Fresh Legs Stamp Out a Coronation Times (and California Chrome gashes foot during Belmont Stakes USA Today).
Bees declared extinct 30 years ago take to UK skies again – thanks to farmers The Conversation
Rocks Made of Plastic Found on Hawaiian Beach Science. “Plastiglomerate” (study).
Sleep’s memory role discovered BBC
How fund managers spend your money FT
S&P and ABN Amro suffer Australian legal defeat BBC. EM: “Will this prove to be the tip of the legal iceberg or just a localized ‘too little, too late one-off’ judgment?” Kidding, right?
Infrastructure Sticker Shock: Financing Costs More than Construction George Washington’s Blog
April 911 call: ‘Crazy emergency’ on I-495 bridge Delaware News Journal. Must listen.
University Presidents Are Laughing All the Way to the Bank While the People Who Work for Them Are on Food Stamps History News Network
California lawmakers propose incentives for Tesla battery factory Reuters (EM)
The Case for Banning Laptops in the Classroom The New Yorker
How Bill Gates pulled off the swift Common Core revolution WaPo
In Some States, Emissions Cuts Defy Skeptics Times. “Cuts” already achieved in some parts of the country.
Lack of Funding is the Real VA Scandal PNHP
Why Does U.S. Cell Phone Service Stink? Barry Ritholtz, Bloomberg
Big Brother Is Watching You
On 6/5, 65 Things We Know About NSA Surveillance That We Didn’t Know a Year Ago EFF (JC)
Edward Snowden, a year on: reformers frustrated as NSA preserves its power Guardian
Verizon Counsel Speaks Out Against “Outsourcing” Intelligence Emptywheel
MIAMI GARDENS POLICE RECORDS REVEAL BROAD POLICY OF STOPPING AND QUESTIONING CITIZENS Fusion (Fresno Dan)
Apple to make 3-5 million smartwatches monthly, sales begin October: report Reuters
Genius deal? Apple’s staff paid less than Coles’ checkout workers Sidney Morning Herald
The high-tech world of old-world watches Economist
Ukraine
Ukraine: Poroshenko’s Hope For “Western” Help Is Deluded Moon of Alabama
Russia-Ukraine Peace Talks to Start Bloomberg
Troubling Secessionist Models for Ukraine Council on Foreign Relations
Britain’s Great Unraveling Foreign Policy
Why Is France Building Warships For Russia? Vice
Spain’s Musical Thrones: A Desperate Move by a Desperate Regime Raging Bullshit
Interview with UN Peace Envoy Brahimi: ‘Syria Will Become Another Somalia’ Der Spiegel
Baghdad car bombs kill 60; militants storm Ramadi university Reuters
Some Thais Frown on Military’s Happiness Blitz Online WSJ
Out of step with the junta Bangkok Post
Class Warfare
Piketty, Marx and the roots of inequality Le Monde Diplomatique. “Piketty treats capital as wealth, whilst Marx understands it as a social relationship.”
Freedom Rider: Miners Shot Down Black Agenda Report
US Job Market Recovers Losses yet Appears Weaker AP. Mission accomplished!
Parasites in Eden NYRB. Cartoonist Jesse Jacobs’ parable for our times.
Ever Wished That Calvin and Hobbes Creator Bill Watterson Would Return to the Comics Page? Well, He Just Did Pearls Before Swine
How Boys Teach Each Other to Be Boys The Atlantic
Goodbye Normal Genes Jacob Bacharach
The Biology of Risk Times
Hitler’s Monumental Miscalculation NYRB
Ten threats to Americans Lori Wallach, Le Monde Diplomatique
Should we fight the system or be the change? Waging Nonviolence
Antidote du jour:
See yesterday’s Links and Antidote du Jour here.
61 comments
Comments are closed.
” not enough horse” …take it in stride Chrome (ya got my heart)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_KK9G6a4NXQ
http://doonesbury.washingtonpost.com/
First the pope tells people to raise children, not pets. Then Seattle decrees $15/hr living wages. Now Donnesbury declares war on the wireless internet. The revolution has begun.
raise animals
rear children ‘)
“The first idea that the child must acquire, in order to be actively disciplined, is that of the difference between good and evil; and the task of the educator lies in seeing that the child does not confound good with immobility, and evil with activity.” (Montessori sparked revolution from the get go stage)
Sophie Shevardnadze interviews NSA whistleblower William Binney, who created NSA surveillance program ThinThread (video). He discusses the old-fashioned graft that dictated policy at the NSA.
