HR Sends Out Reminder Email About Not Scrawling ‘Revenge’ In Blood In Conference Room Onion (Li)
Brain Trauma to Affect One in Three Players, N.F.L. Agrees New York Times. Three concussions or more lead to cognitive impairment. Oh, and after the well-known sinner of boxing, the next on the list of sports that mess up your brain is soccer. Heading the ball also produces swelling of the brain, albeit not as bad as a concussion, but heading the ball is done frequently and casually in soccer. Soccer moms should be vigilant and they aren’t.
Silicon Valley Has Officially Run Out of Ideas Slate. A positive development. Time for funding for new ventures to move into other arenas besides that related to computers and communications technology.
Comment: Outrage as EU blocks democratic challenge to US trade deal politics.co.uk (gonzomarx)
Scotland
Investors pull £17bn from UK as banks ratchet up Scottish independence pressure Telegraph
Polls: Scottish Vote Too Close to Call Wall Street Journal
Scottish referendum: The issues that may decide it/a> CBC
Here Is The Complete List Of Companies Planning To Leave Scotland If It Goes Independent Business Insider
Why Scotland Should Vote Yes Jacobin
Gaza
Israeli intelligence veterans refuse to serve in Palestinian territories Guardian (Lance N)
Gaza and the threat of world war Asia Times
Ukraine
US, EU levy sanctions on Russia despite cease-fire U.S. News
Sanctions Launched to Staunch Russian Involvement in Ukraine Truthdig
Energy slides after Russia sanctions Financial Times
What impact could this round of Russian retaliatory sanctions have on Europe? Open Europe
Ukraine to Delay Part of EU Pact Opposed by Russia Wall Street Journal
Ukraine President Says No Military Solution To Crisis, May Need To Decentralize Power
DSWright, Firedoglake
ISIS
ISIS Strikes Deal With Moderate Syrian Rebels: Reports Huffington Post
Ex-NSA chief: Airstrikes like ‘casual sex’ The Hill
Nations Trying to Stop Their Citizens From Going to Middle East to Fight for ISIS
Some Links On That “War On ISIS” Moon of Alabama New York Times
Big Brother is Watching You Watch
The Murky World of Third Party Web Tracking MIT Technology Review (David L)
Key hits back at Greenwald’s claims of mass surveillance 3News. Richard Smith: “Obviously, it *is* Greenwald and Dotcom in cahoots. If GG is on form this will be as embarrassing for the New Zealand government as his other Snowden stuff was for other governments.”
Elizabeth Warren the message machine Politico
Teenager offers creative solution to California drought ABC7 (EM)
Illinois sheriff admits misconduct in cyber stalking case, resigns Reuters (EM)
New York Times visits Youngstown, discovers huge and nonexistent transformation Dan Fejes
Judge awards $4.4 million to lawyers in Arizona racial profiling case Reuters (EM)
How ‘Keynes’ Became a Dirty Word Bloomberg
Whither Fed?
The 10-Year Yield Climbs a Bit: Whussup with That? Jared Bernstein
Global banks retreat as the US and China tighten in lockstep Ambrose Evans-Pritchard, Telegraph
Federal Reserve Creates Financial Stability Committee Wall Street Journal. Our tweet: “Rather than do something about asset bubbles, Fed forms committee to watch them.” Comment via e-mail from someone who knows Yellen personally: “It means they are going to continue with low rate policies and wish to be seen to be watchful, as bubbles build.”
Class Warfare
Fed economists: America’s missing workers are not coming back Washington Post
America’s Poor, Deeper in Debt Than Ever Bloomberg
Contingency Plans Jacobin
100 Best Novels, in Translation, Since 1900 CounterPunch
Antidote du jour (furzy mouse):
See yesterday’s Links and Antidote du Jour here.
179 comments
Comments are closed.
Re the Fed financial stability committee:
Yellen doesn’t give a bit of credence to Minsky’s work. If she did the Fed would be searching for ways to buffer our economy to weather financial cycles rather than wasting its time on the folly of ensuring “stability”. Ways like the Jobs Guarantee and possibly an additional income guarantee.
That the Fed were watching the causes of financial and economic instability, it would be looking in the mirror, directly at the federal reserve banking system, puzzled.
What’s wrong with this picture?
Could it possibly be our system of money?
The ‘instability’ effects in all cases are dependent upon the ‘pro-cyclicality’ causes therefor.
The private money and banking system’s inherent pro-cyclicality provided Fisher’s Number One rationale for ending fractional reserve banking, a position much later supported by Minsky based on his deeper understandings of how 100 Percent Money would actually work to restore “systemic” stability.
And it is for exactly the same reasons as Fisher that Financial Times columnist Martin Wolf called for ending fractional reserve banking, and why Ambrose Evans-Pritchard called for the ‘radical’ Chicago Plan proposal of the IMF to be on the table.
The issuance of money without debt, money that once created would remain permanently in existence, would provide the stability needed to achieve our growth potential without inflation or deflation.
John Pilger Asian Times piece cements sadistic power.
“Why must we live in this state of perpetual war?
The immediate answer lies in the United States, where a secret and unreported coup has taken place. A group known as the Project for a New American Century, the inspiration of Dick Cheney and others, came to power with the administration of George W Bush. Once known in Washington as the “crazies”, this extreme sect believes in what the US Space Command calls “full spectrum dominance”.
Under both Bush and Obama, a19th-century imperial mentality has infused all departments of state. Raw militarism is ascendant; diplomacy is redundant. Nations and governments are judged as useful or expendable: to be bribed or threatened or “sanctioned”.
On July 31, the National Defense Panel in Washington published a remarkable document that called for the United States to prepare to *fight six major wars simultaneously*. At the top of the list were Russia and China – nuclear powers.”
like i can now ‘Lease’ a new iPhone so like none of this like really effects me ya know….
And they are fighting wars and instigating conflicts for no reason other than establish a dominator state. What is the nature of this Imperial State that enforces rigid hierarchies and class structures, i.e., neo-feudalism. Why? Because the neocons and their increasing ranks of supporters among the ruling elites want to be able to have complete “freedom” to do whatever they want–whatever their whim dictates. If they want to make their castles a fantasy world out of the Marquis de Sade they will without consequence. Their world is the world depicted, as I frequently mention, by Stanley Kubrick in the movie Eyes Wide Shut. Kubrick warned us that this is what the world is becoming and may already be.
We can dither here on what the Fed will do and unemployment rates and interest rates and all the trivia of “economics” (a bogus discipline) and it is certainly interesting and does point, ultimately and obscurely to precisely what you are pointing at today–but we need to get to the meat of it–we are, unless we act emphatically in our lives, going to inhabit Hell in short order. Some years ago I was fascinated by the work of M. Scott Peck particularly his book The People of the Lie where he goes into the problem of evil and describes it very well. The neocons and their acolytes (humanitarian interventionists) are examples of evil which fits rather neatly into his definitions. As an aside, I’ve encountered both types of people in my life and they are evil by Peck’s definition.
Pilger is wrong!
It’s all Obama. He is the one steering the country to total chaos and all we need to do is get someone else in the position of POTUS and things will be ok.
he’s not that smart nor original and awarding the idiot unmerited recognition is why the next POTUS will be more an idiot than previous idiots!
Like Hillary? What peacenik did you have in mind?
You forgot to add a /sarc tag at the end of your comment.
There was a short-lived movement to add a sarcasm punctuation mark (did I read that here?). It was going to be this: ¡
I know that looks like a lowercase “i”, but it’s actually an inverted exclamation point. I was going to suggest we start using it, but now that I see what it looks like on the screen, I’m not so sure…
great idea¡
;) – a wink – works OK. How do you make an inverted exclamation mark?
option key plus one key
You can always copy and paste it from this article: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inverted_question_and_exclamation_marks, which includes some instructions for non-apple products… ¡”Option key” indeed!
“Under both Bush and Obama, a19th-century imperial mentality has infused all departments of state. Raw militarism is ascendant”: which 19th century Empire was remotely as war-happy as the present USA? I can’t think of one off-hand. Not even a fast-expanding Russia.
Ah. Maybe Napoleon?
MDV, comrades: has your planet got it? It’s Multi-Decadal Variability, and it could be serious:
European Joint Research Center researchers analyzed surface temperature records going back to 1850 to “separate natural variations from secular” ones.
Scientists discovered three hiatus periods in the temperature records — 1878 to 1907, 1945 to 1969 and 2001 to today — and concluded that these “hiatus periods coincide with natural cooling phases – the multidecadal variability (MDV), most likely caused by natural oceanic oscillations.”
