Depardieu to star as Dominique Strauss-Kahn BBC (hat tip Lambert)
Wolf Census Up 16 Percent Albuquerque Journal (hat tip Joe Costello)
Monks run amok Global Times (hat tip reader Michael T)
German gov’t endorses Chrome as most secure browser ComputerWorld (hat tip reader furzy mouse)
TSA arrests, deports two Brit tourists for tweeting ironic youthful party argot Another Word for It (hat tip Lambert)
Country Specific Blog Censorship by Google; Twitter Employs Censorship as Well; Echo Comments Not Working on Redirects Michael Shedlock (hat tip reader furzy mouse)
What does Fukushima mean? Griffith Review (hat tip reader skippy)
European Stocks Retreat on Greece Deadline Bloomberg
Greece takes step closer to default Financial Times. Felix Salmon said this was in the cards, what, two weeks ago?
Strike Looms as Greek Leaders Push for Deal Wall Street Journal
Greece is the word MacroBusiness
Is Greece still viable? (Is Europe?): my piece in Deutsche Welle.de Yanis Varoufakis
A Revised Portrait of Hungary’s Right-Wing Extremists Der Spiegel (hat tip reader May S)
EU May Relax Sovereign Debt Demands for Banks Bloomberg. Quelle surprise! The regulators set requirements for banks that would require them to do a clearly unrealistic combination of raising equity and shrinking balance sheets by June 30. They are already beating a retreat
Germany: A Bric, or just stuck in a hard place? Wolfgang Munchau, Financial Times
Only Strength Guarantees Security: Netanyahu Bloomberg
When Talk of War Transcends Idle Chatter New York Times
An education in occupation Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists (hat tip reader May S)
Day of Shame, 9th Anniversary (hat tip Lambert)
The reality of American decline Edward Luce, Financial Times
US Treasury: Manhattan transfer Financial Times
J.P. Morgan Banker Selected for FDIC Wall Street Journal
Shaky Profits Threaten U.S. Rally Wall Street Journal
Are Conservatives More Fearful Than Liberals? Alternet (hat tip reader furzy mouse)
Raise capital gains and stop flying mathbabe
People now see it is a system for the rich only Jeremy Grantham, Financial Times (hat tip reader Scott)
Seven things I learned about transition from communism Andrei Shleifer, VoxEU. Given Shliefer’s role in litigation against Harvard for his apparent self dealing (which was settled for apparent considerable expense and most people see as the real reason Summers, a big Shliefer defender was booted from Harvard; the women in math incident was a trigger and provided useful cover), anything he writes needs to be taken with a fistful of salt.
Antidote du jour (hat tip Lambert, from the Guardian):
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I love the antidote but it is sad. The elephant died of twisted intestines not very long after. :(
Any word on the fate of the sheep?
We’re still looking for Balaams Ass, to ask her why she strays off the path.
I like that story. Balaam’s ass saved Balaam’s ass.
Monks:
Global Times is an outlet of People’s Daily, owned by the Chinese Communist Party.
Here’s an alternative report: http://www.reuters.com/article/2012/01/24/us-china-tibet-idUSTRE80N1YV20120124
Agree – if you are going to run Chinese propaganda in the links, it should be marked as such.
Recent youtube hi-def video of Shanghai China:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P-W-P1hfTtU
What a miserable place it seems to be…hahahahahaha
Correct. The Chinese have been denying the Dalai Lama for 50 years. Methinks that the Dalai Lama was the best thing that happened to the Chinese. I wish the Tibetans had given birth to a few reincarnations of Arafat, Khomeini,… instead.
tyaresun
This is all I can get from googling the book, A History of Modern Tibet: The Calm Before the Storm, 1951-1955:
For parents, whether or not the child wanted to become a monk was irrelevant. The child’s wishes were also not important to the monastery, although its rules…
—-
I have heard that parents were required (or persuaded, or brainwashed, I don’t remember the exact word) to give their sons to monasteries in Tibet.
Another question for Tibetans – Is it possible that the next Dalai Lama reincarnates as a boy (or a girl, just for once, for Buddha’s sake) who grows up to be the chairman of the Chinese Communist Party?
