I often say I’m delivering thin links and then provide a semi-adequate amount, but today you really will have to get by with less than usual. I have been up super late on a NC matter (and not even interns! The poor intern candidates have sent in nice notes and I haven’t even had time to give them polite form “yes we did get it, please don’t take a delay personally, we are so time stressed we cannot find a time to move the intern ball forward quite yet.”)
Should Therapists Play Cupid? New York Times. Wow, am I naive. I’d fire a therapist who even thought about this.
Scientific Paper Argues Against Factory Farms “Feeding the World” Natural Society (Aquifer)
Toshiba creating nuclear reactor for mining Canada Tar Sands Raw Story (Aquifer)
Model plane hobbyists know the risks of lithium-ion batteries Washington Post. I did a study of advanced batteries in 1993. The risks were known then.
Aaron Swartz’ Blood for Oil Stirling Newberry
Suicide of Aaron Swartz, Net Neutrality Crusader, Sparks Online Activism In These Times (furzy mouse)
Eurozone crisis live: Greece to probe ex-finance minister over tax scandal Guardian
Final toll of Algeria gas plant drama: 23 hostages dead, 107 safe, 32 terrorists ‘neutralized McClatchy
Algeria death toll ‘could rise’ BBC
Hollywood Makes Case for ‘Zero Dark Thirty’ New York Times
At Obama’s second inauguration, how emancipated are we really? Guardian
Homeland Security’s Failed Attempt to Pervert the Freedom of Information Act Process Kevin Gosztola, Firedoglake
The Fed Drives Best at Higher Speeds Christine Romer, New York Times (Mark Thoma)
Do 2007 Fed Transcripts Make Yellen Frontrunner To Succeed Bernanke? Econospeak
Corporate CEO ‘Extremists’ Target Social Security, Medicare Common Dreams (furzy mouse)
Heresy of the week: Cutting waste in public services could be an expensive mistake Conservative Home
Dennis Kucinich Joining Fox News Alternet (Aquifer)
What Tax Increase? The Latest Economic Data Shows The Consumer Is On A Tear Clusterstock. You tell me.
Antidote du jour (Aquifer). I know this is not exactly antidote-like, but see how the real thing is much scarier than computer generated Richard Parker?
78 comments
Comments are closed.
I’m having my bike converted to an electric drive. The firm suggested that I have the Lithium Ion battery mounted behind the saddle. I said no, I’d like it mounted on the handlebars where I can keep an eye on it. I also like the idea that it can’t quietly set fire to my anorak.
Great point. It’s the great move from the public to private sector. While I’m not going to label Kucinich this way — certainly there are public sector employees and elected officials who plan on it.
If it goes wrong it won’t necessarily be all that quiet.
https://www.google.co.uk/search?source=ig&rlz=1G1GGLQ_ENUK310&q=lithium+ion+battery+explosion+youtube
you can always have one of these to calm you down:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/7-up
Best place for the battery is in the triangle if it will fit. More than five pounds on the handle bars makes it difficult to steer and can wear out your fork.
Actually considerable mass can be carried above the front wheel on a bicycle with little ill effect on handling or reliability. Reference a vintage French Rene Herse porteur bike designed for delivering newspapers to see the particulars of how it was done elegantly.
Illustration of the above at:
http://www.blackbirdsf.org/courierracing/images/herse_porteur1950.jpg
Why all the surprise about Kucinich joining Fox News? Who wants to take a bet that Obama will do the same in 2017 and hold out for $10 million a year?
why would Obama go on Faux? NBC is sure to offer him a much better deal.
because the legacy of st. ronnie must live on!
In the phone video taken sometime after the alleged rapes, the boys are laughing so hard they can barely speak.
The one in the frame – an amiable-looking recently graduated high school baseball player – keeps trying to complete sentences but is ambushed by his own snorts and shrieks. The vision shudders as the boy holding the phone loses it, too.
Among the images she captured was a picture of the girl, apparently unconscious, being carried by her wrists and ankles by the two boys since charged. Her head lolls back at a sickening angle. It is understood she is being taken from one party to the next.
