World’s Oldest Message in a Bottle, Part of 1914 Citizen-Science Experiment Atlantic (Lambert)
‘Three-parent baby’ fertility technique could be made legal Telegraph Those of us who would not have been born if these techniques had been used (a person with different genes is a different person), such as women with mutated BRCA1 or BRCA2 genes or people from families with a history of schizophrenia) might wonder about this sort of progress towards a world where everyone is tall, blond, athletic, straight, male, and psychopathic.
Microwave weapons: Wasted energy Nature
World’s Most Dangerous Beaches Huffington Post (Carol B)
Cargill and Others Behind anti-Organic “Stanford Study” Land Destroyer (furzy mouse). Note that the Stanford researcher went to some length to say that their study was not corporate funded but did not mention the considerable ties the university has to Big Ag.
Condom used as evidence in Assange sex case ‘does not contain his DNA‘ Daily Mail. Remember, this IS the Daily Mail! Four Corners (a highly respected weekly investigative show in Oz) did an indepth report on the Assange rape charges. The bit that stuck out was the women REFUSED TO SIGN the police report.
Australia’s Ferguson Says Commodity Price Boom Has Ended Bloomberg
US to launch WTO action against China Financial Times
Hezbollah calls for week of protests over Islam film Guardian
Armada of British naval power massing in the Gulf as Israel prepares an Iran strike Telegraph (Mrs. G)
US media angrily marvels at the lack of Muslim gratitude Glenn Greenwald
Teachers Vote to Continue Strike Wall Street Journal
Volusia County may predict the future for Obama and Romney Tampa Bay Times
Subversive Haiku (Scott)
Policy euphoria makes way for humdrum data Reuters. Translation: Since this will take a LONG time to work, if it works, keep those asset prices high until further notice.
Earnings in United States Are Beginning to Feel a Pinch New York Times. Noticing only now? A lot of companies have been managing earnings expectations down.
Email From Lead Analyst, Weekly Petroleum Supply Team on Possibility of Recession Michael Shedlock (furzy mouse)
HUSSMAN: Market Conditions Have Hit The Single Worst Point That We Have Ever Observed Clusterstock. Gotta love someone who does not mince words.
The Puppetry of Quotation Approval New York Times
Pre-Anniversary Occupy Arrests by the NYPD Kevin Gosztola
* * *
lambert here:
Mission elapsed time: T + 10 and counting*
“Any fool can make something complicated. It takes a genius to make it simple.” —Woody Guthrie
Chicago Teachers Strike. There was no contract (!!): “Instead, delegates and union leadership said Friday that they wanted to see the deal ‘in writing’ first. That skepticism continued Sunday, when delegates got a 23-page summary but not the final proposal, which is expected to number of 180 pages.” … ‘Til Tuesday: “[T]he House of Delegates voted NOT to suspend the strike, but to allow two more days for delegates to take the information back to the picket lines and hold discussions with the over 26,000 members throughout Chicago. Teachers and school staff will return to the picket lines at 7:30 a.m. Monday and, after picketing together, will meet to share and discuss the proposal. The House will reconvene on Tuesday afternoon.” … Good faith negotiations: “Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel tonight vowed to seek a court injunction to force teachers back to school after their union declined to suspend its week-old strike in the nation’s third-largest city.” … Salaries: “It became commonplace in he media to say over and over that the average salary for Chicago teachers is $71,000-$76,000. [In fact, it’s] is $56,720 [here]. Maybe this will make the teachers’ cause somewhat more tolerable to the pundits in the media who can barely get by on four times that much.” …. Issues: “Among the big points of contention are the tying of teachers’ pay to student performance [VAM] and job security with the expansion of charter schools and the closure of other public schools.” F*ck Rahm and the corrupt charter movement he rode in on. That’s the issue, even if Izvestia disagrees. Worth another two days, maybe?
Occupy. #S15, Saturday: “A commander wearing a white shirt took one man by the arm and threw him forcefully face down on the sidewalk. Some in the crowd said that officers appeared to be pointing out specific individuals for arrest” (TimCast; more linky goodness). Arm-locking. Chalking. … #S16 Sunday: “On Sunday, hundreds gathered on Gansevoort Street and the Hudson River Greenway, to protest Spectra Energy, and the construction of a gas pipeline in the West Village that will be supplied by fuel obtained in shale drilling.” Evening photos in Zucotti Park. … #S17, Monday: “Monday morning ultimately remains a wildcard, given the unpredictable spatial strategies of the NYPD. The widely published OWS plan will combine the People’s Wall, at several targeted intersections near the Stock Exchange, with mobile actions launched from a series of overlapping thematic zones, including the 99 Percent Zone.” … #S17, Monday: “‘Wear a suit.’ This was the official Occupy Wall Street call to protesters heading to the financial district Monday morning to mark the first anniversary of the movement, in its crucible.” … #S17, debt: “Why are you here? ‘The student loans and the financial aid that’s available. Basically, it’s a circle of debt with us. Like it’s over and over, I already owe money.” [Ashley] Valdespino [(19)] said.” Good quotes. … #S17, networking: “One of the refrains I keep hearing is this: ‘After this year I know the people I’ll be organizing with my whole life.'”