That would be the best thing to happen to the Chinese.
“I have said that if you are an expert on 9/11 or an expert on banking scams and political scams and manipulations of that kind then that’s FANTASTIC. But if that is all you are doing you’re still walking around the outer edge of the rabbit hole. You haven’t entered it yet. This is much, much deeper than most people perceive, even for those who are fully aware that this New World Order is happening. It’s only when you get to the deeper levels that A) you can see more clearly how it’s being done and B) see how it can be brought down. This new world order can be unraveled, which our world depends upon us doing. But with all the diversions being thrown at us, we must understand how we keep our power in the process, because very few people in full knowledge of what they are doing are behind us. The current population is 7 billion, and I think I see a way out of this, but we have to get informed, and once we are informed we have to act upon that information.”
http://thedailybell.com/3578/Staff-Report-David-Icke-on
Oh boy! If you go to “The Daily Bell”, you get an offer for this class:
“The Daily Bell – Special Offer: NEW AUSTRIAN SCHOOL OF ECONOMICS
The Austrian Theory of Money, Credit, and Banking”
Thanks, but I’ll pass. If one hasn’t already figured out the failure of Libertarianism/Neoliberalism by now, as is proved by the global economic crisis it spawned, then there is nothing anyone can do.
The website contributor himself admits he just got kicked off of “The Orange County Register” (Neoliberal Republican Mecca of So. Calif.) and ponders… “I cannot count how many columns I produced, nearly all of them concerned with demonstrating the superiority of the free society as understood in libertarianism.”
Wow. The irony abounds on that little factoid. The cognitive dissonance is gob-smacking, and just plain sad. Tibor Machan understands the outcomes of a devestating set of policies, but refuses to acknowledge that it is, in FACT, the Libertarian/Neoliberal policies utlizied by TPTB that caused it in the first place.
But thanks for the David Icke link-I’ve been wondering what he is up to lately.
Thanks for the link. I hope those ignorant of David Icke’s theories will investigate for themselves the dots he has connected, shown on YouTube. You need not accept every word as the Gospel.
Anyone who talks about the ‘transition from communism’ without having lived under it is, ipso facto, full of crap and willing to share. Oh, they may have useful things to say, but they don’t really know whereof they speak. When a privileged, Western, academic wants to opine about post-Communism, I clutch my wallet and deploy my earplugs on the way to the nearest exit.
I read recently someone saying about the move to capitalism in Eastern Europe, that after twenty years of it the people have “substantially” higher living standards than they did before. When did capitalists ever credit twenty years of communism for doing as much? When that happened they used to say “well, clearly living standards aren’t rising fast enough!”
Letting capitalism get away with a small improvement in twenty years (from a floor of economic collapse, yet) is the soft bigotry of low expectations; they clearly don’t think much of capitalism.
that’s what I do when any any academic anywhere starts talking to me about anything — almost.
but when the trees or the sky or the profound channelers who live in our midst start to talk, I listen very very carefully. :)
Paul Lafargue – The Bankruptcy of Capitalism (written in 1900):
http://whataboutmarx.blogspot.com/2012/02/paul-lafargue-bankruptcy-of-capitalism.html
About the occupation of Iraq and the destruction of their university system: yet another case of the mindless stupidity of aggressive war. Can’t we now start discussing the appropriate punishment for aggressive war? For example, hacking a few of the ring-leaders to pieces on national television?
I would say Der Spiegles analysis of Hungry is a little bit hypocritical given the Eu takeover of Greece and Italy, and given the fact that the Eu is attacking them for democratizing their central bank.
Also, Jim Sinclair has a statement on a Credit Event that is about to take place this week involving Greek Debt, the EU, Derivatives in the form of Credit Default Swaps impacting the five largest US banks holding 97% of all derivatives. The determination will be made by the ISDA, the International Swaps and Derivatives Association.
audio from:
http://www.jsmineset.com/2012/01/30/the-impending-undeclared-default-of-5-major-us-banks/
The Impending Undeclared Default Of 5 Major US Banks
January 30, 2012
by Jim Sinclair
Dear CIGAs,
The following interview with Ellis Martin of http://www.EllisMartinReport.com covers in detail the impending undeclared default of 5 major US banks this week by the International Swaps and Derivatives Association.
