Stop the Monsanto Protection Act Please sign and circulate.
Unbelievable moment a golden eagle is pictured swooping on a DEER and flying off with it ‘in first ever case of its kind’ Daily Mail (Chuck L)
Tiger genome sequenced: Tiger, lion and leopard genomes compared Science Daily (Chuck L)
Acetaminophen Continues to Rack Up Casualties and Escape Regulatory Control Patient Safety Blog. One of my pet peeves. I can’t comprehend why this painkiller is sold OTC when there are equally effective alternatives that won’t kill you (or your cat, acetaminophen is toxic to felines in really low doses relative to bodyweight).
Develop after-sex contraceptive pill for routine use, urge researchers: Political opposition biggest hurdle Science Daily (Chuck L). Huh? “Develop”? Doctors in the 1970s could give careless women a morning-after pill equivalent via a high dose of contraceptives. Why does everyone pretend Big Pharma needs new technology here?
“Covering Up The [Gulf] Oil Spill With Corexit Was a Deadly Action … What Happened In the Gulf Was a Political Act, an Act of Cowardice and Greed” George Washington
Pettis: Chinese real estate defies the curbs MacroBusiness
Germany’s strange parallel universe Martin Wolf, Financial Times
Insider Blows Open Greek Neo-Nazi Operations Greece Solidarity Movement (Nick L)
Greece, in Anti-Fascist Crackdown, Targets Police New York Times
Hundreds dead in Pakistan earthquake BBC
Egypt bans the Muslim Brotherhood Ian Welsh (Carol B)
Rouhani to UN: Iran poses no threat to the world Guardian
Let’s talk American public responsibility for torture and Iraq Ian Welsh (Carol B)
Syria:
Syria and West Appear to Differ on Peace Talk Tactics New York Times
The West’s Second Chance in Syria Project Syndicate
Speaking at UN, Obama Tries to Claim He Was Always For Diplomacy in Syria Marcy Wheeler
Big Brother is Watching You Watch:
EU threatens to freeze US data deal Guardian
EU Lawmakers Call for End of US Bank Data Deal Associated Press
Gordon Brown ‘launched f-word tirade at former Bank Governor Mervyn King’, says Damian McBride Telegraph. Yes, this is surveillance related.
US accused of blocking drone lawyer Guardian
Will Republicans Please Put Up Or Shut Up? (I Expect Neither) Michael Shedlock (furzy mouse). Even a good libertarian like Mish does not believe the theatrics.
11 Public Universities with the Worst Graduation Rates The Fiscal Times (Carol B)
Motion to Exclude Frey Testimony from Article 77 Raises Eyebrows, Questions About Role of BlackRock and PIMCO Subprime Shakeout
National Credit Union Administration Sues Wall Street Banks For Fraud In Mortgage Market DS Wright, Firedoglake (Carol B)
The Hidden Export Bombshell in Cloud Peak’s Financials: Powder River Basin coal giant earned more shorting coal than exporting it Sightline (kimberly k)
Disappearing River CounterPunch (Carol B)
After Sales Plummet, Walmart Realizes It Can’t Run Stores On Temps Alone ThinkProgress
US house price gains slow as mortgage rates climb Financial Times
AIG CEO: Anger over AIG bonuses ‘just as bad’ as lynchings Washington Post. Everyone is translating Benmosche’s toad hopping out of mouth remark incorrectly. Blacks were lynched because they were black, which is genetic. If bankers were attacked for pathological greed, and Benmosche is defending that pathological greed as an inherent requirement of the job of being a banker, and saying the bankers can do no more about their greed than blacks can change their skin color. So it’s even worse that the young Ezra suggests.
Fed probes for leaks ahead of policy news Financial Times. Oh no, there was no leak. The fancy physicists at the banks will explain to the Fed that this is just quantum entanglement. BTW, they are working on quantum entanglement 2.0 so traders will know what the Fed has decided before the Fed knows what it has decided.
JPMorgan May Settle With Group of Agencies New York Times
‘Artemis of the wildland’ and the food stamp haters Guardian
The Average American Family Pays $6,000 a Year in Subsidies to Big Business Alternet (Carol B)
What We Could Do With a Postal Savings Bank: Infrastructure That Doesn’t Cost Taxpayers a Dime TruthOut
Antidote du jour (Lance):
129 comments
Comments are closed.
Well, this is a surprise.
FBI Pursuing Fewer White-Collar Crime Cases, Group Finds McClatchy
The FBI has recommended only 2,001 white-collar cases for criminal prosecution so far this fiscal year, on pace for a nearly 7 percent drop from last year, according to a report Tuesday by a research group affiliated with Syracuse University.
It would be one of the lowest years on record and would extend a years-long trend, according to government data obtained by the Transactional Records Access Clearinghouse, or TRAC.
[snip]
Despite concerns about widespread wrongdoing on Wall Street, the number of white-collar prosecutions recommended by the FBI has plummeted 45.2 percent in the past decade, according to government data obtained by TRAC.
When the State Floods the Zone, Reform Is Dead
http://powerofnarrative.blogspot.com/2013/09/when-state-floods-zone-reform-is-dead.html
As a result of the recent NSA/surveillance stories, there is much debate about the NSA and its massive spying apparatus. But as the existence of *InfraGard* shows, the NSA is only the beginning of what should concern us. In fact, and it gives me no pleasure to say this, but it’s better to face the truth as fully as we can, if the NSA ceased to exist today, it would not make any appreciable difference in the surveillance activities of the United States government. Given InfraGard’s existence, which the State happily tells us about, if only we would pay attention, what other programs of this kind is the State engaged in, doubtless including many programs that the State is determined to keep secret?
And there are many other similar programs that we do already know about. Tarzie raised this critical point toward the end of a recent post. He provides a useful graphic, and he notes the other governmental entities that demand our focus, including the CIA and the Department of Justice. And the Justice Department includes the Bureau of Prisons, the FBI, and the DEA. *InfraGard is nominally an FBI program*, so that’s where InfraGard would appear on this chart. InfraGard is also closely connected to the Department of Homeland Security, but, as Tarzie notes, the Department of Homeland Security doesn’t even appear in the graphic.
Thanks for that information.
I wonder if we are seeing more traffic tickets?
Like scientists only answer questions they have answers to, it seems law enforcement only go after those they can ‘handle.’
Management… Beef…. your ire is with the Managers of Truthiness LLC, et al.
