Drone crashes into British Airways passenger jet as it comes in to land at Heathrow Airport Mirror
Ecuador Earthquake: State of Emergency Declared After at Least 272 Killed NBC
Oil prices plunge 5% in wake of failed Doha deal MarketWatch
Oil Plunges After Output Talks Fail Amid Saudi Demands Over Iran Bloomberg
We Can Phase Out Fossil Fuels Within a Decade, Study Says Vice
Impeachment Proceedings Begin Against Brazilian President Dilma Rousseff Newsweek.
Dilma Rousseff: Brazilian congress votes to impeach president Guardian. Ugly details.
Corporate defaults are rising at their fastest pace since 2009 Business Insider
Deal Scrapheap Starts to Fill Up As Mega-Mergers Fall Apart Bloomberg
This Democrat Is Channeling FDR With A Plan To Break Up Big Cable HuffPo. Teachout.
Obama uttered a single word that explains so much about America today Yahoo. No, it’s not “crapify.”
Untried, Untested, Ready: Remedies for the Global Economy Bloomberg
Five myths about tax havens Nicholas Shaxon, WaPo
Malaysia’s 1MDB and Abu Dhabi Feud Over Coming Bond Payment WSJ
Syraqistan
Clinton Lied – Benghazi Attack Was Part Of A Larger Operation Moon of Alabama. Reluctantly linking to a post on the Benghazi hairball, but this is Bernard.
Obama to decide on declassifying 9/11 documents within 60 days The Nation
Saudi warning on 9/11 law adds to US frictions FT
College Student Is Removed From Flight After Speaking Arabic on Plane NYT
Over 200 Somali youth feared dead in boat tragedy en route to Italy Goobjoog News
Erdogan and the Satirist: Inside Merkel’s Comedy Conundrum Der Spiegel
China?
China Calms Anxiety With Economic Fixes WSJ
Will China’s Slowing Economy Stall The Silk Road Project? OilPrice.com
The Human Cost of China’s Manufacturing Slowdown The Diplomat
New Gadgets Help Pollution-Weary Chinese Breathe Easier WSJ. Michael Burry going long on oxygen.
Poll: Getting facts right key to Americans’ trust in media AP
For News Outlets Squeezed From the Middle, It’s Bend or Bust NYT (Furzy Mouse).
How newsroom pressure is letting fake stories on to the web Guardian
2016
Bernie Sanders at the Vatican: we face a moral as well as political challenge Prime Economics (mistah charley, ph.d.). The text of Sanders’ speech at the Vatican. If only there were some news gathering organization with the resources to send a reporter to a Catholic diocese in New York and find out how voters reacted! Apparently not.
Bernie Sanders draws record crowd in Brooklyn as race takes darker tone Guardian
Face the Nation transcripts April 17, 2016: Sanders, Priebus, Fauci CBS (“Extended cut” of Sanders, video only).
Clinton Delegate Lead Down to 194, Even as Dramatic Miscounting of Delegates by Media Continues HuffPo
Role of Hillary Clinton’s brother in Haiti gold mine raises eyebrows WaPo
Is Hillary Clinton Above the Law? Ray McGovern, Consortium News (Furzy Mouse).
Hillary Clinton’s missing theme Edward Luce, FT
The battle of New York is upon us: What you need to know about this week’s primaries Salon. Horse-race.
Donald Trump’s New Political Director Has Ties To Koch Network International Business Times
Trumpism and Clintonism Are the Future Michael Lind, NYT
What’s the biggest scandal in de Blasio’s administration? That he belongs to the developers destroying New York City Mark Crispin Miller (Furzy Mouse).
If You Try to Ruin Schools for Profit, You Will Eventually Get Caught Esquire
California Virtual Academies: Is online charter school network cashing in on failure? San Jose Mercury News
Teach for America applications fall again, diving 35 percent in three years WaPo. Fewer scabs.
Class Warfare
On Verizon Picket Line, a Demand for Dignity Reader Supported News (Furzy Mouse).
Working-Class Heroes The New Yorker
Fear of the robots is founded in the messy reality of labour FT
Are We All Rent-Seeking Investors? Pro-Market. “[A]re we facing an economic model in which tens of millions of Americans’ pensions are relying on the ability of companies to extract rents from consumers and taxpayers?”
Attention Students: Put Your Laptops Away NPR
UC Davis pepper-spray officer awarded $38,000 San Francisco Chronicle
Origins of feudalism in the West Understanding Society
Antidote du jour (via):
The New York state animal.
See yesterday’s Links and Antidote du Jour here.
182 comments
Comments are closed.
Iraq Government Collapse Likely as a Rump Parliament Calls for Resignations
As noted from Pat Lang’s website.
Obama’s single word should be a sentence: America’s problem is faux-journalist cum neo-conservatives like Sam Ro,
Pampered little snot puts out crap news and editorials for half a dozen “investors” websites without properly declaring his own conflicts of interest, nor does the organs that he grinds out the crap declare their own conflicts of interest…. and the system keeps grinding on.
seriously! was this a joke link?! there’s some onion-level inversion of reality going on here: ‘if you can’t see that everything’s just fine now, you’re likely suffering from some sort of post-traumatic stress. consult your doctor.’ defending the indefensible rises to new heights! :) …
I scanned down a couple pages of the 2500+ comments. They are scathing.
Unfortunately, the way Yahoo works, those (scathing) comments probably got R* an extra bonus. It’s eyeballs that matter, not the qualia of the reaction of the audience. Trump and this b*tt-whinge are the same bogus mint, coining faux facts into profitable forgeries..
They mostly complain about how 0bama raised the national debt, a red herring if there ever was one. Also shows the fallacy of 0bama thinking people would give him credit for cutting government spending to record lows. The Kenyan Muslim atheist socialist could never be a spending cutter. Republican lite doesn’t work for a Democrat unless they’re trying to lose on purpose, which 0bama is.
+100
There is almost a subliminal statement in there that Obama is just a talking head for the real powers by leaving Obama behind to focus on Dimon. And in a just universe Dimon would be homeless and begging on the street for the rest of his life if only so he could begin to understand that his friends and acquaintances are not representative of the majority of Americans. The ones who haven’t really gotten a raise in thirty years, the ones who are still struggling to get back to where they were in 2008 which was still behind, the ones whose children will start their working life with a small undischargable mortgage around their neck, the ones whose decent job disappeared in their fifties and will spend what should have been the last and most lucrative years of their working live barely eking out a living are still in the ICU and haven’t left the trauma center. No, the trauma Jamie is speaking of was that brief few weeks when he and his friends had to worry that they might actually have to pay the cost of their reckless gambling and criminal fraud. They might have been broke and in prison, but their best investment of all saved them – the pennies on the dollar they spent buying every elected official possible has guaranteed they are post trauma and if the people working three jobs to keep a roof over their heads weren’t that ‘smart’, well so be it.
The guillotine can not come soon enough for some of our ‘betters’. Until that time I believe many of them will continue to delude themselves about the damage they have wrought.
Your comment ‘aught to win the internet today.
I regularly read this site and the comments but do not comment myself.But I just have to say that that was a great comment
take a deep bow Pat
and Jamie…you’ll never know the company of the Pat’s of the world!
Loser
Things keep going the way they are, legions of Pats with torches and pitchforks might greet Dimon one day.
A guy can dream, anyway.
Four years of Hilary Antoinette should do the trick, health insurance costs up another 20-50%, TBTF bank bail-ins in full swing, boots on the ground in Ukraine and Turkey bogging down, college costs up another 20-50%, TPP job decimation, drone attacks from Mexico to Morocco, fun fun.
Let the games begin, and may the odds be always in your favor…
thank you, great comment. and apparently the drumpf is not the only one who only gets his information from “the media”
There’s another name for “careless.” It’s called negligent and it’s classified as a crime when you are dealing with classified material. You don’t have to “intentionally” harm national security. That seems to be a determination that the President has reserved as only for Clinton.
lie down with dogs, get up with fleas–whatever Hillary was involved in is sure to affect Obama in some way. so nothing she did can be considered serious by him, IMO, because they are all too far up the food chain, and he can’t make an opening for avalanches of crap to roll out.
