Scientists race to identify goop on birds along San Francisco Bay shorelines Christian Science Monitor :-(
Baby Monkey and Baby Goose form unbreakable bond at Pattaya Zoo PattyOne
Major breakthrough in reading ancient scrolls ScienceDaily. Chuck L: “This is so cool on several levels. I’d like to know more about how the process is able to discern different layers in the scroll, which must have seemed an insurmountable problem at the outset. Then there’s the anticipation of what long-lost texts will be discovered.”
Oz father and son team plan suborbital spaceplane The Register. Chuck L: “Cutting edge aviation development being done by a father and his 12 year old son. You’d think it’s a story from a century ago.”
Logical Fallacies in Defense of Aggresive Screening for and Treatment of Hepatitis C Health Care Renewal
China January factory growth stalls, deflation pressures build, bad debt rises Reuters
Thailand’s Yingluck charged and impeached Financial Times
Sumatra Burning: The heart of palm oil (PART 2) YouTube, Furzy mouse: ”Heavy ash floating over my area in Thailand…
Draghi’s QE outstrips expectations Financial Times
One last gasp for the ‘one-size-fits-all’ euro Telegraph
European sovereign debt hypocrisy FT Alphaville
Revised Greek Default Scenario: Liabilities Shifted to German and French Taxpayers; Bluff of the Day Revisited Michael Shedlock
7 Keys to Understanding the Greek Elections Pavlos Tsimas. HuffingtonPost
In a Reversal, Argentine President Says Prosecutor’s Death Was Not a Suicide New York Times
Saudi Arabia’s King Abdullah dies BBC. This is a huge deal, one the CIA and State Department have long dreaded. The old king was loved and the Crown Price is despised.
Syraqistan
Oil drop ‘disastrous’ for anti-Isis fight Financial Times
Yemen crisis: President resigns as rebels tighten hold BBC
U.S. Fears Chaos as Government of Yemen Falls New York Times
An Old Hand Is At Work in Yemen’s Bloody Civil War Robert Fisk (Margarita)
Obamacare
Who suffers if Obamacare subsidies go away? Surprise CNBC (furzy mouse)
The Golden Age of Black Ops, Special Ops Missions Already in 105 Countries in 2015 TomDispatch. From yesterday, still very much germane.
‘American Sniper’ Is Almost Too Dumb to Criticize Matt Taibbi
Obama Has Imprisoned Whistleblowers 25 Times Longer Than All Other Presidents COMBINED George Washington
Flight Logs Put Clinton, Dershowitz on Pedophile Billionaire’s Sex Jet Gawker
When Liberals Were Organized American Prospect
JPMorgan CEO Jamie Dimon Accepts Obama Capital Gains Tax Hike International Business Times. Obama’s favorite banker curries favor.
U.S. Says Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver Took Millions in Payoffs, Abusing Office New York Times
Paper files public records request–and city’s response is a lawsuit Columbia Journalism Review
Caught between greed and religion: the battle for Kansas public education Guardian (Pat)
New Hampshire Lottery releases bacon-scented ticket Associated Press (furzy mouse)
Oil
This Chart Shows Why the Oil Bust Will Last Wolf Richter
US producers feel oil price pinch sharpest Financial Times
rental income from oil and gas Warren Mosler
Larry Summers warns of epochal deflationary crisis if Fed tightens too soon Ambrose Evans Pritchard, Telegraph. Um, super low interest rates suck interest income out of the economy….and the only borrowing they encourage is for speculation. Too much of a monetarist view of the world is a big part of our problem. And see Warren Mosler above. He deems America’s “better” economic performance to be due to the oil/gas boom rather than to Fed intervention. when he points out that QE drained the interest on the securities the Fed bought from the economy.
Class Warfare
Art world’s shady dealings under scrutiny at Davos Financial Times (Li). Nouriel Roubini calls out money laundering.
Bill Gates Says Cellphones Are The Key To Solving Poor People’s Banking Problems Business Insider. A 21st century “Let them eat cake” moment. No, the problem is the US payments system, not devices. South Africa has this problem solved in 1997 with affordable stored value chip cards.
How Much More (Or Less) Would You Make If We Rolled Back Inequality? NPR (Margarita)
Antidote du jour (Susan M):
See yesterday’s Links and Antidote du Jour here.
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Comments are closed.
Strike 1 – Record US oil inventories and 30-year record production
Strike 2 – Iraq Says Oil Output Must Rise to Compensate for Price Drop
Strike 3 – Federal Reserve raises interest rates
R.I.P. Oil Boom – 2004-2014
Good riddance. Maybe we should develop an economy that isn’t dependent upon destroying our own land and ruining the global environment. Just a thought.
“Maybe we should develop an economy that isn’t dependent upon destroying our own land and ruining the global environment.”
Totally doable as long as you and every other first worlder are willing to cut your lifestyle by about 75%. Either that or just keep your lifestyle and condemn the other 80% of the population to abject poverty, disease, and starvation. You actually do have a choice…no really…I’m serious but unfortunately most people live in denial so they don’t have to choose so they can keep living like they do.
Actually, it seems that our quality of life requires that we actively disrupt and make life miserable for the other 80%
Totally doable as long as you and every other first worlder are willing to cut your lifestyle by about 75%. Either that or just keep your lifestyle and condemn the other 80%
Probably 75% of present-day American “lifestyle” is waste so I see no problem. Obviously, it will require major restructuring but, in the end, the American quality-of-life — and that’s what matters — would improve over the piggish gluttony we now celebrate as “freedom.”
I don’t know if it’s doable, but I will start with a list of things we can do:
1. Less sugar in your diet – fewer visits to your dentist and diabetes specialists.
2. Grow your own food when possible – means less driving for interstate trucks
3. Discover your neighborhood – cut down on jet travel (beauty is around you, not far way locales, power is you, not some distant federal government – new money to the people).