The second question, in the text I quoted, is from later in the interview. It refers to Snowden copying documents off of the network.
What they were basically saying was that the whole program is more about generating fat contracts for contractors than it is about national security. We are being spied upon because it is profitable.
It is a mistake to make to assume that “we are being spied upon because its profitable”.
Until the mid 2000’s few non-technical people really understood how powerful IT could be. IT was always considered to be a cost center and projects had to be justified. That is why Binney talks about managers wanting the flexibility to move funding around – IT managers could see promise in projects that were flagging that they may not be able to justify to a ‘bean counter’.
Sure DARPA funded interesting projects and NSA had a voracious appetite for tech, but the political elite didn’t really understand IT any more than most. Smart phones were just becoming popular in mid-2000’s.
You can bet that by mid-2000’s it was clear to TPTB what they had and what its capabilities were, or would soon be. Its no accident that Obama broke his promised to reign in spying and in the last year has done everything he could to confound reform. So its not just because its profitable (no doubt it still is for the defense contractors) anymore, its about control.
If a court decides the program is unlawful, then Congress will just make it lawful. This happened back in 2008 – not all that long ago – with the FISA Amendments Act.
Liberals line up to pass reform, only to have their “reform” bills become avenues to codify existing abuses. “But the way the bill ‘morphed behind the scenes,’ as Lofgren put it, points to the obstacles such efforts face. It also points to a continuing opportunity for the NSA to say that Congress has actually blessed widespread data collection”. The debate over NSA reform has been a case study in consistently missing the obvious.
Black Agenda Report (linked above) does an excellent job putting the documentary about the recent massacre of striking South African miners into a wider perspective:
“Apparently we have more in common with black South Africans than we thought. Twenty years after Nelson Mandela became president another black man, a so-called son of Africa, became president of the United States. The powerful people here, the 1% of the economic elite, chose him to lead. It was the right time for a new face in America. The Republicans’ unpopularity made their “brand” unsustainable politically, making the Democrats the go-to party to commit the dirty work. What better way to get that job done than to have a black man bail out banks and continue the endless war of terror around the globe? Who better to solidify America’s empire? The same sort of question can be asked of South Africa. Who better to keep South African workers trapped in poverty and starvation wages than black political leadership?”
Barry is our first black president, in color only. He was raised primarily by his upper middle class white grandparents. His formative years were spent in polite white American society. He does not possess one inkling of what the true black American experience is. Hell, he has no clue of the daily strife faced by any non 1%er. He never lived in the working class world, and he just doesn’t give a damn.
Is everybody getting it now? This guy is just another in a line of frat boys and spoiled rich brats that have held high office in the US. They all falsely convinced themselves that, through their personal talent only, did they succeed. And like any good sociopath, they cannot and will not ever understand why everybody isn’t just like them.
Face it folks, Barry is Ronny Reagan with a brain. And that makes him perhaps the most dangerous man to ever sit in the Oval Office. His color has nothing to do with it. If he were purple or orange or blue, he would still be a megalomaniac.
Interesting BO factoid from an article several days ago on ZH discussing Matt Stoller’s review of Geithner’s book.
In his review, Stoller discusses the remarkably “lucky” career opportunities that kept coming Geithner’s way in conjunction with his parental connections to the Ford Foundation.
Apparently, BO’s mother was a Ford Foundation “employee” in Indonesia during his younger years. Kind of makes you wonder if at least a few people aren’t thinking ahead. It’s not like this “race” issue hasn’t been around for awhile, and “the devil that you know…..”
His Grandmother, the one who “raised” him, has the resume of a brit spy.
It’s also interesting that BO’s mother had a child with a very, very black african. I’ve wondered if this was an attempt by her to lash out at the white privilege/power she was surrounded by.
In 1960, she was “dating” a black man? Wasn’t that still illegal in some states at that time? Not enough is known about her. Too much about the GM.
This gets into the very ugly history of racism in America, but it’s a point that is too often overlooked and glossed over. “I’ll show them, I’ll date a black guy!” White children of privilege simply did not associate with “blacks”, except as servants.
Ronald Reagan really did want to get rid of nuclear weapons and deal with Gorbachev as an equal. And he had much more competent handlers. Reagan also knew his limitations–Obama does not. He always thinks he’s the cleverest guy in the room. I’d say Reagan was a somewhat principled dangerous ass, while Obama is an unprincipled dangerous snob. In short, the best their parties could produce.