This even has the potential to cause a second financial crisis that would require significant financial intervention. If you have time to spare, listen to this interview. If you don’t have time to spare, listen to it anyway.
…………….
an earlier post by Jim Sinclair:
http://www.jsmineset.com/2012/01/30/the-impending-undeclared-default-of-5-major-us-banks/
The Most Powerful Body In Finance And What They Mean To You
January 30, 2012
by Jim Sinclair
in the category Ellis Martin Report
My Dear Friends,
I was interviewed today concerning the most powerful body in the financial world that now holds in its hands the near future of all markets, from currencies to commodities, based on a single edict to be given.
The interview is being processed and should be posted here later this evening.
This organization supersedes all governments and central banks today in terms of the financial power they edict. This organization can have a greater impact on your pocketbook than the FASB did when they killed “true value” accounting.
This body is made up of the key players of the five largest banks in the USA and other countries. This body by their actions this week will guarantee QE to infinity.
This is relevant to all your assets, yes all. If you have the time listen to it please. If you don’t have the time listen to it please. If you don’t listen to it do not blame me when all hell breaks loose six months from now.
Not one word about this body was on the airwaves today, yet this group by a simple decision rules the financial plant. They will be making this edict in just a few days. They have to do it again this year. It is then that you know what will hit the fan.
I feel this is it for jsmineset.com tonight. I do not want to write another word and detract from the revelations you will hear.
Your financial future, even if you have never heard of them, is in this organization’s hands. Check in later for the interview. If you don’t check in your finances might just check out.
Please remember you have been informed of this impending edict as a service to the community.
Respectfully,
Jim
Any boingboingers here? Please pass along just in case:
http://boingboing.net/
Good to see the Mexican gray wolf rebounding.
In my neck of the woods, the upper midwest, wolves are doing well–3000 in Minnesota. They’re now sited south of the twin cities, occasionally in northern Iowa.
They’ve been delisted as endangered/threatened.
Ditto northern Rockies and cascades. Doing well.
Doing less well is the fox which is being supplanted by coyotes. These are doing very well as they adapt to suburban life.
What is going on with Greece “negotiations” on their debt package? I’ve read in one or more articles now that “cuts in private sector wages” are part of it…somehow.
Not that cutting public sector spending during recession makes any sense, but what the hell does cutting private sector wages have to do with Greek sovereign debt. Cutting wages, especially private sector, just means reduced tax revenue for the Greek government, leading to more cuts, leading to reduced revenue, leading to more cuts, and so on.
Unless, of course, the whole point of this is simply to put the developed world on equal, poor footing with the developing world when it comes to wages and services. Kind of like global “free trade” deals.
Re: Luce on Kaganobama and the reality of American decline.
If the Big Orifice indeed went over Kagan’s essay “point by point at a White House meeting”, he must have hit the fables pretty hard. The question is, who is the scorpion here?
No doubt about Kagan’s answer, but given that Obama (and his enthusiastically self-sliding sock puppet, Clinton) are “strategically realigning” from the Middle East to Asia, the question can be rephrased: Is a lasting confrontation with China the foreign “policy” legacy to be expected of an Obama 2nd term?
Maybe the elites have decided that a 2nd Cold War is just the ticket to cover the home stretch to a stable necrosis in the transcend.
About Fukushima and the inability of capitalism to pace itself. A good, sad article. I would like to hear from other sources, but never do, about the amount of contamination accumulating in the Pacific. An ongoing disaster that TEPCO will never acknowledge in a million years.
Can current reactors be retrofitted to use thorium, a much less dangerous material also capable of boiling water for energy?
And, if we have a severe economic decline or collapse will there be money or the determination to secure and maintain these plants? There would be if Dennis Kucinich’s NEED Act HR 2990 is implemented. http://www.monetary.org/
To see how scarey it is inside Fukushima (and of course, it’s effect outside in the land, water and air):
http://boingboing.net/2012/01/24/a-view-inside-a-nuclear-reacto.html
By Maggie Koerth-Baker at 6:13 pm Tuesday, Jan 24
This is not a metaphorical view inside a nuclear reactor. This is for real-real.
