Missing 3-year-old saved by family farm dog that rescuers found the next day keeping him warm a mile from home Daily Mail (Chuck L)
Perhaps your concern could extend to not eating us, say chickens Daily Mash
What Does A Bitcoin Smell Like? Who Knows, But Now Bitcologne Exists Consumerist
World Under Water (furzy mouse)
Daily Aspirin Regimen Not Safe for Everyone: FDA WebMD
Some Authoritative Skepticism about the “Triumph” of Sovaldi to Add to Outrage about “Blood Money” Health Care Renewal
Worst of DRM set to infest physical law school casebooks NetworkWorld. This is nuts.
Viet-Chinese Tensions Escalate In South China Sea OilPrice
South China Sea tensions rise as Vietnam says China rammed ships Reuters (YY)
China’s developer credit crunch intensifies MacroBusiness
Citi sees “nuclear” Chinese property bust MacroBusiness
Thai Prime Minister Ordered Removed From Office New York Times
Yingluck and 9 Ministers removed from office, but caretaker Cabinet remains UPDATE Acting caretaker PM named Asian Correspondent (Lambert)
No Change in Thai Politics UOBKayHian (Lambert)
ECB is delighted by the splendid prospect of deflation Ambrose Evans-Pritchard, Telegraph
Ukraine
Ukraine crisis: The Odessa file – how a cultural melting pot boiled over into sectarian strife Independent (YY)
Russia’s President Putin calls on separatists in Ukraine to postpone referendum DW.
Ukraine: Putin Offers A Truce Moon of Alabama
Big Brother is Watching You Watch
Smile, Villains! London Cops Start Wearing Cameras Today Bloomberg
You May Think You Have Nothing to Hide … But You’re Breaking Federal Copyright Laws Several Times a Day Without Even Knowing It George Washington
USA Freedom Act clears committee Guardian
“Specific Selection Term:” Still Not Convinced and Will the Dragnet Reform Criminalize Ordering Pizza? Marcy Wheeler. She’s not a fan of what she calls the “FreeDumb Act”.
Tax Policy Revisionism James Kwak calls out Obama.
State Executioners: Untrained, Incompetent, and “Complete Idiots” Mother Jones (Carol B)
Daily Meme: You Probably Should Check Your Privilege American Prospect
Yellen warns on US housing market risk Financial Times
The four big economic messages from Yellen’s Congressional testimony today Washington Post versus Five Takeaways From Fed Chairwoman Janet Yellen’s Testimony WSJ Econonics
Consumer Credit Balances Jump Business Insider
Earnings Growth Upturn Masks Labor Market Weakness Big Picture
Are we at a Piketty tipping point for the left? Unfortunately, history suggests not Guardian
Already happens: Capitalism destroys human labor force and goes to the next phase unbalanced evolution of homo sapiens
Gangster State America Paul Craig Roberts (RR)
Antidote du jour (mark w):
See yesterday’s Links and Antidote du Jour here.
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The “gangster state” described by Paul Craig Roberts bears an eerie resemblance to the corrupt, undemocratic, grossly unequal and oligarchical regimes so favoured by a long succession of US Govts. in Latin America. Sounds like the model has come home to roost. Poetic justice?
This is exactly what I was thinking the other day, Gordon. Now that torture has been legalized, and the military can render American citizens, we’ve finally gotten our just desserts. For years we Americans have sat back, unconcerned with the plight of Latin America, but in the end it was only a matter of time before it was enacted here.
It’s not about the courts, the President, Congress, or the Constitution. It’s We the People who did diddly squat for decades. We really do deserve the government we have.
The Roberts article was quite thoughtful in describing how democratic instutions were undermined in the U.S. And the key events did take place during the Clinton Administration.
Two of the legs were knocked out of the democratic stool. One was private sector trade unions, undermined by NAFTA and other agreements that allowed companies to move jobs from unionized sectors to overseas. The second was an independent media, caused by the consolidation of media into five companies that depend on the federal government to be allowed to operate.
The result was an end to political pluralism. Both parties have to raise money from the same sources, and depend on media coverage from the same sources. You can’t have a union-backed party or bypass big media anymore. The situation is reminiscent of the Japanese party system, where at times you have had the main “opposition” party financed by the governing party.
I read Firedoglake and Free Republic. I read Naked Capitalism and Townhall.com. Since I hate pretty much everything and everybody in this cesspool of a country – it’s best to see what advocates left and right are saying. And they are saying the same thing.
FOR THE FIRST TIME. It wasn’t so long ago the right was railing about killer Clinton and his body count – his false flag infiltrations of the militias, OKC, Ruby Ridge, — everybody remembers the outrageous scandals that catapulted Limbaugh and Savage to the top of talk radio.
The left was silent – and shrugged their shoulders to claims of FALSE FLAGS and murders.
Then came Bush – and the left called him a war criminal and a monster. But there was a slight sea change. After the 9/11 Surprise?!? – members of left and right smelled a false flag. By this time the word had gone mainstream. And even the brain dead understood that this tool for manufacturing public outrage was past its use date. Pat Buchanan tiptoed around the edges of the subject – and Roberts charged full speed ahead – calling out Bush and Cheney for the gangsters and monsters they were/are.
Just when everybody thought the country might enjoy a reprieve from the gangster class – by none other than a Chicago streetwise black soldier for the common man [sorry, but I cannot control a gag reflex] – we find out Saint O was a plant – better yet a lawn jockey – complete with Red Coat, high black boots and a friggin Lantern – out on the lawn at 1600 Pennsylvania… welcoming the worlds most vile oligarchs into our home – presenting them with the keys to the treasury.
Even hardline Daily Kos knows that a vote for O was date rape. This president enjoys a lower approval rating than Bush because more of both sides hate him….
We ARE ALMOST THERE…. at least at the start of this silly season… we ALL KNOW THE GAME IS UP. there are few heroes… and fewer Mr/Mrs Smiths … gonna march on down to DC and.
Beware of Elizabeth Warren…. that phony war paint may be the markings of another traitor. And God only knows who is controlling the strings on Rand Paul…
At least we’ve been treated to the best of the best of thieves, liars, and conmen. Obama was the tipping point for political credulity. HE FOOLED ME… I bought it all. Wholesale.
YES WE CAN! — that meant Him and the Kochs, Monsanto, the War Machine, Napolitano and her twisted buzz cuts with their hands up my skirts… Goldman, Sachs, Geithner, Summers, Simon – the most vile creatures Washington ever allowed in our houses.
If you are a single male, I just might want to marry you. If you are married, I’d sure like to be your friend. I haven’t seen anyone put into writing what I’ve felt now for at least a decade.
Congrats on every word. Unfortunately, it’s true. So sad and true.
I am always stunned at how many people think I’m a man…. I am a 66 year old grandmother…..
no wonder I can relate… well said.
Yeah, Elizabeth Warren has her uses, but I’m a little worried she’ll get put up on a pedestal like the O-man was. But she’s a woman! Surely a woman president will fix all our problems! I can hear them now…
“Yes we can” was an answer, but what was the question? I imagine it was something like:
“Can we stage a coup from inside the government itself?”
“Yes, we can.”
What bothers me about Elizabeth Warren is her unconditional support of Israel. When I see a person owned by AIPAC, I immediately have serious reservations about her integrity and ethics .
http://maxblumenthal.com/2012/03/progressive-hero-elizabeth-warren-tows-aipacs-pro-war-line/
You do not get anywhere in the food chain of politics without certain groups — and although Israel is losing it’s grip – specifically on the left — I mean WHO can support concentration camps for palestinians? –
That said… Warren’s not clean… and the dirt on her hands is just kosher.
I don’t know how we get a citizen legislator… a man or woman of the people rather than the interests…. it’s not possible… without bloody… and I do mean BLOODY revolt.
Target their weaknesses. It is only American Idol, er, elections that make this band of thugs legitimate. If they want to pretend to be a Democracy™®© (cue trumpets and unicorns) they need extras, and we don’t need to help them to our own detriment.
What, that she’s given funds intended to support HER policy stances to vulnerable conservadems through her “PAC for a Level Playing Field” (lol) wasn’t enough of a tell?
Forget it. Help any part of the Party, help the conservadems they really want to be.
She’s not owned, she’s just prosemitic.
Aren’t we at the point that anyone who runs for Prez as a duopoly candidate isn’t to be trusted just for the reason of the money they have to raise alone? I mean sure they might need to be approved by the NSA, secret government, whatever, but lets save tin foil – just the reason of the money they have to raise alone will guarantee all by itself that they will arrive on our ballot “already sold out”. The money requirements have probably increased so much by this time than even a Ross Perot type couldn’t afford it, even if they could be trusted.
There’s nothing in DC that matters. A real revolution would be one to ignore it.
+1 bullseye
“Even hardline Daily Kos knows”…um, maybe in the past, but not anymore. Dear Leader Lefty-Gate Keeper has turned Partisan Gate-Polisher. DailyKos is now filled with Obamabot Sychophants and Dem Party Partisan Pee-Brains.
Kos is now actively chasing off any that do not walk in lockstep with the Third-Way, DLC Corpratocracy. Go Team Blue, or off with you!
“It’s a poll (16+ / 1-)
so not sure how much nuance you think you can have.