The victim, the baseball player says, was so drunk she may as well have been dead.
She was ”deader than Obi-Wan Kenobi after Darth Vader cut his head off”. She was ”deader than OJ’s wife”. They [other accused boys, not those in the room giggling] raped her ”faster than Mike Tyson”.
Advertisement
They peed on her in the street.
She was so ”dead” that when they penetrated her ”butt” she did not respond.
The Big Red is better than most
The town of Steubenville sits in a valley on the Ohio River. Like Weirton, just over the river in West Virginia, and many more towns nearby, Steubenville has been hollowed out and shrunk since the steel mills began to close in the 1980s. When the kids finish high school most of them leave for college or work.
But Steubenville has done it tougher than most. In the 1990s its police developed such a reputation for violence, false arrest and abuse that the federal government was forced to step in. The US Department of Justice found the people most likely to be targeted were those that dared criticise the police or the city government.
Like in many other small towns in the US – like in the popular TV drama Friday Night Lights – Steubenville revolves around its high school football team, the Big Red.
The Big Red is better than most. In a streak that lasted more than three seasons up to 2009, the Big Red won 68 games on the trot. On a home game Friday night the school’s stadium is sold out – 10,000 of Steubenville’s population of 18,000 pack themselves into the stands. Hundreds more gather in nearby parking lots for tailgate parties.
When the Big Red scores, a sheet of flame explodes out of the mouth of a sculpture of a rearing red stallion called Man O’ War.
”The whole town worships the team,” says Alexandria Goddard, the blogger whose research made the rape a national issue. ”You ask any little boy in the valley what they want to do when they grow up. They want to play for the Big Red.”
August 11 was a big night. Summer had ended and the school year was about to start, and with it the football season. There were a bunch of parties planned around town.
About 50 turned up to one of them, where a makeshift bar was set up and kids drank beer and whisky, rum and vodka from red plastic cups.
One of those who attended was a 16-year-old girl from Weirton, the town across the river. She was the ex-girlfriend of one of the Big Red players.
Over the next few days news spread that on that night, the girl – drunk to the point of unconsciousness – was carried from party to party and raped along the way by a couple of team members.
For a time Goddard was silenced by the defamation case, but the Times’s story attracted the attention of the online hacking and activist group Anonymous, which started trawling the internet and posting even more material. Last week it found and posted the 12-minute video of the boys that Goddard had avoided, drawing national attention to the case.
In concert with Occupy Steubenville it arranged a protest of 1000 last weekend in the town, and thousands more are expected to converge on Steubenville again on Saturday to demonstrate.
Anonymous has already published the names and photos of other people it believed should be investigated over the rape.
Last month the group was demanding that all those involved turn themselves in. The group claims it has begun compiling a dossier on each member of the team, coaching staff, and faculty. It threatens to publish their names, addresses and social security numbers if the demands are not met.
The group has already published some material it has hacked from private email accounts, and further damning tweets exchanged after the alleged assault.
Threats have been made against school and local officials, as well as the victim.
This week the FBI began investigating possible cyber crimes, including an online post reading: ”The police who protect them [the football team] must be executed.”
There are fears the national focus and online vigilantism could damage the case against the two boys already charged, though Goddard says she is conflicted when asked how she feels about the Anonymous intervention.
”I can’t support illegal actions, but at least they got something done,” she said.
Like most who have seen it, she is most concerned about the contents of the video.
”How can they be that way? Where is their humanity? Where is their empathy?”
Read more: http://www.brisbanetimes.com.au/world/exposing-americas-gang-rape-shame-20130111-2clbc.html#ixzz2IWChiArr
Skippy… like a gum tree after a fire… still green on top… yet the roots and trunk are cinders… it will come down… sometimes before the green has withered… or not… just don’t stand under the bloody thing….
Weirton, that used to be a steel town. Destroying America’s industrial base was an act of great violence perpetrated by the financial class — the inter-generational context for loss of empathy.
The other context is the horribly destructive set of habits/mores/expectations that arrived when “party” became a verb; drunkenness and alchoholism are horrible problems up and down the scale, from the “kids” in Steubenville to Dartmouth fraternities. Loss of empathy there, too.
