20 Urban Food Forests from Around the World Shareable
‘Agri-Terrorism’? Town’s Seed Library Shut Down Common Dreams
F1 supremo Bernie Ecclestone to pay £60m to clear his name in bribery trial Telegraph (RS). How meta.
Europe’s tough new regime for banks fails first test in Portugal Ambrose Evans-Pritchard, Telegraph
Double Punch for ‘Inversion’ Deals WSJ (SW)
Hedge funds amass short positions in private equity-backed IPOs FT
After breaking labor laws, LinkedIn is ordered to pay $6 million in lost wages and damages Pando Daily. Oh, more fines.
Government failed to report $619 billion in spending to transparency site, report says WaPo
Has paper money outlived its purpose? Money and Banking
Big Brother Is Watching You Watch
Barack Obama’s Secret Terrorist-Tracking System, by the Numbers The Intercept. [ ̄\_(ツ)_/ ̄ ]. Complete with press spat.
Snowden Documents Detail Spying Partnership Between US, Israel That Enables Occupation of Palestine FDL
The Highest Law of the Land REQUIRES the Government to Prosecute All of Those Who Authorized Torture … Including Bush, Cheney and Everyone Else Who Ordered It Or Failed to Take Steps to Stop It Washington’s Blog. The “highest law” being a treaty that Ronald [genuflects] Reagan signed.
Cuba: Obama Promised Better Relations, Sent USAID For “Regime Change” Moon of Alabama. Among other things, a replay of the CIA program under Bush to use a vaccination program as cover for intelligence gathering. Barry, Hillz: Take a bow. This one’s all yours.
ALEC’s Jeffersonian Project Pushes to Amend the Constitution Truthout (KF)
Neuroscientist busted for brandishing AR-15 during coffee run in Arizona Daily News. At the airport. Another blow to ammosexual rights.
Pro-gun picture book for children aims to reassure kids about parents’ weapons Guardian. Heather Has Two Glocks.
Ukraine
Obama Should Release Ukraine Evidence Veteran Intelligence Professionals for Sanity (furzy mouse). For those who came in late, VIPS got their start on Bush’s (non-existent) WMDs.
About 730,000 have left Ukraine for Russia this year: UNHCR Today Online
UN Security Council to meet on Ukraine humanitarian situation Reuters
Senate Bill Preps for War with Russia Counterpunch. Supported by only 23 Republicans. And you don’t roll out a new product in August.
Shocking Analysis of the ‘Shooting Down’ of Malaysian MH17 Anderwelt Online
Gaza
Baroness Warsi quits as Foreign Office minister over Gaza BBC
Israel Exits Gaza; Truce Takes Hold Times
LIVE UPDATES: Israeli delegation arrives in Cairo for cease fire talks, source says Haaretz
Killing of General in Afghanistan Renews U.S. Exit Angst Bloomberg
Five hundred days of dictatorship Economist and Thai junta bans computer game ‘Tropico 5’ that allows you to build your own dictatorship Sidney Morning Herald.
Xi’s ‘shockingly harsh’ Politburo speech signals tensions over anti-graft crackdown South China Morning Post
Beijing invites US to link up over Africa FT
Ebola panic goes global Macrobusiness. Link fest.
Class Warfare
Poll Finds Widespread Economic Anxiety WSJ. That’s not a bug. It’s a feature.
S&P: Wealth gap is slowing US economic growth CNBC (full report). Even the fraudsters are getting it.
Inequality Exists. Ask the Middle Class. Bloomberg
The Missing Women in the Inequality Discussion Peterson Institute for International Economics and The inequality debate avoids asking who is harmed FT.
Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel Cuts Schools, Pensions While Preserving Fund for Corporate Subsidies IBT. I don’t see the word “slush” before “fund,” but feel free to think it.
6 Ways Wall Street Is Hosing Chicago Teachers In These Times
The Real Solution to Wealth Inequality The Nation
A Perfect Dose of Pessimism WSJ
Antarctica’s Point of No Return Project Syndicate (RS)
Dark Age America: Climate The Archdruid Report
Antidote du jour:
See yesterday’s Links and Antidote du Jour here.
107 comments
Comments are closed.
‘ammosexual’ — I love it!
Hat tip, Atrios.
BTW he was only busted for pointing his gun at somebody. Article says it is legal to take gun into non security part of the airport. Crazy AZ.
I love this!
Heather’s Daddy has two (three, four, five…) Penises.
The plural is “penes” – as old-time M.D.s would aver (esp. those who witnessed this anomoly).
I can’t resist… Heathers’ Daddy? Why not mommy too? And, considering the Homoerotic component of authoritarian social constructs, Heathers’ Daddies Penii? Mommies Clitii? But really now, when your largest fetish measures a hefty .50 of an inch, what’s to crow about? (Get a grip. :/)
The late great Jim Morrison got it right:
‘America can’t get it up without a gun’
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DED812HKWyM
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2718021/NRA-commentator-claims-blind-people-allowed-buy-use-guns-increased-awareness-hearing-spatial-surroundings.html
Boom, boom, boom, boom
I’m gonna shoot you right down
Right off your feet
Take you home with me
Put you in my house
Boom boom boom boom
– John Lee Hooker
God it cranks at 47 seconds! ———-> http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wSnQ0bdHW0s
Whoa! , , , , , , , that’s bullet holes from the ammo.
Nothin like layin around wasting time drinking wine zoning on Xanax and watching Youtube. All you fuhkkers can try to figure out economics and the weather, but you never will. haha
http://www.commondreams.org/news/2014/08/05/outrage-colorado-over-fracking-betrayal-top-democrats
Yes, extraordinary.
I wonder – is it still possible to run a 3rd-Party (Green) candidate against Polis? Even a write-in? It’s crucial to punish this kind of betrayal – and this one was bizarrely obvious.
Fascinated by the food forests link. Love the variety of approaches shown.
My housemate calls herself a usufructarian. She walls to work and gleans her way home daily. I just thought she was rad. Glad to see she’s part of a wider zeitgeist. Reintroduced dandelions to my diet. Bitters make a great addition to rice dishes.
Walks to work. Damn autofill. Yesterday I was writing the word miscalculate when autofill came up with miscalcohol. Is that a technical word relating to DUIs?
I remember plucking carob pods off of trees planted in medians and verges by a group of Sisters for just that reason, down in Miami. Tasted great too.