But in any case, the question is about her (HRC) being the nominee. You can
either be enthusiastic about that, non-enthusiastic about that but still supportive,
or a hater. And every comment in this thread expressing a more “nuanced”
explanation fits into the “not crazy about it, but will still support her” category.
Seems to me the anger comes from haters realizing they are pretty fringy.
by kos on Mon May 05, 2014 at 11:08:51 AM PDT”
Poll here: http://www.dailykos.com/story/2014/05/05/1296224/-Hillary-Clinton-presidential-poll
I like this comment: ” Markos has a new book out, “Knocking politely on the front door with hat in hand”. Bwahaha!
Oh, and as far as refusing to support HRC being a hater and the position being fringy, he needs to get out more. That bubble is getting smaller and smaller, gonna pop soon enough. Here is some pushback, with a few facts sprinkled in.
http://www.dailykos.com/story/2014/05/07/1297476/-Obama-Fatigue-Why-Two-thirds-of-Americas-Voters-Want-the-Next-President-to-Move-in-a-Different-Dire
Not a pretty picture for the Dempublicans.
So, Ms. Gilmore, you must tell us what you really think of Obama; and don’t sugarcoat it ;-)
I think most NC commenters share your gag reflex for the hopium peddler. For anyone paying attention to the stark disconnect of rhetoric and policy, his sincere, eloquent treachery evokes a level of revulsion and disgust so visceral that it’s hard to describe in words — but you certainly come close. He is indeed the finance-military complex’s perfect plant: a forked-tongue paleface mass-murdering thief who can somehow pass as an empathetic, intelligent, black progressive — the quintessential wolf in sheep’s clothing. Reagan demonstrated that even a B-movie star rapidly losing his marbles can con credulous Americans with canned platitudes, rank jingoism, and a winsome smile, but as shape-shifting Harvard lawyer with black cred, Obama really steals the show (Machiavelli, eat your heart out!). In more charitable moments, supposing one day there is a karmic reckoning (at The Hague, I hope), I feel deeply sorry for him. Drowning by millstone would be a far better fate than what must surely await him.
At last some of the post-racial Teflon is wearing thin for America’s first black emperor. The Black Agenda Report consistently takes the gloves off, and more of the greater black community finally seems to be losing their adoration. A tipping point may come soon.
http://www.blackagendareport.com/content/jail-bankers-obama-has-been-their-staunchest-defender
“Gilmour”, sorry.
Good to know you understand the difference. Gilmores can only hope to be Gilmours.
Bernie Sanders.
“This president enjoys a lower approval rating than Bush”
And make no mistake, he enjoys the HELL out of it.
Re: Daily Aspirin Not Safe for Everyone.
Neither are heart disease and cancer. As we well know, the FDA bows to the pharmaceutical industry whenever possible, and items like this Web MD snippet are typical.
A raft of studies worldwide is showing that aspirin (an anti-inflammatory) effectively prevents and treat many types of cancers (which are inflammatory diseases). What would this do to the multi-gazillion dollar chemotherapy and cancer treatment industry?
Please consult these links as just a beginning:
http://www.peoplespharmacy.com/2014/04/03/low-dose-aspirin-aids-survival-after-colon-cancer-diagnosis/
http://www.peoplespharmacy.com/2014/02/13/aspirin-offers-protection-against-ovarian-cancer/
http://www.peoplespharmacy.com/2013/08/22/-aspirin-slows-tumor-spread/
http://www.peoplespharmacy.com/2013/07/18/-aspirin-may-ward-off-colon-cancer/
http://www.peoplespharmacy.com/2013/07/15/preventing-sunburn-from-the-inside-out/
http://www.peoplespharmacy.com/2013/06/20/aspirin-for-barretts-esophagus/
http://www.peoplespharmacy.com/2013/04/24/low-dose-aspirin-inhibits-breast-cancer/
Here’s a piece that outlines the kind of scare tactics the drug industry uses to steer us away from simple, off-patent preventative and treatment options for fatal conditions like cancer and heart disease:
http://www.peoplespharmacy.com/2013/01/24/will-your-aspirin-lead-to-blindness/
And here’s a good summary piece:
http://www.peoplespharmacy.com/2013/03/12/aspirin-vs-cancer-what-are-we-waiting-for/
Current hypothesis is that cholesterol is a response to inflammation. Aspirin vs statins….hmmmmm.
Big pharma is one thing; the meat & dairy industry quite another. Pretty much all vascular diseases are caused by meat/dairy/egg consumption (the heady combination of cholesterol, sat fats, and endotoxins); if you stop consuming animal products, you will give your body time to clean up the damage (it’s constantly trying to clean up your arteries, but fails because people constantly consume meat/eggs/dairy; if you stop, it can start making headway); this is why people who are on a fully plant-based diet pretty much never suffer from them.
Wrong.
That dietary saturated fat and cholesterol cause heart disease is not supported by the evidence. We have had decades of public health guidance based on faulty assumptions driven by confirmation bias. A more balanced presentation of the evidence is finally coming to light. Here is a recent article in the WSJ on the topic:
http://online.wsj.com/news/articles/SB10001424052702303678404579533760760481486?mg=reno64-wsj
Oh, lord, another of those articles that assume that the whole of the US has been on a low-fat diet for the past 30 years. What fantasy world does the author live in? Yes, overall carbohydrate (and processed food) intake matters, and you should not eat large amounts of polyunsaturated fats, but so what? Furthermore, the Standard American Diet consists of “high intakes of red meat, sugary desserts, high-fat foods, and refined grains.[1] It also typically contains high-fat dairy products, high-sugar drinks,[2] and higher intakes of processed meat.” Which part of that indicates to you that Americans have been on a low sat fat, low cholesterol diet?
Furthermore, the study the WSJ article bases itself on has nothing to say about the role played by cholesterol (which is exclusively found in animal products), and because there is no real — that is, plant-based-diet-following — control group, they are (by definition) blind to factors that are found in all participants/studies. And it doesn’t even begin to address the third factor i mentioned, that of endotoxins causing arterial inflammation, among other things.
As for the rest, I can guarantee you that a plant-based diet — consisting of fruits/vegetables/legumes/whole grains/nuts — will make your overall health improve tremendously, while following this diet long-term will make the chance you’ll get diabetes, heart disease and associated disorders drop to next to nothing. For a short interview, see this (the speaker is an MD who specializes in nutrition), or this rather longer talk.
What do you think about a balanced diet, with mostly non-GM fruits and vegetables, but small amounts of organic, free ranging beef/pork, and/or moderate amounts of wild caught fish/free ranging poultry, supplemented by exercising and/or quiet contemplation/zazen regularly, and a simpler, less financially stressful (free from having to borrow, for example, or freedom of non-manipulation by the Fed to take more risks via its interest rate policies) life?
To not beat around the bush: a large part of the ecological problem we’re facing is caused by the fact that people have been taught to think that meat/dairy consumption is part of a ‘balanced diet’, and desirable for health reasons. It isn’t, and there is ever more evidence (discussed very accessibly here) that the huge increase in meat/dairy/egg/fish consumption is the primary reason for the increase in first-world diseases… Furthermore, since livestock production is responsible for 18% of the GHG emissions, and the biggest ‘single’ contributor, and since 30% of the world’s land surface is currently being used for fodder production (as opposed to 10% for human food production), it seems to me that it would be wise to stop with this nonsense where we use up the earth in order to be able to eat meat, especially given that that behavior is a very important factor in explaining most of our leading causes of first-world death.
As for the second part of your sentence: I like (and try to live that way). :)
Thanks, Foppe. I will try.
(I don’t like ‘organic’ & ‘wild’ meat/fish because it’s mostly just PR, and because I don’t see why we should hold, kill and eat animals for pleasure without there being any nutritional reason for doing so. Aside from that, organic livestock cannot scale, as the earth literally doesn’t have enough land surface for that to be possible, so most meat must of necessity be held in feed lots if the idea is that everyone should have the ability to consume it. For consistency’s sake, I prefer a world where nobody eats animals products over a world where only the rich (or those who happen to live in the right place) get to do so. Also, I have a MA in philosophy, so I am at no risk of landing a job that forces me to give up my current way of life :p)
Humans, until the onset of agriculture, at a lot of meat, eggs, and grubs. The caves where the first homo sapiens lived in South Africa are filled with shells crushed by their tools. The idea that they were vegetarians is absolutely, completely, utterly false. We are omnivores, pure and simple. Do we eat too much meat? Certainly. Do we need animal protein? Yes, we do (especially children). A healthy vegetarian diet can only exist so long as polluting long distance trucking (and air travel and container ships) exists. Because if you live in large areas of the Earth you can’t locally produce enough of the right kind of foods to live healthily year round.
If you are wealthy and live in the First World and the supply chains don’t collapse due to Peak Oil or global climate change, vegetarianism is a fine, righteous option if you can tolerate the diet. If you think you can live on succotash and nuts without venison, turkeys, and rabbits to supplement your diet, good luck.
How is it at all relevant how people 40000 years ago ate? Of course shells are what we find; plants compost, shells and bones don’t. Secondly: We have modern transportation; let’s use it.
Thirdly: Eating animal protein is far from beneficial; plant protein (found in, among other sources, legumes, pistachios, whole grains) is preferable.
