Thanks again for the great response to our fundraiser!
I have a dentist appointment early in the AM, so you’ll be getting more posts from me later.
Cheetah Raised by Humans Who Loved Her Enough to Set Her Free DailyGood
Eating Turkey Is More Wasteful Than Eating Chicken Clusterstock
Evidence of a ‘Mid-Life Crisis’ in Great Apes Science Daily (Chuck L)
Embattled childhoods may be the real trauma for soldiers with PTSD Science Daily (Chuck L)
Bionic Mannequins Spy on Shoppers to Boost Luxury Sales Bloomberg. Ugh.
Breaking: SUNY Buffalo Shuts “Frackademia” Center, Shale Resources and Society Institute Steve Horn (Carol B)
KIDS’ DREAMS STIFLED BY BULLYING Anti-Bullying Alliance
America’s Power Grid Vulnerable to Terrorist Attacks OilPrice. A bit weird that this is a news item now. This was every bit as true in 2001
Europe has a bad night MacroBusiness
Catalonia is voting on its future in Spain – and Madrid is worried Guardian
Obama Administration’s Complicity in Permitting Israel to Escalate Its Bombing of Gaza
Kevin Gosztola Firedoglake
Elites Will Make Gazans of Us All Truthdig
Catfood watch: Democrats want to go over the fiscal cliff first, bargain later Associated Press (Robert N)
Big Banks vs. Elizabeth Warren: It’s On (Again!) Mother Jones (martha r). Her value will be very much undermined if she is not on the Banking Committee.
Superstorm Sandy: interactive before and after images ABC (Lawrence R). Amazing, in a bad way.
Occupy Sandy: From protest group to storm recovery BBC
Felons, drug dealers run halfway houses for addicts Tampa Bay Times (Lambert)
Cops say RI man killed himself after foreclosure Associated Press (Lisa Epstein)
Credit Suisse faces NY lawsuit Financial Times. Suit to be filed this week, covers $11 billion of mortgage backed securities.
Private Equity and Hostess Stumbling Together Andrew Ross Sorkin, New York Times. Mirabile dictu! Sorkin says Ripplewood screwed up! Of course, he doesn’t say how levered the deal was (the more leverage, the more likely failure is) nor exactly how many millions in fees Ripplewood pulled out. Nor does he mention how much worker pay has fallen (see Kos story below for that). But for Sorkin, this is a pretty major concession.
Inside the Hostess Bankery Daily Kos
US ‘dark pool’ trades up 50% Financial Times
Exchanges Get A Closer Inspection Wall Street Journal. Finally…
Jean Braucher, Credit Slips. Discussed here earlier, but bears repeating.
More QE could distort rather than deliver Financial Times
Antidote du jour (furzy mouse):
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As a TBI victim I read with interest the article about the battered childhoods of PTSD victims.
I was sideswiped by a Chevy Avalanche while riding my bicycle on the shoulder of a local highway and didn’t see the truck coming so I don’t meet the criteria for PTSD but resonate with the findings of the study. Out of my crash I developed an anxiety disorder which is sometimes associated with PTSD victims as well. In healing from all of that I have had to also go back and heal from the trauma of my childhood. I got a lot of good results with EMDR therapy but am having even better results by learning how to breathe…..laugh if your Western mind can’t handle the thought.
Our country is doing a disservice to the hundreds of thousands of military victims of TBI and PTSD. Just more example of the sickness our nation has become that we don’t take care of those who serve in the military to further and maintain the American Empire.
I saw and treated many soldiers with PTSD in my 15 years with the Army as a civilian clinical psychologist.
It was my consistent experience that the soldiers who came to see me with PTSD had histories that included early childhood trauma.
Those traumas included parental/familial emotional, physical and/or sexual abuse, but also what I came to label “peer abuse” — that is, victimized by persistent bullying, often throughout the school career in some small communities, where a child carries a lable till they can escape the community.
I was not a researcher, but a clinician, so did not write about my experience, but it’s good to see that others are finding the same thing.
BTW, psychohistorian, learning to breathe properly was essential in my own recovery process from childhood abuse. A book that was important to me during that process was Betrayal of the Body, by Alexander Lowen. It helped me to “re-inhabit” the physical body that I had shut off due to too much pain as a helpless child.
I wish you well in your recovery.
Just curious – what is the incidence of childhood trauma/abuse in the military population as opposed to the general population? Wonder if victims of childhood abuse might be drawn to the military for some reason …
I have no informmation on those kinds of numbers, and I doubt the military has done that research.
When you think about it, that children traumatized by violence grow up to be violent adults, your implicit assummption that perhaps they might gravitate to the military is not unreasonable.
A great part of my career (50%in fact) with the Army was spent in the substance abuse area, so substance abusers have almost always suffered from some kind of childhood neglect or abuse, as one of their parents at least was very likely an alcoholic or addict.
The cycle is very sad, and I saw it over and over.
And citalopram, best wishes, there can be recovery with good therapy.
As someone who is still not over past abuse from childhood (nor will I ever be), thank you for your words.
Also every bit as true in 1982 when Amory and Hunter Lovins wrote “Brittle Power: Energy Strategy for National Security”.
We shouldn’t ignore Lovins’ “Reinventing Fire” for 30 years.
Yeah, but, then you couldn’t do an Enron or control the very gate to all, if its spread out all over the joint. Huge networks with bottle necks for extraction IS the neoliberal way!
Interesting that neo-liberalism would have a network architecture.
@Lambert… hay its a twofer, ya get to destroy quality and value in exchange for “electrons of price”!
Skippy… know wonder their in such a hurry… price is fleeting.. eh…
I give you “Elephants on Parade, questions in democracy show” ABC Australia.
Panelists:
Judith Sloan
Professor Judith Sloan, one of Australia’s best-known economists, is a leading figure in academic and business circles and has extensive experience in both the public and private sectors.
She is currently an Honorary Professorial Fellow at the Melbourne Institute of Applied Economic and Social Research at the University of Melbourne. She is also a member of the Westfield board, a director of the Lowy Institute for International Policy and a regular contributor to The Australian newspaper.
She has also been a university professor, a commissioner on the Productivity Commission, deputy chair of the Australian Broadcasting Corporation and Commissioner of the Australian Fair Pay Commission.
Over the years she has sat on several boards, including Santos, Mayne Group, SGIO Insurance and Primelife.
Kevin Rudd
Kevin Rudd’s rise to the Prime Ministership and subsequent fall is the stuff of political legend. He was a hero in 2007 when he led the Labor Party to victory after 11 years in Opposition, yet three years later he was dumped in favour of Julia Gillard when the polls showed Labor would struggle to win a second term.
He is the Member for Griffith and held the Foreign Affairs portfolio until February of this year, when he resigned from the Ministry and mounted an unsuccessful challenge for the Labor leadership.
Kevin was born in rural Queensland in 1957, the son of a share farmer and a nurse. When Kevin was 11 his father died in a road accident and the family endured several years of financial hardship. This experience heightened the sense of social justice that pushed Kevin into joining the Labor Party at 15.
A brilliant student, he was Dux of Nambour High and graduated from ANU with first class honours. He joined the Department of Foreign Affairs to work as a diplomat (he was First Secretary in the Beijing Embassy) and then became Chief of Staff to Queensland Premier Wayne Goss. He entered Parliament in 1998, having failed at his first try in 1996. He was appointed shadow minister for foreign affairs in 2001 and was elected ALP leader on December 4, 2006.
Malcolm Turnbull
Malcolm Turnbull is the Opposition’s spokesman for communications but still casts a long shadow as the Opposition Leader who was replaced by Tony Abbott. Even though the coup that led to his demise took place in 2009, much political commentary about the Liberals assumes a continuing Turnbull-Abbott rivalry. Some of Malcolm’s public comments have angered Abbott supporters, who accuse Malcolm of implicitly seeking to undermine his successor.