Kinda like, “we tortured some folks” but hey, war is war.
So Hillary was “careless” and the crooked bankers made “paperwork mistakes.”
I guess when I carelessly mistake Dimon’s neck for my ribeye, I will get a Presidential pardon too?
I am extremely proud to have organized the biggest and most magical Seattle Occupy protest against Jamie Dimon. When the UW Foster Business School, the demons, brought Dimon here as “Leadership God.”
Many people did not know that protesters were actually WITHIN the event and close to being able to throw shoes at Dimon. We were ousted, however, before their “God” made his appearance on stage.
“Leadership God.” <-- Really?! "Hail Seizure!"
Aarggghhh!! Ro’s article has twisted my brain into a cruller!
” Regret aversion occurs when the unpleasant memory of bad decisions in the past puts undue and irrational influence on future decisions. For example, you lose 20% in the stock market in a very short period of time, so you decide never to buy stocks again because of your perpetual expectation that the market will soon crash again.
There’s no easy way to deal with this, especially since there is a very real chance that something bad will indeed happen again. Indeed, when it comes to the markets and economy, it’s always something.”
So, really, the aversion that us peons experience against plowing money into the stock market is totally rational, not just due to regret aversion. Because, unless you are an ‘insider’, you are always going to lose.
Every morning, upon awakening, go to your bathroom mirror (if you are still lucky enough to have a bathroom) and say ten times: The Emperor has new clothes.
Re: Hillary, brother, Haiti:
Fancy that!
And have the Clintons ZERO sense about how these things look? Talk about being tone deaf… Greed for them trumps common sense it seems.
Ummm, they were key in long term destruction of a group that largely still supports them here in the US. That the Haitians are not as deluded as many Americans doesn’t worry them. Why should it? Oh, sure if Hillary is not elected most of the opportunities to grift will disappear, but in general fucking up foreign poor countries will always just be them bringing capitalism and democracy to our lessors, if it ‘fails’ it will not be portrayed as their fault.
You and I may hope the bubble is developing holes and collapsing, but they are not entirely wrong. Between the press ownership and the most beloved illusions of Americans it is unlikely that the Clintons will ever really face the consequences of their greed, callous disregard of the law, and total indifference to the suffering they cause.
hi Pat
Just to say I share your sad cynicism… I started following politics as a kid in the Vietnam War protests all those decades ago (that ages me!). The one thing I’ve learned is always be prepared to be disappointed.
Needless to say, the loss of truly independent mass media and the merging of the MSM by the corporations has played a critical role. When General Electric et al control the main TV networks and Amazon’s Bezos owns WaPo… enough said!
It is sad. The crapification (h/t Lambert) of the American system continues apace. But one of the biggest mistakes the American public ever made was essentially ignoring the huge warning signs and going “huh? Okay, sure” when Media Consolidation became legal. And now the continuing destruction of public schools. it isn’t enough that Americans are too tired and busy and work too many hours to pay attention. No, they must not be able to think and perhaps realize they are not getting the information they should. With luck they weren’t quick enough on that second part.
Our little bench just isn’t long enough for now. May it continue to need extensions for a long time.
^x1,001. Destroying faith in public education, eliminating the Fairness Doctrine – these two alone might have been enough to corrupt the Republic. Lying us into Iraq and Citizens United were body blows as well.
The Sanders/Trump ‘revolution’ (or devolution as it may well be) bodes well though. Millennials aren’t buying it, plenty of us old hippies left too – we might just muddle through enough of this mess to fix the US and maybe enough of Mother Earth to stick around awhile. Maybe.
After WE stopped the Vietnam War the Rand Corporation made sure long-term media control was put in place, now we get the results in full bloom. Reminds me of the joke (“how many psychiatrists does it take to change a lightbulb? One, but the bulb has to REALLY want to change”). The rank and file (and the top brass of course) could not find a single decent moral bone in their bodies to remind them just how WRONG the Permanent War crowd is, the money turned them into the presstitutes they all are today.
By Snowden’s estimate there are >80,000 people with the same security clearances that would enable them to do what he did, but only he rose above the collaborators and did what his conscience demanded.
“crapification” was coined by Yves, not me. I merely propagate it.
The Clintons are much smarter than the rest in exploiting (legally and also, suspected by many, illegally) the system.
Without them, there will still be others, because it’s the system.
You have the nominations this summer, and the general election in November.
With that election, one knight will then be nominated (again!) to fight the system, the machine, in the ring.
Perhaps our knight will be accompanied by a few companions and a wizard.
That’s when the real struggle starts.
The Clintons made It this far being grifters. Why would they change? They seem to have no understanding of how the internets work, but have no fear, a Hillary SuperPac will be dropping $35 million worth of ads. My guess Is they think this will solve their problem.
She’s paying Google, Yahoo and Microsoft (Bing) for a job well done regarding massaging search results and editing news headlines on their news agglomeration pages. Lambert/NC had a few posts on how Google & Microsoft offered their “search engine” optimization services to the Clinton campaign.
Fun watching how the money whips around and around between various subsidiaries of these firms and various Clintion organs, mostly in non-taxable “donations”.
Considering her voting bloc (50+ and especially 65+) is the only one that still watches TV thinking they’ll get actual news out of it rather than Establishment Propaganda, those ad buys might work.
We find out tomorrow just how far they’ll go to ensure the fix
unfortunately, this story is more than a year old which means it’s unlikely to have any impact on the election
BTW fascinating piece and comments at that HRC/Benghazi link. She really should rename herself Houdini Rodham Clinton if she gets elected despite all her baggage.
Found this interesting observation over at digby’s place (emphasis is mine):
Hillary’s Bold Plan
“I will appoint an Attorney General who will continue the courageous work of Eric Holder and Loretta Lynch.” Given that the comments came at an Al Sharpton event, I assumed the comment meant to invoke Holder and Lynch’s efforts to reform criminal justice and, presumably, their even more laudable support for civil rights.”
Given that the comments came at an Al Sharpton event, I’d “assume” she meant to “invoke” Holder and Lynch’s blackness.
That was my first thought as well. But that could be since I cannot think of one good reason to admire Holder’s job performance.
What you said.
Send this to Al Sharpton…
Why Did Congo Offer Clinton $650,000 For Two Pics And A Speech?
Congo, one of the poorest nations on Earth, offered former President Bill Clinton a speaking fee of $650,000–a sum equal to annual per-capita income of 2,813 Congolese. Indeed, the International Monetary Fund ranks the Democratic Republic of the Congo dead last in its global income rankings. What did it expect in return for its investment?
Congo’s extraordinary offer to Clinton first surfaced in a batch of Hillary Clinton’s emails released this past August, where it won little attention at the time. Newly leaked documents, known as the “Panama papers,” shed new light on the mystery as well as the misdoings of Congo’s corrupt rulers.
While Hillary Clinton was Secretary of State, America’s top official dealing with foreign leaders, former President Bill Clinton travelled the world giving speeches to world leaders and overseas interests–earning at least $48 million while his wife was America’s top diplomat. Why weren’t the payments to one Clinton not considered a bribe to the other Clinton?
And among the Clintons. Consider the case of Lundin Mining. Lukas Lundin, a Swedish investor who founded the company, donated between $1 million and $5 million to the Clinton Foundation between 2007 and 2013. (The foundation only reports ranges, not exact amounts, for some of its donors.) Lundin Group pledged another $100 million to the Clinton Foundation, according to a 2007 Clinton Foundation press release. Lundin Mining has substantial operations in the Congo. A partner of Lundin in its Congo operations, Freeport-McMoran Copper & Gold, gave the Clinton Foundation as much as $500,000, according documents released by the foundation that present its contributions in the $250,000-$500,000 range. What did the mining giants get in return?