AK. Climate: “It’s always curious to hear protests from the Lower 48 insisting that climate change is a hoax, especially when one lives down the road from glaciers that aren’t–shall we say–what they used to be” (photos and trailer of Chasing Ice).
AL. Gardening: “To those who say why go to the trouble of making pickles when the grocery store has plenty for $2.50 or so, I say why do you go to a concert when you can buy the CD for $15 or the song you like for 99 cents? It is not the same.”
CA. Woody Guthrie: “Guthrie ‘became the voice of an entire generation of displaced Americans, many of whom came to California to start over,’ Altman said.”… Foreclosure: “Before they tried to carry out the April eviction, deputies were warned that the homeowner had weapons, the claim says. Locksmith Glendon Engert paused while disabling the lock on a metal security door when he heard something inside, but deputies directed him to keep drilling, the claim says.” No spoiler. … Recall: “A threat to recall [San Bernardino] Councilman Chas Kelley unless he put a city charter repeal on the November ballot has been found not to illegal (they were looking at it as a bribery or extortion charge).” … Greens: “‘It makes him (Romney) a global-warming denier,’ said Soto. He said he might vote for the Green Party candidate, though he wasn’t sure who that was. (It’s Dr. Jill Stein, a Massachusetts physician.) … March: “About 50 [Wal-Mart] workers each day are marching the route taken by the trucks that carry the goods they load — from Riverside, CA., to Downtown Los Angeles. Sleeping each night along the way on church floors and relying on supporters for meals, the marchers will deliver a letter outlining the alleged abuses they have suffered.”
FL. Trafficking: “Tesoro is one among thousands of victims of human trafficking, a crime federal investigators say is growing across the country — and in South FL. Palm Beach County, with its agriculture and tourism industries always on the lookout for low cost labor, is a ‘perfect storm’ for human trafficking, investigators say.” … Water and sewer: “More development means more taxpayers. Yes it is a Ponzi scheme. A Ponzi scheme built on an ocean of sh*t. It’s what taxpayers do.” …. Charters: “[Internal] documents that show for-profit online educator K12′s student-teacher ratio is as high as 275-to-1, nearly twice the maximum ratio used by FL’s state-run virtual school.”
LA. Oil: “After Hurricane Isaac uncovered tar balls and tar mats along Louisiana’s coastline, BP said it wants to ‘deep clean’ the state’s beaches. The company’s proposal is to sift out contaminants to as deep as four feet.”
MI. Fracking: “Livingston County is one of the purest pieces of Pure MI. The state of MI’s Department of Natural Resources has sold drilling rights to land underneath the Brighton Recreation Area and Lakelands Trail to open up the area to ‘fracking.’ No townhall meeting is scheduled. It’s not on agendas of the county commission.”
NC. Woody Guthrie: “Guthrie is one of those rare musicians whose work we know, even if we do not know the composer, [Poet and singer Kim Arrington] said. She cites “This Land Is Your Land.” “I asked my kid about it,” she said. “He didn’t know Woody Guthrie’s name, but he could sing that song.” That kind of influence “means your song has broken through a different place, when your song is known before your name is associated with the song.'”
NY. Fracking: “Signers — 5,000 to date — of the ‘Pledge of Resistance’ represent a commitment [to employ tactics used in the 1960s Civil Right’s movement] that seems to extend beyond an ill-defined crowd that can be written off as reactionaries, hellions, ideologues, and band-wagon riders. Alliances within the group cut across demographics, with heavy representation from baby-boomers, some with a history in the Civil Rights movement that defined 1960s-era activism. [A]nti-fracking campaigners are represented by credentialed leadership including politicians, academics, and professionals with family and jobs. And they appear ready to push their comfort zone.” … Fracking: “The Quinnipiac poll finds that New Yorkers surveyed believe that the economic benefits of natural gas drilling, including job creation, outweigh the potential harmful environmental effects. [F]or the first time in more than a year, a growing number of upstate voters, many of whom live in areas above the Marcellus Shale natural gas deposits, support hydrofracking by 48 percent to 41 percent.” … Queenborough Community College: “Yesterday I reported that the English department at Queensborough Community College had voted to reject an administration-initiated restructuring of their composition program, and that the college’s Vice President for Academic Affairs had in response informed them that the department will be largely dismantled next fall.”
OK. Woody Guthrie: “SHAWNEE — As the worldwide Woody Guthrie centennial celebration continues, the late, great folk troubadour’s sister will sign copies of her new book [Woody’s Road] about the Oklahoma icon Thursday evening at Rose Manor Nursing Home.”