“The scientists therefore conclude that the MDV is the main cause of these hiatus periods during which global warming decelerated,” according to JRC.
http://dailycaller.com/2014/09/12/there-are-now-52-explanations-for-the-pause-in-global-warming/#ixzz3DCB51zFI
————
Ah … this is the familiar ground of TA (Technical Analysis). Just as the S&P has entered into a minor-degree Wave IV flat correction, so global temperature seems to have hit a Fibonacci resistance, and is consolidating before its next impulse wave rally.
But in both cases, a lower-probability outcome obtains: a crash. Meaning, in the case of climate, a fresh ice age.
Boomers probably will skate through to their heavenly reward before the Hudson either freezes over permanently, or else ends up lined with palm trees on the balmy Jersey City coast. Still, it’s something to think about. Got firewood?
Please remember that over 90% of the stored energy goes into warming the (deep) ocean, and about 7% goes to melting some ice in Greenland, Antarctica or otehr mountain glaciers.
So everything you read about surface temperatures going up or down or pausing (NOT), only relates to about 3% of the energy. The 97% will definitely come back to haunt us.
Case in point. El Niño/La Nina are ocean-wide “sloshing events”. During the last serious El Niño event (1998), not only got the world quite hot (allowing the more stupid among us to scream for more than ten years that warming had stopped), but about 25% of the world coral reefs just disappeared. Just imagine a long hot summer at the end of which no Amazon rainforest remains. Now wake up and realize that that already did happen in 1998.
You beat me to it!
Amen and keep commenting. Climate science is a difficult field for so many reasons–but one of them is that it deals with a complex system which I consider about as close to being “alive” as it could be. As someone who studied systems analysis, I’m stunned by the fundamental inability of the vast majority of educated people to use those insights as well as the insights of non-linear change, complexity, catastrophe, and chaos theory to begin to grasp the kind of danger we are in. Collectively we just don’t want to look–we live in an age of moral and physical cowardice so that’s no surprise. This phenomenon of not wanting to see the obvious no matter how stunningly obvious it is the most amazing thing I’ve ever seen in my life.
It is difficult, and not being expert in chaos theory and such, it makes my head hurt. I believe it on the authority of so many people who do seem to understand the math, but also from a gut feeling that decades of pumping gases into the atmosphere must have *some* effect on it.
you have a room with 1000 plants and 1 candle.
every hour take away one plant and add a candle.
rinse and repeat. toasty and warm.
and to those who say, “it’s just the wobbly sun”: forgeteth not that oil et al. is stinky old sunshine, too, so we get double sun”shine” when we set it free.
That’s a good intuitive analogy.
Linear and non-chaotic. ;-)
One of the less remembered travesties of the Bush 43 administration is the cancellation of the launch of the Deep Space Climate Observatory (DSCOVR) satellite. By being positioned at the L1 LaGrange point it would be able to measure both the solar energy being radiated from the Sun to the Earth as well as that reflected and radiated back from the Earth, thus enabling the calculation of the net energy being absorbed by our planet. The finance-energy cabal no doubt didn’t want a powerful new form of evidence of the downside effects of burning fossil fuels just as they were plotting to throw down multi-billion dollar bets on fracking, but they also couldn’t resist the temptation to put a finger in Al Gore’s eye, the satellite’s most vocal promoter.
Banger you’re right about the complexity and like my father the theoretical mathematician overlook the simple arithmetic: too many people too much stress on planet, society and other things collapse. Even a kid can figure it out. Dad’s reaction? That’s MERE reckoning!
The evidence suggests that the heat is presently going into the oceans along with the carbon. That is expected to cease shortly and then global temperatures will spike. The areas likely to cool are those that will be most affected when the currents shift: notably Northern Europe, which would be quite cold but for the Atlantic currents.
http://www.independent.co.uk/environment/global-warming-hiatus-could-be-down-to-changing-atlantic-currents-9683884.html
This could be correct. Water indeed has a lot of specific heat; that’s why it’s such a great coolant.
But just as we are nowhere close to modeling supply and demand accurately enough to forecast stock, bond and house prices, climate models come nowhere close to succeeding at short-term forecasting. Whether they have long-term forecasting validity remains to be seen.
Momentum is well-documented in financial markets, which in turn resemble ‘fat-tailed’ natural processes such as floods. If temperature is going up, the best prediction is that it will carry on rising. But climate mo-mo-ers will never catch turning points. Mo-mo don’t work for that.
“This could be correct. ”
That’s what the science indicates. If you have contrary peer-reviewed science please link to it.
It is a mistake, IMO, to compare economic forecasts with natural science. Economics is human-based, while science is external reality. The AGW phenomenon is perfectly clear: more greenhouse gases in the atmosphere trap more heat. It is quite simple. How that extra heat is distributed around the earth is a complex matter but one thing is certain: the planet is getting hotter. If the models are correct, at some point soon there will be a spike in surface temperatures because the oceans will stop absorbing all the heat. It has nothing to do with “momentum.” It is science.
And therefore beyond question.
Because as we all know, scientific conclusions never change.
Scientific knowledge does change from being more specific to more general over time with the accumulation of data. The specific knowledge that certain gases trap the Sun’s energy will always be true. There may be unknown dynamics that counteract this warming, but only fools would rely on unknowns to make a dangerous path safe.
+100 at least
“Because as we all know, scientific conclusions never change.”
As Karl notes, some do, some don’t. The law of gravity, for example, doesn’t change. The principle that greenhouse gases trap atmospheric heat won’t change. Nevertheless, the implications of the scientific principles — the application of those principles to real-world conditions — are often revised based upon new data. And when it comes to AGW, almost every revision has been for the worse, likely because climate scientists are hounded, abused and vilified by Big Oil’s minions into being overly cautious.
Science is not opinion. It is not religion. It is the rational basis for an enlightened society. When you choose to ignore science, you have returned to the Dark Ages, just like the Islamic fanatics. Unfortunately for everyone except the plutocrats, our national policies are predicated upon just such denial.
Sometimes, only a tyrant can free the prisoners he locks up (only he knows the combination) or a spell can be undone by the magician who casts it.
Perhaps the problem caused by science can only be undone by science.
For my money, it’s EZ to choose between Less Feeling or Great Waste – the answer is neither. There are many ancient teachings predating science inspire us to care for Nature and not waste resources but to live a simple life.
Science strictly speaking never has conclusions, it has theories that , as Karl alludes to, are refined.
Economics and science are not analogous (file under: Taleb, Black Swan, Fooled by randomness). Economics is not necessarily rational, Science is
Considering that there are scientists out there that are paid to start from a conclusion and work their way back I’d argue that the practice of science is not always rational either. Anything involving humanity, who trends toward self serving behavior, is going to be hard pressed to be called rational at all times, whether it be the practice of science or economy.
When they no longer practice the scientific method they cease being scientists, right?
I tend to be a bit of a cynic. I don’t think you can separate humanity from self interest so you’ll always have portions of people doing the right or wrong thing for the wrong reasons whichever subject they may practice. I do confess though that I do sometimes wish we could take the economic interest out of things. It’s sad when people get hurt because people who practice science want a particular outcome and suppress anything that indicates otherwise(I’m thinking of Big Tobacco rather than Big Oil while typing this.)
‘If you don’t behave, you can’t have the toy (to beat up on other kids).’
As science projects get more and more expensive, only the rich can afford them (directly or, through captured government, indirectly).
People might not be rational. Science is.
And when not rational humans breed with rational science, the offspring can doom Nature.
Some sort of quarantine might be needed…unless humans become wiser.
Uh- science is also to some extent human based. Particularly, in the case of global warming. There are factors involved with calculating what will happen that are based on humans and our potentiating what is happening on the planet. The reality is the economic models that economists put out and the models that scientists put out to project are not set in stone. They calculate by past behavior and by inputting factors that are variable. While I understand that the largest greenhouse gas-water vapor- is not something that humans directly impact, the indirect impact definitely is something scientists track.
Human beings put the GHGs in the atmosphere. Science does the rest. If we stop burning fossil fuels we will slow AGW. If we don’t, AGW will worsen. It really isn’t that complicated. There’s no mystery.
We definitely are a variable in global warming, how much of one is the part that is open for debate and why it is so hard to say x is going to happen by y . That being said, the planet once warmed itself up to support life after an ice age so that supports that some of what we do (or don’t do) may end up not changing the outcome dramatically. That isn’t to say we shouldn’t stop hurting the planet for the sake of doing the right thing.
When you say “science”, do you really mean “nature”? That would be telling…
In that instance, yes, because I was responding to a question that questioned the human component and I was crudely distinguishing those things under human control — how much GHG we put into the atmosphere — versus things beyond human control, such as science and natural forces. How that is “telling” eludes me but, frankly, I find discussions with AGW deniers profoundly depressing so I’ll just choogle on out.