The good old Daily Mail. Unbelievable indeed. Spectacular pics, inane captions.
‘Believable moment a golden eagle is pictured swooping on a DEER and then something apparently ate one ‘in a not a first ever case of its kind’
Given all the crime that has presumably been perpetrated by CEOs and their cronies in financial businesses, do you really want a CEO fired just for being a loud-mouthed arsehole? Might it not be better to devote energy to jailing the crooks?
Mike Whitney via Counterpunch :
Crushing the Middle Class
There is so much fraud going on with the trustee banks and servicers that I thought this interview was worth highlighting. Nice breakdown of the relationships and too bad the govt is at the mercy of these people..
participant-observer-observed says:
September 25, 2013 at 12:46 am
Fyi, Sam Seder interviews our own David Dayen,
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VksX8C4gC2U
“The Truth Foreclosure”
“”The trustee bank is the entity that buys the loans from the mortgage originators and then packages them into a security (an MBS). It then sells these MBS to pension funds, union funds, individual investors etc. The trustee bank hires a ‘servicer’ who acts as the accounts payable and receivable dept. The servicer collects the mortgage payments from the homeowners and distributes this money to the investors. (These investors by the way constitute the ‘shadow banking system’) (The same thing is going on in China by the way where these mortgages are packaged and sold mostly to individuals looking for higher yield as ‘wealth management products’).
The problem is that the best interest of the servicers and the investors are not aligned. This is not a problem when things are going well but is a major problem today when many mortgages are underwater or in outright default. The investors would be better served by various types of loan modifications which would at least keep the flow of money coming in. Servicers make money by late fees and foreclosure fees and have first dibs on any money made in the actual foreclosure so are generally not in favor of various loan modifications. Some govt programs have actually offered them $4500/loan to modify them and they still aren’t interested or go through the motions with no intention of truly modifying the loan. The delays they cause actually often increase late fees due from the homeowners. Overall another case of the tail wagging the dog.””
RE: Will Republicans Put Up or Shut Up/Mish
Mish certainly has a relentless hard-on for scrapping Davis-Bacon. In fact, his “solution” to all economic problems is either to find any way to pay people less or just fire them outright.
What he never explains is how paying non-living wages or increasing unemployment fixes ANYTHING.
I assume he is a “capitalist” in his warm and fuzzy libertarian way. Fundamentally, capitalism is about buying and selling. He never explains how wiping out the buying side of that equation fixes anything. He just continues to advocate for doing it.
Even a good libertarian like Mish does not believe the theatrics.
I must call foul. Mish wants a gold-back dollar which means he wants the taxation authority and power of government to back someone’s favorite shiny metal. But that’s more fascist than libertarian.
‘Mish wants a gold-back [sic] dollar. But that’s more fascist than libertarian.’
You’re kidding, right? Bloody Abe introduced unbacked greenbacks in 1863 as a war finance measure. Fifty years later, the Federal Reserve Act gave us permanent war finance. Now if it’s not Eastasia we’re at war with, it’s southwest Asia, or north Africa, or the dark side of the freakin’ moon.
Where did the trillion dollars for Bush’s ‘war of choice’ on Iraq come from? Printed, every penny of it. And they’re still printing $85 billion a month, since there’s a spot of bother in finding a suitable new war to bleed the American underclass of its surplus young adults.
What’s truly fascist in the classical sense of the term (i.e., nominal private ownership under government control) is fining Americans for not purchasing costly, compulsory private sector health plans, beginning in 2014.
Obamacare flounders because government deals only in coercion, threats and punishment. Marketing is done with carrots, not sticks and whips. (It’s also done with pilot programs, not grandiose nationwide rollouts, as any management consultant could tell you.) Thus the futility of the vaporware exchanges whose grand opening is scheduled next week.
Ted Cruz did what he did because he knows, or has strong reason to suspect, that fifty exchanges for fifty states are gonna have some ‘teething troubles.’ (That’s a euphemism for ‘train wreck.’)
One word, comrade: COBOL!
Here’s a true libertarian solution as opposed to a gold-backed dollar:
1) Fiat would ONLY be, de jure and de facto, legal tender for government debts but it could VOLUNTARILY be used for private debts too.
2) Private monies would ONLY be acceptable for private debts.
3) Truly private monies would enjoy no government privileges hence the Fed and government deposit insurance would have to go.
I’m not really a comrade. I’m an anti-fascist and may the good Lord make me even more so!
Private monies issued by corporations, but not by individuals, would need the backing of the government…probably with guns.
On top of that, gold mining corporations will still be able to issue private money…and jewelry companies as well.
But not Yves who is merely an individual.
In the meantime, gold in Fort Knox just sits there collecting dust, instead of being returned to the 99.99%.
[comment ignored]
All the gold in fort knox has been lent out to speculators.
Maybe the people will want to know about it with the extra incentive that each of us the people will have an equal share in that gold.
Libertarianism is a religion which practices the sanctification of the self – above all other – considerations.
skippy… its rituals revolve around pouring ones self into inanimate Objet d’art.
Wait a minute, we already have a system where private corporations are allowed to issue their own money. It’s called “commercial paper,” and is traded in markets. Anyone who wants to can accept this “money” as payment. The government won’t accept it, you have to use the governmtne-issued fiat money for taxes, but there’s no law stopping other entities from issuing their own currencies except the fact that not many people will accept it. I don’t have references handy, but there are towns which have successfully issued their own “scrip,” which people in the community accept (or not). There certainly have been companies which issued their own “scrip” which could be used to purchase things in the company store and was used as money in the company towns. Most people would rather use the “scrip” issued by the Federal government. They see it as better regulated, better controlled, less subject to inflation, and more widely honored as “money.”
By the way, there really isn’t very much gold left in Fort Knox. Certainly not enough to “back” the currency issued at the present time, much less the other forms of money which are either ink in ledgers of electrons in computers. Why do you think Nixon halted the shipment of gold to pay debts in dollars? We ran out of gold.
The rubes are illiterate, but they’re not exactly stupid.
The last time I looked, there were about a dozen genes implicated in dyslexia, and they were all autosomal dominant. Thus, straight Mendelian genetics implies that 75% of the population is dyslexic. With many genes implicated, there are of course many forms of dyslexia. I believe the most common form is cerebellar in origin.
