Humvee accidents cause of one-third of military fatalities, Hopkins analysis finds Baltimore Sun
Private Equity Suffering in US Election Campaign, FT
Suspected U.S. drone strike kills civilians in Yemen, officials say, CNN
Japanese Poverty, Who’s to Blame?, Noahpinion
Singapore Mega-Church Faithful Invest In Malls: Southeast Asia Bloomberg
Fears Rising, Spaniards Pull Out Their Cash and Get Out of Spain NY Times
Summer Box Office 2012: Hollywood Studios Underwhelmed As Attendance Drops Huffington Post
Two of three Austrians oppose more help to Greece: poll Reuters. They should really put ‘help’ in sarcastic air quotes.
Loan rates point to eurozone fractures FT
Navy SEAL bin Laden book out-selling ’50 Shades’ on Amazon CNBC
Federal government push to collect on student loans amid bad economy fuels growth in filings Palm Beach Post
Republicans Hope Bad Jobs Report Will Overshadow Obama’s DNC Speech Think Progress. The Republicans aren’t really trying, they just want it to be handed to them.
Australia Holds Key Rate As Economy Withstands Global Slowdown Bloomberg
Burning Man attendance stays well within BLM cap SF Gate
After decades of fighting, Democrats show unified front LA Times. Yup, they’ve almost gotten rid of the left entirely.
Republicans Have Greater Access to Basic Necessities Gallup
Focus Hocus Pocus, Redux Paul Krugman
MIT Working on Mars Spacesuit Space Industry News
House up-and-comers wait behind 70-somethings Politico
‘Godmother of Cocaine,’ Griselda Blanco, gunned down in Medellin, Colombia NBC News
Cat and mouse: Syrian activists play a dangerous game on the Web Women Under Siege
Sexual Violence in the DRC: What Good is the Dodd-Frank Act? Think Africa Press
Social sites have modest political impact: poll Reuters
Obama Warns Young Supporters About Republican Voter Suppression Huffington Post
Record West Nile Cases Make World Diseases a U.S. Problem Bloomberg
Apple Worth More Than Listed Firms in PIGS Combined CNBC
* * *
lambert here:
D – 3 and counting*
“You just can’t keep hogs away from the trough, can you? “ –Olivia de Havilland, Hush… Hush, Sweet Charlotte
DNCon. Weather: “Obama’s acceptance speech Thursday night will be held outdoors unless there is dangerous lightning flashing overhead – and the forecast calls for thunderstorms.” … Eastwood: “Actress Betty White is being called on by fans to speak at this week’s Democratic National Convention.” … Filling Bank of America Stadium: The Ds are giving away ticket free and busing warm bodies in. “Polls show voter enthusiasm is down, as are Obama’s crowds for his battleground state campaign rallies. ‘The response we’ve seen from the community has been incredible and it’s obvious that people have a big interest in owning a piece of the most open and accessible convention in history,” said Adam Fetcher, a campaign” spokeshole. “Owning a piece”? Srsly?
DNCon protest. Police state: “‘I hope they go to jail,’ one [D] woman said rather loudly.” … Crowds: ” A minor stir was created about 11 p.m., when someone began flashing images with a projector on the side of the Bank of America Corporate Center on North Tryon Street. But the person or people responsible for the images was gone within a few minutes.” … Sunday March “[T]he targets for the march were BOA and Duke Energy, not the Dems. I heard no specific criticism of the Dems from the speakers, except the facile ‘neither party’ or ‘both parties'” (from a source on the ground). (Photos) (video) … Sunday March: “Eric May woke up on Sunday, painted himself Incredible Hulk green in 20 minutes, threw on an anti-Obama T-shirt he had bought online, grabbed his ‘I’m Mad as Hell’ sign, and got his wife to drop him off at his first-ever protest march. ‘I would characterize myself as independent to libertarian,’ May said. ‘It seemed like it was organized well.'” …. Monday march: “Police, who appeared to outnumber the protesters by a margin of 10 to 1, seemed determined to avoid any direct confrontations with the protesters. ‘This isn’t a protest,’ one member of the group said. ‘This is an articulation of the boundaries of the police state.’ ‘This is a test march,” said Shangry Gorecki, 32, of Los Angeles. ‘We want to see how they play.'” Well, a small, determined, and imaginative group could punch a hole in the canvas of this Potemkin Village pretty easily. And then? Nevertheless, and not to trash the individuals involved, but the whole culture of “protests,” “marches,” and silo-ed “causes” seems a bit legacy now, no? Just like the parties and conventions themselves?