Fourth: we may be “omnivores”, but that says absolutely nothing about what’s healthiest to eat.
Fifth: As for “righteousness”: let’s not kid ourselves. 1 kilo of beef takes 16kg of fodder to “grow”, which we could also eat directly (assuming decent quality control). What do you think is more wasteful, considering that both beef and whole grains/legumes contain proteins? Using up 16kg of grains to gain 1kg of beef, or eating the 16kg grains ourselves?
Except then the anti-grain people chime in, with the same unshakeable surety that you have that grains are bad for you. And what we ate before 5000 years ago when many communities switched to agriculture matters because there is this thing called evolution, and our bodies developed in a certain environment, eating a wide variety of plants, animals, and insects. But no fact would change your opinion because you are a true believer, so I’ll end my disquisition here.
The “Veggie vs. Meat” false dichotomy is about as useful as “left vs. right” debate. Industrial foods are the problem, whether it be monocultured plants or animals raised in cages.
Besides the fact that vegetarianism is not a comprehensive solution to food sovereignty capture or the environmental crises that stems from industrial “food” production, it is not a healthy nutritional approach for many people.
Evidence has revealed that processed foods, industrial grains (refined or otherwise), and sugars/sugar substitutes are far more to do with American health problems than ‘meat’. There is an entire real/whole food, pre-industrial diet movement out there that is reversing chronic inflammation and gut flora imbalances who are including healthy, properly-raised animal fats in their day-to-days. Stop with the one-size-fits-all diet dogma. Your internet searches may be limited to those that fit your confirmation bias.
I must say I find it disappointing that you have decided to start to calling me an ideologue as soon as you realized that you lost that argument. What happened to “veganism is a first world diet”? I thought you cared about sustainability?
Next, please don’t conclude from the fact that doctors (who learn next to nothing about nutrition in med school) know fuck all about nutrition that there is no truth to be found in nutrition research. There is, even if it is largely unknown within the medical profession.
As for “evolution”: again, from a health perspective it is pretty close to irrelevant that we can digest animal products; from the fact that we can digest animal products, it doesn’t follow that doing so is healthy, in any sense of the word. The point is that there are extremely strong links between the (from the perspective of adequate nutrition unnecessary) consumption of animal products and first world diseases. So why not stop doing so? I promise that (so long as you take b12/vit d supplements, which most meat eaters are also deficient in) it won’t harm you to start eating more vegetables/legumes/fruit/nuts/whole grains.. (And notice that the whole grains scare is mostly being pushed by avid meat eaters.)
Lastly, livestock is also the main reason why the developing world is deforesting itself (because of the exploding demand for animal feed). So even if you want to stick your head in the sand wrt the health consequences of eating animal products; at least realize that the ecological argument is just as important, and pretty much irrefutable, if you care about sustainability.
Which is why Arctic hunter gatherers who define themselves by their consumption of little but meat and fat have such fabulous life spans before contact with white agriculture/plant based diets and processed foods.
Bad science plus preconceived notions = pharma trying to put statins in your drinking water.
I would refer you to this comment, which references an article from a few days ago…
No, a large part of the ecological problem we’re facing is because stupid agricultural peoples (nearly everyone on earth these days) destroy ecosystems to grow tons of grain and soybeans and other field crops. Agriculture is the number one ecological problem. There are others of course, like blowing the tops off of mountains to get at coal — see WV, creating toxic wastelands to get at and process tarsands — see Alberta, burning fossil fuels that contain all the toxins that life buried (along with the carbon), and releasing them above and into the land and water — see nearly everywhere. Most carbon is stored in the soil. The way that nature removes toxins is to make them inert by attaching them to long carbon chains and then burying them or by breaking them down into harmless by-products. Both processes are achieved by soil life. The vast majority of agriculture practices destroy soil and in the process releases tons of CO2 into the atmosphere and cripples the life process of making toxins inert. Proper soil-building horticulture and soil-building grazing is GOOD (unfortunately, we don’t do that because we are infected with agriculture disease). Meat/dairy/fruits/veggies and even grains obtained this way are HEALTHY for me and the planet and all the stupid, narrow, reductionist scientific studies in the world would not convince me otherwise. Look at the big picture instead of trying to make sense of a horde of flawed “scientific” studies and you might learn something. Most of the food available is unhealthy precisely because we made it that way to start with. All those studies can be summed up as: If you produce then consume unhealthy food, you will likely be unhealthy too. It seems to me that you are simply looking for evidence to support your beliefs instead of forming your beliefs around observing reality. Humans are omnivores. By saying that is somehow “bad” you are implying that nature is bad. Humans are bad because they have turned away from nature and her wisdom by doing stupid things like digging up and burning stuff she buried for damn good reason and annihilating her life systems to grow crappy food.
I don’t have a problem when vegans/vegetarians keep their foolishness to themselves, but when they start preaching I get quite annoyed and write screeds like this. If they don’t want to eat vile, insanely produced meat and diary, more power to ’em! But what they don’t realize is that most of the vegetable based alternatives available to most people on this planet are vile, insanely produced crap. Most food produced nowadays is not fit for human consumption, whether animal or vegetable. Eating this crap will make you unhealthy.
Want to save the world? Replace the healthy, living, bio-diverse soil and ecosystems that humans have spent the last few thousand years destroying and stop digging stuff out of the ground and burning it to stop the spewing of toxins all over the surface of the planet. Good luck with that.
Did you even read what I wrote? ~30% of the earth’s total usable land surface is being used for animal feed production, as opposed to ~10% for food we eat directly. If you say you care about agriculture destroying the world, it seems to me fairly obvious what you should take away from this: those grains and soybeans aren’t meant for human consumption; they’re meant for pigs, salmon and cows, and whatever other farm animal you can think up.
this is a nice visual that gets at my point; pretty much all of these animals are fed with grain, soy, corn, etc..
You may be convinced that arterial inflammation is caused by endogenous endotoxins, but it is only one theory. Other causes to be considered are alcohol, smoking, sugar, stress, lack of sleep or exercise, food sensitivities, gum disease, gluten, genetics, imbalanced gut bacteria, MSG, toxins (like BPA), white bread and vitamin A deficiency.
Your theory is unproven and untested for confounding variables. It’s very difficult to eliminate the non-diet related lifestyle factors in any dietary study.
Why do you assume that “[my] is unproven and untested for confounding variables.”? I am well aware of the fact that setting up decent studies is hard, but the endotoxemia theory came out of bloodwork analysis, not from epidemiological studies alone. Please watch this if you’re interested; all the academic papers are listed under the sources tab if you want to read the articles cited.
I prefer to get my science from research articles. I’m sure this guy would play well on Oprah, but I don’t need his colorful presentation along with facts. I don’t see the “sources” tab you refer to, just a bunch of videos. Please point me to the studies using “bloodwork analysis” that support the endotoxemia theory.
Please, no more video links to a guy who seems like he’s trying to sell me something. He makes it hard for me to stay unbiased.
It seems to rather a shame that you are so hostile towards this guy, who has nothing to gain (he doesn’t sell books; all donations go to charity) from ‘selling you anything’, and who is doing great work by keeping up with the literature and by presenting it in an understandable (yet not vacuous) fashion. (The link seems to be malformed; here is the correct link.)
Links to the research:
Erridge C, Attina T, Spickett CM, Webb DJ. A high-fat meal induces low-grade endotoxemia: evidence of a novel mechanism of postprandial inflammation. Am J Clin Nutr. 2007 Nov; 86(5):1286-92.;
Kutlu A, Oztürk S, Taşkapan O, Onem Y, Kiralp MZ, Ozçakar L. Meat-induced joint attacks, or meat attacks the joint: rheumatism versus allergy. Nutr Clin Pract. 2010 Feb; 25(1):90-1.;
Deopurkar R, Ghanim H, Friedman J, Abuaysheh S, Sia CL, Mohanty P, Viswanathan P, Chaudhuri A, Dandona P. Differential effects of cream, glucose, and orange juice on inflammation, endotoxin, and the expression of Toll-like receptor-4 and suppressor of cytokine signaling-3. Diabetes Care. 2010 May; 33(5):991-7. .
You nailed it. We’re pumping toxins into the environment, willy-nilly.
Cancer has many causes — not all of them dietary.
Ever wonder what sitting in traffic 2 hours a day has done to the average commuter? Ever consider what’s in air freshener?
As usual, by the time the down side of the chemical revolution is realized, all of those people who profited from it — and their money — will be gone.
Citing a Murdoch paper as the antidote to a complaint about faulty assumptions and confirmation bias. Fascinating.
There are two things people should know about aspirin supplementation. First, aspirin irritates the stomach. When taken chronically the stomach maybecome resistant to aspirin and other irritants, but the best solution is to dissolve the aspirin in water prior to consumption
Second, aspirin interferes with blood coagulation. I get nosebleeds when supplementing aspirin and topherols, which depletes vitamin K. When taking aspirin it is important to supplement vitamin K, since it helps blood coagulation.
The stomach bleeding issue is exaggerated. Something like 1% of population has stomach bleeding regardless; that rises by another 1% if you take aspirin.