“Usufruct” has a definite, precise legal meaning. What does she mean by “usufructarian” and why did she choose this word to promulgate her back-to-basics philosophy? More linguistic dilution at play?
“the right to enjoy the use and advantages of another’s property short of the destruction or waste of its substance.” Sounds exactly like the right to glean.
Re: Shocking Analysis of the ‘Shooting Down’ of Malaysian MH17
i initially believed that the most likely explanation was that the rebels shot it down by mistake after being set up by the ukrainian government which purposefully diverted the plane over the region. these latest analyses have just about convinced me that, not only did the ukrainian forces shoot it down under a false flag, this was a major operation involving the very top of american decision making and a concerted effort to fake the evidence around the chosen narrative.
my only hope is that someone involved in any of this has a shred of decency left to expose this conspiracy and, maybe, prevent a world war.
I’m glad Lambert linked to this. Interesting bit about “correcting” Wikipedia, didn’t you think?
It would appear that TPTB may have recognized that they botched this particular false flag. After the endless loop of the parade of hearses to which we were treated when the bodies were brought back from Ukraine, not one mention of the parade of caskets/funerals, particularly the tiny ones for the children, has been made. And, of course, still no black box or Air Traffic Control recordings.
And then there’s this from Robert Parry:
“And as for who’s been responsible for destroying evidence of the Flight 17 shoot-down, an assault by the Ukrainian military on the area where the plane crashed not only delayed access by international investigators but appears to have touched off a fire that consumed plane debris that could have helped identify the reasons for the disaster.
On Saturday, the last paragraph of a New York Times story by Andrew E. Kramer reported that “the fighting ignited a fire in a wheat field that burned over fuselage fragments, including one that was potentially relevant to the crash investigation because it had what appeared to be shrapnel holes.” The shrapnel holes have been cited by independent analysts as possible evidence of an attack by Ukrainian jetfighters.”
http://consortiumnews.com/2014/08/03/flight-17-shoot-down-scenario-shifts/
Last I heard the Russians had the black box. Was that confirmed?
The black boxes are in England.
That’s what Pepe Escobar of Asia Times reported on Aug 1. The black boxes are safely in the jaws of the fox.
“Malaysia has handed out the flight recorders to the UK; this means NATO, and this spells out manipulation by the CIA. Air Algerie AH5017 went down after MH17. The analysis has already been released. That begs the question of why it is taking so long for MH17’s black boxes to be analyzed/tampered with.”
I’ve never been a fan of Putin, but I have no illusions about US history and contemporary US dirty tricks, either.
Our shadow government was instrumental in both the Orange Revolution and the successful violent coup this past February. Ukraine had democratically elected governments both after the Orange Revolution, and again in 2010, when they booted out our Orangemen. Armed thugs beating up ministers in Parliament and driving scores of elected officials to flee for their lives is not a “grass roots democratic” anything. It’s a putsch.
At this early point, I think Malaysia Airlines Flight MH17 was either shot down by accident, or it was a deliberate “false flag” operation by our puppets in Kiev. Either way, it’s a tragedy for the civilians on board and their families.
I have read that the black box went to the U.K., via the Malaysian airline who received and passed it on, though I cannot confirm the validity of that information.
British junk media, the Daily Mail, posted an article that the box was in Russia. USA media, USAToday, posted an article as early as july 22 stating that the black box would not contain information to acertain if the cause of the crash was a missle because, quote,” the recorders, nicknamed “black boxes,” would have stopped working soon as the Malaysia flight lost power from a missile strike”. That would be if it was a missle, were crash was not caused by a missle that would be another matter.
The USaTday artcile did state that “Malaysia negotiated with pro-Russia militants in eastern Ukraine to obtain the recorders, which they got Monday”.
http://www.usatoday.com/story/travel/news/2014/07/22/malaysia-airlines-recorders-black-boxes-investigation/13012551/
Katniss,
And one other item from your list of “missing” elements beyond the air traffic control/aircraft communications, and the data from the black boxes, is the total absence of involvement of Boeing in the investigation. One would expect that their expertise concerning the sequence of structural failures observable in the debris would be extremely useful to any analysis of the material remains, yes? As poster VietnamVet remarked in a thread over at Sic Semper Tyrannis,
“My Dad worked for Boeing. I was shocked when I read that they were not sending representatives to the crash investigation. They’re the real experts on the 777. As a major stakeholder they know everything the US government knows; maybe more. Either the corporate need to distance itself from the crash overrides their responsibility to help to find the truth and tell the families why their loved ones died and prevent it from occurring again or the US government told them to stay away. This and the muddled information released so far adds to my feeling of unease that the shoot down was a purposeful act in the rush to war with Russia instead of a terrible accident caused by Ukraine allowing commercial flights to fly over a combat zone.”
And then there has been a total lack of imagery or other data on infrared signatures associated with the purported launch of a BUK ground-to-air missile forthcoming from a US satellite, purpose-built for just this eventuality, that was positioned over the Ukraine at the time of the shoot-down.
Curious, no?
One begins to suspect that Mr. Cartalucci over at Land Destroyer has these “dogs failing to bark” anomalies sussed out:
http://landdestroyer.blogspot.com/2014/08/interest-in-mh17-fades-as-sanctions-war.html#more
Excellent article.
“For all the promises the West made in regards to seeking the truth behind MH17 – what we see today is memories and enthusiasm fading, the victims forgotten, and the tragedy all but buried – leaving us with sanctions against Russia and binding agreements made by the West to arm, fund, and train militants fighting for the regime in Kiev.”
And so it goes. So it always goes. But if they really need this war, what in the world will be next?
suspicious doesn’t even begin to cut it. I wonder if anyone has tried tracing where those edits were made from? this, and the now likely faked social media posts, has the fingerprints of the five eyes agencies all over it.
this really does stink to high heaven.
To. High. Heaven.
Google, the government’s new best friend, has helpfully removed/censored many of the crash site photos from search results according to one researcher.
The Dutch team has abandoned the area now http://online.wsj.com/articles/dutch-suspend-search-at-malaysia-airlines-crash-site-in-ukraine-1407353585
At this rate, how much longer until the possession or use of screen capture software requires a permit?
Yes, it’s tough when you begin to realize that there really is no Santa Claus.
