Mystery Badger Leads Archaeologists To Medieval Burial Site RedOrbit (furzy mouse)
Wikimedia Foundation Executive Director Sue Gardner’s response to paid advocacy editing and sockpuppetry Wikimedia (Chuck L)
Where Do Today’s Slaves Live? TruthDig
Costa-Gavras prefers Bollywood fantasy to American action Reuters
Australia fire threat ‘averted’ BBC
Sydney property prices are going berserk MacroBusiness
IMF Warns Japan About Using Monetary Policy as Crutch WSJ Real Time Economics
Eurozone banks fall after ECB plan Financial Times
Rush Limbaugh Calls Troops ‘Welfare Queens, Moochers’ DuffleBlog. Furzy mouse: “Onion-style webbie for military”
Egyptians Abandoning Hope, and Homeland New York Times
Spy Chief Distances Saudis From US Wall Street Journal
The Price of WarForeign Policy
David Vine, U.S. Empire of Bases Grows TomDispatch
Big Brother is Watching You Watch:
Call Yourself A Hacker, Lose Your 4th Amendment Rights Digital Bond (Chuck L)
Senate Intelligence Committee and Head CIA Lawyer Admit Torture Was Unnecessary George Washington
Obamacare Launch:
Obama unaware of health site’s woes, says Sebelius Financial Times. Puhleeze. He made it clear he wanted something that was absolutely impossible be done. After all, he is the President. So of course no one could tell him there was a mess. But the real question is why hasn’t Sebelius been replaced on this project?
Health law’s insurance co-ops are in danger Washington Post
Anti-Gay Christians Target Vallejo, CA Government, With Democratic Party Help Talk2Action (Chuck L)
GOP goes after one of its own in Utah Washington Post
Budget wars: 1575 version VoxEU
The United States, Falling Behind New York Times. Editorial
Making sense of the JP Morgan settlement Felix Salmon
Fatas and Hunt on Reserves and Quantitative Easing Dan Kervick, New Economic Perspectives
Boom-era credit deals raise fears of overheating Financial Times. But consensus is QE is on till next year.
Shutdown Will Hinder True Gauge of U.S. Economy New York Times
A Depressing Paragraph From Goldman About The Slowdown In Job Growth Business Insider
How to lose $172,222 a second for 45 minutes python sweetness (Lambert)
J.P. Morgan Faces Another Potential Huge Payout Wall Street Journal
A New Ideology Ian Welch
Antidote du jour:
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In May, the Obama administration decided to allow more residue in food from the herbicide glyphosate (Roundup) – “based on studies presented by Monsanto”.
This comes from an AP article about agrochemical use in Argentina, whose government “relies on industry research approved by the EPA”.
That type of leak is increasingly unlikely to happen in the U.S. because of Obama’s “Insider Threat Program”, which “requires federal employees to keep closer tabs on their co-workers and exhorts managers to punish those who fail to report their suspicions”. According to McClatchy, “Leaks to the media are equated with espionage.”
“…report their suspicions.”
There are a lot of infrastructure projects around my area.
I am just wonder if the workers are embedding some tracking/monitoring devices under all those roads, to better ‘serve’ the people.
Who needs infrastructure projects like that, except the construction industry 0.01%?
@ “Anti-Gay Christians Target Vallejo, CA Government, With Democratic Party Help”
Some things never change.
As long as the plutocrats can find enough stupid working-class people to fight these culture wars, they can keep the working-class fighting amongst themselves, and not against them.
Plutocrats can always hire half the poor to kill the other half. They just don’t want to spend the money. Better to weasel the victims into paying for their dirty work.
Nobody ever went broke overestimating the cupidity of the Amerikan peepul. Indeed, that’s how fortunes are made.
“But the real question is why hasn’t Sebelius been replaced on this project?
Read more at http://www.nakedcapitalism.com/2013/10/links-102313.html#Lk7FoeXFAMuPJJY2.99
Because it’s not her fault ! She’s only the Chief, and like at all those big banks, could not possibly have known what her rogue underlings were doing.