But I agree with the bleeding risk. That’s why aspirin helps prevent strokes. I was taking aspirin, and had to have a minor incision (no big deal). It should have required only a bad-aid but the doctor had to use a stitch and a compression band-aid because the bleeding wouldn’t stop. So there is a tradeoff that most people don’t acknowledge.
Aspirin is another Big Pharma silver bullet….. “The Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA) has reported that a daily aspirin increases the chance of hemorrhagic stroke by 84%. The aspirin either causes or irritates a blood vessel which then ruptures. Since aspirin is a known blood thinner, it should not be considered good for cardiovascular health. The blood and vessels constitute a delicate system which is vital for life and which should not be adulterated unless there is a specific reason for doing so, a determination best left to a wellness practitioner.” http://guardianlv.com/2014/04/aspirin-may-cause-more-harm-than-help/
Hemorrhagic strokes are relatively uncommon, something like 16% of total strokes. They are the reason, BTW, that most people suffer sustained damage from strokes. If you are having a stroke, odds greatly favor that it’s the clot kind. If so, the most important thing the hospital can do is get a blood thinner into you immediately (I think it’s called tpA). But hospitals won’t do that unless they have a brain scan to verify that the stroke is indeed caused by a clot. Guess what, most don’t have the imaging equipment. And if you don’t get the clot busted in 4 hours max, the damage is permanent.
My mother had a stroke, knew it was a stroke, and took aspirin immediately. That is almost certainly the reason she is one of the 2-3% of the population to recover almost fully from a stroke,
Similarly, the NYT had a story of a neurologist who had a major stroke while driving. She could barely get the car off the road and call 911. When she got to the hospital, she croaked that she wanted tpA, insisted they administer it immediately with no scan. She said she was willing to run the odds of it killing her, she didn’t want to live as impaired as she would be if she weren’t treated.
I’ve read that curcumin, a compound in the spice turmeric, may have beneficial anti-inflammatory effects. Of course this is controversial, and I don’t know what the truth is. Here’s a website that provides some positive information about the health benefits of turmeric:
http://www.turmericinfo.com/index.html
Alzheimer’s disease, some cancers, and arthritis may be inhibited by curcumin/turmeric. Or maybe not. The web site does not appear to have been updated recently.
I don’t particularly like the taste of turmeric, although it can be okay in various types of mixtures, such as some curries and yellow mustard.
<a href=Turmeric should be combined with some black pepper, as this boosts uptake by 2000%. That said, please have a look at this video in case you’re interested in RA (transcript available on the website) and/or this one on Alzheimer’s, as there are more useful dietary interventions than adding turmeric to your meals. :)
Whoops. working link for the video concerning rheumatoid arthritis.
“I’ve read that curcumin, a compound in the spice turmeric, may have beneficial anti-inflammatory effects.”
A critical word here is “may.” There is broad-based scientific evidence about the efficacy of aspirin in preventing a treating a whole range of cancers. But the pharma industry don’t want you to know.
The mother of a friend of mine, a top medical research scientist in India who trained a whole generation of researchers, developed considerable evidence that turmeric was a cancer preventative. But she needed to isolate what it was about turmeric that led to those outcomes. The FDA is not going to approve a common spice for medical use; they need to understand the mechanism, and that typically means identifying a particular compound.
She couldn’t get any funding. No one was willing to risk that the active agent was something that couldn’t be patented.
The big issue with turmeric is that it isn’t absorbed easily.
They have isolated what they think the bioactive compound is – it’s called Curcumin. Absorption sucks, but they noted from the typical Indian diet turmeric is consumed with black pepper and that is why the bioactives are absorbed a bit better. So supplements are made with curcumin extract and a mix of “perperine”, which is a black pepper extract.
As with most “herbal discoveries”, curcumin is lacking in official western world scientific studies. So it takes faith to shell out the bucks for or it.
I have tried to find what is known before shelling my bucks and examine.com is the best place for compiling so called western studies I’ve found so far.
Of course we are are dealing with the fact that western research is looking for the keys under the street tamp that is lit already.
Once you find out you have cancer, you might be surprised how quickly you’ll shell out bucks for stuff like curcumin, boswellia, etc.
I have and do. That is, bladder cancer & shell out bucks.
Curcurmin is not specific enough for the FDA. There are several versions of curcurmin.
This paper seems to provide a step in that direction.
You can always take it in pill form.
On getting lifetime access to your law school casebook on a DRM platform:
“James Grimmelmann, a law professor at the University of Maryland, says of this sweetener: “Aspen promises ‘lifetime access’ to the electronic versions, but we know from sad experience that gerbils have better life expectancy than DRM platforms.””
I get the same sensation these days when every phone call and every internet transaction with coroporate and government entities forces one to spend ten minutes populating their database and listening to minute after minute of useless options on their phone tree. I get that software developers need to make money, but not every “digital” thing makes life better.
I recently had a bout of automated phone representatives. Waste of time. When finally forwarded to a customer care representative, that person would have absolutely NONE of the data you just spent 15 minutes providing. I finally learned to repeat 4 times “I want to speak to a representative” and got through.
Whoever invented automated customer care works for the devil.
In my novel about the Second American Revolution, Public Enemies, one of the plot points is when the vigilante leading the movement whacks the inventor of the automated response software. When writing the book I thought some reviewers might think this too extreme to be plausible. Not a word of criticism, indeed not even a mention of it. Not. A. Word.
BTW, if you want to check out the book on Amazon:
http://tinyurl.com/nyzbb8w
The way things are going ‘customer’ will soon be widely acknowledged as a degrading word to the point where ad people will warn against using it. Customers get to wait in endless lines. Customers get ripped off. Customers are told they are getting a great value in a $200 digital textbook that will be inaccessible in two years and has zero resale value.
How do we impose personal costs on people who write such egregious PR? How as a society do we impose penalties for excessive hustling?
Customers=Buttstomers
Convergence of two tendencies – capitalism makes us all consumers and simultaneously takes any joy out of consumption. While of course farming use for our data as well as our dollars then using both against us.
Paul Craig Roberts has been writing about U.S. society and government for some time and he is now in full-scale Gonzo Jeremiahad. He has written in detail about all the issues he brings up in the article cited on this link-page but he’s tired of repeating the same thing over and over again. I agree with most of what he says–disagree only in his tone and the fact I see more nuance than he does and I just can’t get pissed off the way he seems to be these days. I actually met him once–he was one of the people that changed my mind about the Reagan administration–I met him when he was Asst. Sec. Treasury and a few others that seemed to be more open minded than many of the Democrats I had met–the Reaganites also partied hardier but that’s another story.
Why aren’t I as pissed off? Because I’m more cynical than Roberts. I never swallowed the baloney about a “free country” and all that American Exceptionalist crap. The USA is not so different than what Henry Miller described in his book on his cross-country travels An Air-Conditioned Nightmare or much different from what Mark Twain described particularly in his latter years. Hunter S. Thompson always provided charming insights and so on. But I will admit that after 9/11 we have descended into much deeper hells where we (and not just the government–Roberts has some quite cutting things to say about the people in other essays) than even I had thought possible.
I’m also more optimistic than Roberts. I believe large numbers of people know the gov’t is f*cked and more are beginning to understand that we live in an oligarchy where voting is kind of pointless. Maybe the left will even wake up and stop thinking that laughing at the illiterates on the right (as Comedy Central does night after night after night after night after night while giving Obama a free ride) is enough–I find this tendency disgusting, cheap and Stewart and Colbert can GTH (at least Colbert is a great comedian). The fact people are getting the idea they’ve been bamboozled by the mainstream media for decades is sinking in. Will people react with more than a shrug? Who knows? The issues will be sharper–we can choose the path of public morality or private gain–one or the other–if people are willing to give up the latter for the former to a degree–then we’ll be ok.
Banger,
I’ve been reading Robert’s for quite some time, although find it strange that he worked for Reagan, who with Thatcher et. al. laid the foundations for the global shit we are in, and mark my words its global. I’m still optimistic the “real” left can offer an alternative, but presently I see little in the way of organisation. And here, we posters are part of the problem, and not the solution, based on the fact we should be out organising protests and riots, rather than behaving like keyboard warriors – my excuse is simple, I’m stuck in a country which is not mine and this is at the behest of my corrupt Westminster US-arse-wipes, who, unlike their neoliberal US peers are averse to the wrong sort of immigration, unless you happen to have the odd US$100,000 to flash and play with.
The “real” left?
Do you have an address for that? A phone number, maybe? Because I lost track of them back around 1970, and I’ve not been able to find them since.
@Benedict@Large,
It depends which country you are posting from, here in the UK, by way of Hong Kong I’m afraid, we still had a real “left” alternative up to the 1983 General Election, at the time Michael Foot – a honourable man – was the leader of the Labour Party and he faced off against Thatcher, who regrettably had a Falkland’s bounce about her. Labour’s manifesto at the time for the country has been called the:”Longest suicide note ever written”. However, for those of us who bother to look back and read it, its now really inspired, it was anti-Europe, anti-USA, anti-corporate, pro-union, pro-cooperatives and much, much more, it was indeed, at least in terms of the UK, our best last hope to avoid the shit we are all in today. Indeed, its fair to say in the UK we still had a left up until the late 1980’s, this despite Labour’s lurch to the right and still had an opportunity even in 1994, regrettably, by then Blair had charmed his way to the top of the Labour Party and then dismantled what remained of it before the 1997 election – I’ve not given up hope, will vote Green and dream of a Red/Green realignment once people wake up. Perhaps Banger is right, we should pull our fingers out of our collective arse and teach the younger folk – which I actually get to do, if only its my young daughter and her friends, all of whom are taught to care and share, that greed is evil and that Jesus was a Socialist, a necessary tale because they all attend a Catholic School.
