Utah hears of danger of dope-crazed rabbits if marijuana legalised Guardian. I can see it now: bunny reefer madness as a horror movie! YY: “Read the headline and then skip to comments…”
Burma captures 9th rare white elephant USA Today (furzy mouse)
Canadians Paying Tribute To Leonard Nimoy By “Spocking” Their Currency Consumerist
First ever photograph of light as a particle and a wave Science Daily (Stephen M)
What do doctors say to ‘alternative therapists’ when a patient dies? Nothing. We never talk Guardian. Dr. Kevin: “What do members of the public say to economists and bankers when their policies fail? We need to listen to our patients. They have made excellent observations over the years which have led to many useful treatments.”
Three Men Have Had Hands Amputated and Replaced With Bionic Versions Gizmodo (furzy mouse)
Scientists announce anti-HIV agent so powerful it can work in a vaccine Science Daily (Stephen M)
‘A decent girl won’t roam at night’ iol (Stephen M)
It’s Open Season on the Tech Elite Global Guerrillas (Chuck L)
Google wants to rank websites based on facts not links New Scientist So this will serve to downgrade sites that disagree with the official US/UK position on Russia, one suspects.
Google to launch own ‘virtual’ mobile phone network Guardian (furzy mouse)
Premature deindustrialization in the developing world Dani Rodrik
Wealth inequality on rise in Japan Bangkok Post (furzy mouse)
Beijing’s rate cut won’t spur growth China Spectator
Obama seeks reboot of China cyber laws Financial Times
The DNA of German Foreign Policy Project Syndicate (David L)
Grexit?
Greece in talks for third bailout of up to €50bn, Spain says Financial Times
Greek European deal: where are we? Paul Mason
Greece eyes last central bank funds to avert IMF default Ambrose Evans-Pritchard, Telegraph
Ukraine/Russia
Boris Nemtsov: Death of a Russian Liberal Mark Ames, Pando
Cyprus – Russia agreements: Testing the waters Vineyard of the Saker (Chuck L)
Finnish President: possible accession to NATO to be put up for referendum TASS
Russia Dumps $22 Billion in U.S. Bonds to Slow Economy’s Slide Moscow Times (furzy mouse)
Syraqistan
Iran must halt nuclear work – Obama BBC
Mohammed Emwazi received MI5 warning in 2009, tapes reveal Guardian
Noam Chomsky: Why Israel’s Netanyahu Is So Desperate to Prevent Peace with Iran Alternet
“Bringing a foreign leader before Congress to challenge a president’s policies is unprecedented.” Daily Kos (furzy mouse)
My colleague, the Ayatollah: The speech you won’t hear from Netanyahu Haaretz (Stephen M)
My War on Terror, Letter to an Unknown American Patriot Tom Engelhardt
Big Brother is Watching You Watch
The Democratization of Cyberattack Bruce Schneier
Hillary Clinton Used Personal Email at State Dept., Possibly Breaking Rules New York Times
Oh, Bummer: Tea Partying Former Sheriff Now Begging Public to Pay For His Health Care BradBlog
Homeland Security funding drama darkens U.S. fiscal outlook Reuters (EM)
Chris Christie Faces New Jersey Bill Restricting Campaign Cash From Firms Managing Pension David Sirota, International Business Times
Chicago’s black voters key as Garcia battles to defeat Emanuel in mayoral race Reuters (EM)
Americans say keep politics out of the Fed Reuters. Notice that the article does not give the precise wording of the question. EM: “‘Keep?’ I think they mean ‘get’.”
Gross criticises drive to cut interest rates Financial Times
Saving Big on Energy Bills, People Take It to the Bank New York Times. As we predicted. Job insecurity leads to the need for more savings.
Class Warfare
Saudi Prince Selling NYC Digs With 3 Panic Rooms Newser (furzy mouse)
The Semi-Retirement Myth Helaine Olen, Slate
Antidote du jour (martha r) Story here:
And a bonus video (hat tip Chuck L):
See yesterday’s Links and Antidote du Jour here.
135 comments
Comments are closed.
“bunny reefer madness as a horror movie!”
Bunnies terrorizing Mormons in real life is even more scary!
Then I was expecting a nice explanation for the antidote – like a nice story about a chipmunk trying out for the Mile High Club – but no. It’s a baby weasel trying to kill a woodpecker. That’s not cute at all.
What’s happening to our animals?
But things are looking up in the human world. Star Wars quadcopters are here. It had to happen.
RC Millennium Falcon
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GRtXd1eiH-s
Darth Vader’s Interceptor
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qTB2-0tDloM
will Utah go thunderbolt & lightfoot :-/
“Hey, what’s wrong with this wreck? We’re gettin’ gassed back here!
Lightfoot: This guy’s a basket case. He’s got the exhaust pipe in here.”
Glad to see you’re still hanging around, Aby, with your colorful and pithy responses………and anything but “normal”! :)
I can only tell you guys, since I stopped reading local news 40 years ago, that early this morning on the radio there was a local report that the Utah Legislature was close to passing an “edible marijuana law.” You can eat all the brownies and other tasty things your little heart desires, if you have a wasting disease. Right. And very cool.
the woodpecker is humming;
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0TcfL84Kgqc
Weasels Ripped My Flesh – Frank Zappa & The Mothers of Invention (Full Album)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Weasels_Ripped_My_Flesh
These two antidotes were like red bull. I know that woodpecker either converted the weasel kid to a globalist, or killed it. And the turtle is as ancient and hopeful as any alligator.
And the turtle is as ancient and hopeful as any alligator
Mr. Turtle knew the only scenario for a happy ending would be to flip her over first.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/March_Hare
The main character, Alice, hypothesizes,
“The March Hare will be much the most interesting, and perhaps as this is May it won’t be raving mad – at least not so mad as it was in March.”[1]
It’s much worse than that–
https://twitter.com/olfashdeb/status/572793080421605376/photo/1
What those guys were smoking appears to be much stronger than cannabis.
Where’s the Holy Hand Grenade of Antioch when you really need it?
The answer you seek will be revealed in the peep stone!
Come on everyone, that was a DEA guy giving testimony to the state legislature. I doubt he is a local, though for sure he has calculated that these particular arguments will have the most effect on Utahns.
The knee jerk in here is strong. It’s a peculiar story, but heaping scorn on people expressing a concern for how land use affects wildlife comes right out of the Fox News playbook.
Indeed, if squeamishness about farming cannabis leads to asking questions about other agricultural practices, that could be a very good thing for the state and its wildlife. Though that is something of a “pipe dream”.