PA. Fracking: “The PUC suggested that a provision in the proposed North Towanda ordinance that completely prohibits water impoundment areas within a federally designated flood plain is at odds with a section in the law that states well sites that include water impoundment areas may not be drilled in a flood plain unless a waiver is obtained from the state Department of Environmental Protection.” Which was probably the point, but never mind that. … Climate: “Over the last 50 years in Pennsylvania, significant rain events — when more than an inch of rain falls within 24 hours — are up by 50 percent. But our average rainfall totals have remained about the same.” … Protest: “ACT UP Philadelphia also held a rally today outside [Gov.] Corbett’s office. Their gripe with the governor: His budget cutting off general assistance funds for the poor, sick and disabled.”
TN. Voting: “Despite expressing confidence in the reliability of electronic poll books, the Davidson County Election Commission on Thursday stuck with its decision not to use the devices in the November election.”
TX. Trafficking: “Brilliant observation, and true: What’s the secret ingredient to Texas’ much-ballyhooed job creation boom that you’ll never hear from Rick Perry on the presidential campaign stump? Drug trafficking” (golden oldie, via). … Supply chain: ” On Friday, a federal judge ruled that the people in Hillcrest and other Corpus Christi neighborhoods that were harmed by the illegal pollution created by Citgo’s East Refinery have the right to be considered crime victims in the sentencing phase of the case against Citgo. This is a landmark case, as it is the first time a refinery has ever been convicted of criminal charges. It is also the first time residents living near a refinery have been recognized as potential crime victims” (more).
VA. Uranium: “In the call, [State Sen. Bill Stanley] can be heard saying that he had been called and asked to ‘reach out’ by [Gov.] McDonnell to persuade the board to shelve the uranium resolution. He tells [Supervisor Jerry A. Hagerman], who has come out openly against ended [sic] the state-wide moratorium against uranium mining, that going along with dumping the resolution could be good for him ‘personally and politically.'” … Mining: ” [Kyanite Mining Corp.] is turning to the VA Supreme Court to block a lower court’s order forcing the company into receivership and eventual liquidation. At stake is the mining company, valued at least at $160 million and tens of millions of dollars in assets represented by approximately 28,000 acres of old growth timber and the immensely valuable Cavalier Hotel waterfront property in Virginia Beach.
WI. Swing state: “Romney’s selection [of] Ryan — pushed WI to the short list. Last week marked WI’s move into full battleground status with candidate visits and television buys.”
Outside baseball. Cheri Honkala: “The fight of the next generation is going to be over who determines how land is used and who does that land belong to.” Nice framing.
Emergent parties. Ballot access: Handy chart. “Obama and Romney and have automatic ballot status in all 50 states and DC, so they are not included” (but see for corrections).
The trail. Polls, Nate Silver: “At the very least, Obama’s lead in the national polls no longer seems to be growing. If he gained additional ground following the attacks on Americans in Benghazi, Libya — or from Mitt Romney’s response to it — there has been no sign of it in the most recent national tracking surveys. … Undecideds: “A striking finding of the [NBC/WSJ/Marist] poll is how many voters have already made a choice. Just 5 percent were undecided in Florida and Ohio, 6 percent in Virginia. All the ads and campaigning — and the hundreds of millions of dollars being spent in this race for the White House — are for them.:
The Romney. Comedy: “NY Post Full Page Ad, ‘Obama’s Big Lie Revealed'” Which one, you may ask. But in vain… More comedy: “Romney associates are baffled that such a successful corporate leader has created a team with so few lines of authority or accountability. Romney has allowed seven distinct power centers to flourish inside his campaign, with the strategy pod, headed by [Stuart] Stevens and [Russ] Schriefer, handling the most essential ingredient — the candidate’s public message and image.” The article is a Stevens takedown, but it looks like The Romney isn’t taking Steven’s advice. Weird. … Desperate: “The peril to Romney’s candidacy of being seen through the lens of desperation can’t be overstated. ”
The Obama. Comic impersonator: “Jay Pharoah debuted his Obama impression on Saturday Night Live last night, but the whole skit was hijacked by Jason Sudeikis’s Mitt Romney.” … Comic impersonator: “‘There’s your choice America,’ [T]he Obama character says, ‘stick with what is barely working, or take your chances with that.'” … Master debater: “‘He’s got to speak shorter, that’s all,’ Axelrod said.”
* Slogan of the day: Long live Commander-in-Chief Presumptive Willard Mitt Romney!
* * *
Antidote du jour (furzy mouse):
76 comments
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last week jodi dean had a pretty poignant post on how the system screws working people; a friend of hers worked cleaning up the crap at local colleges for 30 years & ended up with a monthly pension of only $70.70…
http://jdeanicite.typepad.com/i_cite/2012/09/screwing-working-people.html
I know of a custodial worker who worked for many years at Stanford, saving enough to buy a home decades ago in the Palo Alto area.