When asked what she thought her greatest accomplishment was, Thatcher once answered “New Labour”. People thought she was kidding.
I don’t agree with you on what we ought to be doing. I’ve helped organize demonstrations and vowed that I was through with that. Why? Outside of laziness, yes, I am lazy, often unfocused and so on–but mainly it is the fact that unless demonstrations represent powerful and cohesive groups rather than ad hoc gatherings that come together and then disperse demonstrations are not effective in my experience. Occupy, for example, for all its sturm und drang did not result in a single conviction of a major Wall Street criminal nor did it win the hearts of Americans nor did it do much of anything to revive the moribund left–yes, people will answer Occupy still lives in various forms but in what numbers? Insignificant–and I know what I’m talking about. Without vibrant tight communities as displayed by the various social movements (Civil Rights, Labor) real results are simply impossible. The oligarchs are well-organized and armed to the teeth with every sort of soft and hard weapon–to match them we have to be almost as well-organized and in great numbers–otherwise you are wasting your time. I stopped really being involved after the utter and abject failure of the anti-Iraq War movement.
We need to establish communities first and that is what I’m trying to do and have been trying to do in a culture whose chief attribute in narcissism. Here I give you one of my favorite Hubert Selby, Jr. quotes:
My point is that as long as people are culturally prejudiced toward self-interest as the primary motivation for life we cannot hope to achieve a decent and convivial society. It is towards that end that I’m working–our negative politics is a result of what most other cultures that have existed in the world would consider profoundly immoral–selfishness. I would go further to say that this selfishness is not just morally evil from a spiritual point of view but goes counter to what we know scientifically about the human brain and being. We start there or we go nowhere.
I had the pleasure of hearing a terrific speaker at the Eris Society Meeting in Aspen [radical libertarian think tank].
He was the head of http://jpfo.org/ Jews for the Preservation of Firearms.
An unlikely hero for someone like me… but his predictions from 1997 are coming true. He predicted that both sides of the electorate would come to see they’ve been played for suckers. Think tanks would identify which dog whistles would keep each side voting for their ‘perceived’ interests – and cultural wedges would make us all vote DEMON – ignoring our economic interests in favor of protecting us from the evils of the ‘other side’.
But the most interesting thing he said was how it would end violently… and it WOULD end violently.
It wouldn’t be keyboard militias and occupy yuppies that brought the system down… it would be the disenfranchised middle class – gone viral – much like the French countryside without bread – teeming up with the peasantry to go house to house in Paris and Nantes — taking heads and tossing hundreds into the Loire.
When the middle class feels the pinch…. when the educated middle has NOTHING LEFT TO LOSE — they will join the felons, miscreants – the permanent underclass – against the establishment.
Who would think 10 years ago that Police Departments and prisons would be under investigation for abuse??? AND both Dems and Republicans believe the cops are corrupt. Go over to Free Republic.com .. and see what the hard core right has to say about Wall St…. police tasering… drug laws… even WAR — they look and sound like The Nation.
It’s begun. Those of us who still have something to lose will sit home — and watch – but will support with our keyboards – as those with nothing left to lose begin the war on the Machine.
IT is coming.
Banger, I always enjoy reading your comments and generally feel very much the same regarding your views. I’ll differ on you with OWS. I think that it was a very important historical moment, and one that more than anything else put the oligargy with their weapons out in plain view. It showed everyone how they truly felt and reacted to the general population. I don’t see that there would be such a common realization (relatively speaking) growing regarding those things that PCR writes about with OWS. OWS will not be soon forgotten, especially by the young, and I think that it will significantly affect thinking, if not on the conscious, then on the subconscious level, which cannot be underestimated.
Regarding communities, I think that these are formed by necessity in hard times. It is hard to have communities in times of material prosperity. I think that the only communities in late stages of a culture experiencing extended material prosperity are the communities of the money grubbing psychopaths who conspire to get always more for themselves. The rest of us remain fat and happy on bread and circuses. (This order seems to be encoded into our human DNA – Perhaps it’s required for the change of human seasons).
For everyone hoping that there will be a time when people will be more interested in community building than self-absorption, keep your heads up. If hard times lead to community building, I’m fairly certain that prime time for community building is right around the corner. It’s gonna be a rough time, but it is what it is. The oligarchs and their dogs will make sure of that, but they will fail finally – just look at that article from yesterday’s links showing how some of the oligarchs cannot even show their face in public, having to cancel appearances/speaches…. Karma baby.
Certainly OWS did influence a lot of people who were directly involved but they’re facing the reality of having to live, to work, to make it in this society that is, at the end of the day, profoundly hostile to the ideals of OWS.
OWS may be remembered as the movement that occupied the wrong geographical location. Of course it was symbolic and theatrical, but the business of Wall Street migrated to New Jersey long before OWS flowered.
ONJ … OJerseyCity … Osecaucus…. Not quite the same punch as OWS.
I disagree. There were OWS locations all over the states. The end was the same for all of them – police crackdown without even a bone thrown in the direction of the primary concerns/complaints, which were the facts of criminal activity and complete lack of justice committed by the “1%” and from which the “99%” burdened under.
I don’t think that the establishment of a lasting utopia at any particular location was a prime goal. I think the goal 1st and formost was to get justice, but 2nd surely must have been to put it out in the public to raise awareness. They definitely succeeded at that.
It can’t be called a failure just because Wall Street and all that it represents seemed to remain unchanged. I say that it is significantly changed because WS is no longer a god in the eyes of the public. They used to have a stranglehold on public opinion in general, but that is not the case anymore. The effects of this will play out in the future. If they cannot control by propaganda, they must resort to force. They are ultimately not strong enough to sustain that, and it will be their undoing.
‘I’ve been reading Roberts for quite some time, although find it strange that he worked for Reagan.’
Likely Roberts was attracted to the small-gov, tax-cutting part of Reagan’s message. Unfortunately, it didn’t turn out that way (Republican promises never do).
There were the military interventions in Central America and the ‘Star Wars’ militarisation of eastern Europe. (‘War is the health of the State.’)
Probably even more significant were the federal sentencing ‘reforms’ under Reagan, which obliged judges to impose harsh sentences within a narrow, nondiscretionary range. Coupled with the standard ‘piling on’ of charges (Reagan’s new drug war offence of ‘money laundering’ having become a de rigueur favourite), federal prosecutors were handed the keys to the penal system.
The result is today’s Soviet-style Gulag, where arrest is tantamount to conviction with 95% conviction rates; trials are unnecessary since defendants uniformly plead guilty to avoid even harsher sentences; and the Gulags bulge as the world’s largest.
Roberts doubtless meant well. But the malevolent Depublicrat party will pervert the best of intentions.
Democratic promises DO come true? Come on … partisan panties are showing.
The GOOP has lost its way.. no longer the party of Main St- or Teddy Roosevelt –. but the DEMS?.
The Democrats are owned and operated by the same cabals… but with affirmative action… they make you feel better about taking it in the shorts by Multi national corporations….
It’s too late in the game for partisan nonsense… Obama took the Peace Prize and ENLARGED the war>>>>>> is he a Republican?
sorry… my outrage at the first sentence got the best of me…
Depublicrat says it all…. but you got the first dig into the GOP — I hate the Dems more… because I KNEW BUSH WAS A PIG… I KNEW CHENEY WAS A LOW LIFE.
Obama was a Trojan Horse for the same filth
Yeah, I was duped and voted for Obama the first time. I read and listened to quite a lot of what he had to say so wasn’t mislead into expecting (or hoping) he was any sort of liberal but I was not expecting THIS horrible administration. I totally relate to your anger.
The party got exactly the administration THEY wanted.
Lovely, isn’t it, how voters think that they’re anything more than groupies in the game as it is played.
Roberts has repeatedly clarified that “supply side economics” in Reagan’s first term did not simply mean “tax cuts for the rich.”
http://www.paulcraigroberts.org/2000/10/07/what-really-happened-in-1981/
I’ve never quite understood what P.C. Roberts means by supply side economics. Perhaps I just haven’t read the correct articles of his. From the link that you provide:
The seems like post hoc ergo propter hoc reasoning to me. The first economic expansion could just as easily be attributed to improvements in energy efficiency that manufacturers were forced to make after the oil embargoes and energy shortages of the 1970s. I’m not sure of the time periods — if the second expansion to which he refers included the 8 years following year 2000, then the second economic expansion was pure bubble, of course.
I think the people in the Reagan administration would have been delighted if they could have done what the second Bush administration did, but they couldn’t, because there was still too much resistance. The Reagan administration set the groundwork for the oppressiveness of the Patriot Acts and the rollbacks on rich people’s taxes in the Bush II administration.