Re: Shocking Analysis of the ‘Shooting Down’ of Malaysian MH17
The original article written in German was posted on july 26, when many english language websites were debating as to whose ground to air missle brought down the plane, and whether was intentional or a mistake, accepting rather than questioning the missle “theory”. ( any evidence of the missle exhaust plume trial ? )
I am pleased to see that there is now an english language version of this writing available on the internet, and that you have posted a link at Naked Capitalism.
I have been following this incident on a professional Pilot’s blog that has hundreds of entries and there is even commentary on this particular article by a professional pilot. His take on the article:
“The article is BS.
It is true, where the material is two layered in the enforced cockpit section the inner layer looks perforated from outside to inside and the outer layer is bent to the outside, as if a bullet has been shot from the inside.
The explanation is simple to understand.
When the hot fragments of the warhead (they are very hot, glowing at the beginning) hit a single layer of metal, they just penetrate, they nearly melt through. All the expansion of gases the fragment causes goes to the inside.
If the fragment meets a doubled layer metal construction the first sheet again is perforated, but at the same time a lot of pressure is building up between those two sheets of metal due to expanding gases and melting of parts of the first metal, thus bending the edges of the inlet hole to the outside. Then the second metal sheet is penetrated. This principle is used to protect armored vehicles by using multiple sheets of metal layers instead a thick one.
And this pilot in the article has no idea of how an air-to air gun is used and where a pilot intending to shoot down an airliner would aim at. A head on path with a closure rate of 1500 km/h to hit the cockpit area from the front quarter (like the damage would suggest) would be the last maneuver some pilot would try.
He would be better to comment on thing he has a basic understandig.”
http://www.pprune.org/rumours-news/543733-mh17-down-near-donetsk-53.html
The clear consensus of this pilot’s blog (hundreds of entries over 50 plus pages by pilots all over the world) is that the plane was taken down by a missile fired from a BUC that the separatists had captured about 10 days before from a base the Ukrainians had abandoned.
One thing that obviously makes this article suspect for me is the authors’ claim there are no other clear pictures of parts of the aircraft on the internet. Not true. This blog has pictures of numerous parts of the aircraft and you can see them beginning on about page 47 of the blog of this particular incident.
This comment is presently listed as #1049 and sometimes the numbers even change if comments are deleted or added. It is presently on page 53 but that often changes as well.
Thanks for the link! A new source for speculation if nothing else. I assume that their ground missile claim doesn’t exclude the Ukrainian government troops as being the source. This is what Robert Parry’s insiders have been hinting at.
The Buk system has 4 vehicles including a radar unit, a communications unit, a launcher and a loader. The militia had only a launcher. Without the target illuminating radar, the Buk could only be fired directly at the aircraft.
These so-called experts on PPrune are claiming that the militia managed to take out an aircraft using visual control of a complex missile system they had never used before at close to maximum range the first and only time they operated the system, without anyone observing either the enormous missile smoke plume visible up to 25 km away or the massive explosion of the missile warhead? In addition, the Buk warhead fragments into cubes and is designed to explode above the target. If the aircraft was hit by a Buk it would have angular shrapnel holes on the upper surfaces of the aircraft, not the rounded holes observed in the side.
I know personally a western ex-military pilot and he doesn’t buy the missile theory.
They also have a 30mile max range. Big and hard to hide. Pics I’ve seen of E. Ukraine at ground level look like Kansas, nothing but open field. So where is the satellite image evidence? Should be easy to spot and a small possible launch area to search.
With all evidence apparently in hiding, they are making this way to difficult on us. This would never sell as a game software. Someone is supposed to win.
Plus I think our armament selection is too limited. We only have attack airplanes and are only allowed to use tiny missiles on it. I want bigger missiles on mine. Longer range and they should fly on a slant angled UP. Or a stealth airplane, but that’s probably considered cheating.
I think playing this game is a waste of time. Unless we get either more hard evidence or more weapons to play with.
I’m logging out, status Ready Player::Rest
In any case, it is extremely unlikely that the experts will be unable to determine whether the aircraft was hit by bullets or shrapnel. Even with the insurgents meddling with the evidence, they will never be able to remove all traces of the missile (or, indeed, bullets). This is one of the least plausible “analyses” that try to blame the Ukrainians, the least plausible being that put forward by Monsieur Girkin, that the plane was loaded with “stale” bodies (which also couldn’t be more insulting to the bereaved families).
It is still potentially possible, however, that the airplane was hit by a Ukrainian surface-to-air missile.
PPRUNE is really a great source. You’ve got to sift the comments, as everywhere, but whenever there’s an aircraft story, that is the place to look.
Here’s an even better analysis:
Club Orlov MH17 Analysis
“Even better” is a pretty low baseline. If Club Orlov buys into that, it diminishes my confidence in Club Orlov. The additional points made are useful, but “some facts” when there are no links? Not few, not none? Not buying it, for reasons stated.
On the antiquity of paper money, I don’t understand why giving the central bank the flexibility to send interest rates into deeper negative territory is a good thing outside of the hypothetical world. To me it sounds like a recipe for a creditor’s feast upon weary debtors. Also, it is nice to pay waitstaff in cash and let the restaurant avoid the credit card transaction tax/fee (2%?). One place its nice to have anonymity is at the grocery store, not that they would ever share the data or that there would ever be a data breach (Target). I’m sorry, but I want to buy my “Rio 2” DVD in privacy.
Yeah, I dont like the government to know I buy My Little Pony plushies. They might blackmail me.
the clerk knows.
Here’s an inspiring documentary about people power from the heart of darkest Texas:
Green Dreams: The Pedernales Electric Co-op Revolution
After years of a corrupt, self-perpetuating board, co-op members took matters into their own hands and re-claimed their cooperative. The second half of the film profiles a number of TX elec. co-ops that are doing some pretty cool, pretty sustainable, stuff.
Re: Paper Money
Not to mention denying the possibility for less mundane tax protest…
I loved the article on pessimism! Just the optimistic ray of sunshine piece I was looking for on this cloudy day! Really! I am a born pessimist and I have found over 57 years it has served me and mine very well. I think I have more spontaneous joy and laughter in my life than most self identified optimists because I am so rarely disappointed and so often happily surprised. I am also the one people count on to be prepared when things go wrong which they so often do. I am always the one with the backup options. Early on friends and family used to criticize me,albeit gently, for my pessimism and preparedness but it didn’t take decade of adulthood for me to become the go to person when things go awry.!! Of course I am not a ‘Debbie Downer’ either which I suppose some pessimists are …. Love your links from A to Z every day . Thanks!!