The ability of the eye to execute repetitive saccades across the printed page is far more exacting a fine motor skill than crocheting or building a ship in a bottle. For most of human evolution it was a useless mutation. But with the invention of literacy, it became a superlative predatory trait.
The rubes know they’re being ripped off by the eggheads and their big words in fine print. They’ve got that figured out right. They’re not slow-witted, and they’re usually kinder and gentler than the predatory eggheads. But without the eidetic auditory memory of a Homer, all they know is what they were just told. And there’s nothing they can do about it except stage re-enactments of the tea party.
In the final act of this farce, the Social Darwinists strut like Fortinbras, unaware that they, too, carry the dominant genes of dyslexia.
If all of this is true, there is an alternate ending. The cerebellum is not plastic like cerebral cortex. It is a slow learner. It only learns by practice and it pretty much only learns once. So insofar as dyslexia is like the inability to play the violin, the solution is to begin young, be patient, and pray for time.
Apologies! I meant this in reply to PaulArt over on Yves’ takedown of Robert Reich.
“THE AVERAGE AMERICAN IS ABOVE AVERAGE!” frequently quoted Herb Lewin, union activist.
That’s why we are exceptional.
So that explains why half of these geniuses voted for a dry drunk half wit like W in 2004.
Well they might at this point be smarter than the ruling class but that’s not saying very much. The ruling class goes around saying they are being lynched like blacks in the old south, afterall. Dim bulbs there.
It’s sort of a “Princess and the Pea” thing; they have unbelievably thin and sensitive skin, and very delicate fee fees.
ovbiously.
That dog looks a bit bummed to me. Porque? Or in the case of a slab of Beef, I’d ask Porque Pig?
yesterday you replied to Beef…”My last word to you.”
http://www.nakedcapitalism.com/2013/09/links-92413.html#comment-1446202
Please Please find another outlet for your jihad…its so painful to witness your seppuku.
:)) Simple Ways to Reduce Stress
http://zentofitness.com/reduce-stress/
“Religion is so frequently a source of confusion in political life, and so frequently dangerous to democracy, precisely because it introduces absolutes into the realm of relative values.”
Reinhold Niebuhr
I do love puns and chose not to resist this one. I never claimed to be perfect and this exception might prove the rule of how generally tolerant I am of people, if not their ideas.
And technically, it was more AT him than TO him. Nevertheless, this is my last word AT him also.
BTW, I’d love an “Ignore” feature so that people need not put up with me and vice versa in some cases.
But thanks for reminding me that Christians are under a microscope, not that I claim to be a good one.
That’s all, folks!
and YOU (im treating as the older Brother…cause im still not over fb’s references to pigs & retardation) should know better…your filling up the pages like 2 brothers on a roadtrip…’he touched me first, no he touched me first’ and i wanna pull over an stuff you Both in the Trunk!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XXXQA31GBO8
He speaks cryptically.
The only way to know what he is talking about is to engage him in dialogues.
Still, I note your wise words and will try to better myself.
@AbyNormal: Yep. @Beard: Matthew 10:14. I don’t care if “He baited me.” @MLTB and @Beard: The door to FB (and 4Chan (etc.)) is that way.
Thank you, Lambert. I will keep that good advise in mind.
F. Beard is a faith troll who refuses to answer specific questions and otherwise obfuscates discourse. skippy and I were recent victims of this behavior in comments.
A faith troll who can’t handle the truth about their not taking personal responsibility for their lives…..there just must be more faith….gag!
I’d say I simply remain on message while most Progressives are apparently so distracted by their own existential angst that they cannot stay focused long enough to destroy an obvious evil – the government-backed counterfeiting cartel, the banks.
Faith troll? Need I point out that most bankers are either Jewish* or Christian or at least PRETEND to be for business reasons?
One day the counterfeiting cartel WILL be destroyed and future generations will envy the generation that did it.
*Which is why I mostly quote the Old Testament since it is authoritative for both Jews and Christians.
I began skipping over F. Beard’s posts a long time ago. I feel better now.
Like I said, we need an “Ignore option” so that you won’t even have to suffer the inconvenience of having to skip my comments.
Or complain to Yves. It’s her site and she can do as she wishes. And truly, except for saying it more efficiently, my message* hasn’t changed much anyway. I’m inches away from quitting if I can. Jonah, a far, far better man than me, went up a hill to watch the Ninevites, whom God had forced him to preach to, be destroyed! And I should care when my loved ones and I are likely to be Raptured out of here before TSHTF?
*Except for the defense of my faith if one insists on having their own put in serious doubt.
No, we don’t and won’t. We need a collective and mutual understanding that cycles of religious baiting and counter-baiting are not appropriate for the NC comments section.
Adding… I’m sick of “They started it!” and “Remember when they did?” Sheesh.
We do well to separate baiting from legitimate questions.
Here is one, hopefully legitimate.
If one advocates usury is OK on foreigners and those foreigners are defined as people of other faiths than one’s own, is that a violation of the separation of church and state?
“nes and I are likely to be Raptured out of here before TSHTF?
We’re going to Disneyland!
Any god /religious construct that needs hell to keep the sheep in line is a big Fail.
Anyhoo, if heaven is merely a christian social club , give me the express trai to hell, it will be a more interesting crowd.
God wants to save ALL of us and if it takes fear to save SOME of us then we should be grateful that He’ll stoop so low to save.
Say to them, ‘As I live!’ declares the Lord God, ‘I take no pleasure in the death of the wicked, but rather that the wicked turn from his way and live. Turn back, turn back from your evil ways! Why then will you die, O house of Israel?’ Ezekiel 33:11
Look, you all have Bibles or can get one or read one on line. Why should I have to correct your ignorance? When any truly literate person, at least in the West, should know it well? Since it is THE foundational document of Western Civilization?
Nonsense..
Save me from what? You may be wicked, i surely am not.
Ezekiel (/ɨˈziːki.əl/; Hebrew: יְחֶזְקֵאל, Y’ḥez’qel, Hebrew pronunciation: [jəħezˈqel]), meaning ‘May God strengthen him’ Arabic also Zul-Kifl and :حزقيال Hazqiyal, in Arabic meaning ‘God will strengthen’ (from חזק, ḥazaq, [ħaˈzaq], literally ‘to fasten upon,’ figuratively ‘strong,’ and אל, el, [ʔel], literally ‘God’, and so figuratively ‘The Almighty’) is the central protagonist of the Book of Ezekiel in the Hebrew Bible.