He sold it, at a substantial profit.
All the “proof” I need! Let’s cut those wealthy janitor salaries! They’re the ones taking all of OUR money!!
Three-parent families? Selective breeding for “a world where everyone is tall, blond, athletic, straight, male, and psychopathic?”
(Dr. Strangelove leaps to his feet): “Mein Fuhrer! THIS is the final solution!”
The last bastian of acceptable bigotry. Tall, athletic Blondes are psychopaths.
Gosh – why do I think there are precious metals in Antifa’s last name?
My mom is tall, blonde, athletic and Scottish. Not a psychopathic instinct in her.
But you’re not alone Antifa… Hollywood’s masters and the public in general still vote for brown eyes on shows like Dancing with the Stars, So You think you can dance [NEVER HAD A TALL, Blonde female winner .. EVER!
Plenty of Blacks, Latinos and Jews though.
so who are the psychopaths again?
Happens all the time on these highly intellectual web addresses. Acceptable and unacceptable bigotry.
An individual takes swipe at an ethnic or racial group. Then somebody takes offense and offers an equally noxious generalization of another group.
But what happens next is the crime and enigma.
Noe suggests there are precious metals in the names of those who took the swipe at Aryans.
uh oh and oooh…UN-acceptable.
But wait, it gets worse. Has anybody tried to quantify the ethnic profile of the banksters, Wall st psychopaths, traders and the Fed Families? [Don’t let the fresh faced Romney fool you – he’s just the hired help]
Um, LOTS of precious metals, heavy metals, not to mention steins, bergs, felds, and witz’s.
Ditto for ALL five Fed Families.
Here comes the best part. WHO do you think will have their IP blocked from future SCATHING generalizations? Certainly not those who demean Aryans, Muslims, and fat people.
And we can’t be dissin blacks and Latinos can we? They pay retail!
Watch the pack go wild
So, how is Stormfront these days?
I think you are being unfair to Antifa. It’s not that psychopathy goes with being blond and blue eyed but that parents who might choose such traits might easily choose to add traits that would be useful to a psychopath too.
I know. It’s always so innocent when ‘certain’ groups vilify blondes. Jest good fun.
But when you are German, Swiss, or Scot – you “notice” the DREADED ARYANS are, and will continue to be enemies of “the common people” the brown eyed hordes.
Blondes do not win Miss America, Universe or World. I think Venezuela has a lock on the trophy into the next century.
But if you check the judges – not a blue eye among em. Lots of precious metals though. Again – Trump? – he’s just the help.
“tall, blond, athletic, straight, male, and psychopathic”
In aummer camp many many many years ago, I knew a counselor with similar features–average build, not really tall and athletic; but with the blond combover, features and sense of prep school entitlement, he looked like somebody straight out of Neidermeyer’s ROTC clique in Animal House. Used to put the kids down a lot. I remember him saying to me after I had a successful softball game in the hitting department, “******** you still suck, you just don’t suck as much as the others”.
Not everybody fits the stereotype, but I’ll bet a lot do.
OMG
You knew a blonde athletic counselor – many many many years ago – with a prep school sense of entitlement.
And that is supporting evidence for the description of tall, blonde, athletic types as, well, less than normal, likeable people.
I run a business in New Mexico – and virtually every Latino family that comes in has bad kids.
I do business with Jews in New York, on a daily basis, and I must be more vigilant with their orders because they cheat me, and have always cheated me, with faulty fabrics, padded freight – but should I suggest that 45 years of retail with disfunctional Latino families, and sketchy Jewish suppliers – the house comes down on me.
And YOU – give us 30 year old single example of a less than stellar counselor… and the board is silent.
As was noted… there is bigotry.. and bigotry.
Don’t look for any Blondes winning TV contests any time soon… the brown eyed hordes won’t let it happen.
I think I recall ONE blonde Miss America. ONE.
Our self esteem comes from knowing how much you all wish you had our genes. That goes double for the Ashkanazi New York demons who proudly cheat me when ever they can get away with it.
Like I said. One group snipes at another. Then that group snipes back. But which is considered the greater crime?
There’s nobody defending Aryans on this board.
and nary a peep about the specific ethnicity of the FED families, and Wall St scum.
I think that was more indicative of white male entitlement more than anything, regardless of the color of hair, that I’ve noticed. That example struck me as a particularly pompous a**hole that just happened to be blond.
I’m not a hater–I’ve had some fun with blond females.
My, my, what a textbook example of projection!
Parents would of course select traits that would give their children advantage. We already have abundant proof of the predisposition of parents to choose males in the gender skew in China and India. HBS has done studies of the incomes of its graduates. Height is the best predictor. Good looks are also associated with higher incomes, and while any genetic/racial type produces attractive members, blonds appear to be particularly well rated. Finally, having high self esteem, which in more extreme cases is not distinguishable from psychopathy, is also seen as desirable.