Though frequently described as the richest man in Parliament and regarded by many as having a privileged background, Malcolm’s early years were spent in comparatively humble circumstances. Born in Sydney in 1954, he grew up in a single-parent household with his father, Bruce, after his parents separated. They lived in a series of flats, mostly rented.
Malcolm attended Vaucluse Public School and, with the aid of a scholarship, Sydney Grammar, to which in later life he donated a new scholarship program in his father’s name to help underprivileged students. After graduating from Sydney University with an arts-law degree, he won a Rhodes Scholarship and completed a further degree at Oxford.
Malcolm worked as a journalist, lawyer and in business, and became widely known in the late 1990s for leading the Australian republican cause. He entered Parliament in 2004 and represents the seat of Wentworth which covers Sydney’s Eastern Suburbs.
Heather Ridout
Heather Ridout is a board member of the Reserve Bank of Australia and is one of the most prominent women in business.
She recently retired as Chief Executive of the Australian Industry Group where she worked as a tireless advocate for a vast and diverse membership, representing 10,000 employers in some of the biggest and most vibrant sectors of the economy: manufacturing, construction, automotive production and telecommunications.
Heather was with the AIG and its predecessor, the Metal Trades Industry Association, for over 25 years. In that time she became one of the most respected voices of the business sector and a leading figure in Australia’s public policy debate, with particular interest in the fields of economic policy, industry innovation, and education and training.
She has served on several peak consultative bodies established by the Government to advise on economic policy settings. These include the Business Advisory Group on Workplace Relations, Infrastructure Australia and the Henry Review of Taxation.
Heather has an honours degree in economics from the University of Sydney. She and her husband have three children and live in the Sydney suburb of Mosman.
http://www.abc.net.au/tv/qanda/txt/s3622725.htm
Skippy… Enjoy!
PS. in addition see:
http://www.abc.net.au/news/2012-11-20/leadership-talk-takes-off-around-rudd-turnbull/4382938?section=act
A more accurate diagnosis for the soldiers who had experienced traumatic childhoods would be Developmental Trauma Disorder. This describes the altered brain development that is caused by trauma during the first four years of life when human brains grow from their ~400g birth weight to ~85% of fully-developed 1400g adult weight.
Most significant is the development of the amygdala/limbic system (including hippocampus) with the permanent tendency to startle with slight provocation (any sound, such as the refrigerator turning on, in my case). Hypervigilance and flashbacks into terror (without narrative meaning, because the PFC was not yet developed when the first traumas were experienced during infancy) are the norm. Often, children are able to adapt (Alice Miller’s ‘Gifted Child’), leading many to erroneously assume that children are ‘resilient.’ Read Part 1 of Gabor Maté’s ‘In the Realm of Hungry Ghosts: Close Encounters With Addiction’ for an understanding of the effect of childhood trauma.
For more understanding: Daniel J. Siegel’s ‘The Developing Mind’; Allan N. Schore on Affect Regulation and Affect Dysregulation (at http://www.trauma-pages.com/); and Bessel van der Kolk’s ‘The Black Hole of Trauma’ and ‘The Body Keeps the Score’ (http://www.trauma-pages.com/a/vanderk4.php), and other of his writings.
Dan Siegel’s ‘Mindsight’ provides the best (IMO) prescription for coping with trauma: meditation. I also recommend Jack Kornifield’s ‘The Wise Heart: A Guide to the Universal Teachings of Buddhist Psychology.’ Google ‘Wheel of Awareness’ and ‘Dan Siegel’ for a YouTube of his guided meditation.
It is not possible to change limbic structure, but in many cases 6-12 months of skillful meditation can produce new brain circuits that enable one to use one’s PFC to calm the amygdala, preventing going into flashback.
I was diagnosed with PTSD in February (finally, at age 62, after many years of on-and-off useless treatment for depression), due to child abuse and neglect. Fortunately for me, I had eschewed medication, instead relying on vigorous outdoor exercise to alleviate symptoms. Learning about PTSD, reading Siegel, Schore, van der Kolk, Kornfield, Pema Chodron, and others for understanding of how the brain functions, a new perspective on life, and skillfully applied meditation, have finally brought me relief from flashbacks, and depression. I still startle and experience waves of ‘dis-ease’ but because I no longer identify with these bad feelings I do not get depressed, and they pass. The ability to experience joy and well-being without fear of punishment is slowly manifesting.
‘The ability to experience joy and well-being without fear of punishment is slowly manifesting.’
good news.
so much of what can be discovered about treatment should come (and has come) from the experiments of those afflicted who become willing to try anything and do find things that work.
often, when they report same, only to be told by practitioners who have never bothered to attempt even 5 minutes of meditation that their discoveries are not real or are not really theirs. something else must have happened to make you feel better that just happens to be something we think we know more about than you do. have you encountered this reaction?
such lasting change of the mind at age 62 is quite impressive, and inspiring to hear about. thanks for never giving up, and for your report.
you write ‘it is not possible to change limbic structure, but in many cases 6-12 months of skillful meditation can produce new brain circuits that enable one to use one’s PFC to calm the amygdala, preventing going into flashback.’
can you clarify what level of skill at meditation you mean to say one needs to have developed before one is able to employ this particular 6-12 month application?
could you perhaps provide further detail about the skillful meditation (both general skill level and the specific technique practiced in this application) you refer to here? your research and development of the meditation skills that you’ve been able to successfully apply to your affliction should be shared so others may benefit. i’m also interested as to whether you worked with any meditation teacher(s) on it or just from books, and if so, who, and what guidance you received from such teacher(s).
perhaps too big a request, encompassing decades of effort. maybe you’d have to write a book to adequately describe your progress. encourage you to document it in some way if you can. any further detail appreciated.
http://www.dhamma.org/
This is the best resource I know for true and effective meditation practice.
May i recommend – “The Mind and the Brain: Neuroplasticity and the Power of Mental Force” by Jeffrey M Schwartz MD and Sharon Begley
Here is part of a pretty good description from the Amazon site:
“Combining the revelations of more than two decades of research with a progressive approach influenced by the Buddhist principle of “mindful awareness,” Schwartz’s therapy was wildly successful but it also opened a door into a much more significant revelation: while reviewing his patients’ brain scans, Schwartz discovered that their self-directed therapy was actually changing the wiring of their brains. This major discovery is at the core of The Mind and the Brain: that through the power of thought, by focusing attention, human beings can use their own minds to change their brains. The scientific implications of this discovery are manifold: victims of stroke may be able to use the discovery to help reassume command of their bodies and lives, and psychiatrists treating patients with mental disorders may be able to decrease their patients’ reliance on psychiatric drugs. As a therapeutic advance, then, The Mind and the Brain offers a paradigm shift that promises new treatments for conditions from dyslexia to depression. Schwartz’s discovery may amount to the most conclusive scientific evidence to date of the existence of free will ‘that is, the power of human beings to take an active role in the choices they make.”
Schwartz therapy was aimed at OCD patients, but, as pointed out above, the broader implications are, methinks, “mind boggling” or perhaps more accurately, “mind unboggling”
yes they can actually teach people blind from birth to see with their brains by (among other approaches) reproducing through touch on their backs the scene in front of them (i.e. what they would be seeing if they could see). the brain takes the nerve signals from the back touches and turns them into images, just as it would do with the signals coming via the optic nerve if that nerve was viable.
What i got from this book was the ability of the “mind” to rewire the brain – suggesting that the mind is not co-terminal with the brain; that folks, with sufficient practice, given the proper “tools” i.e. ideas, could will themselves, literally, into new brain states – I don’t know how this may be connected to the example you use, but i suspect is very much part of AR’s example … Wonder if meditation is the/a mechanism for reaching that part of the mind “outside” the brain and enlisting it in rewiring process …
The idea that the mind, or at least aspects of it, may exist “outside” of the brain and has “power” over it, I do believe and this work, ISTM, is a “proof” … The idea of “free will” and all that – related to personal responsibility and all that – so if it is possible for us to “rewire” our brains, at what point should we be “held accountable” for doing so ….