In Judaism, Christianity, Islam and the Baha’i Faith, Ezekiel is acknowledged as a Hebrew prophet. In Judaism and Christianity, he is also viewed as the author of the Book of Ezekiel that reveals prophecies regarding the destruction of Jerusalem, the restoration to the land of Israel and the Millennial Temple visions, or the Third Temple.
Ezekiel’s life
The author of the Book of Ezekiel shows himself as Ezekiel, the son of Buzi,[Ezekiel 1:3] born into a priesthood (Kohen) lineage[1] of the patrilineal line of Ithamar, and resident of Anathoth. The author dates ages, prophecies and visions by making references to the lengths of time King Jehoiachin of Judah was in exile. Under the direction of Nebuchadnezzar II, Babylonian armies exiled three thousand Jews[2] from Judah, deposing King Jehoiachin in 597 BC.[chronology citation needed] In reference to Ezekiel being in his “thirtieth year… during the fifth year of King Jehoiachin’s exile”,[Ezekiel 1:1, 2] it could be determined that he was born c. 622 BC.
Living in Babylon
Ezekiel, at the age of 25, was amongst 3,000 upper class Jews who were exiled to Babylon.[citation needed] On the bank of the Chebar River, in Tel Abib[3] (Mound of the Deluge), Ezekiel and his wife dwelled in their own home where exiled Jewish visitors came to seek his prophetic insights.[Ezekiel 1:1,3:15] There is no mention of him having any offspring, only that his wife died rather young, in the ninth year of exile, when Ezekiel was 34 years of age.[Ezekiel 24:1, 18]
Prophetic career
In July 592 BC,[citation needed] at the age of 30, Ezekiel describes his calling to be a prophet, by going into great detail about his encounter with God and four living creatures or Cherubim with four wheels that stayed beside the creatures.[Ezekiel 1] For the next five years he incessantly prophesied and acted out the destruction of Jerusalem and its temple, which was met with some opposition. However, Ezekiel and his contemporaries like Jeremiah, another prophet who was living in Jerusalem at that time, witnessed the fulfillment of their prophecies when Jerusalem was finally sacked by the Babylonians. The date of the sacking, 587 BC,[citation needed] is confirmed by Babylonian cuneiform records discovered by archeologists. Ezekiel was 50 years old when he began to have visions of a new Temple. He served as a prophet for at least 22 years until, according to[citation needed], Ezekiel last experienced an encounter with God in April 570 BC.[Ezekiel 29:17] His time of death has not been recorded – snip
skippy… strange thingy indeed… yet have weep over branded wrists… can neurons be branded?
Hilariously welcome – all of you (Beardo, Psycho, Aby, Beefy, Opti etc. etc.) and your comments!
Beardo delightfully provides an erudite biblical nature to Naked Capitalism and it nicely juxtaposes with a variety of other commenters.
And if he truly is a wildly bearded bushman to boot, then so much the better….ha ha!
And everyone should keep up the extraordinary kaleidoscope of delectably delicious contributions to the blog….all the while bearing in mind, accepting, and respecting, that others may well have an entirely different view of the world….
Which means Lambert may feel compelled to quite rightly, and authoritatively, control our uncontrollable manic musings from time-to-time…..
Erudite biblical nature is an oxymoron see history.
re: What We Could Do With a Postal Savings Bank: Infrastructure That Doesn’t Cost Taxpayers a Dime TruthOut
Read more at http://www.nakedcapitalism.com/2013/09/links-92513.html#Si1Xh6Mc78bwuUc3.99 :
The article says the Postal Savings Bank would serve the unbanked. How about we create a vast number of the unbanked by abolishing government deposit insurance and all other government privileges for the banks? Because that would be principled?
Even more principled: end all government privileges for banks and non-banks alike.
We’d confuse theocracy with democracy otherwise.
F. Beard – I love ya. I think your religious quotes and all really do make a great impact and I would miss your commentary.
With all the talk of what money is – or is not – your comments do expose a fundamental to what money is – My thinking is it is the contract that binds commonality of fairness and law into what constitutes community / ethics and all.
By the way – I am not religious in the current construct sort of way (bible thumping, literalist, gods word, good sheep by showing my face at a church or what not)
But I do believe we were imbued with a soul (not the everlasting sort or maybe so – how the heck would anybody know) And graced, somehow, with the gift of love – And I don’t mind if god or anything or anyone has commanded me to share that love – cause it is that important to share.
So keep it coming no matter how much some may be bothered (don’t know how or why) by it.
Thanks!
I probably couldn’t stop if I wanted to but a comment like yours is a pleasant oasis indeed, all the more so for its rarity. :)
The funny thing about the whole thing (it’s not really funny but schlaufenuggen or whatever)
We humans came into existence up this little old planet of ours and the whole place (through god. creationalism, or entropy, or evolution or whatever one believes – it matters not a wit) was in our laps free of charge – the only thing we had to worry about was how to get along and flourish upon this free gift to us – that was our only task really – quite natural after all. And one would think it a bit crazy that, after all that was placed in our laps freely – we have gone and fucked it up so badly – I mean look around – we all try to charge somebody for something that was given to us freely – we charge a huge admission fee to the newborn and fight over something that was handed to us at no cost – Now we go around charging everybody and make wars over stuff that we were given – for a place to stand on this earth. All the while we decimate the place cause of our own self destructive shepherding of the joint – Absolutely coo-coo – and what all do we do – we set ourselves up with a system that encourages theft – — someone coming into this system fresh would say – what a bunch of suicidal nutcases – these morons do everything they can to justify their own destruction – people trashing the wealth that was given em freely – beating each other down – gettin over on everyone and everybody. Yea I tell ya, lets get the hell out of luny bin – even mother nature is screaming into their ears and they continue to burn the place down – And hell – they don’t even see it coming.
They fighting over sticks upon which to beat each other over the head with – Damn, these humans do a dis-service to monkeys and every other living thing they touch
Loooooooooonnnnnney
From the standpoint of the Ecosystem, Gaia, God, Dog—whatever you choose to call it— humans are definitely a weed species that contributes no value to the planet or its function.
thanks! that definitely echoes my outlook on it.
what are we really here for? wasn’t it K. Vonnegut’s son who said “to help each other through it-whatever ‘it’ is”?
the future, if we do not do something to stop it (I don’t know what) will be that ALL areas of life that can be monetized will come to resemble Obamacare. and that is only if the ecosystem holds out.
my two founding principles:
take care of the people who are here-ALL of them
take care of the earth which allows us to live and will care for the people who will come after us.
