Links 7/5/12

Posted on by

I flew back on the 4th. No holiday. I had a 48 hour deadline dumped on me on July 2 :-( Hope you did better.

Scientists bask in ‘god particle’ discovery Financial Times (John B)

Cisco’s cloud vision: Mandatory, monetized, ExtremeTech (Carol B)

Japan nuclear crisis ‘man-made’ BBC

Spain’s Banking Crisis Moves Into the Courtroom New York Times

The Latin Troika’s Coup: what is left of the joy it generated a week later Yanis Varoufakis

Evidence of a US judicial vendetta against WikiLeaks activists mounts Guardian

Support signalled for Arafat exhumation Financial Times

Liborfest!

Wall Street Bank Investors In Dark On Libor Liability Bloomberg

Diamond: I Am a Victim Global Economic Intersection

Reaction in the UK To This Morning’s Bob Diamond Testimony Jesse

Ready, Fire, Aim Epicurean Dealmaker (Glen H). Close but no cigar. He is correct that most commentators have missed that banks would simply build an extra spread into loans priced off Libor to make up for Libor being artificially low. But that means when Libor became less suppressed, those borrowers would be paying an extra rich interest rate.

Diamond ousting ‘was plotted by his outraged bankers in New York’ Independent

Diamond’s Exit Shows Libor Only What Each Bank Says It Is BusinessWeek (furzy mouse)

Barclays is branded a ‘rotten, thieving bank’ by MP John Mann Telegraph

The LIBOR scandal will expose more naked bankers MacroBusiness

Useless Hearings on Bank Fraud masaccio Firedoglake (Carol B)

Enough is enough of the age of consumption Robert and Edward Skidelsky, Financial Times

Microsoft’s Downfall: Inside the Executive E-mails and Cannibalistic Culture That Felled a Tech Giant Vanity Fair (Carol B)

Obama Marks Fourth With New U.S. Citizens New York Times. Aiee! Confirming the real purpose of Independence Day.

South Florida lifeguard fired after saving man News4jax (Valissa). Only in America. I hope someone gives this guy a much better job, although he seems to be a damned fine lifeguard. Or maybe someone can get the company fired.

BREAKING NEWS! 75% PRINCIPAL REDUCTIONS ON HOME LOANS! STOP FORECLOSURE! ASK ME HOW! Matt Weidner (April Charney)

UPDATE 4-JPMorgan probed over possible power market manipulation Reuters (Mrs. G). Seamy stuff in here. Blythe Masters is a player in this. At least as interesting, JPM trying to claim attorney-client privilege for strictly internal communications. That is really brazen.

Occupy Guitarmy Performs Willie Nile’s “One Guitar” in Bryant Park YouTube (martha r)

Can Americans Escape the Deception? Paul Craig Roberts (René)

How Radical Economics Led to U.S. Independence Bloomberg

Antidote du jour:

Print Friendly, PDF & Email

161 comments

  1. justins_berries

    re microsofts lost decade… by kurt eichenwald

    anybody else remember how eichenwald died on his cross after it came out that his big child porn exposes were probably a product of his own child porn explorations. Ample email messages from kurt begging for more from justin and company proved he just couldnt get enough of justin berry’s big dick. my theory has always been that the feds had him, knew he could plant big stories in the grey lady, and figured theyd cut an immunity deal.

    i guess this microsft story is old kurts return to the big time.

    but i do have a question, is naked capitalism and co going to welcome any more warmed over pedos back into the fold, or is good old kurt an exception, because, well… vanity fair?

    i wonder how many times old kurt jacked off to his memories of teenaged juston berry while researching the microsoft piece?

    while he enjoys his immunity less well connected men rot in prison.

    food for thought for the torches and pitchforks crowd at NC!

    1. different clue

      icky icky poo poo I guess . . . but does it mean the microsoft article has no explanatory merit on its own terms?

    2. scraping_by

      Brilliant distraction. Raping children is one of the reddest of the red herrings. A slam bang for changing the focus to what Microsoft thinks is the important story to tell.

      As to M$; their business model was always about stealing other people’s work. All the PR books and articles about it being a fun, exciting, stimulating place to work was way too much PR. Their major venue of success was the courtrooms of Washington state, where the judges would nod whenever told “software is different.”

      And as to stack, or rank and yank, or whatever they called it, that’s a well known method for creating useless anxiety, shameless politicking, and other forms of nonproductive distraction. It’s a good way to get everyone doing office politics rather than company business. If the guys at the top are dinks, roiling the rest of the headquarters is a good way to keep attention focused elsewhere.

      Office politics – what you do when you don’t have anything useful to do.

      1. Procopius

        I don’t remember ever “…fun, exciting, stimulating place to work.” My impression of Microsoft as a company came from Robert X. Cringely’s “Accidental Empires,” because I lived through those years. He describes Polanyi and the “superprogrammer” model and I had the idea that Microsoft’s business model was to hire lots of kids straight out of college cheap, work them hard for a couple of years, and when they became eligible for a raise fires them and hired a new batch. I first developed a dislike for Bill Gates when he started on his “anti-piracy” crusade, back when there were no more than a few thousand personal computers, many of them put together by the owners. Granted, he and Paul Alan created a fantastic piece of software in their BASIC interpreter, especially getting it down to, what was it, 4K? of memory. He was already making good money from selling it to the many small manufacturers — this was before IBM even thought of getting into the field. Like you say, they’ve always made out by buying up other peoples’ ideas. And to think, they never would have even gotten into the operating systems business if Gary Kildall hadn’t suddenly decided he wanted to go fly his plane instead of meeting with the guys from IBM that day.

  2. ambrit

    Friends;
    As one who almost drowned as a child and was pulled out by a passerby, I have a real problem with any entity pulling the old “it’s not our responsibility” excuse. Anyone know the law on life threatning situations? I thought that there was a general presumption of responsibility when life was at risk. I do know that people were hanged at Nuremburg for using that excuse. Why not here too? Say, have the CEO of a company suffer the same fate as any ‘victim’ who suffers as a result of negligence by a corporation. Better yet, considering ‘Citizenz United,’ why not make the entire corporation suffer ‘death’ as a result of criminal negligence leading to a persons death? The possibilities are endless.

    1. Richard Kline

      We have here an excellent example that in America, corporate persons _really don’t CARE if you die_. Really. You, personally, are dead to them. They only care if either a) they get paid, or b) they are subject to penalty. The function of corporate liability is made manifest stripped to its essentials: that function is to shed legal constraint and obligation.

      Corporations and society are inimical. It’s us or them, folks. Don’t say you weren’t warned. Corporate persons fully intend to get ahead over your dead body, if you let them.

      1. F. Beard

        Corporate persons fully intend to get ahead over your dead body, if you let them. Richard Kline

        That’s why “credit creation” or at least all government privileges should be abolished. Corporations are considered the most “credit-worthy”, aren’t they?

        “If the America people ever allow private banks to control the issuance on their currency, first by inflation then by deflation the banks and the corporations that grow up around them will deprive the people of all property until their children wake up homeless on the continent their fathers conquered.” attributed to Thomas Jefferson [emphasis added]

        1. MyLessThanPrimeBeef

          Corporations are not the most credit worthy … they are not more credit worthy than their host government.

          1. F. Beard

            That’s because a monetarily sovereign government has NO need to borrow in the first place! Bill Mitchell calls it “corporate welfare”. It should be abolished.

          2. F. Beard

            No, it’s still “corporate welfare” even at 0% interest since the government is then providing free, risk-free money storage to those who can afford to pay for it.

          3. enouf

            @F. Beard and MyLessThanPrimeBeef;

            MyLessThanPrimeBeef says:
            July 5, 2012 at 4:01 pm


            The best time to borrow is when you don’t need to.

            F. Beard says:
            July 5, 2012 at 4:06 pm


            No, it’s still “corporate welfare” even at 0% interest since the government is then providing free, risk-free money storage to those who can afford to pay for it.

            To wit i say;

            Let’s push for Sheila Bair’s proposal – $10 Million USD ZIRP from the Fed discount window for every household, then a Kucinich-like/Keen-like proposal thereafter.

