Indonesians trapped up tree by Sumatran tigers BBC
Having a whale of a time… till giant’s tail flick sends surfers flying Independent (Chuck L)
St. Joe’s “dead” patient awoke as docs prepared to remove organs Syracuse (bob)
Breathing And Your Brain: Five Reasons To Grab The Controls Psychology Today (Lysa)
Smell Camera Snapshots Scents For the Future Discovery
The US Fears the World will Discover its Big Nuclear Secret OilPrice. Ugh
China Cash Squeeze Seen Creating Vietnam-Size Credit Hole Bloomberg
Bundesbank Chief States the Obvious “ECB Cannot Solve Euro Zone Crisis”; Unstated Message “No One Else Can Either” Michael Shedlock
George Osborne to implement tough reforms on standards in City Telegraph
Egypt seeks Gulf cash as coalition cracks and opponents rally Financial Times
CHANCES OF TERRORISM IN POST-MORSI EGYPT Sic Semper Tyrannis (Chuck L)
Dozens Killed in Clashes in Egypt Wall Street Journal
Big Brother is Watching You Watch:
Snowden Claims: NSA Ties Put German Intelligence in Tight Spot Der Spiegel
The Snowden Effect: definition and examples Jay Rosen (GP)
Surveillance Society: If You Drive, You Get Tracked Wolf Richter (Chuck L)
Secret Court Ruling Expanded Spy Powers Wall Street Journal
Obama Administration Plans to Deport Roommate of Chechen Killed by FBI AllGov (Deontos)
Spitzer Rejoins Politics, Asking for Forgiveness New York Times
Quomodo ceciderunt Michael Smith (Carol B). Another example of devolution.
“Why did you shoot me? I was reading a book”: The new warrior cop is out of control Salon (Inverness)
Schools Seeking to Arm Employees Hit Hurdle on Insurance New York Times (furzy mouse)
Class Struggle in the Sky New York Times
Defining Prosperity Down Paul Krugman
Varied Readings of Volcker Rule Wall Street Journal
Geithner joins top table of public speakers Financial Times. Note he’s also keeping his options open so he could become Fed chief, aargh.
Among The Worst Days in Mortgage Rate History Mortgage News Daily
Rising rates to spur litany of capital losses Financial Times. Not hard to foresee this coming…..
Banks pushing for repeal of credit unions’ federal tax exemption Los Angeles Times (1 SK). Paging Elizabeth Warren…
Alphachat podcast: Manmohan Singh on collateral chains FT Alphaville (Scott). Has notes with time stamps, so you can just listen to sections that look interesting if you prefer.
JPMorgan Warned by OCC of Asset Management Conflicts American Banker
United States Lost Output Clock (Dean Baker). Please circulate. Sadly, people need to be reminded what the crisis is continuing to cost them, particularly now that the Fed is patting itself on the back and declaring everything to be all better.
Jobless About to Take a Big Hit From the Sequester CNBC (Ed Harrison)
Antidote du jour (martha r). I’m told this is a howling lesson:
99 comments
Comments are closed.
About Krugman
Krugman continues to cave to la politesse when it comes to explaining the motives behind the so-called deficit hawks. The real problem isn’t 21st Century Puritanism; real Puritans would never accept the sorts of behaviors that define our society, especially the wealthy and how they got their wealth.
No, the real issue, that Krugman is either too ignorant to understand, too lazy to think through, or too politic to state in the Times is that the policies that would benefit the entire country would require a return to … gasp! … Keynesianism. This would mean:
(a) Admitting the failure (once again) of neo-classcial economics, which has been the argument for keeping the VSPs in power;
(b) Admitting that the banking system is broken, that we need to have a proper accounting of the banks that will destroy the current system, and rebuild a responsible banking system;
(c) Sending lots of VSPs to jail;
(d) Returning to a definition of basic human rights to medical care, food, education, and shelter; and
(e) Higher taxes for the VSPs.
In short, the real reason we can’t get past our current policies is that the rich don’t care about the economy; since they already have plenty of money. They keep us stuck, because they don’t want to share power as would happen with a rebuliding of the middle class.
Why won’t Krugman say this? First, I think Krugman is trapped by the politics of his position at the Times. He too is a VSP, just one who’s allowed to throw stones—albeit not too large—at the windows of power. Second, Krugman is still an economist and largely cut from the neo-classical cloth. He still looks as the economy as a mathmatical optimization problem, and has a hard time of thinking about the connection between economic and political power.
Krugman is at his best, when he iterates and reiterates that acceptance of high unemployment and underemployment as the “new normal” is wrong, very wrong, and indeed stupid. It is a necessary and useful thing he does, from his perch in beard and tweeds, rather than joining the VSP Oxxford jacket set. So I think he is one of the good guys.
