Lola the six-clawed lobster finds new home at Maine State Aquarium Bangor Daily News
‘Very, very, very large’ crocodile traps tourist for two weeks on Australian island NBC
Guy Claiming To Sit On The Chicago Board Of Trade Gets Into A Drunken Fistfight For Talking On The Metra Quiet Car Business Insider. Rule #1.
How Larry Summers could fix his reputation — and help millions of Americans Reuters. Become a Trappist monk. Kidding!
Why Keynes wouldn’t have too rosy a view of our economic future WaPo
Financial Haiku Open Weekend Cassandra Does Tokyo
Syria (super-sized)
Alan Grayson: ‘They have no smoking gun that the attack was ordered by Assad’ WaPo
On Syria Vote, Trust, but Verify Alan Grayson, Times
Obama’s push for a Syria strike depends on many factors other than presidential eloquence WaPo. But I’m gonna break out the color coding Magic Markers anyhow!
Obama’s Battle for Syria Votes, Taut and Uphill Times
First on CNN: Videos show glimpse into evidence for Syria intervention CNN. No doubt.
Kerry says support for action against Syria is growing BBC. “Double digits.” No countries mentioned.
Pentagon adjusts plans for more intense attacks on Syria LA Times
Q: Is Putin Really Planning To Bomb Saudi Arabia? NSFW
Cheney-Linked Company to Drill in Occupied Golan Heights OilPrice.com
Iran-Contra Redux? Prince Bandar Heads Secret Saudi-CIA Effort to Aid Syrian Rebels, Topple Assad Democracy Now (Economystic)
Why the U.S. Should Use Cyber Weapons Against Syria Defense One
Senate Surrenders War Powers Over False Flag Incident Moon of Alabama
Syria: The Administration’s Attribution Failure emptywheel
Corrections & Amplifications Online WSJ. Elizabeth O’Bagy, whose WSJ Op-Ed SoS Kerry recommended, revealed as a contractor for the US and UK governments, on behalf of the Syrian opposition.
Syria: Oh Hollywood, Wherefore Art Thou? FDL
Syria – Cui bono Part 2 – Qatar, Saudi, Russia and Gas Golem XIV (rich). Part 1.
Conversations with John le Carré FT
“How can they be so good?”: The strange story of Skype Ars Technica
Big Brother Is Watching You Watch
Privacy Scandal: NSA Can Spy on Smart Phone Data Der Spiegel. iPhone, Android, Blackberry.
Doubts raised about independence of White House panel on NSA privacy McClatchy
How the N.S.A. Cracked the Web The New Yorker. Good round-up.
Obama administration had restrictions on NSA reversed in 2011 WaPo
Tor is still DHE 1024 (NSA crackable) Errata Security. Get version 2.4.
How NSA access was built into Windows Telepolis (1999 classic).
Occupy Sandy builds worker power in Far Rockaway Co-operative News
Burlesque performers, occupiers protest possible sale of Portland park Bangor Daily News
How did vast heaps of industrial waste become the pride of a community? Guardian. Victorian fracking!
Major offensive: Egypt brings tanks and choppers to ‘clean’ Sinai of militants RT
Update on Indonesia: 6 indicators of worsening situation Sober Look
Tony Abbott claims victory for the Coalition in Federal Election 2013 Sidney Morning Herald (skippy)
Tokyo Olympics Win Seen Boosting Infrastructure, Recovery Bloomberg
Local idol group revitalizes Fukushima Japan Times
Crisis Chronicles: Tulip Mania, 1633-37 New York Fed. They’re sending a message. But what?
Mother of the Domestic Slave Trade [PDF] Richmond Fed. MBS for slaves. Everything old is new again…
Antidote du jour (Peter Guyan):
91 comments
Comments are closed.
“Doubts raised about independence of sockpuppets on White House panel on NSA privacy” McClatchy is late to the party on this one. We covered the connections and conflicts of interest as soon as the names were made public.
At least they’re at the party, which is more than can be said of most MSM outlets.
There was never any reason to believe the state syndicate wouldn’t stack the panel with its own members. Totalitarianism is as totalitarianism does. It hasn’t yet completely stacked Congress or the Supreme Court, but there’s no need to get that done today.
In the SoberLook article, there’s an Update about how Indonesia’s foreign reserves has fallen below 100B. Not sure whether that’s intended to mean that the occurrence is recent but actually the 100B mark was breached 2 months ago.