4. Overcome the fear of rough life – too much comfort is not healthy. Go do some weigh lifting daily.
5. Weather permitting, wear frayed, threadbare clothing. Free yourself from fear of out of fashion (free yourself from propaganda)
6. Give up TV – know it’s an addiction. Seek help.
7. Take up navel gazing – it enlarges the part of your brain that deals with compassion (the most noble job there is, and hopefully, the government can pay you for doing that as part of BIG=JG). Here we are talking about wisdom education, not intellectual education.
8. Adopt a Neo-Luddite attitude and find ways to free yourself from energy-consuming (however little, either by itself, or whistling past the graveyard, relative to something it replaces – “this car gets 100MPH, instead of 25MPH!!!!!!!!!!!!”) technologies.
This last point is very important. We need audience participation. You have ideas. Yes, you who think you’re powerless and needs something outside (a god, a corporation or a government). NO, you have greatness within. You have many ideas that will save the world (including nature). You have a duty to contribute.
Good list. Here are several more:
Play music.
Read books.
Have meals at the dinner table.
Exercise.
How to Overthrow the System: brew your own beer; kick in your Tee Vee; kill your own beef; build your own cabin and piss off the front porch whenever you bloody well feel like it.” – Ed Abbey
Blow up your TV/
throw away your paper/
Go to the country/
build you a home/
Plant a little garden/
eat a lot of peaches/
Try and find Jesus/
on your own
– John Prine
Walk to the grocery store. Walk to the library. Walk to the movies. Walk to the neighbors’.
Chat with the grocery store cashier. Talk with the librarian (quietly). Don’t talk in the movies! Always talk with the neighbors.
Walk to the grocery store, and do what, once you get there?
Are you proposing the little old lady’s shopping cart (an evil and inadequate device, even and especially for little old ladies), or your son’s RadioFlyer? Or turn around and don’t buy anything, just go for the exercise?
Do you think the modern woman can take an hour or two every day to shop, because she can’t do a week’s foraging in one go? The elderly? The disabled?
And the physical barriers: snow, rain, traffic, highways, hills…unless you live in a desert and walk at night, you are going to be taking more than just your health in your hands: you may be taking your life.
If you live in an enlightened area, you MIGHT be able to get home delivery….such an antiquated, 1940’s idea! And expensive, not to mention the Quality Control of the shopping…
“5. Weather permitting, wear frayed, threadbare clothing. Free yourself from fear of out of fashion (free yourself from propaganda)”
I’m am already the least fashionable person alive – I’m still wearing my avocado colored velour turtlenecks with ersatz gold chains….
I think that is sacrifice above and beyond the call….
Get hassled by the local cop, who figures you are one of those street-begging homeless….
additions to list:
buy used clothing (Goodwill, other thrifts) when possible.
When new is necessary, buy well-made stuff that lasts rather than cheap (essentially disposable) products.
eat plant-based as much as possible. buy local/organic when possible (it isn’t always easy on a very limited income).
Bring your own bag for all shopping, avoid plastic packaging whenever possible (harm in so many ways).
Don’t do bottled water – an environmental disaster. filter instead.
I reiterate the read books. spend on arts when able, rather than unnecessary stuff. Be conscious of what you’re purchasing.
Help educate others. I try teach my kids, friends, patrons at my library, etc. (“teach” meaning, disseminate facts, sites to read, etc, talk about what’s known, what’s really going on. (and I always tell my kids, it’s not just about us. Gross consumption, environmental harm, impoverishment is causing incredible misery world wide, all for the enrichment of a relative handful of people).
There’s the rub. Much easier, psychologically speaking, to buy into the techno-utopia hype that all problems will eventually be solved by clever devices (see Bill Gates above) and salve your conscience with some minor donation to a charity.
I had this realization (that there simply aren’t enough resources to provide a 1st world middle class standard of living for everyone in the world) after my first trip to Nepal. Result: for the next decade or so I devoted large portions (30-50%) of my meager-by-US standards income to building a school in Nepal. I figured it was ethically necessary to reduce my consumption and divert whatever resources I could to a poorer place.
Now I can’t afford to do that anymore. Ironically, part of the reason is that I had to figure out how to live very cheaply and so am now satisfied with a tiny income from a tiny job…and I’m not ambitious enough to go find more paid work to increase it (I have an extreme time preference, in economic terms, because as a Subgenius, I love to work, but only on what I want to work on…regardless of whether it pays or not). But honestly, having done the charity wealth re-distribution thing, I have to say that I think it’s not the ideal situation.
The main problem with charity, that I found, is that the recipients don’t have any buy-in and so don’t invest as much in the project’s success as they could. There is also a sort of dis-empowerment that goes along with the possibly unavoidable paternalism of straight-up charity. And then there’s the whole irrational economic part of it.
Basically what I did was to reduce my own purchasing power here in order to increase the purchasing power of the villagers in Nepal. Because of the way our system of financial score-keeping is set up, I could allow some people to buy bricks and concrete and doors and windows, etc. in Nepal, by not buying more lattes and gadgets and health insurance, etc. in this country (and giving up the option of doing so later by saving that income). So it had the effect of a transfer of access to material resources, despite the fact that no material resources crossed the Pacific Ocean. Weird. I do one thing here and it affects the possibilities on the other side of the world…it’s almost like a kind of magic.
But I agree with you that it is ethically incumbent upon all of us in the first world to try to get our needs met with as little consumption of natural resources as possible, and to do anything we can to stop the unnecessary consumption/wastage of resources, especially by corporate “persons.” But it is hard, psychologically, since drastically reducing your consumption is a recipe for social ostracism, and goes against all the conditioning that we’ve received from advertisers over the years.
But it is hard, psychologically, since drastically reducing your consumption is a recipe for social ostracism, and goes against all the conditioning that we’ve received from advertisers over the years.