One more thing.
What is theft? My view is that theft is the taking of wealth (money is a crude measuring device for wealth) from the person, who through their labor (all wealth requires labor) created the wealth. So, the person who used his labor to produce wealth is having his labor stolen through theft – his wealth ripped from him.
Do ya suppose that is why Jesus threw out the money changers – he recognized that the labor(and the wealth labor produced) was being stolen by the predators of wealth creation.
Then they *came to Jerusalem. And He entered the temple and began to drive out those who were buying and selling in the temple, and overturned the tables of the money changers and the seats of those who were selling doves; and He would not permit anyone to carry merchandise through the temple. And He began to teach and say to them, “Is it not written, ‘My house shall be called a house of prayer for all the nations’? But you have made it a robbers’ den.” Mark 11:15-17 New American Standard Bible (NASB) [bold added]
Tom, maybe you’ve missed beard’s hateful name calling and damning many to hel!…but what you’ve obviously missed is a beard meltdown where he disappeared for a long time. it doesn’t have to come to that and i think comments would be less for it…or are you into that kind of voyeur sadism thingy?
“So, in the interests of survival, they trained themselves to be agreeing machines instead of thinking machines. All their minds had to do was to discover what other people were thinking, and then they thought that, too.”
Kurt Vonnegut, Breakfast of Champions
Tom, maybe you’ve missed beard’s hateful name calling and damning many to hel!… AbyNormal
Many? Not even one, dear. I’ve warned one or two that they appeared to be heading that way but I’d NEVER dare damn anyone since I feverently wish to avoid that fate myself.
but what you’ve obviously missed is a beard meltdown where he disappeared for a long time. Aby
THAT wasn’t a meltdown. OTOH, I have been AWOL on quite a few occasions to pursue my own wicked inclinations but the Lord has nevertheless restored me when I repented afterwords. The Lord is INDEED long suffering, not like me: When God ran
Love it!!!
and no, aby, I am not into the ‘voyeur sadism thingy?’ LOL
but I do have eyes. So whatever you may want to hurl upon me – so be it. Just because something is in bad form – or whatever – does not mean that one should use it as a tool to beat another down and elevate oneself on moral grounds – heck, who appointed you as the moral gatekeeper but, I do not wish to berate you cause that is just plain ignorant of me and, disrespectful of you. So yea, I think it a service to point things out like you did, but it would be a shame to entirely blow someone off without first taking a step toward understanding and forgiveness – why? cause by hiding the good from the bad or vise versa – without understanding – dooms one to repeat the bad in the past because one would remain blind to it.
Hilariously welcome – all of you (Beardo, Aby, Beefy, Opti etc. etc.) and your comments!
Beardo delightfully provides an erudite biblical nature to Naked Capitalism and it nicely juxtaposes with a variety of other commenters.
And if he truly is a wildly bearded bushman to boot, then so much the better….ha ha!
And to everyone – Please do keep up the extraordinary kaleidoscope of delectably delicious contributions to the blog….all the while bearing in mind, accepting, and respecting, that others may well have an entirely different view of the world….and Lamby may feel compelled to quite rightly, authoritatively control our uncontrollable manic musings from time-to-time!
Regarding the need for new contraceptives, the high dose of birth control pills and Plan B for emergency contraception work by preventing ovulation. If ovulation has already occurred, an abortafacient, like RU-486, has to be used. To do so, a woman has to pay hundreds of dollars for a medical abortion at a clinic. Alternatively, she can take her chances at home by getting a prescription for Ella(ulipristal acetate). Although there is no “proof” that it works as an abortafacient, its embryotoxic in animal studies. Women getting a prescription are supposed to be warned not to take it if they know or suspect they are pregnant. Pro-lifers see a big difference between pre- and post- ovulation contraceptives, and would probably try to have Ella’s use restricted if the kind of studies needed to prove it to be a safe abortificient were done and more women had the facts.
Anecdotally, I know a woman who took Ella twelve days after unprotected sex. She was convinced, by physical symptoms, that she was pregnant, although pregnancy tests hadn’t yet confirmed it. If she indeed was pregnant, Ella proved to be an effective abortifacient. She was able to deal with a stressful time in the comfort of her home, resulting in a less traumatic experience.
From the article:
“To meet the challenges of our increasingly complicated world, women deserve all possible options for controlling and preserving their reproductive health and lives,” they conclude.
Gee, ya think?
Wow. Is it only “careless women” who need morning-after contraceptives, Yves? Ever hear of condom breakage? Also, does contraception only benefit women, or does it help men, too?
I have to tell you every woman I know who went running to health services to get the morning after pill equivalent when I was in college had had unprotected sex and was not using the Pill either.
And you are naive if you think in the modern world that being pregnant is not ultimately the woman’s problem. Like it or not, that is the way our world works.
And condoms by themselves are known to have a meaningful fail rate as a form of birth control. Failure rates are 9-12% (failure rate defined as odds of getting pregnant with one year of typical use). Any woman who is sexually active who relies on condoms is taking a substantial risk which is why a lot of experts recommend using a spermicide too. The odds of failure are too high for it to be regarded as a highly reliable method of preventing pregnancy.
Spermicide. Yuk! Talk about a toxic place to stick my thing!
BC kinda takes the romance out of it for me and I’ve never used protection since I knew that if God was going to give me a child no method would stand in His way anyway. But oh the anguish of waiting till her next period if I didn’t love her!
People are going to have sex, no doubt. I’m still having troubles with my sex drive and I’m 62. But hey, let’s at least not pretend it’s innocent fun when a man has to wear a rubber boot and women have to poison their vaginas!
In other words, humans are sinners. We should admit that.
I was wincing at that ‘careless’ comment to. my first thought was rape. from the more blatant, vicious attack kind to the insidious “marital rights” kind, and even the somewhat unclear “she was there and she was drunk as hell” stuff.
but yah, the problem is not pills. the problem is access, as ever.
tooo. blah…
There weren’t fraternities on my campus, and IMHO the resulting heavy drinking culture contributes a LOT to women having sex when they didn’t intend to and also being in rape or ambiguous situations (as in really didn’t want it but too plotzed to protest much, leaving the male lout and probable abuser with a defense that might work).