The local paper also had an update from the Central Bank regarding the latest reserve level and in a +tive, it actually hasn’t fallen/stayed the same this month compared to last month.
As someone who lives in Indonesia, it simply boggles the mind that Indonesia needs to import anything food related, but it does, even soy which is required to produce the most basic staple called “tempe”. Maybe I am biased, but this is one of the most fertile regions in the world, the soil simply screams “plant me, plant me”, but why bother doing so if you can import right?
Here’s another take on Japan winning the Olympics bid; how it may worsen the debt level.
http://qz.com/122238/tokyo-2020-olympic-games-japan-debt/
Has there ever been any solid evidence that Olympics can actually boost economies? It might just be a myth.
I think it’s recently been shown that hosting the Olympics is an overall economic loss for cities. The major infrastructure investments required more than off set the additional tax revenue from the event. And whereas the tax-dollars quickly move on, along with the Olympics, the infrastructure (and the associated debt) stick around much longer. I read an article recently about just this, linked-to from NC, likely.
I live 1/2 mile from a 2002 Winter Olympic venue, so I think I can say with some veracity that no economic harm was done here. We had multi-year infrastructure improvement projects, which were a benefit as far as I can tell. Short-term, there was an economic bounce. Personally, I had a blast.
I think it depends on alot of varying factors as to whether or not an Olympics is profitable or not.
I think you’re right.
Should Cities go for the Gold? The Long-term Impacts of Hosting the Olympics ~Economic Inquiry, 2010
…uh, sorry for the typos…copying-and-pasting from a pdf…but you get the gist…
What athlete wouldn’t love to have a gold medal that glows in the dark?
To make the Japanese Olympic experience more memorable they could change the medal composition to polonium, cesium and strontium, respectively from gold, silver and bronze.
Hey Not So Sure!
I am quite sure that Tokyo will NOT host the 2020 Olympics.
The evolution (pun intended) of Fukushima will insure that.
This is denial writ large by the international community.
How sad for our species.
I know. Abe was shining everybody on that 7 years is plenty of time to fix Fukushima. Especially since for the last 3 years they have managed so well to make it far worse. But even tho’ all the Japanese will be covered with blisters and their hair will be falling out, they will be very polite. Please don’t anybody tell them that even Chernobyl is still melting down. Contained but cooking. The Japanese don’t have a clue what to do.
I just got back from the future (I travel in the futures trading machine at Goldman Sachs, but you didn’t hear about it from me), and I’m sorry to say Tokyo was evacuated and abandoned in 2016.
They were finally using a remote controlled crane at Fukushima to pull spent fuel rods out of the pool in Building Four. It destabilized the remaining rods, but they kept going. On Day 13 the pile collapsed, and an instant later a gigantic dirty bomb leveled all six reactor buildings, blowing 1200-plus fuel rods all over the place.
No survivors. All the storage tanks were shredded, releasing thousands of tons of radioactive water, which washed a lot of debris into the bay. It was a major event for the entire northern hemisphere. Or will be. Is it Monday yet?
Umm, if it’s any help, Goldman closes all trades and closes its last bunker in February of 2022.
Thanks for the nice but not so nice scenario.
Have you considered writing for Azimov’s Science Fiction?…short stories I inhale as soon as the next issue arrives.
The only issue I have is the 2016 date for catastrophe…..I think it will be in the next year….2014 or sooner.
Oh, and GS has a derivative for that……calling it iGlow
Incorrect link, a taste:
Meanwhile, columnist Tim Stanley proclaimed Mr Abbott’s victory a “win for the Christian conservatives” in the UK’s Daily Telegraph.
Advertisement
“Whereas some Western conservatives seem to be entirely motivated by the desire to win (Romney, Cameron), Abbott has a philosophy and – almost unique in our materialist age – a theology,” he wrote.
“This puts him in the George W Bush, Stephen Harper compassionate conservative tradition – the tradition that tends to attract the most votes.”
In the same mould: a statue of former US president George W Bush.
In the same mould: a statue of former US president George W Bush. Photo: Getty Images
British Tory MP Douglas Carswell said Mr Abbott’s victory should inspire his UK counterparts.
“Abbott’s views are throughly (sic) modern. He seems to have seen through global warming fad, wants less government and is pro Anglosphere,” he wrote on Twitter.
http://www.smh.com.au/federal-politics/federal-election-2013/tony-abbott-likened-to-george-w-bush-as-world-considers-australias-new-pm-20130908-2tdra.html
skippy…. Devolve like you mean it, knuckle dragging is vogue again!