The State department, under Clinton’s leadership, entered into talks with the Congo in 2010 over its dispute with Lundin and Freeport-McMoran in what The Financial Times characterizes as “in support of Freeport.” Clinton Cash author Peter Schweizer tells a similar tale. The result speaks for itself. Congo gave up its efforts to seize some of the world’s most lucrative copper mines from Lundin and his partners in exchange for increasing its share of the profits by less than 3%.
So what did Kabila expect in return for his proffered gift to the Clinton Foundation? Clearly, he had seen other businessmen in his country (like Lundin) prosper after their generosity with the Clinton Foundation. Perhaps it is a coincidence that one event followed the other? Either way, Kabila knew that a donation might be a good way to hedge his bets. After all, he knew about the allegations, during the Clinton presidency, that Clinton had traded overnight stays in the Lincoln bedroom for campaign cash. Is the Clinton Foundation simply the same idea on a larger scale? One can see why Kabila, accustomed to the ways of a corrupt continent, might think so.
Now that Hillary Clinton seems on her way to cinching the Democratic Party nomination for president, it is time to ask: What does her namesake foundation owe to the foreign leaders and others who fund it?
http://www.forbes.com/sites/richardminiter/2016/04/17/why-did-congo-offer-clinton-650000-for-two-pics-and-a-speech/amp/#
Maybe he can get an answer ?
I think you meant Marcy’s place since Digby only writes about Trump, Cruz, and the conservative id these days.
Seems like the last time Clinton ran for the Presidency was when she cut off comments. Or, maybe that was just for me. :)
Using the word of the day: maybe she is still traumatized,?
Oh, of course – d’oh!
Guess spring fever has finally set in with the arrival of some gorgeous weather.
But re: digby: I find it kind of interesting that she’s been completely silent on the Democratic race; perhaps she doesn’t see the point, if she knows she’ll get behind whichever of them is the eventual nominee, and believes her time is better spent on the shitshow that is the Republican race. As much of a mess as that race is, I fail to see the value in not questioning or challenging what the Democratic candidates are saying/doing. I have no problem with those who don’t want to get bogged down in the delegate math, but I’m kind of over the whole loyal Democrat thing, because I think that’s one reason we are where we are – too many years of just reflexively voting “D.”
Exactly!
Yeah, what’s up with that? Total blackout by Digby of both Hillary and Bernie. Curious such a widely-read and well-regarded Democratic blogger should go mum in the heat of the primaries and not a word of explanation. Maybe she’s gagged by her gig at Salon. First Krugman shows his colors and now Digby goes MIA. Live and learn.
I’ve never found Digby insightful, anyway. No loss there.
Digby and Krugman are BFFs. Surprised?
Unfortunately Digby is an Obamabot, which has severely damaged her credibility and relevance in the post George W. Bush world. She was an effective critic of Republicans in power but never mustered the same mojo against the transgressions of the Democratic establishment.
I imagine in her heart she wants to support Clinton, both because she’s the establishment candidate and because like Obama she’s trading on identity politics, which is the thin gruel people like Digby accept in place of a genuinely progressive agenda. However she’s just smart enough to realize that embracing Clinton would be the last nail in her coffin in terms of being accepted at any level as a legitimate progressive, so best to remain quiet on that front and just keep slagging the Republicans.
Like Homer J. Simpson in times of crisis she’s sticking with what she knows.
Presumably insurance for any fines will become part of the typical executive compensation package?
It can become the newest CDO, securitized corporate fines, especially now that they seem to come so often as to resemble payments on a loan. I’m sure we can find someone to give it a triple A rating.
There are already similar liability insurance provisions in executive contracts. You’d think from the sound of it that GS Legal preapproved the approach.
It’s an excellent point about the messaging, but I don’t think the execs at TBTFs need HRC to telegraph them any kind of message: they know she is their ‘credentialed professional class’ politician (cf Lambert’s post from yesterday) which is far more important than whatever she blathers in an interview. They expect her to make whatever feel-good statements the plebs want to hear to get her into office– in fact that is exactly what they are paying her to do! Did they ever take Obama’s populist posturing seriously? And he was less of a known variable. HRC could go as far as promising to break up the banks into little smithereens, and Dimon et co. would still understand that this is just grist for the unwashed, and continue to pump her PAC full of NIRP dollars.
“Is Hillary Clinton above the law?” Apparently so, for the time being. But what if she’s elected prez and the House remains repug? (the most likely outcome.) Impeachment? Or, what if a repug is elected prez? Can she be charged at that time?
Are asking, that for Hillary to be not above the law, there are only 2 options:
1. She is elected, and the House Republicans do their dirty deed
2. Only a new Republican president will look into it.
And a Democrat president will not?
Has anyone asked Sanders if he will?
So far, Bernie has talked only about whether or not to endorse her.
While Bernie Sanders’s pass on the emails may have helped Clinton in the short run, she will still need to offer real answers, should she become the Democratic candidate.
This liability will loom much larger during the general election, when it becomes a prominent focus of her Republican opponent and the press.
If he hit her then, Sanders would have been done.
He could be done for many things.
He can’t touch Obama.
He can’t hit her on her emails.
He won’t throw a dollar bill at her microphone. Decorum, it seems. But maybe if his supporters do it, people are OK with that. So, there are things one can’t do, but it’s OK for others to do. We won’t complain if others are doing the dirty work for us.
I think he should repeat this line:
“Senator Sanders you have been accused of going negative”
“No, I have made it a point not to discuss the current FBI investigation into my opponent’s conduct as Secretary of State, I want the campaign to be about the issues facing working families…”
My question is: if the FBI made a recommendation to indict and the Democrats in the WH refused, is the FBI really going to work with a future Clinton administration?
Or are they going to go rogue?
The FBI already expressed how frustrated they were that Obama comments on these investigations too early.
” Whenever the President, Vice President, Secretary of State or Defense, Joint Chiefs Chairman, or a congressional delegation visits Iraq, Afghanistan, Pakistan or Iraq, the planning and arrangements are secret. But this is the type of information that could be sent over Clinton’s personal email, hacked, and gotten a senior American official killed.”
Does he mean some “senior American official” like, say, Christopher Stevens, Ambassador to Libya?
That would be serious.
So serous that the president should be impeached for not getting to the bottom of it.
Which candidate(s) will look into it?
Probably Trump and that’s it.
Probably. Which is why he must be silenced.
“We Can Phase Out Fossil Fuels Within a Decade, Study Says”
I read the Vice article but not the underlying study. Its either a waste of time to read the study or the article completely misrepresents it.
Anyway, to spare people from even looking at the article, Sussex University came out with a study that people didn’t take that long to switch from using coal to oil. In the future, people will use magic to do what oil does. It argues that based on the switch from coal to oil, the switch to magic should be quick as well.
It doesn’t actually use the word “magic”, they refer to some technology that hasn’t been discovered yet, but its pretty much the same thing. Also, people still burn tons of coal, even using it to make oil.
I think the only possible scenario where that time frame pans out is a near-term human extinction, but even that Tyler guy who always posts those links here gives us another fifteen years.
We can also eliminate racial and religious hatred within a decade! All we have to do is explain to people that hatred is bad! Problem solved! See how easy that is?
It is a piece of click bait. Served to a larger audience it reenforces publishing rhetoric with misleading/inaccurate titles posing as a presentation of novel insight/research. In this case on the subject of energy alternatives to hydrocarbon.
This and the publish or perish referenced paper will now get tagged into and perpetuate in yet more BS paper footnotes posing as research.
Here’s a new magic claim. If close to true the magic will be how quickly oil companies buy the patent and make it all disappear.
This Desk-Size Turbine Produces Electricity from Carbon Dioxide and Can Power 10,000 Homes!