I do recommend the book … (my last paragraph is my own take off, and one could jump off in a number of directions, ISTM …
“see with their brains” – I suppose one could say that, depending on what you mean by “see”, we all, even the “sighted” see with our brains – as folks with perfectly functioning eyes can’t “see” if the visual cortex is mucked up … the seeing we do with our brains.
Of course there is the other meaning of “see” – the sort we do with our minds …. Does one need a seeing “mind” to do what you are talking about .. And in cases of “hysterical blindness” what roll does that “mind” play …
How are they related … that they are, methinks there is no doubt – but if “related” then not “the same as” …
The most amazing blind person I’ve ever seen was Master Po, who taught Kwai Chang Caine the Shinto Priest.
He could see more than a person with eyes. This is amazing stuff.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WCyJRXvPNRo
He could even kick ass when kung fu fighting trained combatants because of his powers of awareness. I wish I could find a youtube clip, it’s incredible.
I think there’s a point where people can see through their mind more clearly than with their physical eyes. It must take a very phenomenal person to get to that point, after years of preparation.
this isn’t the best one, but here Master Po kicks some ass without breaking a sweat.
Amazing stuff. Who could believe this unless they saw it (no pun intended) . . .
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BgghWr3oICI
Why don’t guys like Master Po get elected to political office? Because we are not spiritually advanced enough and we need to learn the hard way.
@crazzyman… Ummmm Mr.[???] Master Po
Try…
Martial Arts Worldchampion Xu Huihui
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2rmrbfRi9I4&feature=related
A, but how can this happen in “Military Families” from generation to generation? The pattern of abuse/abandonment in childhood leading to the “home remedy” of joining the Military for that “camaraderie” mentioned in the Science Daily article, continues ad infinitum. How to break this dysfunctional pattern, when such “rewards” come with those who “adapt” to the M-I System that “takes care of its own” until the great divide between lucky/unlucky-winner/loser emerges?
The experience of *harmony* from the *Well-Tempered Clavier* — especially via choral singing and ballet (becoming the music through dance): Bach, Mozart, Chopin, Lizst, Rachmaninoff, Prokofiev, Sibelius, Weber (Invitation to the Dance), Dvorak (esp. Slavonik Dances), with embrace of sustained legato line through large works entailing complex harmonies, with enjoyment of “High vibration” harmonics in particular, later with embrace of Mahler when you learn to sustain longing for unconditional love (in childhood from damaged parents: impossible). Being loved unconditionally and so loving in return is the pre-eminent cure, for those fortunate enough to experience this miracle of human/divine *grace* with a life partner.
For analytical types, Cognitive Therapy with a compassionate, intelligent, and disciplined genius for full comprehension is the best way out of the net of patterns of abuse; although yoga meditation practice and humane engagement with “ordinary” people throughout practice of honest, grounded life on earth leads to liberation from “privileged elite” entrapment in hell. The ability to refuse to “go back to hell” in exchange for “corporate privilege,” money and other enticements is the Acid Test for the “recovered.”
We know that the .01% can kill us through Ultra-Low Frequency “weapons.” Stay away from the lower and lower frequencies you hear on NPR and in “popular music” therefore. As to “other cultures,” ask yourself: What does their music reveal about the culture? Stay away from Bad Vibes.
Hear endeth the lesson.
I found “Full catastrophe living” (Kabat-Zinn) a valuable and practical introduction to meditation. The guided meditation CDs were also helpful. IMO meditation is one of those rare things that can make a real difference, but it does take an enormous amount of effort/concentration. Unfortunately, the more one needs the benefits of meditating, the more one may balk at the effort involved. Thus, it also requires self-discipline (but the kind kind).
Perhaps you are not new to meditation and are asking the other poster for other reasons, but, in case you are, it is useful to see acquiring meditation skills as a long-term investment that may take some time before yielding a return.
I twice attempted unsuccessfully to reply in depth to aletheia33.
Here’s part of what I wrote:
Read Dan Siegel’s ‘Mindsight’ to learn how meditation is practiced to enable the mind to change the brain. The ‘Wheel of Awareness’ meditation is explained, and case histories given, showing its efficacy in treating depression, OCD, etc. Siegel’s oldest patient success story was 92 when he began meditating!
How to meditate: ‘Meditation for Beginners’ by Jack Kornfield; ‘Mindfulness for Beginners’ by Jon Kabat-Zinn; ‘The Discourse Summaries of S.N. Goenka’ (pariyatti.org) These books teach Vipassana [seeing things as they really are], or insight meditation.
My first introduction to Buddhist practice was reading Pema Chodron’s ‘When Things Fall Apart.’ I started attending our local Sangha, absorbing Dharma. I read Kornfield’s ‘The Wise Heart’ and applied myself to daily meditation both for insight, and then creating my own guided meditations to affirm my Buddha nature, and practiced Tonglen. I learned to experience my bodily sensations, how we feel our emotions, mostly icky bad feelings at first: shame, fear, self-loathing, nausea, then anger and resentment. Then I meditated on self-affirmation, appreciation, gratitude compassion, lovingkindness, wiring my brain to have positive, good feelings, that now come naturally.
@AR
thank you for persisting in responding to my query! i’ve worked with various practices over the years, with great rewards. i’m especially interested in the long history of sound healing and the uses of sound, especially music, in working with the mind and body. i’m always interested to hear in depth about someone’s long-term work with meditation, what practices they have used, how their skills have progressed, what they feel they have gained, and so on. all those in the West who work with the human mind have so much to learn about and from meditation, just as the different meditation traditions of the East have much to learn from one another. i encourage you to write down or share in some medium the story of your discoveries so as to contribute to the learning and healing of others.
thank you for posting this and for links.
Thank you for posting this.
on America’s Power Grid Vulnerable to Terrorist Attacks; the same is true for a solar storm such as the previous century’s Carrington Event, which fried the telegraph wires of its day…
much like with Sandy, people will only consider what should have been done to prevent it after it happens…
“Electromagnetic pulse”?
All it takes is an amateur radio modem and a good old-fashioned hacker.
Many switches in the grid sit there listening to long radio waves, exchanging unencrypted data with their control centers, obeying unencrypted orders that are not too difficult to replicate, even to guess if you cannot put your eyes on standards or insider information. 30 years old technology, designed to last, rarely replaced because it just works(TM).
From Tony Karon: RT “@zaidbenjamin: #BREAKING: Deputy General Secretary of al-Jihad al-Islami Ziyad Nakhallah says the ceasefire agreement is hours away”
I heard that driving into work.
It’d be good, but I’ll believe it when I see it.
People in states with Democratic senators should contact them to advocate for Elizabeth Warren’s placement on the Banking Committee.
done. thanks for suggestion.
if anyone knows of an effort to apply citizens’ pressure on warren’s behalf, please post here so we can spread it.
I would contact my senators, but I don’t have any senators
Get Eleanor to kick some ass – she’s one tough cookie, and i suspect some Sen would prefer not to tangle with her …
i like that broad, from what I have seen! No nonsense, takes no prisoners, no BS – at least that’s the impression i get – but correct me if i am wrong, ’cause i obviously don’t know her as well as you ..
The Israeli blockade of Gaza, established in June 2007, is a brutal form of collective punishment that violates Article 33 of the Fourth 1949 Geneva Convention, which set up rules for the “Protection of Civilian Persons in Time of War.”
‘Ich bin ein Gazan,‘ as JFK might have said! Or would he?
When Russia blockaded West Berlin, the allies organized an airlift.
When Israel blockaded Gaza, the U.S. continued subsidizing Israel to the tune of $3 billion a year, conducted joint military exercises with it, and ran diplomatic interference for Israel in the UN (here’s lookin’ at ya, Susan Rice!)
We americanos avoid mirrors, because the thing that stares back at us is too ugly to contemplate.