So true, which brings this to mind:
It is no measure of health to be well adjusted to a profoundly sick society.
— Krishnamurti
Counterculture is needed.
U.S. Says Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver Took Millions in Payoffs, Abusing Office
So what’s the problem? I thought “public-private partnerships” were the bees’ knees in the New World Order.
I don’t want to brag how savvy I am, but I would have brought, with that money, myself an ambassadorship to a country with no extradition treaty with Uncle Sam. And I would have been there already.
He could always emulate George W. Plunkett, he of “honest graft” fame, and retire to Queens and stay a free man.
James Inhofe (R-OK) going on record that Repubs plan to rule the country according to the Bible. hahaha
In related news, I’m looking for a rowboat on Ebay that will seat two Athiests.
Say what you want about the Dems (I gave up on them myself), but these Repubs are Freakin’ Whackjobs.
Inhofe would be a good topic for Charlie Hebdo!
Inhofe is a satirist-cartoonist’s dream. But you could be arrested for that; maybe even thinking it.
Don’t be racist
We can condemn racism without being assumed to advocate for violence.
We are against both.
Unfortunately, logic is not practiced that way.
“If you are with us, you are against us.”
“No, I am not against you. I am just not for you either.”
“Impossible!”
“Well, I am against violence. And I am against racism.”
“No, if you are against racism here, you are for violence.”
“No. You are assuming.”
“If you are against eating meat, you are for veganism.”
“What?!?!? You’re ranting now.”
“If you are not for Big Government, you are for Big Business.”
“At least you’re making a little sense. No, I am not for Big Business, even though I AM not for Big Government.”
“You are for Big Business.”
“No, I am for Big little People.”
Fwiw, Sarah Palin had exactly the same line tweeting about the Copenhagen climate summit in December 2009:
Or:
But the dark imputation of “arrogance” against opponents by both of them is (to my eye, anyway) the mark of real genius.
What I puzzle on is why people that toss out the bromide that climate is always changing but it’s “arrogant” to contemplate that humans affect climate (nature).
In fact, it seems inconsistent to believe there is any aspect of nature, humans for example, that doesn’t exert some influence on Climate.
From a thermodynamic perspective, It’s all a continuum here on Earth. We’re exposed to a Solar energy flux (input) and various dynamic phenomena on the surface and in the atmosphere affect the balance of radiative absorption and the re-radiative emission of said energy back into space. Humans, Algae, Volcanos, Cow farts are all aspects of that dynamic phenomena influencing Earth’s heat transfer. It’s that simple, everything else is in the details.
It’s God’s plan, and you don’t question God’s plan and those doing God’s work. There are people in this country who actively believe that the 2nd coming of Christ will happen in their lifetimes, or at least some form of it, like the Rapture. Think about the concept of the Rapture, because of your holiness and righteousness, you will be scooped up to heaven to witness the horror and desperation of the unbelievers. Why would you have any desire to make the world a better place? The Christianist-Dominionist fundamentalism is a death cult as much as Wahabbist – Islam.
Even if humans are causing global warming, it’s God’s plan. Even if we nuke the planet, it’s God’s plan. If you are ever really around it, it’s a profundly disturbing worldview. Incredibly inhuman.
I remember seeing a Republican politician declaring on TV in the early ’90’s that there was no need for things like the EPA or “conservay-shun!” since the rapture was approaching within our lifetimes anyway. That was over 20 years ago but I still have the stunned expression on my face…
Well, of course climate has been changing, considered over Epochs (thousands of years). The last Ice Age ended 18,000 years ago and the climate has changed marginally since that time. However, the rapid rise in global temperatures has been noted (scientifically) over the past 100 years (Industrial Revolution) and readily attributed (scientifically) to increased greenhouse gases/carbon in the atmosphere.
So the issue is not “change”, but the “rate of change”. How quickly do you think the water infrastructure in California will be able to adapt? The Great Valley there provides ~75% of fresh fruit and vegetables to the greater US. If the water reservoirs/conduit that channel Sierra snowpack to agricultural land don’t get water because it’s too warm to snow, how many meals can you miss before it has an impact? Some say 7; before anarchy.
A previous commenter (days ago) suggested that global warming was diminishing. True (to some degree). But the hiatus is actually an effect of the latent heat capacity of the oceans. They have an enormous capacity to store added global heat. Until, of course, the conditions are ripe for that heat energy to be transferred back to the atmosphere. (See Hurricane Sandy). Scientists are slowly discovery the mechanism that engenders the release of the decades long storage of global heat in the oceans: tropical trade wind shift. The next decadal shift of trade winds may release more heat energy back into the atmosphere than ever before experienced. (Yes, more than a volcano, Sarah.)
Climate change (disruption) could be so swift and severe that even Homo sapiens won’t know what hit them.
I agree.
We make a distinction between ‘change’ and ‘rate of change.’
It’s like we are all dying slowly from the day we are born. We change (in one direction).
When a murderer kills a living being who is naturally dying ever slowly, he/she speeds up the rate of change.
Here’s the latest report on the California Drought. (Note the mention of ocean temps.)
Drought Report
‘Doomsday Clock’ Ticks Forward: Climate Change, Nuclear Weapons Push Humanity Closer Towards Global Catastrophe
Last helicopter out of
SaigonSana:Who would have thought the ungrateful natives would get all stroppy, just because our Peace Laureate droned a few hundred folks (including some U.S. citizens)? It was for the greater good!
Now our American advisers are being threatened with violence. We were promised rose petals and chocolates! :-(
Another raging success for US military intervention. Yemen, Iraq, Afganistan, Libya, …
C’mon taxpayers, just one more war and we will eradicate evil in our time, and forever.
The Daesh war. A War To End All Wars.
I also have a Bridge To Hell I’m looking to sell.
It took me a little while too, but taxpayers do not fund those operations.
Basically, it’s the government that is funding the things you are thinking of in your comment.
