Sri Lankan navy saves elephant from the sea The Star
Whale Strikes and Kills Canadian Rescuer After He Helps Free It NYT (RM). :-(
‘Critter cams’ help NC residents – and scientists – learn what’s creeping around News & Observer
The post box in Bermuda numbered 666 which receives Google profits worth £8BILLION a year Daily Mail
Fed chair Yellen gives succour to inflation doves FT
One-eyed man Reuters. Gary Cohn at the Fed?
The New Abnormal in Monetary Policy Nouriel Roubini, Project Syndicate
Rooftop Solar Is No Match for Crony Capitalism Bloomberg (Re Silc).
Brazil’s ex-President Lula convicted of corruption BBC
Syraqistan
Secret Details of Trump-Putin Syria Cease-fire Focus on Iranian Proxies Foreign Policy
US and Qatar broker counterterrorism agreement CNN (Furzy Mouse).
Top U.S. diplomat ends talks in Gulf; no sign Qatar crisis resolved Reuters
Saudi Arabia exports extremism to many countries – including Germany, study says Deutsche Welle
Why Europe needs more migrants The Economist
EU regulators clamp down on social media searches on job applicants FT
Brexit
Five examples of Britain’s ‘chocolate orange’ Brexit strategy Guardian. “Now the head of the UK’s public spending watchdog, the National Audit Office, has issued a remarkable criticism of the government on the subject. Amyas Morse said that he had seen no ministerial plan to push through the necessary legal and statutory changes for the UK to leave the EU. ‘We have an issue there because we have departmental government,’ he said. ‘What we don’t want to find is that at the first tap it falls apart like a chocolate orange.'”
Labour threat to defeat Theresa May over Brexit bill Guardian
Brexit: EU negotiator Barnier firm on citizens’ rights EU
Brexit: Irish business leaders warn of ‘calamitous divorce’ BBC
EU wants legal jurisdiction over UK to last for years after Brexit The Telegraph
Richard Smith: Trial balloon from an expendable ex-MEP. Step change in the mood music though:
Wednesday's front page of The Herald pic.twitter.com/lYLYcF1lm4
— HeraldScotland (@heraldscotland) July 11, 2017
North Korea
China rejects ‘responsibility theory’ on North Korea Asian Correspondent
North Korea weighing a return to talks as missile launch boosts its bargaining power, US nuclear expert says South China Morning Post
Asian VC funding outpaces US for the first time FT
New Cold War
Throwing a Curveball at ‘Intelligence Community Consensus’ on Russia Scott Ritter, The American Conservative. Must-read.
Exclusive: Trump says he does not fault son for meeting Russian lawyer Reuters
This isn’t Watergate. This isn’t treason. And there’s still no smoking gun vs. The Trump Jr. emails are a turning point in the Russia scandal The Week
What the Election-Law Camp Is Saying About Donald Trump Jr.’s Emails Law.com. Good wrap-up.
Timeline of Trump Family Comments on Russia Since June 2016 WSJ
Trump’s Low-Level Russian Connection Bloomberg. I wonder if we’ve got any Russia hands who could chime in on this and the next two…
The Donald Trump Jr. Scandal Is Straight Out of 1990s Moscow Foreign Policy
Who is Natalia Veselnitskaya, the Russian lawyer who met with Donald Trump Jr.? ABC
Trump-Russia investigators probe Jared Kushner-run digital operation McClatchy
Donald Trump has had no trouble getting big loans at competitive rates Francine McKenna, MarketWatch. A bit dated but still useful: Cleans up the talking point that Trump had to turn to the Russkis for money; obviously he didn’t.
* * * Democrats introduce new bill on Russia and Iran sanctions Reuters
How Russian Rule Has Changed Crimea Foreign Affairs
Exclusive: Russia appears to deliver more turbines to Crimea – Reuters witnesses Reuters. Crimea apparently coming up on the charts…
Kaspersky Lab Has Been Working With Russian Intelligence Bloomberg (Bill B). Bill B: “Government front men like to paint their state-sponsored actors as stalwart operators, hacking pro aris et focis. Yet this prosaic good-versus-bad narrative translates into ‘drunken brawl’ once readers have left the editor’s office at the New York Times and step out into reality. The truth is messy. With operators leaking tools, switching sides when it’s convenient, prevaricating, bragging, and generally looking out for the bottom line.”
Trump Transition
Trump’s expected pick for wage chief sued for stiffing house cleaners Reveal
5 ways the Trump administration is undoing Obama’s student loan legacy MarketWatch
Transcript of Reuters interview with EPA Administrator Scott Pruitt Reuters
Trump crafting plan to slash legal immigration Politico
White House’s dwindling science office leaves major research programmes in limbo Nature
Trump Administration Moves to Dismantle Obama’s ‘Startup Visa’ Rule WSJ
The Age of Detesting Trump LRB. Suitably jaundiced.
Ending the Ronald Reagan Lie Jeffrey Sachs, Common Dreams
Democrats in Disarray
Say No to Centrism Salon
Republicans and Democrats Continue to Block Drug Reimportation – After Publicly Endorsing It Matt Taibbi, Rolling Stone
Health Care
Don’t Leave Health Care to a Free Market NYT
Senate moderates sidelined in new Obamacare repeal bill Politico
The Coalition Pushing for Single Payer in California Is Fracturing David Dayen, The Intercept
Our Famously Free Press
‘A general atmosphere of ambient dread’: Text journalists fear (and resent) The Great Pivot to Video Digiday. Owners with bright ideas…
Done deal: Eisendrath beats tronc to buy Sun-Times, Reader Robert Feder (Alex). “Eisendrath and a coalition of labor unions and individual investors closed on the purchase of the daily Sun-Times and the alternative weekly Chicago Reader.”
Germany: Social Media Platforms to Be Held Accountable for Hosted Content Under “Facebook Act” Global Legal Monitor
Class Warfare
The unhappiness of the US working class IZA World of Labor. Pretty anodyne, but at least Brookings picked it up…
What labor department developments mean for employers Hotel News Notes. Browning-Ferris and classifying independent contractors.
On Matthew Effects Stumbling and Mumbling
When Feeling Good is Bad Grass Roots Economic Organizing. Important.
Let’s talk about sex robots Nature. The limit case for automating emotional labor.
Out of this World Santa Fe Reporter. “Santa Fe Institute launches an InterPlanetary Project with galactic ambitions.” Wait ’til they run into the alien quarantine.