Since this is a public-private collaboration I’m pretty sure Sebelius is the underling. We all know that government exists for the sole purpose of servicing their paymasters.
The question is why people aren’t screaming to high heaven that UnitedHealthcare botched this up.
“…Obama unaware of health site’s woes, says Sebelius Financial Times. Puhleeze. … But the real question is why hasn’t Sebelius been replaced on this project? …”
Because BHO operates in a chain of command.templated from dysfunctional mature US Corporate Conglomerates,compounded by the fact that he (nor his wife) really has never had a productives job to even have a sense about how to operate as an effective large enterprise executive. No operational skills. He participated in to Presidential campaigns against what I still think were pushover candidates with a staff adept at that task.
I don’t have a doubt BHO is clueless about the disfunctionality of the ACA system. What has he ever actually involved himself in personally and administered or project managed outside of the political arena? Some local lawyering in the FIRE sector and teaching some college level classes.
As POTUS, his MO in every situation has been to remain aloof anf hope a desirable state self assembles after a POTUS bromide or two like:
“This situation ( health care/gun deaths/ sequester/unemployment/financial sector debacle etc) is unacceptable and (people/congress/financial sector leaders etc) need to (work together/have a national discussion/resolve ect.) this matter like adults etc.
Sebelius is the equivalent of the Divsion Vice-President (or President). With a w/ a polysi degree and a freshly minted cerealbox MBA she went directly onto the political tit. She is the deer in the headlights line executive directly responsible for a massively large, ill defined “healthcare insyrance system” that was to be rolled out w/ a massively complex illdefined webbased software system? What could possibly go wrong? Being too stupid/naive to shoot a flare earlier that this is a trainwreck project.
In her tepid defense, way out of her depth. Even picking a Project Management team for such a task is out of her depth.
In fact, due to the poor definition of the actual requirements I doubt that Steve Jobs would have been up to the task.
One of the brightest people I know is the legal adviser to a health insurance entity. My takeaway is the ACA sausage that was ground out is so awkwardly conceived and written, subject to interpretation that it is hopeless to understand let alone administrate and codify into software..
So BHO, Sebelius are both out of their depth..
Who does she push it down to? Staffers she is familiar with and similar in background who are focused on schedule not content.
So who do they push down to? Software writers competent at cranking out code modules who have ZERO background in the heatlh care legistation who are PROBABLY raised in the MS enviornment of crank to out, release it then fix it as the fatal error punch list starts rolling in.
And so replace Sebelius with who? The mystery person will be sooo remote to her and her skillset it will be a giant WTF moment.
I’ll give even money that behind the GUI they have to essentially start over again, at the level of debugging application level code, unraveling system call conflicts. Basically rebuild the software the system.
This is a FedGov Boeing Dreamliner moment only lightyears more illdefined and poorly executed upon rollout.
“So BHO, Sebelius are both out of their depth.”
Undoubtedly true. However with a little education (such as Lambert provides here at NC) even the uninformed such as myself can recognise a monumental failure of execution (at the minimum). So it’s unlikely the President is failing to grasp the extent of the problem unless he is being lied to at every turn. If Sebelius is not in the near future handed the suddenly critical portfolio of the US Trade Representative to Siberia, we are left with two possibilities:
a. BHO is so weak a leader that he cannot take the first step to begin to correct the problem;
b. BHO does not truly care that it is a failure.
The Vice President has been awfully quiet lately. It’s worth remembering that there’s always a master and a disciple.
BHO is a “this is unacceptable/don’t ask me what to do/fix it” kinda guy. Yeah so no doubt he is now informed, had his private tantrum and smoked a pack of Kools.
c. I’d expect someone will be plugged in under Sebelius with direct responsibility to pump the bilge on the USS Obamacare website, even though it reads like the issues are more systemic than the web site as Lambert has adroitly pointed out.