Of course, even if this does go somewhere, the fact that state officials haven’t lifted a finger to deal with brutal factory farming in Utah (and even passed ag-gag legislation protecting the enterprises from scrutiny) would reveal considerable hypocrisy.
In Nepal they feed marijuana to their livestock to treat digestive ailments. Never made a one of ’em crazy.
Good point about the legitimate concerns people have for land use effects on wildlife. Now, if someone can just say to these Utahians, “Cannabis may be bad for bunnies, but you know what is even worse for them? Covering everything they eat in deadly poison! Anyway…ever heard of Monsanto?”
Remember, it isn’t crazy Mormons saying this, it’s the **DEA**. Our government. I wish this testimony had been given in Montana or somewhere. Then the story would be horrifying, not funny.
Sorry, Garrett, but why are you making this about Mormons? I live in Utah and I am not Mormon. In fact, there are a whole lotta people here who are not Mormon.
This article is about the stupidities and hypocrisies of Government officials. Period.
There was a guy in here a few days ago, who, when the Talmud was mentioned, went off on a tirade calling NC-ers anti-semites. He was wrong.
Now you come in here and make this out to be anti-Mormon, when no such thing happened.
One generalization I can make about Mormons is that they have a great sense of self-deprecating humor. You are not one of them.
“Fox News playbook”? Really? You owe this community an apology.
Hello fellow Utahn. I agree about the article itself, at least the killer rabbit part, but you should go check out the comment section of any of the dozens of stories about this across the web and see how much of it is about “the Mormons”. Look at the first comment on this links page, by Craazyboy, and see if Mormons get mentioned. Then ask yourself, “who made this about the Mormons?” Then you can decide what apologies should be offered by whom.
It’s perfectly understandable – the narrative writes itself. “Uptight religious folks’ minds blown by the thought of tokers enjoying themselves, spout bizarre pseudoscience to fight against it.” No offense should be indluged, and any response would have been petulant if there wasn’t a more important relevant angle to the story.
Anyway, you and I are in agreeance – this story is about our government’s foolish war on drugs.
Also, I can’t let this sit: “great sense of self-deprecating humor”?
What about our persecution complex, our blithe enthusiasm for planet-crunching oligarchy, our grudges about events from 180 years ago, along with our weird combination of clannish tendencies and enthusiastic proselytizing?
Frankly I’m not sure you know us LDS very well at all.
our blithe enthusiasm for planet-crunching oligarchy
Well at least you can potentially shove of to Kolob, the rest of us are stuck here.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kolob
http://www.sltrib.com/sltrib/lifestyle/56795202-80/weed-church-marijuana-kirby.html.csp
Maybe we do hie off to Kolob, but we’ll get sent back here again. A rather prominent part of LDS cosmology is that Earth is the place for this bunch of humanity, now and eternally. That this is the only planet we are going to inhabit, you’d expect the LDS to be stauncher environmentalists than we usually are.
The last time I remember Kirby being very funny was during the Olympics in 2002.
Maybe we do hie off to Kolob, but we’ll get sent back here again
You’d be an Illegal Alien?
Man, that knife can cut both ways, eh.
The notion of a Kolob, seems fantastic to me, but then again, I never got a good explanation in catholic grade school for virgin birth, or where the balance of Jesus’s genetic material came from..(After pressing the point in science class, I was told that I should probably think about going to the public school–true story.)
Which reminds me of a joke. Joseph is sitting glumly in a bar in Bethlehem so the bartender asks him “what’s wrong?”
Joseph reply’s “Hey, If god is powerful enough to create the heaven and the earth in seven days and seven nights, why the hell does he need to have sex with my wife to have a son?
I don’t know that I have anything profound about God coming to earth in a physical body and getting murdered. The idea that there is a purity and elevation from setting aside any such thing as a physical life and residing in a more abstract, pure or “spiritual” sort of sphere seems popular in many world traditions, but that is not the LDS mindset. For us, the physical world is what is elevated. (Not worldly materialism, but physical facts of bodies and power to move and act etc.)
Deletion requested
Hoping to escape the moderation bots. I swear I’m quite harmless and I’ve never worked for any government.
My first thought went to that exact same rabbit scene. Maybe the funniest movie, and movie scene ever (or Harold and Maude………. no idea why I’m told my humor runs dark)! I think I broke some ribs I laughed so hard and so long. Their humor was definitely unique in those days of more limited viewing options, that was even before SNL had launched on tv, IIRC, and the MTM CBS series, featuring a single (yet young and attractive), professional woman, was deemed brave and avant garde,. Though as I recall there was a bit of alternate tobacco mixed into the Monte Python harey experience. Did anybody see that movie in the 70’s who wasn’t high?
That must be how the dots between marijuana and rabbits got connected by those in the know in Utah. I know every time I think about getting high, those vicious rabbits start hopping around in my head.
Weasels are very nasty critters. One got into my chicken coop a month ago and slaughtered all six of my girls. What a sad, pathetic sight.
They’re horrid. Used to keep poultry back in the day and worst fear was a weasel getting into the coop. They’ll kill just to kill.
The whole family are viscous hunters. It’s their tenacity that wins. Grab on, dig in and hold on.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mustelidae
The ferret is the only part of the family that is said to be domesticated. I’d argue with that.
Like a shorter, land based anaconda with legs, teeth, claws and lots of speed.
Well, if they’re that viscous, yes. I mean, tenacity would have to be it.
* * *
Seeing your comment in the sidebar, I though that was a comment on one or another of our political dynasties!
Premature deindustrialization: ” Politics looks very different when urban production is organized largely around informality, a diffuse set of small enterprises and petty services. Common interests among the non-elite are harder to define, political organization faces greater obstacles, and personalistic or ethnic identities dominate over class solidarity. Elites do not face political actors that can claim to represent the non-elites and make binding commitments on their behalf. Moreover, elites may prefer – and have the ability – to divide and rule, pursuing populism and patronage politics, and playing one set of non-elites against another. Without the discipline and coordination that an organized labor force provides, the bargains between the elite and non-elite needed for democratic transitions and consolidation are less likely to take place. So premature deindustrialization may make democratization less likely and more fragile.”
‘There ought to be some men moving about somewhere–and so there are!’ she added in a tone of delight, and her heart began to beat quick with excitement as she went on. ‘It’s a great huge game of chess that’s being played–all over the world–if this is the world at all, you know. Oh, what fun it is!” …Carroll
So once again an economist proclaims the only way developing Countries can survive is if they all get down to making, selling, buying, and throwing out STUFF.