Obama’s grandmother was a very intelligent who in spite of class and gender became moderately successful. His grandfather was never very successful and politically leftish/
Maybe if the black and white liberal class were reminded often enough that Obama is half white and that he is really The Man in black-face he would not enjoy such slavish devotion. In the stark disconnect between his rhetoric and actual policies, it’s quite astonnishing just how much dissonance the human mind can absorb without exploding.
Substitute gender for race and the same dynamic makes Hillary the preordained annointed one for 2016:
” Hillary is preferable
because the elite are keen
on making sure all
criticism and political
activism is either
marginalized or written
off as hatred and thus not
only dismissible, but
worthy of a violent
response by government.
Criticism of Hillary will
be deemed sexist the
same way serious
criticism of Obama is now
considered racist.”
“Hillary Clinton: Warmonger”
http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article38740.htm
Nothing hurts more than finding out that someone whom you thought was on your side turning out to be otherwise.
Similarly, it hurts more to see progressive ideals abused or mis-used.
One example is the opposition to violence. On that principle, one should oppose (all or unjust) wars and for banning (all or non-defensive) weapons, in private and public hands. Partisan politics turned that into banning private assault weapons.
Similarly, one pension for all is now protecting this or that public pension plan. Where is ‘let’s have one pension plan for everyone?’
On Should we fight the system or be the change? I am reminded of a graffitto on a bathroom wall in the 70’s in Amsterdam:
To Be or not To Be – Shakespeare
To Be is to Do – Sartre
Do Be Do Be Do – Sinatra
Re: Genes
The idea that genes determine behavior is not scientifically valid but authoritarians want it to be. Genes turn on and off based on conditions. There is a gene for violence–but this gene actually has to have high stress to turn on. In fact, this gene, in healthy people makes them less prone to violence. It is a requirement for this version of authoritarian capitalism to spread the idea that genetics determines behavior and class. The rich are rich because they have better genes, the story goes. Now, if that were true than how did the new-rich become rich? Why weren’t they already rich? But that kind of questions seem to be genetically impossible for the rich. It is not genes that are the source of our malaise but stress particularly in utero, infancy and childhood. As for sexual identity–we have problems in that direction for social reasons that hopefully will be moot in coming generations–acceptance of the full spectrum of sexual possibilities beyond male/female, gay/straight, butch/femme will stop imposing their tyranny on those of us who don’t mind diversity.
‘America can’t get it up without a gun’ Jim Morrison
So you don’t subscribe to “the divine right of kings” and the hereditary entitlement of frat bastard aristocrats?
Arguably, genetic determinism has more validity in athletics than moral political leadership, so I propose that we dispense with all the training, testing, and trials for the Olympic Games, and simply select the progeny of the medalists from 4 or 5 games prior. It would greatly simplify athletics as it has for economics and politics (Hillary 2016, Jeb 2024, Sasha 2032!)
Re: Ukraine and Troubling Secessionist Models for Ukraine
Charles King makes the point that the Ukraine separatists need to be mopped up quickly or the secession will be de facto in place. King isn’t worried though–if secessionists succeed they still, deep down, want to be in the EU–though he doesn’t say it, they will want to be in the EU so they, or so the believe, can get jobs and live higher on the hog than if they stay home in the same old corrupt world they are familiar with. This is the realist posture–the EU/US way of life is so obviously superior (echoes the end-of-history argument) that all people want either to live in it or have their societies mimic that system. Perhaps they are right–but, for the moment, the reluctant East Ukrainians are being forced to love the EU.
King is right–there will be an eastern Ukraine virtual state since the general movement of history is towards political fragmentation. The central states of the EU and US are resting on their laurels and furiously running in place and moving backwards. Eventually the rest of the world will get it and seek some new directions.
King is buttressing the view of Russia as a bad actor and the righteousness of Ukraine’s action against the separatists. As such, it is not surprising that King fails to mention that the solution offered by Russia and the East was federalization which would’ve left Ukraine intact. Ukraine is fighting ‘separatists’ now because they refused to accept power sharing.
Anyone that is interested in how history is being used as propaganda should have a look at OIFVet’s comment late yesterday.
You probably don’t get to be a Georgetown professor (King) if you think people might be better off under Russia. Ditto for Snyder (Yale,no?). Real question might be what has happened to the New York Review of Books which once regularly published Gore Vidal. That they now provide a platform to Snyder is bizarre.