PS. “A LOT” of kids coming out of the school system or will in a few years – are – horrified… I mean… Absolutely Horrified…
skippy;
I thought that voting was “mandatory” in ‘Oz.’ How can this Abbot person win fairly? How do the voting patterns look?
We’re going through a court ordered second election for Mayor of Hattiesburg due to “irregularities” in the first one two months ago. Any chance of that happening there?
After reading a related article in the Herald about Abbots’ priorities. I am well and truly saddened. This fellow looks and talks like a classic Neo-everything. (Godwin alert!)
Please accept my condolences.
My condolences as well skippy.
What is your fair country going to do when the population in the Northern hemisphere force immigrates to skippy land after Fukushima goes critical?
I hope you continue to require citizens to vote in spite of the current brainwashed results….the awakening is coming, albeit painful.
Usual stuff. Public backstabbing of PN accompanied by neoliberal corporatist right vs. soft socialism left inter party fracas, loss of fundie tribe support over ID issue with a independent candidate preferencing watering down effect.
That said we now have an exotic Senate to include Clive Palmer. This is where distinctions will be made into the foreseeable future.
The biggie for me and others I converse with is, he’s made some pretty bold declarations and the resulting outcomes based on them. He’s made him self out to be a bit of a messiah (pun intended) and if things don’t go according to plan, well, history not kind.
In the end labor has to reexamine its political foundations ie does is go back to a more traditional platform (shades of pink), follow the corporatist democrats in America and England (members only entitlement club) or something completely new. Liberals know who they are and what their on about like most cults do, black letter law thingy.
skippy… Ha! son just got back from Y12 English final, part of the test was on the book A BRAVE NEW WORLD w/question being to describe main characters in the book and how individualism makes people vulnerable, in books setting and in our world.
I just read where Abbott says he is going to wind back green house gas reduction measures to help balance the nations books.
Is that short sighted enough? Gag!
Something like, Damn the torpedoes, full speed ahead….right into extinction.
Compassionate conservatism? Yes, compassion is good but justice is REQUIRED from Jews and Christians:
With what shall I come to the Lord
And bow myself before the God on high?
Shall I come to Him with burnt offerings,
With yearling calves?
Does the Lord take delight in thousands of rams,
In ten thousand rivers of oil?
Shall I present my firstborn for my rebellious acts,
The fruit of my body for the sin of my soul?
He has told you, O man, what is good;
And what does the Lord require of you
But to do justice, to love kindness,
And to walk humbly with your God? Micah 6:6-8 New American Standard Bible (NASB)
“I hate, I reject your festivals,
Nor do I delight in your solemn assemblies.
“Even though you offer up to Me burnt offerings and your grain offerings,
I will not accept them;
And I will not even look at the peace offerings of your fatlings.
“Take away from Me the noise of your songs;
I will not even listen to the sound of your harps.
“But let justice roll down like waters
And righteousness like an ever-flowing stream.” Amos 5:21-24 New American Standard Bible (NASB)
“Yes, compassion is good but justice is REQUIRED from” – beardo
Thank you beardo for this honest statement, it really does comport the entire philosophy in a nut shell.
Skippy… BTW are you in anyway insinuating GW Bush was compassionate?
BTW are you in anyway insinuating GW Bush was compassionate? skippy
No. How do you get that? As far as I can tell, GW Bush is a fascist and I hate fascism and loath Bush for giving Christianity a bad name.
“Blessed are the peacemakers…”
Abbott is really a bot who was murdochtrinized…..and that is why he won.
re antidote:
Wow! That some fine suit! I’d like to meet his/her Tailor. Who wouldn’t?
The four most over-rated things in life are champagne, lobster, anal sex and picnics.
c.hitchens
OoPs how did this get under FB…reply meant for Opti
BAHAHAHAAHAHHAHAAAAAAAAA
Humor is a reminder that no matter how high the throne one sits on, one sits on one’s bottom. ~Taki
Humor is a good thing…
“Obladi-Oblada..” –> http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OseAzFvSo48
G*d moves in mysterious ways
Some men get a ego thrill out of degrading women. I’d never do it because it would degrade me.
I was spectacularly in love once. Now there’s a finest thing in life!
“anal sex”
For the giver or the receiver?
hitchens doesn’t make that part clear does he…
i’m still swirlin on the 6 claw lobster.
Happiness is a moving target.~KinkY Friedman
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UrOZllbNarw&feature=youtu.be
Why Shouldn’t I Work for the NSA?