It seems clear even from his analysis that we really only need a small percentage of the population producing the stuff we require. We simply must devise a way to get money into the hands of everyone so that they may live a reasonable and dignified life. We already give away Trillions to those who don’t really need it nor deserve it.
+ a zillion
And also too. Take Greece. They can produce their brains out and never sell because demand is dead and/or disillusioned. What’s a manufacturer to do? Look for an investment to develop the humanities and sciences. Our material needs are easily met.
I have a theory that Google will soon mass produce robots to consume and throw out all the stuff that robots are mass producing. Because demand is so slack due to all the crappy/no jobs.
With this fantastic the economy will boom in full force and all the economists will love it. Thinking about it that way, it’s impossible that they aren’t feverishly working on this incredible advance that’ll revolutionize society.
That’s given the unlikely scenario that we don’t have a mass extinction event involving toxic nuclear sludge from decaying/underwater nuclear plants pervading the climate-changed atmosphere soon I mean.
Russia Today reports that Edward Snowden would go back to the US if he gets a “fair trial” there. Am I missing something or the man turns out way too naive, or possibly insane? How can he get a fair trial when the case is political/ideological? He challenged the fundamental aspects of government’s domestic and international policies.
http://rt.com/news/237149-snowden-us-trial-just/
Snowden’s a computer guy. This is an if (false) … statement. The … is commentary that will never actually be executed.
Assuming the ‘condition’ in the if (evaluation of ‘condition’ = true/false) part of the “if” statement is accurately evaluated. I also question his ability to objectively make that evaluation, but I sure hope he can. Depending on the person, accepting being permanently exiled to a foreign country with a quite different language and culture, and not of his choosing, could be very difficult. I have doubts he realized the full extent of the personal sacrifices he’d need to make. If he did, revealing the documents was that much more heroic, and the ultimate act of patriotism, imho.
I’m sure Edward has plenty of good legal advice on this matter.
He can’t get a fair trial here. He is legally prohibited from mounting a defense based on just cause. You cannot get off on this charge in the US by demonstrating that the stuff being hidden was against the law.
Yep, he’ll get a show trial and will spend the rest of his life in a cage if he’s stupid enough to come back.
If Edward Snowden ever comes to America, he will be Padilla’d and/or Guantanamized or straight-up assassinated. If he even leaves Russia, he will be kidnapped or renditioned to America for Guantanamization . . . or just simply assassinated in whatever country outside of Russia he goes to.
If he is too dumm to know this, then he is too dumm to live. I hope he chooses to live out his life in Russia where he at least has some modest hope of safety and protection.
Triangulation, comrades. It’s back:
This is classic effrontery from the Clintons, who when caught openly violating the law, blithely suggest that others were somehow responsible for meeting their obligations.
Try withholding emails yourself from a court or Congressional committee, and you’ll quickly be facing jail for contempt, not to mention possible obstruction of justice charges.
Billionaire grifters behaving badly: there is no level of squalor to which they will not stoop.
Don’t think the Clintons are billionaires yet. Give them time. Grifters, always.
B on the case
http://www.moonofalabama.org/2015/03/the-failing-clinton-candidacy.html
hdr22@clintonemail.com
Give her a piece of your mind!
http://www.thesmokinggun.com/documents/investigation/hillary-clinton-private-e-mail-account-897531
They are demibillionaires (counting all the foundations), but let’s be generous.
Something Limbaugh might have said, and look, the clock is right for once, back in the early 90’s – she should have invested more in cattle futures. She’d be a billionaire by now.
And who does Hilary think should be responsible for retaining emails to foreign government officials? She really does think the people are stupid.
She’s allegedly turned over all emails from her private account, 55,000 of them, from personal storage. If the email provider has been named, I haven’t heard, but its possible they still have copies on their servers. Yahoo’s servers amazingly have copies on their web servers of (at least) all emails since 2002 I haven’t deleted, 9999+. That was when I switched from using Hotmail, my ex having paid someone from Microsoft to hack my Hotmail account during our divorce and finding MS to be most unconcerned when I tried to report the incident, including the name of the MS consultant involved. (Yes, you’d be right, my ex was/is a quite lovely man….. but hey he got his 2nd ex arrested and thrown in jail, so I got off easy……. I’ve come to see that for some people, an arranged marriage or partnership is more likely to result in compatibility than one where self-selection is relied upon.)
How do rotten guys manage to snag so many women, including ones like yourself who clearly demonstrate intelligence? I’d like to know; maybe I can borrow some of their tricks. In some cases it seems like good guys get rewarded, but in so many others it’s like, the good guys finish last and the a-holes are the ones with the desirable women. How does that work? (Aside from a-holes with money having a big advantage.)
The widespread acceptance of sociopaths in our economy has thrown normal mating standards out the window.
Unless you were raised by psychopaths in the 50’s and 60’s, you wouldn’t have encountered one. Society used to frown upon such people, and protect their children from them.
Nowadays, the only ones with prestige and money are psychopaths on the fast track. Does one marry the jerk, or never marry at all, because income? What kind of a choice is that?
Re: Saving Big on Energy Bills, People Take It to the Bank
Gosh. Who knew supply-side effects could be neutralized by liquidity preference. Apparently consumers aren’t mindless drones who buy more whenever prices drop, a concept several of my fellow commentors (they know who they are) appear unfamiliar with.
RE: Hillary Clinton Used Personal Email at State Dept., Possibly Breaking Rules New York Times
ZH points out that a third party FOIA request for Clinton’s e-mails on Benghazi was denied by DHS and then wonders:
“…when third party citizens demanded FOIA production of Clinton’s emails, related to Benghazi or otherwise, such as Muckrock’s Jason Smathers here, just what was the Department of Homeland Security’s Privacy Office looking at when deciding it would deny said request?”
I’d imagine HRC’s response would be, “What DIFFERENCE does it make?” It kinda, sorta worked once so why not try it again?
If the stupefyingly uncritical american electorate makes this horrible woman president, it deserves what it gets. And no one can say they weren’t warned.
The Benghazi inquiries seemed like a joke at the time.
I guess they are still ongoing? I can’t even keep track of them.
Either way, they seem vindicated to me.
The opening montage of the Showtime series “Homeland” features a video clip of HRC saying, “You can’t keep snakes in your backyard and expect them only to bite your neighbors.”
Google identifies this as a blunt “warning” from the secretary of state to Pakistan vis a vis the harboring of terrorists given in 2011.
I’d imagine she never meant this “warning” be applied to herself, her partner in crime Bill and the rest of the detritus that comprises her cohort.
But, if the shoe fits…….
Well played! Love that.
Benghazi is a hairball. But the email thing is a real issue.