But you choose to make this a statement about people who are alive now, when I never said any such thing. And I also happen to be tall and blond.
I’ve read that good looks are associated with facial symmetry which is associated with health which is associated with intelligence.
OTOH, ugly people have to work harder.
The latest pirate news…
A glimpse at piracy in the UK and beyond http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-19599527
Fighting Piracy Goes Awry With Killings of Fishermen http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2012-09-16/fighting-piracy-goes-awry-with-killings-of-fishermen.html
Pirate Party UK: A chat with some “reluctant politicians” http://thenextweb.com/uk/2012/09/17/pirate-party-uk-the-reluctant-politicians/
About 30 people were in attendance and it was generally a quiet atmosphere, somewhat dwarfed by the grand surroundings of the venue.
I chatted with a few people waiting, pointing out I am a journalist, “I’m not giving away secrets am I?” asked one as I asked what they were expecting. I told them how I was there to find out what the Pirate Party was standing for in the UK. Rather oddly the answer from others was, ‘So am I’.
So, if they were not sure of the policies, why had they joined the party? One member told me they were a part of the Occupy movement and found that the ideas for the party suited them as an alternative or a position outside of mainstream politics.
Pirate Punch http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=pirate%20punch
A punch aimed directly into someones eye with the aim of blinding them or knocking their eye out. Therefore leading them to wear an eyepatch or a glass eye – very piratey.
Only 2 days ‘til Talk Like A Pirate Day – Wednesday, September 19th http://talklikeapirate.com/ !
Somalian Gangsters and Internet Freedom – you linked the two?
Where am I?
Who are you people?
I wouldn’t say they were linked, just that they are both related to an upcoming holiday.
Where are you? A site at which people like to lighten up now and then. Come on in, the water’s fine.
“F*ck Rahm and the corrupt charter movement he rode in on. That’s the issue, even if Izvestia disagrees. Worth another two days, maybe?”
They can keep going as far as I’m concerned. The longer it drags out, the better chance of the full story coming out.
The only good thing these days is spotting the snakes slithering up out of the sewer.
Me too. “Two days” was irony.
It’s more than clear that the D party has changed on education entirely.
http://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2012/09/how-michelle-rhee-is-taking-over-the-democratic-party/262082/
What I would love to see is more teachers across the land strike in solidarity. Now. Strike while the election season is hot…. while there is a shred of a chance of reversing course.
Otherwise beware, Chicago…. Obama may flyover ya with kiss of death sprinkles from above, just like Wisconsin.
There is not a dime’s worth of difference between Rahmbo, Secretary of Education Arne Duncan, and our President on this crap.
I think Charles Pierce knows this, but he refuses to say it.
The strike has forced a lot of things to the surface, not the least of which is the entirely unsurprising revelation that Rahm Emanuel is every bit as much of an imperious dickhead as an elected official as he was as an apparatchik under both presidents Clinton and Obama.
Make the next leap, Pierce. Clinton and Obama are both relentless corporate shills, and they’re making their fortunes by selling out the people who vote for them.
~
Pierce is smarter than he’s writing.
Wow, that’s pathetic. “Rahm is as bad now as when he worked for…uh, you know, whatever.” Yeah, no blame on Obama, he had NO IDEA what he was getting when he hired Rahm. Sheesh.
I found this interesting title/article:
“The Last 14 Days Will Go Down As A Turning Point In The History Of Economics”
http://www.businessinsider.com/historical-impact-fed-decision-german-court-decision-omt-chinese-stimulus-2012-9
“At its September meeting, the Fed effectively evaded the issue by setting QE off in a general direction, much in the same way Columbus pointed his three ships West and expected eventually to land in India…The history books admire the audacity of a man with a vision. Columbus sailed in the direction toward the known world’s end. Of course, he also sailed further than expected and landed on a completely different continent than planned”
“The world may one day look back and conclude the first half of September was either a turning point for the global economy, or the final nail in the coffin of the doctrine of central bank omnipotence.”
Hair-On-Fire? Precient? Dunno…
Let’s not forget that the ECB also decided to usurp German democracy by monetizing debt of the non-core “states”.
My response to today’s antidote:
If you give people nothingness, they can ponder what can be achieved from that nothingness. — Tadao Ando
We come spinning out of nothingness, scattering stars like dust — Jalal ad-Din Rumi
The world is chaos. Nothingness is the yet-to-be-born god of the world. — Georg Büchner
“Nothing is real”
–The Beatles
The police have caused more disruption around Wall Street than the Occupiers. I wouldn’t say the “hurricane” materialized around Bowling Green, but it’s a fairly good sized storm. Police have barricaded streets leading into the New York Stock Exchange, and police are standing guard in front of most office buildings around the Financial District and occassionally closing down streets or sidewalks.