That same entity, that same organization, can spend as much as it deems necessary.
The Government is us Beef.
Isn’t it the case that Government does not create wealth to fund it’s activities, It instead prints the money that denominates it while stewarding the rules of the game in which wealth is created, then peels off some of the value to do it’s thing.
If I wanted to be guilt-tripped by blaming the victim in a Catch-22, I know where the local Protestant churches are.
And what does this infantile bit of Whiggism — “The government is us” — have to do with the real world, not the Whiggish narrative fantasyland that Gilens and Page put paid to just last year?
The Speaker Silver situation could quickly spiral out of control. The NYT story linked above, hints at this:
Morgan Pehme, at the Gotham Gazette spells out more clearly what may be in store for Albany:
http://www.gothamgazette.com/index.php/opinions/5534-shelly-silvers-arrest-5-immediate-impacts-on-albany-morgan-pehme
I am sure that Gov. Cuomo will have no qualms about throwing the speaker under the bus. It will be interesting to see if Shelly Silver continues to be the “stand-up guy” that he’s always been, or if he starts spilling the beans to save his own skin. If the pressure on him pushes him to the latter course, our “government” in Albany will become completely dysfunctional.
Silver IS the government in Albany. The “three men in room” thing is at least 20 years old, and shelly is the oldest, and longest serving. His power, especially around 2008 was unchecked. He was miles above the then gov, and in all likely hood, picked Patterson for the gov spot.
Bruno was the closest thing to an analogue, although not even his stature was as big or deep as Silver. When Bruno was deposed, lots of stuff fell out of the closet. 3-4 printing shops, and their staff, completely under the control of Bruno, and on the state payroll. The brunomobile. Indictments, trials.
http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/people/b/joseph_l_bruno/index.html
Bruno walked, and keeps walking. I think they’ve even apologized for it. They’re still naming stuff after him in Albany.
Silver is at least 100 times more powerful. He has control over every bit of the assembly. All staff budgets and office assignment go through his office, and he uses that leverage. That’s just “inside” the assembly. He’s also long been a giant fund raising monster. They say he has stolen millions? What month? Hundreds of millions might begin to describe his true haul.
http://www.syracuse.com/kirst/index.ssf/2015/01/bragman_and_sheldon_silver_and_speaker_and_assembly.html
Bragman was the last to challenge Silver. He lost all of his staff, and was moved into, literally, a janitors closet as an office.
“In May 2000, believing Manton would be with him, Bragman pushed ahead. He declared he had enough votes to topple the speaker. That was on a Wednesday, with the vote scheduled for Monday. Five days gave Silver plenty of opportunity to reclaim dozens of votes.”
Most overheard phone conversation during that weekend? “Get daddy on the phone or he won’t have a job on monday.”
Braman retired to building mcmasions on NYSTA waterfront land that he was able to, suprise, buy at 10 cents on the dollar.
Bragman glad? Laughing all the way to the bank, once he made it out of the janitors closet.
Exactly! The whole shebang is so corrupt that my guess is that they’ll all keep up the omerta` that has served them so well upriver in the past. The only scenario, in which they start ratting each other out, is if U.S. attorney Preet Bahrara has promised a sweetheart deal to Cuomo, and to a faction in the Assembly willing to dump Silver and kiss Cuomo’s ring instead.
“and to a faction in the Assembly willing to dump Silver and kiss Cuomo’s ring instead.”
That’s not a faction. It’s the whole assembly. He made them all re-pledge their loyalty, after the arrest. The ring kissing happened already.
Cuomo ran this slide, in his state of the state, about his upcoming trip to mexico a day before the arrest*-
http://si.wsj.net/public/resources/images/BN-GO970_NYLEGA_P_20150123112610.jpg
The fact is that the pay for an assembly member is almost entirely at the whim of Silver. Small “base” and HUGE payoffs for falling in line. Completely true of the staffing- all of it at Silver’s discretion.
It also has the effect of “driving” exactly the type of behavior that Silver is being charged with. Accepting bribes as “legal services” never rendered by the firm he’s working for. Every NY pol is a lawyer for a reason- They get blanket immunity if they get a law firm to accept the bribe as “legal work”. Covered in the veil of lawyer client “privilege”.
I would bet that Preet has evidence that some of the upper echelons of NY are making 10 times in “legal work” what they are making as very well paid, and staffed, “assembly persons”. How much of that is going to come out?
*Why is Cuomo going to mexico? Isn’t that slide just a *little bit* racist? Questions for the ages, certainly not for the Very Serious People who are opining on this “earthshaking” indictment.
It’s not my intention to disagree with you, just disagree with the level of corruption, and those that are complicit in the schemes.
Re Hep C. May not be the miracle its maker claims.
Golly, corrupt drug companies, doctors with conflicts of interest, unwarranted assertions about effectiveness, dodgy claims about testing, fudged side effects information, PR hacks and online sock puppets spreading logical fallacies…. good thing that could never happen with vaccines.
That article was somewhat confusing to me. I’m not sure if the primary objections to the new medications are economic or medical. And some of it seemed like quibbling: whether sustained response counts as “cure” is almost semantic. And the article also seemed to downplay the horrid side-effects from interferon. The new medications certainly seem like an improvement. That said, Big Pharma is an untrustworthy cartel to be sure, as is the rest of the American health care system.
The article definitely starts in the middle, in terms of assuming that the reader has been following the blog, and read previous posts on the specific issue and overall theme.
The objections are to both medical and economic, and more. The argument about use of the term “cure” is not semantic though, since this is essence of the Big Lie of the pharma and medical industry, they use the “miracle” language to deflect scrutiny and critical thinking, position themselves as saviors and above reproach (and their skeptics therefore as irresponsible and wicked), and avoid discussions about cost/benefit, inflated claims, or side effects.
Besides, an industry that is allegedly science-based, ought to be more careful throwing around words like “cure.”