Inequality Exists. Ask the Middle Class.
and if they say it exists, then, OK. It must.
but the media, pundits, think tanks, those with an agenda, whatever can keep going over and over this obvious fact that many not in the “middle class,” those less talented/hardworking (lazier) people have known for a while.
Every American is middle class, says the folk religion. Left unsaid is that if you’re not self-identifying as middle class regardless of whether your personal circumstances merit such a claim, you’re not part of America, you’re part of the Eloi.
Here is a codified list of the more than fifty laws which constitute Israel’s equivalent of Jim Crow, granting exorbitant privilege to the 80% majority and second-class citizenship to the 20% minority:
http://adalah.org/eng/Israeli-Discriminatory-Law-Database
Much as the Group Areas Act was the foundation of South African apartheid, the Absentees’ Property Law and Law of Return (both from 1950) are the building blocks of Israeli apartheid.
To call this scorched earth + genocide policy+implementation an equivalent of “Jim Crow” is to understate to an alarming degree what actually is going on. Why did you make this false comparison?
Killing of General in Afghanistan Renews U.S. Exit Angst Bloomberg
One two-star general. 2,000 plus service members, mostly enlisted. 21,000 plus Afghan civilians. countless injured, war-damaged, lives-in-shambles…
angst!?
Which only goes to prove that even when it comes to RIP, RHP (rank has privileges)!
Lambert, do you live near the Mi’kmaq reservation in Maine? What is their stand against the 1% private “transportation” project there?
Hahahaha Thailand banning Tropico 5, even though its about South AMerican dictatorships instead of Asian ones. Priceless. Even funnier than Russia bumping Sims 4s rating to 18+ because it has homosexuals in it.
Banning video games for politics is so silly. Theres never been a historical example of video games facilitating dissent, to my knowledge.
Second Life was reportedly heavily monitored by NSA; a chat feature is probably sufficient to weigh in the “facilitating dissent” category. Perhaps, despite TIME’s usual mode of snooty, elitist, oblivious flatulence, the junta’s concern is not so much modeling, but communication.
Re: Paper money
It will almost certainly disappear under the auspices of national security. It’s really only a matter of time.
Cue all the dystopian nightmares as a result of this fearmongering.
Problem is, all the ‘dystopian nightmares’ about earlier “conspiracy theories” like meta data and domestic spying have turned out to be true. This one, alas, falls neatly into the feasible category. People used to laugh openly at “Evangelical Nutcases” when they would bring up the “Number of the Beast” issue. It seems they were just ahead of their Times.
There’s always barter, at least until they start chipping my tomatoes…
And if your immune system rejects the implant, prepare to die at the hands of BigPharma as they give you “strong medicine” to FIX your body so it will not reject foreign matter injurious to its health.
So a maximum altitude in a test flight is now the operational ceiling to acquire a target and shoot it up w/ a cannon? Stretches reality.
Did the operator (Ukrainian or Russian?) also convert the SU-25 in question to a pressurized aircraft or was the pilot on oxygen and suited to accommodate -34C ambient temps while gently gaining enough altitude w/o stalling to line up on a faster jet?
from the link
Service ceiling: Maximum altitude: 7.500 m, maximum height reached (test flight) 14,600 m
Test flight –with fuel and weapons payload? I sure doubt it. More likely a straight flightpath, shallow rate of climb and fuel vapors at the apogee.
I keep seeing the claim being made that the M17 Boeing could not have been brought down by an SU-25 fighter, mentioned by the Russian officer in the presentation as having been observed to have approached it on the radar, because SU-25 cannot fly that high.
I think possibly that the military officer doing the presentation uses the term ‘SU-25’ generically, rather like ‘Apple Mac’, without bothering to specify year or model.
The original SU-25s could not have reached 30,000 ft, because the cockpit was unpressurised, the pilot would have to wear an oxygen mask, and would probably be limited by this, but as I understand it, all Ukraine’s SU-25s were upgraded to SU-25Mi with pressurised cockpits, and also there are many other models and variants, and also we do not even know for certain if it WAS an SU-25.
SU-25 is also known as SU-28 and SU-39 which can operate at heights close to 33,000 feet.
These planes can carry a variety of different air to air missiles, and a variety of different machine guns which can fire sideways, and backwards, so technically it seems quite possible that M17 could have been shot down by an SU-25 type Ukrainian jet fighter, either with missiles of machine guns or both, the possibility is not excluded.
Regarding reaching 30,000 ft (10,000m).
NOT saying I necessarily believe the su-25 shoot down theory, but don’t rule it out so quickly.
The concept of service ceiling depends, among other things, on assumptions made about the weight of fuel and payload (weapons) on the plane. The reason is, as you go higher, the air thins out and lift is less (up to about 10-11 km anyway). Lift must be bigger than weight, with some margin for maneuverability, climb rate, etc. Reduce the weight, with the same power engines, and you can go higher.
Su-25:
Empty weight: 9,800 kg
“normal” takeoff weight: 14,440 kg
“maximum” takeoff weight: 19300 kg
Service ceiling: 7,000 m clean — i.e., “normal takeoff weight” (?)
Service ceiling: 5,000 m with max weapons
So if you trim more weight, you should be able to go higher.
sources: wikipedia, http://www.sukhoi.org/eng/planes/military/su25k/lth/
Basically black helicopter quality mumbo-jumbo
http://www.sukhoi.org/eng/planes/
1.) “SU-25 fighter”
It’s not a fighter, its a close ground support aircraft
2) “The original SU-25s could not have reached 30,000 ft, because the cockpit was unpressurised”
No that’s not the reason, but certainly a pilot at the altitude in an unpressurized SU-25cockpit would be very encumbered.
3.) “SU-25s were upgraded to SU-25Mi with pressurised cockpits”
Link?
4.) “SU-25 is also known as SU-28 and SU-39 which can operate at heights close to 33,000 feet.”
SU-28 is a downgrade trainer variant and the SU-39 is a cancelled project
Here we are again focusing on the MAL Ukraine disaster, Ebola in West Africa being exported to the Mainland USA and many other despicable events brought to you courtesy of good ole Uncle Sam.