Lola’s transportation to the aquarium
http://www.flickr.com/photos/sunivroc/3385397607/in/pool-lola_cars
Cheney-Linked Company to Drill in Occupied Golan Heights OilPrice.com
Although conveniently down the memory hole, considering this is occupied Syrian territory, maybe the BHO compromise should be to bomb this site? Poetic justice would include Cheney on a site visit.
Punishment as policy has long been a pretext for any action, whether military attacks, covert programs, economic sanctions or diplomatic brush offs, such as Carter pulling out of the Olympics. If dead baby politics is so fitting a motivation and such a clear cut case of the breach of International laws and norms of acceptable behavior, how can we attack Assad when we can make the determination that 500,000 dead babies and children is a hard but fair price to pay to keep Saddam Hussein in line during the 1990’s?
The US Government made the decision to destroy the water supply infrastructure of Iraq, in order to punish Saddam and cause his regime to be toppled internally due to the unbearable consequences of economic sanctions.
Here is a 60 MINUTES interview with Madeleine Albright on the subject:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x4PgpbQfxgo
Here is a quick summary of the story based on Defense Intelligence Agency documents outlining such a plan and its intended outcome.
————————————————————
“During the Gulf War the United States deliberately bombed Iraq’s water system. After the war, the U.S. pushed sanctions to prevent importation of necessary supplies for water purification. These actions resulted in the deaths of thousands of innocent Iraqi civilians many of whom were young children. Documents have been obtained from the Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA), which prove that the Pentagon was fully aware of the mortal impacts on civilians in Iraq and was actually monitoring the degradation of Iraq’s water supply. The destruction of civilian infrastructures necessary for health and welfare is a direct violation of the Geneva Convention.
After the Gulf War, the United Nations applied sanctions against Iraq, which denied the importation of specialized equipment and chemicals, such as chlorine for purification of water. There are six documents that have been partially declassified and can be found on the Pentagon’s web site at http://www.gulflink.osd.mil. These documents include information that prove that the United States was fully aware of the costs to civilians, especially children, by upholding the sanctions against purification of Iraq’s water supply.”
http://www.projectcensored.org/5-us-intentionally-destroyed-iraqs-water-system/
coalition of the twilling!
FISA, NSA, Oblama blama, and congress. It’s like they are all on meth. Paranoid beyond guilt. We need a logo of them all with a smoking glass pipe.
Bulldoze the entire NSA infrastructure on live television. That along with freeing half the prison population, prosecuting war crimes, cutting ‘defense’ by at least 85 percent, establishing living wages with health care as a human right is when we might be able to call ourselves civilized.
That sounds like progress!
Add the construction of nationwide high speed rail.
I have been listening to Radio-France Internationale in French. A woman correspondent of RFI covering the “get out the message” activities of Kerry et al used the French word “propagande” as a slight/joke, or maybe in advocacy sense, but I feel it’s closer to “shrill advocacy”. As we would say in French: “sur un ton quelque peu moqueur”.
http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20130906/15150724436/fogbugzds-favorite-techdirt-posts-week.shtml
Although the above is billed as a compendium of favorites, it is an aggressive post in itself:
The link at the very end of the compendium about Team Prenda (the patent troll) is also worth a read.
Friends;
The NY Fed piece about Tulipmania, to this untutored eye, looks to be a bit of a speculation about the spill over effects of the removal of QE. The piece mentioned that the earlier ‘bubble’ wasn’t directly tied to the banking and financial sectors of the time, and so its’ collapse didn’t have systemic effects. Their latter paragraphs contrast this with ‘modern’ times where the State intervenes to backstop the financial sector, now deeply intertwined with the Universe of Bubbles. Without State support, indeed they mention the Dutch Courts refusal to become involved, the Tulipmania collapsed completely, ruining the speculators. Oh that such a fate would overcome todays FIRE sector!
The Tor note basically says abandon RSA/DHE keys in favor of elliptic curve crypto (ECC). However, Schneier is pretty explicit that we should be weary of elliptic curves[1]. Frankly, I’m with Schneier on this and I prefer RSA 2048+ keys. At the same time, not all ECC is bad and I’m sure there are some good curves but the problem is identifying which ones. There’s is no doubt however that RSA 1024 bit keys are insufficient if you include government intrusion among your risks.
[1] http://www.wired.com/opinion/2013/09/black-budget-what-exactly-are-the-nsas-cryptanalytic-capabilities/
I am sorry there was no link to the NYT p.1 article about women and the Harvard Business School.