Anybody have any clue what VSP stands for?
Here is a suggestion for clear communication: do not use abbreviations without definition unless you prefer secret code to ensure only a small number of people understand your secret message.
VSP = Very Serious People
(I think?)
Jagger, “VSP” is an abbreviation for Very Serious People. And while I do try to define my abbreviations, some are used so often on this ‘blog and other economics ‘blogs that I tend to assume most will understand the meaning. For example, should I define “‘blog” to mean “Web-log” too?
Oh, and here’s a suggestion for you too, Jagger: you dont’ have to be so snarky; just because the abbreviation is new to you doesn’t mean I’m writing secret code, or do you work for the NSA?
I tnihk he is form the arnyocm ririgttesaon bruaeu, and tehy wlil be sdeinng a seuqd car to tkae you aawy.
Vapidly Sanctimonious Proselytizers
they don’t even know what they don’t know. haha
Usually, one can tell from this sign – when a VSP appears, PPP* is not far away.
* PPP = pompous pontification poo
Pellucidly Platitudinous Pettifoggery!
So let’s resume…..PPP is FP for flatulent pontification.
I prefer farty pontification for FP which can then be expanded into FaPo (as in WaPo).
Tough crowd.
Not as tuff as my overlord master, who argued with me the other that I was a Very Idiotic Peon and deserved VIP treatment, while I insisted that I was actually a Very Impoverished Peon, deserving VIP treatment.
At the end, we settled for this – I was a peon.
I think my 19 year-old son has the name for his new band! Thanks craazyman!!
That’s of course the Vapidly Sanctimonious Proselytizers, not the Pellucidly Platitudinous Pettifoggers! :)
Thought it was Very Special Person. Why yes, yes they are, so much more special than the rest of us (eye roll).
Re: Output clock. I have a hard time taking seriously a chart that projects forward from the tail end of a credit-driven bubble (i.e., “output” achieved by people spending way beyond their means) as if that were the normal condition that would continue sustainably. That is the worst sort of data cherry picking.
Krugman has explained this several times in his ‘blog. The point is that the pre-crash output is real output, i.e., it shows that we have at least that much capacity for doing economic work; whether the actual allocation of resources is efficient or useful is not relevant (i.e., don’t pay attention to the funding).
In as sense, the bubble works like Keynes’s idea of having people dig holes for cash—We know that we have at least this much capacity for doing some kind of work. The problem, then, is to get people back to that level of activity, but doing things that are really useful.
“(i.e., don’t pay attention to the funding). ”
Spoken like an economist, all right. My point is that two years at the end of the bubble don’t represent a real trend that could be reasonably projected into the future. If that’s okay to do, then you could pick any short period of time you liked and say what you wish from it. If you projected from further back in time, not even very much more, you would get a significantly different result. I mean, during that time the funding was achieved by driving the savings rate down to nothing and borrowing against the bubble-equity of their houses.
” it shows that we have at least that much capacity for doing economic work;”
That may be, and according to that chart, we are once again producing at that level, or even a little more. So what’s been lost?
>> The point is that the pre-crash output is real output
Was it?
Building houses that the would-be inhabitants couldn’t afford to pay electricity to cool and gasoline to commute from? Bundling mortgages and creating derivatives out of them? Building more empty office buildings?
While some of that output was “real”, a lot of it was real *waste*. Good riddance.
P.S. The “confirm you are not a spammer” button doesn’t seem to appear in Firefox. Works better in Safari.
I get a “Confirm you are NOT a spammer” checkbox with Firefox 21, Fedora 18.
I got it with Firefox too. Anyway, what do I do if I am a spammer?
Works in Firefox 22.0 (Mac OS X 10.8.4).
(Not that my comments still don’t get eaten.)
Those unending comments problems. With his outstanding skills as a network administrator, Snowden would solve them in a jiffy.
That’s the tragedy of this country, all this young talent not put to productive use.
No, it is the “unending fighting with spammers” problem. You are seeing only occasional side effects on the comments section.
We get more than 1200 spam comments a day. That is 3-6x our level of reader-submitted comments. And the overwhelming majority aren’t cute and short like the ones that get through. They are really long, full of links, and incoherent.
If you have a fix, I’m all ears. But we’ve used all the standard fixes that are consistent with having comments remain pretty open.
I could easily implement something more intrusive that would work, like difficult captchas, or requiring that readers register or moderating all comments. That would solve the comments problem. I can pretty much assure you it would also reduce the amount of comments from actual readers to somewhere between 20% and 40% of their current level.