RNCon. Romney’s speech: ” A Gallup poll on Monday showed Romney’s speech last week got the worst scores of any convention acceptance address going back to 1996, when it began measuring them.”
AL. DNCon, Left in Alabama: “Our big problem is that so much great stuff is happening at the same time. It’s hard to make a decision about what events to attend… although those that offer free food and drink do get a closer look! :-) ”
AR. Legalization: “AR will be the first Southern state to ask voters whether to legalize medical uses for pot.”
CA. Food: “Monsanto has donated $4.2 million to efforts to defeat Proposition 37, a measure on the November ballot that would require labeling for genetically engineered foods.” … Legalization: “‘People will find out that these guys have an indoor grow, wait ’til it’s harvest season and go in and rob them at gunpoint.’ At least a dozen [home invasions] have happened so far this year — and that’s not counting the robberies that go unreported by those growing marijuana illegally.”
FL. Corruption: “More than 90,000 times, Florida’s last-resort insurer Citizens and its contractors rejected reports from inspectors they hired to determine whether customers qualified for property-insurance discounts. Three out of four homeowners have lost credits for building features that harden homes against hurricanes. The campaign has affected about 250,000 homeowners, has raised premiums by more than $137 million and is ongoing. Gov. Rick Scott has pushed state-run Citizens to raise premiums, reduce coverage, shrink its risk exposure and help drive customers to private competitors.”
IA. Propagation: “[ASHLEY JUDD tweets:] “The good people of Waterloo, IA are fired up about this election! Great dialogue about positive changes under Obama & refusal to go back.”
IL. Chicago: “The mortality rate for black infants is on a par with the West Bank.”
LA. Isaac: ” At least this time around they’re doing brake tag checks instead of shooting at people trying to cross bridges. Gotta admit there’s been some improvement. ”
MD. Greens: “Bob S. Auerbach, age 92, a retired librarian and lifelong peace activist, has been nominated as the 2012 Green Party candidate for Congress from Maryland’s Fifth District and will appear on the general election ballot.”
MI. DNCon, Electablog: “I am an alternate delegate for the MI caucus and we are both credentialed media.”
MT. Indicator: “Nonresidents are no longer clamoring for the quota of permits the states offer for their fabled deer and elk hunts despite the standout hunting opportunities. Nonresidents are cash cows for state budgets.”
NY. Corruption: “You would be excused for thinking that the NY State Attorney General’s office has become the investigative arm for ‘ripped from the headlines’ campaign-related incidents.”
TX. Technology transfer: “Caltrops are a tire deflation device made up of several nails welded together in a star-like shape that always points upward. Ponchallantas, the name for caltrops in Mexico, are used by lookouts of criminal organizations to slow down military patrols in the area.” … Legacy parties: “;The TX D Party has always strained to not complain about the extent to which the national party takes more than it returns,’ said Jim Henson [of UT].” … More guns, please: “Aerial hunting of feral hogs became permissible in TX a year ago. However, not many hunters take advantage of the opportunity, which can cost $300 to $1,000 per hour.”
TN. DNCon: “It’s really fascinating. You’re sitting there, and there is George Stephanopoulos four seats down. There are all these people there, and nobody cares. We are all there to nominate the person we want to be president.”
VA. Indicator: “[T]he Madison Free Clinic is seeing an increase in two to six new patients a week this year. [Executive director:] ‘We are now getting what you’d consider traditional middle-class people. We are talking college graduates, professionals, people who’ve owned their own business.'” … More guns, please: “Virginia State Police issued 1,632 concealed-carry permits to nonresidents through the first half of 2012, topping the previous year’s total of 1,321 nonresident permits. [The] trend that may be helped by online gun classes, which] allow applicants to seek a permit from Virginia that is valid in their state, but without having to meet tougher requirements, such as firing a gun with an instructor.” What are neighbors for?
Outside baseball. Unions: “There truly are no advocates for teachers and public education with any kind of position of effectiveness outside of the public teachers unions. Therefore, one must tread lightly when publicly criticizing the unions.” … Media critique: “What Smith tepidly calls a ‘strange and at times uncomfortable collaboration between the political party and the media’ tens of millions of people outside of journalism and politics consider a dangerous abdication of the media’s traditional role as a watchdog over political functions.” Uncomfortable? Like who has to sleep in the wet spot?