            Love

      2. Garrett Pace

        Well, a corporation can die at least, once it has no more money.

        I think more and more the same calculus is used in determining whether a human being is “alive”, too.

      1. LeonovaBalletRusse

        “all core human rights are just bait for the hook, which is debt.” Splendid!

        Catapult that meme!

      2. F. Beard

        What we are loaned is our own stolen purchasing power. People are thus driven into debt.

      3. enouf

        Concerning Health (at the least), and Gov’t Corruption from various huge agencies and depts such as the CDC, and FDA — Have a look at;

        whilesciencesleeps.com

        Love

        p.s. recall War-Criminal Rumsfeld was top-dog of said Pharmaceutical Corp (“Searle”) that came up with Aspertame.

    2. taunger

      No duty to save. Whether the victim’s life is in peril or not has no effect on the duty.

      1. Julia Williams

        Perhaps no “legal” duty. But as a trained, competent rescuer or medical staff, the moral issue comes into play. In addition, there are “good samaritan” laws in place in most states, and Florida is one:

        768.13 Good Samaritan Act; immunity from civil liability.–

        (1) This act shall be known and cited as the “Good Samaritan Act.”

        (2)(a) Any person, including those licensed to practice medicine, who gratuitously and in good faith renders emergency care or treatment either in direct response to emergency situations related to and arising out of a public health emergency declared pursuant to s. 381.00315, a state of emergency which has been declared pursuant to s. 252.36 or at the scene of an emergency outside of a hospital, doctor’s office, or other place having proper medical equipment, without objection of the injured victim or victims thereof, shall not be held liable for any civil damages as a result of such care or treatment or as a result of any act or failure to act in providing or arranging further medical treatment where the person acts as an ordinary reasonably prudent person would have acted under the same or similar circumstances.

      2. LeonovaBalletRusse

        t, wouldn’t an official Lifeguard’s failure to save be criminal negligence?

        1. LucyLulu

          No.

          There is no requirement that anybody act to save somebody else’s life, only immunity provided if they choose to do so. If the swimmer was within his “designated area”, perhaps they could pursue criminal negligence, but the lifeguard had no ‘duty’ to save all swimmers on the beach. Outside of his company’s designated watch area, the lifeguard becomes like any other bystander.

          BTW, good samaritan laws don’t guarantee immunity, only immunity provided prudent care was provided. ‘Prudent care’ is not only a subjective guideline open to interpretation, but humans do make mistakes, and there is no corporate liability coverage in effect when acting outside of the job, so one becomes personally liable. Furthermore, a valid complaint is not required to bring a suit, that must be defended against with personal funds (unless one carries their own malpractice coverage), anybody can sue for any reason. That would and has not stopped me from intervening but there are some who choose to avoid the risk and walk away. Especially in Hallandale, a very litigious community.

          1. ambrit

            Dear LucyLulu;
            Alas, too true. I’ve been to Hallandale beach. Very nice in the old days. People weren’t quite as scared of litigation back then. What we need is a law like in England where a plaintiff pays the defendants legal fees in the case of failure of the suit.
            My memory is defective, but I remember an exchange in an Ancient Greek play where one man meets an old friend in the agora and asks:
            “Where have you been? I haven’t seen you in court in a long time.”
            “I’ve embraced the pastoral life and avoid courts like the plague for my well being.”
            “What? Not suing someone? You call yourself a Greek?”
            I still think American Lawyers should be an export commodity.
            Cheers.

    3. enouf

      ambrit [didn’t read through all the comments yet, but]

      someone once said (something along the lines of);

      “I’ll believe Corporations are Persons when Texas finally executes one”

      heh

      Love

      1. ambrit

        Dear enouf;
        I’ll second that and add one I once heard: “I’ll believe corporations are people when I see one suffer an attack of conscience.”
        By the way, did you notice how prominently the ‘catch up’ pr campaign by the lifeguard company has been displayed on the MSM and social media sites? Almost as if someone way up the food chain sent out a message to “Save the reputation of business guys!”
        Thanks.

    4. enouf

      ambrit;
      a) Glad you survived ;-)
      b) Your comments about ‘obligation to intervene in life-threatening situations’ reminded me of the last final(?) Seinfeld episodes, heh

      Love

  3. Michael Fiorillo

    The ultimate significance of the lifeguard story, unmentioned in the article, is that these former public services had been privatized and turned over to a profit-making entity, which could care less about the health and survival of residents and beach users.

    The public schools are rapidly being turned over to the same ilk, all in the name of what in Goebbels fashion is being called “The Civl Rights Issue of Our Time.”

    1. scraping_by

      The privatization model has always been about paying more and getting less. The ideologues who promote it are often blatant about lowering the level of service in the name of profit. And, often, just lowering the level of service as a good thing.

      Embracing the Dark Ages.

  4. jack hepler

    re 4th of July/Paul Craig Roberts
    Yesterday I made an hours ride from my home in the middle of nowhere, TN, to Watertown, somewhat west of East Jeezus.
    There was an afternoon parade and two of my Green friends were to make speeches. We hung out at Lulu’s– the hip watering hole– and watched as the various vehicles meandered through a Main Street lined with citizens mostly of right-wing political ilk.
    Apart from 4 guys in khaki with a flag, there was a dire shortage of red, white, and blue, bunting, whatever. And no noise from firecrackers! What there was in abundance was Kids with serious squirt guns, on the street sides and on the “floats”, soaking each other and the spectators. Hilarity, everyone squirting in 100F weather. And better yet, there were huge gaps in between the vehicles: what was once a cardinal sin became a joy strecthing out the fun. What a revelation! I was uplifted

    We waited a bit for the speeches but the square was deserted soon after the parade.
    ************************

    I generally like Paul Craig Roberts but his photo shows a tortured soul. His referencing of the 9/11 bombing is a sad reflection of a paranoid, negative mindset. Our Dear Leaders were certainly evil enough to take down the Towers but they lacked the prescience, the guts and the competence to do such a thing. [I’ve spent many hours reviewing the evidence of alleged Cheney/Mossad evildoing and what we hear from 9/11 truthers is questions and woo-woo music. And not a single whistleblower/ guilty conscience confession in the 11 succeeding years. Beware of attributing to evil design that which is more readily explained by incompetence.]

    1. jsmith

      “I generally like Paul Craig Roberts but his photo shows a tortured soul. His referencing of the 9/11 bombing is a sad reflection of a paranoid, negative mindset.”

      Concern troll is really concerned.

      Good doggie, go get your treat.

    2. LeonovaBalletRusse

      jh, at the least, 9/11 was “allowed to happen” from the top, and it was the “tipping point” into “chaos” exploited for the Reich’s putsch for: the P.A.T.R.I.O.T Act, the coronation of Tom Ridge (Bush Enron co-conspirator) as head of the newly Invented “Department of Homeland Security” later entangled with FEMA (stripped of its earlier power), later subsumed under the DOD. The “terror” of 9/11 was the foundation for the Reich-enriching War on Terra/War on Iraq; and led to the Reich-enriching “Blackwater” invasion of New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina and the Great (Army Corps negligence) Flood, under the auspices of Heckuva job Brownie of elite horse breeding fame. (It has since been revealed how much organized crime money is laundered through the horsey set).

      Well, Jack, I admit that’s “just the tip” of the putsch writ large, but I don’t want to bore my compatriots at NC with details they remember all too well.

      So, please, peddle your propaganda on this matter elsewhere.

      1. LeonovaBalletRusse

        Oh, that “Blackwater” – Heckuva job Brownie moment permitted “The Shock Doctrine”/Disaster Capitalism of Milton Friedman & Co. to “privatize” the education system, screw former citizens of color with “laws” that forbade their return to their former neighborhoods, and to “reform” New Orleans according to “Republican” Master Class designs that only the swells of the American Sector (“The Garden District) could love.

    3. jsmith

      If you’d like to put your concern troll costume away for the rest of the day – I’m sure you’re REALLY broken up about PCR, huh? – maybe you should review the FBI report on the “Dancing Israelis” since you brought up the Mossad.

      http://www.scribd.com/doc/66318931/9-11-FBI-Report-Dancing-Israelis-01

      Even from this heavily redacted report, it is clear that the Mossad had prior knowledge of the 9/11 attacks and knew exactly where and when they were to happen.