I hope Yves will comment on it.
what did it say and what do you think?
i’m too lazy to read it but I have no problem expressing an opinion if you offer yours.
While I haven’t read it or even looked at it, I have a sttrong feeling it sounds like it promises to be an absolute circus of stupidity in prose. But I may be jumping the gun with an ill-founded, immature and shallow skepticism. Maybe it’s a revelation of lucidity and profound insight.
an hilarious exercise in futility that made my heart flutter… i offer my marriage proposal to your old crusty ass.. i just got a sex change… let me know which one you want it to be…++
++ senator kerry is a disgrace
John Kerry claims support is growing for a military strike on Syria.
Kerry seems to be this war’s Colin Powell, fronting for a false flag operation sure to widen Syria’s civil war and increase the suffering of the people there.
A question for Kerry: Is it worse to be taken out by poison gas than exploded by a missile shot from a drone?
vox Populi: Is it worse to be taken out by poison gas than exploded by a missile shot from a drone?
Kerry: It depends on who used the gas and who used the drone. BTW Did I mention that Assad is the New Hitler(TM)?
Hitler/Stalin/PolPot/Justin Bieber/Honey Boo Boo/Whoever killing arab with drone strike: BAD, TRY HIM FOR WAR CRIME
Obama or Kerry killing arab with drone strike: GOOD FOR DEMOCRACY AND FREEDOM
George W Obama is the new Hitler, going around making wars and invading countries for no reason. Who does that? Is the correct answer Assad? Dings, wrong answer. The correct answer is the U.S.
Yes, I really did hear John Kerry claiming that chemical weapons had only been used by Hitler, Saddam and now Assad:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/fact-checker/post/kerrys-claim-that-only-three-tyrants-have-used-chemical-weapons/2013/09/05/388cac18-1612-11e3-961c-f22d3aaf19ab_blog.html
I like the way he started the clock in 1925, thereby omitting the US’ own use of battlefield chemical weapons in WWI. And then he forgot the Italians and the Japanese. And the Nazis didn’t use battlefield chemical weapons…
Is this the greatest historical falsification since the Japanese airbrushed the rape of Nanking out of the record?
It depends on the definition of “historical falsification”. There was NATO’s Operation Gladio in Italy and other European countries with too many communists. Gladio operators, the “stay-behinds”, were over there to put a damper on commies thinking of getting elected and dreaming of forming a government. Sterling and Peggy Seagrave wrote the book “Gold Warriors”, wherein they allege that a Vatican secret agent (Santo Romana), the ex-Dictator Marcos of the Philippines, Japanese deep-state structures and USAian empire deep-state structures acted sometimes in concert, sometimes in opposition or adversarial roles, to keep hidden, stash away and recover “black gold” taken as war loot by the Japanese Imperial Army (and associates) during their cruel rampage ca. 1940 through China and South-East Asia, plus maybe Korea, the latter being a Japanese pre-WWII “capture”.
Obama’s push for a Syria strike depends on many factors other than presidential eloquence WaPo
Gives a one-dimensional view of Presidential power. The power of the captured presidency is a free hand to operate behind the scenes. ‘Persuasion’ is politically risky. Few would consider GWB, for example, to be very persuasive.
‘Soft power’ like channeling outrage, access journalism, blocking opponents, and obfuscating issues that cause discontent is much less risky than persuasion. Prime examples are financial services “reform”, covert support for the Syrian rebels, the coordinated take-down of Occupy, and Obama’s statement on NSA spying (if people don’t trust the President, Congress, and the Courts to do the right thing then we’re going to have some problems). Only the President could deliver such (bullsh!t) in any credible way.
And so, for those who are skeptical about Obama’s new-found faith in constitutional democracy, note that the Administration “wins” simply by a ‘positive response’ that keeps the rebels engaged via hopium that the US may intervene at some future time if atrocities continue. Obama could not decline an attack – the best he could do is punt to Congress and feign outrage. (Recall his faux tears after the shooting tragedy in Connecticut.)
—
Note: Alan Grayson makes a convincing case that bombing Syria wouldn’t really be a deterrent or help the rebels much – so it seems that what is really important here is optics.
Oh, and of course, heated rhetoric over Syria distracts from the Obama Administrations many scandals.
The West Dethroned — Paul Craig Roberts
What this reveals is that the support behind the liar obama is feeble and limited. The ability of the Western countries to dominate international politics came to an end at the G20 meeting. The moral authority of the West is completely gone, shattered and eroded by countless lies and shameless acts of aggression based on nothing but lies and self-interests. Nothing remains of the West’s “moral authority,” which was never anything but a cover for self-interest, murder, and genocide.