Interesting also to see that Occupy is — surprise! — not dead at all, but alive, and in the heartland. And it takes a lot of courage to go against the football team in a small town.
I guess we should not be surprised that the (macro)US Gov’t is a fascist, tyrannical, bullying, amoral police state, with psychopaths in all the places of power, when the(micro) local gov’t is the same way, producing the same effects, and supplying the Macro with exactly the kinds of damaged goods/people it needs to continue its existence.
I really wish I hadn’t read skippy’s Steubenville comment. Too late to stick my fingers in my ears and sing lalala really loud. I think I’ll watch football today. or not…
But America is not as morally bankrupt as India…..right?
One hopes Anonymous isn’t claiming to have all this knowledge unless they reall have it. Further, if they say they will release it all unless the alleged perps turn themselves in, and they fail do release it all when the alleged perps fail to turn themselves in; then they have to go ahead and release it or they will lose credibility.
Argentina’s lurch into the outlaw fringe of nations continues under its Peronist firebrand president, Kristina de Kirchner. From La Nación:
Meanwhile, the breach between the official (overvalued) exchange rate and the ‘dólar informal’ has dilated to a yawning 51 percent:
http://www.ambito.com/economia/mercados/monedas/dolar/
Dirigisme, comrades. Maybe someday it’ll finally work!
LOL… America is the biggest money laundering outfit on the planet.
Anywho… getting kicked out of the IMF is a sign of non cooperation with thugs, good thing in my book!
Skippy… why don’t you go and – invest – in something – meaningful – with your life, rather than bleat about your rights (thousands of miles away, about a bit of script}, what of the decades of – their rights – getting trampled.
Yep. Now that the use of full spectrum dominance to spread the one true faith (“free” markets) has worked out so well in Iraq and Afghanistan, the US is turning its attention to imposing economic and political hegemony in Latin America.
What most of the neoliberal breathers don’t consider is… they are on the menu too!
Skippy… in the end game, I feel its the environment that will sort it all out… till then keep poking them in the eye.
“What most of the neoliberal breathers don’t consider is… they are on the menu too!”
Exactly. Planet Earth is not the Titanic. She has no lifeboats.* The first class can’t simply row beyond earshot of the drowning second and third classes, then resume their fabulous life, when our shared mother ship goes down.
*Not yet, that is. Richard Branson IS diligently working on a solution, though, for his rich and connected friends.
“Want to live? Have money? REAL money? Go intergalactic! Hop on board one of our Virgin Starships, and leave a dying planet behind!”
‘the US is turning its attention [BACK] to imposing economic and political hegemony in Latin America.’
fixed it for ya ‘ )
Wait a minute. I thought after Afghanistan, the US was pivoting to East Asia and Latin America would get another breather with a few more years of US neglect.
Two pivots at once? We think big.
I knew at some point South America would return to the hot seat, but thought it would be awhile longer before the US lurched back down there.
i don’t know if “think” is the optimal word.
I’d like to see Argentina kicked out of the IMF, much better if they leave on their own.
I’m not sure how long US&EU will be able to continue to spin IMF. Its policies already have approximately zero credibility in much of the developing world. Latin America, led by Argentina, provides an increasingly potent counterexample, and I hope it will eventually lead to real change at Bretton-Woods institutions.
A number of South American countries could withdraw from IMF and start their SAMF. If some Central American countries left IMF and joined SAMF, it could become LAMF.
A fine little animation piece…
Moving Picture — 7:18 min
http://vimeo.com/27110799#at=0
Regarding psychotherapists matchmaking:
Dr.Friedman, the psychopharmacologist who authored the article, is using anecdotal cases to generalize about an entire segment of the healthcare industry. I have never heard of this matchmaking business and it is blatantly unethical. Not to mention illegal (re: confidentiality issues) so perhaps this article is just a warning to patients and therapists to avoid it. His point about unconscious motives and acting out of transferences is well stated IMHO. He makes therapy sound potentially dangerous and in the wrong hands it is. Certainly a nasty indictment of Freud’s practices (as opposed to his writings)as well.