      Around page 85 and following is where it gets good.

      The photographs developed from the arrest show all of the Mossad agents celebrating and smiling only minutes after the FIRST WTC was hit.

      Now why would Mossad agents be celebrating when there were NO REPORTS of the first plane hitting the WTC being a terrorist attack?

      Right after the first crash, there were NO REPORTS of terrorism in the MSM.

      I’m sure others will feed you some more troll but this report conclusively at the very least shows that Mossad definitely had fore-knowledge of the attacks.

      Whether they perpetrated the attacks or just didn’t warn us is another story but they knew.

      As to the risible claim that the towers themselves could’ve fallent the way they did w/o help – well, if you want to continue to be yet another embarrassment to American citizenry, go right ahead.

    4. René

      “And not a single whistleblower/ guilty conscience confession in the 11 succeeding years.” – jack hepler

      Susan Lindauer blew the whistle, you might want to listen to her testimony. In the video underneath, she explains how as a former CIA translator/intermediary between the US and Iraqi government, she was informed/warned about an impending attack on the WTC many months before the actual event!

      First 30 minutes;

      Extreme Prejudice – CIA Whistle Blower Susan Lindauer PDX 911Truth

      http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G43zl4fzDQg

    5. ohmyheck

      Well, of course you haven’t, when you run around with your fingers in your ears, yelling, “I can’t hear you!”

      Even my 13-year-old daughter figured out, on her own, that 9/11 was a false flag, inside job. And she is not the brightest bulb in the pack.

      Eyes Wide Shut.

      1. stripes

        Fear is the devils only friend….from the song American Pie…Time for a roundhouse kick in the face from the 99%….Just stop participating.

        1. different clue

          If you can’t take the heat, put on your asbestos raincoat and keep going regardless.

      2. Up the Ante

        You are not formally required on this site to declare your status as a male escort.

        Nor are you required to declare your intent to render “this place” as “creepy”.

    6. Up the Ante

      “Beware of attributing to evil design that which is more readily explained by incompetence. ”

      OK, I’ll do that. I’ll pretend for the moment that your comment is not the product of evil design and is your confession of incompetence.

      To wit, you claim to have researched 9/11, it must be incompetence for it not to have occurred to you the Air Sovereignty Alert Mission never failed once before 9/11 and failed ostensibly on 9/11 because NEADS could not track the airliners.

      To further wit, the Joint Surveillance System of the FAA/Air Force has always transmitted all data to NEADS so if disabled on 9/11 incompetence must be the explanation .. for the incompetent.

      Training exercises were ongoing before the first plane was hijacked, yet the NEADS commander and his commander could not make the decision to intercept, even with FAA guidance. Only incompetence could feel good with that.

  5. Eureka Springs

    As long as we tolerate government secrecy we will suffer the same gray deceit over and over again.

    A government secret should be considered tantamount to treason.

    1. enouf

      It most certainly is; Treasonous, Treacherous, Traitorous — and All members of All 3 major branches, and ANYONE whom swears an Oath to Uphold the Constitution is Guilty-As-Charged!

      Love

  6. wunsacon

    >> Obama Marks Fourth With New U.S. Citizens New York Times. Aiee! Confirming the real purpose of Independence Day.

    Please elaborate — just a tad.

    1. emptyfull

      yeah. I think that would work better. “Lambert’s Local Links” would look better aesthetically seperate from the traditional links (w/ antidotes). Probably would make Lambert’s paragraph format easier to process and click on.

      It’s a great idea and might bring a larger, more dedicated readership to both Lambert and NC in general — for example, enviromentalists who aren’t into finance might come regularly for his local fracking links, then stick around and learn from other posters.

      BTW, I’m seeing NC mentioned in more comment sections and articles. I’d be interested to hear whether site stats are growing.

  7. semiconscious

    all those in favor of lambert’s ‘column’ being posted under its own header, rather than under ‘links’, say ‘aye!’ :) …

  8. Noe

    I watched a youtube or network video of a woman who lived in the Florida complex with Atta and his group. Right after 9/11, she was interviewed and said her neighbors all knew ‘something was up’ because these nice fellows were being watched by ‘government types’.

    she also said they were nice men, and had Israeli friends.

    I saw this from Durbuy Belgium, within days of the event. And never saw it again. Ditto for the instand messenger who called police because his Israeli boss told him to stay clear of the towers that day.

    This is the stuff that is ignored by CNN, Fox and ABC.

    1. LeonovaBalletRusse

      Noe, there was a cell in New Orleans suburb also, but the FBI didn’t want to hear about it. Later, someone did.

    2. Walter Wit Man

      Did you ever look at the Archive project to try to find the original footage?

      http://archive.org/projects/

      How accurate is this? I’ve never tried to search for things there so I don’t even know how much material it contains.

      I know that Simon “Shack” used this project to get the original footage from 9/11 to analyze it. And Simon claimed to catch Fox trying to alter the archived footage: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vzCW197AqpM for part 1 and part 2: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b9LURV-joLI&feature=relmfu

      This is the famous “nose out” shot that reveals CGI manipulation of the image of the second plane hitting the tower.

      I now suspect Simon Shack of being a disinformation agent but like other 9/11 disinfo agents he has introduced some valid analysis–like looking at the original footage.

      Anyway, Simon also points out that there probably are lots of VHS tapes out there where people recorded live television that day. I think some people have claimed to see different things in different regions implying that someone was messing with the television programming that day.

      1. LeonovaBalletRusse

        “Footprint” falls, and evidence of thermite plus record of which dynastic “blood” was in charge of WTC Security before the date, are convincing arguments from highly reputable sources.

        1. different clue

          Was WTC security in Bush family hands? Or at least Bush-family-servant hands?

          1. Ron

            Marvin P. Bush, the president’s younger brother, was a principal in a company called Securacom that provided security for the World Trade Center, United Airlines, and Dulles International Airport.

          2. enouf

            Ron;

            So .. they (the Shrub Crime Family) assassinated John O’neill (Senoir Security Officer of the WTC, former FBI antiterrorist antagonist) who died that day.

            See — “The Man Who Knew” — PBS, et al have presentations about this Patriot whom the Clinton Admin shut-down his intuitive efforts to seek out the “Soon-to-be-Scapegoats” since the attacks of 1993 on the towers.

            Love

      2. enouf

        Walter Wit Man said;

        … This is the famous “nose out” shot that reveals CGI manipulation of the image of the second plane hitting the tower. …

        I’ve studied the footage (all available) very carefully and have concluded;

        — It would’ve been extremely easy for a ‘nose cone’ sized/shaped object moving at that velocity to “almost” completely remain fully intact (throughout the breadth of the building) upon breaching the building’s exterior IF;

        a) it did so precisely between floors/levels of WTC-2
        b) it entered (almost?) entirely between the exterior exoskeletal vertical columns and tranversed across the breadth without colliding with the central Core, and the other side’s exoskeletal members.

        If you know the Structural Design and Architecture of the WTC’s North and South Towers, you’d know the main design was based on allowing/having massive Open-Space areas — hence all floor space was “open” (structurally) from Central Core -> Exterior (barring any/all office partitions/walls erected to allocate space differently, but these wouldn’t have been anything near ‘structural’).

        Love

        1. Walter Wit Man

          The nose cone is made of very flimsy material. I could punch a dent into it from what I understand.

          It’s true the columns were mostly on the inside and there was an usual amount of space in between the floors, but the steel on the outside would have been sliced through like butter by the plane. Cartoon physics.

          No way the nose cone goes through the entire building and comes out intact. NO WAY!

          1. enouf

            @ Walter Wit Man

            Hi, i’ve re-reviewed previous footage, and saw some new video (some i hadn’t yet seen, like the fox5 archive comparisons). and hrm..