Interesting. It would appear that this system still needs coal, methane, or concentrated solar power to provide the heat. But instead of using water/steam to spin the turbines, it uses carbon dioxide in a weird intermediate phase between liquid and gas, and that is where the efficiency improvement is.
But although an efficiency improvement such as this will either reduce energy use or reduce the future increase in energy use, it won’t solve the greenhouse gas problem if coal, oil, or methane is still used to provide heat. This will only help to solve the greenhouse gas problem if the carbon dioxide is heated by concentrated solar power.
Have I misunderstood how this works?
You seem to be right. It’s just taking a “steam” turbine and running it with a less viscous heat transfer medium. The nuclear pebble reactors (which can burn un-enriched/natural uranium ore, and are undergoing testing in China now) use helium to transfer heat/motive force from the reactor heat transfer surfaces to the turbines and then to exhaust coolers. Helium offers even better heat transfer and mechanical efficiency characteristics than C02, but as a significantly higher build costs. Mechanical losses from less efficient steam turbine systems (using the same temperature difference between the heat source and the ultimate heat sink) are very insignificant compared to the latent inefficiency of not having an absolute zero heat sink. This isn’t going to save very much of anything except money (which the Fed seems to have too much of the way it throws it down the toilet), a few % carbon emissions at a very optimistic best (not including the carbon emitted to change over all the equipment), but it did generate lots of clicks.
I have not checked this site, not going to spend the time on it today. However my digging around on the background of a lot of these “independent” green sites shows that they are run by two groups, one based out of the New England Area, the other out of India. Both are all about making money, and don’t bother with the expense of hiring real workers, doing fact checking, etc; anything that might interfere with their real motive of making a buck. The more goofy and out-outrageous the claims, the happier they are to circulate them on their multiple sites.
Agreed. May result in relatively minor effy improvement. But a modern coal steam plant is 50% efficient when using waste heat recovery. The article sorta implies a 10 times increase, so we get 500% effy now in journalism land.
It doesn’t “consume” CO2 to make energy either. The CO2 is a working fluid which is reused. So we won’t get rid of much CO2 either.
To answer Vatch’s question, the article did mention “molten salts”. That is the heat storage fluid in a thermal solar collector – so that’s where the heat and carbon savings come from.
It runs off hot air!
Better yet, it runs off bad breath. ;-)
Bill Mollison’s Trompe gets my upvote. Fairly low tech, proven and useful for a range of applications. IMO, gravity is under-utilized on the EI side of EROEI:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SScpJMsCm9c
or maybe this magnets motor developed by a retired Turkish policeman?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mHW6b1aFPfU
OpenThePodBayDoorsHAL @ 6:12 pm
Fun tidbit, although I wish the subtitles were better (the CC is as bad as SIRI)! Would the generated fields be, shall we say, problematic, for biology?
Apparently Quick Time for Windows is now dangerous. Does anyone know of an alternative to Quick Time for playing videos? I can not seem to play them without it, and I still have XP.
http://blog.trendmicro.com/urgent-call-action-uninstall-quicktime-windows-today/
I like VLC, it plays almost anything. They probably have a Windows version.
thanks!
Another vote for VLC media player, and yes it works on all versions of Windows. This is a good player too, that some people like better than VLC: https://mpc-hc.org
I will try this one also, thank you!
Why torture is corrupting. From the Guardian article about the impeachment vote in the chamber of deputies in Brazil:
“On a dark night, arguably the lowest point was when Jair Bolsonaro, the far-right deputy from Rio de Janeiro, dedicated his yes vote to Carlos Brilhante Ustra, the colonel who headed the Doi-Codi torture unit during the dictatorship era. Rousseff, a former guerrilla, was among those tortured. Bolsonaro’s move prompted left-wing deputy Jean Wyllys to spit towards him.
“Eduardo Bolsonaro, his son and also a deputy, used his time at the microphone to honour the general responsible for the military coup in 1964.”
And as the U.S. seeks to avoid responsibility for torture at the black sites, Bagram, Guantanamo, and elsewhere, the same corruption undermines the government and enables the most immoral politicians.
I was actually relieved to see Bolsonaro the Elder invoke the military regime: it made the whole charade so much more transparent. If you had the misfortune to watch any of the Deputies session, it was amazing how few mentions there were of the actual charges against Rousseff. There were deputies saying they voted for impeachment because of the “communism taking over the country”, because there should be “a charismatic restoration in the country”, “because of same sex policies”… but very few of the 300 some deputies even mentioned the alleged budgetary misappropriation which is the ostensible excuse for impeachment.
Bolsonaro at least (reliably) provided some clarity as to what is actually going on.
I watched some of it, but it was just too unbearable and painful.
I didn’t have a high opinion at all of our political class to start with, but I didn’t realize it was that bad. Such a circus and such farce! To me it definitely crushed any hope whatsoever that eventually we’ll be getting there and resemble anything close to a ‘serious’ country that will be seriously capable of tackling its biggest problems, let alone corruption. How are these clowns even voted into congress and have they no shame or sense of decency whatsoever?
I too could only watch parts; it was too embarrassing for them. Although, when I hear talk of being a “serious” country, I cringe. Here in Argentina, the opposition (now in power) used that phrase non-stop to criticise the leftist tendencies of the previous government. For them “un país en serio” means to be like the US: you know, where no one goes to jail for creating a 15 trillion dollar financial crisis; where corruption is institutionalised in the form of lobbyists and regulatory revolving doors; where torture is legal and habeus corpus is a dead letter.
My heart goes out to Brazil, mainly because it is a long, never-ending battle, so you all will need courage and solidarity. Corrupt clowns like Counha and Temer should not be allowed to govern, and Brazilians can do this by preventing them from implementing their corrupt agenda.
I didn’t know that tidbit about “un país en serio” and understand your cringing. I meant it in the current context of corrupt, self-absorbed clowns, rather than people setting out to achieve something. But yes, any word can be politically charged.
A few differences with Argentina is that in Brazil there’s a much smaller middle class (that tends to be conservative), but on average we’re much less politicized. The secret sauce to electoral success in Brazil is in tapping the huge potential of the non-politicized and undereducated segments of society. So what we get is actors, clowns, drug barons, evangelical church leaders, sports personalities, or anybody who sees politics as an investment with best ROI available do the easy pickings under whatever party banner they wish to do so. They’re always welcome, as long as they bring the dough.
I thought that the left would be able to make inroads after starting social programs that were hugely popular to those most in need, and for a good while it really looked that way. The foundations now appear to have been very flimsy, though. After having piggybacked on PT’s early success and popularity, former supporters and coalition partners in congress were busy plotting its downfall as soon as the opportunity arose.
I appreciate your solidarity and I’m sure you need some too, under Macri.
And what a dark night it was.
The spectacle was nauseating, with one after the other corrupt hypocrites draping themselves in national colours and justifying their votes with a heavy dose of patriotism, religion and family, in the most cynical exercise ever witnessed on Brazilian TV, led by the corrupt and machiavellian speaker of the house, Eduardo Cunha and his partners in crime that will now take over the presidency.
This was a tremendous victory for scumbaggism and thievery.
it was also a victory for the Brazilian elite, which since the 1st Lula government had seemingly established an (uneasy) truce. Now that the opportunity was there, they seized it in no time whatsoever.
The cycle of more humane and progressive governments that were voted into office after the disastrous results of neoliberal projects late last century has now finally come to an end on the continent.
venezuela will likely fall next.
i still have hope for uruguay, ecuador and bolivia, although they have been making too many compromises as well.
Good grief!
“Clinton wound up the day with a rally at Staten Island’s Snug Harbor, where Public Advocate Letitia James said Clinton supporters must “stand up and fight back, stand up against those idealists” backing Sanders.”
http://www.nydailynews.com/new-york/clinton-calls-gun-violence-stop-westchester-article-1.2604581
If there is not internal consistency, you can’t be correct.
You are still not assured of being correct, even if there is internal consistency.
Thus, it’s essential we go outside. For example, have some Hillary voters comment here.