I disagree with your last paragraph. Most of the key people in the Reagan Administration resisted the “Team B” types who would later be known as “neoconservatives” and who would come to dominate W. Bush’s administration. Reagan regarded the Team B types as a bunch of kooks who were looking to make war. Reagan repeatedly told them he wanted to “end” the Cold War, not “win” it. Reagan would never simply refuse to negotiate; rather, he took a more pragmatic attitude, and the world is better off for it.
It is a mystery why Bush II choose Cheney and Rumsfeld for his inner circle, when his Dad held them in such low esteem. Rumsfeld has written about the tension he felt from the “patrician” demeanor of Bush I.
Overall, Bush II’s economic policies more closely resemble LBJ’s economic policies than those of any other President. LBJ enacted Kennedy’s tax cuts shortly after taking office. (Admittedly, these tax cuts were focused more on the middle class than Bush’s tax cuts for the rich.) LBJ also launched a costly war he refused to pay for – he boasted he could have both “guns and butter”. Bush II also passed a very expansive Medicare Part D entitlement program, and no two Presidents approved more education spending. LBJ also gave undue deference to Israel’s lobbyists, especially by refusing to insist that Israel move back within its pre-1967 borders – a decision which haunts the US to this day. Similarly, Bush II’s foreign policy was far too deferential to the Likud Party, as evidenced by the creation of the Office of Special Plans, and all of the questionable intelligence that resulted from it.
The Reagan administration was a mixed bag, not unlike this administration with strong factions some of them very ideological including the neocons plotting on the sidelines. Reagan, like most Presidents, was not in control of his administration. We have to understand that Washington is controlled mainly by a permanent government a “Deep State” that is designed to be largely invisible. It is not necessarily more or less noxious than particular Presidents.
The Deep State knew it was only a matter of time before the USSR dissolved–some reports were leaked that indicated as much somewhere around 80 or 81. I do agree with you that Reagan himself wanted a relatively peaceful resolution despite his “Evil Empire” rhetoric. We have to remember, also, that the Cold War was, mostly a fraud to keep both the USSR and US national security states in business–I have a feeling Reagan found that out after he became President.
@FederalismForever:
Bush II certainly did not have a patrician demeanor that might have annoyed Rumsfeld. Anyhow, Dick Cheney was a member of the first Bush’s cabinet as the Secretary of Defense:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dick_cheney#Secretary_of_Defense
One of the prominent neo-conservatives in the Reagan administration was Jeanne Kirkpatrick, Reagan’s ambassador to the U.N. Another neo-conservative, Paul Wolfowitz, was in the Reagan, Bush I, and Bush II administrations.
The deregulation so beloved by George W. Bush was a major feature of the Reagan administration. Tax cuts for the wealthy were central to both administrations. Reagan seems more reasonable than Bush II because the Democratic controlled House of Representatives partially restrained him. There was no such restraint on Bush II during the first 6 years of his presidency.
I still maintain that the Reagan Administration was far more competent and pragmatic than the Bush Administration. Comparing Jeanne Kirkpatrick with Paul Wolfowitz helps illustrate this. In 1979, Kirkpatrick wrote a famous article in Commentary called “Dictatorships and Double Standards” which effectively argued against the Wolfowitz hard-core neocon view that stable and democratic regimes can be created by force. The Kirkpatrick who wrote this article would never have supported the Iraq War. To be sure, Kirkpatrick’s “realist” perspective led her to support some pretty ugly regimes in Latin America, but she felt that encouraging revolution would only lead to a greater level of chaos and anarchy. Given what has transpired in Libya and Egypt in recent years, I frankly wish Obama would take Kirkpatrick’s 1979 article to heart.
The first sentence of your last paragraph consists of standard left-wing boilerplate re Reagan and W. The truth is deregulation began under Carter, and really hit its stride under Clinton (for banks and financial institutions, at least). To his credit, George W. Bush repeatedly stated that Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac should be subject to stronger regulations, only to be repeatedly re-buffed or ignored by Barney Frank. The last time the U.S. Tax Code made any sense was in 1986, after the Reagan Administration supervised a top-to-bottom overhaul. The 1986 reforms lowered the top income tax rate, but RAISED the capital gains rate so that there was no rate differential – both were taxed at 28% (one of the only times that capital gains were taxed at the same rate). The 1986 reforms also eliminated many tax shelters that had previously been used, particularly involving leveraged real estate and foreign investment companies.
I would substitute “less evil” for “more competent and pragmatic” in your first sentence:
I have no idea what Jeanne Kirkpatrick would have supported in 2003. It may be significant that her 1979 article was written before she was appointed to a high office in the Reagan administration. Power sometimes changes people.
Of course you are correct that deregulation didn’t only occur in the Reagan and Bush II administrations. But they were the ones who were proud to be deregulators. Clinton deregulated because it was the only way that he could get significant campaign donations from the oligarchs and corporate elite. I don’t think he cared one way or the other — he was just doing what his customers wanted.
We’re in the realm of speculation about people’s motives, and that can get hazy very quickly!
Bush prosecuted Enron executives. And remember when John Ashbrook refused to sign a surveillance order he thought was unconstitutional on his hospital bed? Good times.
Since Nixon depegged the USD from gold, ALL economic expansion has been borrowed (and we have the debt to prove it). That was the Reagan “miracle.” Too bad Carter didn’t see the opening and/or lack the scruples to exploit it.
@gordon,
You beat me to the punch, was going to say that: “Paul Craig Robert’s seems to detest the present trajectory the USA is on.” Its also strange that a former DC insider is willing to tell it how it is, even to the point of illustrating that Russia under Putin has “Rule of Law”, where the USA has “Role of the Oligarchs.
People used to laugh at me in University 25 years ago when I used to warn about oligarchy – I saw it everywhere, and that was in the UK. Suffice to say, 25 years down the line those who thought me a fool now accept I was right after all – so, next stop, time to become an honest economist, well, that’s if I can find a University that actually teaches economics anymore, rather than neoliberal inspired rubbish.
One way to find the job you want is to help create it–we need a teaching collective–it could be online where I believe the future of learning lies since those of us who believe, more or less, as we do mainly seem to have no outlet other than online. This is actually a business I considered getting into three or four years ago–but I couldn’t get enough partners who were willing to dedicate time and money to it. I believe the academic world has been in serious decline for some time (if we consider pursuing knowledge and teaching as important). We need a lot of new approaches that aren’t strictly tied into the increasing conformity that I see all around us.
“School” is a strange construct. If you read John Taylor Gatto’s “The Underground History of American Education” you would learn of the heavy influence of the German “school” as a place to learn discipline, order, how to take orders, and good behavior. It was a place to curb having a “mind of one’s own”. Ancient Greece had no word for “school”.
To school is different than to educate. So with all of my degrees, I now look back at where I learned the most and it was always from an interesting adult that took the time to show me how to do things. My father was an educator, but he spent a good deal of time teaching me how to build things or how much to feed a horse or a steer since he made sure that the school for the handicapped that he founded had animals on it. That way the children learned how to care for other creatures. In the dormitory, the older kids helped the younger ones. He taught them how to build a jeep out of plywood and a small motor. They learned to drive a tractor and bale hay. All the while he told them tales of growing up in Dearborn or going off to war. He was a great story teller. (These were in the days when children who were blind or deaf or had physical or mental challenges were kept at home and had no place to go with other children).
Education is a journey not a “race to the top”.
With advanced degrees in Theatre and Film, I no longer recommend going to a university to learn about film or stage craft. I believe in the old ways of apprenticeships and being part of a guild. Learn to operate a camera from a camera man. You can learn to act by doing it like Jennifer Lawrence and Christian Bale. Although for some, going to college and doing plays or making movies is an OK route if you spend time reading a lot and drinking pitchers of beer while trying to save the world through art. It’s about comaraderie more than schooling.
It’s more or less impossible to teach radical anything in universities these days. This is down to the sausage factory, bums through seats mentality as much as anything – and very sadly, poor quality students from schools. Education long ceased to be an aim in itself and has been replaced by the ludicrous demand for immediately transferable job skills. What’s going on is child-minding and accreditation.
There are some complex steps we could take. These require a hard look at reality, something discouraged throughout education and society generally. I’ve considered going private with radical education too. In my last full time years as a university lecturer I taught 6 classes a week and supervised 20 dissertations or postgrad theses (largely as unpaid overtime). This equated to me teaching 60 FTEs paying £9K a year in fees = £540K in fee income. My salary and on-costs in this equation would be £65K. This means each student pays roughly £1000 for all the lecturing on a standard degree (though this assumes all lecturers working at teaching maximum as I was). There are massive questions on what happens to the other £8K – and what education we could provide. There are huge questions why we cannot provide much better HE and it isn’t money in the way.
Huge amounts of the professional system has this kind of bloat and worse in it. I’m not asking for cost-cutting though. We should be in radical review on our entire society. Workers have already suffered this in order to pile money to the rich. We should be able to present the new radical society. What we need is to reconstruct from the deconstruction and debunking.
“It’s more or less impossible to teach radical anything in universities these days.” Are you being serious? Or is your remark limited to business/marketing/legal/political science departments? If we look instead at the humanities/social science/lit crit departments at most universities these days, your statement is simply laughable.