Meanwhile back in reality land – most are missing the Icelandic Volcano activity that has been ongoing for >2 weeks. The current height of the extrusion / spatter cones have grown to 70 meters (about 3/4 the height of the Statue of Liberty. There are daily updates by a blogger who lives in Iceland over at DKos ( Rei) – she is worth following if you want daily updates / great pictures. For watching: http://www.livefromiceland.is/webcams/bardarbunga/ and there is a second cam – click on next arrow… How about a blog: http://volcanocafe.wordpress.com/
The 2 written accounts contain links to official info sites. It really is amazing stuff these folks are writing about.
yesterday Frosty Zoom submitted this piece at the cooler:
https://www.muckrock.com/news/archives/2014/sep/08/california-releases-1033-program-data/
(i got to it at 3am. my nightmare formed out of our denial…everything we’ve done to the world will be done to us…by us)
So glad to know that school security guards are now being outfitted with grenade launchers(!!!!).
WTF, country? Explain yourself…
We’re scared?
As I said in another comment–we live in the age of moral and physical cowardice and as such die a thousand deaths—multiplied by the vast majority of Americans that is a awesome bit of genocide!
Banger: I know we have crossed paths before. Can’t remember which website — probably one that one or both of us was banned from. Anyway good job on the 9/11 stuff. We got our shots in. Can’t do much with those who continue to put their heads in the sand.
David,
You got your shots in, just too bad they make no sense.
That aside, it would be interesting to read, in broad brush strokes, your scenario for how the explosive demolition of the three buildings (four including the Pentagon?) would have been organized, rigged and executed in 24/7 occupied buildings.
How many demo experts would be required for such an undertaking? Gross estimate of mandays??
How much explosive and separate charges, how many miles of det cord, how was it all stealthfully put in place and wired, removed drywall at night installed and reinstalled/mudded and painted before the morning type As showed up to work at 6am?? Where possibly was the detonation board where what must have been horsedick thick bundle of cable terminated? Who do we think was the project manager as it were that got all this contrivance together?
As well, what was the point of hijacking commercial jets and flying them into the buildings if they were all wired be taken down??
BTW, how about the Pentagon, was that wired for demo too? By whom?
We must agree that it would be a huge undertaking, no? Organized by..???
How all this happened is not the critical issue–we have to deal with the evidence we have not wallow in speculation. The chief fact is that the government obstructed justice and did not investigate the events using forensic evidence. We have to agree that the government used the stupid “war” argument to circumvent normal procedures fo investigating building collapses and airplane crashes as well as a criminal act.
the reality ignorers of 911 do need some details…to at least shake them out of their computer screen induced autism like misdirection of attention.
The pentagon section that was blown up was mostly empty as that part of the building was being repaired…and the tiny tiny hole that manifested into a collapse of the section was probably induced by too much water being poured on the small fire by the brilliant men in red who somehow did not trip over any major airplane parts while getting to the outer wall (must have been some type of super secret disintegrator ray…hey that explains all those lost billions spent by California MIC enterprises).
As to WTC start with Magic Plumbing and Heating Inc. on 93rd Street in Brooklyn and follow up with Sakher ‘Rocky’ Hammad and what appears to be an American Father that was there and then was gone.
Then fill in a little with… Tennessee driver’s license examiner Katherine Smith died Sunday in a fiery car crash, a day before she was to appear in court.
Now if you bother to get some data on the cars owned by Rocky and his family, you might have noticed that the cars were purchased in the Chicago, Illinois area…from a car dealership that many would find…its just confusing how all those wonderful saudis must be giving tithes to a certain mullah… I am sure its all just a strange set of coincidences…and one does not have to wire an entire building to bring it crashing down…last time I checked war footage…dropping a bomb in the right spot almost always does the trick. The WTC was built on the cheap in the middle of a massive real estate downturn. There were design flaws and the New York City Building Department Inspectors were denied full access to the construction of the buildings and when they attempted to complain, they were all fired under some NYT and Village Voice make believe “bribery” scandal…now since they all chose to accept the offer of resignation, somehow the evidence just was not there and the charges were withdrawn…
actually…its late…it dont matter…most dont care enough to think so why waste energy on those who refuse to accept the obvious since it might interfere with dead space between the ears…
the facts of these disasters always are left as little crumbs to scare the curious and induce the capable into some sad acceptance of the ultimate power of the pharaoh and the pyramids…(those are greek words so who knows what the egyptian actually called them…)
the idea is to scare the aware into doing nothing…
you don’t really want to believe me do you…
I am sure there is some trade magazine somewhere…that will explain for you the steel reinforced asphalt in oklahoma city…what you didn’t notice the special steel reinforced asphalt where the truck we are told, was parked…????
you do remember oklahoma city right…all those tin foil hat types who ignored the most obvious clue…the steel reinforced asphalt…it must be true…maybe it was some special batch…experimental batch made by one of those California MIC firms…what you didn’t notice…the asphalt under the truck…the noise maker didn’t leave a crater…but hey…to the victor go the history books…its been that way for over two million sunsets…as abe probably meant to say…ya only gotta fool enough of the voting public for one day every four years to let them feel good about this “participatory” democracy thing…
that participatory thing…those folks in HK are not too happy they have to have the political bosses decide which candidate they get to choose…those things have no negative results right…certainly not when it happens in america…
Madoffs all time high was on March 10, 2000 (you do realize that Nasdaq is really the Madoff trading system right…they did teach you that in high school)…what happened on March 9, 2000 ??? we ended up with the dumb and dumber as the “proscribed” candidates…because…
“After what must have been a painful appraisal Wednesday, Mr. Bradley decided that it was in his best interest to end his campaign. This is a conclusion that Republican Sen. John McCain may soon have to face. The cause of political reform will suffer a setback when both men withdraw.”
http://articles.courant.com/2000-03-09/news/0003090503_1_new-jersey-senator-mr-bradley-mr-gore
ok go back to sleep…the scary reality accepter boogie man is going away now…
Actually Opti,
The figuring out and proving who did it is one question. The figuring out the how is another.
The scientific working hypothesis is just grappling with “what” brought those buildings down.
The idea that every conceivable facet of the story must be proven before anything can be known is a fools way of thinking, or hiding from thought, as it were.
Seeing how events fit into what is possible with any and all known physical realities, is what a scientific inquiry is for. The group architects and engineers are working on this. A prosecutor would need these other answers before any prosecution could take place, but that is irrelevant to the initial inquiry.
You are asking for answers to questions that are irrelevant at this time.
After the fact that people realize the towers were demolished, then we all know who is responsible, in general. Meaning the people who chose not to investigate the original crime. While we know dick cheney didn’t don a work uniform and wire anything, the orders to proceed without any standard controls must have come from the top. That is how things work. We know bush and Obama are not willing to do their jobs. They choose to ignore the fact that in the universe we live in, three buildings will not just fall down symmetrically, on the same day… when it has never happened before or since. And there have been similar buildings with greater fires that this did not happen to. and I would wonder where the engineers who advise the insurance industry come down on whether to assume that now, high-rise buildings may just fall down because of a fire.I have heard of no change in policies, based on science, they merely protect themselves to say they are protected from terrorist attacks.
And a guess as to how, there is the design of the space around the elevator shafts giving access to many of the interior structural columns. And an anecdotal story I would be curious to know the veracity of from a friend who would get coffe in the towers every morning who said that many of the upper floors were closed the week before 9-11 for wiring work…. but that is a rumor…. anyone else remember anything like that? or not?…..
But I knew someone whose crew put the glass on the top 13 stories of one of the towers when it was built, and there are lots of spaces in that building, the public would never see.
But really you need to stop asking the wrong questions and concern yourself with the important ones first.
my exact sentiment Dip!
abynormal September 13, 2014 at *3:09 am
3 Grenade Launchers …to subdued or kill 1 or 2 armed and dangerous students?
“The world is full of people who will help you manufacture tornadoes in order to blow out a match.” Shaun Hick
Fabulous quote from Hick, Aby!
Grenade launchers! Times they be a chang’in, we only had archery in gym class. Man would my old H.S. grounds-keeper be pissed about the divots.
Are we aiming to become another Sparta, training our kids to handle grenade launchers?
Become?
When all children belong to the state, we will be there.
Or maybe we are already there. News travels a bit slow here.
“Are we aiming to become another Sparta”
That would require a bit of reframing of the sexual predator laws.
While looking at the WaPost’s story on labor-force participation rates and their long term trends (nothing new there) I saw another story called Why so many kids can’t sit still in school today” by Valerie Strauss. Why is this important? Because it strikes at the heart of our assumptions about education and society.