The statement about standing up to idealists is itself internal consistent, for those on Hillary’s side.
Probably worth it to invite Hillary supporters here, let them give their whole rationale, so we can debunk the whole thing, instead of that one statement.
that’s exactly why Hillary voters don’t comment here, and Hillary carefully controls her speaking venues. they are not interested in any other POV, and it gets tiring and sooo boring refuting. why can’t everyone just get on board already, sheesh! resistance is futile…
It’s too bad they don’t show up.
They have a good case that Sanders’ ground game is shaky (a point posted yesterday by Yves). They could throw stuff like, hey, you have nice ideals, but you have to be able to grind out results. If you can’t do it now, how can you do it later?
I’m preparing myself for his loss and just hoping he can keep things close. Personally, I hope they start concentrating on Pennsylvania. I’ve thought he would have a better chance narrowing the gap there then in NY.
I am more worried about election theft than anything else. Bernie would have won many more states where it was close, such as MA and others (and perhaps did, as in Nevada) if there were not DNC foot soldiers working against him. So much for party unity. What is happening in NY with voter registrations being changed so people can’t vote is being brought to light and fought. There are a lot of folks on Reddit and the Slack channels that I see are very hot about all of the election fraud so far, and I would not say a constitutional crisis is out of the question.
Saw it firsthand here in AZ.
In Tucson, the DNC powers-that-be were firmly in the Clinton camp. To the point where her local pre-primary HQ was INSIDE the Pima County Democratic Party HQ. Pretty cozy, huh?
Bernie had to rent office space elsewhere.
They have glommed onto Repub tactics
http://observer.com/2016/03/the-countless-failings-of-the-dnc/
Sorry to say, but I agree with MyLessThanPrimeBeef. Sanders’ ground game seems to consist of getting people to turn out for large rallies, gathering e-mail addresses, then sending exhortations to donate and phonebank.
Methinks that a political revolution needs a lot more than donors and a robocalling army.
and yet, he is still in the race :-) and closing the gap.
I read that Sanders volunteers made 3mil calls over the weekend. That’s not robocalling, it’s people making calls. I have no idea how many people Clinton called but to me 3mil sounds like a lot.
Great attitude for a leader. She may as well have said, “They’ll eat sh*t and like it, else they’ll go to bed with empty bellies.”
That would make a great bumper sticker!
Spanish banks get bailout.
Italian banks look for big bailout.
Austrian bank forces bail in.
Deutsche bank caught manipulating bullion markets.
HSBC caught manipulating again currently in bullion markets.
Swiss Bank whistleblower says Panama papers CIA op.
Neocons will force depression to boost war bubble rebound.
The only way to unite people is with 100% private carbon dividends, not doing so is a clear and present danger.
https://lokisrevengeblog.wordpress.com/2016/01/24/no-soil-water-before-100-renwable-energy/
A couple of the articles today reminded me strongly of O’s FOX interview last week. From his almost strident statement of impartiality on the part of the DoJ to the trauma of the crash still felt by many, it would appear that the talking points have gone out. Defensive.
Just the previous week in a Bloomberg article he was calling out the populist wing of the Democrats in saying that we did not want to go the way of the Teabaggers; yet another “sanctimonious purist” reference on his part. Offensive.
That makes for kind of a nice change. Not a change that we can believe in, but change nonetheless. Maybe next week we will get to see some supplicative talking points. Something to look forward to?
Clinton calls for end to gun violence at events across N.Y. ahead of primary: ‘Guns are not the answer to anything’
Except when she’s awarding weapons contracts as SoS to nation states which donate to her family’s charitable (calling it this is really being charitable) organisation. Except when she’s advocating for military intervention in states such as Iraq, Libya, Syria, etc. Except when on the campaign trail against Obama she was extolling the apple pie goodness of grandpaws teaching their little ‘uns how to shoot em straight..
Isn’t it ironic that so many liberals don’t seem to see any contradiction between calling for gun control inside our borders, while encouraging military intervention in foreign countries. Authoritarianism is not just a characteristic of the political right.
Or that conservative advocate for intervention overseas but hands off domestically. This occurred to me while and college and helped me formulate my thesis on the BS that is American politics. That and reading empire of debt by bill bonner.
Comparing the reaction, in our country, to a domestic gun-violence tragedy to daily maiming, destruction and terminating (with or without extreme prejudice) overseas, an outer space visitor can easily conclude that, on Earth, some people are more exceptional than others.
A World War Has Begun. Break the Silence.
By John Pilger
April 17, 2016
This is the country where toddlers shoot their mothers and the police wage a murderous war against black Americans. This is the country that has attacked and sought to overthrow more than 50 governments, many of them democracies, and bombed from Asia to the Middle East, causing the deaths and dispossession of millions of people.
No country can equal this systemic record of violence. Most of America’s wars (almost all of them against defenceless countries) have been launched not by Republican presidents but by liberal Democrats: Truman, Kennedy, Johnson, Carter, Clinton, Obama.
In 1947, a series of National Security Council directives described the paramount aim of American foreign policy as “a world substantially made over in [America’s] own image”. The ideology was messianic Americanism. We were all Americans. Or else. Heretics would be converted, subverted, bribed, smeared or crushed.
Donald Trump is a symptom of this, but he is also a maverick. He says the invasion of Iraq was a crime; he doesn’t want to go to war with Russia and China. The danger to the rest of us is not Trump, but Hillary Clinton. She is no maverick. She embodies the resilience and violence of a system whose vaunted “exceptionalism” is totalitarian with an occasional liberal face.
http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article44496.htm
Similarly, wealth inequality is not just domestic, but global.
And global wealth inequality is enforced with the global reserve currency.
In the name of helping the working people domestically, the government prints money, only to add to the military might, which gives the global reserve currency value…lots of value.
I love how she’s in New York talking all about guns guns guns. People should cast their votes based on gun control. Don’t listen to what Bernie Sanders says about the economy, healthcare for all and free college. Because the gun lobby is the biggest problem we need Democrats fighting for.
And as Boots Riley pointed out the other day (to utter silence on this site), any additional gun laws will be disproportionately enforced on Black Communities, just like the current drug laws are. Calls for tougher gun laws are, intentionally or not, synonymous with calls for stricter policing of Black neighborhoods, because that’s the reality of law enforcement in our country.
is it because when she talks about this in Black communities they believe it’s going to cut down on criminal’s gun violence and make their communities safer? like she really cares about all of the bystanders and neighbors getting killed by stray gunfire? when it would make more sense to start by alleviating the poverty that drives all this. she is so violent. smh
You’ve made such an excellent and important point. Same with your earlier comment re authoritarianism.
Why is it that liberals and progressives are so eager to believe in a quick fix in the future for problems proving intransigent today? It’s callow and utopian. And lazy.
And Boots Riley is great.
I think,”Liberal and Progressive” do not mean what they used to mean, or people are still calling themselves that falsely, or saying it is synonymous with “Democrat” when it certainly is not any longer, unless you put “neo” in front.
i think that’s true to some extent but then any law is going to be enforced more strictly in black communities than in society at large. that doesn’t imply we should relax all laws, however.
IIRC, I linked to Boots Riley.
‘I love how she’s in New York talking all about guns guns guns. People should cast their votes based on gun control.’
This line plays well in the urban I-95 corridor from Mass. to Maryland. But it’s utter anathema in most of the rest of the country.
Doubtless Hillary thinks she can ‘tack right’ post-convention, when she has to head out into flyover land. Sociopaths assume their personal charisma can overcome any minor factual inconsistencies.
But it’s not gonna work. Folks out there in the badlands west of the Delaware River already noticed that Hillary’s a hard-edged gun-grabber compared to Bernie Sanders, who (by necessity) represents his rural ‘Vermont carry’ state with a more nuanced approach.