How do you know that? I taught at universities for 19 years–almost nobody there was a “radical” or taught particularly radical ideas. Perhaps you could call certain postmodern philosophical and methodological ideas “radical”, but they are actually a form of modern Quietism for they are a dead end when it comes to action in the “real world” (which many of these types don’t think we can know, or even exists).
Anyone around here have a chart of relative “weights” of true liberal arts course participation rates versus business sciences participation rates? The fellow from Lake Woebegone has made making fun of English Grads a part of his successful comedy routine. Add to this the explosion of Community Colleges, which would have been called Vocational Technical schools a generation ago, and you get where I’m going with this. (As an example, the biggest revolutionary movement to have any serious traction that came out of Academe within memory was the Chicago School of Economics. Ask the poor and disenfranchised of South America, soon to be North America too, about how well that has worked out for society as a whole.) I’m being somewhat unfair. I’m basing all this on results, not talk.
See the wonderful scene between Sidney Greenstreet and Humphrey Bogart in “Maltese Falcon” where Sam Spade first meets Caspar Gutman for an idea of what I’m getting at.
Here’s what P.C. Roberts said:
I would love to see some evidence to support his claim about Russia and the rule of law. A person’s impression is not evidence. Of course I agree with him about the U.S. oligarchs and their immunity from many laws.
re: Ukraine
This is one the best things I’ve read on Ukraine, author is veteran journalist:
—Samantha Power, the most tendentious hypocrite in the Obama administration (and the competition is keen), defends these murderers thusly: “Their response is reasonable, it is proportional, and frankly it is what any one of our countries would have done in the face of this threat,” Power said in the Security Council at the weekend.—
http://www.salon.com/2014/05/07/samantha_powers_brazen_hypocrisy_media_swallows_propaganda_but_heres_the_truth_about_ukraine/
Yowza! I like what Dmitry Orlov wrote about her last week:
” She (Power) once called Clinton a “monster,” but later apologized, perhaps realizing that she herself is a monster. She certainly behaves like one. One one recent occasion she accosted Russia’s UN Ambassador, spraying him with saliva while screeching like a woman possessed. One of the funnier things she spewed forth: she is insulted by Russia’s nuclear deterrent. (What else might she find insulting? The tilt of the Earth’s axis, maybe?) She had to be taken by the elbow and escorted to her seat.”
She’s coming apart at the seams, it seems.
So she screeches and sprays rather than gently nudges?
The Salon item is excellent.
Power and her husband, Cass Sunstein, certainly are in the running for most malevolent couple in government.
Powers corrupts and blowing Sunstein up our @sses, they make such a cute couple …
Have we had a thread on Hannah Arendt recently? We don’t have those anymore since “from mexico” disappeared? Well anyways just tangentally, I get to have an introduction from this horrible Powers person in Totalitarianism. What did I do to deserve that I ask? Actually it’s of course a decently written introduction and summation – by a horrible person.
Patrick L. Smith is one of the top journos writing at this time–one hopes he gets a wider audience. The NYT article he cites is as significant as he says–Power and her slimy neocon friends are, as I’ve said, on the outs at the moment and the NYT is usually the first place we see the results of Washington power-struggles.
You things are off the rails when Kissinger comes off as a voice of reason.
–know–
While Samantha Power, and Hillary Clinton for that matter, are busy with their “girls can be as tough as boys” routines, the real reasons for this Ukraine “crisis” may be flying under the radar.
“While much of the world was distracted by the supposed clash over Ukraine between Russian strongman Vladimir Putin and Western politicians, the International Monetary Fund announced a bailout of the new Ukrainian regime denominated in the IMF’s increasingly influential proto-global currency known as Special Drawing Rights, or SDRs. Analysts are warning that the developments could have profound implications for the global monetary system and the economy — and especially for the United States, which is stealthily being set up for economic calamity as the U.S. dollar continues on the road to losing its prized status as the world reserve currency.”
http://www.thenewamerican.com/economy/item/18207-imf-bailout-for-ukraine-and-a-new-world-currency
ZH notes the situation too with a guest post titled: “False East/West Paradigm Hides the Rise of Global Currency.”
What a rare piece of journalism referring to this rare “moment of clarity”.
Here my contibution of a stargazer, which likewise reveals a moment of clarity:
http://astromundanediary.blogspot.de/2014/05/washington-in-fever.html
“World Under Water may work on this browser if you enable WebGL. Download Chrome for a better experience.”
What an absolutely marvelous idea to insure a website doesn’t get any traffic.
Bloomberg takes a victory lap for Great Moderation 2.0 (in case you missed it):
Barely five years after the worst financial turmoil and recession since the Great Depression, the U.S. and fellow advanced nations are showing a stability in output groaf and hiring last witnessed in the two decades prior to the crisis, in an era dubbed the “Great Moderation.” The lull points to a worldwide economic expansion that will endure longer than most.
Volatility in growth among the main industrial countries is the lowest since 2007, and half that of the 20 years starting in 1987. “That’s why I call it the Great Moderation 2.0,” said John Normand at JPMorgan Chase & Co. in London.
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2014-05-07/world-economy-stabilizes-in-great-moderation-2-0.html
————
Don’t miss the volatility chart embedded in the Bloomberg article. Unfortunately, the journos’ interpretation is all wrong. Volatility is one of the few non-mean reverting series in finance. Today’s low volatility doesn’t imply even lower volatility next year, but rather the opposite: a bone-jarring pop in the background noise level.
When the financial MSM says to take off our seatbelts and move about the cabin, I reach into the carry-on for my motorcycle helmet: clear-air turbulence dead ahead!
And you will find the 0.01% have bought out all the helmets. There is nothing there.
The 0.01% will be very happy to rent you a helmet. So don’t worry because markets.
Rent or borrow, whichever is more convenient for us serfs.
But what if the helmet develops a leak?
You will be given a full refund! Just send the handy coupon to the front office with your full name and address.
RE: USA Freedom Act clears committee
The conflict between self-interest and the general interest is never going to have an easy resolution. The Freedom Act was always a compromise between what privacy advocates wanted and retaining the NSA’s SIGINT programs in some operational capacity.
One of the more encouraging aspects that has emerged from this struggle is Congress’s dominant role as a constitutional counterweight to previous proposals that have emerged from the Executive branch. Congress has typically served as a passive observer in the policy workings of the US government since the early 90s.
Another positive development is that the NSA appears to be taking data retention concerns seriously. In their April review to the Privacy and Civil Liberties Oversight Board they reported that they are holding internet data for no more than two years which seems like an arbitrary period of time. Although they want to retain their phone data for much longer.
As for why this compromise is an issue now, the Democrats don’t want the NSA to come out against them during the election. For whatever reason the American people don’t trust the Democrats concerning national security issues. It’s also possible that the intelligence community has embarrassing material to expose to public scrutiny. This largely leaves civil libertarian minded Republicans to decide whether this compromise is acceptable.
You never cease to amaze…and disgust.
Only a troll or one with a an IQ equal to that of a three watt flicker bulb would call the most egregious liars a “positive note” when they “appear to be taking something seriously”…
You really expect anyone to take you seriously?
Aww, a person spewing impotent rage at a stranger on the internet.
Would you like a hug?
Let me see if I understand this: THEY ACTUALLY NAMED A BILL “THE U.S. FREEDOM ACT”??
no sh*t. The absurdity is actually funny. Unabashed double speak – a satire on this period of history couldn’t improve on that.
Maybe they don’t have a high opinion of the electorate.
“How could you possibly oppose the FREEDOM ACT?!”
Re Bernhard’s Ukraine piece, it’s fun to watch real statesmen for a change. Sad to say, Putin’s approach is exactly what we need to contain our US government shitheads,
http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2014-05-08/russia-launches-two-icbms-rebuffs-simulated-massive-nuclear-strike-part-military-dri
threats of nuclear annihilation, the only thing the USG understands, coupled with sophisticated diplomacy for the grownup countries. The OSCE initiative is the perfect way to avoid a replay of NATO’s Yugoslavia aggression. The OSCE acquis is explicitly integrated with human rights law, and the Vienna and Moscow mechanisms offer much-needed capacity building for the state or states that may emerge. OSCE has got pacific means of handling both the violence and the weakness of the de facto Ukraine state.
Pretty important, and relevant to anyone who is using fish oil/eating fatty fish because of the advertised health benefits: New Study Explodes the ‘Eskimo Myth’
Consider also:
The thing about that “eskimo myth” is that eskimos really do/did eat primarily animal fats and proteins and yet have very little incidence of cardiovascular disease. That is no myth!
Fish oil supplementation was never supported by robust long term research but there was some promising short term studies and everyone is always looking for a magic bullet! It was thought that the anti-inflammatory action of the Omega-3 polyunsaturated fatty acids (PUFAs) was the magic bullet. Unfortunately PUFAs are really unstable, prone to oxidation, and when oxidized contribute to general systemic inflammation and heart disease. The processing techniques used to isolate fish oil (heat and pressure) also contribute to the oxidation.
A diet high in Omega-6 (generally pro-inflammatory) PUFAs should not be balanced out with an Omega-3 (generally anti-inflammatory) PUFA supplement, you should really just drastically reduce your entire PUFA consumption. For god’s sake, put down the vegetable oil!