If the idea was to cause chaos, then the Occupiers have succeeded, with considerable assistance from NYPD.
The police as an institution are like an auto-immune disorder of the rentier state.
The inflammation they cause is worse for the body politic than the organisms they attack. Which won’t prevent doubling down…
And it will only get worse as all those heroic VETS come home to tazer their neighbors – all in the line of duty of course.
Just think – prison guards, local cops and sheriffs – itchin to hurt somebody, anybody – as they try to re enter the communities they left behind.
Police: the dark side of the working class
I read somewhere that the Chicago police are being rather sympathetic and polite to/with Chicago teachers because Chicago policemen/women know very well that they are next in line for targetting by the New Yuppie Scumocratic establishment represented by Rahm Emanuel.
‘The police as an institution are like an auto-immune disorder of the rentier state.’
Nicely phrased.
The police are protecting the one percent, and at the end of the day they will lose their pensions, too.
They don’t do it for the money.
If that is what’s happening, then people can induce the NYPD to cause chaos and disorder and gridlock by pretending to announce future protests. Fauxtest planners could announce protest after protest after protest until the police are seen to give up on massive pre-emptive responses. Once the police have been seen to give up on massive pre-emptive responses, then protest organizers could announce a protest and then have a real protest.
Then the police would go back to disrupting lower Manhattan for a few more fauxtest announcement cycles till they stop again stop disrupting lower Manhattan every time a fauxtest announcement is made. Then the protesters can have another real protest.
On and on, round and round, till something gives or breaks.
re: Queenborough Community College: “Yesterday I reported that the English department at Queensborough Community College had voted to reject an administration-initiated restructuring of their composition program, and that the college’s Vice President for Academic Affairs had in response informed them that the department will be largely dismantled next fall.”
Right. Because American college graduates don’t need to know how to write.
Just ask anyone.
There’s always autocorrect. Sew know knead two half writing class.
It sounds like you’ve been spending too much time LOLing at http://icanhas.cheezburger.com/
Yes, nice framing, Ms. Honkala. She knows her CESCR Articles 1(2) and 25, even though she won’t admit it. If the left had the shrewdness of the Birchers in this culture of tracts, they would be blanketing the nation with copies of the International Bill of Human Rights. Woody Guthrie wins hearts but it takes the treaty law of it to win minds. It’s the ultimate party platform.
Lifted from Michael Lewis’ Vanity Fair, aka Vanity Fare, piece entitled “Obama’s Way” (see link below):
…You [as a president] also need to remove from your life the day-to-day problems that absorb most people for meaningful parts of their day. “You’ll see I wear only gray or blue suits,” he [President Obama] said. “I’m trying to pare down decisions. I don’t want to make decisions about what I’m eating or wearing. Because I have too many other decisions to make.” He mentioned research that shows the simple act of making decisions degrades one’s ability to make further decisions. It’s why shopping is so exhausting. “You need to focus your decision-making energy. You need to routinize yourself. You can’t be going through the day distracted by trivia”…
http://www.vanityfair.com/politics/2012/10/michael-lewis-profile-barack-obama
Contrary to what is being published here by Michael Lewis, including other similar sorts of fictional works from the fawning press, Obama’s job isn’t to make the big decisions, I mean the REALLY BIG decisions — like which Muslim country do we drone-bomb next or which puppet dictator do we take out next for not bending or kowtowing enough to Western and Israeli interests; or which Wall Street corporations get another round of undisclosed subsidies, courtesy of our corporate-captured government, or which ones get yet another QE-backed bailout, courtesy of his friend and co-conspirator, Big Ben; or which public programs get the axe, or which ones get privatized to death. His job is to give the appearance of making these and other sorts of BIG decisions without actually making them.
That’s why the president has been reduced to nothing more than a royal figurehead in a well-pressed empty suit. He is there as a front man to make decisions on behalf of the deep-pocketed moneybags that put him in power. Nothing more, nothing less. Anyone who believes or argues otherwise has drunk one too many neoliberal drinks from the grape Kool-Aid well in Washington, or has got his head buried deep beneath the neocon-built sand dunes in Saudi Arabia!
If Obama were being honest and truthful to the American people, he would openly admit to them that most of his BIG-decision making is strictly centered around and confined to such trivial things like, whether to eat off the Mexican or Chinese menu tonight, or whether to vacation in the Mountains or on the Beach this weekend.
yep, and he also gets to decide if he’s going to shoot hoops first then hit the links, or visa versa. good work if you can get it.
Ideas and principles would only hold the Imperial Presidency back. With a vague sense that America has become a nation divided. Obama latched onto third-wayism, which has somehow been the “latest trend” for 30 years or more now. The first serious victims may have been those at Grove Parc as the Boston Globe related before his election. http://www.boston.com/news/nation/articles/2008/06/27/grim_proving_ground_for_obamas_housing_policy/?page=full
Important story. I read it in 2008. Should be read weekly. It ‘s all about land grabs.