From Wikipedia:
In mathematics, a theorem is a statement that has been proven on the basis of previously established statements, such as other theorems—and generally accepted statements, such as axioms.
And:
The Pythagorean theorem has at least 370 known proofs[1]
Clintonian theorem: Where the Clintons are concerned, there are no hairballs.
The Clintonian theorem has 55,000 proofs. And counting.
55,000?
The REPUBLICAN kayfabe over Benghazi is a hairball, but the event itself is not. It was a truly extraordinary disaster of both security and intelligence, and it lands directly on Hillary’s desk. Furthermore, according to former insiders like Ray McGovern, it really happened because the Benghazi “consulate” was a CIA black site. According to some, it was deeply involved in sending weapons to Syria, AND was holding Libyan prisoners.
It’s almost as if the Republicans deliberately covered up the real scandal with their own theatrics. Could that really be?
And it’s hardly the only reason Hillary has too much baggage to be a successful candidate. The Dems may be planning to give her the nomination as a consolation prize when they aren’t allowed to win, like McCain in ’08. (He made his feelings plain by choosing Palin for VP. Could he have been any clearer?) But that’s my conspiracy theory that the legacy parties have a deal to trade the Presidency back and forth, two full terms at a time.
Even paranoids can have real enemies.
If your theory is correct, that means the Rs and Ds were secretly co-ordinating the public appearance of R meanness and D upsetness. If so, the kayfabe would not be Republican. It would bipartisanly Depublicratic and co-ordinated in secret by Undisclosed Secure People in Undisclosed Secure Locations.
IIRC, and double-bold that “II” and the “C”, the US embassy or whatever it was in Benghazi was involved in some sort of arms-running deal, getting weaponry to some of those moderate Syrians; that’s the sort of thing a failed state like Libya (failed, after we failed it (“fail” really ought, in the context of our Middle Eastern policy, to be deemed a transitive verb)) is good for.
And similarly IIRC, the arms-running is not what ZOMFG Benghazi!!!! is all about (and I did try to figure it out, at one point, I swear, but it was such an echo chamber/Hall of Mirrors I couldn’t).
Plus maybe a torture pit in the embassy basement? I forget.
Anyhow, I think one can posit the idea that “there are things that just can’t be said” as one of the rules in the kayfabe playbook…
My recollection is that something like 30 of 35 “Consulate” people evacuated were CIA not Sate Dept.
The bread crumb trail leads to a CIA weapons running deal gone bad.
I wish the Clintons would just go away already, but I think HRC was a deer in the headlights on this one.
Yup. IMO, It’s just a pothole on Hellery’s campaign trail. These people are above the laws that are enforced on the Commoners. Wasn’t it Bush who deleted the White House email archives and destroyed the hard drives? What ever became of that scandal?
And in all likelihood she will win the election since Repubs are now just a pack of rabid wild dogs. Heck, in 2012 Romney is a corporate raider, looting companies for profit. Repubs run him anyway. How exactly did they think people would perceive him.
Does it really matter anymore which of these two neoliberal scum parties wins. The looting will continue until banana republic status is achieved.
Bingo!! We have allowed the plutocrats to fashion the duopoly system to serve only their own purposes. Any positive political changes, here in the U.S., will have to come through forces completely untainted by this completely corrupted two-party system!
I think you are right, with Hellery, we will all have a Hillary-ous time.
Not all that comfortable being a Clinton defender here but the rule that required use of government email wasn’y signed until AFTER Clinton exited as SoS. Also, apparently Colin Powell also did all/most of his correspondence via personal/private email. Don’t make a mountain out of a molehill just because.
It still doesn’t make it right, just because “it wasn’t against the law”.
Wasn’t it Obama who said that what the banksters did may have been immoral, but it wasn’t illegal?
It was wrong for Bush to do it, it was wrong for Powell to do it, it was wrong for HRC, oops, I mean HDR22 to do it, and it shows her overall immorality, in full public view, as just another fact for why she should not be president.
I find it unfathomable that people actually believe that if the government magically makes something that was once illegal, legal, or legalizes something that is immoral and unethical, that then it must magically, after-the-fact, be just fine.
Not in my world.
While the State Dept. might have recently changed their internal rules to require the use of a government email account for official business, there is a long-standing federal law that requires government records, including email, to be saved and turned over to the National Archives. Read the statements by the archivists.
An obvious next step for the Congressional investigating committee is to subpoena the entire contents of the clintonemail.com server.
They have both the authority and the duty to do this, since the server may contain missing, important government records which do not belong to Hillary Clinton.
If this does not occur, then one can conclude that the rot in Washington runs deeper than anyone imagined.
One can also easily imagine that hard drives are being wiped and swapped out even as we speak. As every attorney knows, this is called ‘obstruction of justice.’ It took down Nixon, and may yet take down Hillary.
I just can’t get my hopes up for that. I have this massive cloud of doom overhead, following me wherever I go….
“If the stupefyingly uncritical american electorate makes this horrible woman president, it deserves what it gets.”
An interesting statement in that, it makes one wonder and ask this question of our historians: In hundreds of years of democracy all over the world, which means we have a large enough database so there is no small-sample bias, how often have we gotten it right – 50%, 30%, 80%?
Or, are voters always right? We know the customer is always right, 110% (referring to our knowing; the customer is right 100% of the time).
Legitimate question: the problem is identifying what you mean by “right”. If you mean, not a slobbering homicidal maniac, the answer would be over 80%. If you mean, a man or woman with the best intentions of the people at heart trying to do the best they can under the circumstances, I’d say the answer would be well below 50%.
the problem with american elections is that the whole world, especially the non-caucasian part, pays the costs.
IMO jaw dropper of the day is “Mrs. Clinton did not have a government email address during her four year tenure at the State Department.”
Four – 4 – years. Just a slip of course. Easily overlooked.
Like, the State Department is just some little private thingy the rich and famously connected get to do, because laws are for the Little People and “public service”….what’s that? What next? Government offices moved to private locations paid for by Koch Bros. or Bill Gates, depending on who’s in power?
Now watch Dems defending total elitism with their future nominee. Maybe would should but the GOP and Dem nominees at the same podium for Presidential debates, and one more empty podium opposite them.
I’m sure the Green and Libertarian nominees, whoever they turn out to be, would just love to share that “empty” podium.
Then we might hear a real debate.
I believe I read Dick Cheney did not even have an email address while VPOTUS!
““Mrs. Clinton did not have a government email address during her four year tenure at the State Department.”
FWIW, This is just 0100 level plausible deniability. She has flunkies to correspond (and shred).
Who thinks Putin would directly order assassinations?