Well this evening I watched a documentary on the 1996 TWA disaster, you know, the one I thought was caused by faulty wiring in a fuel tank – well that was the story sold to me by the BBC and its what i actually presumed to be the fact. So, imagine my surprise/horror this evening in watching a documentary made by a Physics Phd with numerous actual investigators and witnesses of that tragedy debunk the official conclusions and call out what actually happened, which was that TWA 800 was hit by two missiles off Cape Cod presumably fired from an ocean going vessel and that the US Federal authorities have done all in their power to cover it up – regrettably, they left a rather large paper trail and failed to murder more than 300 persons to keep it all hush hush.
Now, I usually do not purchase into conspiracy theories, and any unusual stances/claims I make myself are based on available evidence and logical outcomes, hence, I’m still not too sure who killed President Kennedy, believe James Earl Ray innocent of the murder of MLK, this based on an English trial conducted for the UK’s Channel 4 in the 1990s, I’m of the opinion, or was, that the paper trail at least for 9/11 led to Saudi Arabia, and initially thought that the MAL disaster was an accident perpetrated by Federalist forces.
However, it seems I need to do a lot of re-evaluation as to just how dastardly forces within the US Federal government are – obviously, as a history and politics grad and post grad I’m aware the Gulf of Tolkin was a false flag, it just seems now the USA Federal Government/MIC and its large corporations have false flags going off all over the show, to the extent that nothing coming out of DC, the Mainstream Media or anything else affiliated with the US can be trusted anymore.
Anyway, and the reason for the post, it seems US/NATO authorities are doing all they can to destroy wreckage from the MAL flight, alter the wreckage and come to a conclusion for political expediency, rather than the truth for the families of those of the dead – if they are able to “cover-up” and lie about an event less than 10 miles offshore with more than 200 eyewitnesses, lying about MAL to cause WWWIII is but a walk in the park, and that’s before I begin looking at 9/11 again, and like many, and although in Hong Kong at the time, I witnessed the second plane attack and collapse of both towers live on TV via CNN. TWA 800 has come as a bolt out of the blue though, to the extent that Banger’s Deep State or “emergent state” analysis seems more and more correct every time I look at it. I can well understand how Germany descended into “genocide” by 1941 and the chaotic processes behind this fact, however, where to begin with the USA is now a moot point, one things for sure, sinister forces are at play and we should all fear them.
As conspiracy theories go the TWA shootdown is better than most. There is a some evidence that this is what happened (by mistake no doubt). However it could be more a case of CYA than Deep State. For example what would be the motive for deliberately “murdering” 300 people?
I highly suspect that the Ukraine incident will also turn out to be somebody’s mistake. One problem with most conspiracy theories is that they assume that the people with the power to make mischief are a lot smarter and more devious than they really are.
I’m sure somebody will know the source of this quote, as I don’t: “Never infer evil when stupidity is a sufficient explanation.”
Please permit me to further fuel your education on the mendacity of powerful people, and the wreckage that they leave in their wake. Here is the text of an email I sent to a couple of friends of mine with the subject line “The Tonkin Gulf Revisited…With A Lesson For Today”:
“How hawkish Deep State actors can successfully manipulate the President, and functionally usurp the Constitutional process and the powers of the Commander in Chief in his/her control of the nation’s military:
http://original.antiwar.com/porter/2014/08/05/robert-s-mcnamara-and-the-real-tonkin-gulf-deception/
Think about it; the invidious role that shady operators from the CIA and people such as Victoria Nuland from the State Department have been playing in attempting to manipulate the policies of the US concerning Ukraine, Syria, and who knows what else. All that’s missing is a biddable mannikin sitting in the oval office. Oh, wait…”
Just read the linked story from antiwar.com, and have the scales fall away from your eyes still further.
I think that it was Voltaire who said, “Those who can make you believe absurdities, can make you commit atrocities”, or something to that effect. It’s an ancient practice. Atrocities don’t get much bigger than fomenting a war that left millions dead, and millions more with blighted lives. There are some evil motherfuckers out there, and they gravitate to positions with the power to effectuate atrocities, on whatever scale they operate.
If meant for me this is not exactly new information. And there were other external pressures on Johnson to escalate. In fact he supposedly said at one point that he feared that if he didn’t escalate in Vietnam the Republicans would impeach him. But none of this lets Johnson off the hook. Kennedy, under similar pressure from the military to bomb Cuba, resisted. So it’s quite silly to say that his power as President was “functionally usurped.”
Indeed the entire Vietnam episode just makes my point about the incompetence of behind the scenes Machiavellis. David Halberstam wrote a book about it: The Best and the Brightest. The title is meant to be sarcastic, not descriptive.
JFK was non-compliant, and his powers were usurped in ’63. I wonder how that influenced LBJ’s decisions.
Lyndon was a gung ho hawk according to last Robert Caro book covering through ’64. it says he always took the hard line in the JFK foreign policy debates. Even if he was misled by his advisers during Vietnam there’s no reason to think he would have, in the end, acted differently than the way he did. As someone who had avoided fighting in WW2 he didn’t want to be tagged with being the first American President to lose a war.
Great article, JJ. I imagine the same dynamic is played out with Obama, but Obama is an empty suit opportunist compared to LBJ. He’s a naked emperor easily outwitted by his tailors.
Stanley Kubrick advised: “Stay AWAY from powerful people.”
Because … well, Dr. Robert Hare will explain it all for you.
I recall a very detailed expose of that story, perhaps a decade ago, in the New York Review of Books, back when it didn’t suck. IIRC, electrical pulse from radar ignited fumes in the fuel tank. Of course, my memory could be off….
Out of money and ammo and the highest number of killed soldiers in battle Israel declares victory. The fall out from this will take time but you can expect that the current group in power will puff there chests in public but everyone realizes now that everything is different.
The only “virtue” of our present anti-government projects is that, unlike the 1960s and ’70s, we manage to refrain from killing people (the exception being the Posada hotel bombing some years ago). What we do is make the Cubans mad and ourselves look like idiots. To my government: It’s over. The Cubans won. Get past it.