In my day, also, since birth control was actually a relatively new phenomenon, women who were sexually active for the most part were much more aware of the efficacy of various methods and at least in my circle did not rely on condoms, which were seen as less effective than the pill or diaphragms. Condom use became much more popular in the post AIDs era, as an STD preventor (note that HIV is in fact a not very infectious virus, so condoms do a pretty decent job. However, I have gay men I know who can quote the transmission rates of various practices and use that to rationalize having unprotected sex. And I’m not talking oral sex, either. Yowza).
And you also ignore the possibility that I might be including myself in the careless category.
As a separate matter, I think every woman should get trained in how to deal with a rapist. If you know how to do it, it’s actually not hard to break a hold and really hurt them. But you need the training to disinhibit yourself about seriously injuring an assailant (and I mean crushing gonads, gouging eyes out, etc). Mere defensive tactics against a bigger guy probably won’t work unless you can break free and run, and that also means run faster than him. Even if you succeed, what if you were in heels and lost a shoe and are barefoot?
all true, but if the rapist is that much bigger than you, and catches you relatively unawares, you are toast.
also, there is the fact that abusive relationships only break out into open fistfighting when the emotional control over the victim breaks down momentarily. in other words, there is a fine line in abusive situations between “going along to get along” maintaining the peace thing and “do it or i’ll bash your head in.”
the threat is always there, of course. but it merely backs up the psychological control.
What’s the big deal with F-16 drones? The military has converted antiquated and surplus jets into drones for various functions (e.g., testing and serving as targets) for years.
yes, it drills back to WWI actually.
So the good professor is concerned they will be used against people? Does he understand there are people lined up to give there left nut for the opportunity to fly one any way? What is the distinction?
Shouldn’t the concern be the decision process to unleash the weapon not how it gets there?
Drone capability for jet aircraft has been around for decades.
The precision maneuvers that the Boeing jets made on 9/11 before crashing would have been easier done by a “drone function” that by unskilled hi-jackers.
That could actually be put to good use.
Instead of molesting everyone at the airport, why not just install a drone-over-ride on board every plane so that building-crashing can be averted even with hijackers aboard?
Give all the passengers a signal malt scotch and a barbiturate? In lieu of that, handcuff the alcoholics and the fundamentalists to their seats.
Children in the hold w/ the pets.
If you want to give each a single malt scotch and then hand cuff them to their seats, at least have the courtesy to give them each a diaper.
PS: I will ‘pass in silence’ the part about fundamentalists.
You forgot the barbs, and I said “or” not “and”, do you think me uncivilized?
on the other hand, this reminds my of my last AA flt to (LHR)
http://siberiantimes.com/other/others/news/exclusive-us-and-british-prisoners-to-serve-sentences-in-siberian-jails/
I did forget. I believe the barbs got me.
Re: Colleges with low graduation rates
One should read this through to the comments. The story exonerates for-profit colleges by finding public schools that fail to graduate all their students. Why do these public schools fail to graduate all their students? Because most transfer to a four-year institution for their junior and senior years.
“graduation rates” are concocted to make certain colleges look bad and others good.
who looks good= mainly higher end colleges who do substantial screening to find “achievers”, or students who can either afford to go to college nonstop for 4 years (mum & dad are paying) or whose educational excellence earns them significant money enticements to attend.
who looks bad=any college that serves “non traditional” students, who are generally trying to attend while working full times and raising families, and therefore are time-constrained to part-time or less. many of these students are either paying their own way and/or getting loans to do so, which means that if they can’t afford to go that term AND pay rent and gas, they won’t.
financial aid is usually only doled out for non-Summer sessions. if you rely upon financial aid to go, you have to set aside money all of the rest of the year to go during summer term. it can be done, but it’s a juggling act and so many don’t attend year-round, but spend the summers working instead, thereby increasing time to graduate.
and, as you indicated, they do not count transfer students. any college system (like the one I attend) who obtains the bulk of their students from the local feeder community colleges is at a disadvantage.
in other words, the number of students who “drop out after freshman year because they weren’t prepared” (a natural and understandable phenomenon. these students should be assisted to make the right decision, and college AT THAT TIME is not the right one) is something that, if important at all, should be counted separately.
Learning is about the journey, not necessarily the destination.
And the journey is a life long one.
Frequently, the most rewarding journey is through the least travelled path, away from institutions.
mmm.. Learning is certainly a journey but it’s all about the destination.
Not always and not certainly, I am afraid.
Sometimes the journey leads to many destinations.
Sometimes, learning is for learning sake, as my ‘artist’ friends keep reminding me – art for arts sake.
The destination is Enlightenment or the journey is a waste of time. Should I add a question mark?.. (not that last one, I mean after my claim, then it would sound more Platonic? Hmm. maybe that last one should just be a claim and not a question?.. oh forget it.).
we’re lost where the mind can’t find us
utterly lost ~Ikkyu
‘)
Sometimes you do things not knowing why.
Only later, you find out that’s your passion.
But when you were doing it, you and the arrow were one.
my autobiography in six words
(you do things not knowing why.)
you must be a Great Hunter, with many arrows
(mine are splintered…i must work on that’)
http://ec.libsyn.com/p/f/2/4/f2401393fdd5ef47/Podcast_with_Randy_Wray_Sept_23.mp3?d13a76d516d9dec20c3d276ce028ed5089ab1ce3dae902ea1d01c08736d0c15e51d5&c_id=6180483
This link to a podcast (which is long) by Stephanie Kelton and Randall Wray is a one-stop, excellent overview of the current state of the economy that puts QE tapering, Social Security, the Grand Bargain and the impending Shut Down in perspective, both at a micro and macro level. Wray explains why, for example, the Pete Petersen model of personal saving could not possibly work as a retirement model (hint: without ongoing investment in the economy, all those savings would do nothing but drive up the prices of too scarce goods and services) (hint: even Alan Greenspan acknowledged this, once). He also explains why the sinking fund form of social pension is bound to fail as well.
Wray concludes by noting that finance capitalism, which our politicians have implemented since 1973, is the default form of capitalism and it is bound to collape. The last time this collapse happened, in the 1930s, our best and brightest implemented a social democratic welfare state that managed the finance capitalists and produced one of the most remarkable periods of economic growth in history.
Since the financiers broke free in 1973 (the year I was eligible to enter the workforce) our social democratic welfare state has degenerated into an oligarchy and now rivals any in history with its klepto-facist proclivities.