Sebelius continues shuffling papers in her political appointee role, which is what she probably thougth she was signing up for, then perhaps resign when the rehab plan is underway to spend more time at w/ the family?
I think Sebelius being summarily airbrushed out of the picture would be in effect be equivalent to BHO admitting monumental error(s) in judgment, no?
Again, in her tepid defense, she was probably doomed in the role. That’s BHO’s fault.
I would prefer c. as “Sebelius is a political appointee who cannot be got rid of yet without fracturing the party, just as any other incompetent cabinet member in previous administrations”, but I honestly don’t know how much support she brings. Your line of thought also leads me to wonder why he would put a political appointee in such a key position, assuming that the ACA was planned before the election.
“23rd Insurance Commissioner of Kansas”, which you can read as “pre-captured” if you like.
Yesterday when I went to the government website I found it very easy to navigate.
In a couple minutes time, I was able to find that my uninsured 29 year old daughter qualified for 74 plans and each plna was given a monthly price. About 40 of the plans were Blue Cross Blue Shield. Most varied in monthly payments by five or ten bucks.
But I couldn’t tell what the diffence between each plan was so I thought I would go to Blue Cross Blue Shield’s website and check plan name/numbers. Guess what? Blue Cross Blue Shield’s website was far less navigable. And I couldn’t tell the difference in plans on Blue Cross’ own website either. Same thing happened when I checked Humana.
My conclusion was the the government website was far better than the private insurance companies’ sites.
1. Did you go to the Federal site or a state site? By all accounts, the state sites are working much better
2. The fact that you had to go to Blue Cross in fact proves the site is not working, it does not have all the needed info and forces you to do additional digging on your own. The parts that work may work fine but it is far short of the promised experience.
3. I am not sure the private insurer sites were ever intended for serious shopping. The individual market is just not that big relative to business customers and many of them come in through COBRA (as in they are converted from COBRA) which means they are offered one policy, they can take it or leave it. That’s done by letter. No shopping.
Someone ran the math yesterday and showed that even NOW for the Federal Obamacare site it would be cheaper to enroll (not the shopping part, the massively broken enrollment engine) using a call center. Private insurers price discriminate, remember, and they also have lots of plans for businesses that they negotiate. So I don’t see any business reason for them to have a good shopping site. They have both cost and other reasons to have a live person handle someone who wants to buy a policy.
Thank you so much for the link to the article by Ian Welsh. Particularly appreciated his last paragraph.
Chauncey, I think you’ll like this as well. It’s an interview with George Caneda of the Ganas community, an intentional community on Staten Island that’s been making “a new ideology” real, practical, and effective for over three decades. A better world is possible, if we want it:
http://www.geo.coop/story/ganas-community-crucible
Antidote du jour
A glimpse of heartfelt relief during a heart-rending period of misery in Australia.
The fires persist unabated, and started last week as a result of…….a military training exercise using explosives.
i’m moved beyond words…Thanks Yves
Where do today’s slaves live?
The value of one’s life to oneself = ∞ (don’t let them brainwash you otherwise)
the value of one’s body = ∞
You can’t divide infinity by a limited lifespan and get a finite number.
That’s a mathematical fact.
So, you can’t sell one hour of your neck, for example, to some lecher for any finite amount of money.
In that sense, we are all slaves forced to do something un-natural.
Goldman…depressing paragraph…slowdown…job growth.
The other depressing topic that no one wants to confront: growth in job dissatisfaction/job boredom/job indignity/job risks.
If you have a job, you are expected to fight inflation – that reads wage inflation – by paying taxes. As long as it’s at or above livable wages, no one wants to know about how your job may be destroying your soul (after all, how does one measure that).
“When faced, then, with a monstrous ideology, our duty is to come up with a better one, an opposing one.” ~Ian Welsh
Is it also our duty to resist the material outcomes and requirements of this monstrous ideology, or is it acceptable to contain our opposition to the ideological sphere while behaving, as a practical matter, exactly the same as those who accept the monstrous ideology?