The trail. Bob Dole nostalgia: “Let me be the bridge to a time of tranquillity, faith, and confidence in action. And to those who say it was never so, that America has not been better, I say, you’re wrong, and I know, because I was there. And I have seen it. And I remember.” … Black turnout: “If black turnout falls by only 5%, it could cost Obama NC and cause him significant trouble in OH and VA, a July report by the civil rights group National Urban League predicted.” … Empty chair: “The right rallied on Labor Day to celebrate ‘National Empty Chair Day,’ a show of solidarity with Clint Eastwood.”
Romney. Money: “Mitt Romney raised $100 million in August, his campaign told bundlers last week in Tampa.” Sending the consultant’s kids to college?
Obama. Have a beer with: “[OBAMA: I]t is very rare that I come to an event where I’m like the fifth or sixth most interesting person.” No false modesty there! … In the bag: “Obama’s team, however, conveys such a visceral sense of self-confidence that even protestations to the contrary take on air of comically profane absurdity.” But then they would, wouldn’t they? … The base: “‘First and foremost they need to mobilize the base,’ said pollster James Henson. ‘That means a lot of red-meat rhetoric for the left as the Democrats try to maximize turnout among the Occupy movement followers, under-30 voters, union workers, environmentalists, social liberals, minorities and anti-war activists.'” Just rhetoric? We’ll see. … First-time voters: “But the [LSU] study also found ‘consistent evidence that Obama’s 2008 first-time voters are less supportive than other Obama voters, reflecting a decline in enthusiasm among a key voting bloc in the 2012 elections.'” Once bitten… The economy: “Flinching in the face of economic weakness, Obama’s top aides refused to say Sunday in the run-up to the DNCon if Americans are better off than they were four years ago.” … The economy: “Cutting through the campaign spin, are we better off now than we were four years ago? Unemployment rate, overall: January 2009: 7.8%. Now: 8.3%.” … Promises: “Our scorecard shows Obama kept 37 percent of his promises.” Cue the music….
* 3 days until the Democratic National Convention ends with great barbecue and official sauce for everyone on the floor of the Bank of America Panther Stadium, Charlotte. DC, DE, MT, ND, SD, VT, and WY have 3 electoral votes.
* * *
And the antidote…
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Looking at a giraffe from the altitude of its head seems rather to miss the point of it.
one for the links
George Osborne booed by spectators at Paralympics – but Gordon Brown is cheered
http://tinyurl.com/ceojccs
oh the fickle nature of the Colosseum crowd!
re: Osborne, watch the 20 second mark when the smirk stops and the penny drops!
re: Brown, Brits love a loser
Read the Dayen piece on Obama’s “plan” to use the bully-pulpit in his second term. What a laugh. The things he wants to use it for are ridiculous too –“He would like to tackle issues such as climate change, immigration, education and filibuster reform.” — of course his policies on education are pathetically hedge-funder friendly. And if he thinks he will really get people behind him for what amount to second-string issues when the big burning issues of the economy, jobs, the wars/defense budget, social security and healthcare — are completely ignored is a joke. This man was always a day late and a dollar short. His true leanings, if he has any beyond the Washington consensus, are so reactionary, authoritarian and fascist that the use of the bully pulpit will just bring derision and scorn from the people. I think that’s the real reason he never used the bully-pulpit — he has an active distaste for the people which he held in check during his first campaign — and in parallel, that his real desires are extremely unpopular and disliked by those he despises. It never occurs to such an arrogant fascist that its HIS ideas and assumptions that are retrograde, stupid and ignorant, and that the people actually know what’s what, and aren’t just blindly asking for handouts like the sheep he thinks they are. He has high regard for sociopaths that ruin nations — in fact, he should just step down and let Romney win by default as Romney is the kind of guy Obama worships: a real savvy businessman. But he won’t because the only thing he worships more than these “savvy” (read: corrupt and criminal) businessmen is his own reflected “glory”.
FWIW, the bully pulpit is traditionally used to persuade the legislature, not the people. If a president thinks that some issue — say, climate change — is not being addressed in the current Congress, continually speaking on the issue and urging action can at least get the issue widely discussed.
Fed Moves Toward Open-Ended Bond Purchases to Satisfy Bernanke
Including MBS!
It seems everyone is getting bailed out but the victims of the counterfeiting cartel, the general population.
That should be “Humvee accidents cause of one-third of military MOTOR VEHICLE fatalities.”
From the ‘Fears Rising, Spaniards …’ article in the Times-Titanic:
Oh, so ‘rational facts and analysis’ mean capital flight from Spain is misguided? Do tell. Readers will recognize the paternalistic tone. It’s the same tone the Times-Titanic uses to hector voters for having a ‘childish hissy fit’ when they elect an evil conservative instead of the Times-approved progressive candidate.