Re: Tea-Party Sheriff begs for money to pay medical bills
While on one level I appreciate the obvious irony (I’ve always maintained that the universe has sense of humor–often rather dark and absurdist), it sounds like Mr. Brad has drunk the O-care kool-aid a little bit:
Great care at an affordable rate? He must be thinking of some other country’s health care system. I think what he meant to write was “near-useless coverage with a sky-high deductible.” Perhaps Mr. Brad is unaware that even those covered under O-care, if they went w/ a bronze plan, will be starting a GoFundMe campaign to pay for their share of the bill if anything bad ever happens to them.
Please grab a mirror as you seem to want to whine about Bronze ( which is fair) but it was not the most popular choice of ACA. ACA isn’t perfect, far from it, but it is probably better than the GOFUNDME $20K raised. Or are you going with the “demand charity” stance.
FWIW – I have private healthcare insurance – so I am but a casual observer
Thanks for sharing your concern although not, as you point out, your experience (“whining”?). The obvious solution is single payer, which would cover everyone equally, not this nutball patchwork of bubblegum and baling wire otherwise known as the ACA.
Re: The obvious solution is single payer
I’m assuming you mean: the obvious solution in an alternative universe where the government exists for purposes other than distributing loot to cronies.
So which “obvious solution” comes first?
Changing the current purpose of the US government?
Or:
single payer run by a corrupt government and hoping for a good result?
A counsel of despair. Obviously, the government is capable of delivering some services competently and with public purpose in mind. Also, Canada delivers single payer just fine, and if you think Canada is pure, you haven’t been watching what Harper is doing. In each case, a neo-liberal infestation should be cleaned up. Finally, single payer, because of its simplicity, provides far less opportunity for cronyism than ObamaCare, which functioned as a way to throw walking around money to the Democratic nomenklatura as part of the marketing process. You really should get that knee seen to.
The three stages of political life:
1. when young and idealistic, one is a Hippie or a Red Guard.
2. later, one becomes a hedge fund manager or a Red Rand-libertarian billionaire (gotta feed the kids).
3. when old and decrepit, one applies for government help.
Thus, one completes the circle of one’s ironic political life.
Hillary’s use of a private email address (Hotmail??) during her 4 years as Sec. of State is a game changer on many levels. Many will be most concerned about security issues created by utilizing a private email address for classified communications. A comment to the NYT’s article from a former foreign service employee described how this would never be allowed for an underling. Of equal concern is using a private email to skirt public disclosure requirements under the Freedom of Information Act. Then there is the archiving issue for government communications. And without any public archiving system, who will ever know if the email messages she discloses are really all that exist. A side story is how the Admin. allowed her to get away with doing this.
This is not a private scandal, but goes to the very heart of public accountability. It discloses more about her character, or lack thereof, then the Whitewater scandal, or any of her other unsavory activities.
My belief is she will decide not to run for President based upon [fill in the blank personal reasons]. Because politicians, especially with the last name of Clinton, historically dodge scandals, many will argue she will emerge unscathed. Not this time. She intentionally and with premeditation decided the requirements for government communications did not apply to her. Why? Because she intended to control every communication that was ever publicly disclosed, while destroying those that were damaging. Former NSA employee Drake faced Espionage charges for taking home a few unimportant classified documents. Using a private email address to store tens of thousands of classified communications is far worse.
So, goodbye Ms. Clinton. Now you can raise all the money your heart desires for the Clinton foundation, although you might find huge donors much harder to find now that you are no longer a viable Presidential candidate.
‘Because she intended to control every communication that was ever publicly disclosed, while destroying those that were damaging.’
You nailed it, bro. What makes this behavior so inexcusable is that Hillary is a Yale-trained lawyer who served as a staff member in the House Judiciary Committee during the Nixon impeachment inquiry. Nixon’s potential impeachment was not about a burglary, but about a cover-up that involved withholding information (including the notorious 18-1/2 minute gap in an audio record of a critical meeting).
To top it all off, Hillary’s boss in the Judiciary Committee, Jerry Zeifman, stated publicly in 2008 that ‘my own reaction was of regret that, when I terminated her employment on the Nixon impeachment staff, I had not reported her unethical practices to the appropriate bar associations.’
How low can she go?
Yes, underlings could not do what Hilary did: http://americablog.com/2015/03/hillary-clinton-did-not-keep-a-public-email-account-at-the-state-department.html?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+Americablog+%28AMERICAblog+News+%29
Unfortunately, Hilary did not get reported by Zeifman and thus started a pattern of her getting away with things and sense of entitlement that the rules don’t apply to her.
I don’t think she’ll quit. This will blow over.
Agreed. The Clintons will never quit, until they are either imprisoned or else meet the fate of the Ceausescus.
The Permanent Campaign is a lifetime commitment.
Now THAT is fascinating. Not so much surprising to hear of Hilary, but that its the first I’ve heard it. You’d think it would have come up immediately during any one of her recent scandals. I can’t follow the media on Hilary. One day the slant is anti-Hilary, the next day they’re throwing a positive spin her way.
For each woman CEO, there are four men named John, Robert, William or James. In fact, the number of companies run by men named John exceeds those run by women. (Same with David.)
http://feministing.com/2015/03/03/chart-of-the-day-more-large-companies-are-run-by-men-named-john-than-by-women/
put a john & a robert together and woe to me…
“When I worked in the Department of Justice, in the office of the solicitor general, it was my job to argue cases for the United States before the Supreme court. I always found it very moving to stand before the justices and say, ‘I speak for my country.'”
Chief JR
People, for reasons of their own, often fail to do things that would be good for them or good for society.
Chief JR
Rape is a violent crime not a sex act. The fact that Indian society, along with most others in the world, are unable to see the difference between these two thing is telling. Yes, Indian society is in part responsible for this rape. However, this does not absolve any individual who commits rape. I noticed that one of the rapists said “criminals” might kill the woman. That was interesting because he does not consider himself a criminal after committing an extremely violent act.
Then we have parents willing to reject their daughter because she was subjected to a violent criminal act. That is absolutely despicable.
Sadly, these ideas are common. Like conservative religions that force women to cover themselves so that men won’t be tempted to commit violence against women, this shows both social/individual depravity. It is really sad that men will not see women as friends. To these men, women are fair game for violence. All these pious, religious groups and also secular people who think it is o.k. to harm women need a quick turnaround in their way of life. They are choosing violence and cruelty as their very essence. They are harming other people. It is time to stop this and choose to live a good life-one that is of help to others–a life of kindness and friendship.
I agree with much of what you say.