How loneliness in older people makes them more vulnerable to financial scammers The Conversation
Could a text become your will? The plans to revolutionise ‘outdated’ legacy system Telegraph. What could go wrong?
Low-cost smart glove wirelessly translates the American Sign Language alphabet into text Phys.org (CL).
The Return of Monopoly Matt Stoller, The New Republic
Antidote du jour:
See yesterday’s Links and Antidote du Jour here.
143 comments
Comments are closed.
I felt so sad for that fisherman and his family. It is an incredibly dangerous job. I hope people remember him for the effort to free that whale though now he may be used as a reason to avoid rescuing any animal. I guess it’s obvious but I am realizing rescuing creatures on the high seas is particularly dangerous. I guess the alternative for them would have been to release the entire net and let the whale drown. Poor man.
Nature isn’t Disney.
But that delightful antidote sure reminds me of something from Studio Gibli :-)
My first thought was synchronized swimmers without the makeup! Those seals do look good (I do love me some Totoro but I think it is not that fond of water)
The Economist link is not working.
Fixed, thanks.
I googled Ilan Berman, who wrote the piece on Russian human rights violations in Crimea ( most of which I couldn’t read as it is behind a aywall).
Anyway, whatever the truth about Crimea, Berman looks like another think tank denizen who makes his living warning about the evil foreigners. Can’t have a decent military industrial complex without enemies.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ilan_Berman
It’s a love-hate relationship when it comes to those evil foreigners.
Hate when they are out there abroad, but love when they are here on H1B visas.
Or when they are willing to work for less than minimum wage and won’t complain about work conditions…..
The scathing human rights study he seems to be promoting comes from Kiev so no more objective than the Russian version of what is going on. If the Ukraine government automatically deserves the benefit of a doubt then so does Russia with the converse also being true. Undoubtedly some Crimeans are leaving but so what? Perhaps more interesting that they can leave–a courtesy the Ukrainians aren’t extending to the eastern separatists.
So yes just more noise from the Blob.
I know plenty of people from Crimea.
All are thrilled to see the backside of Kiev.
I don’t like getting two random signals on Crimea at the same time in the places I frequent. If I keep getting them, I’m going to conclude the signals aren’t random, and given the war fever in the Beltway, that’s concerning.
Kiev has been pumping out non-credible anti-russian propaganda for years now, but the US media suck it up as if it were gospel. Kiev succeeded with the MH17 false flag, and are likely behind the whole Trump campaign collusion thing.
Related, Novorussian sources have been warning for some time that an “anti-terrorist” campaign was planned for this summer. Basurin yesterday suggested a false flag is planned.
More Cowardly Behavior By The Poroshenko Regime Of Ukraine, Planning To Bomb Kiev Junta Controlled Towns of Krasnogorovka And Avdeevka And Blame DPR Forces
While Novorussia Today is hardly unbiased, reporting of Basurin’s comments is quite credible.
Nazi Ukrainian army plans to stage new provocations by shelling Kiev-controlled towns of Krasnogorovka and Avdeyevka, and blame DPR armed forces for the strikes, DPR Operations Command deputy commander Eduard Basurin said on Thursday.
“According to our intelligence ’ information, the headquarters of so-called “anti-terrorist operation” ordered the commanders of 72nd and 92nd separate motorised infantry brigades to prepare and carry out provocative shelling of Krasnogorovka and Avdeyevka,” Basurin said.
A group of Ukrainian journalists has arrived in the zone for this cowardly operation preparing this ugly propaganda with the view of showing the world the strikes allegedly delivered from DPR positions, he said.
Earlier, Nazi Ukrainian army units on a number of occasions shelled their own positions in Kiev-controlled frontline towns and villages in Donbass. The Republic’s Operations Command called these moves a ploy to disrupt the Minsk Agreements and launch a new round of fighting in the region.
Ukraine and its backers are emulating the strategy that worked so well in Syria.
Re: debunking the “Intelligence Community Consensus”
I tend to read really long articles only when they challenge my current opinions, or a belief I hold dear.
Since I learned to mistrust anything our “Intelligence Community” has put forth since the late ’60’s, I was 2 paragraphs in before “same as it ever was, same as it ever was” sprung to mind, and I moved on to looking for any articles that might show Elon Musk to have any redeeming value to our multiverse.
I was disappointed with the results, but I did fill my run-on sentence quota for the day!
The good news, for Elon, is two brand new Space Alien Private Equity Investment Bankers showed up and are interested in buying out all of Elon’s business lines at a whopping 30% over present market value!
See the “Antidote” for the Facebook evidence posted by NASA Economic Scientists.
Ivanka has been secretly in contact with them, sending e-mails since the 80s, and recently has also been discussing a side deal to sell them the USA for a good price!
You should send that idea to John Scalzi. Aliens use Tesla as front for galactic money laundering and eventual takeover of Earth. 200 pages of pulp fun.
Scalzi is one of my fav authors! Old Man’s War is a classic! Reminds me of R care. Join the Space MIC in your old age and they give you a new super soldier body. Survive your 10 year tour of duty fighting 4000 races of advanced, angry, and terrifying space aliens, and then they give you a brand new civilian body!
It’s like asking Congress for health care!
Which book are you referring too? I haven’t got to all his recent novels yet.
My take after reading all the links on the Don Jr. firestorm: whether it brings down the Trump White House or not (probably not, or not yet) it will hasten the removal of all Trump family members from positions of power in the administration, which is 100% a good thing.
Removing a sitting president from office without actual evidence of actual crimes-this I am not comfortable with. Removing his idiot family members from power-this is a step in the right direction whatever comes next.
The underlying problem is not the lack of ethics or intelligence of Trump family members. It’s that no one with any integrity or intelligence will accept a position with this Administration. It would be their last job in government if they did, so they don’t. Even people left behind by the previous Administration are leaving in order to protect their careers.
Job counselors are even advising people to remove every capital “T” from their resume — it triggers any HR people who see it.
Trump can’t get anyone worth having. He’s even putting Fox News out of business.
> Job counselors are even advising people to remove every capital “T” from their resume
Link, please.
Sorry, anonymous intelligent officials at USAjobs.gov
At a conference today I heard Raymond Starling, Special Assistant to the President for Agriculture, Trade and food assistance speak. I don’t know his background but I was impressed with him. The guy sitting next to me also thought he came across well. At USDA, Sonny Perdue also appears to be finding favor as the Secretary.
At a conference today I heard Ramond Starling, Special Assistant to the President for Agriculture, Trade and food assistance. I don’t know his background but I was impressed with him. The gut sitting next to me also thought h came across well. At USDA, Sonny Perdue also appears to be finding favor as the Secretary.