If our resistance remains only ideological and does not find expression in our day-to-day lives, if we give it no existential expression, is it really resistance at all?
And how can our rejection of the monstrous ideology be made to manifest itself here in the world of things, and not simply in world of ideas?
(it is a great essay, btw)
“…Obama unaware of health site’s woes, says Sebelius Financial Times. Puhleeze. … But the real question is why hasn’t Sebelius been replaced on this project? …”
Because he operates in a chain of command.templated from dysfunctional mature US Corporate Conglomerates,compounded by the fact that he (nor his wife) really has never had a productives job to even have a sense about how to operate as an effective large enterprise executive. No operational skills. He participated in to Presidential campaigns against what I still think were pushover candidates with a staff adept at that task.
I don’t have a doubt BHO is clueless about the disfunctionality of the ACA system. What has he ever actually involved himself in personally and administered or project managed outside of the political arena? Some local lawyering in the FIRE sector and teaching some college level classes.
As POTUS, his MO in every situation has been to remain aloof anf hope a desirable state self assembles after a POTUS bromide or two like:
“This situation ( health care/gun deaths/ sequester/unemployment/financial sector debacle etc) is unacceptable and (people/congress/financial sector leaders etc) need to (work together/have a national discussion/resolve ect.) this matter like adults etc.
Sebelius is the equivalent of the Divsion Vice-President (or President). With a w/ a polysi degree and a freshly minted cerealbox MBA she went directly onto the political tit. So she is the line executive directly responsible for a massively large, ill defined “healthcare insyrance system” that was to be rolled out w/ a massively complex illdefined webbased software system? What could possibly go wrong?
In her tepid defense, way out of her depth. Even picking a Project Management team for such a task is out of her depth.
In fact, due to the poor definition of the actual requirements I doubt that Steve Jobs would have been up to the task.
One of the brightest people I know is the legal adviser to a health insurance entity. My takeaway is the ACA sausage that was ground out is so awkwardly conceived and written, subject to interpretation that it is hopeless to understand let alone administrate and codify into software..
So BHO, Sebelius are both out of their depth..
Who does she push it down to? Staffers she is familiar with and similar in background who are focused on schedule not content.
So who do they push down to? Software writers competent at cranking out code modules who have ZERO background in the heatlh care legistation who are PROBABLY raised in the MS enviornment of crank to out, release it then fix it as the fatal error punch list starts rolling in.
And so replace Sebelius with who? The mystery person will be sooo remote to her and her skillset it will be a giant WTF moment.
I’ll give even money that behind the GUI they have to essentially start over again, at the level of debugging application level code, unraveling system call conflicts. Basically rebuild the software the system.
This is a FedGov Boeing Dreamliner moment only lightyears more illdefined and poorly executed upon rollout.
Giving Mr. Bear a sip of water before the eyewitness interview? Give that guy a eucalyptus lozenge before rolling the camera.
What a shame, an avoidable, self inflicted tragedy.
rush Limbaugh’s slipup needs to be capitalized on. I hate to say that, because I do NOT support the troops….as troops, as military, as a pacifist who does not believe in death-dealing the world over for mostly corporate gain. but, I support them as people, and as workers and believe that they should be put towards vital projects solving the world’s problems akin to Army Corp of Engineers.
all this blood and war and horrible injury physical and emotional and suicide and broken families and he has the nerve to call them welfare queens? wow
they don’t see those of you who claim to have ‘defended my rights at home by fighting abroad’ as anything other than useless eaters like the rest of us once you have performed your instrumental function. heck, I bet they wish you’d just self-destruct like all of that artillery being torn down in Afghanistan right now, than bother coming home and inflating the ranks of the un(der)employed. wise up, bro…you was workin’ for Da Man!
aww, this guy was writing a spoof? it sounds just like something that limbaugher would say.
reality resembles satire so much, I can’t tell them apart anymore.
mayhaps i’ll just read The Onion every morning and assume that, whatever the true situation is, it is probably worse than they portray.