            If you compare the live (famous) amateur footage video from the south manhatten street shot (viewing almost straight-up from the ground), which is filming a man sitting/talking, and shows the South Tower (WTC-2) moments before impact of 2nd plane, and then the impact itself – you can see the nose-cone shape very very briefly (this time, from mostly the under-side of the plane). — I recall also how one way the ‘no-planers’ can be debunked is the Reflection of the incoming jetliner in the rear window of the parked SUV, in the same video (moments before impact).

            I offer no real explanation of how this is occuring .. especially upon re-review of archived WTC actual footage (from the ’60s and ’70s) as the towers were being built, it appears the vertical exoskeletal shell girders/beams (not the ‘Core’) were pre-fabbed below (or offsite) in ‘pairs of three’ (so to speak), then hoisted into a zig-zaggig-grid-pattern as they were ascending, ..and the amount of space in between “each” of those three is no more than 4′ (4 feet) and likely less than that. ..that said;

            I’m also inclined to think the nose-cone of commercial airliners are structurally designed/reinforced, as are the leading edges of both wings, and tail — since these places, in particular are susceptible to all sorts of stresses/forces that other areas of plane are not. Think of a head-on collision with a bird even at 200 mph .. or even collision with air particulates, heck even rain/sleet/ice/hail, and done so over the life of the plane (many years) and happening at even greater speeds. This would be easy to physically test! (smashing a nose-cone (at various speeds) into a mockup of vertical columns of steel/glass/etc, exactly like the towers had). I can’t imagine why it hasn’t been done!

            All that said — We all know something sure is phishy about it all — and it stinks to high heaven — rotten to the core — i feel we may never know the full story.

            Lastly, for now, i’d just like to say that ae911truth.org and mo911truth.org need to maintain their vigilence in weeding out the CIA/NSA agent-provacateurs – ya know, the ones who post a bit of speculation to supposedly raise awareness and then go on to introduce nonsense like the no-plane theory, aliens, military-style star-wars death-rays from space, etc. They certainly are a real and threatening distraction! We need to stick with the known Facts!

            Love

  9. Jessica

    From Microsoft’s Downfall: Inside the Executive E-mails and Cannibalistic Culture That Felled a Tech Giant Vanity Fair (Carol B)

    “According to Microsoft executives, the company’s loyalty to Windows and Office repeatedly kept them from jumping on emerging technologies.”

    Some intellectual production fits poorly into the current model of permanent corporations. The development of the standard PC word processor and spreadsheet and projector slide programs might have worked better organized as a temporary project, with the organization wound down once the task was done.

    One of the prices of our current competition and insecurity based system is that it forces everyone to try to keep their organization/job going even when it is no longer needed. The Scandinavians actually have a bit more flexibility this way because of their nation-wide social support systems.

    1. LeonovaBalletRusse

      J, well, Gates had to milk that monopoly in “education” and every other aspect of life of the American masses.

    2. enouf

      IMHO, heh “MS Works” (early versions) was/is a much better program than any “Word” word-processor could ever be, due to it’s ‘terminal’ and formatting simplicity — HOWEVER, things like Powerpoint/Accel were much better left to GNU and F/LOSS designs like TeX/LaTeX. Shame how it worked out, eh?

      …if not even (unfortunately) Adobe’s PDF format (which lost quite a bit for the same reasons RamBus RAM lost out (RIMMs, not DIMMs, circa. 1999-2000).. heck, even BETA-MAX did many years prior) even though RDRAM was superior (it was ‘serialized’ rather than ‘parallel’).

      http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/RDRAM (for context)

      Love

  10. Neo-Realist

    Microsoft’s Downfall??? Maybe they’re not at the top of the market, but it’s not as if Gates and Ballmer have lost their fortunes nor from what I can see here in the Seattle area have there been massive layoffs of employees. When Microsoft becomes the IT version of Lehman Brothers or Washington Mutual and go bust, then we can seriously talk downfall.

    1. LeonovaBalletRusse

      N, the Top Dogs never lose their fortune or even prospective fortune: Zuckerberg a case in point: HE would cash-in big time, no matter what the collateral damage of that rigged IPO was.

  11. Teejay

    Yves, I’m puzzled that you’d include Paul Craig Roberts’ post “Can Americans Escape the Deception?” in your links. While his remarks on civil liberties and whistleblowers are well founded and meritorious, he then flies off the track into 9/11 Truther nonsense about thermite and controlled demolitions. Propaganda consists of 4 ounces of truth to every 16 pounds of bs and this “truth”-about-9/11 is a case in point. Anyone needing the specific, comprehensive line by line refutation can google “screw9/11mysteries”. The 2.5 hour video meticulously exposes all of the “facts” that
    Truther videos use. I have little doubt that witnesses lied
    and information was withheld at the 9/11 commission hearings
    to protect individuals and agencies from political embarrasment and accountibility. Condi Rice never released
    a copy of her canceled speech that day which I’m willing to
    guess advocated a missle defense shield to protect us from
    evil doers, but this inside-job meme needs to be extinguished once and for all.

    1. F. Beard

      I have little doubt that witnesses lied
      and information was withheld at the 9/11 commission hearings
      to protect individuals and agencies from political embarrasment and accountibility … but this inside-job meme needs to be extinguished once and for all.
      Teejay

      There is such a thing as criminal negligence. Why shouldn’t that be exposed?

      Also the US Government has at least plotted to kill its own citizens for political reasons on other occasions.

      1. Teejay

        Absolutely, expose criminal negligence— with evidence. Watch the video I cited and you’ll see what a shame the Truthers are pushing. Secondly, your logic (govt plotted before, therefore they must be plotting here)is false.

        1. F. Beard

          The truth can stand a full, exhaustive investigation, can’t it? And wouldn’t that have silenced the deniers?

          Too much doesn’t add up. There should have been NO hurry with the investigation. And there should be no hurry now to silence the deniers.

          So now we live with perpetual and expensive doubt.

          And previous false flags are all the more reason for a complete, exhaustive investigation of any suspected ones.

          1. different clue

            Quite so. And if my computer were really working, I would offer a link to a post called Flight of Capital on a blog called Rigorous Intuition 2.0
            But since my computer is just barely hardly even working at all, the best I can do is offer the name of the blog (which is Rigorous Intuition 2.0) and the name of the relevant post on that blog (which is Flight Of Capital). The post is very relevant as to “motive”.

      2. LeonovaBalletRusse

        F.B, what do you bet it really is “all about money–nothing personal?”

        Below is just one more “financial” motive, among several like this:

        “A secretive Russian Bond valued at $240 billion was to mature the very next day, most of which were in the Cantor Fitzgerald offices atop the tower. Those bonds could not be redeemed at maturity, a theft.”

        (part of [D.P.’s] Comment to ZH blog today (7/5/12) in depth: “The Biggest Financial Scam in World History”–well worth reading in entirety, with Comments)

        An old-fashioned coupon bond “disappeared” into oblivion.

        1. LeonovaBalletRusse

          FB, edit: “BEARER bonds” vaporized.

          Comment was quoting from the Golden Jackass long form today.

    2. Capo Regime

      Well if she listened to all suggestions as to what to exclude we would end up having something like KOS or Huffington here no? Am sure there are people in banking who could refute all allegations as well. Who knows. She should conitnue to post whatever the hell she wants. Don;t like it say so but dictating content is her choice, not yours or mine.

    3. jsmith

      And tell us resident genius, what is really the difference between allowing something to happen and perpetrating the crime?

      Why, the entire existence of this site is dedicated to exposing how some of the most powerful people and institutions on the planet have for decades been engaging in very real criminal activities all behind the aegis of “whocuddanode?”, “all honest mistakes”, “oops, we’re incompetent”, etc etc, all the while they tend to become more powerful/rich through said “mistakes”. Just lucky, huh?

      Yet, when confronted with lots of evidence showing that something about the one day that did indeed set the ball-rolling on more than a decade of multi-trillion dollar operations of war, theft and the creation of a domestic American police state, we should just accept ONCE AGAIN that it all was just – shucks – another government boner?

      Some of us just can’t swallow anymore government boners, Teejay.

      Go deep enough and I think you get a prize.