Lambert et al,
Back on the Ukraine/MAL theme, but just popped over to another actual news site and pleased to learn that Putin is now imposing some sanctions of his own onto the EU – obviously he’s keeping the nuclear option back until the final quarter, namely an oil and gas embargo, which will push Europe back into a full recession, if not depression – is the Ukraine really worth it i ask?
Here’s the link: http://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/aug/06/russia-bans-imports-eu-us-sanctions
Ben Judah writing at Politico is less optimistic about Putin’s options. He argues that the West is finally united in imposing sanctions, and that it’s the Russian economy that will take a big hit. What’s wrong with Judah’s argument? Or is he correct? Here’s the link:
http://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2014/07/the-end-of-vladimir-putin-109604_Page2.html
I guess you linked to page 2 because page 1 starts from the premise that the rebels downed the MH17. The articles cite this as the event that united the West for a new round of sanctions. Yet, as described in today’s links, there is good reason to believe that it was NOT the Separatists but the “US-backed (“f*ck the EU”) Ukrainian govt that downed the plane.
Those that argue that Putin is “isolated” or that Russia will be gravely hurt economically are simply trying to shore up support for Obama Administration policy. They hope that criticism will wan if Putin is seen as the inevitable loser. But the eventual winners and losers here are ‘murky’ to say the least.
Your linking to page 2 is consistent with the manipulative and deceitful tactics we have seen from the Obama Administation and others that seek to quell criticism of the Ukrainian fiasco.
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My times have changed! Back when the U.S. Navy downed an Iranian Passenger jet loaded with men, women and children hardly a sound was heard from the U.S. other then, tough. So the reaction to this incident has little or nothing to do with who shot down the airliner or that an airliner was shot down rather it is about relations between the West and Russia which are not discussed in public and only dealt with within certain government security circles. Very fucking scary!!!!!!!!!
I suggest Ben Judah has little or no knowledge of what he’s talking about, or for that matter knowledge of the economic history of Russia since its October Revolution and imposition of “socialism in one country” in the early 1920s. Suffice to say, the EU states import approx. 35% of their oil from Russia and most of their gas – whilst LPG is making inroads with new infrastructure facilities built in the UK and other EU nations, that fact is at this present juncture in time the EU is reliant on Russian gas – so, whilst Russia can divert its attention from West to East, together with Africa and South America to sell its soft and hard commodities, as well as manufactured goods – military on the whole – the EU cannot make-up for the shortfall in oil or gas.
Further, and as witnessed by the terrible economic pain of the 1920’s, the horror of the German invasion in 1941, the economic consequences of the Cold War, as well as the horror unleashed by the Chicago Boys in the 1990’s, the Russian’s can suffer a great deal more than their Western counterparts, plus, if the oil and gas is not sold now, it will be sold in the future. All these little historical facts Ben Judah ignores, which is endemic in the USA seeing its only interested in short termism in its own back and regime change in Russia – Putin obviously having little respect for “full spectrum dominance” and the USA playing dirty in its back yard.
The question really ought to be how much pain can the EU stand, and Ukraine for that matter, and given in three months time we will be in the grip of cold weather in much of Northern Europe and MittleEurope, that’s when the “nuclear” option of cutting off the EU’s energy supplies comes into play. We have seen Putin as a good Chess player and strategist, he’s played a reasonably good hand as far as Ukraine is concerned, and yet been lambasted by the West and its mediawhores. Russia is a proud and old nation, far older than the USA and armed with some pretty advanced nuclear technology, so lets change the equation around, what;s Obama and the DC whores going to do once the world is plunged into another economic crisis courtesy of its crass stance in relation to Ukraine and Putin – not a lot, and all I can urge Putin is bring it on, for the sooner our neoliberal economic zombie implodes the better we’ll all be – yes we’ll have some short term pain, but this is better than WWWIII caused by US/EU/NATO intransigence.
So, in a nutshell, its the EU that loses out here and this is because the EU are a bunch of moral cowards with zero backbone and little by the way of energy resources to power their own technology and economies. Now who’s the stupid party and who’s the more realistic party, and my vote goes to Putin and Russia on this occasion.
“nuclear option” / shutting off gas
This possibility is often raised to illustrate that Russia has a strong position, but a reader could get the mistaken impression that Russia might act in a wanton and heavy handed way. I doubt very much that they would resort to such tactics (except if there is war with NATO, in which case all bets are off). It’s in their interests to have good relations with their customers AND they don’t want to be blamed for people’s discomfort or death.
Jackrabbit,
As a prompter to what’s happening vis a vis EU/Russian relations, its currently fair to say that the EU is in the pockets of the Yanks and neocons, they had a choice and have decided to support evil – you only need to look at the UK papers to get a handle on this.
Now as for Putin, I think he’s very underestimated by his Western peers, he’s not a career politician or bullshitting CEO of some crass company, he’s ex-KGB/FSB and a Russian nationalist, he’s head and shoulders above the likes of Obama, Kerry, Cameron and Merkel. Now, I’m no fan of Putin on his domestic front, he seems to make a few mistakes and with better advisors could possibly be a far better leader, but his background means he’s well acquitted with history – so, if he follows a Thatcherite doctrine, and by that I mean bidding his time until he’s in a more favourable position and then issuing a ultimatum to the EU, common sense may prevail – his window of opportunity is limited, he can only strike at peak gas usage timelines, which means Winter, he also no doubt knows he can only play a strong hand for three or four years given the US desire to export gas and LPG infrastructure going in both sides of the Atlantic, this also includes building LPG bulk carriers, of which not enough exist to quench EU gas requirements. Its the great game, except this time the EU is in the middle. In my humble opinion the EU has screwed up, so best to learn its lesson rapidly or we really will be in another “cold war”, except this time the maniacs in DC believe the USA can win a nuclear exchange, which is complete madness, but so was trying to instal a pro-EU/USA/NATO government in the Ukraine.
Anyway, those are my views, but as stated, Putin as more about him that our Western non-leaders, most of whom are concerned about the depth of their pockets rather than the well being of the nations they lead.
I don’t think Putin is underestimating the West at all. Nor should anyone forget the hysterical comments that were made after Russia was unified with Crimea. This, I believe, was a direct result of the West not foreseeing the Russian move on Crimea. Even though a casual understanding of Russian history from the time of Catherine the Great would provide ample reasons why Putin would not allow Russia to lose it’s influence over Crimea. As for the assertion that the US is preparing for nuclear war I’ll just re-post JMG’s response (from the Archdruid Report article) to another similar comment about that subject.