In other words, be careful what you ask for. Don’t ask me to burn the village to save it.
One thing I’ve wondered about with regard to the comments getting eaten — as it has happened to me, I took the precaution of copying everything I say, Ctrl-A, Ctrl-C, style. Just resubmit. That works — but — and here’s my really point — doesn’t hitting ‘back’ on the browser retrieve your post for you? I believe that has always worked for me as well.
The short answer is not always anymore. Yves site is now an example of where that assumption is no longer operable in the comments area, IMO. It may be just cookie settings but I am too lazy to sort it out.
If it makes you feel any better, NSA must also be vacuuming up spam as well as non-spam with probably less effective ways of separating the wheat from the chaff. In the meantime there are probably clever types who are seeking ways of incorporating point to point communications disguised in a swarm of spam.
YY wrote: “If it makes you feel any better, NSA must also be vacuuming up spam as well as non-spam with probably less effective ways of separating the wheat from the chaff.”
Thanks, it does make me feel better.
Let’s hear it for spam!
I had this problem as well until I “whitelisted” NC on Ghostery (one of the programs I use to block ads/trackers). If you’re using Ghostery or a similar program, try un-blocking everything for this site. I think it might be the Po.st widget that specifically needs to be unblocked, but I haven’t confirmed this yet.
I also had a suspicion that the “Disconnect” add-on (Firefox) is causing some issues in comment-posting, and tried the “whitelist” option as well. Worked once, then failed a second post attempt. Still mystified as to what is going on here. This problem has only begun to happen the past couple of weeks or so. Never had any issues with anti-tracking add-ons before at this site.
Donald Trump fails to deliver on golf resort jobs pledge
First Minister Alex Salmond is left in the rough over ‘Great Dunes of Scotland’ investment
The American entrepreneur Donald Trump has failed to deliver on pledges to create thousands of jobs through a supposed billion-pound investment that were key to planning approval for his hugely controversial Scottish golf resort, an investigation has found.
By his own admission, Mr Trump has created no more than 200 of his promised 6,000 jobs and is thought to have spent just £25m on the scheme while bulldozing environmentally sensitive areas of the Scottish coast, according to a new analysis of the scheme’s finances.
The striking shortfall between Mr Trump’s pipe dream and the realities of the venture, uncovered by the BBC’s Panorama team, leaves Scotland’s First Minister, Alex Salmond, facing questions over his judgement in intervening – while Mr Trump continues to be under scrutiny himself concerning business links in the United States with a violent ex-convict who has previous Mafia links.
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/home-news/donald-trump-fails-to-deliver-on-golf-resort-jobs-pledge-8693854.html
It’s *Trump*. What did they think would happen?
“Trupm’s pipe dream”? Does anyone seriously think that he believed that statement? He’ll say anything to get what he wants.
He’s like an infallible cockroach contaminating everything he touches….
Wnen a megarich jagoff won’t even spring for a decent toupee, it’s a tell.
I think Donald Trump’s greatest skill is his ability to continue to get people to believe the promises he makes, even considering his track record.
Here he is making good use of Brand Trump to complete a successful snow job on the guys from The Motley Fool in 1999:
http://www.fool.com/portfolios/rulebreaker/1999/rulebreaker990908.htm
Any promises Mr. Salmond thinks he has that aren’t in a legally enforceable form are so much hot air.
Disgusting:
Secret move keeps military records on bin Laden raid in the shadows
WASHINGTON – The country’s top special operations commander ordered military files about the Navy SEAL raid on Osama bin Laden’s hideout to be purged from Defence Department computers and sent to the CIA, where they could be more easily shielded from ever being made public.
The secret move, described briefly in a draft report by the Pentagon’s inspector general, set off no alarms within the Obama administration even though it appears to have sidestepped federal rules and perhaps also the Freedom of Information Act.
http://ca.news.yahoo.com/secret-move-keeps-military-records-bin-laden-raid-075046563.html
‘The refusal to make available authoritative or contemporaneous records about the bin Laden mission means that the only official accounts of the mission come from U.S. officials who have described details of the raid in speeches, interviews and television appearances. In the days after bin Laden’s death, the White House provided conflicting versions of events, falsely saying bin Laden was armed and even firing at the SEALs, misidentifying which of bin Laden’s sons was killed and incorrectly saying bin Laden’s wife died in the shootout. Obama’s press secretary attributed the errors to the “fog of combat.”‘
“fog of combat”
We’ve been FOCed!