The West has been destroyed by its own governments, who have told too many self-serving lies, and by its capitalist corporations, who offshored the West’s jobs and technology to China, India, Indonesia, and Brazil, depriving the Western governments of a tax base and the support of its citizens.
It is difficult to know whether citizens in the West hate their corrupt governments any less than do Muslims, whose lives and countries have been devastated by Western aggression, or than do citizens of third world countries who have been impoverished by being looted by predatory First World financial organizations.
The idiot Western governments have pissed away their clout. There is no prospect whatsoever of the neoconservative fantasy of US hegemony being exercised over Russia, China, India, Brazil, South Africa, South America, Iran. These countries can establish their own system of international payments and finance and leave the dollar standard whenever they wish. One wonders why they wait. The US dollar is being printed in unbelievable quantities and is no longer qualified to be the world reserve currency. The US dollar is on the verge of total worthlessness.
The G20 Summit made it clear that the world is no longer willing to go along with the West’s lies and murderous ways. The world has caught on to the West. Every country now understands that the bailouts offered by the West are merely mechanisms for looting the bailed-out countries and impoverishing the people.
In the 21st century Washington has treated its own citizens the way it treats citizens of third world countries. Untold trillions of dollars have been lavished on a handful of banks, while the banks threw millions of Americans out of their homes and seized any remaining assets of the broken families.
http://www.paulcraigroberts.org/2013/09/07/the-west-dethroned-paul-craig-roberts/
Thanks, rich, for PCR: “tyranny is toast” — catapult the meme.
“Obama ministrations” look funnier…
http://www.salon.com/2013/09/08/crossfit_nation_partner/
When I look at current day civilization I see people preparing to compete under the ‘scarcity effect’. Zombies, vampires, preppers, MSM fear factories, and a de facto death cult running things with racist(tribal)undertones.
America has mass PTSD, heavily self medicating, with no end in sight. Transition periods suck when the outcome is lit with surprisingly few beacons of light among the shroud of darkness.
Left With Nothing ~WaPo
Yikes! You and I are on the same wavelength!
Scary.
‘Murica sure does love to support its troops!
is the city so desperate for a few hundred dollars that they can’t wait for the ownership to change hands, and collect past due taxes at that time?
it would make sense that before processing a change of ownership, they would require one to come current on the taxes due, instead of allowing private companies to steal.
alternately, any money in excess of the debt on a property should revert to the owner.
this, and those links a few weeks ago where people were pitched out of their homes because the son was dealing marijuana prove, at least to me, that the whole subprime loan fiasco was part of a larger movement to commit a property grab from the lower classes. I guess destabilization of those closest to the margin of safety suits some kind of long-term societal goals. it seems that Scrooge has taken over.
“it would make sense…”
Now you see, there’s the problem with your idea…
d, it’s a time-honored property grab, standard operating procedure in the South by the “winners of the””War between the States.” Tyrant’s Lebensraum Redux.
Lola the six-clawed lobster finds new home at Maine State Aquarium Bangor Daily News
Always amazes me how these genetic mutations are always viewed as benevolent curiosities:
“David Libby, who works at the aquarium as a marine scientist for the Department of Marine Resources…:
“Sometimes the genes will just get a little mixed and it will grow a funny claw,” he said. “But I’ve never seen anything like this.””
It never seems to occur to these Government Scientists that the little bit of gene problem might be due to radiation, chemical pollution, etc. Of course not, Maine’s waters are pristine what with all those paper mills, industrial plants, nuclear plant, etc.
My bet is that this lobster will be topped by another curious gene flip on a crustacean near FUCKISHIMA, Japan.
Lambert – this is from Eschaton, but I think it is worthwhile to cross post here:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/sf/investigative/2013/09/08/left-with-nothing/?hpid=z1
Another horrifying article on how (in this case) tax liens and municipalities are foreclosing on vulnerable people for small amounts of money..
Doh! Stupid brain! I just posted this on yesterdays links, for some reason…let’s try this again:
More on the NMBS (non-mortgage backed securities) front:
Royal Park Investments vs. Deutsche Bank, et al
Look at it this way, the glass isn’t 99.4% empty, it’s .6% full…
If White House Press Briefings Were Honest ~Cracked
“From this point on, we’ll just be making sh*t up.”