Yves,
Maybe some of your interns will be interested in becoming surrogate mothers for Neanderthal babies:
http://gawker.com/5977130/could-you-be-the-adventurous-woman-scientists-need-to-give-birth-to-the-first-neanderthal-baby-in-30000-years
“Once the baby’s out, though, you’re in good shape”
i can hardly see to type…i haven’t laffed this hard in too long!
Dr. Zaius unavailable for comment.
The cloned ibex “immediately died” – they musta fed it GMO stuff … or, it looked around, thought “Oh me God! THIS is the future!” and expired post haste …
late last year i read the nukes / tar sands considerations…i figured Nothing could get more stretched for the industry
UNTIL the dots imploded
Nikkei reported this week that the company (Toshiba) had completed design of a small 10,000kw reactor and had asked the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission for approval to begin construction in the United States, but the process had been delayed in connection with a meltdown at Japan’s Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant in 2011.
Toshiba earnings projections thru 2017
http://www.4-traders.com/zbcache/reuters/Draw_Chart.php?p=2,1,360,280,Toshiba+Corp&RepNo=A5A48
There’s no need to hide
Taking things the easy way
If I stay inside
I might live til Saturday
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gJz0c981F7U
Steely Dan is indeedd a music group for modern ages America.
Indeed.
http://youtu.be/RrYgaTwujJ8?t=34m17s
i bet viceroy harper can’t wait to fire these babies up!
good thing he’s never seen dr. strangelove (i can guarantee you he hasn’t) or he’d have them up in OUR NEW F-35s (haha!) and be droppin’ ’em down on fort mcmurray, riding the toshiba like a bucking “campaign contribution” to the gates of eternity.
it’d make a good election commercial…
Does this tiger even know he’s underwater?
Yeah – he just heard from his bank ….
FTW!
¿fry the weasel?
For The Win
>> Toshiba creating nuclear reactor for mining Canada Tar Sands Raw Story (Aquifer)
I think that’s a gag or a setup. It’s like: “We’ve secretly replaced this article with a story from The Onion. Let’s see if readers notice!”
yep, i gagged back when i first read of the brilliant idea
http://marketwatch666.blogspot.com/2012/08/ideas-draining-my-wild-turkey-stash.html
(also because it drained my stash)
Would that were so …
But maybe they figure, “hey this place is totally f***ed already, what’s a little radiation gonna hurt ….”
they’ve been working on it for a while…
Toshiba Nuclear Reactor For Oil Sands To Be Operational By 2020 – Toshiba Corporation has developed a small nuclear reactor to power oilsands extraction in Alberta and hopes to have it operational by 2020, according to news reports from Japan.
This is true. But sometimes it seems like we’ve secretly replaced life with this article from The Onion, actually.
Should Therapists Play Cupid?
My god, no reputable psychotherapist should be “tempted” even to consider doing something like this. Hopefully this therapist has a supervisor with whom he can get some help with his fantasies about his patient (also known as “countertransference”).
On second thought, if he had, he would never have written a column like this, exposing his apparrently overly permeable boundaries.
And the objective of therapy is not, as the coy article suggests “to remedy problems in the little lab that is the therapeutic connection”, but rather to help the patient/client to get to a point of personal effectiveness so he/she can remedy those problems.
re: Psychotherapist and cupid.. Why not? It’s a relationship of mutual consent, Just Say No! or Just Say Now?
Both professions are borderline scams anyway.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rosenhan_experiment
Yes yes, there is a difference between psychiatrists and psychologists.. The former fein a more analytical insight and are armed w/ a legally sanctioned suite of pharmacueticals
The article on big agriculture and Monsanto and Billy Gates. Why don’t more of these reports see the light? Everyone knows instinctively how crazy Monsanto’s business model is. I especially enjoyed learning that big ag creates 100 times more “waste” than the entire human population of the planet. That’s actually a lot of CO2. But Bill Gates knows a good monopoly when he sees one, especially one devoted to Bill’s own international charity of helping all people lead healthy, productive lives.
