Tibetan Mastiff Puppy Becomes World’s Most Expensive Dog Care2 and Pass notes No 2,943: Tibetan mastiff Guardian (hat tip reader furzy mouse)
Knut the polar bear dies alone in compound Telegraph
Don’t Call Me, I Won’t Call You New York Times. Another indicator of growing social anomie. E-mails and text contain far less information than can be conveyed in a call. You lose tone of voice. And a lot of information exchanges are also less efficient by e-mail.
Republican-Controlled Committee Legislates That Climate Change Does Not Exist Care2 (hat tip reader furzy mouse)
Japan crisis: ‘There’s no food, tell people there is no food Telegraph
Japan reluctant to disclose footage of power plant taken by U.S. drone sUAS News
Toyota, Sony Disruptions May Last Weeks After Japan Earthquake Bloomberg
Yakuza to the Rescue The Daily Beast (hat tip Marshall Auerback). Misses a crucial detail about the yakuza. They are officially sanctioned for a reason. The deal was that the yakuza got to run all sorts of criminal franchises (prostitution, numbers rackets, etc) provided they did not get in the hard drugs business and kept hard drugs out of Japan.
The Libyan War of 2011 Stratfor
Western warplanes, missiles hit Libyan targets Reuters
Who Is Bankrolling A Lawsuit To End The Ban On Foreign Money In U.S. Elections? ThinkProgress (hat tip reader furzy mouse)
64 senators sign letter to Obama seeking broad budget talks McClatchy. Per Buzz Potamkin: “Pathetic”.
Republicans Are Losing Ground on the Deficit, But Obama’s Not Gaining Pew Research (hat tip Pat Caddell)
Minnesota GOPers Want to Criminalize Poor People Carrying Money Alternet (hat tip reader furzy mouse)
The Sufferings of the Millionaires, and the Sufferings of the Millions FireDogLake
Danger danger: The Wall Street Journal has no idea on how to do hedge fund due diligence John Hempton
Antidote du jour (hat tip reader furzy mouse)
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What does it mean, “ban on foreign money in elections”? If alien is a synonym for foreign, and corporate money is allowed, well what could be more alien than that?
Is anybody really stupid enough to think e.g. the Chinese government is more opposed to the American people than Wall Street is, or the Big Ag rackets, or the health insurance rackets? Or the US government, for that matter?
If you allow wealth concentrations and corporations to exist, then you no longer have “democracy”. So what’s the article whining about?
I read that article also and was coming back to comment. My deluded mind says that this is part of the plan to get more rich people/families outside of the US currently some ability to become part of the growing cadre of rich controlling America. Gawd knows it takes a lot of money to keep the world propaganda machines synchronized and when the hammer falls, if you are the global rich, you family would never forgive you if you didn’t have the family wealth protected by the country with all the nukes.
Off-shore based for tax avoidance yet USA by name corporations’ money ? An expectation that more go off-shore ( or overseas) and yet wish to maintain their influence ?
Republican-Controlled Committee Legislates That Climate Change Does Not Exist
“The denial of science has taken deep root on the Committee”
Makes me want to cry. Why stop there. Let’s get back to basics. They should be able to legislate that the earth is flat and the sun revolves around us.
Clearly, in these times that should require decisive action — We’re f**ked. Kiss it good by. Just a matter of how soon and by how many means.
David Bowie sang, “Is it any wonder..?
If teachers are villified, what is knowledge worth?
Legislation to guarantee income for those business will become the chosen allocated locations of the special debit card terminals. One ought look to who is lobbying behind this legislation.
Their assumption, and arguement, being that this action will prevent the welfare recipient from spending on non essential items, yet will also effect the small local stores in neighbourhood of high unemployment which might not be allocated terminals.
My comment on the “Minnesota GOPers Want to Criminalize Poor People Carrying Money” article:
“Rather, they could only use a state-issued debit card at special terminals in certain businesses that are set up to accept the card.”
“Criminalize Poor People Carrying Money”
Another way to guarantee that public tax money goes exclusively to the coffers of big business. Canada, too, is doing subtle little things with its subsidies that will funnel the money away from small/local business and toward the bigs guys.