The issue fits right into NC’s wheelhouse in terms of chronicles of crapifcation and corruption, and the creeping fascism or corporatist America. We have seen articles in NC about finance industry creating traps of lifelong debt peonage and rent extraction, about the prison industrial complex creating lifetime revenue streams from nonviolent inmates, about the psychiatry industry defining everyone into deviance, about the military/spooks creating enemies faster than we can assassinate them, about the police and DAs creating revenue streams through broken window “crimes” and fee and asset seizure systems and criminalizing of poverty, and on and on.
The medical intervention industry is no different, out of control corporate sociopaths posing as essential social services. A self-licking ice cream cone that is built on an edifice of fear and lies – and for which “curing” a lucrative problem is precisely the last thing they are interested in.
Essentially, that particular post is really just a deconstruction of sock puppetry, and could apply just as well to industry’s online shilling done re Hep C, as to fracking, GMOs, bank regulation, and vaccines, and etc.
Well, there is no doubt that greed has infected health care, as it has everything else. $90,000 for a 12-week supply of weeks pills? Yeesh.
Besides, an industry that is allegedly science-based, ought to be more careful throwing around words like “cure.”
I agree with this also. My only question is this: Does sustained response, i.e., no detectable virus, at some point qualify as a “cure”? If so, at what point?
Fair question. Maybe that’s why the cancer industry uses the term remission.
this is in response to wbgonne as well.
Cancer cells are living things that occur out of genetic mutation of an existing cell. A virus is not considered a living thing and cannot replicate itself out of thin air. It must be introduced into the (previously healthy) host organism in some fashion such as the exchange of fluids from an organism carrying the virus. Thus, viruses are binary, they either exist in a host organism or they don’t. If there is no longer any trace of a virus in an organism, there is no way for that virus to appear, save for a reintroduction from an outside source. They do not lie dormant nor can they spontaneously appear through the mutation of existing cells.
“{viruses] do not lie dormant.”
Sorry, that’s just plain wrong – ever heard of shingles?
Re. “no detectable virus”, the promise of many early-stage-tested AIDS drugs was wildly overstated based on their ability to reduce the viral load to “no detectable virus” … only to have it re-emerge from the various hidden reservoirs where small numbers of the virus had managed to sequester themselves. (E.g. specific cell types in which the antiviral-drug levels were lower than elsewhere. Or for antivirals whose mechanism of action is based on halting viral replication, all one needs is for some fraction of the viruses to be or go into quiescent mode long enough for a drug-free window to arise, or for the patient’s immune system – which typically works in concert with such drugs – to weaken, perhaps due to age or other causes).
Thus, “no detectable levels” can only be reasonably construed as “cure” if there is negligible chance of viral re-emergence.
” Sorry, that’s just plain wrong – ever heard of shingles? ”
Or , an even better example in this case – hepatitis B.
Adults who acquire hep B usually “clear” circulating virus naturally , but still carry live virus that can be re-activated. Immune-suppressing drugs used for transplants and Crohn’s disease , for example , can cause re-activation , and come with the appropriate label warnings for anyone who had been exposed to hep B.
I’m not aware that similar re-activation has been observed in hep C patients who’ve obtained a complete response via antiviral treatment. If this is the case , it would provide pretty good circumstantial evidence that sustained response = cure in hep C.
The idea that viruses don’t lie dormant is counter to what the evidence and the medical community believes. Epstein Barr is an example of a virus that is often dormant. Shingles is said to be the result of a dormant chicken pox virus. It’s believed the virus resides in the dorsal root ganglion and symptoms occur when the immune system has problems.
It’s actually been thought that viruses are the culprit for various forms of cancer. For example, the HPV virus is said to be the cause of a around 99% of cervical cancers. The virus causes problems with cell replication because of excessive proteins that interfere with the cells regular ability to limit cell growth.
“Flight Logs Put Clinton, Dershowitz on Pedophile Billionaire’s Sex Jet”
Totally reasonable in a society that worships individuals who live like Gods on earth.
Freedom of religion is guaranteed.
That means, if your god is Money, if you worship our present-day fiat currency, and if you’re a high priest (or priestess) of that religion, your income from practicing your religion is tax-free.
The government can’t tax you – you are not a part of the society’s inflation-management system.
Thus, it is written in the Book of Constitution.
The holy land of the Cayman Islands. All must send their money on pilgrimage.
Book of Mitt, chapter one, verse one
About that whole inflation-management thing. I’ve been struggling with a slow leak on the left front tire of my truck for a while, so I took it to a tire dealer to fix it up.
Went up to the counter. Turns out the guy in the striped shirt and company hat who served me was a Ph.D econonomist who hasn’t found find work in his own field since 2009, so there he was. When I explained about my slow leak in one tire, he whipped out his MacBook and showed me a PowerPoint presentation he’d made about how global deflation is getting so firmly established — first in oil, then in all commodities — that I can’t reasonably expect free air pumped right out of the public commons to produce inflation in my tire. A flat growth curve and nothing but deflation is in store for all my investments, wages, savings and the wheels on my truck as well.
He held out no hope of inflating my tire. Not in this economy.
I tell ya, those economists really know their stuff. I may have to live with my truck pulling to the left as I cruise the highway, but at least now I’m not driving around financially uninformed like most people.
Your story is deflating, to say the least.
But that’s the desired result, I think, seeing the Fed is keen on realizing wage deflation, sorry, keeping wage inflation in check.
http://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2015/jan/22/met-police-warren-luke-cleared-kicking-mother-child-hospital
i just can’t stand the institution of police. tyrants.
Yet again, the System makes no attempt to root out the bad cops. They get a pat on the head and are returned to duty to further assault the public.
Luke, who has been a police officer for six years, told the court that the mother’s behaviour had been “escalating” and he felt the child was at risk of injury. He said he had contemplated using a baton or CS gas but decided that that was not an option.