This month, the good folks at TEPCO sent a remote-controlled endoscope and thermometer into the containment vessel of Fukishima’s crippled reactor #2, hoping to learn something about the level of cooling water, the state of the fuel rods, and the temperature in the reactor. The view is obscured by steam, the effects of radiation, and (are you sitting down) actual goddam gamma rays just whizzing by. According to the PBS Frontline blog, those are the little streaks and flashes that you see in this video.
I’m curious about the safety of the Pacific as well. Is it safe to go snorkeling in Maui?
The magic 8-ball says “No”.
Here – see for yourself!
http://web.ics.purdue.edu/~ssanty/cgi-bin/eightball.cgi
Useful for investment questions too – but be specific!
It’s extend-and-pretend all round, as in every other sphere.
The next set of problems at Fukushima will apparently come with the spring ice melt – already burst pipes a plenty.
Meanwhile, our bankrupt elites crank up a re-do for this decrepit tech (not that any of its legacy nightmare, such as hundreds of thousands of tonnes of highly radioactive waste larded here, there and everywhere throughout the world, has been sorted):
US DoE looking at extending nuke reactor operation beyond 60 years:
http://www.world-nuclear-news.org/RS_Is_there_life_after_sixty_0302121.html
France also looking at extending operating life:
http://www.world-nuclear-news.org/NP-Extending_operating_lives_of_French_reactors_best_option-3101124.html
Fukushima back on the boron (vs recriticality):
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2012-02-07/tepco-injects-boric-acid-into-fukushima-no-2-reactor-as-temperature-rises.html
Not good.
Yves,
I reread a couple old posts of yours regarding lost note affidavits, after skimming the 2006 Baker and Hosteller report of its investigation into foreclosure abuses by Fannie Mae foreclosure firms, which I came across on 4closurefraud.org. A nugget in the report I found interesting was that members of Fannie Mae’s legal department apparently shared your well-reasoned theory that most of the “lost notes” were in fact not lost at all.
Thanks for the link to Day of Shame!
It’s shocking (or should be) how little interest there seems to be in learning lessons from how the Iraq War was sold.
And now the war drums toll for an Iran War….
Hey! It’s been almost ten years gone already! It’s killing season again! And thanks to the wonders of drone and other remote precision targeting technologies, almost all of the “kilt” will be thems and not us’s! Glory be! And not a GWB, Dick Cheney, or “The Donald” Rumsfeld in sight neither! Ain’t WE got fun? Dems who act like Repubs and voters who don’t know the difference either way. Life’s a carnival young man and the midway’s a shooting gallery. Step up young buck and try your luck! Do YOU have what it takes to be one of US?
The Greek problem has been solved. I know this since we have seen at least a dozen solutions to it. It’s a problem that has been solved to death. How much more solved can it get? /s
what do you know about usrecordings and indecomm global services? Jeff Carlson was the President of USRecordings which was bought out by Indecomm , President Naresh Ponnapa — there was a news release from July 23, 2007 on the usrecordings website, but seems its all being purged rather
found it — but rather on the indecommglobal website — I think USRecordings was based in Minneapolis, guess they are in India somewhere now.
Indecomm Global Services acquires US Recordings
July 27, 2007, New York – Indecomm Global Services, a leading international business process outsourcing and services firm, announced today that it has completed the acquisition of US Recordings, Inc., headquartered in St Paul, Minnesota. US Recordings is a pioneer in electronic technology for the mortgage recording industry, serving the residential mortgage market, including all of the top ten lenders, the title industry, and the legal community. The company covers over 3,700 jurisdictions across all 50 states.
“US Recordings provide a powerful complement to our strong technology-based business process outsourcing solutions for the mortgage industry,” says Naresh Ponnapa, President & CEO of Indecomm Global Services. “This move is in line with our stated direction of combining our sound organic growth platform with an acquisition-led strategy. Our goal is to be a complete partner, with the most comprehensive set of outsourcing solutions available in the industry with capabilities spanning consulting and technology, and a seamless global delivery model for back office processing.”