      1. jsmith

        Edited:

        Yet, when confronted with lots of evidence showing that there was something fishy – to say the least – about the one day that did indeed set the ball rolling on more than a decade of multi-trillion dollar operations of war, theft and the creation of a domestic American police state, we should just accept ONCE AGAIN that it all was just – shucks – another government boner?

        Government boners…nom nom.

        1. jsmith

          Wait a second….

          Are you saying that you’re NOT reading my posts?!!

          I’m so sorry. No really.

          I mean, I’ve sincerely been trying to cater to your sophisticated blog-reading tastes, Rex, but obviously I’ve failed.

          What will bring you back to the jsmith fold?

          Should I discuss the Presidential horserace and how much it really matters to the common citizen?

          How Obama’s socialism is destroying America?

          Or perhaps you would like some exciting tall-tales about unicorns and pixies?

          I mean, since you seem to believe in the Official 9/11 Government fairy-tale, this would’nt be too big of a leap for you now would it?

          Anywho, off to recover from this near-mortal blow to my self-esteem.

          Thanks, Rex, for setting me straight.

          From this point on, I’ll be sure to always treat with respect the infantile fools who slurp up what the goverment feeds them.

          Instead of “resident genius” I’ll be sure to call them all effing idiots.

          P.S. (Notice how the word “slurp” works with the word “boner” in my earlier post? Pretty clever, huh?)

      2. jack hepler

        I have liked the Dancing Israelis as evidence. But of what? I have no problem believing that the Mossad might have know of the 9/11 attack in advance. I have no problem believing the Mossad knowing this, may have told their despised CIA handlers about it. Or they may not have told ’em!
        Point is, a very big difference in Mossad sappers spending months drilling and wiring the Towers for a demolition with magickal thermite; or in said agents rejoicing that the crazed Saudis had actually DONE it, surely bringing the USA in closer lockstep with the irredentist Likudnik more-war policies.

        That is the difference in perpetrating the crime and allowing it to happen.

        1. LeonovaBalletRusse

          jh, the Bush Dynasty had fingers in pre 9/11 Security pie. You tight with those guys?

        2. Walter Wit Man

          I am open to the Israelis being involved, but this is a bit too cute for me.

          Why would an expert demolition team (e.g. one of the alleged perps was an Israeli military detonation expert and overstayed a student art visa) bungle the mission this way? It’s so cartoonish. They spend months in the U.S. clandestinely “wiring” the buildings* and then park vans in a public place and celebrate by lighting a lighter and slapping high fives, etc.? That’s crazy unprofessional. Aren’t these guys supposed to be the best of the best?

          The Israeli evidence was quickly buried too . . . which normally I would interpret as making them more culpable but in this case I think it’s exculpatory because it seems consistent with laying a deep cover story to be uncovered later. All the Israeli incidents have the same pattern: one or two news items on the incident at the time and then nothing in the MSM and then the diplomats send all Israeli perps back to Israel. Then a few alternative media stories (Democracy Now, Alternet). Then some innuendo by people like Richard Clark (whose comments in a documentary about this subject evidently were under review by the CIA so the movie hadn’t been released last I saw–but you could see the comments on youtube–ha).

          Anyway. As much as I think the Israelis could be perps I’m seeing some red flags and think Israel may be used as a cover story. Hell, it’s probably some other group that runs both the U.S. and Israel so it’s no big surprise they would be willing to use either state as a patsy.

          *Btw, the best evidence indicates the buildings were constructed with this false flag mission in mind. Since the buildings were largely empty of tenants it would have been easy to “wire” the building, if they weren’t constructed this way. See the Let’s Roll Forums on this issue and as far as I’m aware this website is mostly responsible for uncovering this stuff (via FOIA requests). http://letsrollforums.com/world-trade-center-hollow-f16.html

      3. Teejay

        “Resident genius”? You ad hominem attack using sarcastic name calling won’t help you win friends or influence people.
        I’m not asking you or anyone else to “swallow” everything the government says. I am asking you and anyone else “con-
        fronted with lots of evidence” from Truther videos to look
        closely at HOW they have come to their conclusions. They have edited conversations and videos and used falty logic extensively. I say again— watch the video I cited.

        1. Walter Wit Man

          Your video has more faulty logic than the websites I go to that question the official version. It’s not even close.

          Right off the bat your video smears all people that question the official story as suffering cognitive problems like hallucination. No really. That’s how your video begins.

        1. Glenn Condell

          Wells’s posts are rare treats, literally. He doesn’t post much but what appears is always worth a look. He dares to nightmare, drawing together often rather tenuous links which eventually coalesce into an awful certainty. There are more nuggets of fascinating ephemera in one of his posts than you’ll find in a month of Sundays elsewhere, it’s like truffle hunting.

          Easy to ridicule someone with his eyes peeled and an ear to the ground who is willing to speculate and to accuse. We need people like him far more than dime a dozen establishment tummy ticklers such as the concern trolls above.

    4. LeonovaBalletRusse

      Teejay, your propaganda follows the rules you state. Troll off. Don’t lecture our dear leader.

    5. Yves Smith Post author

      I’ll admit I only read the top, which I thought was useful, and didn’t see the 9/11 part. However, I don’t find this as offensive as you seem to. I don’t have a point of view as to where these concerns lead (as in there may be less dire ways to reconcile this than the “false flag” surmise) but I do believe in being data driven. Roberts hedges his comments (notice the use of words like “likely”) and points out how the official information does not seem to add up. He may go further in his allegations/insinuations in other things he has written (I don’t follow him) so that may indeed be a cause for concern. But you didn’t refute his objections. The onus is on you to say where he is off base. It is hardly controversial to say the official investigation was late and lousy. That alone is troubling. Reagan did a better and faster job of investigating the 1987 crash than Bush did of investigating 9/11.

      1. Teejay

        Fair enough, point taken. PCR: More than 100 witnesses reported hearing/experiencing scores of explosions in the twin towers, including powerful explosions in the su-basements prior to the collapse of the towers.// The “explosions” these witnesses heard was the rush of air of the concrete decks collapsing on top of one another. The wave traveled down the elevator shaft to the lower levels and sub-basement long before those levels collapsed.
        PCR: Distinguished scientists…report finding unreacted nano-thermite in the dust from the towers, tested it for its explosive and high-heat producing ability, and reported the unequivocal results.// Thermite is not repeat not an explosive. Ask any building demolition expert if they have used or would ever use thermite in building demolition. Thermite burns at very high temperatures. Commercially it is used to weld or fuse two metals together. In the electrical trade it would be used to weld ground rods and ground wires together as part of the grounding electrode system (GES). According to wikipedia a military application of thermite would be destruction of cryptographic equipment in danger of being captured by an enemy. The video I cited went into excruciatingly detailed calculation to demonstrate how impossible it would be to burn thru WTC structural steel using thermite to bring down the tower.
        PCR: … if americans were not so ignorant of science or were capable of even realizing that what they see with their own eyes when they watch videos of the twin tower’s destruction is buildings blowing up, not buildings falling down from structural damage.// The “blowing up” they “see with their own eyes” is the enormous volume of air on each floor (napkin calculation 432,640 cubic feet, assuming ten foot between floor decks) having essentially no place to go but outward. That will look and sound like an explosion. PCR: WTC7’s destruction is the total and complete picture of controlled demolition.// Debris from the towers fell on WTC 7 catching it on fire. Firefighters attempted to save the building and determined it was not salvageable and let it go. A technique used in Truther videos is to interview 1st responders and edit and splice their testimony, the Breitbart
        treatment. If that doesn’t work they use faulty logic. I fully agree with
        PCR’s criticism of breaches in civil liberties and “America’s descent into a gaestapo police state”. His explaination for what CAUSED the towers to come down, Yves does offend me. Watching the video I’ve seen will convince you
        the Truther explaination is fact free and offensive.
        video.google.com/videoplay?docid=6243624912447824934
        screw9/11mysteries
        globalbrief.catomquiggin/2010/05/01/911-conspiracy-theories—debunking-richard-gage/

        1. jsmith

          Stop embarrassing yourself, please.

          “The isolated ejections 20-60 stories below the demolition front appear to be composed of pulverized building materials, including concrete. There was no known mechanism by which pulverized building materials being created up at the zone of destruction could have been transported so far down through the building and to the exterior. Air conditioning vents would not have tolerated such pressures, and there was no other “channel” in the building to deliver “compressed air”.