One of my pet peeves has been the nature of American education. I raised four kids, mainly, in superior school systems (I chose to live where I did, mainly where I thought my kids would get the best education) and I was struck by the fact that what I knew to be the case in developmental psychology, cognitive science and so on seemed to play little role in the educational system and classroom instruction. The cited article talks about the increase in ADD/ADHD and other problems that may be a result of educational practices themselves.
Plato emphasized storytelling, games, dancing, and physical activity as essential to childhood development and not begin the three Rs until age ten. But Plato was interested in education not what today passes for “education.” Children fidget today because they are trying to move as they should and this should be obvious but isn’t. Why are we doing this sort of education? I don’t think the educatore are very interested in human development–they are interested in turning out subjects of the State. Yes, teachers usually care about the children under their care but they themselves are stuck in a highly regimented and fascistic hierarchy that they can do nothing about–their input is not wanted.
Hmmm–this is what you want for your children?
What is the point here? Maybe, just maybe, we want those brains turned off–this should be obvious. We have prepared these children to be, for the most part, dependent, weak, passive, obedient, repressed, easily manipulated (remember we give these children drugs to moderate their behavior), resentful, and compliant. I rarely meet younger people today who feel they enjoyed school. We want compliant children not educated ones. And this extends to the rest of society and we need to understand here what is happening. The inverted totalitarian system that Chris Hedges (influenced by Sheldon Wolin) describes so well is the reality we live in and which the educational system seeks to prepare children for.
This is intolerable–and at some point we have to make a decision in our lives and say “no!” to this system. It is anti-humanist, anti-spiritual, anti-joy. Maybe the labor force participation rate is going down because more people are realizing that making the effort to humiliate yourself in front of your masters in begging them for a job so you can be treated like crap and further humiliated may not be worth it. Maybe it is better to be on the hustle or on the street or in jail even.
What kind of world are we building? Why aren’t we asking the deep question we must ask? If we want to educate our children we need to ask these questions because the State will twist them into mishapen human beings huddled over electronic devices where the virtual world seems more rewarding than the meat world. I recommend reading Shelley Turkle on this subject.
The ‘nonsense” and long term consequence of medication / aka better living thru chemistry: Alzheimer’s linked with meds for anxiety and sleep: http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2014/09/10/alzhemers-medication-anxiety-sleep/15383315/ Now they tell us!
I always thought anxiety and sleep problems were associated with pre-alzheimers. So when it comes to the anxiety/sleep meds, are we talking correlation or causality? Because correlation does not necessarily imply causality. Just wondering.
That’s scary because anxiety and sleep problems can happen at any age.
I have long wondered about the spike in Alzheimers. It has to have a significant environmental component.
Even in ancient societies, there were always some people who lived into their 80s and 90s. My father did a genealogy, and everyone in his family in the 1700s lived into their 80s.
Yet nowhere in literature do you see descriptions of old age that resemble Alzheimers, with its distinctive feature not just of loss of memory (senility) but erasure of personality. This is a distinct, modern disease, and its emergence is not being treated as novel.
Yes, absolutely.
I agree. there has to have a significant environmental component.
Inflammation is a feature in Alzheimer’s disease as well as other neurodegenerative diseases (not to mention autoimmune disorders which seem on the rise as well). environmental estrogens have to play some role- estrogen-mimicking pesticides, plastics, etc…and then of course the the neurotoxic pesticides …the ones likely harming our pollinators and other organisms along with us. You simply can’t dump this much sh*t in the environment without causing harm.
life at the top of the foodchain
http://www.ninds.nih.gov/disorders/tse/tse.htm
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2842449/
It sounds like our schools are like prisons…physical prisons and mental prisons.
“Always be prepared!”
If cages are good enough for laying hens, it has to be better for children amirite?
well, and they’re good enough for nearly a million black men. and they earn a nice profit for the corporations running the prisons. in many cases a good guaranteed occupancy, rate to boot.
A start perhaps on any necessary “containment” of any disorder and disruption from a “people’s revolution?” from the Jacobin article above, so I guess I’m a bit off topic here…but “cages” made me think of this unbelievable thesis “plan”…anyway, from that piece:
“What are the yardsticks for collecting, evacuating, and interning either militant or pacifistic minority groups; or dissident, potentially disloyal elements; or law-abiding citizens whose only offense is accident of color? Where would the internees be kept?” That was from the 70’s. Seems pretty pertinent today.
Re: Companies leaving Scotland.
A bunch of banks…boo hoo for Scotland, huh? I guess the next time the banksters run their institutions into the dirt, Scotland won’t have to worry about whether or not to bail them out. Who isn’t saying “good riddance”?
As for all the other scaremongering I’ve got one word: extortion. That’s all it is, pure and simple, extortion
what a mess! remember http://www.irishtimes.com/business/sectors/financial-services/us-banks-draw-up-early-plans-for-move-to-ireland-if-uk-leaves-eu-1.1899739
majority of Irish citizens are screaming ‘Do Not allow those financial monsters to come here…drive up our real estate and steal whats left of our pensions etc’.
are butterfly wings flapping faster than the global financial ind. can position itself?
Re: Scottish referendum:
“US citizens have no counterpart. On big questions — going to war, entering international trade agreements, amending the constitution — citizens have no direct role. ‘Executives,’ ‘Representatives’ and ‘Courts’ have all the authority. No provision exists in the US Constitution for direct democracy on issues…So much for the US being the ‘greatest democracy in the world.’”
http://createrealdemocracy.wordpress.com/2014/09/12/scotland-democracy-and-the-us/
Re Banks leaving Scotland.
Alex Salmond explains, in this video recorded Q&A, the technicality of any bank moving their respective registered head office from Scotland to a location within England ( or elsewhere), and that contrary to media reports at least one of the banks said to be considering moving the head office is already located in London.
http://youtu.be/rHmLb-RIbrM
If only there had been more antebellum banks in the South, so they could threaten to leave, so many lives could have been saved…
Moral lesson du jour: More banks, more non-violent ways to maintain ‘peace*.’ (sarcasm, don’t shoot the messenger, the joke delivery man, a free-lancing one at that, probably mis-classified one, but don’t tell the IRS).
*It is not profitable to shoot serfs. On the other hand, free roaming hunter-gathering barbarians (not civilized by debt, grain diet, sedentary lifestyle and brainwashing) – they must be dealt with by force.
For your edification:
Building Cooperative Power: Stories and strategies from the Connecticut River Valley ~new book from Levellers Press.
You can read the introduction here.
A Practical Utopians Guide to the Coming Collapse ~David Graeber
‘Then there are the propaganda organs, including a massive media industry that did not even exist before the sixties.’
John Pilger’s essay in the Asia Times, linked above, touches on this theme:
‘The jargon is “controlling the narrative”. In his seminal Culture and Imperialism, Edward Said was more explicit: the Western media machine was now capable of penetrating deep into the consciousness of much of humanity with a “wiring” as influential as that of the imperial navies of the 19th century. Gunboat journalism, in other words. Or war by media.’
With the advent of broadcasting — cheap, universal in coverage, not requiring literacy, and appealing to emotion rather than reason — the dream of managed democracy came true. Control the official narrative, and the rubber stamp of ‘democratic’ endorsement at the polls is a piece of cake.
Remedy? Probably to ban ownership of multiple media outlets. Let ten thousand bloggers bloom.
I just want to commend you for keeping the ideas about cooperatives in the current discourse. They, or variants thereof’ are essential to moving us a direction that is more human and less mechanical and coercive.
Most people would not be able to go in that direction but those that recognize the blight of contemporary capitalism should look into it.
“Most people would not be able to go in that direction…”
I don’t know why that would be the case. I’m currently working my way through Collective Courage: A History of African American Cooperative Economic Thought and Practice and I just read that the Great Depression was the time when the most Black co-ops were formed. Hundreds, and many quite successful–you could tell the successful ones because they were generally burned down by the local racists/competing businessmen.
There’s this myth that co-ops are for middle-class white people or hippie new-agers. Not so. Historically, it has always been the poorest and most oppressed (i.e. those for whom the present system is not working at all) that have been the biggest promoters and practitioners of cooperative economics. I’ll point you to Cooperation Jackson and the Federation of Southern Cooperatives/Land Assistance Fund as contemporary examples.
Most people are tied into the mistrust and alienation that capitalism breeds even when they are well disposed toward cooperatives and cooperating.
Which leads quite nicely into my next point:
Why We Need a National Commons Day
Successful co-ops and collective enterprises often begin with education campaigns. Successful economic change will no doubt require the same thing.
The California kid’s water fence idea would be illegal in Colorado, I believe, under longstanding law. Somebody else owns the water that runs off my roof. Even a rain barrel at the roof gutter outlet is illegal. I guarantee that there are wealthy CO law firms that will fight to the death to maintain this law.