What you did say, summed as we should reduce military spending and instead use the money for domestic investment, is something I have hoped for ever since we were promised a “peace dividend” after the end of the Cold War. It could not happen, perish the thought, that Congress could actually make considered judgements about spending more money here and less there. The ratcheting and continuing resolution and sequestering formulas don’t work that way.
not to fall prey to the American Exceptionalism line of thinking, but what if we really had used our resources, our advantages, our technological and scientific expertise, to benefit the entire planet?
what if we really had gone around the world giving away the fruits of our labors? perhaps those who have engaged us in all of this militarism has had followed the ideology of “civilizing the natives” and believes that what they bring is good when it is chaos. I don’t believe that their intentions were so good willed.
the model to follow would have been Jonas Salk & the polio vaccine. but not force our “advances” on anyone. freely offer the expertise that our advantages allowed us to develop to anyone, to help them to help themselves? what if our army really did go around building small-scare hydro & sanitation systems, and other things that would have really benefited our people and everyone else on this planet?
we could have. but we would rather have imposed our way of extraction and exploitation, because we followed the religion of capitalism and industrial everything, and the religion of Progress, with ourselves as harbingers, instead. how to prevent good from becoming evil is a perpetual problem of humankind. perhaps following the idealistic mode, as I and you prefer, would have been even easier to pervert. these are things I worry about with an eye to the future.
sorry, rambling. I just shake my mental piggy jar and see what few dustcrumbs fall out.
I thought Rush Limbaugh died from a oxycodone/alcohol OD?
I’m not so sure about Sebelius’ head rolling. Certainly the project leader of Healthcare.gov needs to go (and be blackballed probably), but I’d need a more inside view before I said Sebelius also had to get the ax. How much else was on her plate (and the priorities thereof), and how much of the management of Healthcare.gov here’s certainly enough failure here to go all the way to the top.
The project leader of Healthcare.gov is probably just a shit on workerbee that has been lashed to the wheel.
I can only imagine the “dynamic” requirements that greeted that slug every morning on email.
And who knows what feedback was up the chain of command and duly ignored.
“..do whatever you have to, we are not going to miss the goddamn rollout date. And, Jesus.. tell me that you’ve finally changed that blue color on the home page to what we discussed.. I’m late for a lunch appointment, plan on working this weekend…”
http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2013/10/20/obamacare-s-rollout-is-a-disaster-that-didn-t-have-to-happen.html
Software equivalent of Frankenstein’s monster.
oww
http://www.theglobeandmail.com/report-on-business/canadas-cgi-at-centre-of-us-probe-after-botched-obamacare-rollout/article14988515/
“CGI officials told congressional investigators the decision to require users to create an account was made only a month before the website’s launch, according to the House committee on oversight and government reform…
The system was developed under the aegis of an arm of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. Department employees “constantly mentioned the ‘White House’ when discussing matters with CGI,” the letter said, and “would routinely state: ‘this is what the White House wants.’”
Ian Welch went on quite the rant for a new political ideology and then tied it up with a neat bow of the theocratic nonsense. :-(
“Sydney property prices are going berserk”
Has the World gone absolutely bonkers, or am I insane for thinking the World is going bonkers – I can’t find an answer to this in the work of RD Laing and am beginning to get seriously worried.
Everywhere I look, Australia, Canada, New York, London, Hong Kong and Singapore property prices are rising exponentially with no corresponding increase in the majority’s income, actually, quite the reverse, most have lost out considerable as the wealthy and Real Estate whores get richer and richer.
Property prices in my neck of the woods just off Hong Kong Island have risen by unto 300% since 2010, if not more in a few exceptional circumstances, and with it our rents have gone up accordingly – some purchases are fully cash, whilst others are mortgage/bank related – in HK if on Islands a deposit of 40% must be put down before a mortgage is issued – which gives an indication of the issue, namely the deposit alone prior to 2007 would have purchased the entire flat.