While a rapist would claim that “A decent girl won’t roam at night”, no decent man, no decent person, would harm any woman, or child, or man – innocent of anything but being.
In this report there are many statements that disturb me. The producer of the documentary, Udwin
, claimed that she “expected monsters” but in discovering the “truth” was shocked to realize that the men were ” . . .
ordinary, apparently normal and certainly unremarkable men who SHARED a rigid and ‘learnt’ set of attitudes towards women,”
Does it come as a surprise that many criminals are also people with characteristics that define them as people and not monsters? The actions these men took were monstrous, cruel and akin to a lynching. Further, the woman was not only raped but also tortured to death. Murdered. The men who murdered her and attacked her companion were certainly not “unremarkable”. They were men who became monsters.
Perhaps it is Udall who is unremarkable in that she mistakes the human characteristics that we all share with a belief that monstrousness enacted also defines humans, especially those who practice monstrous deeds.
The men arguing against the death penalty are the very ones sentenced to death. Ignorant and primitive in their initial action, they are also ignorant and primitive in parroting scabrous arguments against the death penalty being visited upon their persons. There is no sense to what is said.
People who are raped should be quiet or it’ll be worse for them?
Finally, I have difficulty with those who equate ‘conservative’ religious beliefs with beliefs that would pretend to justify monstrous behaviour against women and men. If it is a social construct that accounts for these actions against gender equality then I’d sadly conclude that the society is a society of monsters. How fortunate India is that so many of its citizens were outraged. How fortunate the world is that many conservative religious people are not monsters.
They say, don’t fight or you’ll be killed. Then they say, if you didn’t fight you weren’t actually raped.
This is why I view the prospect of human extinction, however remote it may be, with equanimity. A species that systematically degrades half its members is already damned.
McKillop,
Here is what I wrote: ” Like conservative religions that force women to cover themselves so that men won’t be tempted to commit violence against women…” I don’t know of any liberal religious sects which demand that women cover themselves. Do you know of them? I’m asking a sincere question.
The various sects that I know who do demand this would be called conservative. What do you mean by conservative? What is your understanding of why women should be forced to cover ourselves by a religion, (one which is either conservative or liberal)?
I suppose that I object to the easy classification of repression -via religion or social tenets, or politics, whatever- with conservatism. An atheist myself, though raised as a protestant Christian (luckily in the United Church of Canada, a church that did not interfere with my religious ponderings, luckily by parents who respected my integrity as much as their own religious beliefs), I’ve encountered many other people who belong to other sects, other religions. I’ve known people who believe in the inerrancy of the Bible, fundamentalist and conservative, who do not expect women ‘to cover themselves’ but who do call for modesty in dress, like people, apparently liberal, who are upset by entertainers who expose too revealing a view of their sexuality. Currently in Canada there is a tempest in a teapot over a young woman who ‘exposed’ her breasts on the internet while in a public library! The Canadian society (sic) is called out as liberal, I’ve also recently read that some religious sects, and the society, consider women’s hair to be sexually tempting or inviting and demanding cover but this news should help you realize how little I know of other customs. I also know that I’m considered ‘liberal to a fault’ by my friends and neighbours but I have a great deal of trouble accepting the exposures we are forced (or tricked into) to witness on television.
Mind, I’d prefer any sexual exposure to the vile monstrousness of war and murder.
McKillop,
I don’t think that conservative religions are the only oppressive forces in the world. In my original post I included secular people who also believe the same things about women as these criminals did. Violence against women is “normal” throughout most every society.
I would say that hatred and fear of the human body is inculcated into most societies, through religion and social custom. We fear seeing the naked human body, but that doesn’t really make sense. If we see a naked body which is being exploited, we should decry that exploitation but nakedness is not something that should offend us.
And do Christians here in this country, or even most secularists, condone women walking naked in public? It wasn’t that long ago when there were wars over how high the hem of a skirt could rise. Assumptions are still made if a skirt gets too short. Is it possible that some Muslim women want to dress in a way that honors their beliefs and feel good about the way they look? Where do women live where there aren’t expectations about which body parts can be exposed? Europeans think Americans are prudes and have unnecessary hangups over sex and nudity. It’s all relative.
Repression and misogyny are different issues. They may be reflected in the way women are expected to dress, but it isn’t necessarily so. Rafia Zakaria writes about Karachi, the largest city in the Muslim world at 13 million residents, currently grappling with the traditional patriarchal/polygamous vs. empowered women monogamous marriage dichotomy, in her book, The Upstairs Wife.
my personal belief is that humanity will never evolve into something gentler, less violent, if people both collectively and individually cannot recognize the potential monster within everyone. you cannot fix something if you refuse to acknowledge it.
The New Scientist story about Google is indeed disturbing. If true then they will be a filter rather than a search engine. The whole point of the web is that we don’t have an elite consensus (or any consensus) deciding for us what the “facts” are.
Consensus is what the web is producing right now, except it’s rigidly polarized between left and right, and full of truthiness and false opinions. People mostly visit only their favorite websites, favorites because they tend to reinforce their attitudes and beliefs and opinions, presenting current events and facts which support those worldviews. Google personalizes your searches as well, further narrowing down what you are exposed to on the web. The result is that most people get to see more of the same as they’ve already seen.
For example, there is an entire parallel world and economy among fundamentalist Christians, complete with a plethora of websites and news sources that only present their Biblical worldview. There are similar more or less closed worlds for progressives, conservatives, libertarians, and people who only follow TV sports.
Will Google’s fact-checking have any real effect on these closed-loop worldviews? Not likely. People have their daily list of bookmarks for keeping up with the world, and will never notice the changed rank of these sites. However, Google searchers who look for new information may well be surprised to find that Santa Claus does not, in fact, live at the North Pole. And Ronald Reagan is not sitting at God’s right hand, blessing us all with austerity for our own salvation.
Stop pretending to be non-ideological. You have your lies, and they have theirs. Yours being more complex and nuanced and less violent doesn’t make you a truth-teller. It makes you an accomplice.
Guardian live blog of Netanyahu speech. What a disgrace.
Increasingly sketchy ZH has a live feed.
So does the Guardian; at least it has a video. I prefer text because then I don’t throw things.
We pay $3 billion a year to a wealthy client state, for the privilege of being lectured like schoolboys?
Sickening. Stomach turning. Land of the grovelers.
You are not talking about the Vatican, are you? I think we, or rather, many of its believers here, pay more than $3 billion a year to that wealth state.