Not only is this article a day late, it’s a euro short. The coming drama between Spain and its would-be European rescuers will center on the issue of subordination. Spanish depositors were sold billions of euros in bank preference shares, which they believed were something like CDs. But those shares are preferred stock, not certificates of deposit. Under existing rules, preference shares would have to be haircut or wiped out so that an official bailout loan would have seniority.
Understandably, Rajoy hopes to cut a deal with rescuers to protect Spanish investors who may have been misled by banks. But a special exception for Spain would trigger demands for the same concession in other bailouts, and is not easily done.
Spain’s preference shares headache has been discussed in financial blogs for weeks, but doesn’t penetrate the consciousness of frayed-collar journos at the half-ass ‘newspaper of record.’ When its giant presses finally rumble to a halt, a ‘blog of record’ will doubtless replace it.
O frabjous day, calloo, callay!
He chortled in his joy.
Here’s the quote I found particularly chilling in the “funds fleeing Spain” article:
***More disturbing for Spain is that the flight is starting to include members of its educated and entrepreneurial elite who are fed up with the lack of job opportunities in a country where the unemployment rate touches 25 percent.***
How soon until this starts to happen in the US?
As an “elder,” although not part of the “educated and entrepreneurial elite” [well, “educated”], I regularly think about fleeing the US. But what country would have us? All the “good” ones have immigration laws that they actually enforce. Where can we go?
The presence of Green Party candidate Jill Stein on the ballot may be the saviour of many down-ticket Democrats.
Uh oh. When I scanned this I read it as “savior of dumbed down democrats.” But apparently that’s not right.
It’s either really early in the morning or there’s something wrong with me. It’s not that early so there must be something wrong with me.
Tigers take the night shift : http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-19464751
Re: Democrats show unified front.
Almost???
re: “Republicans Hope Bad Jobs Report Will Overshadow Obama’s DNC Speech… The Republicans aren’t really trying, they just want it to be handed to them.”
That’s because they think their work is already done, having created “the Obama economy,” which Obama and the D-Party were only too happy to hand to them– just like they handed the election to Bush II in 2000.
Why wouldn’t they think it would get handed to them at this point? The D-Party fought nothing at all.
The sense that this is all scripted behind the scenes is what seems most prevalent to me through this convention season.
Paul Ryan and Scott Walker, are twin thugs for hire who grew up on the same street in Wisconsin. The only difference between them and Obama is the lack of polish that Chris Christie has turned into performance art.
Oh, and Scott Walker’s lack of a college degree, which boils down to life of crime or greeter at Walmart. Is anyone really surprised he didn’t opt for the minimum wage job? I’m not.
Clint Eastwood spoke to an empty chair because the chair really is empty. I don’t know what the peanut gallery has to say about this, but it makes sense to me that it’s what they’re all going on about.
A big part of the problem is that all our politicians think, like most Americans do, that they are auditioning for “a job” that will get handed to them from on high.
The real, historical world does not work like that. This pervasive mindset has got to go.
And in saying that it has to go, I am not in any way, shape, or form lauding the figure of the “businessman,” never mind the parasitic looting career of Mitt Romney that nihilistically robs the past while murdering the future.
This person has no business whatsoever yapping about “America,”
Those Egyptians who came after Akhenaten oliterated his images up and down the Nile. For the priests of Amon, it’s not enough the worshiper of Aten was gone, but he must not have existed in the first place.
For some, a divorce in not enough. It must be an annulment. The marriage must not have existed in the first place.
Maybe old Clint is trying to say that Barry doesn’t exist and never existed in the first place.
That could be it, despite Eastwood’s teary claims to the contrary. And I’m sure that for a lot of Republicans (and not just them), Obama never did “exist” because his presidency always was illegitimate– and not because he’s a nominal Democrat either.
I can see that, but I’m still not going to participate in the collective enabling of Obama that some Democrats want us to engage in because of it.
Although Eastwood did also say “the politicians are ‘our’ employees.”** He just neglected to mention who “we” are.
**A characterization of politics (and positions of responsibility in a lot of other spheres of life) with which I don’t entirely agree in the first place.
Obama, Ryan, etc don’t get to maintain “they were just following orders.”
Not sure what to say to that…I have to check with my public servents before I can get back to you.
Re: Reuters article on social network poll/Pew
I believe THIS is a working link to that article.
Social sites have modest political impact.