“…they don’t want a nuclear war. They’re trying to cover up the strategic death spiral of the US by blustering more and more loudly. It’s gotten shrill enough in DC that I wonder just how close to geopolitical and military collapse the US is.”
Washington is probably hoping that Afghanistan will turn out better than Iraq. Yeah, good luck with all that. As for Iraq, Maliki isn’t launching air strikes in support of the Kurds because he has any love for them. If the Islamic State seizes control of Baghdad’s electric and water supply the city will fall.
“You can’t always get what you want.” They want a war so badly. They’ve been flailing around for months and months trying to get one. I wonder what the October surprise will be this year?
Maybe someone can explain to me how Russia is going to come out the loser in this war of sanctions? They have the resources that the west needs, end of story. Or perhaps the plan is to hope that Putin “goes there” by withholding energy supplies. A cold winter or two with tight energy supplies could be all it takes for the EU to be clamoring for war. Either way, it’s dangerous and destructive foreign policy
Putin would do well to follow the latest published advice from Paul Craig Roberts — that he’s holding the cards to win, and he MUST play them right now.
Great article by Sirota on Emanuel and Chicago TIF funds, a naked theft from the public schools benefitting Emanuel’s rich buddies. I have occasionally harped here on this issue so I am really glad that Lambert and Yves linked to this article. If anything Sirota held back a bit by not mentioning $4.5 million in TIF money that went to Penny Pritzker’s Hyatt Hotels to build a hotel in Hyde Park at the behest of the University of Chicago, another large beneficiary of TIF largesse. These funds were approved while Pritzker was a member of the Chicago Public Schools board, the unelected, mayor appointed body of corporate types supposedly performing their civic duty by destroying public education in Chicago and replacing it with charter schools (another bucket of corruption, just google UNO schools).
Fucking Emanuel. Apparently the inept undercover officers who were at the center of the NATO Three case were also sicced on a group protesting the closing of community mental health clinics in 2012: http://www.chicagoreader.com/chicago/police-infiltrate-mental-health-clinics-nato-three/Content?oid=14519438. I can’t stomach the possibility that this sociopathic fuck could be re-elected, contemplating the possibility is giving me serious ulcers. He really makes one wistful for the good old days of Richie Daley…
RE ALEC’s most major effort —
Constiutional amendments
and much worse, constitutional conventions
Unfortunately, many liberals right now are supporting their own versions of such efforts without realizing the inevitable consequences of their efforts.
Petitions to overturn Citizens United by constitutional amendment are being circulated by well-intentioned congressmen. They are getting a lot of signatures from people who are concerned and frustrated, and wish to “do something”.
While liberal efforts have been short-term, spontaneous and reactive, ALEC’s organizers have been planning, developing and executing their agendas for at least fifty years.
Consider for example, what would actually happen if a Citizens United amendment actually gained momentum? Our legislators would be inundated with counterargument and counter amendments that have already been quietly vetted and crafted for years. Our state legislatures and Congress would be flooded with ALEC trained lobbyists, many of them lawyers. What about all those billions of dollars in donations that a Citizens United amendment is supposed to prevent? Our media would be saturated with messages of only one kind. Liberals and (and genuine conservatives) would be swept away in the flood.
Most likely, ALEC’s creators would let an amendment pass – most likely it would be massaged in the manner of other well-intended legislation – with tricky codicils that create a regulation that is far worse than anything it was intended to prevent. I think most people here know that good legislation is constantly undermined by the time it reaches a vote. What on earth would be different this time?
A constitutional convention is very much worse.
The link speculates an ALEC-called convention as if it would be a limited thing,
the article gives a possible balanced budget amendment, as an example of what might occur.
Nothing can be further from the truth.
Once a convention is called, it can pass ABSOLUTELY ANYTHING – there would be no Constitution to fall back upon – after all, they would be gathered to rewrite it. A convention would be dominated by experts — THEIR experts, managed and massaged and promoted by their experts — after all they have planned and trained personnel for decades for the event. The rest of us have planned nothing.
We each can easily write our own horror stories – whatever un-benevolent thing you can imagine, it likely would happen. AND whatever passed would be supported by untold billions of dollars in public hype to make sure it is ratified.
Evidently ALEC’s promoters are “doing something” of their own choosing. Creating our own amendments in the current environment is not the answer.
“Creating our own amendments in the current environment is not the answer.”
So what is the answer? By what magic do you imagine the political parties, lobbyists, corporations, and wretchedly captured judiciary will somehow accept meaningful reform? Seriously, I’m looking for specific answers that don’t involve appealing to politician’s better nature or electing “better” politicians in the existing “money rules” environment.
Your question seeks a “magic bullet” which is what the CItizens United effort also is. There is no quick and dirty response to fifty years of patient planning and organization. We need to do some of the same. There is no robotic one two three step you can follow, and ALEC didn’t do it that way.
First, do one thing that should be easy — clean our own act up, learn to keep our cool and not act with our feelings. No magic thinking — but some solutions would then be evident and workable.
Corporatists deliberately and methodically seeded our elections in 2010 and 2012 with dozens of candidates who were Halloween characters — they were there precisely to frighten. and obligingly, liberal politicians went into a panic. I could have bankrupted myself contributing to every frantic Democrat who emailed “Do you realize what my lunatic right-wing opponent is SAYING?”. Meanwhile they all forgot to argue for basic proposals that would promote themselves as candidates of thought, sobriety, and above all leadership.
Keep your cool by knowing that corporatists are cautious predators — they don’t want Bachmans or Palins any more than the rest of us do. They are too difficult to control and they rock the boat.
Encompass the enemy as human — who says that corporatists don’t want regulation? They are as afraid of each others’ predatory natures as we are of all of them. Which means, even they might be amenable to negotiation. Some libertarian talking points are being advanced to manipulate and frighten us. Why play their game by waiting for others to set agendas and then acting in panic? Crony capitalists don’t want a balanced budget amendment any more than we do. They do use it and they will use it as a smoke screen to beguile conservatives into promoting a constitutional convention with a far nastier agenda.