TINA is the operative word. In part because it makes staying in your position in life much easier than questioning official propaganda. That is why I say all of our major cultural institutions including universities are deeply corrupt and the truth is increasingly seen as the enemy.
I believe this is what is meant by moral bankruptcy. And yet these are the institutions and people who are entrusted with the “education” of the eager young minds taking on tens of thousands of dollars of student debt for the privilege of being brainwashed by the likes of Snyder. Good lord, they have found a way to monetize what was previously done free of charge.
Infrastructure Sticker Shock: Financing Costs More than Construction George Washington’s Blog
This seems to be a better use of Calpers funds than investing in private equity and then being bailed out by the Fed.
Also the Pooled Money Investment Account would seem to be a good candidate for a Fed reverse repo where maybe it could earn 3%.
“Infrastructure Sticker Shock: Financing Costs More than Construction
Posted on June 1, 2014 by WashingtonsBlog
By Ellen Brown.
Consider the Possibilities
The potential of this public banking model for other states is huge. California’s population is more than 50 times that of North Dakota. California has over $200 billion stashed in a variety of funds identified in its 2012 Comprehensive Annual Financial Report (CAFR), including $58 billion managed by the Treasurer in a Pooled Money Investment Account earning a meager 0.264% annually. California also hasover $400 billion in its pension funds (CalPERS and CalSTRS).
This money is earmarked for specific purposes and cannot be spent on the state budget, but it can be invested. A portion could be invested as equity in a state-owned bank, and a larger portion could be deposited in the bank as interest-bearing certificates of deposit. This huge capital and deposit base could then be leveraged by the bank into credit, something all banks do. Since the state would own the bank, the interest would return to the state. Infrastructure could be had interest-free, knocking 50% or more off the sticker price.
By doing its own financing in-house, the state can massively expand its infrastructure without imposing massive debts on future generations. The Golden State can display the innovation and prosperity that makes it worthy of the name once again.”
“Ellen Brown is an attorney, founder of the Public Banking Institute, and a candidate for California State Treasurer running on a state bank platform. She is the author of twelve books, including the best-selling Web of Debt and her latest book, The Public Bank Solution, which explores successful public banking models historically and globally.”
A very small step forward – Ellen Brown got 6.5% of the vote for California Treasurer.
If you return the interest to the state, how does CalPERS get any return on its state owned bank investment?
And since CalPERS is a shareholder of the state owned bank, with possible other non-government shareholders (can ‘patriotic’ California residents invest in the state-welfare-enhancing bank?), can borrowing from that bank still be considered ‘in-house’ financing? How is that different from issuing ‘state-resident only’ infrastructure bonds, i.e. borrowing from the ultimate owners of the state (and state government)? Would that also be ‘in house?’ And is that considered ‘not imposing massive debts on future generations?’
I am not sure I understand her proposal. Clarifications will be greatly appreciated.
RE: The Case for Banning Laptops in the Classroom
The laptops are connected to outside distractions by a cable (rare!) or Wireless (common!). A university would not have rock music or TV blaring away in a classroom, why would they allow laptops to be distactions?
It is fairly easy to control Wireless; jamming is illegal but turning if off or controlling access is not. The complaining professors are just mindlessly jumping through the hoops the yuppie computer plutocrats have made for them!
NYRB/Nazi bunker aesthetic: I always knew the Atlanta Public Library reminded me of something. Who knew it was German gun emplacements? Never miss a trick those architects.
“…the neo-con influence in the State
Department, established under
Bush II, was retained by Obama,
whose only visible contribution to
foreign policy change has been the
presence of a man of [partial] African
descent in the presidency,
calculated to impress the world
with U.S. multicultural virtue. Like
most other recent presidents,
Obama is there as a temporary
salesman for policies made and
executed by others.”
This puppet who runs a global death squad out of the white house is a far more genteel and telegenic reincarnation of Idi Amin.
Response to Cynthia above. Diana Johnstone quote from:
http://www.counterpunch.org/2014/06/06/washingtons-iron-curtain-in-ukraine/
In reply to the article on stop and frisk being implemented in Miami Gardens, now the plan is to target three predominantly black neighborhoods (Little Haiti, Model City, Overtown) with invasive surveillance camera technology. These are the policy choices that lead to mass incarceration disproportionately affecting black americans (see Alexander, Michelle). http://www.miamiherald.com/2014/06/07/4164691/miami-police-plan-to-use-hundreds.html
At least the ACLU is opposed.