I think political sites also have modest social impact.
But no one is happy.
Social sites like to have lots of political impact while political sites like to have lots of social impact.
I attended Burning Man back in the 90’s when attendance was 500 to 1000 and the event was held about 15 miles out on the Playa from its present location. While its useless to compare the past and present Burning Man events the fact that 50,000 plus go out and spend a few days in Black Rock desert in and of itself is desirable for nothing else then getting away from modern electronic lifestyle and face the harsh realities of the desert.
I remember Burning Man from way back too. Never attended but always thought it was profound without explanation. Now that it has 60,000 people in attendance, it qualifies as a world class spectacle. The longer I live the more meaning Burning Man seems to have. It really is sacred. Somehow.
the unemployment rate has nothing to do with demand. as krugman hs provided, capital can create artificial demand all day long. it’s about capital control of ALL, measured and umeasured, ROI, to capital and away from labor, by shorting out the real business cycle, and replacing it with monetary expansion tp middle class.
after wave upon wave of republicans providing corporate welfare ang democrats providing middle class welfare, to the end of government welfare, all these parties are addicted to free money. if you remove the subsidies, there is no one paying in to the entitlement system, so the Fed has to make the payments.
the set up is in august, play runs through december, and the slaughter is in january, unless the booky sees great losses ahead. the Fed must surprise the market with a reversal in rates for capital to keep its returns at the expense of middle class.
pms have gone up 8 straight times. what do you expect this time?
the Internet has temporarily turned the tables on the Fed, giving it an information disadvantage relative to middle class on the margin waking up to the reality of free money, with a hangover, but some time left to get out from under the sledge hammer.
this particularly nasty bit of financial propoganda made it into boston.com (the free version of the globe) top 10 emailed.
don’t pay off your mortgage article
so tell us what you really think…
http://www.sfgate.com/technology/businessinsider/article/Facebook-s-Horrible-IPO-Has-Erased-50-Billion-3837731.php
for the links
The growing demand for food banks in breadline Britain
“More food banks are opening every week in the UK, with charities providing an emergency safety net for growing number of Britons, many of whom have fallen foul of the benefits system.”
http://tinyurl.com/ch6k35q
Another indicator. I remember articles in the summer saying donations to food banks were down, but the argument was that people were away and it was a usual thing. We’ll see what happens this winter.
Lawrence Lessig discusses the the election of 1912… Where Have All the Progressives Gone? http://www.theglobalist.com/storyid.aspx?storyid=9736
The term progressive is a confused and much misunderstood moniker for perhaps the most important political movement at the turn of the last century. We confuse it even today with liberals.
But a hundred years ago, there were progressives of every political stripe in America — on the left and on the right, and with variations in the middle (the Prohibitionists, for example).
The common thread that united these different strands of reform was the recognition that democratic government in America had been captured. Journalists and writers at the turn of the 20th century taught America “that business corrupts politics,” as Richard McCormick put it.
http://www.spiegel.de/international/europe/interview-with-eu-parliament-president-martin-schulz-on-euro-crisis-a-853657.html
Schulz: Investment grants for businesses that go to Greece, for tourism, infrastructure or renewable energy.
SPIEGEL: The situation in Italy is hardly any better. The country is groaning under the weight of its debt.
Schulz: There you see how absurd the reactions of the so-called markets are. For a long time, Italy was run by one of the most unprofessional politicians anywhere. But there wasn’t much pressure in terms of speculation. Now, in Mario Monti, Italy has the kind of leader you usually only get in Hollywood movies, a distinguished professor who won’t even accept a cook at his residence, the Palazzo Chigi. Instead Monti’s wife cooks their pasta herself — and this is the man the markets don’t trust.
…
The ESM, the European Stability Mechanism, is not funded by Germany alone. 27% of the bailout package comes from Germany. Italy and France together cover a total of 38%. That’s reality. It makes no sense to say that everyone wants to get at Germany’s money. You’re paying too much attention to renationalized rhetoric in Germany.
Federal Cuts Threaten Taps Being Performed Live At L.I. Military Funerals
Why do the suckers still enlist? The economic draft?
Any way we can get those “federal cuts” to eliminate the various armed services bands? Why on earth are we paying for such foolishness?
And those frigging wasteful “fly-overs” at football games & other events, that seem to end in a crash about 30% of the time.
Here’s a little something on were all those vacant house are going and once again on the backs of the taxpayer.
http://www.counterpunch.org/2012/09/04/obamas-secret-plan-to-prop-up-housing-prices/
…….(dirty words!)……that link needs to be seen.