According to The Economist (2012), the Catholic Church spends $171 billion a year in the U.S., which includes spending on hospitals, universities and schools, charitable organizations and local parishes. $4.7 billion is direct distributed to the poor. The Economist’s back of the envelope calculation is that churches receive $14 billion per year in offeratory income from Catholics attending mass. The rest is a mix of other donations and income including investments. Rather dwarfs whatever the fedgov officially gives to Israel.
Thanks, reslez, for that information.
That’s a lot of money from donations and other sources of income. What is the secret to their two millennia long financial success story?
Lack of birth control.
bowhahahhhahah ahahahhahahah ahahahahahahah!!!!
Guilt is a powerful tool….
Skippy… and money is such a burden…
Also kaching. Worse than a lecture; a campaign speech for Bibi back home.
Madonna Invite Marine Le Pen. Both Le Point and RTL report on Madonna entry into the game of politics by publicly issuing an invitation to FN leader Marine Le Pen “to have a drink together” so the popstress could grasp the Le Pen position on human rights from her own mouth. According to RTL though Le Pen may reflect on the possibility for the moment she declined to meet Madonna.
http://www.lepoint.fr/societe/marine-le-pen-refuse-de-prendre-un-verre-avec-madonna-03-03-2015-1909533_23.php
http://www.rtl.fr/culture/medias-people/marine-le-pen-ne-sait-pas-si-elle-ira-prendre-un-verre-avec-madonna-7776852550
I am in two minds whether this is more hilarious than tragic or the other way around… A few days ago the singer ignorantly compared today’s France with Nazi Germany which speaks volumes about her knowledge on the subject…
We still don’t have an analysis of Le Pen’s economic positions, which someone told us are very populist. She vociferously supported Syriza in the negotiations.
Strange bedfellows, indeed.
on the income & outlays report, NY Times says “Wall Street has been looking for better data. The pickup in the savings rate is a little bit of a surprise and it is an indication that people are still cautious.”
not cautious; oblivious. no one is consciously “saving” the $10 savings from a gasoline fillup…you swipe your card and the bill for that and all the other necessities including groceries that you bought comes a month later…if that bill is 20 or 30 dollars less than you expected, you’re not likely to run out & spend it then…only those living paycheck to paycheck whose cash runs out at month end are likely to spend on necesstities what they didn’t spend on gas…
More details on the Saudi Prince’s 3 Panic Room NYC digs, including pictures; looks like its a steal now at $48.5 million after a $25 million price cut:
http://ny.curbed.com/archives/2015/02/26/saudi_princes_threepanicroom_pad_gets_25m_price_cut.php
I was so disappointed there were no photos of the panic rooms.
Those are the panic rooms.
Understated but elegant in the classic style of Saudi Arabian shit on shit decorating.
I especially like the vertigo theme room in vertical stripes.
Yes, allopaths do need to understand alternative treatments. Integrative medicine can be quite helpful.
Patients can tell some pretty horrifying stories about cancer doctors. My neighbor went to one of the best, most highly regarded cancer treatment centers in the US. Her doctor did not ask her name. She read through her chart and drew the prognosis on the exam table paper. You’re at this stage (4) and you have a 5 % chance of living. Then the doctor left. WOW, was she devastated. This isn’t an isolated incident.
So yes doctor, if someone comes into your office with cancer, they may ask you annoying questions and take up more time than you have to give. That’s because they are terrified. Might it be possible to have a nurse practitioner speak with the patient after your 30 mins. are up? There has to be some way to combine the need to see many patients with the necessity of a patient being given compassion and information about both alternative and conventional medicine. The two types of treatments have been used successfully together. Some alternative medicine can help. So, yes, you need to learn about that and incorporate it into your practice.
What do doctors say to ‘alternative therapists’ when a patient dies?
1. If the doctor did not say anything to the patient before he/she died, should the doctor say something now to the dead patient now? You can’t be silent forever. People talk to the dead all the time.
2. Even when dead, the patient is still invisible…still ignored…here, by the headline writer, who mentions doctoring not talking with the alternative therapists, but not to the dead patient. What can they say? Well, maybe, ‘I am sorry?’
What do members of the public say to economists and bankers when their policies fail?
An alternative question is this: What do elected leaders say to quacks, sorry, economists, when their policies fail the working taxpayers?
Skip the article?! Are we quite sure the Graun isn’t trying us on? “Jeremy Roberts, president of the company Medical Cannabis Payment Solutions testified to that point, beginning: “I was kind of shocked to find out the killer rabbit of Caerbannog from Monty Python and the Holy Grail is actually in the Utah mountains.”” I know dispensaries have had a bit of trouble with dealing on the worldwide financial network, but what sounds like a collections agency what’ll come to your house and break your knees for stiffing your dealer, well, daaang, that doesn’t sound like compassionate care to me!
It looks like De Guindos talks about a third Greek bailout are bound for the “education” of the Spanish voters. ;)
He said:
Funny enough, he talks about how bad it would be for Europe and the EZ. Not a word about the poor Greeks, except “I’ll make you a European solidary proposal that you will not be able to refuse.” :)
The TINA sentence was used as a subheader by Spanish top neoliberal journal, El Pais today: “There is no alternative to European solidarity.”
On the one hand, people idealize about one world-government, or a loose confederation of self-governing groups, with open borders, free movement of persons, equality, brotherhood and liberty, etc., and you hope something like the EU can work and one day it can be extended to the whole world.
Then, you see weaker nations still get dominated like this, within the zone, and you wonder, is there any hope for humanity or humans?
Thanks for the print of the wave/particle. “This phenomenon shows the wave-like nature of light… (it shows the color) and it also demonstrates the particle aspect (bumps), as the electrons pass close to the standing wave of light (what exactly that is must be a factor of light approaching its own speed of light, no?) and hit the light’s particles (photons), affecting the photon speed (an exchange of energy or quanta between electrons and photons)…” So just as yesterday’s speed/energy creates color depending on the compostion of the matter reflected. Well, I loved it. But it did not elaborate on the moment just after this freeze frame when lights and waves separate into different states because of their energy differential. Dancing Wu Li Masters. That will be a very cool photo. And I’m still wondering what the photo of electrons hitting photons looks like as a leisurely speed.
and… what state does the wave go into? some sub-state – or is it completely obliterated by the birth of the particle?
plus I think I just got the rainbow effect. Duh. I’m only 70. If you turn the print one way it produces all the lights, bumps and all; if you turn it at right angles there you have the separation of colors along their respective energy levels…
“While this phenomenon shows the wave-like nature of light, it simultaneously demonstrated its particle aspect as well. As the electrons pass close to the standing wave of light, they “hit” the light’s particles, the photons. As mentioned above, this affects their speed, making them move faster or slower. This change in speed appears as an exchange of energy “packets” (quanta) between electrons and photons. The very occurrence of these energy packets shows that the light on the nanowire behaves as a particle.”