“Factual inconsistencies:” The sad fact is that she is just not nearly as good a liar as Slick Willie was. He was a master. She somehow seems to think you can say different and contradictory things all the time but without (faked) affection (or, for the rest of us, irony) and people are just supposed to believe you. There is an art to it. She insults all of our intelligence(s) with her lack of lying talent/artistry.
That doesn’t mean that women can not be as good at lying as men.
It’s just that Bill is really a master at a lot of things, and she is not as good.
But make no mistake about it, running a country, negotiating with our adversaries requires deception, mis-direction, bluffing, and, people might use different terms, lying – which could be outright lying or lying by omission. Sometimes you have to do it, but the CIA should be able to handle that under normal circumstances.
my impression was that hillary was the brains in that operation but that bill was the conman slick enough to pull the heist off. she either lacks the panache or has what little is left of a conscience to stop short of saying what the plebs want to hear only to ignore them completely later. bill, or obama, have no qualms about promising something only to reneg on it completely and unapologetically.
Reuters plays the expectations game in NY:
Jonathan Allen condenses the lazy MSM coverage of the Dem race into one sentence:
“Needs”. What electoral model is this based on?
“Expectations” – whose? Names, please.
This is one article that I hope Reuters does pull.
That is the standard operation procedure for the MSM.
If one were to dissect every sentence of every coverage, everyday, on any topic, one would not have any time left.
A strong victory would certainly wound Clinton badly, if not spell the end of her campaign, overtaking Clinton inevitably, as we go down the stretch.
Is he expected, this Monday morning, to win strongly in New York? What are latest polls? Does Reuters offer them? Does anyone offer counter examples to refute Reuters? How reliable are polls? Can anyone say anything at all about the future or even just this afternoon or tomorrow?
This is the poll I got in my Bernie email this morning
Gravis Poll – New York Democratic Primary
Hillary Clinton: 53%
Bernie Sanders: 47%
That’s what people are ‘expecting.’
Winning, just barely or strongly, would be beating that particular expectation.
Still, polls are polls.
He does need a victory though, even if he doesn’t need it badly (meaning he is not mathematically eliminated losing New York).
In a sense, we all are ‘in need’ of something.
Another PE roadkill: Eastern Mountain in Bankruptcy as Shopping Habits Change
A ratio 10,000 to 1. Even by the current standards of PE asset stripping, that’s impressive.
So literally everything in these stores was bought on credit? They don’t own anything they sell, they just rent it until it is purchased by someone else? I said the other day in a post that Capitalism is a system built on credit and fractional reserves, but at times even I am staggered by just how insane the whole thing is.
James, it is very likely. I don’t know the story at EMS, but this is std in car and motorcycle dealerships, has been since I first worked in that field, in 1977, and was not new then. It was called “floor plan.” The mfgr (Chrysler, Ford, Honda, whatever) provided cars/cycles for the showroom, no charge and no interest for, say, 30 or 60 days (depended on what was being pushed and how hard), after that you should have sold them or you have to pay up.
Oh, and the point was not to make $$$ on sales, the real $$ came from parts and service. Some of the big fancy’s actually sold for below cost (even after all the dealer rebates), which was OK, the point was to get them out on the road where they could really begin to make money. Parts! Service!
Dunno how that would work out in sprts equipment, but I am sure Those Guys have an angle. Anyone know that industry?
Didn’t I see a story yesterday that sports chalet is closing all stores?
http://www.sfgate.com/news/us/article/California-based-Sport-Chalet-closing-all-its-7252867.php
2 days ago
job creators… rei is probably next I can shop there for an hour and not be able to find anything I want for the price they want me to pay…
Too bad for ems, is it just me or are kids these days not into outdoorsy stuff? In the late ’70’s we used to hitch from rochester to the adirondacks (that’s right folks imagine your 2016 teen telling the parents they’re off on a two week hitchhiking trip to to walk around in the mountains, and we did it with some regularity…) hmmm, maybe we’re going soft, where are my suspensors?
Wait do the mountains have cell coverage?
The kids I know cobble up their own equipment (as we did, back in the day). EMS is for their parents, or the 20% who buy the ‘best’ gear and don’t know how to use it. YMMV.
REI and EMS were expensive back in the day. I seldom shopped at either store, yet I managed to have all kinds of outdoor adventures.
They still are………
overpriced faux tony camping trinkets !!
“Psst…….Hey plebs” ……..You too can camp just like an upper crust Seattlelite !!
Nice, Clinton’s delegate lead cut to 194. Certainly not insurmountable. Go Bernie !
http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2016/apr/17/free-trade-protectionism-europe-tata
this is probably the most despicable, apoplepsy-inducing thing i’ve read in a long time. From the initial conflation of trade with trade treaties to the conclusion of “eat your cat food or die”
mind you, i don’t read krugman.
Vidimi, seems that my system has become so saturated with outrage that I crave at least one “despicable, apoplepsy-inducing” article before breakfast each morning. The sorrow is that there is so much to choose from.
i find it helps to drink a double espesso while reading.
you have a stronger constitution than i do. that Alex St John editorial posted by RangerRick below also gave me palpitations but the corresponding takedown made it better.
http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2016/apr/15/john-kasich-rape-comments-parties-alcohol-women
“Today Ohio Republican governor John Kasich presented a “solution” to sexual violence that is more flawed than his losing presidential campaign. At a town hall in Watertown, New York, he told a female college student that to avoid “sexual violence, harassment and rape” she should not “go to parties where there’s a lot of alcohol”…
You’ve heard the rape myths before: women are raped because they show cleavage, drink too many coolers or twirl their hair flirtatiously at fraternity houses… Any woman who has walked down a street is more than familiar with harassment.
… rape is the only crime for which we blame the victim. We do not tell someone who was hit by a drunk driver that they should not have been on the road. We do not tell someone who gets shot that they should not have left the house. Why can Republican men understand this logic in scenarios that might affect their own safety, but not when it’s applied to female victims?”
Please considering sending the above to anyone you know who regards Kasich as “a Republican I could vote for.”
/Carla
i call bs on that. pretty much everything the banksters did was the fault of irresponsible borrowers if you listen to most democratically-aligned pundits. or any police shooting, it’s always the victim’s fault. in general, whenever the powerful brutalise the weak, it’s the weak’s fault.
as per kasich’s statement, i’m going to play devil’s advocate, but what was the background to it? the article doesn’t say what it was a response to, but if the question was something loaded like “what can a woman do to ensure she doesn’t get raped” then all of a sudden his suggestion of staying away from potential rapists sounds more like solid advice than blaming the victim.
It was a young girl college aged that asked almost verbatim what you said.
I’d add though that “staying away from potential rapists” is a loaded answer. Many rape victims know their assailants. You’d essentially have to stay away from the male species. Furthermore, I don’t see people like Kasich suggesting that men instead of women change their behavior.
A good portion of the problem is that our society encourages young men to behave promiscuously and has a “boys will be boys” mentality. If males were shamed in the same way women are for having sex we wouldn’t even be having this discussion. However, it seems any excuse is a good excuse to mac on women. If she’s drinking then she must have been asking for it. If she wore a short skirt then she must have been asking for it. If she slept with someone before sex with her rapist then she must have been asking for it. There doesn’t seem to be any ongoing conversation on male behavior. Something that goes along the lines of no means no, not maybe and certainly not yes and it’s inappropriate to treat women like sex toys to gratify your needs, they are living breathing human beings and if you don’t treat them as such it can result in consequences.
The male half of the species sees sex as consequence free and society as a large seems to endorse that viewpoint.
C’mon, cwaltz, they are not all like that. I believe you are married to one (as am I) and parent of one or more? I have not had to deal with this issue personally, although I attended more than one (ahem) frat party that involved alcohol back in the day. Mind you, that was when sex was still pulled by horses.
I think that the problem here is what Yves said in the Credentials thread: “This is not about ethics. This is about norms.”