Trump Jr. has an official position?
Here is an interesting take on Don Jr. as Sherman McCoy – Sub-Master of the Universe: https://www.yahoo.com/news/donald-trump-jr-sub-master-universe-090031185.html
Are the mini-Trumps capable of learning, or will they remain oblivious to everything but money? Or will their past obliviousness be the gift that keeps on giving so that shoes keep falling off the centipede as John McCain predicts, so that Don Jr. and Jared Kushner never get to learn anything but how to write checks to lawyers?
I think it’s useful to think of Trump, and I suppose the Trump family as a whole, as a catalyst. That is, although they facilitate and intensify reactions/processes, they themselves remain unchanged.
So, yes, they will learn nothing. And, yes, volatility will continue.
RE: Who is Natalia Veselnitskaya, the Russian lawyer who met with Donald Trump Jr.? ABC
Not very elucidating. There is much juicier stuff at The Hill:
http://thehill.com/homenews/administration/341788-exclusive-doj-let-russian-lawyer-into-us-before-she-met-with-trump
The Moscow lawyer had been turned down for a visa to enter the U.S. lawfully but then was granted special immigration parole by then-Attorney General Loretta Lynch for the limited purpose of helping a company owned by Russian businessman Denis Katsyv, her client, defend itself against a Justice Department asset forfeiture case in federal court in New York City.
“Special immigration parole.” Loretta Lynch. Hmm…..
And I’m sure Vesel… was quite a help to her client in an american court–apparently she speaks no English. Many americans who do speak English as their first language can’t make heads or tails of american legalese.
Her immigration parole ended in January, 2016, but she was seen about town months after that including on June 14 when ” she appeared in the front row of a hearing chaired by House Foreign Affairs Committee Chairman Ed Royce (R-Calif.), sitting right behind a former U.S. ambassador who testified on the future of U.S-Russia policy.”
The former ambassador, michael mcfaul, is a Russia-hater who is a regular on msnbs, brought in to bash Putin and trash any hint by Trump of improved relations with Russia. Many internet eyebrows are being raised about Vesel….’s appearance at this hearing. Russian agents in the halls of congress is surely some kind of treasonous violation, wouldn’t you think?
As for the film about the Magnitsky affair, Robert Parry provided his take in a link yesterday which was far more in depth than anything else I’ve heard so far.
https://consortiumnews.com/2017/07/10/forgetting-the-dirty-dossier-on-trump/
This could get interesting.
Applying the ‘when you have been seen with Russians, you must recuse yourself’ logic, those House members who were there that day with her must now recuse themselves from any future investigations.
That rule applies only when you are doing something that the Establishment does not approve of.
For instance, receiving a generous contribution from a Russian to the Clinton Foundation from a Russian would be just peachy.
if you want to get conspiratorial/cui bono it does smell like Trump was set up with a Russian meeting. —which would allow grounds for a FISA wiretapping warrant of Trump Jr.
Which would be a fruitless idea anyway as the running prudent assumption should be you’re wiretapped 24/7 by someone, particularly if you’re prominent.
More here
http://www.independent.co.uk/News/world/americas/us-politics/trump-jr-russian-lawyer-steele-dossier-natalia-veselnitskaya-gps-fusion-a7834541.html
Clearly what’s going on with Russia and its oligarchs is a thorny thicket as shown by the Magnitsky affair. The real question is why the US Congress thinks any of this is its business.
How is treason involved? Do you know the definition of treason? I don’t think you can claim treason unless the country involved is at war with us. Are we at war with Russia? I missed the memo.
This can’t be military-related or of military-origin, can it, as those critters could be, er, drone critters ready to attack our freedoms?
Re: the article on the unhappiness of the U.S. working class I hate to sound like a broken record but again the technological change argument is brought up. If technology and not deliberate policy was really at fault you would be seeing similar working-class collapses in other industrialized countries but you simply aren’t, or at least not to the extent as is occurring in this country. Is the United States the only country using the latest in industrial technology? Are German factories run on primitive technology?
Pro-corporate trade deals, union busting, the Fed’s interest rate policy and government austerity policies all explain the woes of the working class much better than technological change. Productivity growth has actually been slow in recent years and you still see plenty of people working in low-productivity jobs precisely because it is cheaper to hire low-wage labor than invest in more technology. When factories moved to China and Mexico they weren’t going there because of Chinese and Mexican robots, they were going there because of how cheap and powerless labor was(is) in those countries. The same thing happened within the United States where we had our own race to the bottom between the Rust Belt and the Sun Belt.
Too much emphasis on technology leads people to neglect other issues that are usually related to politics and policy and reinforces the TINA narrative because most people don’t want to take the Luddite position and say that technological progress is bad and must be stopped. People are buying into the narrative that nothing could have prevented the immiseration of the working class and that it was the fault of working people for not “getting with the times” and obtaining the right credentials. Thus politicians, business leaders and economists are off the hook. Don’t blame us, blame the robots!
The unhappiness of the working class…and Americans in general, including teenagers.
In 1976, it was ‘I am mad as h*ll, and I am not going to take it anymore.”
Here, we are, 41 years later, after ‘not going to take it anymore.’
And in many ways, life in 1976 seemed like life today, only not as bad…in the sense that wealthy inequality was still working its exponential way through the economy.
But, but, but…..we are educating more and more students to push the right keys on the computer – isn’t that making them more technological? Or is it making them technology pawns……
He who controls gets the benefits – and that is the same with technology…….we keep forgetting that and expecting the people who control the technology to “take care of us” – they never will. If we don’t want to be pawns, then we must controllers…..and that means EVERYONE getting to understand technology first AND being the ones to make the decisions about it….it’s a matter of survival…..
I heard someone on TV say that technology is the new “hunter-gatherer” economy – I’m thinking it is time for civilization to again advance past that “hunter-gatherer” phase into technology farming and society building…..
The way democracy works, really, is that any time the people want to, they can vote themselves more money, more safety net, and more perks. A living minimum wage, free college, national health care, a 90% tax on all incomes over $10 million a year, stuff like that. Only elect people who work for the common good, and remind elected employees constantly that we, the people can shut down the whole country unless and until we get what we want. It’s our country, and we want it handled this way. Why? Because we said so. We choose this.
This is the key idea of either a democracy or a republic. Elected officials are employed at the voters’ pleasure, and day to day, to put a fine point on it. You let us down, we recall or impeach you, and then you get arrested.