“Somebody else owns the water that runs off my roof. Even a rain barrel at the roof gutter outlet is illegal.”
Seriously?!? WTF?!?
I’m not doubting you, but I have never heard anything quite so outrageous.
Not exactly illegal but in some states like Colorado you need a permit to collect rainwater. Their argument is that the water is public and belongs I the water table–the reasoning is a bit bizarre but there you are.
How is Colorado on net neutrality?
I’m not sure if it is still the case (I believe it is), but for years in Seattle it has been illegal to collect rainwater.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=6jjxg8f3Gq0
“It’s illegal in Utah to divert rainwater without a valid water right, and Mark Miller of Mark Miller Toyota, found this out the hard way.
After constructing a large rainwater collection system at his new dealership to use for washing new cars, Miller found out that the project was actually an “unlawful diversion of rainwater.” Even though it makes logical conservation sense to collect rainwater for this type of use since rain is scarce in Utah, it’s still considered a violation of water rights which apparently belong exclusively to Utah’s various government bodies.
Utah isn’t the only state with rainwater collection bans, either. Colorado and Washington also have rainwater collection restrictions that limit the free use of rainwater, but these restrictions vary among different areas of the states and legislators have passed some laws to help ease the restrictions.
In Colorado, two new laws were recently passed that exempt certain small-scale rainwater collection systems, like the kind people might install on their homes, from collection restrictions.”
ive heard about paid informants in OR…water bounty hunter$ (outrageous doesn’t come close)
what about pee? can you keep that?
Only if you are Howard Hughes.
didn’t he fly the golden goose?
Funny! (because it’s true).
Even Bush’s crap is classified top secret. According to our Austrian sources, Austrian newspapers are currently abuzz with special security details of George W. Bush’s recent trip to Vienna. Although the heavy-handed Gestapo-like security measures meted out to Viennese home owners, business proprietors, and pedestrians by US Secret Service agents and local police before and during Bush’s visit received widespread Austrian media attention, it was White House “toilet security” (“TOILSEC”), which has Austrians talking the most. The White House flew in a special portable toilet to Vienna for Bush’s personal use during his visit. The Bush White House is so concerned about Bush’s security, the veil of secrecy extends over the president’s bodily excretions. The special port-a-john captured Bush’s feces and urine and flew the waste material back to the United States in the event some enterprising foreign intelligence agency conducted a sewage pipe operation designed to trap and examine Bush’s waste material. One can only wonder why the White House is taking such extraordinary security measures for the presidential poop. ….http://rense.com/general72/fexc.htm
They didn’t want anyone to discover what drugs the idiot was using.
The “water fence” is as far as i can discern nothing more than a redimensioned centuries old rainbarrel system with the marketing pizazz of a clear plastic bait and switch sales model and an “uplifting story” to add gloss (and slimy green algae by the ton if it were actually made that way) to the pitch. The “production” version would inevitably be a line of big, ugly opaque probably black or dark green petrochemical plastic water tanks plumbed in series that would do nothing tanks arrayed more conventionally would.
In my jurisdiction, about ten years ago, they passed a new Environment Act. All the fuzzy-wuzzies were overjoyed. Read the FINE PRINT! Under this new act, all underground resources were the property of the Government including water. Well, they have not started taxing wells———YET. They could also see the FRACKING writing on the wall.
In this regard, in this same jurisdiction, property tax assessment is theoretically based on all the property surrounding, on and IN the home. Right now they do not tax the property IN the home but, once they get those RFID chips up and running, just wait for it. Just run by the house with a scanner and here’s your bill. Thank you.
Every nickle and dime must be squeezed for the 1%.
don’t you mean nickelillion and dimellion?
There must be a way to camouflage it so no one knows…
Actually the water is mostly privately owned. It’s not government property, it is private property.
Ever gallon you store is a gallon that doesn’t flow to Lake Powell, to be released for use by its “owners” (such as farmers, and citizens of nevada for their lawns and southern californa for their swimming pools).
re: ” Outrage as Eu blocks democratic challenge….”
“raises transnational capital to the status of the nation state itself”
This is the goal of decades relentless neoliberalism—the dark at the end of the tunnel:
—–That mechanism has been questioned by the German and French governments, as it effectively raises transnational capital to the status of the nation state itself. The new powers are already being used elsewhere under other treaties, as in the billion-dollar challenge being brought by Philip Morris against the Australian government for loss of profits as a result of the country’s public health requirement that all cigarettes be sold in plain packaging.—-
How many divisions does Monsanto have? At the end of the day it’s financial system coercion that is the only enforcement mechanism for this corporations as sovereigns nonsense. It shows why the CFR types see a multipolar world as a real threat. TINA must reign in all things money.
Of course Monsanto may not have army divisions but it has a security service and contractors who would be willing to break a few legs–it could raise, like most large corporations, a small army if it felt it needed to.
….”why the CFR types see a multipolar world as a real threat”…
Why the Ukraine crisis is just a pretext for the imposition of sanctions on Russia. The Kiev coup was just the first step that allowed the economic and financial war against Russia.
Scotland: Mish (pro Yes) on latest polling.
http://globaleconomicanalysis.blogspot.com/2014/09/yes-makes-100-perfect-sense-for.html
“Teenager offers creative solution to California drought ”
So many issues with this.
First off I personally know of several patents for water storage walls which is what a fence is. Most are for passive solar but some combine both. They have been around for 25 years or more.
The water would need to be filtered going in treated in some way to keep bacteria from growing and filtered again when needed. In most applications this would require a pressure system.
Water stored above ground, especially in thin tanks will become very hot, even if all white. This increases bacteria growth and makes for very unpleasant potable water applications. Hot water applications are a small fraction of the total water storage.
Installation will be complicated and expensive (in addition to the huge expense of inefficient flat tank construction) and must be heavily reenforced with steel beams driven very deep as CA is very active seismic region.
You could have 25% of homes in SoCal with these fences, something that could never possibly happen but lets say what if, one years worth of rain wouldn’t even compensate for one day of agricultural irrigation demand which is the real issue with the drought.
There are a dozen other problems with this “invention” but the worst part of it is it feeds into the technocopianism that keeps people from acknowledging the problem and doing something real about it.
As it is everyone is secretly scared $#1tless about all of the converging problems facing mankind but they mindlessly, blindly pray for a new Bill Gates to arise from the basement of his parents house with the latest technology that will save us all from the brink of disaster and make us all rich at the same time.
Excellent points.
It’s a legal nightmare scenario as well. Building codes typically stipulate that yard fencing sits a few inches in from your actual property line. Yard fences are usually shared between yards — typically one homeowner will build a pretty fence, just within their property lines, and they own it thereafter. Their neighbors on three sides get to enjoy the back side of the fence, like it or not. Or they can put up their own fence.
This ‘water fence’ notion will most likely lead to multiple-ownership fences everywhere, because sharing the cost of a single, larger fence will be less, and because the alternative is for everyone to put water fences up side by side, a few inches apart, just inside their property line. How do you perform maintenance on such fences — hire four-year olds to crawl in there and patch any leaks?
If only a single, shared fence is put up, homeowners will have to come to contract terms with different neighbors on all three sides of their property about the ownership, location, use, and water rights of such a fence. And such rights must be transferable with property sales, written into the deed like an easement. These are not simple problems, in legal or human terms. If you share a water storage system with three different neighbors, you’ll have to write into your deed three different agreements that involve the different sizes and catchment of everyone’s roofs and gutters, and agreements on how much water can be taken, and for what purposes. If just one neighbor changes their catchment size — up or down — four property deeds need to be renegotiated.
Then you have the problems of vandalism, water theft, and the whole question of public water rights. Who owns the water that falls from the sky — the owner of the property it falls on, or the public? That’s a question guaranteed to end up in the courtroom, because whatever water you hoard from the sky is really being taken from the commons. The more homes hoard water, the less there is in the local creek, river, and reservoir. The people who depend on those public water sources will claim they are being robbed.
For the money, it would be more efficient to set up a solar-powered system that recycles virtually all wastewater from the household back into potable water. We have the technology. It just needs to be miniaturized to fit into individual homes.
Think ahead the twenty or so years such a fence can be expected to last in operating condition. California in 2035 — in a landscape where it no longer rains, really, recycling your urine, bathwater, and dishwater is not just viable, but necessary.
Beware of technocopians!!!
“You’re so smart! You mean I don’t have to get off this couch and the problem will go away? Don’t turn off the AC just yet.”