So, if Obama had as many shoes as Imelda Marcos, he wouldn’t get round to checking off names on the “kill list”?
Good to know.
The Times has reduced its coverage of OWS to small snide pieces, from their interminable crew of Note-Takers, Stone Ponderers etc, about OWS-related trivia like the dispute over the Charging Bull.
http://cityroom.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/09/17/the-bull-tied-to-occupy-wall-street
The NYT is doubtless putting its best propaganda foot forward, but data collection concludes this year for the 6th wave of worldvaluessurvey.org . It will be interesting to see if Occupy, or just general public disgust, moves the attitude needle for questions of state legitimacy, like
V141. And how democratically is this country being governed today? Again using a scale from 1 to 10, where 1 means that it is “not at all democratic” and 10 means that it is “completely democratic,” what position would you choose?
V142. How much respect is there for individual human rights nowadays in this country? Do you feel there
is (read out and code one answer):
1 A great deal of respect for individual human rights
2 Fairly much respect
3 Not much respect
4 No respect at all
V228. In your view, how often do the following things occur in this country’s elections?Very often / Fairly often / Not often / Not at all often / DK/NA
V228A.Votes are counted fairly
V228B. Opposition candidates are prevented from running
V228C. TV news favors the governing party
V228D. Voters are bribed
V228E. Journalists provide fair coverage of elections
V228F. Election officials are fair
V228G. Rich people buy elections
V228H. Voters are threatened with violence at the polls
V228I. Voters are offered a genuine choice in the elections
Rahm Emanuel “You never want a serious crisis to go to waste.”
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1yeA_kHHLow
I remember when liberals were excited for the implications of this statement, coming from this man.
Not me. I knew he was talking “shock doctrine” aka disaster capitalism and not health care reform. But people want to believe the lies.
A few live links to OWS Anniversary events, for your viewing, on the ground:
NY
http://www.ustream.tv/timcast
http://www.ustream.tv/timcast
http://www.ustream.tv/occupymusician
Toronto:
http://www.livestream.com/occupytoronto
UK:
http://www.livestream.com/occupyearth
a links page to livestreamers/citizen journalists:
http://www.citizenstreams.com/
http://www.occupywall.org/
http://occupystream.com/
Mass. clean energy; the tunnel just wasn’t enough. San fran, wall street of the west, safety and security of wells fargo. dead ponies for all the kids. talk.
Re the Chicago teachers strike, that looks like a fairly standard set of ploys.
Tell the media that there is a deal when there isn’t one
So when the strike doesn’t end, it makes it look like teachers are being unreasonable not accepting a deal their negotiators agreed to.
Then use this as a pretext to threaten legal action to end the strike by unreasonable teachers for not accepting a deal their leadership negotiated (which again never existed).
I also was wondering about the $70,000+ numbers. It could be a simple lie, or it might be total compensation. Total compensation is wages plus benefits, and benefits can include things like healthcare, vacation, holidays, sick days, Medicare and Social Security payments, etc.
Re: Quote Approval
We can only hope that someday some journalist and publisher with nothing to lose double cross a major politician and renege on an agreement to censor quotes. Proviso: no innocent is hurt by the double-cross, and national (or other) security isn’t compromised.
Learn Economics With Comic Book Economix! http://www.wired.com/geekdad/2012/09/economics-with-economix/
Does anyone know the story that goes with the photo? Looks like Africa. Sheep, elephant. Rock or termite mound. Elephant doesn’t look well. ????
Possibly two orphaned animals raised together? I’d like to know more,too.
Let’s see, a roladex queen from mass, or a sneaky black kid from chicago, hmmmm…
Shell Delays Arctic Oil Drilling Until Next Year http://www.nytimes.com/2012/09/18/business/global/shell-delays-arctic-oil-drilling-until-next-year.html
Shell admits Arctic drilling defeat, for now http://in.reuters.com/article/2012/09/17/us-royaldutchshell-idINBRE88G11Q20120917
re: Armada of British naval power massing in the Gulf as Israel prepares an Iran strike Telegraph
Looks like this might have something to do with that.
Iran Says Saboteurs Targeted Power to Nuclear Facilities http://www.businessweek.com/news/2012-09-17/iran-says-saboteurs-targeted-power-to-nuclear-facilities
Power lines running to Iran’s Fordo uranium-enrichment facility were blown up on Aug. 17, Fereydoon Abassi-Davani said today in prepared remarks to the International Atomic Energy Agency in Vienna.
btw, despite this happening about a month ago, today is the first time it’s been in the news as far as I could tell (via Google News search).