Agreed – it needs to be seen, if true.
The rationale is likely something along the lines of “It would be too administratively burdensome to sell the units (not ‘homes’) individually. By selling the units in bulk to PE investors, the government can minimize its holding costs to the benefit of the taxpayer.”
The discount? That’s called incentivizing the transaction. And everyone knows friends get the best incentives…
***“‘First and foremost they need to mobilize the base,’ said pollster James Henson. ‘That means a lot of red-meat rhetoric for the left as the Democrats try to maximize turnout among the Occupy movement followers, under-30 voters, union workers, environmentalists, social liberals, minorities and anti-war activists.’” ***
Oh, you mean the groups that are saying to themselves, “fool me once . . . ”
I would comment, “how stupid do they think we are?,” but I know what the answer to that question is.
Obama & Co. are the stupid ones, if they think folks are going to respond to “red meat rhetoric,” after 3-1/2 years of proof of how well Obama keeps his promises. “Red meat rhetoric” may have worked 3-1/2 years ago, but we’re all looking at our empty shopping baskets right now.
That Mars space suit is pink!
How can a man wear a suit like that?
What is this, an episode of NASA Women Gone Wild?!! Is this gonna be an all-women Mars mission? What are the guys going to do? Take out the trash at Mission Control and mow the lawn while it’s Girls Night Out on Mars?
Or do you have to be Gay to be a male Mars astronaut? Holy Cow. I bet even Ralph Lauren could design a manly Mars Suit.
First, no pink. If it can’t be white, like a real man’s spacesuit, then at least make it gray or light blue.
Second, no padded shoulders. They makes you look like a 1980s disco queer.
And third, no frilly chest protrusions that serve no function. I mean really. That’s like what they wore in Little House on the Prairie, and that was a long time ago.
It needs to be something you could see Kirk wearing when the transporter beam materializes and he’s there with the landing party. And no tight pants that make you look like Hamlet. That’s too queer. There needs to be lots of pockets for the tools and the duct tape.
How can you go to Mars without duct tape? It’s impossible.
Future historians will not doubt busy debating whether Martians got to Earth first before Earthlings landed on Mars or the other way around.
It’s not unlike the debate about whether Native Americans was in Europe before Stone Age Europeans were in American or the reverse.
re: NYT “Obama Plays to Win” by propagandist Jodi Kantor
Nobody understands better than Obama how wonderful he is. After all, he has lived with himself for a long time and he’s been constantly amazed.
Between 1804 and 1812, in an undeniable precursor to Guy Debord’s psychogeographical derives, Thomas de Quincey wandered the streets of London, always vaguely in search of Ann and looking at “several thousand female faces in the hope of seeing hers”.
“On Saturday evenings, I have had the custom, after taking my opium, of wandering quite far, without worrying about the route or the distance … ambitiously searching for my Northwest Passage, so as to avoid doubling anew all the capes and promontories that I had encountered in my first trip, I suddenly enter a labyrinth of alleys, some of them terrae incognitae, and I doubt that they are marked on the modern maps of London.” – Thomas de Quincey
Here’s a blurb from video linked below:
“In Confessions of an Opium Eater, we find a poignant tale of love and loss in London. Thomas de Quincey, teenage, penniless, and losing his health as a prelude to his later drug addiction, is befriended by a young girl working as a prostitute. Every day they look out for each other on the streets of Soho.
He journeys to Eton to borrow money against his future inheritance. They are full of their plans for the future for when he returns, and they vow to meet each other at their favourite haunt on Oxford Street.
They never see each other again.”
http://dequinceyineverton.blogspot.com/2011/02/oh-noble-minded-ann.html
For anyone with time to kill who might be looking for a break from all the bad news, and the relentless descent into neo-feudal barbarism, Serge Gainsbourg’s “Les femmes c’est du chinois” (on the same blog linked above) is also an interesting and original video:
http://dequinceyineverton.blogspot.com/2011/02/serge-gainsbourg-les-femmes-cest-du.html
NO WAY!: They whacked Griselda Blanco?? . . . I didn’t know she was still alive. A bad mutha, but a pioneer on the criminal perimeter for sure. —When’s the docudrama comin’?
The Miami Herald cites El Colombiano newspaper reports that one man fired two bullets into her head, ironically, executing her in the type of “motorcycle assassination” she has been credited with inventing.
Skippy… Her son Michael’s father and older siblings were all killed before he reached adulthood. Neoliberal poster family… eh.