          There is no reason, on the “dust puff” theory, for such blasts to be as isolated as they were. Massive air pressure which would delivered by the (missing) “pile driver” down through the elevator hoist ways and out through a given floor would have broken most or all windows on that floor – not created the highly focalized pin-point ejections that are seen on the videos. The breakage of one or two windows on a given floor would not have relieved enough pressure across an entire floor area to prevent the breakage of many other windows nearby.”

          Another problem with the “dust puff” theory is that the pulverized building materials would not have been transported so quickly. Air would have been pushed ahead of such materials, resulting in transparent puffs of air flowing through the freshly broken windows.

          Physicist David Chandler has also shown that some of these ejections came from the corners of the buildings. Since there are no windows on the corners, these ejections could not have been the result of air pressure.

          Furthermore, calculations performed by Dr. Crockett Grabbe show that the horizontal ejection rate of the squibs is disproportional to the floor and debris descent speeds that are allegedly responsible for them. As Kevin Ryan has shown, the ejection speed of the squibs from the Towers also matches the speeds recorded for ejections caused by explosives.

          As to these ejections appearing only after the collapse initiation, it should be noted that the North Tower’s antenna dropped before any other building movement is seen, which is evidence that demolition devices were working on the core before any squibs were seen emerging out of the perimeter walls. There is also video showing that some of these ejections occurred even before the collapses began. See “Visible Explosion at World Trade Center” and “WTC1 collapse initiation – visible signs.”

          http://www.ae911truth.org/en/news-section/41-articles/585-faq-8-squibs.html

          1. Teejay

            Seriously,what was the explosive used? How was it installed?
            How many floors were rigged? How many people did it take to
            accomplish this? How long did it take to do this? I’m not
            being a wise ass. I’m not being sarcastic. There’s a lot to explain when you go down this road.

          2. jsmith

            Look, the route you’re going down is incorrect in that you are using the SEEMINGLY difficult nature of the operation as the reason to disqualify the conclusions that the scientific evidence shows us.

            Just because YOU don’t think that a group of operatives could rig the WTC shouldn’t mean that it couldn’t happen!

            How do you know how long it takes for a team of commandos to wire up a building?

            How do you know how good or non-existent the security was a WTC?

            Who were the tenants of WTC – hint: intelligence agencies were all over WTC7.

            It’s the same thing as asking a person who doesn’t believe in the official 9/11 fairy tale who committed the crime.

            No one knows exactly who did but we have evidence that the story is a lie.

            In this case the evidence clearly points to a demolition of the WTC1, 2 and 7 – no matter who or how they did it.

            Please visit this page where the aetruth movement addresses your concern.

            http://ae911truth.org/en/news-section/41-articles/595-faq-1-who-demolished-the-twin-towers-and-building-7-and-why.html

      2. scraping_by

        Actually, honored hostess, you’ve given us one of the few bits of hope for this tattered society.

        “Seventeen hundred architects and engineers have testified in a petition to Congress that the three World Trade Center buildings were not brought down by fire and airplanes and have demanded a real scientific investigation of the cause of the buildings’ destruction.”

        In these days of fear, when vindictiveness is a government policy and personal attack is an expected legal device, it’s heartening to see a bunch of my fellow techies stand up for reality, and through reality, truth. These are people who could be replaced by H-1B’s or framed by the Feds and no one would raise a whimper. Yet, they called out the accepted story as nonsense and asked for national courage to replace the rubbish.

        Moral virtue as a conscious choice.

        http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nicomachean_Ethics

    6. Walter Wit Man

      I can’t imagine this video is convincing any independent thinkers because it’s pretty obviously not a fair analysis.

      When did the movie “911 Mysteries” come to stand in for all “Truthers?” I’ve never even heard of this movie . . . . and yet this movie represents those with doubts about the official story? No. This is called building a straw man. I have no idea if 9/11 Mysteries is a good movie or not but it DOES NOT represent “truthers.”

      I only made it through ten minutes of the film and it’s impossible for me to rebut 2 and half hours of relentless propaganda. The whole thing is lies.

      Where shall we start?

      How about the opening of your silly ass video? Where they put the symptoms of sleep deprivation on the screen as if all “truthers” suffer from sleep deprivation or something. Is this the logic you find so compelling? That one dude that investigates 9/11 didn’t sleep for a week THEREFORE abbracadabra ALL “TRUTHERS” are paranoid and hallucinating, etc.

      Give me a break. Already in the first ten minutes I’ve seen a number of cheap shots so your video sucks. It’s not fairly showing us the evidence it’s just appealing to blind authority (“bbbbbbbut NIST says so!”) and doing it in a cheap way (“bbbbbut NIST says so and Truthers are paranoid, hallucinating, freaks!”).

      1. Teejay

        WWM, You watched 10 minutes of a 155 minute video and said:
        “The WHOLE THING is lies”. I had similar thoughts when I watched it. Watch it to the conclusion anyway. It will suprise you. You’ve reached a conclusion without having concluded watching it. It really sounds like you mis-
        understood what he’s saying.

  12. Noe

    It’s not as though the false flag operation is a new invention.

    Government has been infiltrating and entrapping fringe groups for years and years. Clinton managed to destroy the militia movement during his tenure with high profile operations like Ruby Ridge, OKC, and Waco… all designed to intimidate, and eliminate the local militia movement… by the time it was over, the movement was wholly discredited – BY ACTS OF THE CLINTON ADMINISTRATION – and members knew the most hostile, aggressive members of any local group were the government agents.

    I have a friend in Norfolk Va – who swears her husband was part of the ‘cell’ that orchestrated the event that got that gay kid murdered and hung on a fence. She explained that all the president has to do is speak in broad terms of what he ‘needs’…. what if’s… to get an operation started.

    There are no written instructions, just suggestions of what if. He needed a sympathetic ‘victim’ of right wing hate — that sets the wheels in motion. Next thing you know we have headlines of a gay boy beaten and left for dead

    What we aren’t told is that the entire ‘operation’ was instigated by operatives in that bar who set the stage and left. [Not unlike McVeigh’s ‘handler’ Andreas Strassmeir – google it…]

    She also told me the cells that do these things are on very short leashes.. anything goes wrong, the feds have plenty of evidence to put any of their agents behind bars — there are no ‘rogues’ – only prisoners of past military deeds – and drug enduced ‘acts’ – usually with underage boys.

    Her stories made me shudder – her now ex husband was a drunk – a former decorated soldier – again not unlike McVeigh – who was a prisoner of some ABC agency. there are no whistleblowers in this crowd. She says other military wives in Norfolk believe she’s a nutcase – but she knew when she got the call from Denver – and then saw the headlines… her husband was ‘at work’.

    1. Noe

      addendum – if we wonder why each succeeding administration condones and continues the use of ‘false flags’ – it’s a situation not unlike MAD between us and Russia.

      Nobody wants to lose the power of the false flag – each administration and some senior congressional leaders knows the score – but also know the boots on the ground for each op are untouchable, or disposable – along with their career and family.

      The most fascinating aspect of these discussions with military wives is that NO ONE gets far in the government ladder unless they are vetted with damning EVIDENCE of criminality – should they decide to get feisty with the facts somewhere down their career road.

      You do not become Tim Geithner or Ben Barnanke or Karl Rove – without this vetting process.

      I understand the governments favorite claim used to be homosexuality – but is now confined to pedophilia – for quick disposal of rogues and misguided patriots.

      1. Capo Regime

        The truth can be stranger than fiction. Hard to tell really what goes on what with our brains drenched in propaganda for the last 50 years and public schools, etc. etc. Will say this the recent power outages in D.C. area show how disruptive even a common event can be with a 1960 electrical grid. Lot of aha moments am sure…

      2. Capo Regime

        They sure got Spitzer and DSK. Interestingly DSK was speaking a few years ago against a lot of the excesses we see today. Well he is now safely disposed of and Spitzer gets to rant impotently on TV instead of putting people in jail. Funny that.