“This move was all about people and productivity,” said Jeff Carlson, President & CEO, US Recordings. “We have been working with Indecomm on several outsourcing initiatives for the past two years. Our cultures are similar, and we share the same vision with regard to leveraging technology to deliver superior solutions to our clients. I am convinced that by taking this partnership to another level, we are creating a business model that is robust and enduring and one that will deliver great customer value.”
About Indecomm Global Services
Indecomm Global Services is a consulting, business process outsourcing and technology services company with four principal divisions: Mortgage Services, Retail Banking Services, eLearning and Corporate Training, and IT Services. The company’s seamless onshore-offshore technology-enabled operations are the central point of its global delivery model, offering clients both scale and cost advantages. Expertise in imaging and workflow technologies and extensive knowledge of processes and domains have enabled Indecomm to produce significant, measurable business gains for its clients. It has been featured in Red Herring’s list of the top 200 private companies in Asia, ranked among the top five emerging services companies by The Indus Entrepreneurs, featured in Fortune Magazine’s 2007 “The Global Outsourcing 100”, and has been recognized for management excellence and its outstanding contribution to industrial development in India.
Contacts
Indecomm Global Services
Rajan Nair – rajan@indecommglobal.com;Phone: 732 259 1405
U.S. Recordings
Jeff Carlson – Jeff.carslon@usrecordings.com Phone: 651 766 2369
oh and the link
http://www.indecommglobal.com/news_releases.html
As usual Varoufakis misses the point.
The point is kleptocracy. There has been no solution, not a real one anyway (despite my previous comment), because kleptocrats do looting. They do not do solutions.
The inflows into Greece of previous years went primarily to Greece’s native kleptocrats. Yes, ordinary Greeks felt they were doing better. They were riding the upside of a bubble. But the real winners were Greece’s kleptocrat class. They not only rode the bubble up. They kept their winnings after the Greek bubble burst. It was a classic case of privatizing the gains and socializing the losses.
But it is just a lie to say that German taxpayers are footing the bill for Greece. This is another classic case, one from class war, where the German 99% are set against the Greek 99%. But the German people didn’t lend that money to Greece. The German banks did and it is the policy of the German Establishment not to monetize those debts through the ECB or force the banks and their wealthy kleptocratic bondholders to eat their losses but to foist them, and so far it has only been to a limited extent, on to the German people.
Nor does Varoufakis discuss at all the fact that Germans too were riding the Greek bubble since the Greek bubble underwrote the German exports flowing to Greece and thereby supported German jobs.
And of course this is not simply true of Germany and Greece but more generally between the Northern Tier and Southern Tier countries of the eurozone.
Today’s syllogism du jour:
If strengthh is through joy
and strength guarantees security,
then joy gurantees security.
Netanyahu is a fascist. Indeed most of Israel’s political spectrum has descended into fascism over the last few decades.
Netanyahu is probably saber rattling A) to cover up domestic failures and B) to increase and lock in greater American support, especially military aid (it is an election year after all). The US, if it were acting in good faith, has something of a devil’s bargain here. If it cut back on military aid to Israel, Israel might launch an attack on Iran while it still felt it had the capabilities to do so. On the other hand, giving Israel military aid at current or increased levels would simply increase Israel’s capacity to attack Iran.
Of course, Obama and Panetta are not acting in good faith. They could simply tell Israel and Netanyahu that this country will not allow an Israeli attack on Iran and that such an attack would be treated as hostile to American interests. Instead they are using Israel as a bad cop to increase pressure on Iran at a time when they think that sanctions are really having an effect on the regime in Tehran.
This is a dangerous game, and one that Obama and Panetta really aren’t up to. Fascist regimes are notoriously untrustworthy and treacherous in their dealings with other countries. So any deals or understandings Obama and Panetta think they have with Israel and Netanyahu likely exist only in their own imaginations.
Does anyone know of a blog that’s covering the heavy involvement of Goldman and perhaps J.P. Morgan in warehousing massive amounts of aluminum recently and perhaps other production metals?