Billionaire Power Player List Lacks Rubenstein
A new list assessing billionaire political power is out and it’s missing Carlyle Group co-founder David Rubenstein. How is #12 Mark Zuckerberg more politically influential than Rubenstein, a man who’s call is taken at any time by U.S. Presidents, Cabinet members and Congressional leaders?
Carlyle located their private equity firm in Washington, D.C. precisely for the purpose of exercising political power. After thirty years on the Potomac Carlyle is now so synonymous with dirty political water it cannot be seen.
“Obama had reached out to the business community, they just haven’t liked all of his decisions and some of his rhetoric. But generally, I think the administration is quite open and accessible.” (David Rubenstein)
“People of privilege will always risk their complete destruction rather than surrender any material part of their advantage.” (John Kenneth Galbraith)
“One of the saddest lessons of history is this: If we’ve been bamboozled long enough, we tend to reject any evidence of the bamboozle. We’re no longer interested in finding out the truth. The bamboozle has captured us. It’s simply too painful to acknowledge, even to ourselves, that we’ve been taken. Once you give a charlatan power over you, you almost never get it back.”(Carl Sagan)
It wouldn’t do to put David Rubenstein, a PEU and Brookings board member, in a poor light.
http://peureport.blogspot.com/2014/09/billionaire-power-player-list-lacks.html
“People of privilege will always risk their complete destruction rather than surrender any material part of their advantage.” (John Kenneth Galbraith)
That would be people of privilege like….. his son Peter.
http://www.boston.com/news/world/middleeast/articles/2009/10/15/former_diplomat_denies_iraqi_oil_dealings_influenced_views/
http://gulfanalysis.wordpress.com/2009/10/19/new-information-in-the-tawke-gate-affair-galbraith-was-also-a-paid-dno-consultant/
Re: Silicon Valley Has Officially Run Out of Ideas
Whenever I think of Facebook, Uber, etc., this little ditty by the Rolling Stones called dirty work runs through my head:
Good One!…toe tap’n while bang’n head on desk.
also Good to see you stomp’n around these grounds again! ‘)
Thanks Aby. I’m always here but I mostly lurk.
My respect for the Stones has increased considerably:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZA6QmcTcuzY
Re: ISIS, Obama Makes George W. Bush Look Like a Constitutional Scholar. (Michael Krieger)
http://libertyblitzkrieg.com/2014/09/12/obamas-isis-war-is-not-only-illegal-it-makes-george-w-bush-look-like-a-constitutional-scholar/#more-16923
Quoting Bruce Ackerman in NYT: “[The-lesser-evil’s] declaration of war against the terrorist group known as the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria marks a decisive break in the American constitutional tradition. Nothing attempted by his predecessor, George W. Bush, remotely compares in imperial hubris.”
Worse yet(?), it’s a feint. ISIS is a US-Saudi-Israeli Frankenstein spawn designed to serve as the latest-greatest bogeyman terrorist vehicle for full-spectrum dominance. ISIS is the excuse to provoke Russia by bombing its ally Syria. Are “serious” FP analysts blind or simply pretending not to see this?
This is madness. It looks as if the biblical prophecy of Israel’s nuclear immolation, followed by much of the globe and dramatic global cooling, draws nigh.
Some FP people are not blind to this but they see the covert operatives that dominate the deepest parts of US policy as a natural phenomenon like rain or storms. It does not occur to them to question the policies of the Deep State because it would get them ostracize or fired at a minimum. On the other hand, many of them are so used to not seeing this force that they deny its existence–this is particularly true of journalists.
“Are “serious” FP analysts blind or simply pretending not to see this?”
I don’t know any more. I used to think I understood. Why they’re not screaming from the rooftops about the utter insanity of western policy, epitomised by John Kerry asking the Egyptians for troops in Syria but refusing to invite Iran to the new anti-ISIS conference is something I can’t wise up to. Where are the so-called independent think tanks and analysists ?
Part of the reason is that the FP establishment has been corrupted by arab oil money. In the UK it’s especially Qatari money. They’ve hired and bought the loyalty of formerly respectable institutions like Chatcham House and the Royal United Services institute, organisations which retain an aura of integrity and probity. The same is true of the Brookings institute in the US. These groups are now funded or hosted by Qatar, which means they self-censor as well as getting strong armed. Don’t underestimate the raw power of qatari money-these guys bought the world cup. But that effect isn’t enough on it’s own, even when you factor in journalists aspiring to get a tax free al jazeera job. Something else is going on.
It didn’t used to be like this. This is new. Less than ten years.
Everything in Washington is Israeli-centered as far as policy is concerned and Israel and Saudi Arabia are now close allies.
Yeah, I figure everyone reading this has already factored in the Israeli and saudi influence.
But something HAS changed in the last few years. Maybe the NSA full spectrum panapticon is another part of it, perhaps the oligarchs are leaning more heavily than they used to after getting away with looting the financial system.
New? Does Kuwait ring a twenty three year old bell… tiny country bringing us to war? And every time I see or hear the word Qatar I hear the word Exxon even louder.
Yes, the newness is in foreign policy experts not saying Kerry’s a frickin idiot. If Rummy had come out with the sort of sh*t “57 varieties of stupid” has been mouthing lately he’d have been utterly pilloried in the UK and in continental Europe.
Funny you mention the ‘FP establishment.’ While Commander-in-Chief George W. Obama orders limited droning, his more hawkish ex-Sec State Hillary Rodham Cheney wants ISIS to be pummeled like Gazans.
Fourteen more years!
http://www.theguardian.com/politics/2014/sep/11/poison-pill-probation-contracts-moj-serco-g4s
Lots of good links today, but have not seen this one yet on NC. I’d sure like to know the story behind this.
Interesting.
Whither the Fed, you ask? Here are 2 posts that dovetail nicely, setting the stage for the next crisis.
1) Brian Gilmartin at Fundamentalis looked negatively at the amount of liquidity in corp. bonds.
http://fundamentalis.com/?p=4080
2) Pam Martens at Wall Street On Parade reported on the Fed’s new definition of “high quality liquid assets”:
“The Federal regulators adopted a new rule that requires the country’s largest banks – those with $250 billion or more in total assets – to hold an increased level of newly defined “high quality liquid assets” (HQLA) in order to meet a potential run on the bank during a credit crisis. In addition to U.S. Treasury securities and other instruments backed by the full faith and credit of the U.S. government (agency debt), the regulators have included some dubious instruments while shunning others with a higher safety profile.
Bizarrely, the Fed and its regulatory siblings included investment grade corporate bonds, the majority of which do not trade on an exchange, and more stunningly, stocks in the Russell 1000, as meeting the definition of high quality liquid assets, while excluding all municipal bonds – even general obligation municipal bonds from states with a far higher credit standing and safety profile than BBB-rated corporate bonds.”
http://wallstreetonparade.com/2014/09/the-fed-just-imposed-financial-austerity-on-the-states/
Nothing to see here, move along.
Rolling out new product in September: It’s A Hillary World
Talk about multi-tasking…
“She is building stamina through tough new workouts with a personal trainer and yoga. She is talking about how to address income inequality without alienating corporate America.”
Fluff piece’s main meme might be that Hillary’s in fighting shape:
“Mrs. Clinton is getting in better physical shape, a necessity for any potential candidate who faces the rigors of the campaign trail. Friends said she has more energy and has also been practicing yoga.”
http://www.nytimes.com/2014/09/13/us/clinton-silent-on-2016-bid-as-campaign-style-actions-begin-to-speak-volumes.html?ref=politics
Make it stop!
Plus Bill has been doing the rounds promoting the anniversary of Americorps. A full court press.
Oh dear God preserve us.
‘She is building stamina through tough new workouts with a personal trainer.’
Followed by a thorough kneading by her personal masseuse, then a light meal prepared by her personal chef, while awaiting her personal shopper’s return from Rodeo Drive in a contributor’s Gulfstream. Designer pantsuits rock!
Yes, after all those years of sacrificing her health for the nation, Hillary is availing herself of the modest comforts enjoyed by ordinary middle-class Americans.
If only I could reach out to my base via their iPads while they’re on the treadmill, she muses. Or perhaps just appeal to their financial advisors … excuse me, agent Jeeves, could you pop over the neighbors and borrow some Grey Poupon?
Unlike other commanders in chief, she aims to be more Iskander of Macedon like.
Now, no one can complain about our leaders not personally charging into battle.
Dream team adversaries that the Republicans would be fools not to run: Colin Powell with Condoleezza Rice as his running mate.
Gawd. Must we endure these two horrifying chavs for eight more years?
Haven’t we suffered enough?
Yes & No…obviously many hard lessons to learn by the masses. my bet is she’s not going to make it. reading between pr lines…this is a spin over a personal medical crisis.
Next.