        1. LeonovaBalletRusse

          Spitzer payback on his VIEWPOINT show w/ Taibbi and Kelleher. Last laugh.

      3. LeonovaBalletRusse

        Noe, from “Franklin Coverup” to “Coach Sandusky” – “just the tip.”

      4. Glenn Condell

        Scott Ritter.

        If not pedo, then homo. If that won’t fly a la Assange, then rape will have to do. If even that fails to convince, a la David Kelly, it’s the Final Solution.

    2. Walter Wit Man

      Good comment Noe. Just two years ago my conditioning would have prevented me from reading what you wrote in an open minded manner.

      Now I know it’s probably entirely true.

      Terrorism, both domestic and international, has been created by the jerks that run the U.S. and the world. It’s an excuse. It’s not real.

      The world’s biggest terrorists are in the ones in Obama’s ears and Obama himself.

      But as you say, even the perps are victims. Obama’s mom was photographed naked (in a way that was extremely pornographic for the era) at about the age of 20 by her father’s 50 something year old black friend (and possible father of Obama).

      Was Obama’s mother a victim of sex abuse and was it linked to a larger government program? Was Obama also a victim in this way?

      There are very damning connections with the Bushes and pedophilia.

      These fascists are sick fucks. How anyone can shake hands with a Clinton, Bush or Obama is beyond me. Let alone vote for them or support them politically . . . .

    3. Walter Wit Man

      Susan Lindauer was evidently the go between for the Libyan and Iraqi governments to the U.S. She was an U.S. asset and also claims to be on a very short leash by her handlers.

      She claims the alleged hijackers were working with intelligence and were on a short leash as well.

      http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G43zl4fzDQg (this is the full hour and half speech but there are other versions I think).

      I’m always on the watch out for disinformation agents and of course when someone comes out with explosive whistle blower allegations like this one–I’m wary. But I am leaning towards believing her.

      I can see how she backstops the story of the hijackers if she is indeed a disinfo agent (and thus steering people away from the *correct* theory that the plane hijacking was faked and no plane hit the building). But her story also works if the hijackers were simply a diversion (or dropped as unreliable at the last minute) and she even admits this could be what happened.

      1. LeonovaBalletRusse

        WWM, but hey she’s just a dame, so

        Besides, how can anyone know the history of CIA “regime change” for Big Corp from country-to-country, to say the least, and dismiss the notion that 9/11 was a false flag attack? Wasn’t this what PNAC prescribed? “Mission Accomplished.”

        1. Walter Wit Man

          Yeah, I think the fact she is a woman may partly explain the MSM treatment of her . . . or lack of any treatment at all.

          Also, they played the “crazy” card with her. They locked her up without trial and tried to forcibly drug her! She makes a very compelling case that she was only able to save herself because of her boyfriend and the little bit of attention she was able to get for herself.

          She was one of the first whistle blowers the government tried to silence under the Patriot Act. She claims Patriot Act 2 was signed to fix the problem they had with her.

          And her story about the diplomatic relations with Iraq is certainly more truthful sounding that what the New York Times was printing, for instance. Again, I’m wary and looking for disinformation but I’m not seeing it.

    4. LeonovaBalletRusse

      Noe, Bush I CIA = the “President’s Men” no matter who is PuppetPrez. The Nuremberg Trials put paid to “just taking orders.” GHWBush is Boss. Zieg Heil!

  13. MyLessThanPrimeBeef

    Unless we are talking about the Sun going supernova (which is well not likely as it is not massive enough), my guess is that all nuclear crises are man made, even in the case of a tsunami.

      1. MyLessThanPrimeBeef

        Sometimes natural disasters are good for nature…only disastrous to Homo Not So Sapiens.

  14. Hugh

    Microsoft didn’t jump on new technologies because it was effectively a monopoly in its original market. We have seen this many times. A corporation will be founded on an innovation and will remain highly competitive and innovative until it achieves a dominant marketshare. Then it starts using its marketshare to smother both competition and innovation, producing inferior and/or higher priced products and generally not listening to its consumers. Such a strategy can make the corporation very powerful and its owners very rich, for a time. But it leaves this monopoly based corporation vulnerable to the next great innovation, the one it doesn’t see or dismisses until it is too late.

    In theory, Microsoft could have kept, improved, and cut the prices on its standard products, and innovated into new areas, but practically speaking this was never in the cards. Corporate culture is really not capable of being innovative and competitive and innovation and competition suppressive at the same time.

    1. Up the Ante

      “Corporate culture is really not capable of being innovative and competitive and innovation and competition suppressive at the same time. ”

      Your sentence is a fine rebuttal to ‘the Company’ laying claim to ‘the Revolution’ by denial of Freedom.

      Is cannibalistic self-consumption the defining characteristic of Ivy League family recruits ?

      :)

    1. Valissa

      Apparently it was originally called the “god damn particle’… LOL… a much better name, IMO

      Why physicists hate calling Higgs boson the ‘God particle’ http://www.mnn.com/green-tech/research-innovations/stories/why-physicists-hate-calling-higgs-boson-the-god-particle
      Much of the media coverage of the announcement included the term “God particle,” which originated in the title of a 1994 book by Nobel-winning physicist Leon Lederman. The story goes that Lederman originally wanted to name the tome “The God.damn Particle” because of how difficult it was to detect, but was persuaded by his publisher, Delta, to shorten it.

      About that goddess particle… think Parvati!

      God particle (Higgs boson) will not be even a complete Goddess particle http://bigtamasha.blogspot.com/2012/07/god-particle-higgs-boson-will-not-be.html

      1. MyLessThanPrimeBeef

        The G.D. Particle doesn’t give a full account of gravity?

        It can only mean we all can lose those pounds we wish to rid off when the G.D particle eliminates all His rival g.d. particles. It’s called mono-GD particle- ism.

  15. BondsOfSteel

    RE: Microsoft’s Downfall

    Ha! I was a programmer on MSN Messenger for 7 years, and an employee for 20. I left last year because I lost the faith.

    1) The article so right on many levels. The stack rank isn’t a perfect model, but I wouldn’t fault it directly. For junior and senior engineers, it’s brutal… but works.

    Where the stack model fails is on the Prinicipal -> Partner level. There is a very limited number of Partner spots, and a lot of Principals. Plus, too many Prinicipal engineers have learned that their success is not based on the success of the product, but the relative successes (or failures) of their peers. It’s very machiavellian at this level… and risk adverse.

    This ‘Principal Rot’ causes a lot of frustration, and I saw large numbers of senior level engineers leaving. And you can’t blame the stack… because it’s been the top of the stack leaving.

    2) Old men leading Messenger? I guess when you’re 20, 45 seems old. Also, Messenger has a status message… it just kinda sucks. One of the huge limitations of Messenger was the lack of any cloud storage at that time. A status message implementation (with history) seems easy on the client, but needs backend support. Almost all the poor design decisions we had to make were due to the lack of a high volume, low latency storage solution and not the ‘old men’ in charge.

    1. different clue

      Maybe you can blame the stack. Maybe the departure of people at the top of the stack is a vote-with-their-feet of condemnation for the whole stack concept. Maybe they got sick of the toxic turmoil diverting the energy of their underlings from the team projects which the stack-toppers were at the top-of-the-stack of.

      To this ignorant layman, it sounds like Jack Welch’s ‘rank and yank’.

  16. Nate Hammertown

    Regarding claiming privilege for “strictly internal communications,” this is common and appropriate in the United States if one of the parties to the communication is an internal lawyer. For e-mails between two non-lawyers, it is quite a bit tougher to claim privilege, but it is allowed in certain circumstances, e.g., if one party is simply relaying an attorney communication.

    1. Capo Regime

      I guess since every other person in government and politics is a lawyer they are off the hook….

    2. Ms G

      Even in the US, though, the matter communicated must relate to providing legal advice. These things turn on what “hat” the in house attorney was wearing when communicating with in house client. Thorny stuff, as in house attorneys are often acting as business advisors or p.r. agents. But in litigation, the initial claims of privilege are always reflexively sweeping and overbroad.