I’ve only seen two stories and couldn’t figure out the rationale here. Finance and aluminum don’t seem to be a classic ‘stick to your knitting’ kind of natural fit. Is it just another way to extort monopoly rents? A way to re-invest the billions they have looted in bubbles and bailouts? Both?
Direction would be appreciated.
There is a lock-out in progress at ALCAN….
http://www.reuters.com/article/2012/02/06/riotintoalcan-alma-idUSL2E8D699U20120206
..so there’s one possibility….
Re: Monks run amok
Note: I haven’t read the article yet, only the title.
“The need to go astray, to be destroyed, is an extremely private, distant, passionate, turbulent truth.”
― Georges Bataille
Monks did run amok in 5th Century AD Alexandria…
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cyril_of_Alexandria
There are all too many historical precedents of religious fanatics – including monks, from many traditions – acting with violence.
The Washington Establishment of which Obama has become very much a part is neoliberal on economics and neocon on foreign policy. So there is absolutely nothing surprising that Obama would look kindly on a leading neocon like Robert Kagan.
It is important to realize though that when neocons talk about American decline, they are talking about American empire, which is very much an elite project that very often works against the interests of ordinary Americans. The real decline in America comes not from some fascist notion of the will but from the very same Establishment to which both Obama and Kagan belong and which is looting the country.
Smoke & Mirror Capitalization: Herding Cats, Donkeys, & Elephants
So, the venture capitalist trots out Facebook, booked as a tech IPO, with the usual cast of characters, pensions, unions, blah blah blah, leading the parade, and the so registered voters of San Francisco give themselves a $1/4B pat on the back, all upon the theory that negative relative interest rate loans, government supply side economies, pay for themselves, while State and Global tax bases roll over, California runs out of cash, private corporations replace full-time with part-time, boomers retire, and Fearless Leader pronounces that the pump must prime, OR ELSE, the Fed will adopt explicit negative interest rates and Israel will bomb Iran. O-o-o-o-scary.
Poor critters, they just can’t help themselves. The crow just cannot resist a shiny object. You sit out on the porch with your gun, day after day, watching the same critter dig and re-dig the same hole, warding off other critters in the process, until you get tired of watching the same critter…then the process starts all over again.
On the empire side of the looking glass, you are a mouse and the denizens are cats, right up until the relay is removed by backlash. If outsiders have to pay 30% to start up a business, which is guaranteed to fail or be taken…Martha Stewart, Zuckerberg, Soros, six of one, half a dozen of the other, it’s all make-work. By all means, stop traffic in San Francisco to lay down the yellow brick road.
Absolute zero only exists under one condition. In all other cases, zero is relative to its space time event horizon. Sailing isn’t about pushing a boat with wind, or an outboard motor; it’s about trimming the sail to get lift, orbiting and propelling the boat relative to density, against the wind. You employ the wind, a derivative of gravity, to escape its iron grip, moving in another dimension.
Separation of charge is no different. If you think about it, moving the bow out of irons is much easier than moving the stern, and the stern is sure to follow, though it may appear to be moving from leeward force, because that is where the measuring device is mounted. The eye of the storm is relative net 0. Only the fulcrum of fulcrums maintains 0.
The kid doesn’t make the match by GPS. He makes it by building the magnetic field, with quantumly increasing momentum along an implicit integral path, where the match is not, by not changing his focal point, despite/with all manner of misdirection, at an angle of incidence unique to the individual. How do you provide a custom computer for each individual at greater profit than mass production?
Reverse engineering and best business practice, scale, is not the answer. Shorting similar devices on different rungs to a single device, for the purpose of control, is pretty damn stupid, but that is exactly what an empire is designed to do, expertly. Within the empire, participants stand in a queue of queues – food stamps, pensions, IPOs, whatever, each in a “team” competing within and without, expecting more of the same, watching the motor at the stern, which measures the political wind.
Swan events appear random to the Faithful, but they are no accident of God. Walk into the casino, clean it out, and leave, never to return. Jesus seemingly appeared from nowhere, turned the tables, and left, leaving the empire with its mythology. Your new branches will thrive to the extent they are symbiotic with others. The trunk, education, does not depend upon a branch, energy or otherwise.