“How Larry Summers could fix his reputation — and help millions of Americans Reuters. (Become a Trappist monk. Kidding!)”
Trappist monks brew really, really good beer. This is way beyond Larry’s skill set, way below his pay scale, and the American public wouldn’t be that lucky to have the Fed transformed into a micro brewery, anyway. They just do macro.
Hah. If the Fed were transformed into a micro-brewery, it might actually serve publice purpose. However, I had the vow of silence in mind.
Problem with the “vow of silence” too. Larry thinks everything Larry says is important, and Monks rule!
that’s a good idea. I will make the obvious joke that the resulting liquidity would actually work!
and all the regional banks could have their own special brews.
Richmond Red
St. Louis Lager
San Francisco Stout
Philly Pale Ale
but you can’t use the word “Gold” in any of the names, just out of respect for the past. hahah hhahhhhahaa
Provided they stop using that phrase “liquidity injection”. If taken literally, that could be dangerous. Brew pubs mix CO2 and nitrogen in their kegging systems, and we wouldn’t want Americans to all get a painful case of the bends.
We are trying to improve things, ya know!
Free as in beer. Hey, I could deal with that type of QE.
Imagine if you will 10,000 copies of Larry Summers let-out in Washington, D.C. That would be funny, no?
saw an ad last night on teevee. seems that Goodwill is fighting back with a campaign against the backlash directed towards its program that hires the disabled, pays them pennies, and claims that this benefits them for feeling like they are contributing and doing something useful.
the ad heavily features a manager of such employees, who used to be an pilot in the military, and is now a motherly, middle aged woman just overseeing a group of disabled who appeared to be sorting and pricing. I notice her group included some of the most disabled individuals, rather than the ones I witnessed at my brief working stint at Goodwill who were so functional and efficient at their jobs that they put the “normal” workers’ efforts to shame.
trying to find a video of the ad. even if the claim is true, that disabled people want to be doing something to feel independent, isn’t their something that they could do in the public service sector that is less potentially degrading or exploitative?
there*…homophones are my downfall.
I heard on the radio that a German spy-ship off the coast of Syria eavesdropped on the Assad regime or the Assad entourage for ~ 4 months. I have located the German newspaper with this story, but it’s all in German. So, what I think the article says is that the military in Syria asked repeatedly to use gas-poison on the insurgents, and Assad refused. And also that Assad likely didn’t personally authorize the 21 August use of gas-poison.
Using Babelfish, the English translation follows:
“According to the findings of monitoring experts always rejected the poison gas attacks requested by the commanders and the use of August 21 not likely by Assad personally”
It appeared in the Bild am Sonntag : http://www.bild.de/politik/ausland/syrien-krise/assad-kommandeure-wollten-giftgas-einsetzen-32300094.bild.html
Obama to talk on TV etc. Tuesday 10 Sept. , or about on that day…
Households On Foodstamps Rise To New Record High: More Americans Live In Poverty Than The Population Of Spain
But in addition to the BLS jobs number, there was another just as important number that was released on Friday: the monthly foodstamp (SNAP) participation update. There was no discussion of this particular number and for good reason. If the NFP number was at least meant to show some economic stability, if subpar, the monthly foodstamp update shows month after month that the greatest depression is nowhere near ending for millions of American living in poverty (83% of SNAP households have gross income at or below 100% of the poverty guideline ($19,530 for a family of 3 in 2013), and these households receive about 91% of all benefits. 61% of SNAP households have gross income at or below 75% of the poverty guideline or $14,648 for a family of 3 in 2013).
To wit: in June, the number of households receiving foodstamps rose to 23.117 million, an increase of 45.9k in one month, and also a new record high. As for the average monthly benefit per household: $274.55, just off record lows.
And while it is understandable why the media has been obsessed with Syria: after all the administration is in dire need of distractions from so many things having gone wrong, it is also understandable why no mainstream media outlet will show the following chart: the change of Americans on foodstamps and disability vs jobs since the start of the Depression in December 2007. The reason is that while over that time period the US still needs to generate an additional 2.2 million jobs to get back to breakeven (ignoring for a minute that the jobs created are mostly part-time or low paying jobs), the number of foodstamp and disability recipients has risen by 22 million!
http://tinyurl.com/noxnlvu
Thanks for the expose to the jump in SNAP recipients.
Maybe Hugh could be encouraged to include such in his monthly “clarification” of BLS data as it does talk to what cliff all those folk that aren’t in the work force fell off of.