Wow, is there seriously any better way to make people believe that the official version is fake? When you combine that with the suspicious details and ‘fog of combat’ versions that were released afterwards, it’s hard not to believe that there’s something fishy about this one.
here’s the Pakistani report, just out today….
http://www.aljazeera.com/indepth/spotlight/binladenfiles/
Of course. The critical thinkers aka “crazies” don’t have enough stigma attached to them to enable easy identification and self-seclusion for Good Democrats. Why, some of them sound like people who want to make good on the Democratic Party platform, and that can’t be good for business.
Whaddya, some kinda retard? /rahm
On controlled breathing – I’d be inteested in a control study on (active) divers, who tend to spend lots of time (often more than anyone but professional yogis) practicing controlled breathing… That said, a mantra for divers in emergency is “stop, breathe, think”.
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3309925/
(meditation begins 6th paragraph down)
Thanks for the link.
I have innovated a breath exercise to eliminate trauma and PTSD anxiety. Trying to even pull together a study to prove the concept is taking a lot more effort than anticipated.
But I will persist because as a TBI/PTSD victim I know what I have accomplished and what it can do for others.
Dear Psychohistorian, i seem to remember a post of yours where you describe a bit of your trauma, and your self healing with breath techniques. i read your post late at night and was very moved…you’ve remained in my thoughts.
Controlled Breathing is showing up in more arena’s these days…from sports to special ed. and religious circles. i’ve overheard elderly patients discussing their doctors recommendations for deep-breathing ‘time outs’. im viewing more mainstream articles for breathing techniques and its about time.
it wasn’t until a few years ago that i began to carve out time to breath. pretty sad considering we breath w/o thought all day long, but when i missed those designated breathing minutes i could physically feel it. i felt chest pressure…like i couldn’t get enough air but even stranger it wouldn’t go away until i took the deep diaphragm breaths. occasionally i still forget but it doesn’t take 2 good breaths to ease discomforts.
i truly believe a single grace we can teach a child is the power of their breath. they’ll carry it throughout their lives. its still FREE and they’ll change the world with some much needed Grace.
here’s a few more links:
http://www.normalbreathing.com/s/emotional-trauma.php
If we are able to change major physiological parameters of brain and nerve cells, then we can expect that the mind will be more successful in dealing with trauma (even though this method does not remove trauma). These parameters include: O2 and CO2 contents in brain cells, and perfusion (blood flow) to the brain. All these parameters are controlled by automatic breathing patterns, and the chart below explains why some generations ago, but not these days, people were able to cope with traumas.
http://www.sharecare.com/question/how-do-practice-breath-focus
How do I practice Breathing Focus
Dr. Michael Hirsch answered:
Here’s how to practice breath focus (a relaxation technique that involves deep, rhythmic breathing, mental detachment, and the use of a word or phrase that helps a person focus):
Begin with deep breathing. Find a comfortable, quiet place to sit or lie down. Put one hand on your lower belly. First take a normal breath. Now try a slow, deep breath. The air coming in through your nose should move downward, expanding your lungs fully so that your lower belly rises. Now breathe out through your mouth (or nose, if that feels more natural). Alternate between normal and deep breathing several times, paying attention to how you feel with each breath. Shallow breathing often feels tense and constricted. Deep breathing relaxes.
Practice deep breathing for several minutes. Put one hand just below your belly button. Feel your hand rise about an inch each time you inhale. Your chest will rise slightly, too, in concert with your abdomen. Try to relax your belly. As you exhale slowly, let yourself sigh out loud.
here’s a 3 minute video that focuses on relaxing your body thru breathing while standing, sitting and anywhere
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2MRze-efF4o
to the right there are plenty of videos to sample
Thank you for your concern and support. I am very forthright, sharing and effusive about my experience….it is who I am.
See my response to Yves below for more detail.
I was unable to return to Zen type meditation because I twitch when I try to enter that state so I went looking for effective mindful meditations. I didn’t want just a quick hit of calm but healing. I found one (see below) and re-purposed it to my needs by making the out breath part of the focus and an intentional focused letting go.
It works for me and now I am determined to see if it can work for others. My PT is the co-creator of this Letting Go Breath and has agreed to pull together a study to try and project my outcome on other TBI/PTSD victims.
I have a link off my bike saddle web site that shows the concept in a PDF and offers video download options of our presentation to a local group.
http://www.bycycleinc.com/LGB/LettingGoBreath.HTML
Any help to kick start this would be appreciated. I still have a TBI which limits my abilities somewhat and my co-creator is a small business owner/mom/full time physical therapist…….AND the VA is deaf, so far……..
One breath at a time.
Onward.
Have you looked into EMDR?
http://www.webmd.com/mental-health/emdr-what-is-it
I’m told it calms people down for a day or two after each session. Might also help for those who haven’t yet mastered the breathing techniques.