Instead, he told the court, he struck the mother repeatedly on her left bicep and then decided to try a different approach which he described as a “distraction strike” on the left side of the mother’s face, using his booted foot.
Luke told the court: “I did kick out at the left side of her face as trained to do. My footwear was a boot but it’s light.”
A Metropolitan police service spokesman confirmed that Luke had been cleared of actual bodily harm and said that a misconduct review would take place.
The light boot defense.
During the course of their duties to “protect the public”, has a police officer ever shot their partner to protect a civilian from being shot by their partner?
Exactly. How was the cop to know that the mother has a ‘soft face’ and that booting her in the face would be more than a slight tickle. [face palm]
Simply astounding
===========================================================
Luke told the court: “I did kick out at the left side of her face as trained to do. My footwear was a boot but it’s light.”
When asked how he had caused so many different injuries to the mother he said: “I can’t say exactly where and how her injuries were sustained, I can only say what I did.”
==============================================================
Orwell
“If you want a vision of the future, imagine a boot stamping on a human face – forever”
Well, he stopped short of forever, so its all good (Sarc)
Naively, I thought they were more civil in England…
Ask yourself this: If the copper had stomped the 7 year girl, do you think he would have been convicted of anything??? (‘I was afraid for my life – it looked like she had a ninja Barbie…)
“And see Warren Mosler above. He deems America’s “better” economic performance to be due to the oil/gas boom rather than to Fed intervention. when he points out that QE drained the interest on the securities the Fed bought from the economy.”
And that gas boom was only viable due to super low interest rates
Our ‘better economic performance” is due to several factors, I believe.
1. A bold, daring employment program tailored for our private military contractors.
2. Our imperial currency enabling our global financial legionnaires to trickle down a little with their massive stateside mansion building program that shames even the ancient Pharoahs.
3. Our drone procurement, putting money into the economy.
4. As pointed out, fracking and drilling.
Etc.
You forget that the vast majority of our GDP growth has now successfully been nearly funneled exclusively to the wisest and prettiest 0.0001% in our society, thereby making for an almost totally efficient and effective market…
Just a few more years of QE and we should be there 100%….
Here’s some great links that are missing again today:
If Charlie Is Racist Then I Am – Zineb El Rhazoui
“Make no mistake, Olivier, because anti-racism is on the side of Charlie Hebdo, which opens its pages to people like me who cannot speak out in their own country under penalty of prison or attack, and not on yours, you who agree to hand the entire “Muslim race” over to its self-proclaimed clergy. Charlie is aware of the intellectual and ideological ferment that is animating the Muslim world, it has understood that a war is on between freedom and politico-Islamist dictatorship, whether you date it to before or after the Arab Spring, and Charlie has quite simply chosen its camp: ours, its — that of the anticlericals.”
Charlie Hebdo: Unmournable Frenchies
“There was a weird smell to the Anglo media’s stories on the Charlie Hebdo massacre, a stench uncommonly like gloating.”
Community Standards – The Right is trying to essentialize Muslims. The Left should not fall into the same trap.
«Si Charlie Hebdo est raciste, alors je le suis » : réponse de Zineb El Rhazoui à Olivier Cyran
They are not “missing”. This is a finance and economics blog. We covered Hebdo because it was too prominent a story not to cover and it does have some serious economic implications (as in it boosted Marine Le Pen’s popularity, and if she were to win an election, France would exit the Eurozone). And we are not omniscient. We can’t and don’t see everything. We have all of 1.3 people working punishing hours to provide the content you get, including Links.
Well here is your chance to finish covering this story with a bit of objectivity.
We are not “covering this story”. I suggest you re-read what I wrote. Hebdo is off topic for this site save its impact on Eurozone break via elevating Marine Le Pen’s prospects, and her winning still is remote, if now less implausible. We’ve put up a few links after it was a major international story only at reader urging, and ONLY because those links provided information that was not generally well covered in the media.
If NC doesn’t cover Charlie Hebdo, why publish this awful letter from Cyran? And when I ask you to publish the answer from Zineb, you just refuse, saying you’re not covering the story?!?!
Do you follow the racism angle because of Marine Lepen? It’s not just Marine Lepen who wants out of the euro. The European QE being conducted by National Central Bank might be just about that.
You clearly do not read this blog regularly. We’ve been anti austerity for years.
Please take your unwarranted bile elsewhere. This is a big Internet. If you don’t like what we write, you should find venues more akin to your way of thinking. We are not interested in thought-policing, particularly ignorant thought policing.
why don’t you cover it yourself, with a tarpaulin
what is there about it that’s intelligent to say? You probably wouldn’t have a clue and don’t give us the usual “Go Team! Yeah!” RA RA horse shlt. Thoughtful stuff would involve a nuanced exposition of the human pysche, the kind of thing you”d find in Shakespeare or, possibly, something like the Dead Sea Scrolls or Jung or Freud even. Even Camus or something ludicrous even like Extraordinary Popular Delusions and the Madness of Crowds.
If you have an intelligent idea, bring it on. Otherwise, we can all click links on the internet and read that BS for ourselves. Personally, I’d rather read about the Football Inflategate up in New England. How was that runnig game by the way? Incredible. Go Team Pats! Yeah! I’m not kiidding
“It sucks” is the idiom equivalent of “fait chier”. So it’s obvious that americans are oral and french are anal and it’s probably why we don’t get along.
I’m not sure if this is the stupidest comment I’ve ever read at NC. What I am sure of is that it’s not responsive to what craazy wrote. Good-bye!
The bombshell of the day is that article about imaging the scrolls at Herculaneum. So much of classical literature was lost (thanks, Christians!). Imagine if a full version of Sappho’s poems were to turn up. If I understand it correctly, there were also some prominent Epicureans in Pompeii and the area–another philosophy determinedly suppressed by the Christians.