Mr. Haygood;
We are just the latest in a long line of peoples who have succumbed to the allure of Empire. Part of that enterprise is the maintenance of client states. Also high up on the list of causative factors is collective guilt. (The evidence is quite clear that Wall Street was involved in the rise of Hitler, and the later ‘efficient’ management of the “Jewish Question.”) Then there were the Turks; the Porte can be said to have engendered this whole mess in the Holy Land. T.E.Lawrence was famously disgusted with the treatment of the Arabs by the West at the Versailles Treaty proceedings. Less famous was his equal frustration at those same Arabs behaviour after the war wound down.
So, as to your assertion that we avoid mirrors because we’re afraid to see the reflection; we really avoid those mirrors because, having developed a taste for blood, there is no one there when we do look.
JH, let Ted Gunderson remind you How It Works–only worse today:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nlE3BL3s0UA
Bust the Trust!
I am dismayed that this up to now excellent site has chosen to post links that promote a one sided negative view of the State of Israel, thereby opening up a forum to readers who feel comfortable using the term “Izzies” to refer to Israeli citizens. The decision to use the “Links” to single out Israel for censure and ridicule is offensive.
thank you for sharing your opinion. please post again soon.
I’m dismayed at the pictures of dead children being dug out of the rubble after bombing gaza.
You must not generalize about the people of Israel. Patiotic Israeli though I am, I too am a bereaved victim of the nakba. My dad fell out of a guard tower and broke his neck.
“My country, right or wrong,” is a thing that no patriot would think of saying except in a desperate case. It is like saying, “My mother, drunk or sober.”
G. K. Chesterton (1874 – 1936)
I judge Israel’s sins on its own. This is not about Jews, as much as you try to make it be. This is why the calls against anti-Semitism are being increasingly ignored; it’s being used as a political weapon to silence prophets who call Israel out on its savage barbarity
Out of curiosity – whom was he “guarding”?
He was guarding the “old joke book” section of the national library.
Just to show that we Zionists can laugh at ourselves! That was an old Nazi joke recycled for modern-day Gaza, the biggest, bestest concentration camp of all, the one that out-Mengeles Mengele, out-Entloesungs the Entloesung, out-Shoahs the Shoah!! Go Israel! Squash em, blast em, starve em, nuke em, rip their arms off, shake em till they can’t add two and two!
“Patriotic Israeli…..”
Patriot. Patriotic. Patriotism. Hmmm…let’s see how that famous truth-teller Ambrose Bierce defined these nebulous words:
PATRIOT, n. One to whom the interests of a part seem superior to those of the whole. The dupe of statesman and the tool of conquerors.
PATRIOTISM, n. Combustible rubbish ready to the torch of any one ambitious to illuminate his name.
(from The Devil’s Dictionary)
Priceless!
Israel’s despicable actions promote a negative view of the state of Israel
And here we go. Between you and Tiger, this morning, we are now venturing into the standard I/P non-discussion.
Many commenters will say “America is blahblahblah”, “Europe is blahblahblah”, “China is blahblahblah”…which all sound like sweeping generalizations of large masses of people.
I think we can ALL agree here that what is being discussed is “The American Government”, “The European Union Leadership”, “The Chinese Government”, etc. In other words, the people who are making the decisions that effect everyone.
I think/hope/believe that it is a given that the understanding here at NC is that of course there are many factions within each country, with diverse beliefs, often at odds with their governments’ actions.
I am an American, and not proud of admitting that, given the actions of my government. I do not my get panties in a bunch when anyone says “America is blahblahblah”. I believe they are talking about my government establishment, and not at me personally.
This is a pretty intelligent and well-informed group of people here, and if you and and others are going to muddy the waters and distract from the general discussion of current events, it probably is not going to go well.
Howzabout you and others speak out equally loudly when the policies of the governments of America, Great Britain or China is are criticized? Because if I came in here and pontificated about how personally insulted I am, I doubt my credibility as a commenter here would stand up.
Not to worry – i am sure one or more of the networks will pull out “Diary of Anne Frank” again and remind us all of why it is the Palestinians who must continue to pay for European atrocities from 70 years ago ….
In the UK, Schindlers List has always been shown on TV whenever Israel is about to go crazy again.
I dunno if it has this time, I don’t bother with tele any longer.
How come you never commented before?
You look very much like an Internet propagandist. Not a frequent here at all. Not really interested in NC.
Gilad Sharon, son of former Israeli PM Ariel Sharon, writes in the Jerusalem Post:
http://www.jpost.com/Opinion/Op-EdContributors/Article.aspx?ID=292466&R=R1&utm_source=twitterfeed&utm_medium=twitter
WHOA! It’s like … errr … a ‘FINAL SOLUTION’ for them Ay-rabs.
*raises fist in air*
Israel über alles!
p.s. And we helped!
For your viewing pleasure (and edification):
http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-18563_162-57552173/goldman-sachs-ceo-entitlements-must-be-contained/
Now that’s journalism. Thanks, Scott Pelley.
Lloyd Blankfein’s comment that “people will have to lower their expectations and entitlements” sickens me. Again, he is decreeing His way. It is clearer now than ever, that there is war between us.
It is sickening, not the least of it being Pelley’s starstruck manner. He could not even be bothered to question Blankfein’s ridiculous assertion about workers expecting to work 25 years and then collect for thirty years. Hmmm… Mr. Blankfein– so the average worker enters the workforce at 42 and lives to 97? Interesting.
Good points but we should always remember and repeat: The fiscal cliff is a lie!
Just like war on terror, drug wars, humanitarian bombing, compassionate conservative, or progressive democrat.
Oh yes. Of course that is the big lie of the interview (well, that and the puffery about GS success without any mention of TARP).
My point is that Mr. Pelley cannot be bothered to dispute even the most easily discredited “fact” from LLoyd.
See: http://www.goldmansachs666.com/2012/11/goldman-sachss-porous-safety-net.html
It is ridiculous to say that the government cannot afford Social Security. Any sovereign government that has its own currency can afford to pay whatever it chooses to pay for!
Here’s what Joe Firestone says:
– Social Security has no solvency or “running out of money” problems. The SS crisis is a phoney one. No solution to this “fiscal crisis,” bipartisan or partisan, is needed. What is needed is a solution to the political problem of getting SS’s funding guaranteed in perpetuity by Congress, just the way it guarantees funding for Medicare Parts B and D.
– The same applies to the so-called Medicare crisis. It too is phoney, and can be solved easily by Congress guaranteeing funding in perpetuity to Medicare Parts A and C.
– More generally, there is no entitlement funding crisis in the United States, except a political crisis where US politicians are determined to ignore their constituents and cut back on an already inadequate safety net either because they believe in, or want others to believe in false ideas about fiscal responsibility and nature of the Government as a giant household. (from an article in New Economics Perspectives by Joe Firestone)
Finally, Blankfein makes a horrific prediction for the future of others: that society should be one where “the safety net would be more porous and lower to the ground.”
And for him I would wish that his safety net be high and porous: no more taxpayer bailouts; no more huge unearned salaries; no more big bonuses; no more bets against the economy and finally, full prosecution under the law for accounting control fraud–soon.
Clearly, Mr. Pelley was star-struck and had temporarily lost his head. After all, he had been granted access to the Court’s inner sanctum:
“An interview with Lloyd Blankfein is as rare as a look inside the Goldman Sachs money machine.”
If Mr. Pelley hadn’t so obviously been struck dumb in the presence of financial royalty, he might have pointed out that “interviews” with Blankfein wouldn’t be so rare if the SEC and Congress were doing their jobs.
he might have pointed out that “interviews” with Blankfein wouldn’t be so rare if the SEC and Congress were doing their jobs.
Ha!
“Blankfein to America: Drop dead.”
Blankfein is, of course, one of the “guys” in Obama’s famous remark: “I know both those guys; they are very savvy businessmen.”
And he does! And they are!
They are THE TWO MOST SELFISH PEOPLE ON THE PLANET. Quite the accomplishment.