Specifically here, this would be about what norms are enforced. And again, the Gresham’s Dynamic that Bill Black talks about is in play here. What do the ‘good’ guys think when the ‘bad’ guys get away with it? How can ‘good’ girls just tell them to piss up a rope?
I am indeed married to one(a good one at that.) However, he’ll freely admit that prior to marriage he could be a pig when it came to women and sex.(He’ll even agree that the term male slut applies.)He freely admits he slept with a girl that he didn’t even like…..because ….BJ. I don’t even want to discuss some of the things he did in places where prostitution is legal because he could. As a human being I was appalled that he could treat my half of the species so poorly(and yes he’s been told exactly that.)
I do indeed have male children and they have been taught that they had better never use the excuse of drinking with me. My solution to people who do things drunk that they wouldn’t do sober is, don’t drink ,whether male or female(I have a daughter too and like Global I’ve had to teach her that there are members of the male species who find it perfectly acceptable to lie, cheat and in general behave horribly when it comes to their desire to get laid drunk and stone cold sober.). Then again, I’m the child of an alcoholic, so the excuse making involving alcohol left the building for me AGES ago. I also taught them to treat people like people. A woman isn’t merely an object, she’s a whole entire person. She’s got thoughts, opinions, hopes, dreams and a whole entire history that occurred before you met her. Those things shouldn’t be ignored simply because you might want to get laid. They aren’t dogs that need to hump every leg. They have impulse control.
I will, however, in deference to the males I haven’t met, amend my statement to ….the men I have met seem to be under the misassumption that sex, for them, should be consequence free(simply because they can’t get pregnant.) There’s a whole cadre of males that seem to be surprised when they end up being accused of rape or end up owing child support when they unexpectedly become a baby daddy. That kind of stuff could be avoided if people actually vetted who they become intimate with and went a little bit further than, “she’s hot” when determining who and who not to be with. I’m certain the male half of the species can be as discerning as females are expected to be. It’s just a matter of thinking with the big brain instead of the small one.
I seem to resemble your husband. In defense of our days of being male pigs, we were young, hormone laden, and hadn’t met the love of our lives. Or, in my case, I had met her, dated her, broken her heart to the point of her hating my guts, only for her to put her hate aside years later and help pull me out of the abyss of post-deployment funk. How could I possibly not be a soft, cuddly, loving, and considerate male teddy bear for my lady in shining armor after all that???
God has a sense of humor. As I’ve pointed out, we’ve got a daughter. Now he gets to worry that guys won’t treat HIS princess as a princess.
For the record, women have hormones too. They aren’t a defense for bad behavior. ;)
i agree with your points. society has double standards about sex for women and men. i don’t believe men should be shamed for having sex like women are, but that women shouldn’t be shamed for having said. however, the former is more likely to lower instances of rape than the latter.
men should be shamed for rape. sure, being branded a rapist could be devastating like that kevin spacey movie showed, but it doesn’t seem to play out like that usually.
agreed that there should be more discussion about male, especially frat boy, behaviour. too much is just brushed off as “boys will be boys”. varsity athletes enjoy the most impunity. that needs to stop.
but none of that changes the fact that men are dangers to women.
some times obviously the victim is blamed in other scenarios. If you get killed wandering a dangerous neighborhood at night (regardless of gender) you will be blamed. But not going to parties with alcohol is a much greater restriction on most people’s lives.
… rape is the only crime for which we blame the victim.
Sorry, I have full empathy, but no, that is not quite true.
Almost anyone gunned down by the cops is blamed for their death, innocent or not.
If you follow NC regularly, then you know many who lost their homes in the property bubble were blamed. It was their fault, not the bankers. Even if it was a paper error by the bankers and the owners made their payments, the owners were guilty until and if they were lucky and wealthy enough to hang on until proven innocent. The bankers even got to keep their bonuses.
Although we think of China as being barbaric, by their rules any automobile driver who hits a pedestrian, no matter what happened, is at fault. Most pedestrians injured/killed by cars are considered at fault in the USA, unless there is very clear evidence to the contrary.
What this points out is like rape victims, like the others, come from the group considered to have less power or money. Rape is about power, and so is the retribution on the rape victim afterwards, how dare she/he make me feel bad.
Women have it bad, minorities have it bad, and minority women just about have it the worst. (well, probably minority transgender have it worst of all, except for maybe Laotians, Vietnamese, and other people who are still digging themselves out of the hole we bombed them into, then filled the hole with Furan/Dioxin laced Agent Orange. Though it’s true we don’t blame because we don’t even stop long enough to think about them, much less get worked up about blaming them).
More to the point, I think: victims of domestic violence are similar to rape victims. As feminists have clearly demonstrated, the motivation of males in rape crimes is power domination, not sex.
Kasich is, unfortunately, not wrong from a practical sense. (Morally, sure, rape is a crime committed by men for which they are solely responsible). But if you listen to any college or university’s freshman orientation you will hear a segment urging young coeds not to drink to excess, esp. at parties where everyone else may be inebriated. The simple fact is, women want to be able to go out and do whatever they want (which is their right) without fear of being taken advantage of in any way, which is totally unrealistic. If a woman wants to be safe, she has to take some responsibility for her own actions. I’ve known young women who are very careful where they park or walk at night, but will get absolutely blitzed at a party full of guys, whether in a frat house or on spring break.
Some women will, unfortunately, fall victim to sexual assault (not to mention daily harassment) through no fault of their own and simply because of their gender. Likewise, some people will have their cars stolen or their homes burglarized no matter what precautions they take. However, if you leave your car or house unlocked, you’re just making it easier, in some way more inviting, for the criminal.
My niece just turned 21. She drinks a little at parties but makes sure not to get too drunk. Her brother, who is 19 and a strapping lad of 6’4″ and 200 pounds, has had to come to the aid of several young women (even back in high school) before they could be assaulted. (Or, at least, before the assault could be completely carried out.) Sadly, many women will find themselves too drunk to defend themselves and there won’t be someone like my nephew around to intervene. It’s unfortunate, but it’s life. The question each woman has to ask herself is: Is getting drunk at this party worth the risk of being raped?
I can see you all there, saws in hand. But I’m going out on this limb anyway.
This is correct. But only if you flip the message. Men are rapists. That’s the message.
It’s no more safe to get drunk around a bunch of guys or go home drunk with one than it is to climb into the lion’s enclosure at the zoo. Men have to be presumed to be dangerous. Because they have proven themselves to be. Period.
Sad, I know. But true. And that’s what I would teach my daughter.
It IS sad.
Our society should teach our young men that we expect more from them and that we aren’t going to make excuses for their bad behavior. The alcohol made me do it is not an excuse and it certainly shouldn’t be yet another requirement we place on young women in order to ensure their safety.
Agreed, cwaltz. I was proud of the U of O students who made the anti-rape video, “A Needed Response.” It’s outrageous that it’s so unusual not to blame the women for being raped.
Agreed, cwaltz. I was proud of the U of O students who made the anti-rape video, “A Needed Response.” It’s outrageous that it’s so unusual not to blame the women for being raped.
also, the danger of a rufie having been slipped into a drink someone brings to you. you can go to a party and be moderate, but you’d better never lose sight of your drink or accept one you did not make or open yourself.
Kasich also said that he has two 16-year-old daughters, and this concern keeps him up at night. He was answering a question from a coed asking what kasich would do to keep women safe on campuses.
Perhaps he should emulate Trump’s parenting style. None of the Donald’s four adult children drinks alcohol or smokes, something that, according to them, their parents emphasized daily. If Kasich had parented his children as responsibly as the hitler-satan Donald did, he could sleep much easier.
‘what kasich would do to keep women safe on campuses’
The question assumes that the president is some kind of glorified alderman / night watchman, in charge of patrolling every campus in America.
An honest answer would be ‘it’s not my job.’ But Kasich dare not say that, now that brainwashed Americans expect the president to walk them home, tuck them into bed at night, and leave a chocolate bonbon under their pillow.
If we expect president Kasich to walk us home, we are not more secure in any way.