Beheadings you will not hear about in our right wing media (oops MSM).
http://www.smirkingchimp.com/thread/antispin/58234/ukraine-sends-severed-heads-of-freedom-fighters-to-their-mothers
Jacobin’s piece on voting yes for Scottish independence is impressive. Jacobin may be leading in one way toward better leftist analysis (rather than the usual U.S. liberal-ish talking-stick crap). At least the writing is good and cogent. Three repercussions of a Scottish yes: Catalonia shares a similar history. It wasn’t in union with Castile until Ferdinand and Isabella (yes, those two). It attempted to separate since. The languages are different–Catalan is more fun than Castilian, for one thing. Think of Catalonia as the Portugal that got absorbed. So a Scottish yes is going to lead to agitation in Catalunya. Conversely, we are going to see “buffer-state” fandangos. Belgium, the ultimate buffer state, should just come apart. Whether that means an independent Flanders (or the highly unlike union with the Netherlands) or an independent Wallonia (imagine the French taking in the Walloons–rich!), we’re likely to see further extended Belgian political crises. Then there’s the northern Italians–but the problem is that the many mini-states of northern Italy were buffer states, designed to blunt Italian power between the middle ages and the Risorgimento. (Exactly like Germany.) So Italy isn’t in the same situation, regardless of the brilliance of the Serene Republic of Venice. Further, the successor states posited, like Padania, aren’t viable–unless lots of Italians want to live in an equivalent of rump-Austria in eternal provincialism. And while we’re fragmenting Italy, why not bring back the ultra-glorious Papal States? (That ought to play well in Bologna.)
It’s so hard for me to imagine an independent Scotland. As polls show there is a deep division between men and women on the subject–usually women tend to be more conservative (don’t want change) because they are much more susceptible to fear than men in my experience–or at least admit to it. It seems, for example, that the US media has convinced large numbers of women that ISIL is a serious threat to them.
party like it’s 1707..
“A Scots rabble is the worst of its kind, for every Scot in favour there is 99 against”. daniel defoe
••
“We’re bought and sold for English Gold,
Such a Parcel of Rogues in a Nation.” rob burns
“I am not afraid; I was born to do this.” saint joan of arc
“I did not get on the bus to get arrested I got on the bus to go home.” saint rosa parks
SURVEY PROVES ISIS CONVINCES WOMEN TO FEAR MEDIA huffypost
It has nothing to do with being more susceptible to fear. Women are more risk averse because we tend to be the primary caretakers of progeny. Stability and routine is something that helps us raise children in a healthy manner. If their worlds are constantly shifting it makes it difficult to teach them and cultivate behaviors like trust.
Awomen.
“Jacobin may be leading in one way toward better leftist analysis (rather than the usual U.S. liberal-ish talking-stick crap).”
None of that is Important. What’s Important is “What Would Adam Smith Do?”
http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/monkey-cage/wp/2014/09/13/what-would-adam-smith-say-about-scottish-independence/
Re: Youngstown and the NYTimes. Undoubtedly, the NYTimes is unaware that there is an arc from Sandusky and Columbus to Pittsburgh that ekes out a living in post-industrial poverty. In Youngstown, the factory jobs and unionization now exists as labor at the Taco Bell and other chain restaurants along strip malls on the edge of town. Smaller cities in Ohio like Zanesville are creepily falling apart. I recall driving through the area listening to a show in NPR in which an urban planner chirpily talk about turning factories into part: Deindustrialization and deurbanization. Why not shut down the post office, too, and usher in the Dark Ages? Sheesh.
Thank you for today’s antidote. Poignant on so many levels.
I loved it too.
re Asian Times link….Irrational, dark, evil forces are fully in control. “A nation can survive its fools, and even the ambitious. But it cannot survive treason from within. An enemy at the gates is less formidable, for he is known and carries his banner openly. But the traitor moves amongst those within the gate freely, his sly whispers rustling through all the alleys, heard in the very halls of government itself. For the traitor appears not a traitor; he speaks in accents familiar to his victims, and he wears their face and their arguments, he appeals to the baseness that lies deep in the hearts of all men. He rots the soul of a nation, he works secretly and unknown in the night to undermine the pillars of the city, he infects the body politic so that it can no longer resist. A murderer is less to fear.” ~Cicero
https://www.goodreads.com/quotes/33210-a-nation-can-survive-its-fools-and-even-the-ambitious
http://carolmoore.net/nuclearwar/
Candain PM Harper OK’s potentially unconstitutional China-Canada FIPA deal, coming into force October 1: http://www.vancouverobserver.com/news/harper-oks-potentially-unconstitutional-china-canada-fipa-deal-coming-force-october-1
From the First Nations group: “Under the terms of the Canada-China Foreign Investment Promotion and Protection Agreement, approved by PM Harper on Friday, China can sue Canada in secret tribunals to repeal national and provincial laws that interfere with Chinese investments, including laws limiting construction of the Northern Gateway tar sands pipeline.
The treaty allows the government to engage in secret negotiations to vary its rules and laws to avoid harm to Chinese assets, or to pay public money to Chinese companies, and only publish notice once the matter is final and settled. The way the deal is structured, it can’t be undone, even if the Canadian courts find it to be unconstitutional, without consent from China. More significantly, it overrides existing treaty obligations to Canada’s First Nations, allowing Chinese investors to force the Canadian government to grant access to aboriginal lands that are technically not Canadian territory.”
WoW & WoW:
G&M Aug 17, 2014: “Not all China’s problems are directly related to the land its companies acquired. Some could not have been predicted.
However, recent high-profile troubles have brought China’s record in Canada’s oil patch into sharp focus.
Among trouble spots, PetroChina has yet to pay its partner, Athabasca Oil Corp., for its 40-per-cent stake in the Dover oil sands project five months after exercising an option to acquire it. Athabasca chief executive officer Sveinung Svarte said this month the two sides have a timetable for closing the deal, but declined to give details.
Meanwhile, PetroChina’s parent company, China National Petroleum Corp., is investigating embezzlement at its global subsidiaries, including PetroChina, with unknown ramifications on Canadian operations.
Executives tied to the Canadian business have been detained in China in recent weeks.”
http://www.theglobeandmail.com/report-on-business/industry-news/energy-and-resources/china-faces-oil-patch-buyers-remorse/article20090355/
Maybe the money is tied up in bailing out some Chinese banks or is going to Russia now.
With crude down around $90/barrel, and heading lower, maybe they’re rethinking oil sands.
it’ll come out and with it…that large canadian public pension black hole. seems they’re banking on a big maybe. some serious crazy times
Rethink they may but China decided as State policy to “book” foreign oil reserves, and these happen to be some of the most marginal, their bad and too fking bad.
The Chinese were counseled at the industry level that trying to lock up foreign reserves on a global commodity like oil is a fools gamble that could put them in an upside down position, yet they forged ahead because their leaders are basically paranoid.
They don’t get it. oil is a mercurially priced commodity that has a carry cost for everyone that consumes it. There is no free lunch. The opportunity lays in investing in using it most efficiently (wisely), not trying to lock in a “something for nothing deal” (from a global perspective.
kinda ironic:
“Chinese laborers in British Columbia made only between 75 cents and $1.25 a day, paid in rice mats, and not including expenses, leaving barely anything to send home. They did the most dangerous construction jobs, such as working with explosives to clear tunnels through rock.[14] The families of the Chinese who were killed received no compensation, or even notification of loss of life. Many of the men who survived did not have enough money to return to their families in China, although Chinese labour contractors had promised that as part of their responsibilities.[15] Many spent years in isolated and often poor conditions. Yet the Chinese were hard working and played a key role in building the Western stretch of the railway; even some boys as young as twelve years old served as tea-boys.”
from qwiki:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Canadian_Pacific_Railway#Building_the_railway.2C_1881.E2.80.931885
They also went Cuba, Panama and many other places. And volunteers went to France during WWI to help the Allied cause.
Apparently the oldest Chinese restaurant in the Americas is in Panama city.
Neighborhood restaurants serving “Comidas Chinas y Criollas” conquered death back in the 1970s in upper Manhattan.
Skip the Chinas, order the Criollas.
Laborers.
Progress – today, many Chinese would-be mothers go into labor in many comfortable maternity motels in California.
How they get their visas or escape the INS in broad daylight here is the big mystery.
kurt vonnegut knows how:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Slapstick_(novel)
Chinafornia Dreamin’ on such a winter’s day…
– congratulations to the Chinese mamas and papas, on your American-citizen babies.