I hope all NC readers take the time to welcome representatives from the Jewish Internet Defense Force that are here today.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jewish_Internet_Defense_Force
I wonder how many posts before one qualifies for the jacket?
http://www.thejidf.org/
Surprise, surprise it’s the US that’s blocking a UN resolution against this murder.
http://rt.com/news/russia-un-gaza-conflict-111/
And some PCR:
America The Puppet State
The United States government and its subject peoples think of the US as “the world’s only superpower.” But how is a country a superpower when its entire government and a majority of the subjects, especially those members of evangelical churches, grovel at the feet of the Israeli Prime Minister? How is a country a superpower when it lacks the power to determine its own foreign policy in the Middle East? Such a country is not a superpower. It is a puppet state.
http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article33093.htm
For a good recap of the current Gaza conflict.
http://www.wsws.org/articles/2012/nov2012/pers-n20.shtml
“The present bloodbath in Gaza is unfolding barely 100 miles from the continuing US-backed civil war in Syria. Yet in Gaza there is virtually nothing of the media’s feigned sympathy for Syria’s civilian casualties, exhibited in the service of a colonial-style intervention for the purpose of regime-change. No one in the West is calling for the ouster of Netanyahu for killing civilians or advocating the imposition of no-fly zones or humanitarian corridors in Israel.”
And more on how Gaza fits into the ongoing operations in Syria.
http://landdestroyer.blogspot.com/2012/11/west-savages-gaza-slowly-burns-syria.html#more
From Twitter:
http://i.imgur.com/KN62L.jpg
From the informationclearinghouse link— suggest the comment/s by one Carl Street be read. He has very astute (imo) observations about the history and reasoning behind the creation of the State of Israel, and an opposite, but very interesting take on who is really The Tail and Which Dog is Wagging It.
Thanks for the link!
Having heard this explanation before I’d be interested in a discussion on nukes and how that fits into the “base theory” as it presents serious difficulties.
Why would the US need to put nukes in Israel if it is simply an American base especially as there exist delivery systems – ICBMs, subs, European allies – that would obviate said need?
So, did the US really just “give” the Israelis nukes – i.e., put nukes on their foward ME base?
For what reason?
Does that mean the Israelis don’t control said nukes?
If the Israelis did steal the nuke technology as has been documented – see links for a small sampling – how can they be considered a US base anymore?
Netanyahu Worked Inside Nuclear Smuggling Ring
http://original.antiwar.com/smith-grant/2012/07/03/netanyahu-worked-inside-nuclear-smuggling-ring/
Israeli spy turned Hollywood producer rejects attempts to turn his story into a film
http://www.haaretz.com/jewish-world/israeli-spy-turned-hollywood-producer-rejects-attempts-to-turn-his-story-into-a-film-1.422171
Arnon Milchan
http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0586969/
Off the cuff here—why would the US want to supply Israel with nukes? Logically, they don’t need nukes to be physically present in Israel, but the there is the whole political “deterent”…”Don’t mess with Israel, they have nukes”.
Or maybe giving Israel nukes just made them feel more safe and secure, so they gave them to them.
In a “Carl Street” pov, Netenyahoo and Milchan are false propoganda—TPTB just want people to believe that “Teh Evul Israelis” stole the technology…the US decided to use the “stupid” ruse,”they spied on us and stole it” verses the “evil” ruse, “we gave it to them.”
Look at the Benghazi fiasco. It was an evil movie that started it, claimed UN ambassador Susan Rice. It is looking more and more like a clandestine CIA black-ops site, running arms through Libya to Syria.
Man, I am getting more tin-foil-hatty every day. I’ve got to stop reading here…
P.S. I find Paul Craig Roberts to be a voice of reason on this planet of mass-insanity, and I am a big fan of his.
I just like to get as many “takes” on an issue as I can find. I don’t necessarily believe or buy into any one of them, per se. It’s all for the sake of discussion.
One thing I do believe is that there is a ton of dis-information out there.
No arguments and no real answers here, I was just throwing that stuff out there.
I mean, the entire Israeli nuke program could also be a psyop chimera – which I don’t believe, BTW – but as you note the air can get quite thin if you don’t take a break from the “X-Files” even though there’s enough amazing stuff out there in the open.
Other quick “open” examples, beside the whole Milchan story (which is really quite nuts), most Americans would be amazed to know that Jim Morrison’s father was the commanding officer of the naval forces in the Gulf of Tonkin and that a somewhat Satanic church often linked to the Manson family and the Son of Sam murders in the 60s/70s changed its name and is now one of America’s most well-known and respected animal rescue groups.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/George_Stephen_Morrison
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Process_Church_of_The_Final_Judgment
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Best_Friends_Animal_Society
There’s a lot of stuff out there which is hard to interpret but which is interesting to know and I think “conspiracy theorist”, “tinfoil hat” and other labels are effectively used to keep the public’s curiosity in check.
I agree, PCR is a good ‘un.
Happy digging.
It was the French who built Israel’s first reactor at Dimona, not the US. The JFK admin wasn’t happy about it.
Then they decided, in order to even things up, they’d also sell one to Saddam’s Iraq, but the Israelis blew it up.
oh, jsmith! Jim Morrison? Manson Family? Here’s link to a long story/theory about that very topic– “Inside the LC (Laurel Canyon)”. Fascinating.
http://www.davesweb.cnchost.com/index.html (Scroll down a bit)
Let’s see…where did I find this? Oh ya, here at NC. ;-)
Yeah, my point was really just to rebut the “Israel is a US base” meme that seems to get trotted out a lot.
Their having nukes and the means to deliver them – thanks for the German subs! – really puts a damper on such talk.
http://www.spiegel.de/international/world/israel-deploys-nuclear-weapons-on-german-submarines-a-836671.html
Half of me believes that this argument is simply a more sophisticated hasbara approach as it paints Israel as merely a helpless puppet to Uncle Sam thus absolving them of blame concerning their actions/war crimes.
js, don’t forget the following from an American Patriot:
http://www.paulcraigroberts.org/2012/11/19/puppet-state-america-paul-craig-roberts/
jsmith, really? Acronym: JIDF?
So Ripplewood isn’t exactly a Bain style looter of Hostess. But ISTM that their “core competency” as a company ISN’T actually running a business. Rather their justification for outsized compensation is their ability get unions to accept wage and benefit concessions. The extra debt is just leavening in a big loaf of fail.
Jim A, this is a time-honored enterprise of the *Elite* from Era to Era:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Daniel_Willard
//DANIEL WILLARD was a railroad executive best known as the president of the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad from 1910 to 1941. He served on or headed several government railroad commissions in World War I and appeared on the cover of Time magazine in 1932 due to HIS PART IN NEGOTIATING WAGE CUTS IN THE GREAT DEPRESSION./
/Popularly known as “Uncle Dan”, he established the B&O’s reputation as a public-minded and innovative railroad. He is also remembered in Baltimore as a trustee (and from 1926 to 1941, chairman of its board) of the Johns Hopkins University./
/Willard, Ohio (originally Chicago Junction) was renamed in his honor in 1917.
Contents/
. . .
/DANIEL WILLARD was born on January 28, 1861 to Mr. & Mrs. Daniel S. Willard in Hartland, Vermont, a small farm village. His mother died when he was five. On his father’s side, he was descended from Thomas Hastings (colonist) who came from the East Anglia region of England to the MASSACHUSETTS BAY COLONY in 1634.[1] Willard attended the local high school and teaching at the district school for two years starting at the age of sixteen. He boarded out with Sophie Taylor, one of his teachers, who instilled in him an appreciation of learning. Family finances were slight and he could not attend Dartmouth College as he desired; instead he attended the Massachusetts Agricultural College at Amherst, Massachusetts in 1878. Poor eyesight, however, forced his departure after six months. This was the end of his formal education./
/His railroad career began at this time, as a track laborer on the Vermont Central Railroad. In four years he worked his way up the ladder to become a locomotive engineer on the Lake Shore and Michigan Southern Railway. After being laid off from this job in 1884, he moved to the Soo Line, where he eventually became superintendent in 1899 (though he held acting positions for several years prior. During this period he married Bertha Elkins of Vermont./
. . .