That’s the world we seem to have forgotten completely. Americans are so divided and distracted that we cannot even get a genuinely caring politician like Bernie Sanders past the primaries. We let the crooked feast on his bones and do nothing but tweet about it all day.
Naturally the billionaires go ahead and vote themselves even more money, even more safety net, and even more perks. Why the hell not? The people who actually own this boat have clearly take no interest in their own best interests. Hell’s bells, there’s not even any need to take away their vote. They already don’t show up to vote, and those that do let a privately owned and operated computer announce their vote totals without ever producing a genuine paper trail. It can’t get any easier to steal everything in sight than it already is — or can it?
We’ll think of sumthin’ . . .
> technology
Always a bullshit tell. Technology doesn’t cause working class collapse. People do.
tell it to the buggy whip industry
Even though they don’t have organic vegetables nor yoga classes (and, gasp, might have voted for Trump), it was nevertheless, good to read that in the devastated American agricultural heartland that friends in their 80s still celebrate birthdays together (from a commenter report a few days ago).
mi·grant
ˈmīɡrənt/Submit
noun
1.
a worker who moves from place to place to do seasonal work.
That’s why you young people don’t need to buy houses…not when you move seasonally.
The thing about mobility vs. immobility is that with the latter, you tend to celebrate birthdays in your 80s (not improbable, even with the Standard American Diet) with your friends and family members (who are stuck like you).
Mobility sounds attractive to a young person, but when it’s over done, when you are constantly on the road, will there be any friends there at the end?
“Don’t cry for me, my dear salad-subsisting, yoga-practicing Tina.”
Does it start with talking about robot birds and robot bees?
“Try not to get your sex robot pregnant. Things get really complicated when that happens.”
Does the Robot manufacturer have a IP interest in the robotic offspring?
Not as stupid as it reads, because the possibility is of robots building robots.
The military is already field testing autonomous artillery, both airborne and tracked cannons that load themselves, fire, and move to a new spot before the enemy missiles arrive.
That’s bloody smart, mate.
In my next life, I want to be a son of a gun.
Why wait?
Re-train oneself to become a robot.
“Reverse-Turing Test 101 – How to pass it to disguise oneself as a robot.”
Now, we can’t complain that school is useless.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LEtv2LuDjhg
MNSKY the Fargo Android Robot aka Unit MNSKY. Season 3 on FX. The Planet Wyh. I Can Help.
turns out poor MNSKY couldn’t even help himself
All three seasons of Fargo have been a real hoot! That little robot episode was funny as hell. I still have an earworm going in my head that says, “I can help”, in the little boy’s voice. It usually goes off when I do something stoopid. Hahahahaha.
HAHAHA.. we do the “I can help!” all the time too.. Hopelessly burn some toast?.. I can help!…. Comic genius
The play on Marvin Minsky as well.
Well, if you get nice with some desperate Prawns, maybe they’ll accommodate you by making You the robot : just mix some of your DNA with their’s … and your good to go !
Not sure how the sex thing works out though …
Oh, and have a full unit of tinned catfood by your side for good measure … as an enticement. ‘;)
You have to pay extra for the robots without the internet connectivity, as the hijinx cannot be collected for later entertainment or blackmail.
That is a truly brilliant business model.
O.K. I’m dumb, or at least ignorant. After a link it will sometimes say (Re Silc) or I think (resilc). What does this mean? Thank you.
It’s the online name of the person who submitted the link (and you are far from the first person not yet in the know to ask).
My ears are burning.
It’s always you, isn’t it? You have coined the one screen name that people see and say That has to Mean Something. Have you maybe considered a career as a memeticist?
Yes. Maybe i interpreted Lou’s question incorrectly. What does “resilc” meaning!?
Adding, to be safe, if I’m not 100% certain of the handle (and because I don’t mentally connect handles with email addresses, which is good, because it means I treat all commenters equally harshly) I anonymize with initials.
Israel freezes Palestinian housing plan after settlers object [France24]
From the article:
Even in the bantustans, which were under de facto South African control, the apartheid government didn’t withhold building permits or send in boer settlers & soldiers.
America’s little apartheid project on the Mediterranean … oo-ooh, that smell!
All this nonsense for some tiny little suburbs.
well, I’ve long contented all the American Zionists and US Gov tax derived “donations” (ouch) $ thrown at Israel to perpetuate Apartheid and its derivative conflict, rooted in the fruit of the poisoned tree (stolen land), would have been better off relocating Palestinians to prime Manhattan real estate -or- purchase equitably prime real estate for property equivalent to that stolen from Palestine and just give it back to them.
Some basic Old Testament grade-school playgrounds rules.
Don’t Chinese companies work with the Chinese government (which include Chinese intelligence)? Many are even owned by the Chinese government.
And don’t Japanese companies work the the Japanese government (which include Japanese intelligence), German companies work with the German government (which include German intelligence), American companies work with the American government (which include American intelligence), etc?
Different, they’re Russian!
What don’t you get?
Yes, well, the Russian Mafia has also infiltrated Kaspersky, being heavily into financial fraud, credit cards and identity theft.
They also recently found the Stutnext virus in their network! It was a modified one. Was hiding in some non-core storage flash for 3 months. Nothing looks for it there!
Re: When feeling good is bad. I can’t tell you how much flak I’ve caught from my lefty friends for refusing to sign petitions, attend protests, call politicians, etc. when I think that the exercise is clearly pointless or counterproductive from a strategic perspective.
The pattern of the conversations is interesting though. Always it’s the same thing “doing something is better than doing nothing,” they say. When I counter with many obvious examples of doing nothing clearly being better than doing an un-thought-out something, and point out the opportunity costs of doing a pointless something in terms of scarce resources, energy, time, and inertia.
Most of them shut right down at that point. Rarely rebuttals or strategic thinking. Usually an honest admission that they simply can’t bear to face that my arguments are sound, so they will continue believing otherwise. Thanks for this link. Maybe it will help.
Glad you got something out of it.
In my mind, it’s not that doing nothing is better than doing something, but rather that not all somethings are created equal. Failing to distinguish between doing something useless and doing something useful is our major failing, imho. So I don’t want to encourage people not to act, I want to encourage them to act in strategic ways. To quote myself:
Because, of course, our own behavior is really the only thing we have control over. I also want to encourage more radical actions and more “risk taking” in the cause of societal transformation. We have much, much more power to effect the world than we are normally aware of. Thinking that all we can do is attend a march or organize a petition is just a subtle way of distracting from what we can actually accomplish.