Wray believes we will need to implement a new form of capitalism — after the financiers exhaust their current hobby of surfing commodity bubbles and wrecking life on the planet — that will contain elements of the New Deal but will in fact be something completely different.
They say, every exit is an entrance.
To me, that also means equal result means equal opportunity.
If every kid is given guaranteed equal opportunity to attend grade school, one might imagine it as guaranteed equal result (every kid passing the entrance exam, which is not actually given to save time, to grade school).
To say we should share GDP is to guarantee an equal result that gives everyone an equal opportunity to survive.
What they did in the 1930’s was the best thing that could have happened to save the 0.01% – it successful took people’s focus away from addressing wealth inequality via wealth tax and GDP sharing.
Unfortunately, when you say the word ‘sharing,’ most people start counting spiders on the ceiling or ants on the floor.
“They say, every exit is an entrance”
I can think of one, as I sit here, that I really hope isn’t.
Who are “they” anyway?
One often uses ‘they’ when one doesn’t remember exactly who ‘they’ are.
In this case, I mean people commenting on the net…at least of them said that. To save time at an impossible task, it’s easier to write ‘they.’
Thx Expat! Will check this out.
Seuss’s revenge!!
http://i1185.photobucket.com/albums/z359/Bennt22564/grren.jpg
Via The Washington Post: Green Eggs And A Senate Ham
So it’s even worse that the young Ezra suggests.
That should be the name of his blog.
~
Walmart and temps…round 1.
As usual, empires always strike back.
Probably working on robots or clones to replace human temps.
as someone whose partner is on SNAP (disabled due to car accident at work, and living on savings while he goes through the disability process thus eligible), I noted that interesting development in Portland.
what many are not highlighting is the insinuation that, if you are indigent enough to be on food assistance, you should not have the right to vote. I’ve heard this sentiment expressed in lots of comment sections, and so the conclusion I’ve jumped to is that it is a thinktank meme—coupled with Romney’s famous “47%” remark, the gist is that they want legitimacy to begin revoking voting rights.
since voting is a sham now anyway, i’m not sure what the point is. but many comments I read come to the conclusion that those who don’t “pay their way” have no rights. I just wonder how many of the people repeating this claim are in fact so close to impoverished themselves, that a realistic look at their finances would place them in the “not paying taxes” category.
Thank you for the link to the article on and reminder of the Deepwater Horizon blowout, the use of Corexit with predictable results, the cover-up, and the attendant loss and impairment of both human and marine life.
A litany of long time BP involvement in major environmental and safety disasters is outlined at: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BP .
To the best of my knowledge, no senior executive of the company has ever paid a criminal penalty, served a single hour in jail, nor paid a single dollar in restitution or compensation for the enormous damage the company has inflicted on others and on the environment. Only BP shareholders have suffered monetary losses.
The former BP CEO’s statement that he “wanted his life back” after the Deepwater Horizon blowout as he took a vacation to participate in a sailing race remains indelibly imprinted, exemplifying the sense of entitlement among members of his class. That the light is finally also being shone on those who approved use of the devastating chemical in the “clean-up” is also a step in the right direction IMO.
IMO the Corexit, which is a both a known mutagen and a persistent compound (resistant to breaking down)was probably worse than the actual oil spill. It’s my recollection that the liability exposure (fine), or at least a significant component of it, was linked to the quantity of skimmed oil retrieved. BP had all the incentive in the world to sink it in the Gulf.
Corexit was used in unprecedented quantities and with an express liability waiver to Nalco. If you look a the MSDS report, it is very nasty stuff.
IMO it was criminal negligence, or at the least immoral for Nalco to sell that product in the quantity they did, for the purpose they understood it was being use for, but that just my opinion (as well as a couple senior couple scientists and engineers I know that were employed by both firms at the time).
Incidentally, Nalco’s headquarter are abt 10 minutes away from BP (US) in Naperville, IL.
Ilargi: Selling Off Cradle of Democracy.
They love selling off infrastructure.
Every time more public spending on infrastructure is mentioned, do shares of public-infrastructure-sector corporations go up in the New York Stock Exchange?
(That’s not a Zen koan, by the way).
This is not to say we don’t need more and better roads, but that there is a different, deeper and more fundamental issue that is being kabuki’ed away.
Thanks, Prime, particularly for your last sentence and implicit question. The sheer ruthlessness of those who are robbing the Greeks of their resources, public assets and national heritage, and casting them into penury, demonstrates a deep fear or hatred of democracy, and by extension the People.
Why so?… and Why such intense animosity?…
What is transpiring there transcends raw greed.
A while ago, our esteemed hostess posted the question of why people don’t see economic class questions as economic class questions. To some extent, this is a circular subject, since you don’t see what you don’t see.
Mr. Benmosche recently was quoted making several class-warfare remarks, but the media frenzy has been about his comparing himself to Southern blacks during Jim Crow. Whether the media just doesn’t hear class warfare or has agreed to hide it, can’t say.
For middle class workers, EEO laws make it a real possibility of losing a job over non-PC remarks about race. Currently, there’s a fellow on the Big Brother show who is, I’m told, been filmed espousing racist worldview. I know that his employer and his union are in talks to terminate him before he returns to work.
Mr. Benmosche doesn’t have to worry about that. Arrogance is allowed, even admired, to anyone on top of the pyramid. It’s like theft through bonus, legalized bribery, and simply ignoring the letter and spirit of the laws. The media works for their friends, the FBI’s busy framing Muslims, and the judges are their drinking buddies.
The race relations gaffe can be managed, since it’s reframed as narrow minority interest. Equating the rule of law with anarchy is a brilliant flip of the narrative. Ignoring the thrust of the remarks makes class warfare not a feature, but the environment.
Hmm. It seems Mr. B would like all mention of class interest declared to be hate speech. As if there was all that much mention of it to begin with, but apparently Mr. B’s fee fees are vewwwwy sensitive.
Most people don’t know that the post office already issues money orders:
https://www.usps.com/shop/money-orders.htm
These are the best and cheapest money orders available. International too!
No, let’s talk about US state responsibility. We will. October 17.
Then the world will hear what US government criminals have got to say for themselves. The US regime will have to justify their existence not to journalistic asskissers or townhalls policed by gestapo goons, but to independent experts who know their rights. No focus-grouped bullshit campaign issues but the minimal standards of the civilized world. As enforced by the ICJ under Article 38 of its charter, the committee’s conclusions and recommendations override the shit-flinging shaved apes of the supreme court. The US government will go to great lengths to drown that out.