Agree on farm raised fish, avoid like the plague.
Erk: “eskimos really … have very little incidence of cardiovascular disease.”
Please read the linked article, because this too is a myth. To quote the relevant bit:
Thank you, Foppe for that post.
I guess if this gets out about hexachlorobenzene in farm raised salmon, more of our best and brightest health-conscious minds (and I aspire to be one as well) might turn to wild caught salmon, thus ensuring their eventual extinction…perhaps sooner than the tuna fish, in the Pacific, that is, as, apparently, the Atlantic bluefin tuna is already endangered, badly in need of an international commercial fishing ban (per Wiki).
Still, one gets the impression that all these remedies are fragmented, partial solutions. ‘Can’t eat dying-out wild caught salmon? Don’t worry. Try young human blood, our latest scientific breakthrough!!!!!!’
At the end, one can’t avoid asking the question: what have all the smart, intellectual (but not wise) people with their technological and scientific inventions led us to?
And another: Were the Luddites right? A little bit right, at least?
Yes, most of these remedies are partial, but the 7th-day adventists in CA aren’t doing too badly, with their fairly strict vegetarian diet. (They age rather more healthily than most other populations.)
Seventh day adventists also abstain from smoking cigarettes and consuming alcoholic beverages. How is one to sort out the added benefit of a vegetarian diet from those two big factors?
Well, it’s easy for diseases in which smoking/moderate alcohol consumption doesn’t play a role (diabetes, heart disease, arthritis, to name just a few). That said, it’s possible to correct for these things, though obviously studies that are well-thought out (such as the harvard nurses’ health study) are much more useful and trustworthy than most.
“smoking/moderate alcohol consumption doesn’t play a role (diabetes, heart disease, arthritis, to name just a few)”
Smoking plays a role in diabetes, heart disease and arthritis. Do you just make stuff up?
I try not to. That said, it seems there is some contribution from smoking, so I stand corrected on that point, I guess. My point, however, was that I think focusing on smoking is missing the elephant in the room; e.g. in the harvard nurses’ health study (a competing risk analysis) they found that the consumption of 1 egg per day shortens your life as much as does smoking 5 cigarettes a day for 15 consecutive years.
(I’ve never smoked, so I’ve never really been interested in its consequences.)
With all the Cesium 134 and 137 showing up in fish from the Pacific, I’m off all Pacific seafood, including “Atlantic” salmon that are raised in aquaculture pens on the Chilean coast. Sad, too, because there are two great seafood restaurants near my house. Nothing like going to a seafood place to order a steak.
As to farm raised salmon – and extinctions… rather we cull the human population.. and for all you bleeding hearts who think I should volunteer me and mine… har har har – heard it all before…. while you pine for Kykuyu, Javanese and Masai…. they rid the planet of every fish, bird and butterfly….
sorry…. genocide is the answer … and we better get on it
root for those Hutus.. Tutus? — who knows or cares
I prefer to root for family planning. Widespread use of contraception is what’s needed. Everybody dies eventually, so there’s no need to accelerate that process. Let’s just stop making so many new people.
Nearly Half of All Home Sales All-Cash Deals ~cnn.com
The spin they put on this is hilarious:
“Buyers dependent on financing…”? As in you and everyone you know. Oh, and it’s not institutional investors with all this cash. Nope, they’re decreasing their purchases…but others are picking up the slack (and then some):
Even owner-occupant buyers? I’d like to see the numbers on that one… In fact, it is apparently the Chinese:
You know those “ghost-cities” in China with new buildings and streets and everything, all vacant and eerie…coming to a theater near you, baby!
No Chinese 99%er I can imagine of can accumulate the kind of cash for Irvine houses…certainly no honest Communist comrades.
But, yeah, sure, their money will ‘help support/prop up/improve our housing market,’ generate employment (here instead of over in China, a zero sum gain, bilaterally, I suppose, raising questions about global labor solidarity), and that’s why we should be for investment green cards…
Reading Comprehension at Jesse’s Café Américain
“””Speaking of the culture of death, the good news of the day is that Scientists Discover that the Black Death ‘Had a Silver Lining’
It also had a positive economic effect, since fewer people were able to enjoy the same amount of goods.
Perhaps we can have another plague, bio-engineered to take out the 47 percent.
What a sick world.”””
But that’s exactly where we are now! Fewer people are able to enjoy the same amount of goods. Less, even, if you look at some of the PMI numbers. Who needs a plague when we have finance?
Though, really, I’m only being peevish. Jesse’s is an excellent place, and as long as Jesse wants to write, I will want to read. Just caught my attention, is all.
That reasoning is not too far from this:
Middle Class not affordable?
Try the hedonic substitution of moving into the Lower Class.
See, no inflation!!!
‘You don’t know how to do it?’
‘Remember when you substituted chicken for beef?’
‘Oh, yes, I remember. I HAVE been properly trained. I can do it now. I KNOW how to move down to the lower class.’
It has been well known that the decrease in population following the Black Death aided the lowest level of society, the peasants, at the expense of the highest level, the land owning gentry. Although there were ups and downs, the lower supply of labor ultimately gave the peasants greater bargaining power over the price of their labor. One negative side effect was inflation though, with the same amount of gold but with a much lower population, prices increased for a while. It is not true that “fewer people were able to enjoy the same amount of goods” since the amount of goods would decrease along with the population required to produce these goods. What happened was that the lords had to compete with each other for peasant labor and despite laws passed to peg wages to pre-plague levels, eventually wages rose substantially.
This is an important lesson not because the powers that be are about to launch a plague (quite the opposite, they would only be cutting their own throats) it is important to realize why oligarchs are flooding first world countries with masses of third world labor. Below is a summary of the result of the Black Plague. Just invert this text (like in Photoshop when you reverse the light colors for dark colors) to see what happens when the supply of low skilled workers in radically increased instead of being decreased as during the magna pestilencia :
It is interesting that it did not turn out the other way – fewer barons and land holding owners (those died without heirs), thus benefitting the other surviving barons and land holding owners, or the crown (where else would the estates go), instead of the Black Death aiding the peasants at the expense of the highest level, the barons and landholding gentry.
There certainly was some consolidation and marginal lands were abandoned. But even if the Crown had taken some land, they still would have needed state peasants (like in Russia) to work them. As it was though the plague was not an equal opportunity killer. It preferred killing urban over rural, poor over rich, male over female, and worst of all, young over old. So the rural gentry were hit less hard. But the resulting urban labor shortages meant peasants were drawn into the towns which in turn only exacerbated the rural labor shortage. With the loss of the youngest generation the demographic hit became amplified over time. All this for, a while at least, helped increase the standard of living for the surviving peasants.
It’s right you mention that. Like today, the rich then had better health care and could afford to live in less dense areas.
As I recall, the King Edward III had a large number of sons who presumably all had to be provided for? Did that offset any tendency for land to revert to the Crown?
http://ftalphaville.ft.com/2014/05/08/1847102/everything-is-rigged-art-edition/
Art as tip of the iceberg?
More like a template. Or a playbook.
Since “because markets” is the answer to everything these days, one might ask how many other markets have been structured like this?
Sotheby’s and Christie’s.
That’s where the 0.01% duel with the 0.01% wannabees, I guess.
I can only afford antique malls. Maybe one day, I will luck into something that I need a price cross check.
http://www.brookings.edu/research/papers/2014/05/declining-business-dynamism-litan
Funny how all one heard in the last three decades was the importance of “entrepreneurship” – yet turns out despite (or maybe because) all the lip service, it was continuously declining. Seems to me we are ever more under monopolistic schemes than ever before, but that’s just me…
http://www.theatlantic.com/national/archive/2014/05/23-police-officers-fire-377-bullets-at-2-men-with-0-guns/361904/
The incident is still under investigation.
Uh huh.
Considering the police shoot Latina women when they are looking for a black man, I would guess this isn’t as incompetent as that…
http://www.politico.com/story/2014/05/fec-oks-bitcoin-campaign-donations-106492.html
Bitcoins for campaign contributions! What’s next Onions?
tulips
Chickens.
Live chickens.
Roosters and hens. All our feathered friends.
How did that 3 year old get a mile from his yard with ‘torn jeans, a ripped jacket and muddy shoes and socks”? This phenomenon has a pattern nationwide, even frequently including a canine and the arrival of bad weather. Sometimes the victim is miles away, over a mountain range. It makes no sense. And what does make sense, what seems irrefutable, it would not be believed.
My mother as a three year old walked by herself from her home to a nearby amusement park. Probably the better part of a mile. 3 year olds are better walkers than you think.
If she produced you, I can believe it.
“Consumer Credit Balances Jump”
Is this a good thing, or a bad thing?
I say bad.
Some day, one way or another, the lenders will be holding the worthless notes of the unemployed, bankrupt consumer class. I hope they choke on that shit.
We bad, we bad….
But that’s not really the way it works. The banks “securitize” the loans and sell it to yield starved investors… or to your money market fund, mutual fund, or 401K, in case you may be smart enough to try and avoid buying it knowingly.
But here’s a chart to see how much. Good for the economy!
http://myhomecloud.yzi.me/NavigatorII/NavigatorII.php#&panel1-5
(Simple Data -Credit – in case this link don’t work quite right)