I had 12 EMDR sessions but they are of limited use.
Let me describe how the technique was presented to me.
Take your hand with spread fingers and hold it 8 inches in front of your face. The hand represents the trauma and you are forced to see/work around it all the time. What EMDR purports to do is allow you to “mentally” take that hand and put it to your side. The trauma does no go away but you are not as affected by its presence in your life.
This technique may work for some folks but it had limited value to me. It helped me focus a bit easier.
It has been just a year now since I started innovating my Letting Go Breath based on a Breath Empowerment exercise by Jeff Primak. The only hold over from his initial version of the exercise is the breath pacing which brings you up to just under hyperventilation. In that hyper oxygenated state I have convinced my body to let go of the trauma that it acquired in that state but never processed.
It is not easy but gratifying.
It has worked for me and I am confident it can work for others.
One breath at a time.
Onward.
A hand in front of your face is not EMDR. I assume you are not describing the actual treatment.
Because the EMDR intervention is mechanical, it has been widely studied and experimentally applied to many problems. Joseph Wolpe, a key figure in the development of behaviour therapy (Psychotherapy by Reciprocal Inhibition), along with Arnold Lazarus believed therapy involved an investigation to discover what techniques were useful for a patient.
You seem to have done that yourself and have found something that works.
Re: Why did you shoot me, I was only reading a book?
The scariest thing I’ve read in awhile. I knew things were getting worse on the police militarization front, but I wasn’t aware of how bad things had gotten.
It’s like Brazil, only I don’t think our guys would bother to leave a receipt.
It is also surreal — can you imagine Shaquille O’Neal or Steven Seagall (deputized by the local sheriff) suddenly crashing into your house, armed? It’s like a bunch of overgrown children living out their paramilitary fantasies, with little to no consequences.
An interesting companion to the article about arming teachers. What are we becoming?
In 2012 a California police officer shot and killed a boxer puppy and pregnant chihuahua, claiming the boxer had threatened him. The chihuahua, he said, got caught in the crossfire.
Um… crossfire? Was the boxer returning fire?
“Let me count the ways…”
When’s the last time you read icily precise prose chockful of exciting new information about current events and you wished the article would never end? Reuters, AP, NYT, BBC? Snore…
Well folks, here’s a gem:
http://www.alternet.org/news-amp-politics/pentagon-spending-your-tax-dollars-keep-you-dark-about-its-sprawling-empire?
Read that. The border agents’ questions are chilling.
Deserts ‘Greening’ from Rising CO2
“It shall blossom abundantly, and rejoice even with joy and singing: the glory of Lebanon shall be given unto it, the excellency of Carmel and Sharon, they shall see the glory of the LORD, and the excellency of our God.” Isaiah 35:2 (KJV)
CO2, or God, or both, or neither?
I see no necessary sin with CO2 production so I fail to see why God would punish it or fail to ameliorate the damage of excess production, all other things being equal.
OTOH, failure to address moral concerns, such as oppression of the poor, can bring on His wrath, such as the Babylonian Captivity.
What the wicked fears will come upon him, but the desire of the righteous will be granted. Proverbs 10:24
Hi. I dispute the contention that the “Babylonian Captivity” was due solely, or even primarily, to a deterioration in public morality. Ironically, modern Persia (Iran), the historic liberator of Jews, has become today’s Zionist enemy. Yeah, the reality is more complicated than I can grasp.
“The forced exile ended in 538 BCE after the fall of Babylon to the Persian king Cyrus the Great, who gave the Jews permission to return to Yehud province and to rebuild the Temple in Jerusalem.” (Wikipedia)
What’s interesting to me is that the BC even ended and when predicted by Jeremiah and that the Jews recovered as a nation afterwards.
Yes, it is ironic that Israel and Iran (Persia) are now enemies.
Teresa Heinz Kerry checking into Nantucket Cottage Hospital before flying to an undisclosed hospital in Boston reminds me of this interesting piece of news:
“21 states take aim at Mass. hospitals’ Medicare windfall — Nantucket’s tiny hospital that funnels hundreds of millions to other institutions”:
http://www.bostonglobe.com/news/nation/2013/01/13/states-planning-legislative-fight-for-massachusetts-medicare-windfall/HV4WGdUCSOISoTxIcbwSUL/story.html
Evidently, Medicare reimburses urban hospitals within a given state based on what the standard of living is for its rural hospitals. And because Massachusetts’ only rural hospital is in Nantucket where the standard of living is far higher than it is in most rural communities across the US, urban hospitals in Massachusetts, most of which are in the Boston area, receive exceptionally high reimbursements from Medicare.