So many possibilities…. wouldn’t it be great if the writings of Democritus could be found? Or some of the lost histories and biographies of the Hellenistic era?
” So much of classical literature was lost (thanks, Christians!).”
Sorry, but no. Christians of the era in question were in no position to be rushing about burning scrolls, in fact, most early church fathers had classical educations back in those days, and until fairly recently. Maybe you are thinking about Texas?
The problem wasn’t that the early Christians were burning the scrolls. The problem was that the medieval Christians neglected to copy many of the books by pagan authors. They preferred to copy the Bible or the works of Church fathers, such as Augustine and Tertullian. Occasionally they would also erase the classical texts and reuse the papyrus or parchment. As a result, a great deal really was lost as the books deteriorated over the centuries, and the loss was the fault of Christians.
But then there’s the little problem of Hypatia. And she wasn’t the only one.
The George Wallace of Israel disses America’s first black president:
In a much more important way, Netanyahu spits in the face of every American by taking $3 billion a year of our money, and using it to build illegal settlements which openly subvert U.S. efforts to make a peace settlement with the Palestinians.
Obama should be encouraged to set aside his pique, meet with Netanyahu, and hand him thirty pieces of silver as the cameras roll.
“US efforts to make a peace settlement with the Palestinians.”
Efforts are good, but we need results – my kind first grade teacher. She let me move on to second grade despite my poor results*.
* Not based on real life events. Things have been altered and combined from the experiences of other people I know to dramatize a point.
Democrats vs. Republicans
Obama vs. neocons/Israel
Obama vs. Saudi Arabia
Mostly all kayfab, IMO.
$3 billion for weapons and the West Bank housing bubble, while kneeling and kissing his ring isn’t enough?
Barrett Brown sentenced to 5 years for lèse majesté
http://whowhatwhy.org/2014/04/28/silencing-barrett-brown/
http://whowhatwhy.org/2013/09/09/hacktivist-journo-barrett-brown-and-lawyers-gagged/
for insulting the dignity of retarded cracker shithead prosecutor Candina Heath and her FBI goon Robert Smith, who lies under oath for a living. Lucky for this illegitimate government he pled out, because any jury with 2 brain cells would nullify this Soviet show trial.
This persecution of Barrett Brown is disturbing on many levels. Yet alarming as the particulars of his individual case really are, we should be even more outraged by the new powers the executive branch has granted itself under the indefinite detention provisions of the NDAA. These provisions completely obliterate the fundamental Common Law right of habeas corpus, allowing the government to simply disappear people it alleges are a threat without ever giving them any due process, ever! At least they had to go to the trouble of putting on a sham process for Barrett.
http://www.salon.com/2013/12/27/obama_signs_ndaa_2014_indefinite_detention_remains/?source=newsletter
No mention of the ludicrously pro-Abdullah obits in the NYT, Washington Post, CNN, etc? They’re so bad they are almost funny. e.g., in the NYT, when discussing his response to the Arab Spring, they emphasize his increased welfare expenditures, and then mention his crushing of Shia protesters and sending tanks into Bahrain as an afterthought. They mention that one of his daughters is a doctor, and another was once on TV advocating for women’s rights, but no mention of his four daughters who he’s locked up for 13+ years. They even cite beheading militants as a sign of “moderation”! And so on.
For insightful and hilarious analysis, the Angry Arab is as usual pretty great: http://angryarab.blogspot.com/
I didn’t want to dignify them by linking to them but agreed. The fact that he was good by Saudi standards is an awfully low bar.
One of those things –
Pedophiles can hobnob with ex presidents.
Rulers of midlevel countries are accorded respect.
Money….if there anything it can’t do???
For believers and priests/priestesses in the Church of Money, money not only buy you happiness, but a place in a gated paradise (and it’s all tax free – separation of church and state, you know).
Yes, many are born into it, but like in a lot of religions, but you can still try to apply.
Can I interest you in converting?
Doing our ‘God’s’ work.
Please help us realize our vision. Donate your meal money/health care money, TODAY!!!!!
What people think about the new proposal of Merkel?
http://www.dw.de/berlin-cajoles-moscow-with-trade-incentives-report/a-18210703
German Chancellor Angela Merkel has offered the Russian government negotiations with the European Union on the “possibilities of a cooperation in a joint trade area” in exchange for a comprehensive resolution of the conflict in eastern Ukraine, the daily Süddeutsche Zeitung reported on Friday.
It reminds me of something that Immanuel Wallerstein wrote in june:
http://america.aljazeera.com/opinions/2014/6/russia-china-geopoliticsgasputinxijinping.html
I’ll believe the “Merkel offered” part when Pravda tells me it got translated correctly into Russian. ;-)
If the SCOTUS kills the Federal Obamacare exchanges, it will not strip just 6.3 million citizens of their “affordable” health insurance. It will easily do at least twice that much damage, because it will force the health insurance corporations to raise their rates on their remaining customers to double or more what they are now. They have a right to their profits, it seems.
Raising rates will price another 5 to 10 million out of the insurance market, including many corporations who contribute to their employee’s plans. What cannot be afforded will not be purchased, not by corporate-people, and not by bipedal-people.
The gist of Obamacare was to make health insurance affordable to more citizens. The main tools were the subsidies available through state/Federal exchanges, and expanded funding for Medicaid. The GOP has largely prevented the Medicaid expansion by refusing to accept Federal monies, and now Justice John Roberts and Friends look fair certain to prevent the Federal exchanges from existing at all. Result: back to square one, unaffordable health insurance.
The road to single payer is neither straight nor smooth. Or discernible at times. All we really have at the moment is the compass heading of where we want to go, and it leads into the wilderness of the US Congress.
The ACA is an atrocity and deserves to go the way of the Dodo, but a couple comments to some of your points.