What astounds me is how many people actually think Bill Gates is a great person now because of his (tax-deductible) foundation. Talk about an effective PR campaign. Monopolist Fat Cat to Philanthropist Superstar, almost overnight. It makes me want to vomit.
Washington State University’s extension programs are very active in supporting sustainable agriculture. Gates needs to look in his own back yard. He sees tech as the solution to everything. When all ypu have us a hammer… He dropped out of the wrong university.
Gates foundation does better on health issues like hiv, malaria and birth control. Perhaps because Melinda drives those.
yep, ol’ billy gates knows how to save the world:
•••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••
A problem has been detected and Earth has been shut down in order to prevent damage to your planet.
The problem seems to have been caused by the following file: MONSANT.SYS
GENE_FAULT_IN_NONGENE_AREA
Please insert your Earth startup disc into drive Q and press ALT_DELETE_GOD_HELP
Upon restart press F8 to enter Safe Mode
*** STOP: 0x00000019 (0x00000000, 0xC00E0FF0, 0xFFFFEFD4, 0xC0000000) BAD_SEED_HEADER
Bwhahahah! That was great.
Just turn the planet off and turn it back on to restore in safe mode.
Nice one.
Re link on: “At Obama’s second inauguration, how emancipated are we really?”
Wrong question. The right one is: “How emaciated have we become?”
CatFoodTM
while the 0.0000000000001% play hungry, hungry hippo with the planet.
“I did a study of advanced batteries in 1993. The risks were known then.”
Thermal runaway with certain lithium battery chemistries is hardly news (nor is the toxicity of certain metal spinels ie: Cobalt, Nickel) in Lithium battery spinels.
Certainly as a minimum, Boeing and the FAA “knew it then” as well.
I enjoy irony, and the relevant one is that the (relative) intrinsic advantage of A123 Systems Lithium battery chemistry when considering toxicity/thermally run away was ironically perhaps not fully valued in business decisions (internally as well as potential client base)during the runup to their recent bankruptcy.
IN ANYCASE,
1.)Im sure the Tums are being passed out for those charged w/ the ISO papertrail on the battery pack thermal fuses (ala Toshiba lap tops).
2.) Boeing is in a world of shit w/ their Lego set “Dreamliner -the delusion of Direct from CAD to Global Vendor subcontractors “dreamed” up by their impudent Gen X cost optimization MBA grads. I predict this will be the TIP OF THE ICEBERG on the dreamliner. Carbon fiber structural problems will make this seem like childs play as these airframes start collecting cycles.
…”Avoiding the lithium cobalt oxide cathode leads to a number of advantages. LiCoO2 is one of the more expensive components of traditional li-ion batteries, giving LFP batteries the potential to ultimately become significantly cheaper to produce. Lithium iron phosphate has no known carcinogenicity whereas lithium cobalt oxide does because it contains cobalt, which is listed as a possible human carcinogen by the IARC. LiCoO2 can lead to problems with runaway overheating and outgassing, particularly in the form of lithium polymer battery packs, making batteries that use it more susceptible to fire than LFP batteries. This advantage means that LFP batteries don’t need as intense charge monitoring as traditional li-ion. Lastly, LFP batteries tend to have lower (~60%) energy density in comparison to traditional li-ion.”..
http://www.nfpa.org/assets/files/pdf/research/rflithiumionbatterieshazard.pdf
…With penetration of electric vehicles, comes addition of charging stations in public areas as well as in private residences. Automotive battery packs will also be serviced and thus, stored at service locations, and also battery switching locations such as those being demonstrated by Better Place.58 This type of new infrastructure will pose high voltage and fire safety challenges in addition to those associated with lithium ion batteries themselves discussed in this report.
Lithium-ion batteries have begun to replace other battery chemistries in aerospace applications.
For example, in 2007, the Boeing Corporation requested a waiver from the US Federal Aviation Administration 59 to allow use of lithium-ion batteries for powering a number of systems on the 787 Dreamliner commercial aircraft design including: the main and APU, flight control electronics, the emergency lighting system, and as an independent power supply for the flight recorder.