The way Medicare reimburses hospitals also works like this: the more one state is reimbursed, the less another state is reimbursed. It’s based on the age-old concept of robbing Peter to pay Paul. This is why a coalition of states, — a coalition of Peters, if you will — who are getting the short end of stick in terms of Medicare reimbursements, have proposed legislation to put an end to this so-called “Bay State boondoggle.”
Some say that Sen. John Kerry (D-MA, 1985-2013) played a central role in crafting the legislation which has resulted in this boondoggle of a windfall for his state. I don’t know for sure if this is true. But what I do suspect is true is that the success of RommneyCare is mostly due to the fact that a disproportionately large amount of Medicare dollars have been flowing into the state of Massachusetts over the past several years. If RomneyCare was set up in a “Medicare-poor” state like Missouri or Michigan, as opposed to a “Medicare-rich” state like Massachusetts or California, my guess is that this blueprint for ObamaCare would fail miserably and go belly-up in a Wall Street minute!
Kids, just move over to the left a little and open your mouths wide, Magic Urine will soon trickle down.
If you drive, you are tracked.
A. even if you drive a donkey or a mule?
B. are you tracked if you surf?
CLAPPER DON’T SURF!
Just a reminder: frontline tomorrow http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/two-american-families/
“Since 1992, Bill Moyers has been following the story of two ordinary, hard-working families in Milwaukee — one black, one white — as they battle to keep from sliding into poverty. A remarkable portrait of perseverance, Two American Families raises unsettling questions about the changing nature of the U.S. economy and the fate of a declining middle class.”
Thank You so much Klassy!
i followed both families thru the 90’s.
their stories stuck with me good…then i began living some of it. i so look forward to see how the children engineered this last decade.
Unfortunately, I have not seen the previous chapters– but I saw some on Moyers and Company and I am very interested in the fate of the children and whether both of the families are still intact.
I wish we had more reporting like this. The BBC special tracking the fate of three families in their struggle to find housing linked to here was excellent too.
Hope your struggles aren’t too great Aby, and that you at least have someone to share them with.
i feel sure there will be much to consider and sort after the showing.
(i am touched by your natural classic being Klassy!)
Thanks for the Gunung Leuser tiger story link! Its great to know that tigers are still holding on in Sumatra.
I was lucky enough to visit Gunung Leuser in 2010 where I was able to observe an incredible number of wild Orangutans and lots other very impressive wildlife in the park including gigantic monitor lizards and a great Hornbill! Sumatra is such an incredible, wild, fantastic, and bio-diverse place but tragically virgin, old-growth rainforest is being destroyed for palm-oil plantations and old fashioned logging, much of it illegal.
I hope something can be done to save the Sumatran rain forrest and all of the magnificent mega-fauna that lives there.
St. Joe’s “dead” patient awoke as docs prepared to remove organs Syracuse (bob)
Organ harvesting and transplanting them seem to be a TABU medical subject. I have yet to see a rational, logical article on this. Most articles seem to be how someone’s life was saved without looking Behind The Curtain. Hopefully, some alternative blogger will write in full detail about organ harvesting maybe covering:
1. How is the harvesting authorized? The story above does not indicate.
2. Who decides who gets organ? How is price determined?
3. Economics would certainly seem to indicate that organs go from the 99% to the 1%, the simple numbers, in addition to financial cost of transplant harvesting and replanting, would indicate that. So, not many welfare recipients are getting new livers, for example.
4. Are medical staff given incentives to get organs?
5. How many of the 99% are used as transplant guinea pigs until they can perfect the procedures for the 1%?
Personally, the only way I am giving up an organ is if I know who is getting it. Hands off my liver, Koch Brothers, Obama, Bernanke, etc. Giving your organs away at death is like taking a percentage of your Estate and reserving it to be possibly looted by thieves and crooks. As for organs/tissue donation for “research”, fuhgeddaboudit BIG PHARMA.
An in depth article on this would, I believe, reveal the life and death inequalities in America. Hey, Organ Transplant Whistleblowers, are you out there?
The “patient” was a throw away. No one cared. She has since died. She had OD’d. The parents didn’t even follow up with a civil suit.
My largest question was how can an OD patient “donate” anything? I’m assuming drug “addicts” don’t make very good donors.
The reporters are very good. I’m sure they left those “questions” hanging because the state “reporting”, from a few years ago, did too.
Antivan for a benzo overdose patient? Gasoline on a fire. How does a nurse do that without a Dr? The nurse doesn’t. The state report must have gone to great lengths to hide the prescribing dr’s name.
Given the parents lack of interest(the only “heirs”), I’m surprised any of this came to light. A patient no one cares about….