/In 1899 he followed HIS MENTOR, FREDERICK D. UNDERWOOD, to the Baltimore and Ohio for the first time, taking a position as Assistant General Manager. Two years later he followed Underwood to the Erie Railroad where he held several executive positions. In 1904 James J. Hill convinced him to take a position as Vice President in charge of operations on the Chicago, Burlington and Quincy Railroad. In 1909 he assumed an additional similar position on the Colorado and Southern Railway, and in 1910 assumed the PRESIDENCY OF THE BALTIMORE AND OHIO RAILROAD, a position that he held for thirty-two years, one of the longest such tenancies in the United States./
. . .
/Between November 1917 and January 1918 he served as CHAIRMAN OF THE WAR INDUSTRIES BOARD.// [caps mine]
———-
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/War_Industries_Board
//The War Industries Board (WIB) was a United States government agency established on July 28, 1917, during World War I, to coordinate the purchase of war supplies.[1] The organization encouraged companies to use mass-production techniques TO INCREASE EFFICIENCY and urged them to ELIMINATE WASTE by standardizing products. The board set production quotas and allocated raw materials. It also conducted PSYCHOLOGICAL TESTING to help people find the right jobs./
/The board was led initially by Frank A. Scott, who had previously been head of the General Munitions Board. He was replaced in November by Baltimore and Ohio Railroad president DANIEL WILLARD. Finally in January 1918, the board was reorganized under the leadership of BERNARD M. BARUCH.
/The WIB dealt with LABOR-MANAGEMENT DISPUTES resulting from increased demand for products during World War I. The government could not negotiate prices and could not handle worker strikes, so the War Industries Board regulated the two to decrease tensions by stopping strikes with wage increases to prevent a shortage of supplies going to the war in Europe./
/Under the War Industries Board, industrial production in the U.S. increased 20%. The War Industries Board was decommissioned by an executive order on January 1, 1919./
/With the war mobilization conducted under the supervision of the War Industries Board unprecedented fortunes fell upon war producers and certain holders of raw materials and patents. Hearings in 1934 by the Nye Committee led by U.S. Senator Gerald Nye were INTENDED TO HOLD WAR PROFITEERS TO ACCOUNT./ [caps mine]
. . .
/The original seven members of the War Industries Board were:
Al M. Boolock
Cheyenne T. Wade
General Palmer E. Pierce
Admiral Frank F. Fletcher
Bernard M. Baruch
Robert S. Brookings, head of the Cupples Co., a distribution firm
Robert S. Lovett, President of Union Pacific Railroad
Hugh Frayne, of the American Federation of Labor/
/Other later members included:
Clarence Dillon, partner in Dillon, Read & Co.
Hugh Samuel Johnson[2]
George Cameron Stone, head of Non-Ferrous Metal section
Eugene Meyer, Special Advisor to the War Industries Board on Non-Ferrous Metals
Edward Stettinius, Sr., partner in J.P. Morgan & Co.
Walter D. Stewart//
———————————–
Do you recognize any *Elite* Names/Surnames?
Those poor Siamese cats (the big one’s extremely deformed) attached at the head! They gave the catatonic and now it’s skittyphrenic. Are they planning to operate to separate them? So sad.
gaza leaflet drop text:
“To the residents of Sheikh Ijleen, Tal al Hawa, Remal al-Janoub, Zeitoun neighbourhood, Shoujaiyat al-Tourkman, Shoujaiyat al-Jadida:
The Israeli military is not targeting any of you and does not want to hurt you or members of your family.
For your own safety, you are requested to evacuate your houses right away and to move towards Gaza city through Cairo Road, Arab League Road, al-Aqsa Road, al-Qadisiya Road, Em el Leymoun, Salaheddine, al-Mansoura, Khalas, Baghdad.
The deployment in Gaza city is limited in the west of Salah al-Din Road, north of Omar al Moukhtar Road, East of Nasr Road, and south of al-Qods Road.
This confrontation is temporary and once it ends everyone will go home.
Obeying the orders of the Israeli military will result in you, civilian residents, not being hurt
The Israeli Defence Army Leadership”
Hmm – let’s see – so “we just want to destroy your homes. your livelihood, your infrastructure, and reduce your entire society to rubble – but it’s nothing personal, so have a nice day …”
whenever you hear “i don’t want to hurt you”…
it means the speaker knows you are terrified
and you can’t run away.
re: SUNY Buffalo Shuts Frackademia Center
Bravo for my alma mater!
We always do the right thing up here in frigid Western New York (after we do the wrong thing for a prolonged spell).
Now, we just need to rethink the new campus. Constructed in the late 60s, based on the “prison model,” we have a series of thin block buildings connected by slender hallways that could be quickly “sealed” should there be a spontaneous radical disruption.
At no place in the tight, dark, oppressive mile long “spine” complex, or the spine’s skinny connections, was there room enough to allow more than 36 student/troublemakers to congregate –and mass cogitate evil, leftist plots and demonstrations.
Seeing as how, for the most part, worthless revolutionary offerings, like, the Age of the Namby-Pamby Impressionists, has been supplanted by a more worthwhile and practical neo-liberal business curriculum, there is no reason to fear an longer large gatherings of these now highly indebted sheep/serfs.
Provide for more open, airy and sunlit spaces. Let the programmable sheep graze in relative comfort.
Be a tad bit more humane, masters of the (parallel?*) universes, is what I’m saying.
*Physics department. Never had to worry about those clowns.
www1.rollingstone.com/extras/Weber_complaint.pdf
Dear HS;
Keep getting an Error 404 when I try to link.
This just in: http://jonathanturley.org/2012/11/20/democrats-introduce-privacy-bill-before-election-obama-administration-rewrites-bill-to-strip-away-privacy-and-democrats-push-for-passage/
Next up: jailing bloggers that tell an inconvenient truth.
Thanks for the link. What’s the bill name? I couldn’t see that Turley mentioned it.
I think it’s H.R. 2471 .
There’s a petition in the works:
https://secure.freedomworks.org/site/Advocacy?cmd=display&page=UserAction&id=533
on CNET:
http://news.cnet.com/8301-13578_3-57552687-38/leahy-scuttles-his-warrantless-e-mail-surveillance-bill/
Cheetah set free by human ‘parents.’
It’s only natural.
Humans raised by wolves have always been set free and the same with that one human raised by apes – he was set free to make millions in Hollywood too.
Dear MLTPB;
About that Ape Man; you have to look up the pioneering work by that famous Crypto-Ethnographer, Phillip Jose Farmer, to discover that, due to little understood quirks in the language acquisition process, Lord Greystoke was raised by a troop of Australopithecines hiding in the jungle fastness. As to his being able to teach himself to read, and several languages at that; just another demonstration of the innate superiority of the aristocratic blood lines.
Wouldn’t be the end of the world if more animals, like apes, dogs and cats, keep humans as pets and selectly breed them to be cute and non-agresisve.
Selectively.
http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/blogs/taibblog/sec-rocked-by-lurid-sex-and-corruption-lawsuit-20121119
SEC Rocked By Lurid Sex-and-Corruption Lawsuit
via:
http://wonkette.com/490292/a-childrens-treasury-of-things-in-new-sec-lawsuit-that-are-more-hilarious-than-its-sex-triangle#more-490292
Many of these unsecured laptops were probably brought to a hacker convention in Vegas.
snip
When Weber questioned the SEC examiners as to why they would bring their laptops, containing extremely sensitive information, including the architecture and trading engines of the major stock exchanges, to the Black Hat Conference, they replied to the effect that they didn’t “think it was a big deal.”
So what happened, in the end, after this Weber guy became absolutely panicked at the thought of SEC employees or contractors, who may or may not have been given security clearance, taking unsecured laptops to a hacker convention in Vegas filled with foreigners, networking experts, and French reporters? Weber was canned, and forcibly escorted off SEC property.