Anyway, just reading about the real estate prices in OZ put a huge shiver down my spine, that’s before reading London prices have shot up 10% in a single month – can someone explain to me where the “f___ing” money is coming from: Is it the effect of QE, is it the effect of people parking cash into RE rather than gold, is it the Chinese, money laundering or what the hell is it”
Not being funny, but my own business has just gone “tits up” after 6 years of effort with me being personally owed about US$20,000 and new way of getting redress – I’m just supposed to suck it up. Christ I’m fast approaching 50 and looking at homelessness whilst all around me all I observe is rocketing RE prices and unimaginable wealth by those who do nothing – am I expected to play this game – whatever happened to honest work, or how the heck to I get paid work that will cover this insane inflation with cutbacks everywhere – indeed, in HK presently its estimated that some 50-60,000 flats lay empty, this in a place with a population of under 8 million.
Really, its mad, bad and sad and giving me one hell of a migraine – getting difficult to look my kid in the eye.
Even in my own small nation its getting to the point where only the well off can rent, many being unable to actually buy due to rocketing costs and huge inflation we are told does not exist – our wallets paint a different picture.
Too top this all off, and a point not caught on the boards today, I note that the Bank of England is now proclaiming the start of a sustainable recovery, and yet when looking for work, most jobs are minimum wage – which means can’t afford to rent, never mind buy.
Its not only the American Dream that lays in ruins, its seems much of Europe is also burning and we, we honest folk are getting our arses kicked and then accused of being “welfare queens” when we can’t even access any bloody welfare.
I wish I could see murmurs of uprisings in places like the UK, instead we have outpourings of ignoramuses purchasing the austerity line and castigating everyone one apart from the perpetrators.
Its been a bad day, I used to have hope and now that hope has turned to despondency and helplessness – who’d have ever thought that in my lifetime?
I am sorry for what you are going through.
really.
Why? Loose money. More than a decade’s worth of loose money, pumped out by every central bank in the developed world.
The more the asset values get inflated, and the more leveraged everybody gets, the harder and harder it gets for them to stop the loose money policy. Instead, every crisis leads to more and looser money.
Look at each crisis: 1997 Asian crisis, tech bubble, 2007 housing bubble. Have the central authorities in the Western world ever had a policy response to an economic problem that didn’t involve looser money, and that didn’t place the entire emphasis on the speedy reflation of speculative assets?
Even at this superb site, the preferred solution is for the central authorities to employ their sovereign power to limitlessly expand money supply to spend into existence on the assets of their choice.
i’m so sorry for your situation Chris.
i know its not enough…but your not alone.
Shoulders Back myFriend…i’ll keep you near.
Re: the Wikimedia article and their attempts to block “paid advocacy editing and sock-puppetry” – reminds me of when I recently looked up MSG. The wikipedia entry on it could have been written by a PR firm. Oops! It probably was.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monosodium_glutamate
One suggested link Thom Hartmann mentioned today (an Iranian who might know indicts Reagan):
http://www.csmonitor.com/Commentary/Global-Viewpoint/2013/0305/Argo-helps-Iran-s-dictatorship-harms-democracy
After reading the NYT Editorial ‘The United States Falling Behind’ I suggest then watching this fresh Russell Brand (c.10 mins) interview by Jeremy Paxman on Newsnight in which Brand calls for a revolution: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3YR4CseY9pk&feature=youtu.be
http://qz.com/138759/the-fed-is-about-to-make-owning-physical-assets-a-game-all-banks-can-play/
Docility training proceeds apace.
It’s The National Pastime.
Yes, Please help us to keep you safe and don’t allow anyone to tarnish the image of Boston Strong.
Also next time we come to your door with tanks and 100 of our dumbest cops in soldier suits and make you lie on the ground and eat dirt for us, please remember to knuckle under right away like little whipped sissy bitches, because you’re Boston strong and Boston is the cradle of liberty and we have to tug your ballsack and squeeze your wife’s tits and run a quick check on the camel toe there to keep you safe. So we can keep you safe.