And I’m sure that waking up, highly “medicated”, on a chopping block did wonders for her “mental state”.
Adding one more bit-
St. Joe’s, in case you didn’t guess by the name, is a catholic hospital.
Did the church, who didn’t do any investigating, change it’s position on assisted suicide?
Arthur Silber’s Paypal Account raided by the IRS
Your tax dollars at work. Isn’t it strange that when the IRS decides to go after someone for unpaid taxes it’s Arthur Silber and not, I don’t know…APPLE? Penniless tax-protesters are obviously a bigger priority than corporate tax-cheats. Go figure.
Oh for F***s sake. The heavy hand of the state indeed.
Comment on the Bradley Ralko piece about out of control cops–
“Why are you printing an article by a Libertarian that used to write for Reason?”
Maybe this?
Besides, what– you want more drivel from Joan Walsh?
Good day, NC readers and publishers. Fred Reed wrote a very moving piece on what seems to be a human predicament, Eternal War.
http://www.fredoneverything.net/EternalWar.shtml
re United States Lost Output Clock (Dean Baker):
Money supplies should only grow, never contract. But lending money into existence can make that impossible* since the interest required eventually outpaces real economic growth.
Two money forms can be spent into existence without borrowing, much less at interest. These are inexpensive fiat and common stock. The former is the ONLY ethical money form for government debts while the latter is well-suited to the private sector where voluntary cooperation, not force, is the rule or at least should be.
*Deficit spending by the monetary sovereign, if sufficient, can provide the necessary interest but only at the cost of fueling price inflation once interest costs exceed the real growth rate?
Re: Quomodo ceciderunt
Many have called there,
Few have been chosen.
The words of wise men are like goads, and masters of these collections are like well-driven nails; they are given by one Shepherd. But beyond this, my son, be warned: the writing of many books is endless, and excessive devotion to books is wearying to the body. Ecclesiastes 12:11-12 New American Standard Bible (NASB)
The money I could have saved on books! And still have keen eyesight!
Oh, well. Having been raised Catholic, I was never encouraged to read the Bible. The loss has been enormous as a result, I’m pretty sure.
Bank of America Ordered to Face Texas County’s Suit over MERS ~Bloomberg Businessweek
The full opinion can be found here:
http://www.msfraud.org/LAW/Lounge/MERS_FINALLY-A-JUDGE-THAT-GETS-IT_Nueces_7-13.pdf
when yall open this link prepare yourself…i freaked at the 1st pic
http://news.nationalpost.com/2013/07/05/gargantuan-algae-bloom-fouls-beaches-of-chinese-costal-city/
Gargantuan algae bloom fouls beaches of Chinese coastal city
In what has become an annual summer scourge, the coastal Chinese city of Qingdao has been hit by a near-record algae bloom that has left its popular beaches fouled with a green, stringy muck. The State Oceanic Administration said an area larger than the state of Connecticut had been affected by the mat of “sea lettuce,” as it is known in Chinese, which is generally harmless to humans but chokes off marine life and invariably chases away tourists as it begins to rot.
re: Banks pushing for repeal for Credit Unions to pay taxes
a commenter made this point:
“To the author of the article: Please go back to the bankers and ask them about Subchapter S banks’ tax exempt status. Sub S banks are for-profit instututions, yet pay no federal income tax on profits (similar to how credit unions are taxed). Isn’t that an unfair competitive advantage for the banking industry? And there are no restrictions on who Sub S banks can serve or how they can serve them. Where is the fairness in that?!”
i can’t believe this article made my eyes sting (i thought i’d be use to their tricks by now). i am so sick an tired of these beast. they won’t rest till we’re crushed.
“There is no reason why good cannot triumph as often as evil. The triumph of anything is a matter of organization. If there are such things as angels, I hope that they are organized along the lines of the Mafia.”
vonnegut, the sirens of titan
my bad/re: Banks pushing for repeal of credit unions’ federal tax exemption
(i should do some deep breathing before i type about bankers)
Gary Gensler, head of the U.S. Commodity Futures Trading Commission, triggered a rift with Europe last year by insisting that foreign companies should comply with the agency’s rules if they trade risky derivatives with U.S. firms.
European politicians, banks and Republican commissioners at the CFTC complained about this aggressive stance, saying the swaps and futures regulator should instead recognize similar foreign rules, as long as they are comparable.