We don’t allow ourselves to be flattered. Surveys say that even conservatives acknowledge that Democrats tend to be “more caring”. I’ve seen a number of prominent Democrats who have been suckered by these reports. First, if the premise is accepted as fact, why the need to promote it? In fact, the underside of that premise is “Democrats are more caring but they can’t balance their own checkbooks much less the nation’s.”
Why promote that dubious compliment by acting and arguing with our feelings?
Why aren’t we making more overtures to the Tea Party? — mainly because we believe the hype that was created to divide us. If liberals and labor and segregationist Democrats could gather under one roof and create the New Deal, then what is wrong with us?
Support Occupy — they are still alive and active.
Conservatives have virtually wiped out abortion clinics in many places, and have done so without a constitutional amendment, but that means thinking beyond today.
Consider the passivity that surrounds all of us — What is the agenda of Democratic leadership? What do they see for our future? — A growth in population of people of color who will then vote Democratic based upon traditional loyalty. No principles to argue, no agenda, no vision — bunch of cargo cultists awaiting manna from heaven. Who says that a better educated population will vote for Democrats just because their parents did?
There is no robotic agenda, no formula, that one can follow. Getting away from passivity and emotive thinking can help a lot.
Yes, the freaks run their mouths off all the time. But who cares, as long as they vote right (from the oligarchs’ standpoint)? If Palin were to assume the Presidency, which simply wouldn’t happen if she weren’t fully aware that the President answers to the Board of Directors, unauthorized actions on matters the oligarchs actually care about would probably work out very poorly for her family and children. Chelsea Clinton’s $600k couldn’t possibly be hush money, could it?
The agenda of Democratic leadership is, as best I can tell, to replace even the perception of the right to self-determination with submission to markets. I don’t know that they care much about any particular election, as long as they retain ballot rights and uppity citizens don’t taste success without bitterness.
Ilargi. The next 500 years? The planet changes with or without us. But we know beyond doubt that what we have done since the industrial revolution has cause climate change. It is probably impossible to reverse course, to go back to the ideal climate of the last few hundred years. But it is possible to pitch in to reclaim the planet. Give us just 100 years without war and without trade wars and other distortions of capitalism; with the entire human race working to reclaim a livable planet and it could become livable for centuries to come.
You’re dreaming. The climate change that is already baked in WILL bring humans to extinction (assuming a nuke crapstorm doesn’t first). Just wait and see what happens as the permafrost really thaws out. It’s over, people. Finis.
Latest ukraine maps
“”President Obama and all leaders of nuclear-armed nations, please respond to that call by visiting the A-bombed cities as soon as possible to see what happened with your own eyes,” Mayor Kazumi Matsui said. “If you do, you will be convinced that nuclear weapons are an absolute evil that must no longer be allowed to exist.”
About 45,000 people stood for a minute of silence at the ceremony in Hiroshima’s peace park near the epicenter of the 1945 bombing that killed up to 140,000 people. The bombing of Nagasaki three days later killed another 70,000, prompting Japan’s surrender in World War II.”
http://abcnews.go.com/International/wireStory/japan-marks-69th-anniversary-hiroshima-bombing-24858379
On Open Carry Parenting:
See Dick shoot. See Jane shoot. See Dick shoot Jane.
Chomsky on nukes:
http://www.commondreams.org/views/2014/08/05/why-national-security-has-nothing-do-security
Forget global warming; the planet barely survived the Cold War. In every instance he cites the choices made by American policymakers were taken to guarantee American dominance, not to act for the safety of the country’s, or the world’s, public. This begins with the initial decision to drop the atomic bomb–done as much to intimidate the Russians as to defeat the Japanese.
thanks for posting that link.
http://thearchdruidreport.blogspot.com/2014/07/dark-age-america-climate.html:
Harrowing, and all too convincing.
Note the very first comment: rainfall is the key factor; most of the western US would be hard desert – except the PNW, west of the Cascades. I, too, have heard from a climate scientist that our rainfall here won’t change a lot, though it will get warmer.
This is both good news and bad: we’ll receive a massive wave of climate refugees, on top of the subduction quake. I don’t think we’re ready for that, though the Willamette Valley grows far more food than Willamettans can eat, and could grow far more (our chief crops are seeds – grass, clover, sugar beets, veggies).
Anyway, it’s a shocking but rather beautiful essay.
States that know they’ll be unaffected should secede now and prepare a strong army.
Oregoncharles,
As to rainfall not changing a lot here (Washington west of the Cascades): We get our summer water to an important extent from snowmelt in the Cascades. Warmer winters will not necessarily mean a change in total precipitation but if more of it comes as rain and less as snow in the mountains we’ll be in big trouble. There’s nowhere near the reservoir capacity to make up for the loss of snowpack.
There are a lot of people in the Puget Lowland; during one summer at least, some years back, Tacoma had water rationing.
A hundred million beaver dams throughout Cascadia would hold back nowhere near as much water as today’s snowpack. But a hundred million beaver dams would be better than no snowpack and no beaverdams either. Time for Cascadia to bring back the beaver for real?
The Sinai and Sahara deserts once were green.
The Eric Garner saga continues… NYC Police Union Denies Chokehold Use During Eric Garner Arrest
From the *These are not the droids you are looking for* department?
“It is not a chokehold,” Lynch insisted during a press conference on Tuesday. “It was bringing a person to the ground the way we’re trained to do to place him under arrest.”
So are choke holds SOP for all arrests or did he perform a maneuver that was not the official department sanctioned choke hold and therefore was not a true “choke hold”?
Which party will be the first to bring in expert witnesses from UFC?
Shocking Analysis of the ‘Shooting Down’ of Malaysian MH17
According to Russian radar data, at the time of the hit there was an unidentified, supposedly military, airplane 6km below flight MH17. It could have potentially used an air-to-air missile (very unlikely), but “close proximity”? This is at least a fifth theory purporting to explain how Ukrainians downed the airplane that has more holes than the cockpit section. The only plausible theory is that Ukrainians shot it down using their own surface-to-air missile.
Obama Should Release Ukraine Evidence
I totally agree. The article is from July 28, but the US has still released no evidence and shown no intention to do so (although I recall evidence was supposedly demonstrated in closed Senate hearings). Russians have shown their civilian radar records and satellite pictures, which may or may not be authentic, but the US has demonstrated nothing to date. This is bad.
The article itself though could be better. Sounds more like a rant against Obama and Kerry than a serious call by intelligence experts.