Lithium-ion batteries are already being used on a variety of military aircraft.60 Lithium-ion batteries are being installed in a range of space applications including satellites…
A late family member was involved at a high level in the 777 program. He’ll be spinning in his grave about now.
Trillions are wasted just so that Goldman Sachs traders could buy more condos in downtown Manhattan while companies that can revolutionize transport or energy have to go hat in hand to find financing. Reaction Engines A2 is to 787 like 787 itself is to the Wright brother’s plane.
Same goes for energy. Traveling wave reactor, thorium reactor promise cheap and safe energy that does not produce waste required to be stored for thousands of years. It’s another no-brainer for investment, and?.. At least the travelling wave reactor does get a fair amount of private investment, but it’s nothing compared to the Manhattan project or Apollo program. And its potential impact is greater than Apollo’s by several order of magnitude.
Antidote du jour
Hurry, save yourself and get in the water! Tigers dont like to swim!
Maybe we can entice Tim Geithner in for a swim now that he has a little time away from raping the American people.
But they like snow.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/7865737.stm
Heh-heh! Doesn’t the one in the picture seem to be saying, “Surprise!”
More tigers in the snow.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-21088766
Re. the Greek probe into tax evasion scandal, that is peanuts.
You should read the Spanish press.
Former treasurer of the governing party and close aide to current president of gov’t found to hide 22 million euros in Switzerland from bribes for gov’t contracts.
Apparently in retaliation for having to face the law the treasurer is leaking news about envelopes full of cash distributed monthly over years to highest bosses of the governing party, including to the current president of gov’t, from the same pool of dirty money.
In a amazing spin, new law passed by the gov’t allowing to declare hidden money to tax evaders for a mere 10% fine benefited the sayd treasurer whom laundered part of his ill-gotten gains using the new law.
For the Spanish challenged, here is a little piece in English:
http://elpais.com/elpais/2013/01/20/inenglish/1358700497_098394.html
re: What Tax Increase? The Latest Economic Data Shows The Consumer Is On A Tear
Gallup does a 3-day and 14-day rolling average of consumer spending and updates a chart each day that goes back to Feb ’08. (what matters here is whether or not their methodology has been consistent and is there a trend we can discern). I’ve been waiting to see some effect of the tax increase but so far, nada. January ’13 is higher than any January since the crash.
The 10 Weirdest Inaugurations in US History http://www.livescience.com/26416-10-weirdest-inaugurations-us-history.html
The Science Behind ‘Beatboxing’ http://www.livescience.com/26420-the-science-behind-beatboxing.html
Beatbox Battle World Champs 2012 – Final http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xVAka_y3BC0
If there ever was justification for calling a napalm strike, this might just fullfill that threshold.
Traveller from an antique land
Anselm Kiefer’s bleakly despairing vision causes disquiet in an art world used to in-jokes and irony
http://www.newstatesman.com/art/2009/10/kiefer-art-germany-france
Robert Hughes on Anselm Kiefer
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tqZZhp-HJes
Hollywood makes case for “Zero Dark Thirty” is really just film’s producer hires a lawyer. I think there is a lot of consternation among Bigelow the film’s director and those who bankrolled and produced it. Here they produced this glitzy action packed propaganda film and they are catching flak from some of the very Washington intelligence and security heavy hitters they thought would be its biggest cheerleaders.
Jack Bauer, torture, and “24” were propaganda masquerading as fiction, but 24’s producers at least had the good sense to throw in a couple of events, like nuking LA so that they could hide behind the “see, it’s really just fiction” defense.
The problem with ZDT is that it is propaganda masquerading as docudrama. And it is the documentary elements on torture that run it afoul of Inside the Beltway turf battles the film’s creators either ignored or forgot. John McCain may be taking a principled stand on torture because of his personal experience with it although this is hard to tell because there have been so few instances of principled anything in his life there is nothing to compare it with, but for others, especially Senators on the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, they had their noses considerably bent out of joint by the Bush Administration’s shutting them out and stonewalling them on torture. These people, like Dianne Feinstein, have super-sized egos and long memories. They have no personal investment in the torture sequences in ZDT and considerable reason to be pissed about that whole particular episode.