Fune – I get in trouble when I say “you voted so you don’t get to complain”. They start out thinking wait a minute its the other way around right? Then I go about explaining until I start to see their focus wandering and just give up.
The disagreement isn’t over whether it’s better to do something useless or something useful. It’s a difference in judging whether a particular action is useful. I’m rather easily persuaded to sign petitions, attend demonstrations, and the like. The leaders of a propaganda society want us to believe there’s a consensus for what they do; how often have you heard that the U.S. is a conservative country? I think it makes some difference to affirm lefty values publicly. Demonstrations, rallies, tabling for good causes all work to say “No, we and many others object to the monstrous policies we’re subjected to.” I think it’s worth the miniscule time it takes to sign a petition to Congress, just to run up numbers on it. If it were totally ineffective, politicians wouldn’t pay for polling.
Those of us who can spend hours on the internet may easily underestimate the limited options of thought for those who can’t or don’t spend time that way. And then to sneer at them for being stupid or “sheeple” or some such denigrating dismissal. And to sneer at those whose opinions of what may have some effect differ from our own.
However, I’m probably wrong. I look forward to hearing about your sharing of income in solidarity.
I don’t consider reasoned debates about strategy with trusted friends sneering, or a waste of time. I’ve also dedicated my life and career to instituting systemic change in the most effective way I know how, and consequently earn slightly more than minimum wage (not counting volunteer hours instead of six figures (yes, I have had multiple opportunities to earn that much). Consequently, I need to think carefully and strategically about how to use my finite time and resources. When I do have a little extra cash, I donate very selectively to the most progressive local candidates I can find. Most of my internet time is either spent working, or gathering information on the world to inform strategic decisions.
We are engaged in a power struggle right now. The consequences of losing it will be extraordinarily dire. I am not apathetic. I am afraid.
Sorry, I misunderstood you. I read your comment as being about “flak” from your lefty friends, which isn’t usually a marker of reasoned debate, nor is a description of a “pattern” that’s “always the same thing” ending with your reasoned debaters “shut[ting] down” with “rarely rebuttals or strategic thinking”. If I said that about my friends, I’d probably be sneering, but then I’m not as nice a person as many people I know.
You are in a very small proportion of people who find effective ways to work against the system. With more of you, we’d have a better society. But as it is, to get to the society we want, we will need lots more than the small proportion of core activists to support us when the opportunity comes. So it’s rather counterproductive to spend time saying to other lefties, “No, no, you’re not doing it right.” When a system collapses, what follows springs from the ideas that have been developed in opposition, so the kind of ideas in the article are important to work on as a possibility for the new world, but without the larger societal and economic change, they’ll be like the communes of the 60s and 70s and disappear like them.
Obligatory internet semantics pedantry. Stiffing is slang for not giving a server a tip they earned. It is not synonymous with cheating, stealing, or defrauding in my zip code!
(economist link is borked. you want this one.)
Obligatory pedantic moderator’s riposte citing dictionary. The OED:
This is not correct. Stiffing is just not paying money owed. It gets applied to tipping because it is assumed that the one who did the work “earned” a tip.
The Sri Lankan Navy rescued an elephant. What does the U.S. Navy do? They kill whales with ultra loud sonar.
Be fair. They’ve been saving herds of white elephants for decades.
That article is an example of how media misinforms readers. The article assumes the elephant is “lost” at sea (or blown off-course), or wandered, unwittingly into deep water (8 km from shore). Wrong.
While elephants are large and look somewhat silly swimming, they are actually good swimmers and have been known to swim some 20 km to find tropical islands with abundant food, using their strong sense of smell. This particular elephant is unusual in that s/he was alone in the water (elephants usually move in groups). Could the Sri Lanka Navy be interrupting a training session for the Sun Valley, ID, Tri-Elephanthon?
There is a much better written account of the event on The Guardian website. Much more accurate information.
I suspect there are several other navies that operate SONAR you can throw in that bucket
Quite true. But the U.S. Navy is the world’s largest navy by far. They blast a lot of active sonar.
RE CA Single Payer Movement fracturing.
Can we trust Dayen’s reporting? If we can this is disheartening. Key take for me:
“The single-payer movement, said Sholes, is merely being used as a weapon in intraparty politics, calling the CNA strategy “a political hit against Dems whom the CNA wishes to replace with Bernie Sanders supporters.”
The comments at the Intercept on the piece are scathing.
Particularly liked this one from a commenter named coram nobis:
As for an “equal partnership” WRT SB 562’s proponents, it’s a little rich for the shaft to say the spearpoint is too sharp.
I’m gonna remember that one.
1. Devise a way around – could it involve classifying a doctor’s visit as, say, educational? I do learn a lot every time I see him. And he would test me too. Additionally, I have do homework myself, like reading up on diet tips here at Naked Capitalism.
2. Revenues can be avoided. More specifically, government revenues can be avoided (city, county or state level), if money involved in the Single Payer is not handled by the government.
Maybe a quasi-government entity, using, say, Fannie Mae as a model.
And it would be ‘private’ California Single-Payer revenues, nothing for Prop. 98 to be invoked.
What’s the best state/local blog on California politics? Is there one? Please don’t make me read Kos.
calitics.com
Thanks for running the “when feeling good is bad” piece. Good to know my radical ideas find some resonance with others.
No thanks needed; it’s an excellent piece of benefit to readers.
“Don’t keep doing what doesn’t work” doesn’t only apply to liberal Democrats (modulo the whole “It works just fine for them!” discussion).
There’s another way to do solar. Get some deep cell batteries to power your property through the night. You pretty much have to build a shed out back to house all the batteries and inverters, and they’ve got to be top quality marine batteries, but if you aren’t looking at solar as a 20-year ongoing investment that more than pays for itself, you aren’t ever going to lose the grid.
We started with a solar package plus batteries just to power our water well around the clock, then we put in geothermal under the back yard for free heating and cooling for the next fifty years, and finished with a little garden shed full of 75 Ah marine batteries and inverters to power the house fans and furnace through the night. We use propane for a bit of additional winter heat, and have a small backup generator (also propane) which is still sitting there unused.
Big purchases up front, but you aren’t going to get these kind of long term returns on Wall Street. If you stay on the grid, the Koch Brothers can always arrange to send you a bill. They have a smart ALEC friend who writes the laws and regulations that make you write a monthly check to Charles and David.
We’re okay for juice unless the solar eclipse in August turns out to be permanent. There’s videos on YouTube that say this time it really is The End . . .