Bulgaria PM Orders South Stream Freeze until EU Green Light: The prime minister announced the decision after receiving his marching orders from three visiting US senators. “Oresharski, as cited by Darik radio, announced the step in a Sunday interview after a meeting with three US senators visiting Bulgaria – John McCain, Chris Murphy, and Ron Johnson.” Good to see the Eastern colonies are still servile pawns.
“US senators visiting Bulgaria – John McCain, Chris Murphy, and Ron Johnson”
Three prime reasons the U.S. Senate should be abolished.
Wow, tons of grist for the US education debate mill in Links today.
RE: How Bill Gates pulled off the swift Common Core revolution WaPo
Sounds like Gates et al. had a “product” to sell and, by god, they were going to sell it. No matter that the “product” was not ready for prime time, and didn’t get there before buyer’s remorse (or is it BEGGAR’S remorse?) set in. Windows 8 anyone? So, what else is new?
RE: The Case for Banning Laptops in the Classroom The New Yorker
Finally, FINALLY!!! Is there anyone left on the planet who still thinks that “The Emperor’s New Clothes” is a mobile app brought to you by the billionaires in the “knowledge” economy that brought you Candy Crush??
And I’d like to add one of my personal favorites to the mix. It’s about a school in the Bay Area called the Waldorf School of the Peninsula. The “retro” classrooms here feature “blackboards with colorful chalk, bookshelves with encyclopedias, wooden desks filled with workbooks and No. 2 pencils.” Oh, and a technology-worthy price tag as well, although, as you will see, neither Microsoft nor Apple make a dime. I’d imagine that Ticonderoga does pretty well, though.
Here are a couple of snippets to whet your appetite:
“It’s supereasy. It’s like learning to use toothpaste,” Mr. Eagle said. “At Google and all these
places, we make technology as brain-dead easy to use as possible. There’s no reason why kids
can’t figure it out when they get older.” (Emphasis mine.)
And:
Finn Heilig, 10, whose father works at Google, says he liked learning with pen and paper —
rather than on a computer — because he could monitor his progress over the years.
“You can look back and see how sloppy your handwriting was in first grade. You can’t do that
with computers ’cause all the letters are the same,” Finn said. “Besides, if you learn to write on
paper, you can still write if water spills on the computer or the power goes out.”
https://www.eastbaywaldorf.org/Library/Downloads/Articles/A%20Silicon%20Valley%20School%20That%20Doesnt%20Compute.pdf
PS. IMHO, when freshly sharpened, a #2 Ticonderoga is not only the world’s finest writing implement, but, when paired with a pristine spiral notebook, the most effective learning tool on the planet.
Thank you for today’s antidote, although it did not serve as such for me. I hope the polar bear pictured in today’s photo found firm sea ice. I have read reports that the warming climate is melting much of the sea ice in the Arctic. The loss of their sea ice habitat and more areas of open water have made it more difficult for the bears to hunt prey and find dens for their cubs, as well as resulting in their drowning in some cases.
Plastic rocks as part of nature, made me wonder how long it will be before some arthopod or other creature finds a way to use plastic in making its body casing or incorporates plastic in its body in such way that the plastic does harm to a predator which eats too many.
Fresh Legs Stamp Out a Coronation Times (and California Chrome gashes foot during Belmont Stakes USA Today).
Horseracing: The Sport Of Kings. Have Kings (1%) begun to visit NC? I’m always amazed that folks wil rail against the 1% but then indulge themselves in the 1%’s designated pastimes. In this case, the Triple Crown.
Also, last time I looked horse breeding/racing was a tax loophole racket. So, Joe, you’re the one who’s paying to see that nag sprint down the track. Hooray!
Start your Thoroughbred Horse Breeding Tax Shelter today:
http://digitalcommons.law.ggu.edu/ggulrev/vol13/iss2/3/
Is the Common Core corporatization of public schools? Perhaps the following passages from the WaPo story provide a clue. And as a bonus, isn’t it nice to know that national leaders espousing the Common Core do not send their children to schools that adhere to those “standards” ? The Common Core is apparently common indeed: Good enough for the whole damned country, but not good enough for them!
“Since 1999, the Gates Foundation has spent approximately $3.4 billion on an array of measures to try to improve K-12 public education, with mixed results.