Fifth Column
Re: The Israeli intel veterans
The comment about using medical problems and sexual orientation certainly puts israel’s propaganda about being the most gay friendly state into the middle east into the spotlight. (Not true in orthodox areas certainly, and not true compared to most of Lebanon either)
We love to help gay palestinians! By forcing them to snitch on their friends and family lest we out them to the community! Pink Israel! We love gay!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Cootie culture is so easily exploitable. It ought to be banned.
plus ça change:
“Another obstacle was that the proposed route crossed land in Alberta that was controlled by the Blackfoot First Nation. This difficulty was overcome when a missionary priest, Albert Lacombe, persuaded the Blackfoot chief Crowfoot that construction of the railway was inevitable. In return for his assent, Crowfoot was famously rewarded with a lifetime pass to ride the CPR.”
ibid.
About Future Tense’s “Silicon Valley Has Officially Run Out of Ideas” – must be Onionesque. I can think of hundreds of apps to eliminate the middlemen banksters, the middlemen phone and tv monopolists, the middlemen ‘faux representatives’ and on and on. There is an infinity of apps yet to be designed that can save the world. Literally. Just app the bastards off the planet.
Regime change 101.
Funny how protests in this country are assiduously belittled or ignored by the MSM whereas demonstrations in certain select countries are front paged at every opportunity. Chavez said there would never be a coup in Washington because it doesn’t have an American embassy. Or, he might have added, a NYT foreign bureau.
Anyhow, of some interest.
http://consortiumnews.com/2014/09/12/perfecting-regime-change-in-ukraine/
I’ve always wondered how the media side works. Does the state department whisper something to a man on the board of directors who whispers it to the editor? And then the other papers follow whatever the nyt does?
One theory is that big time journalists and government officials all go to the same tony schools and share similar backgrounds and feel they have to show class solidarity with their fellow wonks. It wasn’t always so. Newspapermen were once more humble types who came up through the ranks–the blue collar intellectuals as David Cay Johnston called them.
Plus journalism is an insecure profession these days . You don’t want to make waves, could be bad for your career. And the above applies double to editors who make the decisions about what gets covered and how. For example recent NYT managing editor Bill Keller was (I believe) the son of an oil company executive–not exactly blue collar.
If you don’t step in line you don’t get invited, its all about access, socialization and comfort, it used to be about poking around the soft underbelly and banging away at a Royal typewriter while smoking ciggs and drinking shitty coffee to produce something that makes the target uncomfortable when cracking the paper open at breakfast. Journalism has lost most of it’s patient gritty rouges.
and there’s the revolving door, too.
From Evans-Pritchard:
“The yield on 10-year US Treasuries – the benchmark price of global money – has already jumped 20 basis points to 2.54pc since mid-August as it becomes clear that the US economy has survived its Winter wobble and is moving into an incipient boom”
It’s your fault if you can’t see the incipient boom.
“The other, by staff in Washington, said the reason why millions of people have dropped out of the workforce since the Great Recession is mostly “structural”, the effects of ageing and shifting technology.
The implication is that the economy is close to the critical turning point (NAIRU) when a shortage of workers starts to set off wage pressures”
Blame those human workers that can not (for the time being) be replaced by robots. They are going to demand higher wages. Hurry up with more AI research and robot perfection. Otherwise, we might just have to make milk more expensive to ‘properly incentivize’ human workers. Dang, where are those smart robots they promised?
I don’t think the MOTU have figured out that someone needs to build those “smart robots” and that the cost of building them is going to be passed on to them. Someone should also tell them that making education cost prohibitive is going to set them back too. I sure do hope they don’t run out of brown people to exploit before then. /sarcasm.
Masters of the Universe.
In the future, any one single robot can be so powerful that transforming Red Mars into Green Mars is a piece of cake.
And so, they send off to various planets a billionaire for each rock in space and every one of the billionaire can live comfortably off his/her new home, managed by the assigned robot.
When they keep each billionaire ignorant of the existence of other billionaires, every one lives happily.
But if the ‘experimenter’ injects the knowledge of other billionaires’ existence, soon, schemes are hatched to ‘conquer the universe.’
And so, we come face to face with this peculiar Homo Not-Sapiens’ trait – to climb a mountain simply because it’s there, and greed knows no bound. One day, you are happy and the next, you have to conquer your neighbor as soon as you are smart enough to know his/her existence.
And once you have your first billion, you can’t wait for your second.
http://boingboing.net/2014/06/10/robogenesis-the-terrifying-se.html
I don’t believe that the proudly sociopathic, destructive, racist, classist, ageist and misogynist Silicon Valley culture should be trusted to fund anything of social value:
Scotland
any activist writes
To my friends in Labour
http://tinyurl.com/lg2xz4t
(a lot of home truths and why I think it will be a yes)
let me rephrase that and sorry if a double post (whiskey!!)
an activist writes: To my friends in Labour
http://tinyurl.com/lg2xz4t
(a lot of home truths and it one of the reasons why I think it will be a yes)
and a break down of one of the polls
“Age breakdown panel base the sunday times poll: 16:34 57% Y: 43% N, 35-54 55% Y: 45% N, 55+ 38%Y: 62%N …over 55s just save Union” and “46% of Scots polled think Westminster bluffing on currency union vs 35% who think not”
Scottish polling round up http://ukpollingreport.co.uk/blog/archives/8984
Foreign Office caught asking Spanish press to undermine Scottish independence
http://tinyurl.com/pq3rvza
Will he, won’t he back Yes? Rupert Murdoch tours Scotland http://tinyurl.com/nqagr3h
Inside Maryhill Food Bank http://tinyurl.com/od6zzqh
and for something completely different
The Meaning of Liff at 30 http://tinyurl.com/nhy87ld
Douglas Adams and Doctor Who http://tinyurl.com/nhy87ld
Regarding Chinese labor (and human labor, generally), above:
ALL capital comes from labor. Always did, always will.
In the beginning, the bison did not hunt themselves, the clay didn’t form itself into utensils, and the fruit rotted on the ground. None of these things had value, until the labor of people turned them into useful, valuable commodities.
There may have even been those creative and insightful individuals who thought of doing something with these things, but who, for one reason, or another (perhaps they were too busy simply trying to survive), didn’t pursue their ideas. Again — without laboring towards making their ideas realities, they failed to create capital.
BBC Referendum Bias – Glasgow Rally & Orange Order march
http://tinyurl.com/nougdoo
American Kulak has just had a piece posted at the Saker, on Hungary, its President Orban’s July speech calling out the US as morally and financially bankrupt, and the butthurt lamentations of Western courtiers who thought they raised good, loyal satraps.
(An addition to comment 29, the ‘reply to’ comment function doesn’t appear to be working.)
Yes, that ghastly email was venally and indiscriminately targeted at (and that – no doubt: On Line!, scientific[!] algorithmic!, privacy free! – absolutely unsolicited MARKET targeting warrants a whole dedicated pitch fork REVOLUTION in and of itself) women who more than likely were missing at least one real breast, if not both – worse, many are missing pieces of vital organs – [ghastly email was venally targeted] in order to:
spread this sensation of beauty and breast empowerment to breast cancer patients and survivors ™ $$$$
Indeed, from a (paraphrasing the Siicon Valley Spiel here) from A Promi$ing Silicon Valley IPO™ $$$$, there’s no shout out for human empowerment, though those $pecial Wanker Boyz&Girlz are willing to obscenely profit off of Brea$t EMPOWERMENT!™ $$$$, via those whose breasts – along with, many times, vital organ parts – are either gone or permanently scarred and ridden with pain.
from Ann again:
Cancer is big business. Way bigger than it should be. OTOH, survival rates are up. Women undergoing chemo after mastectomy have the worst of situations. They lose their breasts and their hair, they get to be poisoned for the pleasure, and they still might die. Prosthetics (even wigs and head wraps during chemo), can help. Makeup and jewelry are just as important (or unimportant), as ever. After healing, reconstruction is an option, but to sink to a rank “awareness” campaign like these self-serving parasites did is beyond the pale.
myopic stupidity cause job loss…
youngstown piece is great example of what is wrong with the whole notion of job creation…the only thought of most manufacturing firms and business owners is how can I compete with my fellow american firms and beat each other up inside the barrel…the jobs did not die because of china or japan or thailand (1996) or taiwan or pakistan…they died because most american business owners are idiots and bankers love lending to passive buffoons…the world is full of countries moving on fracking (please no sidebars about fracking being good or bad) I am sure there is not a sole in that firm that was described who speaks anything other than english and would have no clue how to find sweden on a map, let along angola…no one even tries…giving up without even attempting to get the word no out of the mouth of a prospect…a nation with immigrants from every nation on the planet (and all the languages that some try to act americans cant speak), and no industries using the FREE communication system (five bux a month unlimited on my cell for international calling is basically FREE) there is ZERO excuse…other than the fact the vast majority of the elmer fudd business owners of this nation are USELESS…