But this is sick! Can anything be more obviously fascist? It also goes directly contrary to the consumerist dogma of perceived choice. Poor people only allowed to shop at big corporations. Yeah, that’s libertarian freedom for you.
Really nice antidote story today. Helpful perspective against the rest of current news.
When some of you financial/economic bloggers wander off the reservation it’s very revealing. I don’t know about the ‘science” of global warming(and neither do the rest of you). But the idea of anthropogenic global warming is flat out ridiculous.
I enjoy trolling too.
“I don’t know about the ’science” of global warming(and neither do the rest of you). But the idea of anthropogenic global warming is flat out ridiculous.”
well it’s quite easy to believe that you refuse to try an understand the science of global warming, but an assertion that the rest of us don’t know is also quite revealing.
“flat out ridiculous”
comedy.
You’re not even a good troll. You need to hop over to the nearest denialist website and load up on the untruth and try again.
What was revealed, besides your “scoff” reflex?
John McCain?
A victim of propaganda and loud and proud about it to boot.
@ ballyfager:
“But the idea of anthropogenic global warming is flat out ridiculous.”
Your credentials for this assertion?
And another question:
What happens if you are wrong?
Text isn’t just for hiding from your contacts. Privacy abuses make voice services unsuitable for many purposes. Telecom carriers have turned warrantless surveillance into a profit center and Skype belongs to Ebay, which invites law enforcement fishing expeditions. GPS makes wireless a government tracking device. With Jabber and PGP you still have a shot at retaining your Article 17 rights.
“Misses a crucial detail about the yakuza. They are officially sanctioned for a reason. The deal was that the yakuza got to run all sorts of criminal franchises (prostitution, numbers rackets, etc) provided they did not get in the hard drugs business and kept hard drugs out of Japan.”
If by “hard drugs” you mean “cocaine and heroin”, maybe. The Yakuza are central players in the methamphetamine trade around the Pacific rim, and have been throughout the post-war period (the slang term “shabu” is of Japanese origin). There’s a lot of strange lore surrounding Japanese drug policy and the Yakuza- I’ve read some suggestions that the Yakuza were the principal recipients of the IJA amphetamine stockpiles which disappeared after the war and were in large part responsible for the amphetamine epidemic which subsequently swept the working class population (some have further suggested that this phenomenon contributed to the incredible productivity gains of the period..) I don’t know whether that’s true or not, but the notion that the Yak have a deal with the police to keep out of hard drugs doesn’t square with their participation in and large degree of control over the stimulant markets. There’s clearly a degree of tolerance for the hard drug activities of the Yakuza, probably so long as there’s not a repeat of the post-war amphetamine epidemic. In any case, the detente between the police and the Yakuza is almost certainly organized along much more complex lines than the simple quid pro quo outlined above (which may be why Jake Adelstein, easily the most experienced Wester crime reporter to work in Japan, didn’t explain it that way).
Meth is a recent hard drug, and like cocaine, you can appear to function on it for quite a while before the addiction starts getting in the way. My understanding is the “deal” applied to heroin, I’m not sure re cocaine. And the Japanese have a way of not having a fixed deal, unlike ours, they keep being retraded over time. So re meth, the “deal” may be something like a quota limit. The Japanese also have an interesting notion in the regulatory sphere, that they will tolerate lots of activities at a low level, but if you scale up, they are all over you. The same sort of understanding may apply here.
“Republican-Controlled Committee Legislates That Climate Change Does Not Exist”
And in other news, Oceania has always been at war with Eastasia.
“64 senators sign letter to Obama seeking broad budget talks”
More kleptocracy in action.
Republican-Controlled Committee Legislates That Climate Change Does Not Exist:
‘”The denial of science has taken deep root on the Committee,” said Rep. Waxman’
The denial of reality itself has taken deep root in a kind of movement in America that resembles pre-fascism more than I care for. It’s not 100% certain the American mental immune system will stand down this mythic disease. I fear the odds are closer to 50/50 than to the more positive end of the scale.