The GOP has largely prevented the Medicaid expansion by refusing to accept Federal monies
States have refused to accept Fed monies because the way the law was written those subsidies go away over time but the costs of Medicare remain. Accepting the subsidies means blowing enormous holes in state budgets in a few years’ time. Unlike the Feds, the states can’t just print more fiat.
now Justice John Roberts and Friends look fair certain to prevent the Federal exchanges from existing at all
The law was so sloppily written as to muddy the intent through the careless use of language. Ultimately, if the SC ends up ruling that the subsidies are illegal (I think they will), it’s not through some generous or fast and loose interpretation of the law, it’s through a literal interpretation based on how it was written. Words have meaning, and it’s not the fault of the SC that somebody overlooked what words were used when that part of the law was written. Things like that usually get caught in committee, but the ACA never made it there which again, is not the fault of the SC.
They are not going to strike it down because of the wording; they are going to strike it down because they are reactionary pigs for whom even a Republican plan like the ACA which might just help a few people is anathema. The SC is now fully empowered to protect and defend the oligarchy. That is their job, and they are doing it quite well.
A few months after the SCOTUS decided Bush V. Gore back in 2000, and appointed the loser of the Presidential election to the White House, a reporter asked Bill Clinton what he thought of the decision.
“I wasn’t surprised,” he said. “They had the power, and they used it.”
They are not going to strike it down, period. They are going to uphold it for the same reason they upheld the Forced Mandate to begin with . . . an endless bailout for Big Insura. The Forced Mandate and the subsidies both direct money to Big Insura, and the Roberts court supports both of those conduits. And will uphold them both.
Actually…. they won’t loose their healthcare; the mandate would still apply. They would just be forced to pay more, or pay the penalty.
Billions more going out of these states, while their neighbors have billions flowing into them. The Republican’s cry foul at tax increases as wealth distribution, but that’s exactly what they will be doing here…. raising taxes on their constituents and redistributing it to other states.
The Republican congress will try and fix this since this will blow up on them. (Can you imagine the tax consequences of having to pay these subsidies back? With interest?) What will it cost them?
“The gist of the Affordable Care Act” was to make it look like something was done to deal with “the uninsured” by finding a way to help the Insurance Industry insure more of “them.” It feels, as an employer, like all of the non-ACA plans are being crapified and/or made more expensive in the name of the ACA. The Financiers got theirs with TARP and QE. ACA was for the Insurance Industry. Real Estate got theirs from the Financiers. Main Street, not so much.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yKP7jQknGjs&x-yt-ts=1421914688&x-yt-cl=84503534
One of those days 2 – Candide Thovex
Great takedown of American Sniper by Taibbi. Eastwood has been keeping his politics at low flame in recent years so people tend to forget what a rightwinger he is–and always has been. And it’s not just him. Since most Americans know practically nothing about the rest of the world it’s easy for Hollywood to make it all up for them. Here’s the nut from Taibbi
The “narrative fallacy” isn’t an exclusively American problem–the Brits were so proud of their supposedly virtuous Empire–but for a country that spends hours each day parked in front of the tube you have to wonder whether the “circuses” if not the bread are getting out of hand. However Eastwood, after some middling money earners, has a big hit. Time for American Sniper 2?
Get with the Mythology Carolinian. It will be something like “American Sniper 223” or “American Sniper 308.” If I remember correctly, most Sniper Scouts in Nam used 270’s. (All numbers refer to rifle calibers used commonly by militaries and hunters.)
I believe these days .50 caliber sniper rifles are standard issue but happy to be corrected by the more knowledgeable.
Meanwhile get ready for Ukrainian Sniper. Seems our boyz are over there teaching them the finer points.
http://www.moonofalabama.org/2015/01/ukraine-war-in-kiev-and-beyond.html
Carolinian, have you seen “Leviathan” yet? I saw it last weekend, I thought it was really good.
Not playing out here in the boonies. I’ll see it eventually via our library which gets everything.
The military is mostly metric these days, hence it will be “American Sniper 7.62x51mm NATO” or “Sniper 12.7x99mm NATO”. I am unaware of any 5.56x45mm NATO chambered sniper rifles.
Taibbi’s review was spot on, I think. When I heard about this movie, my first reaction as a veteran was “it’s gonna glorify a sociopath”. Given that today’s training was designed to get around innate reluctance to kill, I very much doubt that there was much internal dialogue in Kyle’s mind. Add my general dislike of most military movies (with the exception of “Platoon” first and foremost), particularly ones where Tom Hanks is involved, and I will be taking a pass on this one.
Good movie
http://m.imdb.com/title/tt0308476/
The Cuckoo (2002)
Plot Summary (1)
September of 1944, a few days before Finland went out of the Second World War. A chained to a rock Finnish sniper-kamikadze Veikko managed to set himself free. Ivan, a captain of the Soviet Army, arrested by the Front Secret Police ‘Smersh’, has a narrow escape. They are soldiers of the two enemy armies. A Lapp woman Anni gives a shelter to both of them at her farm. For Anni they are not enemies, but just men
I did forget about the metricization of things. Somehow, I can’t consider the .50 cal or 12.7x99mm NATO as a real sniper round. Those bloody things will get heavy to carry around really fast.
“Paths of Glory” is my favourite “war” film, for obvious anti-reasons.
A little new news on the Koch Bros. and their connections to The Catholic University of America’s School of Business: http://ncronline.org/blogs/ncr-today/catholic-university-america-accepts-more-money-charles-koch-foundation
This particular catholic university has especially close ties to the U.S. Council of Catholic Bishops, which has more say and sway there than at many other catholic higher education institutions concerning its academics, teaching practices and appointments.
A very little example of Andrew Abela’s views: http://blog.acton.org/archives/55391-catholic-universitys-virtues-based-business-school-an-interview-with-andrew-abela.html
Does the Acton Institute receive Koch funds? oh yes, and members of this think tank have been quite publicly critical of Pope Francis and his comments thus far on economic issues.