy, Merkel less so. LOL!
http://www.rue89.com/2012/05/07/45-jours-pour-reussir-le-plan-de-francois-hollande-pour-leurope-231157
Every now and then Phillip Adams comes up with amusing items.
http://www.abc.net.au/radionational/programs/latenightlive/hip-hop-and-the-french-elections/3996006
http://esupport.fcc.gov/complaints.htm
Verizon only yields to pressure, and surprisingly, the FCC writes you back.
Have had a one sample per second power logger running for 8 yrs….. That battle took 6 yrs to win. “They” know I’m out there.
You must become a terminator.
FCC is a good start vs Verizon. Eventually gets someone noticed in a career altering way. Shouldn’t be like this, but it is. Perhaps it’s just that NSA tap on your line :) Made in China.
Yves, did you catch the following SET? Isn’t “taxpayer-owned” Ally on the verge of bankruptcy, to make GM’s toxic dump into our laps complete? The plot thickens (cribbed from Z… comment 7 May 2012):
With above in mind, the frame: Re GM history, GMAC, DiTech: “As General Motors Goes, So Goes the Nation” (3 May 2009):
http://www.thecuttingedgenews.com/index.php article=11128&pageid=&pagename
“FBI Probe of Mortgage Lender DiTech Widens” (13 May 2000):
http://articles.latimes.com/2000/may/13/business/fi-29536
Kentucky Derby timely: “Reddam’s diverse interests run deep” (4 May 2007):
http://articles.latimes.com/2007/may/04/sports/sp-derby4
“Dispute between Reddam and Ramsey set for trial” (25 July 2007) [isn’t there a ramsey in banking in England, in the news lately? “Ramsey” DNA seems to have sinecure in perpetuity in “high” places, not without cause]:
http://www.bloodhorse.com/horse-racing/articles/39796/dispute-between-reddam-and-ramsey-set-for-trial#ixzz1u7Qj0Ruz
CashCall Complaint (20 Aug 2009):
http://ag.ca/gov/cms_attachments/press/pdfs/n1788_cashcallcomplaint.pdf
CashCall Proceeding (5 Nov 2011):
http://www.sturdevantlaw.com/news/html#cashcall_proceeding
A long time line, n’est-ce pas? And GM is O’s “leading light.” Do these connect dots to drugs+sports betting profits globally, maybe even Ascot? Xref the good ships “Lollipop” – “Titanic” – “Securitization” – “MFGlobal” – the Morgue.
Very interesting Leonova, but I prefer this link:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rqybRbHn0rk
YouTube “humor” brought me to tragic reality, growing larger by the day. It’s all connected: all crime all the time. Potable water will be for their DNA alone, unless we stop them right now. Exxon, leader in fracking, wants “More.” Ida Tarbell knew the enemy of humanity, she won the battle, but lost the war.
“Luxembourg Exposed [part 2]” (N.B. BCCI, “God’s banker,” Clearstream/CEDEL)
“Organized Crime in Charge of EU Carbon Trade, Europol Says”‘
See two great films: “AMERICAN GANGSTER” (Directed by Ridley Scott, starring Denzel Washington, 2007), and “CRIMES AND MISDEMEANORS” (Directed by Woody Allen, 1989–saying in film what Dreiser’s “An American Tragedy” said about us in print). This is our criminal country, Presidents included, built on terrible Faustian bargains from the beginning. Old Europe is filthy in its own way; London, Paris, Rome, and Geneva defy description in human terms. “Behind every great fortune is a great crime” — Honore de Balzac still has the last word.
Re: internet connections. I live in the country and get DSL on a dicey phone line that goes out whenever it rains (and sometimes when it doesn’t, at random times). Ours is AT&T, so they don’t like sending a truck out here to the boonies. Welcome to the machine.