Ok, with all that talk about batteries exploding in smartphones, Boeing 787 airplaines and laptops, how risky is having a shed full of them?
Those are lithium ion batteries. Antifa is talking about lead-acid batteries, like the one in your car.
OTOH: lead-acid batteries can misfunction in such a way as to produce hydrogen, which could explode. Some care is called for.
The risk is very low since deep cycle batteries are typically AGM or lead-acid. Same basic technology that starts your car, just much heavier duty. Proper care and ventilation and they’ll last for decades. The batteries that are giving trouble lately are the newfangled Li-ion jobbies.
We have great hopes for the coming Salt Battery technology, but nothing usable yet, that I know of.
> but you aren’t going to get these kind of long term returns on Wall Street
Sounds like you have a great house, but I prefer to think of a house as a dwelling, not as an investment. That said, can you show your workings? The math?
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/wonk/wp/2017/07/13/a-gop-congressman-wants-to-make-sure-the-fed-isnt-planning-a-student-loan-bailout/
Heaven forbid the Fed forgive student loans!
From the article:
I for one look forward to seeing Dear Leader Yellen on the reviewing stand, watching the May Day parade
of Aston-Martins, Bentleys and Lamborghinis, towing a fleet of G650s down Maiden Lane.
FederalReserviana has always been at war with WageInflation.
Aston-Martins, etc. followed by F-35 jets, if I recall Red Square communist parade correctly.
The first loans forgiven will be money borrowed by the Pentagon.
It’s better we don’t go that route.
> Stein totally misunderstood what happened with QE. The Fed has been making a lot of money on that program because the entities that took out the loans in the first place still had to pay up. The loans weren’t forgiven.
This is really for Yves, but for now I’ll quote (ugh) AEI:
$101.5 billion doesn’t seem like much in the great scheme of things. And if we had a Debt Jubilee, we might have an economy that actually functions, especially for the currently debt-enslaved youth.
+10 for mentioning debt jubilee.
I would be so against those 100-1 leveraged hedgies, or borrowers getting any adittional jubilation.
Which kind of debt is important here.
First, medical.
Then, housing.
Then, divorce debt.
Then, IRS debt.
Then, beauty school debt.
Then, real estate school debt.
Then, MBA school debt.
Then, computer science degree debt.
Etc.
As for School of Americas (in Georgia) student debt, I think we have to think twice…at least.
Then lastly, the lawyers.
More so with medical debt (I just want to live, though nothing really wrong with I-want-to-move-ahead-of-my-competition schooling).
Sheldon Silver’s conviction is overturned. Rod Blagojevich must be very jealous.
http://www.nydailynews.com/new-york/ex-assembly-speaker-sheldon-silver-2015-conviction-overturned-article-1.3323270
I am absolutely livid!!! Not only did they let this guy off the hook, but after his conviction he was allowed to remain free on bail during his appeal.
Damned Just-us system.
If you can’t convict Shelly Silver of corruption, then who can you convict?
Totally concur. But there’s another aspect:
Amendment V: “… nor shall any person be subject for the same offence to be twice put in jeopardy of life or limb”
Every time somebody says “constitution,” I burst out laughing. It’s a rich, rich joke … on us.
You have misunderstood the Constitution. If a person is acquitted of a crime, he can’t be retried for that crime by the government that prosecuted him. But Silver wasn’t acquitted; the article says:
If the instructions to the jury had been different, he might or might not have been convicted, so there will be a retrial. Similarly, in the Bill Cosby case, Cosby was not acquitted, because the jury could not agree on a verdict. So Cosby will be retried, without any violation of the prohibition against double jeopardy.
> If you can’t convict Shelly Silver of corruption, then who can you convict?
Nobody? I mean, nobody who is anybody.
Eric Holder, reporting for duty with The Resistance™:
In SF, ex-attorney general Holder tells left to keep fighting [SF Gate]
Weirdly, Holder never got the memo that nonprosecution of financial crimes
has “collateral consequences” for your reputation and credibility.
Funny story: in February, 2015, Eric Holder started a “90 day clock” on potential prosecution of bankers! He showed us how tough he was going to be:
https://www.publicintegrity.org/2015/02/17/16786/holder-starts-90-day-clock-potential-prosecution-bankers
Two months later, he resigned his job as Attorney General. I don’t remember that anything more ever came of his much ballyhooed 90 day clock. Loretta Lynch certainly didn’t do anything.
Eric “Place” Holder…
When Feeling Good is Bad Grass Roots Economic Organizing. Important.
Okay Haygood, time to pony up for NC solidarity! To whom do we report our earnings?
Scott Ritter on the so-called intelligence community and its assumptions. First, as a leftist, I find myself wondering that I am reading the American Conservative, although TAC seems to be conservatives who truly want to conserve things (although Dreher gets whacky about trying to conserve medieval religion).
Second: I’m wondering how Ritter ended up there. Ritter is a big name with an impeccable reputation. He couldn’t have gone to New York Times Magazine? I guess that he can’t.
So the article is a must-read. The other must-read is Salon, Say No to Centrism, in which the indispensable Naomi Klein analyzes our current situation thoroughly. Her comparison of Obama to Macron is delicious. And she’s skeptical of impeachment driven by news cycles and ratcheting up the panic.
Presumably Ritter is on the outs with the NYT and their ilk because of his dissents on the war on terra’s premises. This goes back to Iraq War time.
As for the American Conservative, I find their writers to be a very mixed bag but they do have some articles that seem refreshing given the Resistance groupthink that prevails at formerly independent outlets like Commondreams. If we wanted to cocoon we’d be at DailyKos.
Note that that link is mislabeled – It’s actually Slate, not Salon.
Kushner investigation will get “disappeared”…san Antonio hq for cyberpunk trump campaign
The acela vanity press is going to have a hard time mansplaining to lucy how the 688th didn’t notice what their buddy Parscale was doing right down the street and under their nose “for the benefit of russia”…
Even worse if it turns out those “russians” hackers had a texas drawl…
Am Expecting some diversionary activities if too much of parscale and his trinity krewe does not get buried below the fold past page 7…tucked in between ads for car rentals and free lunch to sell annuities to bluehairs…
> The acela vanity press is going to have a hard time mansplaining to lucy how the 688th didn’t notice what their buddy Parscale was doing right down the street and under their nose “for the benefit of russia”…
I need a translation:
OK, Parscale….