Extremely good find, Valissa — both content and fact that no reporting til today over here. Similarly, I was unable to find the armada-massing story anywhere except The Telegraph yesterday.
interesting filter smilter
An good source for everything Julian A. is “rixstepnews”.
( http://twitter.com/rixstepnews )
Rixstepnews is/are some kind of computer wizzards of Scandinavian origin, who managed to translate independently the Swedish Police files on Julian. You can start here (17 Sept.2012):
http://rixstep.com/1/20120917,00.shtml
and see the links at the bottom of the page.
The Swedish Police file, translated into English (not the manipulated and selected translation published by the Guardian!) is here:
http://rixstep.com/fup
Rixstep has dozen of articles written in the last 2 years commenting pointedly when and where the mainstream media is lying about this case.
Check this out. “Colorado Public Television is airing the documentary “9/11: Explosive Evidence – Experts Speak Out” in its airtime schedule, which premiered on August 28th of this year. The documentary produced by 1700 Architects and Engineers for 9/11 Truth contends that the manner in which the Twin Towers and World Trade Center Seven disappeared on 9/11, as described by the government, is physically impossible. The film is sponsored by, and features on-camera, survivor families of 9/11 victims.
The film enlists dozens of scientists and credentialed professionals in engineering, architecture, physics, chemistry, metallurgy, demolitions, and other disciplines to go on record with their reasons for believing the official story to be false, who present evidence of controlled demolitions.
The premiere broadcast was taped by Colorado PBS station KBDI-TV 12 in Denver, which includes an appearance in the CPT 12 studios by special guest Richard Gage, the founder of 1700 Architects and Engineers for 9/11 Truth. Colorado CPT 12, as the station is widely known, reaches 80% of the state’s population. The documentary has been rebroadcast numerous times due to demand, and is in the fall run-time line-up. It can be watched in full online at the CPT 12 website. It has risen to the “Most Watched” listing of the national PBS website.
CPT 12 has won numerous awards in public affairs and news broadcasting as well as in the mini-documentary/series category. It’s website message to viewers reads: “Dreamers, seekers, visionaries, explorers and rebels welcome here!”
Supporters of the film are urging pubic television viewers to ask their local stations to air the documentary.
90 minute documentary at Colorado PBS online HERE. (Includes special guest Richard Gage in PBS studios.)
via warisacrime.org
Not saying there isn’t a conspiracy possible for 9/11, but a fully fueled 767 is 1 million pounds, flying at 600mph into a building a quarter mile up, then all the fuel burning is more than enough to bring down a skyscraper.
Nobody outside of new york knows or cares about the non twin tower WTC buildings so what would be the point in bringing them down as part of a show?
I fail to see the technical or logical validity to anybody that says people flying the aircraft into the buildings didn’t cause them to fall.
So Tim, you’re an engineer with more knowledge and experience than the 1700 who worked on the project?
How much work does it take to wire a building for a demo? A few weeks at least, assuming its cleared.
Now, the demo we want you to wire for is 2 buildings, both of witch will be hit by a large plane immediately prior to the demo.
That should’t effect any of those hundreds of miles of det cord.
Marvin Bush responsible for security, white vans with security clearance, so not checked, coming all day for two weeks prior, installing ‘boxes’ inside floor spaces, purportedly for new routers, whatever, doesn’t need det cord, all wifi… no investigation into who those contractors were or what they installed… think on…
Fastest demo crew in history. 2 weeks?
And using any kind of radios in downtown NYC is a non-starter.
The Australian “Four Corners” programme on Julian Assange can be accessed from the Four Corners website here:
http://www.abc.net.au/4corners/episodes/
Regarding the Presidential election, between the recent conventions the middle east unrest, QE3 and goosed stock market the presidential election is already over.
Ah, well, well, da Mittster has another “Let them eat cake” moment! Yes, he reckons yet again that “those people”, who are supporting Obama, just want “the government” to provide for them cradle-to-grave, and assume no responsibility for their own welfare…FAB stuff here –
Along with the Politico hit-piece about chaos in the Romney camp, this dull tool is about to implode, along with his campaign.
There’s always chaos in whichever camp is behind, and unflappable genius in the camp that’s ahead.
I’m thinking this is a lot like Romney’s version of Obama’s 50% + 1 strategy, too. This message will be very attractive to his base.
I don’t know why this usually very informative website allowes Mike Shedlock to publish articles here. I used to read him years ago but found his ultra right wing vitriol so repulsive I stopped going to his sight. If someone’s ideology is so captured and distant from normal I hardly think I would waste the time giving his “views” even a cursory second thought.
Regarding that Woody Guthrie quote . . Kurt Vonnegut mentioned in one of his essays about how Nobel Prizewinning physicist Irving Langmuir once said: “anyone who can’t explain what he is doing to a reasonably bright 14-year-old is a charlatan”.
I note that Langmuir said “charlatan” implying bad faith rather than “fool” implying mere foolishness.