But it’s cool, we’ll just hope that none of this stuff is true and all this personal financial information — as well as the integrity of the stock market — is ok.
Best of all: Crooked bankster mole Scott Polakoff, under cover at Office of Thrift Supervision, gives dead banks a new lease on undead-zombie life by the miracle of fraudulent capital backdating. Polakoff’s abuse of function gets him canned and gets his agency dismantled but Polakoff gets picked up by Booz, Allen & Hamilton as a Principal, where he sucks up millions in corruptly-awarded contracts from a Capital One mole at SEC. Now Booz, Allen & Hamilton have files on every position and function at SEC, and personal knowledge of all staff worth suborning (and, through their battalions of NOCs, all their adverse information, too.) This is chock-full of kleptocratic WIN for BAH and BBH.
Go over the fiscal cliff first and then bargain.
Well, it helps to know a bit of fiscal geography.
You have fiscal cliffs. We all are familiar with at least one of them.
Then you have these:
fiscal flood zones
fiscal flood plains
fiscal forests
fiscal deserts
fiscal goldveins
fiscal volcanoes
fiscal faults
fiscal deserts
fiscal swamps
etc
So, we might ask what lies beyond this particular fiscal cliff before we talk about going down the cliff. It may not be the promised fiscal milk/honey land.
Then there’s Fiscal me Elmo …
Just your basic Econography 101.
Fiscal of dollars.
But in January the Fiscal Ceiling is here again, and I believe the Fiscal Rating Agencies agreed to be quiet for a while after the last Fiscal Ceiling because the Fiscal Cliff was the solution to that one. If we do Kick The Fiscal Cliff again, another rating cut should be on the way, and IIRC, Moody’s and maybe even Fitch will even join in this time.
That also is supposed to have an effect on increasing repo collateral requirements between banks, if more than one agency downgrades.
The ‘Fiscal Cliff’ is popular with cartoonists…
It’s a team effort http://danieljmitchell.files.wordpress.com/2012/07/fiscal-cliff.jpg?w=500
It’s a horror story http://www.trbimg.com/img-50ab3450/turbine/la-na-tt-fiscal-cliff-20121119-001/600
It’s cheery http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-SlN1PVX1uCA/UIHD-jcpZZI/AAAAAAAAG4Q/v-hxggXxkO8/s1600/Cartoon+-+Fiscal+Cliff.png
The word on the street http://msnbcmedia4.msn.com/j/MSNBC/Components/Slideshows/_production/_archive/Cartoons/ss-120730-fiscal-cliff/ss-120730-fiscal-cliff-01.ss_full.jpg
Noted http://img.allvoices.com/thumbs/image/609/609/94122856-fiscal-cliff.jpg
Mayan wisdom and the power of prophecy http://media.caglecartoons.com/media/cartoons/205/2012/08/24/117422_600.jpg
Evidence of a mid-life crisis in great apes.
Is that the same celebrated evidence of anthropomorphism?
Bionic mannequins spy on shoppers – presumably human shoppers.
Our robots hard at work.
I believe in the not too distant future, the 0.01% will start paying robots and drones so they too can contribute to the eonomcy, joining, or perhaps replacing humans (efficiency, efficiency, efficiency!) in the quest for that sustaniable 3% annual GDP growth.
That’s what stifles the dreams of this Luddite who was constantly bullied by robots growing up.
A Clockwork Orange.
Your old alarm clock becomes a cop.
Corn is a dollar an ear?
Sra;
And don’t even ask the price of true organic produce.
The poor are pushed closer to starvation and Wall Street says things are getting better. “Power divorced from responsibility is mere arrogance.”
have you noticed those placards at the elevator, use stairs in case of fire…
the empire infrastructure needs to be modified and there is no point in beginning until everyone doing make-work gets out of the way. Capital is not going to change the direction of credit until at least one big city goes down and it cannot bring it back up with the make-work skills of the middle class horde. The middle class is good at bells, whistles and gingerbread, but it has no business working on infrastructure. Have you been watching what’s happening to the infrastructure? Capital has everything to lose, labor has nothing to lose, but human behavior being what it is….
“Now technology offers a powerful solution: A huge project is getting millions of Indians biometrically identified and opening accounts for them – Nandan Nilekani, an IT billionaire who is the brains behind it, expects that by the end of 2014 600M Indians will be enrolled, creating the infrastructure for a system of cash welfare.”
…and the sheep get slaughtered.
Obviously Mr. Nilekani never worked on the line with an Indian, but he has an army of software engineers up his a-, telling him how brilliant he is, and Bank. If you haven’t noticed, the algorithm identifies everything-to-lose against nothing-to-lose and bets on the low probability outcome, every time, accelerating the infrastructure spider-crack. Best business practice reduces out the need to know time and place.
So, I’m in a coffee shop and a couple of MBA idiots are talking about designing city jobs for themselves, “I play well in a sandbox,” blah, blah, blah, the mayor this, the judge that, same old nonsense; the city is falling down around their ears and they are taliking themselves into believing that they are on the leading edge of a new government economy…
As you observe the peer pressure groups, you will see that each has a limited ability to see forward, based upon their shared addiction to the past. If a question exceeds 5 minutes forward, or whatever their time horizon is, they call an authority, a financial planner, whatever, to get the answer, who depends upon another authority, and so on.
What you want to do is stand where these event horizons DO NOT intersect, and learn to jump from non-intersection to non-intersection. From their pespective, you do not exist; you present no gravity. Once you master physical orbiting, you do the same intellectually. Once you get to the spiritual level, the building revolves around the elevator. Then you are in a position to think about enterprise architecture, at which point you will “see” other architects.
all the guys in those utility/trade trucks driving around town are installing and fixing PLC errors, while the big bosses pray one of them stumbles over a structural fix before they all blow up, and the Fed prints money to replace all the subsystems that blow up. Of course, none of them can see the entire picture, or how the physical time bomb is connected to the software and financial time bombs.
Meanwhile, the automation replaces the middle class…
only you can bridge the gap between abstraction and misdirection. empire gravity depends on how far you allow it to abstract itself from reality.
Sheeba is just too cool .. to the point of loving occasional sled rides. Mush Mush
Not to detract from the posts and comments here relating to the human tragedies of PTSD and Gaza, which I view as much more important, but I do wonder if the matters raised in the articles from The Financial Times: US ‘dark pool’ trades up 50% and “Exchanges Get A Closer Inspection” from the Wall Street Journal are interrelated? Wondering too about that $8.8 billion HPQ charge this morning (not a shareholder)… “London Whale” levels, no?… and whether it might not also be time to revisit the wisdom of overturning Glass-Steagall, deregulation, deep capture, and neutering of the SEC and Justice?
Or is it still all about facilitating the looting?
Methinks there will be no serious “rethinking” done about re-regulation until one of 2 things happens – !) we get rid of the duopoly schmucks in DC and replace ’em with those who haven’t been bought by the de-regulators or 2) TPTB will have sucked everything they possible can out of the system and are no longer interested in running the show – the hullabaloo over the GB indicates they think there is still some juice worth sucking out …
Maybe 2) will have to happen before 1) can, but if 1) could happen soon, ISTM we would be much better off …
http://ransquawk.com/headlines/iran-assigns-usd-1-5bln-to-develop-its-gulf-oil-fields-20-11-2012
Game changer?
Lambert, your cup of tea?
http://truth-out.org/news/item/12846-public-citizen-corporate-access-to-state-lawmakers-facilitated-by-taxpayer-funded-associations
as i read of Sheba with rain pouring down, a warm cup of coffee, i contemplated the orange tabby napping away in my lap and the journey he made, orphaned in J-Burg-RSA and hand/bottle raised by humans, then to Chicago, now a part my life in the SFBay for 12 years equally part curious, fearless, self-confident and full of love and at times still very much the kitty/rascal
as we aged together he at time more graceful than i now aware of each others patterns and rituals
via jesse
oh!! my!!!
maybe keep the kids away from the 5 pm news
http://americablog.com/2012/11/abc-denver-reportedly-misnames-petraeus-biography-all-up-in-my-snatch.html
THAT should definitely be in the links tomorrow. Priceless!