It spent about $650 million on a program to replace large urban high schools with smaller schools, on the theory that students at risk of dropping out would be more likely to stay in schools where they forged closer bonds with teachers and other students. That led to a modest increase in graduation rates, an outcome that underwhelmed Gates and prompted the foundation to pull the plug.
Gates has said that one of the benefits of common standards would be to open the classroom to digital learning, making it easier for software developers — including Microsoft — to develop new products for the country’s 15,000 school districts.
In February, Microsoft announced that it was joining Pearson, the world’s largest educational publisher, to load Pearson’s Common Core classroom materials on Microsoft’s tablet, the Surface. That product allows Microsoft to compete for school district spending with Apple, whose iPad is the dominant tablet in classrooms.
Gates dismissed any suggestion that he is motivated by self-interest.
“I believe in the Common Core because of its substance and what it will do to improve education,” he said. “And that’s the only reason I believe in the Common Core.”
Bill and Melinda Gates, Obama and Arne Duncan are parents of school-age children, although none of those children attend schools that use the Common Core standards. The Gates and Obama children attend private schools, while Duncan’s children go to public school in Virginia, one of four states that never adopted the Common Core.”
Why you don’t fuck with Russia: they still know how to do HUMINT. This corroborates what Sibel Edmonds said about Marc Grossman’s treasonous Julius-and-Ethel act. Gordon Duff evidently also got a peek at the report.
There’s just one thing that seems implausible. If the yield assumed for the fake terrorist blasts means 60 psi, How would there be any structures left at all? A couple psi’s enough to flatten everything there is. You would need to see the purported document to find out what absorbed the blast in each case.
But if the documentation is as described, the ICJ would jump at this case. The ICC couldn’t ignore it. This would make Nuremberg look like traffic court. Russia is assuming the UNSC presidency. Let’s see if they crush some nuts.
The “miscalculation” in the article on the German coastal fortifications is that done by the author.
The Western Allies did not attack where the Atlantic Wall fortifications were fully developed. In 1942 the Allies had experimented with an amphibious armoured attack on a well-fortified area (Dieppe) and the results were dismal. Therefore, they did not seriously consider an assault along the Channel coast near Boulogne or Calais, despite the many important logistical advantages they would enjoy by doing so. The Atlantic Wall forced the Western Allies to attack in less than ideal location, where the defensive system was less formidable, and thus suffer a considerable logistical penalty that dogged them through the rest of the 1944 campaign.
Absolutely. It also placed the Americans on the right, thus making their axis of advance largely south, rather than east, the decision direction. The British and Canadians, without the follow-on forces needed for a decisive thrust, wound up on the left flank of a south-easterly facing beachhead, and could never bring the forces needed into play to smash the German front and head strait across northern France and into Germany. Meanwhile, the Soviets were doing much of the heavy lifting in Operation Bagration (which goes unnoted in an article that talks about D-Day as if it were a decisive victory).
Sorry to post a question that is not precisely on topic (broke middle class?? peak oil??), but has anyone else noticed a sudden huge spike in airline ticket prices?? I just looked at a flight from CA to CT and all of the prices had suddenly, in the course of a month, DOUBLED from what I was used to. I know it’s graduation time, so I looked at dates months from now, and found similar huge increases. The usual attempt to try big airports as an alternative (since they are usually much cheaper) did little. I mentioned this to a friend of mine who often visits his daughter on the East Coast, and he had just found the same thing; being crabby and retired, he had actually contacted the airlines to complain (getting nothing out of the effort, of course).
My guess, along with a reduced number of planes, is that $100/barrel oil is finally getting priced in; that the long-term fuel price contracts that had lower prices are expiring. If this is the new normal, regular people will be doing even less air travel. Any thoughts??? Please someone, tell me that this is a blip, or somehow my imagination.
http://rarehistoricalphotos.com/feeding-polar-bears-tank-1950/
http://aurorium.tumblr.com/post/40994870395/poems-for-50-in-a-small-bookstore-in-san
Why Is France Building Warships For Russia?
Because there is no other buyer, that’s why. US and other NATO countries should put their money where their mouth is and pay for the ships, it’s unfair for France alone to bear the cost. In 1916, US purchased Virgin Islands from Denmark to prevent Germany buying them first – it should do the same with the warships.
I believe this sale is extremely important. If it falls through that will be a severe blow to Putin and will show that the West is actually capable of mounting meaningful sanctions. Otherwise, just as the Lenin quote says, he will conclude that they will indeed gladly sell him the rope with which he will hang them.