My being of half cuban decent…splainin to “lucy” was what ricky has to do to explain to the “americanita”…
parscale was given “san antonian of the year” by ihearts 1200/woai for his work on san Antonio tech…
he was “rider zero” for uber in San Antonio in October of 2015 after he led a fight via his organization, techbloc (@satechbloc) which he co-founded in may of 2015, to bring uber back to san antonio…
San Antonio is considered now the 2nd largest center for computer security in the u.s. of hey…
mostly apparently due to the 688th, which is part of the 24th air force at lakeland/san antonio…
When trying to go around googles “though shall not find what one is looking for” algorithms, looking for a side bar…[in this case, jill giles, the person parscale worked with (?used?) to go up the economic food chain]… then bouncing thru photos and images search, was able to find this data…
When google and the acela vanity press makes it “interesting” to find basic background…me-duz inspector gadget routine and woyk it out…photo search is harder to “stalinize” facts and information…at least until the algoze are adjusted…
Pascale began his work with trump org via eric trump…trump intl realty website…
2013, eric is in san antonio for one of the typical events cloaked as charity for the “Eric trump foundation sporting clays tournament” to benefit st judes children’s research hospital…typical as after expenses, these types of events leave less in real money then the beer tabs of most participants…
nothing uniquely slippery as most of these “events” almost never end up handing off much money…
but “the awareness and education” value is priceless…
My use of Lucy is as a cutout for “the american public”
How on earth can we lament the plight of our renters priced out of urban areas, our homeless, our veterans, our teenagers with little chance of employment, our African American youth with no jobs and demand livable wages for our workers when we continually import millions of uneducated poor people from the third world into our country?
I support President Trump’s plan to cut legal immigration and to return illegals to their countries of origin where their talents and skills can reform their own nations.
importing rich people is just as much of a problem. They contribute as much if not more to renters being priced out as rich foreigners buy up properties. I’d like to see Trump ban that, but he’s a real estate guy, so a snowballs chance in hell.
Hard to stop importing rich people when you are responsible for printing the global reserve currency (to facilitate international trade, and more…like recycling the Petrodollars, or LaminateddFlooringDollars).
Once we are not the global reserve currency issuer, it’s entirely possible we have to peg ours to the new hegemon money.
Then, the CIA or the Pentagon will have to be run as a household.
> importing rich people is just as much of a problem
Especially when its people with the dirtiest money who have the greatest incentive to move it, and themselves, to safe havens, where they dig themselves giant underground bunkers in Sloane Square or raise the rents in Manhattan so high that only the weed-like chains can survive. And gawd knows what they’re doing with PACs, or where else their capital is going.
There are no policy initiatives from the Trump administration, and no history of objectives or accomplishments among his appointees, that benefit workers, veterans, homeless people, unemployed people. Much the opposite in many cases, along with white supremacy and misogyny.
Also, many countries of immigrant origin have been and continue to be destroyed by US forces directly, US-supplied arms, US economic policies, and US political meddling.
People who advocate for restrictions on immigration need to identify not only which problems they think this will solve, but the policies, programs, and values needed to implement those solutions.
Without that, it just seems to be a mechanism for divisiveness, fear, and deflection from facing and resolving deep problems in our economic, political, and social institutions, and our role in the world.
And I would say Single Payer Health Care must be accompanied by policies, programs and values to improve the diet, lifestyle and the environment.
To those ends, we must demand our leaders they distant from the F-35 program, the Russia witch hunt, along with the requirement that they outlaw all the bad stuff that go into our bodies currently.
But if we can get something done, but not all of them, we should not reject it. (Single payer now or yesterday…we work on genetically modified crops tomorrow)
Well, I wouldn’t outlaw all the bad stuff that goes into our bodies (who doesn’t want the occasional indulgence?).
As a supporter of publicly funded, publicly administered, comprehensive, universal healthcare, I doubt that I’m alone in being eager to support lots of programs and policies that encourage safe and nutritious foods, healthy lifestyles, and addressing environmental and climate concerns. I support such policies whether incorporated in a health care reform policy, stand-alone, or part of other general reform initiatives.
The question was what policies does the Trump administration support that would lead to favorable outcomes for workers, veterans, the homeless, etc. It doesn’t magically happen if we restrict immigration and deport a lot of people.
I think we outlaw the most dangerous bad stuff.
As for the Trump administration, he somehow stands in the way of potentially waves and waves of migrants/refugees from Russia and Crimea.’
The Vietnamese boat people…that was 50 years ago.
The Iraqi and Afghan sources of refugees – it’s genie out of the lamp at this stage. Possible solutions might involve general Sherman’s ‘going all the way.’ We should try to avoid it. And it’s on us for any ‘sudden withdrawal/disappearance.’ It will take a long time…like slavery and its legacy today.
Perhaps something can be done about Syria.
Then there is the potential N. Korean refugee problem, even if we denuclearize the area.
A North Korean refugee crisis will be more of a problem to South Korea and China than it ever will be to us. Reason: Geography.
> Without that, it just seems to be a mechanism for divisiveness, fear, and deflection from facing and resolving deep problems in our economic, political, and social institutions, and our role in the world.
It is that.
Lambert here: Unfortunately, a policy of cheap imported labor presents exactly same issues: “Divisiveness, fear, and deflections.” It seems to me a reasonable, 30,000-foot proposition that a nation-state at least appear to put the well-being and interests of its own citizens first, in immigration policy as in any other policy. (And I don’t see liberals making an argument in favor of international working class solidarity; if I did see it, I’d be more inclined to accept claims of justice as anything more than virtue-signaling plus “We treat our yard man like one of the family.”)
I distinguish between (a) refugees, (b) legal immigrants, and (c) illegal immigrants.
(a) Refugees: We should accept as many as possible, especially from wars that we create (like most of ’em); for that, the moral/justice component seems crystal clear, beyond the realpolitik (like maybe stressing the EU to the breaking point with refugees wasn’t such a good plan). Note that this indirectly disincentivizes war-mongering.
(b) Legal immigrants: As above, and why the heck not? Given the criterion that the United States prioritize US citizens. (For example, I’d remove any incentives that encourage foreign crooks to bring themselves and their hot money here, as in the comment above. We have enough crooks of our own.)
(c) Illegal immigrants: As above, though I think fewer is better, because I see the primary incentive as cheap labor, and I think cheap labor policies are bad for the U.S. working class. Let people mow their own goddamn lawns and clean their own goddamn granite countertops and take care of their own goddamn children or pay a decent wage in the slaughterhouses etc., or make it really worthwhile for others to do it! Note that illegal immigration is also bad for the rule of law, which liberals (as well as conservatives) profess to respect.