This is fun.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/11/19/natalie-khawam-clifford-krowne_n_2161685.html?utm_hp_ref=mostpopular
A few months after Jill Kelley’s first complaint to the FBI set in motion a scandal that would take down a pair of top U.S. military and intelligence officers, Kelley’s identical twin sister, Natalie Khawam, founded a corporation in Florida called Fullproof LLC with three business partners. Incorporation documents filed with the state reveal little about the company’s purpose, but Christopher T. Marks, a Tampa-based lawyer and one of the co-founders of FullProof, told the Tampa Bay Times that the company aimed to “protect intellectual property while they pursued a patent.”
“This patent work involves a well-established physicist at the U.S. Naval Research Laboratory, Dr. Clifford Krowne, who is listed as a managing member of FullProof LLC’s four-person team.”
“Krowne is a highly regarded expert on Electromagnetic Pulse (EMP) technology, one of the military’s most controversial and secretive research programs. His esteemed research background seems at odds with the tawdry details of the Petraeus sex scandal.”
Just happy-go-lucky “socialites”, right?
More interesting:
If you read to the end of the story you see that Krowne’s brother and family co-founded the Knock Foundation which is a public charity registered in the United States and a NGO in Tanzania but works throughout Kenya and the rest of East Africa.
http://www.knockfoundation.org/whoweare/history.html
Here’s an article about Knock from Tribe magazine:
http://www.jewishjournal.com/tribe/article/knocking_out_poverty_20100820/
Oh yeah, and here’s the intelligence definition of NOC(pronounced knock):
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Non-official_cover
Forgot my favorite line from the HuffPo story:
When asked about his involvement with Kelley etc, Krowne – the EMP scientist – had this say.
“News people pursuing stories that is of no relevance to anyone should be very careful.”
“USA! CIA! USA! CIA! USA! CIA! Sis Bush Baa!” – Cheer *The Club* (Princeton Cheerleaders, Dekes, T&A, and Marine Brass on tap).
That’s a nasty twist of thought, jsmith.
Re: PTSD. On a different angle, I often heard stories a couple of years ago of soldiers diagnosed with PTSD who had never deployed. This isn’t post-traumatic stress, it’s just plain stress and the inability to cope with it. The division surgeon for the 101st Airborne several years ago testified to an Army investigative board on suicides that recruits are simply emotionally less developed than was previously the case. When I’d heard that I was impressed at his candor. In part this is because during the wars the Army lowered the bar to enlistment (almost anything could be waivered), but it seemed to me then that the recruits merely reflected an emotional brittleness pervasive to the larger society, and having followed the discussion on public education I’m only more convinced. Soldiers have always had problems, and as long as I’ve been around the Army there’s always been drama, but it’s more common.
Relating this back to the article, how much has childhood trauma increased in the last twenty years? With the massive increase in bullying these last ten years, what will society look like twenty years from now? What are we doing to our children?
Regarding title of article “More QE could distort rather than deliver”, the link didn’t work for me. However, I have wondered to what extent this latest round of QE-nth power is about replacing impaired MBS on the banks’ balance sheets with Cash and sending MBS into the black hole at the center of the galaxy where M3 “money” disappears over the event horizon.
When Bill Black said that the best way to rob a bank is to own one, was he also referring to the Owners of the Federal Reserve Bank? (Maybe we should refocus some attention on the primary dealers et al?…)
In fairness, it appears that given the magnitude of debt leverage in the economy, there is a shortage of “high quality debt” that is available for purchase by the Fed. In this regard, perhaps the Fed could similarly purchase and forgive student loans, whether in the form of the loans themselves, or in “securitized” form. It is poor public policy IMO to have our young people beginning their professional careers under a heavy debt load.
Buying questionable quality, 30 year maturity, debt couldn’t possibly have anything to do with monetary policy as formerly practiced by the FOMC, so bank robbery is as good a reason as any.
When Willie Sutton was asked why did he rob banks, he answered “because that’s where the money is”.
Bank execs have certainly heard this story, I’m sure…
wasn’t it yogi berra who said
it ain’t over until its over
http://twinkie4hire.com/
For Lambert: continuing a comment thread from the “roadrunner economy” (apologies)
Here’s a link for rugged fitness landscapes, which is where the concept of jumping between peaks of complexity comes from.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fitness_landscape
I got most of my “knowledge” of the topic from a few “science for the masses” books. Complexity: Life On the Edge of Chaos by Roger(?) Lewin is a good introduction. Von Bertofallany’s(sp?) General Systems Theory is fascinating as well, though pretty dry and with lots of math.
And I apologize for sterotyping hippies. I’ve lived among them, as one of them, for many a moon, and yes, when I think about it for two seconds I can name a number of quite ambitious hippies who’ve created some really cool stuff. So thanks for calling me on my cynicism.
Dozens of People Live as ‘John Doe’ http://news.yahoo.com/dozens-people-live-john-doe-193319683–abc-news-topstories.html
For the John Does walking among us, their lives are mysteries to society and to themselves. These seemingly invisible citizens can’t answer the simple questions, “What’s your name?” or “Where are you from?” They are blank slates. They aren’t eligible for health insurance, can’t pay rent or get a driver’s license. They can’t get a job or apply for unemployment benefits. Many of them suffer from mental illnesses that render them unable to remember who they are. Scans of their fingerprints lead to no matches, indicating that they do not have criminal records. Their faces do not appear in databases for missing people. …
The National Missing and Unidentified Persons System (NamUs), working under the U.S. Department of Justice, has several databases, but does not currently have one that includes the living unidentified. But after being presented with a number of cases of living unidentified, they are developing a new database that they hope to launch by the end of this year. “The traditional system is in dealing with unidentified deceased, but we know there are unidentified living,” NamUs spokesman Todd Matthews told ABCNews.com. “We have to include the missing. They’re missing from somewhere.”
“The Living Dead” by Paul Di’Anno http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QtbRlj7EgrI
“Drink With The Living Dead” by Ghoultown http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yywGI1H_oyM
How many suicides due to foreclosure will it take before Obama issues a moratorium, a la Spain? Any guesses?
Needs to happen on TV, I’m afraid.
in sf its more than black friday
its black and orange friday
season tix for 2013 go on sale friday for
the WORLD Champion SF Giants
Feds accuse Michigan Supreme Court Justice Diane Hathaway of real estate fraud: http://www.freep.com/article/20121120/NEWS01/121120086/Michigan-Supreme-Court-Justice-Diane-Hathaway-lawsuit-fraud-real-estate-Grosse-Pointe-Park-home
Federal authorities are seeking the forfeiture of a Florida home owned by Michigan Supreme Court Justice Diane Hathaway, who is accused of defrauding a bank and hiding assets to justify a short sale.
U.S. Attorney Barbara McQuade’s office filed a civil complaint Monday that says Hathaway and her husband, attorney Michael Kingsley, transferred the home in Windermere, Fla., to Kingsley’s daughter before seeking a short sale of a home in Michigan.
The short sale allowed Kingsley and Hathaway to erase nearly $600,000 in mortgage debt on the $1.5-million house in Grosse Pointe Park, which sold for $850,000, according to public records.
And people wonder why they don’t trust their government…
If I’m subsidizing Walmart because Walmart pays its workers so badly they have to go on welfare or sleep in the woods between shifts, who’s really “creating” the job?
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2012/nov/20/palestinians-have-right-defend-themselves
“So Gazans are an occupied people and have the right to resist, including by armed force (though not to target civilians), while Israel is an occupying power that has an obligation to withdraw – not a right to defend territories it controls or is colonising by dint of military power.”
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