Personally I think that the US and NATO should be much more worried about the trillion dollars they are about to spend on the sitting duck known as the F-35. Now that’s the rope on which NATO air dominance will be hanged.
The F-35 is very likely going to break the back of the Royal Air Force, and perhaps the Royal Navy along with it. An old F-16C from the early 1980s with a quality pilot would knock F-35s out of the sky at will. Hell, a really good pilot in a late model Mig-21 would beat an F-35 in a dogfight. The USAF hasn’t fought a serious air campaign against even a second-class opponent since 1972 (and despite a few fine pilots and a small number of relatively modern aircraft, North Vietnam was really a third-rate opponent, if you consider countries like Holland or Italy as second-rate). No one who is working on techno-trash like the F-35 has ever been in a dogfight. They have operated more or less with impunity for 40 years, and gotten hubristic and sloppy. Every plane is designed with air supremacy already a given. They never imagine the F–117s or F-35s actually facing serious opposition. If they keep at it one day it’s all going to blow up in their faces.
Are they really going to deploy the F-35 in a big way or just pretend to deploy them?
Ask not what Lockheed can do for its country, ask what the country can do for Lockheed. Shareholders and all.
I’m not so ready to ridicule the F-35.
1. Every major new military aircraft programme runs into expensive problems. I remember back in the 1970’s the F-15 was felt by many to be both overpriced and over-complicated, as was the F-18 in the 1980’s. Both those fighters turned out to be effective in action.
2. I notice that the Israelis are among the buyers of the F-35. While it is true that the quality of Israeli military leadership has undergone a marked decline during the past 20 years, nevertheless they have good reason to desire real fighting performance from any weapon systems they adopt.
I only hope that the F-35 does prove to be a complete white elephant–because there is never a battle for them to fight.
Another thing that occurs to me about the F-35 is that perhaps the Western Bloc isn’t placing a high priority on gaining air superiority through air combat.
Perhaps the Western Bloc expects to be the aggressor in any major war. They would want aircraft that can penetrate opposing airspace and destroy the opposing air forces before they ever get to fight. The F-35, even if not a true air superiority fighter, would nevertheless be a weapon system acquired to fit within such a strategic docrtrine.
In other words, the Western Bloc as a whole may have adopted the overall philosophy of warfare that has been characteristic of modern Israel.
The trouble lies not with the expensive problems, but with the fact that they tried to tailor the plane to satisfy the unique and sometimes contradictory requirements of three separate military branches. The design compromises needed to achieve those resulted in a plane with substandard performance characteristics, even after the performance requirements were repeatedly lowered. And while the F-35 might actually be able to penetrate third world air defenses to deliver a decisive first strike, it is a rather optimistic assumption that it will be able to do that against sophisticated Russian and Chinese air defense networks.
All which is reliant on the F22 being fully operational, to date that’s around 2023ish due to coding issues.
Thank you for the link today to the History News Network article concerning a disturbing trend in adjunct and temporary faculty hiring and compensation while spending on non-academic administration at universities has soared, in turn fueling rising levels of student debt.
Not to diminish the primary thrust of the article, with which I agree, but I would like to point out that there are notable individual exceptions. In the wake of the financial collapse of 2008, the president of a large public university in this state himself initiated a 14% reduction in his annual pay, where it remained through 2011.
Furthermore, there is another salient point that was not addressed in the article. The salaries of university presidents of large public state universities are typically a fraction of the amounts paid their universities’ head football coaches. Students at some universities are also assessed various additional fees to support intercollegiate athletic programs. And this is setting aside long-term health and compensation issues relating to the students who participate in violent intercollegiate sports like football.
“Duke University economics Professor Charles Clotfelter recently examined pay at 21 public universities over a 24-year period. He found compensation for professors had climbed by about a third and nearly doubled for university presidents. Over the same span, pay for football coaches had shot up seven and half times.” (See: http://seattletimes.com/html/localnews/2022321329_coachespayxml.html )
How many times have you heard someone say “We won’t see real change in America until people take to the streets”? Geezers, in particular, seem mystified at the passivity of young people who are getting screwed from every direction. Why don’t they rise up? May I suggest that official intimidation is a factor?
War Gear Flows to Police Departments
RE: The Case for Banning Laptops in the Classroom The New Yorker
For a CS professor, he doesn’t have a lot of imagination. There are many ways to technically restrict what the students are doing.