There is no lack of gravity; that is the Unknown Promise. Individual faith is a function of intelligent recognition. Measuring effort to other ends is economic activity make-work. The chicken and the egg is only a conundrum on the legacy side. There is always a new economy under construction and it is always growing faster than the old one. Relay replacement depends upon the troubleshooter.
Notice how Kudlow gets confident with green shoots, calling the kettle black, seeking the end of unemployment benefits each time? Sin is not evil; it’s just stupid, willfully ignorant. Why do you suppose Public Education hates that word? Equations are derivatives of language. Who is the authority operating your mind? What compiler have you willingly adopted? Shop around. Don’t expect to pay the same or less than your neighbor, though it may happen. You get what you pay for and the price depends upon the individual.
On a stage built for the occasion…earth is an incubator; at some point, the bird must fly, or die trying…Don’t disable your children and expect a happy outcome when it comes time to retire the old. When you walk into town, does the old fit with the new, and if not, by how much? How long does it take authority to show up? That will tell you everything you need to know. Authority creates its own demand, with supply. Why would anyone expect anything other than a black hole?
In the 70s, the energy trusts took control of education from local parents, from ask not what your country can do for you, but what you can do for your country, with a focus on space exploration and alternative energy, to entertaining one manufactured bogeyman after another, and exponential consumption of oil. When diversity fails, the universe orders the planet to reshuffle the deck, with climate volatility. If you don’t want to police yourself, the empire will be more than happy to do it for you, until you are bankrupt.
If you think Education is for pu**ies, go out on the streets as a non-person and see how long you last. Look around. Who, besides intelligent parents, is effectively standing against the tyranny engulfing the planet? Do you really think God cannot tell the difference? Obama is the most powerful man on the planet, right? Let’s see him walk the streets as a non-person, absent the Emperors Robe. If you really think we cannot make another, by all means, proceed to bet on gluttony, masked as socialism.
So, we change the definition of local…moving the root to a new dimension….
Kevin,
Your writing is like Beat poetry, or Performance Art. imho
I agree, it is something quite unique and wonderful, even though I have to read it several times to get the ‘flow’. So many intelligent and inventive contributors to NC, and with such humane and honest hopes for the next profound evolution of the world. We All seem to be in the midst of such a mighty struggle to overcome the oppressive forces of hate and greed, at least NC helps keep me aware and active. The thoughts and prose of those like Kevinearick,LBR,MyLessTPB,Beard,Skippy,Hugh,Ambit,Valissa,
SusanTO and Yves’ team is enlightening, if only there were 10,000 more for each of them!
I agree.
Speaking of the Beat poets, here’s an excerpt from Allen Ginsberg’s Kaddish. As a boy growing up in Paterson, NJ, Ginsberg watched as his Mother succumbed to a form of mental illness that grew progressively worse, despite desperate attempts at treatment:
“O mother
what have I left out
O mother
what have I forgotten
O mother
farewell
with a long black shoe
farewell
with Communist Party and a broken stocking
farewell…
with your sagging belly
will your fear of Hitler
with your mouth of bad short stories
with you fingers of rotten mandolins
with your arms of fat Paterson porches
with your belly of strikes and smokestacks
with your chin of Trotsky and the Spanish War
with your voice singing for the decaying overbroken workers
with your nose of bad lay with your nose of the smell of the pickles of Newark
with your eyes…
with your eyes of Russia, with your eyes of no money….
with your eyes of starving India, with your eyes of Czechoslovakia attacked by robots…
with your eyes of abortion, with your eyes of ovaries removed
with your eyes of shock
with your eyes of lobotomy
with your eyes of divorce…..
Oh those helpful chimpanzees…
http://www3.nhk.or.jp/daily/english/20120207_05.html
I thought Krugman had another very good column today. Is this sounding like a broken record to readers of this site? It does sound a bit that way to me, but my feeling is at least someone is beating the drum against really wrongheaded macro policy.
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/02/06/opinion/krugman-things-are-not-ok.html?hp
Imagine how tired HE is of beating this drum. This is *good work* indeed, education like the drip of water on the stone. In time, it makes an impression.