Qatar’s World Cup ‘slaves’: Abuse and exploitation of migrant workers preparing emirate for 2022 ~The Gaurdian
butterflies are free, sometimes..
http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/windsor/point-pelee-national-park-cancels-monarch-butterfly-count-1.1868126
Re the Gulf oil spill, what always struck me was how Obama and virtually every government agency involved acted like employees of BP, not the American people. This is something I wrote three years ago on the subject:
and to think, the public used to flip out at the thought that a politician or judge was covering up sexual misconduct by someone, somewhere at some time.
there are times that I think that a lot of the NSA spying is done because, given our system and its interrelated complexities, it behooves someone (gov’t or its owners) to play the role of omnipotent being in order to prevent forest fires and cover them up appropriately when they do happen. the system can’t handle any SNAFUs. as Scotty on Star Trek would say “we’re given ‘er all she’s got, captain!”
How it was handled should have been a huge wakeup call for any BHO supporters.
The smug BP creeps we witnessed as running the minor blip then disaster were truly horrible – so confident in their lack of personal expertise to expedite a solution they went off to watch polo matches. The one sacked left with two fingers showing on one hand and 6 million quid in the other.
Sir John Brown is a troll, literally, but that’s not who you refer to.
I’ve been reading Toms River: A Story of Science and Salvation about how Ciba-Geigy and waste disposal contractors for companies like Union Carbide polluted the entire water supply of this small town on the Jersey shore between 1952 and 1996.
It’s a good argument for the conservative/libertarian contention that regulators have always worked for the corporations. At best the NJ state regulators and later the Federal EPA helped the corporations manage the resident public, without actually requiring the corporations to remedy much.
The companies would whine about the costs and then the profits, the local jobs, were more important than anything else. That’s exactly what the water company did when they told them to install carbon filters on all their (polluted) wells. Arrange for Ciba and Union Carbide to pay for it? Nope, they can whine too.
ie., the regulators functioned primarily as tax payer funded public relations managers for the corporations– which in the first instance always meant covering things up– until the residents woke up to the health threats and threatened the tenure of their state politicians in the 1990s (namely, Republican Gov. Christie Whitman).
Maybe that really is, and always was, their purpose.
I ask myself, and not for the first (or last) time:
what is the point of capitalism?
industry I understand. capitalism seems to be rife with this kind of thing from one end to the other. only the tiniest bit can be blamed on “we just didn’t know that toxic metals would percolate into the drinking water system”.
The Syrian opposition has just taken another turn for the worse, rejecting the “moderate” exiled leadership for an alliance led by Jabhat al Nusra, the al qeada franchise…
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-middle-east-24239779
I’m quite surprised to see the BBc reporting this without too much spin, it’s unlike them.
On twitter, the few openly al qeada supporting jihadis are absolutely cock-a-hoop with joy.
Greece: evidence for the connection of the Golden Dawn nazists with big capital
http://failedevolution.blogspot.gr/2013/09/greece-evidence-for-connection-of.html
Crowd-funding an Non-Violent Militia ~The Daily Dot
Justine Tunney might just be onto something here…
interesting idea. i’ve mentioned here before that i think we need MASSIVE protests, along the lines of every unemployed person in the country. but the onus for self-survival is too difficult for these people to overcome, usually. if you can’t take time from work yourself to hold nonstop protest, sponsor the unemployed to do it for you.
the problems then become about who is being paid what to be where, and what the motivations for each party are to be doing so (unemployed guy: I just need a meal and a roof, so I showed up.) also, “paid unemployed protesters” easily become cannon fodder for wealthy Google employees running the show behind the scenes.
this actually makes me wonder in what ways OWS has already been infiltrated, and whom it really serves.
I know that’s not what Tunney was discussing, by the way. but it is similar enough to riff on my idle thoughts.
Privacy, FACTA, and Canada-US information sharing. Talk by Abby Deshman of CCLA:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ij2I9dHWuUE
Interesting discussion hosted by the Progressive Canadian Party.
Waldman has some interesting (and counterintuitive) thoughts on collectivism and individualism today:
Ersatz individualism makes the American collective strong ~Interfluidity
Beard – I’m a kind of anti-godswank quasi-atheist. I am often in complete agreement with what you say and rather like most of your comment. Don’t give up on us buddy. David Graeber references religion a lot in his debt book, noting such as the origin of terms like freedom in religions (as ‘freedom from debt’) – your quotes often match up in a similar way.
Thanks!
I’ve got Graeber’s book and plan to read it in October to fulfill a promise to skippy and to have something wholesome to do lest I go AWOL again when my prescription is refilled.
I’ll give myself one more chance to use it properly since I’ve got some weight to lose and because it’s fun having energy!
Re: Fed probes for leaks ahead of policy news Financial Times
In case you don’t have an account at FT, here’s an alternative:
Somebody Stole 7 Milliseconds From the Federal Reserve
RE: ‘Artemis of the wildland’ and the food stamp haters
I’ve always assumed that ‘Artemis of the Wildlands’ is a political troll. Though we have our fair share of stupid in Portland, the fact that no idiot has come forth to claim credit and his/her fifteen minutes of fame on Fox News makes me a little suspicious.
If so, this was some epic trolling. Our esteemed representatives are deeply insecure individuals. Parodying these people in this manner will effectively shut them up for awhile.
How irresponsible!
Fifth Third CEO: Social Media Keeping Banks Honest
http://www.americanbanker.com/issues/178_184/fifth-third-ceo-social-media-keeping-banks-honest-1062349-1.html
Bankers Urged to Stay Course with Social Media Policies
http://www.americanbanker.com/issues/178_186/social-media-remains-challenging-for-smaller-banks-1062400-1.html
“WASHINGTON — The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau was created to ensure that banks treat customers fairly, but Facebook and Twitter are even more effective at keeping banks honest, argues Fifth Third Bancorp (FITB) Chief Executive Kevin Kabat.”
¡viva detroit!
http://www.detroitnews.com/article/20130924/METRO08/309240113/Detroit-RoboCop-statue-final-production-its-way-reality?odyssey=tab%7Ctopnews%7Ctext%7CFRONTPAGE
Best. Antidote. Ever.