      1. Capo Regime

        Well a lot of things are technically legally possible but from a practical matter who will litigate. You are free to investigate and even go to SCOTUS but you better have a few million dollas and hope some law clerk deems you case suitable….

        1. Ms G

          Well, in this particular case of JPM/Blythe Masters manipulation of commodities it seems that the CFTC is taking a surprisingly aggressive position and forcing JPM to justify its assertions of attorney client privilege to shield emails from discovery. The fact that JPM has already ponied up a subset of what they were initially refusing to produce is already a sign that CFTC is not just caving in response to the typical hard-ball “we’re giving you nothing” position. We’ll see how this plays out.

    3. LeonovaBalletRusse

      NH, George W. Bush takes the cake for hiding incriminating PUBLIC PRESIDENTIAL RECORDS off-premises, saving Poppy’s family jewels in particular. How do they get away with this theft of public property re-defined to suit the Dynasty? “Because we can” has been the answer up to now.

      “AMERICAN DYNASTY: Aristocracy, Fortune, and the Politics of Deceit in the House of Bush” by Kevin Phillips. (New York, Viking, 2004). Note the Appendices.

  17. Jill

    Not, “Aiee”! Ahww shucks!!! “Just as we remain a nation of laws, we have to remain a nation of immigrants,” Mr. Obama said.“

    1. Maximilien

      And thus spake Barack Bombastic, Droner-In-Chief.

      Empty words, devoid of meaning or even naive sincerity, signifying nothing but a greedy appetite for re-election.

      1. Maximilien

        Furthermore. Between now and November, Barack Bombastic, Droner-In-Chief will slay millions—with the jawbone of an ass.

    1. LeonovaBalletRusse

      e, very good piece, but a little late, wouldn’t you say? Better late than never.

    1. Maximilien

      How do the lyrics to that Beatles song go? “Looters in the sky with Diamond”….or something like that.

  18. F. Beard

    I was just watching a ridiculous National Geographic Special on a Space Alien Invasion. What the heck!

    1. LeonovaBalletRusse

      FB, are you serious? They really are going with the plan? Bernays recommended.

    2. Maximilien

      F. Beard, fear not. My extensive research on the topic of aliens assures me that if they come, they will come in peace, bearing answers to all the problems that beset us.

      After all, they must be very advanced. To wit:

      1. They seem not to have poisoned their planet.
      2. They haven’t blown themselves up, suggesting an evolved, peaceful nature.
      3. They appear to have plentiful energy, as evidenced by their frequent galactic and inter-galactic excursions.
      4. None of my reading leads me to believe that their economies are based on private banks creating money, banking monopolies, credit cartels, or suchlike. They seem to have progressed far beyond that.

      Alien invasion, bring it on! But if they’re a little wary of contact with us primitives, maybe they could just do a flyover and drop pamphlets containing helpful hints and useful physics equations. Lord knows we could use a few right now.

  19. kevinearick

    Breeding Spirit

    …instead of hoarding, and its offspring, scarcity and tyranny, the embodiment of jealousy. It’s not about efficiency; it’s about focus. Everything else is autonomous.

    Take a step back. Look at the empire. It breeds passive aggressive robots, controlled by passive aggressive authoritative gatekeeping robots, all with some form of gun and badge. Didn’t you love that empire infomercial, spanking causes mental illness? Crack me up.

    It doesn’t get any easier than fear of the unknown, breeding fear of the unknown. O-o-o-o , I’m so afraid Iran is going to shut down the strait and start WWIII, NOT. I’m so afraid we are going to run out of oil, NOT. I’m so afraid there will not be enough food and shelter, NOT.

    Kissinger is an idiot, in a circle jerk with all the other idiots directing China, and Silicon Valley is full of idiots designing tablets for the show. Put me in jail; give me an army to go with navy. Put a bullet in my head; save me the work.

    Bitch and moan on your own time, on your own bridge, or take our technology for the purpose. You are welcome to it. By the time you figure it out, we will already have the next two bridges ready, for our children.

    Vikings breed their opponents out of existence. If you pull out a bully and leave him to fend for himself, what happens? How do you cull out large populations of bullies? Why did we give them the Internet? Broadcast the true nature of false assumptions.

    Equal rights, traveling salesman, prisoners dilemma, fusion/fission, holy grail, looking glass, and multiplexer are all the same thing, PANDORA”S BOX. Corporate opens it every time, with the unwitting assistance of purposefully misguided disparate youth, and labor closes it, timed to outcome.

    Of course we can blow up all the robots. Stupidity on the part of corporate is no cause for an emergency on the part of labor. Have you noticed the evolving androgynous flux? You always have access to fathers and mothers, if you seek them, by being yourself, as God intended you to be.

    Every time you lie, you lose sight of God, the unknown, with distance multiplied by wave propagation, the people it touches. You are born into an immersion of liars. If you blow off 10 minutes, you need to produce more widgets in less time, increasing pressure and decreasing volume, with anxiety. If you learned to increase system effectiveness in those 10 minutes, you created economic profit, due to downstream multiplier effects, from which earnings are retained.

    Eastwood, like all other politicians, made the Pavlov switch on cue, for the empire, presenting GM as the solution to the solution, rather than the problem, faith in dependency from another autonomous pitchman in the middle.

    Aggression has a purpose in nature. The best defense is a good offense. The best offense is a good defense. That’s football. Soccer is a chess match, with many boards. Why are goal tenders so important, and why do they give up a goal in the first half of a critical game?

    This planet runs on automatic. Insert a plug, provide a return, and increase diversity of trade-offs in the middle. Wake the f- up. How hard is it to provide an appropriate return for nuclear power? How hard is it to distribute energy generation? Just breed as the black hole implodes, with sufficient acceleration to ignite it. Employ pre and post ignition as required for your development.

    Dad is the anti-bully. To ensure that you will never fear a bully, with a negative feedback loop. When I went to California as a small child, from a farm in Ohio, I laughed at the school superintendents who hit me with a paddle, and had to play football on my knees against their “selected” bullies, to make game of it. The empire is left with passive aggressive bullies over time.

    In our day, if you allowed anyone to step in your path to bully you, your siblings gave you a much worse beating, and your father beat you with a belt to what appeared to be inches of your life, when he got home. Look for your mild-mannered elders that become entirely different animals when presented with a bully, an ignorant obstacle, or look for a kid that never feels the need to intersect with bullies, who manages black holes.

    Spanking does not cause mental illness; the social norm to fear it does, ensuring the outcome every time. Marriage is between external intelligent trial and internal error propagation. Learn to surf to learn. It’s not rocket science. Be yourself in a manner that benefits others, and nature will provide a surplus, if you are of its spirit.

    Law, unlike science, is a discretionary false assumption of false assumption propagation, guiding robots into habit by rote. The more they accept, the more they get paid. It’s gravity. Travel in parallel, but not out of habit, and you will see the gates. When you build the bridge, you will see that you had choice and equal opportunity from the beginning, to follow or not.

    False assumption conditionals:

    Beauty is tall, thin, and blonde;
    Men compete for women;
    Men want dumb women;
    Perpetual competition for scarcity is natural.

    “You may only fail without empire, so lie and collect the associated habits to proliferate economic activity, so the empire will provide for you.” That is the voice in their head, filtering out God. Quit judging and move forward. Fix to the root and all else will provide for itself.

    I work for my family, which is to your maximum advantage, but replicate fear if you want, and be afraid of its parent, the empire’s shadow puppet. As an addict, you are perfect to lead Celebrate Recovery. Just read History, and its master you will be. Empowering isn’t it?

    The last person you want to follow is someone that wants to lead, paid by others, with TITLE. In August, all the talk of municipal pension reconciliation goes poof…Governments are constitutionally clueless, unless you give them a clue. You depend upon the unknown; take initiative. That is the imperative. “You can’t wake others, pretending to be asleep,” including China.

    1. Maximilien

      Something that’s always puzzled me:

      Are zebras white animals with black stripes or black animals with white stripes?

  20. gordon

    I’m struck by the parallel between the use of the Pennsylvania “mob” to support the pro-independence radicals in the Congress and the actions of the Paris “mob” in protecting the National Assembly.

Comments are closed.