He’s not Arnold Schwarzenegger.
We won’t complain, though, if his secret service agents walk us home.
Or just monitor it, and notify 911 as long as we are mugged, walking alone in Central Park at night.
“Dont’ walk along at night in central park.”
“Why are you telling me that? Are you trying to blame me, the would-be victim, before it happens?”
“No, but I merely suggest it because you’re a four-eyed weak little, non-weigh-lifting man, who just got paid tonight.”
“So, you wouldn’t say that to a woman, but you would say it to me because I am a man?”
“Yes. I don’t tell women what to do.”
Damn. I really like finding bonbons under my pillow. Even the Tooth Fairy only left me a quarter.
I don’t smoke and taught all my children that smoking is a harmful and expensive habit(There dad does smoke so they know the financial costs of a $5 a pack habit.)
Despite that I have a 22 year old daughter that smokes. Just because we teach a child something doesn’t mean they’ll learn it the easy way.
maybe if you had millions in your will or in the trust fund and threatened to cut them off …
Surely by now she’s gotten a “small loan” of several million(with inflation his girls couldn’t just need a million dollar loan like Donald did back in the 60s) from her dad to start her own empire.
Yeah, that’s tough. I figure that they started smoking for the same reasons I/we started, and they will quit for the same reasons we quit.
Don’t tell, but suggest.
I suggest organic foods, mostly vegetarian.
And avoid alcohol or be moderate in your wine-drinking. It’s a suggestion.
Also exercise is good. Don’t sit around all day, I would suggest.
So, yeah, don’t drink too much, man or woman – let’s call it an advice. Let’s not say ‘we are telling you.’
Would suggest focusing more on the vegetables part, and less on the organic. Insofar as the question has been researched, it turns out that eating more vegetables always beats eating less (and the fewer animal products you eat, the better it is for your health.)
OilPrice. The Silk Road progress. China probably found that without jobs and in the middle of social uprisings and uncontrolled pollution that it’s not easy to bribe and control enough consumers to maintain an economy. Whereas the Silk Road is a different story. Everything China does is big, so why not connect the world? They have to do something big to offset the depreciation of the yuan, right? Toward the end of the article, Oilprice mentioned China’s worldwide grid plan. And also mentioned the wind turbines at the North Pole. It’s this windfarm in the Arctic that makes me uneasy. Since China never does anything small, we can assume it will be a gargantuan thing. And I keep wondering, How many windmills will it take to literally stop the wind? Betcha China can do it.
NY AG to staff hotline for Primary Day polling problems.
Chelsea will be visiting Seneca Falls today(ugh gag me with a spoon), and BC will be visiting Rochester today(“This is the second time former President Clinton will be visiting Rochester in less than two weeks. Clinton and Governor Andrew Cuomo will kick off a phone bank for Hillary in downtown Rochester Monday at 2 p.m. It’s taking place at 1150 University Avenue, Building 5. “)
Here is another article from the local paper about it all.
If they are sending those two upstate along with Cuomo and Hochul, the campaign is really sweating it.
That seems to say they are not on the defensive in New York city itself.
A collapsing empire usually pull their legions back from the peripheral areas to defend the core.
Whether they are on the offensive or defensive in outlying regions, such as upstate Rochester, maybe someone can offer more battlefield intelligence.
My bad. Good point. Cheers. It just..seemed familiar to what happened in NH.
Hard enough job dodging protesters with just Hillary.
It might be sending the two high risk mouths of the screen and into primarily white areas where run ins with BLM protesters are going to stick out like a sore thumb, and thus be easily dodged/controlled. Bill is going to blow his dog whistle where the audience hearing is more appreciative, while Chelsey panders to the Stepford wives.
upstate NY still remembers all the stinking lies Hillary told them when she was running for Senator. It is truly grim up there, and a lot of people are hanging by a thread, and homeowners unwilling and unable to fix their homes because the RE taxes would just go up more. There is a lot of Bernie support in Plattsburgh, where a friend and I canvassed.
How is the foreclosure situation in upstate New York?
Pensions are the result of a labor movement of 80 years ago that succeeded in extracting the ability to get some of those rents back from the rentiers. Kinda of classic demagoguery to now use pensioners as a deflection of class analysis. “All you folks complaining about your pensions are the 1% too.” seems to be the gist of this deflection.
Next time, the labor movement, and it will gain power again at some point, might not be so gentle as to just agree to go back to work for increases in pay deferred to a retirement pension. Labor now knows how that “concession” plays out.
I believe we need one Single Payer Pension for all.
And if he government taxing corporations is considered as a dependence on corporations extracting rents, at least it’s the government taxing to benefit every citizen.
Then, in that case, one Single Payer Pension’s returns from investing in corporations are not different from the government taxing corporations – they are all done to benefit all retired citizens.
If you were mildly curious how labor relations stand in the video game industry, this is illustrative. The response has been incredulous.
Yikes. I wonder what prompted that diatribe
Great links, thanks!
Fear cuts deeper than swords. Martin, A Game of Thrones
removing kid from plane for speaking Arabic…
(we’re doomed or the least southwest is)
http://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2016/apr/17/nude-donald-trump-painting-illma-gore-lawsuits
I wouldn’t want this on my wall even if it’s worth a million British pounds.
“Obama to decide on declassifying 9/11 documents within 60 days.”
In other words, after the primary elections.
That way the power structure has a better chance of electing Miss “It’s MY TURN!”.
Uh huh. Got it.
‘Golden Girl Showers For All’
That’s a laser-guided bet.
The intention is based on the assumptions that the declassification will not hurt a long time politician (who has been around since before 2000), and will hurt someone like Trump, who is not likely to be connected to those documents – so that, ‘the power structure has a better chance of electing Miss ‘It’s MY TURN.”
I doubt that bet pays off, and I also doubt that is his intention.
That leaves the possibility that he wants Trump to win.
Again, doubtful.
So, this could be 12 dimensional chess, since it can’t be explained rationally in 11 dimensions.
http://www.msn.com/en-us/news/world/polio-vaccine-%e2%80%98switch%e2%80%99-is-not-without-risks/ar-BBrSYQI?li=BBnbfcL
This was interesting.
It’s also interesting because I remember a couple of years ago there was a virus that had polio like symptoms that was occurring despite the fact the kids in question were vaccinated.
Aside from the horse-race strategy stuff, the Vatican speech is interesting as a bog standard US state response to a very influential human rights organization. In Vatican doctrine, what they call “the means of life” (economic, social, and cultural rights) is as much a part of doctrine as the right to life. So the Vatican is in full accord with the current international consensus on what states must do to earn their sovereignty, including:
http://religionhumanrights.com/Law/ICESCR/Ratification/ushr.ratification.mean.htm
At the Vatican Sanders mentions the long-gone American tradition of labor rights, but his only other mention of rights is the right of ‘control’ (Hint: there is no such thing. States don’t have rights,* they bear duties.)
It’s remarkable. Sanders’ human rights record shows good intentions, but it sounds as if he can’t come out and say what he’s trying to do. The pattern is similar to his foreign policy statements, which tend to be sensible ideas couched in boilerplate psycho war propaganda. Sanders is on the Congressional Human Rights Caucus, famous mainly for getting suckered by Hill & Knowlton’s “Saddam’s dumping babies out of incubators!!!!” con. Collectively they are unclear on the concept, which makes them useful idiots for CIA vilification campaigns but shitty advocates for comprehensive reform. Sanders is way better than the stupidest guys in that caucus but he’s extraordinarily cautious. Even FDR acknowledged economic rights.
* except for self-defense, subject to UNSC authority and obligations of international humanitarian law
The MOA Benghazi piece.
I find myself in the odd position of defending HRC on the specific matter of the video.
What she said was: “Some have sought to justify this vicious behavior as a response to inflammatory material posted on the Internet.”
What some insist on hearing is that she herself claimed that as the motive.
But the words just don’t say that.