Thanks again to Hugh for his stellar monthly BLS reporting!!!!
Re the Olympics, I remember back during the 2004 Olympics in Athens seeing a segment with, I think it was, then mayor Dora Bakoyannis. She was asked how Athens and Greece could afford the $13-$14 billion cost of the games. She basically blew it off with a “No problem!” I often recall that moment as I watch Greece slip into semi-failed status.
The Games are really nothing more than a glorified excuse for looting. Most ordinary people can not afford a ticket to them. The media, athletes and the international rich and well to do fly in, party, and fly out leaving the locals with billions in tabs for white elephants and marginally useful, but overpriced and oversold “improvements”.
Re warmongering, John Kerry is the kind of guy who stands before a mirror, makes his case, and walks away secure in the knowledge that he has won another convert. I don’t know if Kerry was ever an idealist. It’s more that he saw idealism, and an anti-war stance, as his ticket to Washington. The liberal veneer is long gone. The joke, that is Kerry, is that Kerry became one of those arrogant, tin-eared Senator Foghorns he made his political bones running against. He’s just another dishonest intellectual mediocrity which Washington seems to attract and in which it abounds. Stroke his wallet or his ego and he will do anything for you.
Regarding the Metra quiet car fight, I’m genuinely curious what Rule #1 might be.
No cellphones on the quiet car?
Don’t call someone a k*ke in surburban Chicago?
or simply,
Don’t let your mouth write a check your ass can’t cash?
I live in the Chicago area, and for the rush hours home, people are allowed to bring/drink alcohol on the Metra train.
Over at the Guardian, in comments on the Bild am Sonnstag story relating that BND (the German foreign intelligence service) spied on Assad gov. communications, concluding that “military people wanted Assad to use gas-poison gut Assad said no, and that the 21 August gas-poison attack was likely not authorized by Assad”, led some commenters to suggest that “BND/Germany” and friends was “trotting-out/floating” a 2nd story, i.e. a fabrication of events, in case the 1st story failed to convince to hit Syria.
UK and USA conspired in the 1953 coup d’etat against Mossadegh, and are overlords #2 and #1 of the Middle East. France might be or have been overlord #3 because Suez canal was joint Brit-French job, French mandate in Syria after dismantlement of Ottoman empire in ca. 1923, etc. etc. But I question any assumption that Germany has company interests in Middle East Oil. Also, they speak German and were connected to Ottomans, but not Arabs, at least after 1920 because they lost WWI. Also, Germans have developped green energy. German companies pay bribes, e.g. to Greece: yes, bribes is common in high-tech countries going into less-developped countries. German banks sold financial snake oil: yes, obvious. But say if you were a German capitalist, would you like to hit Syria? And if so, in order to advance what? Alternatively, the German gov. is being threatened by UK-USA-France with … what?
Cyanide pollution fears: Thousands of Romanians protest a Canadian gold mine project using cyanide
http://rt.com/news/cyanide-gold-romania-protest-585/
“Some 15,000 people, including students and young parents, rallied across the country on Sunday in the eighth day of protests against a draft law issued by the leftist government, which would allow a Canadian miner to dig for gold and silver in the small town of Rosia Montana in Transylvania, northern Romania.
Eight thousand protesters marched to the government headquarters in Bucharest, carrying signs reading “I love nature, not cyanide” and “Corruption equals cyanide.” According to police, 6,000 demonstrators also rallied in the major Transylvanian city of Cluj and 900 people gathered in Brasov.
Gabriel Resources Ltd plans to expand and modernize old Roman gold mines to extract over 300 tons of yellow metal and 1,500 tons of silver.
The quarries would destroy four mountain peaks and three villages out 16 in the municipality. But the biggest scare for rights activists and environmentalists is the planned use of around 12,000 tons of toxic cyanide a year for the mining process.”
RM, it’s a two-fer: Gold for the 1%, death for the rest.
Breaking news on the NRA from (Greenwald from Brazil)
http://www.washingtonpost.com/world/brazil-tv-to-release-nsa-documents-that-show-us-spied-on-petrobras/2013/09/08/8c4cdaf6-18d0-11e3-a628-7e6dde8f889d_story.html
Thanks for the link.
It seems Clapper is caught in yet another lie. If the international community doesn’t bring down American empire with the cumulative lying and manipulation we are being exposed to I will be surprised.
And they hate us for our Freedom……rrrrrrright!
It can’t happen soon enough for me. The ongoing killing in the US publics’ name to support this plutocratic controlled empire is despicable.