It ‘demonstrates its particle aspect.’
And the electrons slow down. Energy packets get exchanged. And this shows light behaves as a particle.
But, but, that is different from saying you have a picture of it as a particle. What you have is a picture of the effect of light as a particle, and not of the particle, itself, that is light.
Looking at the picture, I don’t see ‘one particle of light’ in that picture.
Almost *too* high a resolution shot of today’s antidote: https://twitter.com/missyasin/status/572789563116134400
Good news! Bob is spared from the breadline!
CEO Dudley’s pay rises 20% to $12.7M • 2:21 PM
Carl Surran, SA News Editor
• BP (BP +1.2%) CEO Bob Dudley saw his total 2014 compensation rise more than 20% Y/Y to $12.7M from $10.17M in 2013, during a year when the company took a quarterly loss, according to the company’s latest directors remuneration report.
• Dudley’s salary and annual bonus fell to $2.95M from $4.21M in 2013 but deferred bonuses and performance shares’ awards rose to $9.79M from $5.96M a year earlier.
• Total compensation – including benefits, shares and pension – totaled $15.3M, up ~$700K from 2013’s $14.6M.
I wonder if he calls that a Cost Of Living Adjustment (COLA). But I suspect he calls it insulting, and he’s grumbling to his wife about all the other CEOs who got bigger bumps last year.
A little current info on Vatican financial reforms: http://ncronline.org/news/vatican/pope-francis-cements-financial-reform-new-laws-creates-vatican-auditor-general
That’s trying to take on the Curia, but this is a look at some of the RC Bishops’ financial behaviors states side: http://ncronline.org/news/faith-parish/survey-finds-serious-flaws-diocesan-financial-management
re: Antidote du jour
“It’s a photo of a weasel trying to kill a woodpecker.”
Good luck with that!!
Welp, as someone with invasive breast cancer; of course attained after I was booted out of the “work force,” due not to a skill deficiency but due to my knack for uncovering ugly (mostly deliberate) corporate realities – as a skill attained, and well-honed by middle age – and could no longer afford health insurance: I must say, I would never give credit to Ger$on Coffee Enemas.
Nevertheless, I witnessed firsthand, much to my horror, that EVEN the long ago Clinically Proven tumor reduction of aromatase inhibitors as regards the most common breast cancer diagnosis – Post Menopausal, ER/PR (Estrogen/Progesterone) Positive, Her2 negative – has yet to be considered Standardized Neoadjuvant (tumor reduction, pre surgery) Treatment in the United $tates.
As a non-Chemo Neoadjuvant Therapy, Aromatase Inhibitors are far, far, far less toxic, far, far, far cheaper, and far more Successful (heard it right out of the mouth of the head of Oncology at the renowned Teaching Hospital I’ve been stuck at, even though my initial surgeon at that hospital never once suggested it to me, I had to do my own fucking ‘homework.’) as to Post-Menopausal Neoadjuvant Therapy (it worked significantly for me (70% tumor reduction)) for the most common breast cancer diagnosis: ER/PR (Estrogen/Progesterone) Positive Her2 negative; Yet, Aromatase Inhibitors are still not considered Standardized Neoadjuvant Therapy in the United $tates.
I should also mention that the first Teaching Hospital [A Gov.COUNTY HellHole] I dealt with – jobless (though perfectly qualified and ‘tech current’), sans insurance, and by that time broke after having just recently dealt with HELLISH Medical Indu$try issues of older members of my family – was even worse than the above mentioned Teaching Hospital. That County “Teaching Hospital” clearly wanted to remove my entire breast and set me up (WITHOUT MY INFORMED CONSENT, OR KNOWLEDGE) with both a Surgeon, and four hospital appointments, clearly towards that end; via an to this day unknown third party (though presumably it was that ghastly Rotary Club “Non Profit” I ended up stuck at, and calling out as to their utter lack of humanity).
Needless to say, at this point I have no trust remaining in anyone whose profession is the treatment of cancer. Lastly, while there may well be Alternative Therapies, I’ve yet to find a website I would put any faith in.
Jack Dorsey was on the ground getting in the way of Authority during the Ferguson unrest, yet he’s in the crosshairs of ISIS now. The two explanations that come to mind are that ISIS doesn’t know what it’s doing, or they do know what they’re doing and who they work for.
that’s a common tactic.
take the recent assassination of nemtsov in moscow. while nemtsov was no angel as per mark ames’ account, my money is on this being putin’s work. after the charlie hebdo attacks, nemtsov was outspoken about the right to free speech, following which he got death threats from “islamic extremists”. IMO, this was likely political opponents seizing an opportunity to attack him from another angle.
as to the following remark I made in my prior (at this time unposted comment #2412749), comment:
I should really have addended that to read:
http://www.dw.de/german-politicians-at-odds-over-how-to-regulate-immigration/a-18230340
German politicians at odds over how to regulate immigration
Points-system as a gatekeeper
In 1967, Canada was the first country to introduce a points-based system, assessing applicants on various factors linked to labor market demand and an immigrant’s potential to meet that demand.
Australia and the UK also have points-based immigration selection systems.
Australia operates a “hybrid” system for skilled migration, with both employer sponsorship options and points-based visas. The UK introduced a points-based program in 2008. According to a 2011 report by the CentreForum thinktank, “the aim of the points based migration system (PBS) is to provide an objective measure of a migrant’s potential contribution to the UK economy.”
The criteria include English language ability, the capacity to support oneself financially, age, previous experience and already having a job on a shortage occupation list.
…
And how cold is it?
Birds are out with their fur coats.
It’s estimated that British taxpayers have paid out more than 400k pounds to Jasem Emwazi, the father of Jihadi John. The family had sought asylum, which was ultimately granted, claiming to fear for their lives if returned to Kuwait. Despite this fear, once they gained British citizenship the family began to regularly travel to Kuwait and it appears that Mr. Emwazi has been back there working for the last six months or so. The family’s benefits seem to be continuing in his absence from England.
Today it was reported that the Emwazi family is now denying that their son, Mohammed, is Jihadi John and have retained a lawyer to sue anyone claiming that he is.
He might not use the word “chutzpah,” but Mr. Emwazi seems to have it in spades.
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2978334/Jihadi-John-family-s-20-years-benefits-s-cost-taxpayers-400k-house-fanatic-relatives-upmarket-areas.html
http://edition.cnn.com/2015/03/04/world/jihadi-john-father-interview/index.html