One thing I do know is that if I decided to make a permanent move to another country and took a job illegally there, or if I decided to move to Canada to illegally take advantage of its single payer program, I’d expect that country to at the very least expel me or fine me, and that nobody would bat an eyelash, including open border advocates. I don’t see any difference between the cases of illegal immigration, from a justice perspective.
It’s a wicked problem, and it might have been better to let it fester than make it worse by trying to solve it. But until I hear immigration advocates* putting US citizens first as a matter of policy**, I don’t see how they get traction. They certainly didn’t with Obama, despite the rhetoric, and there’s probably a reason for that.
NOTE * Granted, there are different flavors. I’m really responding to the liberal mainstream immigration advocate whose agenda is to get Democrat voters into the so-called “Obama Coalition,” and not to more principled immigration advocates further left (who should probably be working toward eliminating labor arbitrage, the real driver here).
NOTE ** It’s probably possible for an open borders proposal to do this; we did pretty well as a country before the Immigration Act of 1917. But I haven’t seen one.
I don’t have a consistent, defensible position on immigration. I generally agree with your take on the 3 categories. I do strongly lean stereotypically liberal on diversity, compassion, preserving families, and meeting our obligations to people whose countries we’ve destroyed. I oppose the role immigration plays in cheap labor, both low end (legal and off-the-books) and the high-end visas.
True, it’s not putting our country first to be liberal on immigration if it’s to build the Obama coalition or have a nice nanny.
However, it’s not putting our country first to oppose immigration on grounds of white supremacy and fear-mongering.
Nor is it putting our country first to oppose immigration claiming concern for US workers, the homeless, or stress on social programs, if people making those claims don’t actually support good strong policies to provide jobs, worker pay and protections, homes, or social benefits; and are,in some cases, among the right and the liberals in their own special ways, the enemy of such programs.
It gets back to a point that was made the other day: A fact, an argument, a piece of evidence is not enough. We have to look at who is making that fact/argument/evidence.
So, a claim is not to be judged of itself as a claim.
Sometimes we get ‘It’s not my husband BIll’s adventures, but a vast right-wing conspiracy with their (let’s not address them for now) claims.’
And the ‘We don’t trust him, who knows what he will do, due to his business dealings with Russia, and other conflicts of interest,’ the focus-on-the-person approach.
Other times, it’s ‘He is for immigrants because they will vote for him/her’ ulterior motive.
The skeptical-and-verify or mistrust, or trust-but-verify goes on everywhere.
Before 1917, we had an open frontier, having cleared it of the inconvenient natives.
We also had rapidly repeating economic depressions – not sure if there’s a connection.
Lambert, you mentioned nothing about the vetting (or not) of said refugees ??
A copper for your thoughts.
United Wants to Sell Your Seat to Someone Else for More Money [Bloomberg]
Please excuse me while I use my technology platform to change the narrative.
Having just promised possible 4-figure payouts for overbooking,
United now has second thoughts and is implementing a system to limit payouts to $250,
which is even lower than before.
Going out on a limb, I’ll guess that signing up for this program requires agreeing to binding arbitration.
Because choice.
About the sex robots: “Interactions between humans and robots may eventually include sex.”
A robot is an electro-mechanical device that moves under its own power according to how it has been programmed. Sometimes they don’t just move, they vibrate.
Women have been having sex with robots for the last century and a half. The electric vibrator was the third electrical appliance ever invented.
Why is this only coming up for debate now?
Awaiting that ASL glove off-label application. The screenplay potential is uuuge, I tell you, uuuge.
> The electric vibrator was the third electrical appliance ever invented.
Really?! Got a link on that?
Very early anyway; in 1880. More than a decade before the electric iron or the vacuum cleaner. But perhaps after the electric fan, toaster, tea kettle and sewing machine. Victorian era doctors were simply exhausted from providing “pelvic massage” to relieve “female hysteria” by means of “physician assisted paroxysm” ; it was big income source for them but they got “chronic hand fatigue.”
https://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/all-about-sex/201303/hysteria-and-the-strange-history-vibrators
Great link. Thx. Hahaha.
The fifth electrical appliance ever invented. My bad.
But seriously, why is robotic sex suddenly so ominous now, after 137 years of it?
Brazil, after Lula’s conviction: https://theintercept.com/2017/07/12/as-momentum-grows-to-remove-brazils-president-new-pressure-campaign-sparks-rage/
GG, who lives there.
Typically, sphere of influence comes with some responsibilities for the vassal tributary states.
So, when Toyotomi Hideyoshi started to kidnap Korean potters to bring back to Kyushu, Ming China felt responsible to do something about it, to such an extent it bankrupted the empire and the Manchus were able to move inside the Great Wall for the hostile takeover.
O Re. Kushner e-mails: Well the front page of my local corporate-owned rag [San Jose Mercury News] has a lurid headline “WHITE HOUSE ENGULFED IN SCANDAL”, with subtext describing alleged despair among unnamed top WH advisers, so take that, scandal-downplayers!
o “How Russian Rule Has Changed Crimea | Foreign Affairs” — So wait, Russian Rule in Crimea is a new thing? The FP headline certainly seems to imply that. ISTR rumors of a key military base having been there for the better part of a century or more, and a 90% ethnic-Russina populace. Deplorable Rooskies must’ve been really busy to accomplish all that since the CIA-sponsored Maidan coup (Note: coup, not ‘election meddline’ – so it’s OK).
o “Exclusive: Russia appears to deliver more turbines to Crimea – Reuters witnesses | Reuters” — From the loud headline, one would think they were delivering H-bombs, not turbines. Will Reuters expose suspicious deliveries of concrete, rebar and miscellaneous plumbing supplies in Part 2?
o “5 ways the Trump administration is undoing Obama’s student loan legacy | MarketWatch” — There’s that word again, ‘legacy’. What legacy might that be – exponential increase and no relief from Joe Biden’s debt-slavery-act?
o “Let’s talk about sex robots | Nature” — I’d rather sing about sex robots, or better, listen to Frank Zappa sing about sex robots [websearch for “zappa lyrics sy borg”].
Looks like Foreign Affairs need a fact-checker
The article says that “Crimean meat production fell by an estimated 84 percent over the course of 2016” while the source they link to says Production of meat and cattle declined as well, by 16.5% compared to last year’s level. Yes, the title is Meat production fell by 84% but seeing such a discrepancy should’ve made them pause and think about that