Gensler has since drafted a compromise for the so-called cross-border rules, one of the people said. It includes phased-in compliance and would potentially spare foreign banks from some of the toughest U.S. rules.
http://www.reuters.com/article/2013/07/08/us-derivatives-regulation-idUSBRE96712N20130708
and for a more granular peek
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424127887323368704578593964172032682.html
skippy… But Mr. Gensler has lacked enough votes on the five-member commission to finalize the proposal, with both Republican commissioners and one Democrat objecting to the Friday deadline. Mr. Gensler’s idea to phase in compliance could help him win support from fellow Democrat Mark Wetjen, who has called the July 12 deadline “arbitrary.”
PS. Moral or the story… Don’t even think about screwing with a $630 trillion swaps market gorilla, even if it has no mass as its intent can kill with a whisper…
Ahhhhh Clubland…
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kbasuu1gCDs
http://www.wired.com/threatlevel/2013/06/general-keith-alexander-cyberwar/
I worked at the NSA when I was in the Air Farce.
What you have to remember, after all the tech speak, and billions upon billions upon billions, is that 9 11 happened.
So ask yourself this: who was fired? Who was demoted?
The solution? More monitoring of regular Americans…
And how much money is lost because of crappy software, and how much crappy software exists because the gubermint wants iit to exist???
http://www.sfgate.com/news/crime/article/Defense-presents-video-in-Manning-WikiLeaks-trial-4651817.php
On Monday morning, the defense called its first witness, Chief Warrant Officer 2 Joshua Ehresman, to establish the wide authorized access Manning and other intelligence analysts had. Ehresman testified that Manning and other intelligence analysts scoured a classified computer network for bits of information needed by field commanders.
“We got them wherever we could,” Ehresman said. He said the job meant “pulling everything you can from all intelligence assets.”
Manning was “the go-to guy” among the analysts in his unit in Iraq and the most productive worker, Ehresman said.
“He was our best analyst by far when it came to developing product,” Ehresman said.
http://www.irishtimes.com/news/crime-and-law/high-court-refuses-to-grant-arrest-warrant-for-snowden-1.1456798
High Court refuses to grant arrest warrant for Snowden
In a judgment issued this afternoon, Judge Colm Mac Eochaidh said he was “compelled” to reject the application for a provisional arrest warrant for US whistleblower Edward Snowden, which was made by the US embassy to the Department of Foreign Affairs last Friday, because it did not state where the alleged offences were committed.
“The question of where the offence took place is not a minor detail but is a matter which could have very serious consequences in any further stage that might be reached in an extradition process,” the judge wrote.
“That is because if it is the case that the offences took place outside of the territory of the United States of America, the question will arise as to whether there is extraterritorial effect in respect of the US offences, but more importantly, whether the Irish equivalent offences have an extraterritorial effect or aspect to them.”
He continued: “There would need to be sufficient similarity between the two offences in order for there to be an extradition.”
One has to marvel at the US MSM in their coverage of the golpe in Egypt, where the Muslim Brotherhood “intransigence and incompetence” was immediately singled out as the principal motivation for the military to take power; then, after soldiers fired upon MB supporters praying in front of the Republican Guard headquarters in Cairo, killing at least 51 people, suddenly the official party line (via Washington) was…”We urge restraint…yadda-yadda-, “…decries violence…”, yadda-yadda. Right, the country who has constituitively instituted state violence as an integral arm of its foreign policy is now calling for “restraint”. Just too silly indeed, for fuck’s sake.
Yves, love the links (not to mention the Antidote, which I share daily with family), but… on other blogs, when I click on a link, it opens a new tab, which I can then easily close after perusing, and return to NC. On NC links, the linked article replaces the NC window, and then I have to hit the back arrow, and wait for NC to reload.
Minor irritation, I know, but, is this an issue for others? If so, any chance you can switch– or is there something I can do on my end?
On a Mac, Cmd-click. On PC, right click & choose ‘open link in new tab.’ Voilà.
A howling lesson : http://tampa.cbslocal.com/2013/01/12/video-baby-wolf-cub-pup-gets-a-lesson-in-howling-wolfman-shaun-ellis/
Magic!
Many thanks for sharing.
http://www.latimes.com/business/la-fi-credit-union-taxes-20130706,0,4104761,full.story
LOL: B of A and other bankers ‘have no problems w/ credit unions’; they just want them to pay taxes! Wait, rewind. Bank of America just wants financial institutions to pay their fair share of taxes– that’s all, silly.
In the USSR days, Pravda couldn’t have done a better job of reporting.
The hypocrisy is breathtaking.
>> A life wasted for cheap self-defence
This article presumes Trayvon would be alive if police had been patrolling Zimmerman’s neighborhood instead of a private citizen like Zimmerman himself. But, police kill innocent civilians, too. Are civilian patrols more trigger-happy than official patrols?
http://www.alternet.org/civil-liberties/texas-cop-shoots-unarmed-teen-hiding-woodshed
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