For me, this is a case of black hats going after black hats. It is the perfect occasion for breaking out the popcorn and enjoying the show, and I don’t even have to go to a theater to see it.
If Feinstein actually gave a shit about torture for any other reason than her egomaniacal need to play 24 in nice safe secret meetings, she could kick some NCS ass. With one tweak of her finger she could terrify the NCS dick-slitting brigade and scatter it to the four winds. She knows how: withdraw the US CAT reservations and accede to the OP-CAT. But she won’t. Feinstein doesn’t give a shit about US crimes of torture, if the torturers butter her up. And when it comes down to it, Feinstein is scared of the torturers. She’s a figurehead and she knows it, a senile matriach in diapers who gets joke respect.
The piece by Romer reads like news from a parallel universe. Portraying the Fed’s expanded bond buying program as stimulative is really just the umpteenth recasting of trickledown economics. The Fed’s monetary policies are about keeping the bubbles inflated on Wall Street and the casino open. If they have any positive effects on the real economy, they are purely coincidental whereas their negative effects jacking up the prices on gas, groceries, and commodities is a direct result. Despite this, Romer bizarrely contends that she doesn’t have enough experience with the current situation to know if it might cause “distortions in financial markets”. I can only assume she has not been paying attention to them since 2008.
And then there is the coded language like “price stability”. Price stability = raising rates to suppress workers’ wages. Indeed if you want to know what the Fed’s 6.5% unemployment and 2.5% inflation targets really mean it is this: The Fed is willing to fuel the Wall Street casino indefinitely, no questions asked. It is also willing to see unemployment decline but only so long as the jobs created are so poorly paying that they will not affect the inflation rate in any significant way.
Neoliberal that Romer is, she thinks this is great.
re: Antidote du jour. “I know this is not exactly antidote-like”
Oh, no. I like him.
Here’s a great comment I found on another board regarding the hostage situation in Algeria. This guys summed it up better than I could.
“These guys really hit a nerve didn’t they? BP must have ordered the Algerian military to take back the plant and expend anyone moving, hostage or no. BP, the US and so on, are totally fine combating the make-believe ‘Al-Quaida terrorists’ who, not surprisingly, do nothing except plot pointless(and futile) attacks on airliners filled with Obese amerikans on there way to Disneyland, or… Wichita or someplace equally unimportant.
That’s the problem with corporate amerikas fake war-of-terror. Its fine when all they need to do is set up fake plots like the underwear bomber, but when someone actually goes off script and hits BP or some other US corporate entity, where it hurts, well, they don’t like that one bit. We can see that clearly here. BP and US officials are clearly not well adjusted to the fact that people are actually resisting and choosing meaningful targets to attack. That’s why the attack on the CIA base in Libya(yea they call it an embassy or some such), and now this, are causing them so much trouble. There media created created AL-Q is supposed to sit around and plot to blow-up airliners and never succeed of course. No ONE is actually supposed to actually attack US corporate power in any serious way, but now they have, and they went crazy. They went in shooting and didn’t care who got in the way. Just as long as there precious gas-plant was retaken and as many attackers killed as possible was all they care about….”
Reminds me of Joker in the Dark Knight Returns: Nobody panics when things go “according to plan.” Even if the plan is horrifying…nobody panics, because it’s all “part of the plan.”
http://www.nytimes.com/2013/01/20/business/a-fed-voice-asking-to-cut-megabanks-down-to-size.html?_r=0
How to cut mega banks down to size.
This is not a film
An animated journey through the surreal world of René Magritte.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0qCVIelcIYE
Thanks, I’m a Magritte fan, and so is my husband. Here’s one of his favorite faux-Magritte visual puns http://content.perspicuity.com/?q=node/330
Ceci n’est pas une drill.
Good one, Valissa, thanks.
“Toshiba creating nuclear reactor for mining Canada Tar Sands”
You know you’re near the end when this is a headline ……