Cambodia trains rats to detect landmines Daily Star
Worse fur wear! Drunk raccoon stumbles and falls over after getting sloshed on spilled beer in a warehouse. Includes video. Daily Mail
The History and Psychology of Clowns Being Scary Smithsonian
Heinz says sorry for ketchup QR code that links to porn site appygeek (Chuck L)
Earth ‘entering new extinction phase’ – US study BBC
Industrial Agriculture Is a Threat to World Food Supply Truthout (furzy mouse)
National Center for Public Policy Research Defends Trans Fats Intercept (furzy mouse)
Discovery of graves nothing new, says ex-US Senate staffer Star Online (Malaysia)
Chinese shares in biggest weekly drop since 2008 Xinhua
That was nuts. Is this the crash? FT Alphaville
European Regulators Lay Out Demands and Fines in Google Antitrust Case New York Times
Grexti?
EU Commission President Juncker: ‘I Don’t Understand Tsipras’ Der Spiegel. Important.
Kremlin Denies Discussing ‘Loan’ To Greece Sky News
Russia and Greece Flaunt Solidarity, but Deals Are Scarce New York Times
Does Greece Need More Austerity? Paul Krugman
Merkel’s one big reason to hold on to Greece Financial Times
Greek banks: Athens’ Achilles heel Financial Times
Banks quit Greece to safeguard cash Times
Greek debt: Merkel urges deal before Monday summit BBC
Tusk tells Greece it is heading for default if it does not reach deal on Monday ekathimerini
A modern Greek tragedy – the crisis years in context Financial Times
Every month brings 1 bln of new tax debts ekathimerini
Months of Greek debt talks yield bad blood but no deal Financial Times. A must read. We long thought Tsipras was naive to regard Merkel as an ally. The handwriting was on the wall but Tsipras did not get the significance: “Mr Tsipras told colleagues that Ms Merkel had been helpful, saying she would support any deal backed by the IMF.” Merkel made equivocal statements in public until three weeks ago when she made it crystal clear to the broader public that she was backing the IMF.
Syraqistan
MISRATA, Libya: Chaos in Libya paves way for Islamic State expansion McClatchy
Locals fear IS jihadists quietly slipped into Turkey Al-Monitor
Big Brother is Watching You Watch
FBI says in secret that secret spy Cessnas aren’t secret Register
Jeffrey Sterling Took on the CIA — And Lost Everything Intercept
When Your Conspiracy Theory Is True WNYC
Google Reveals It Was Forced to Hand Over Journalist’s Data for WikiLeaks Grand Jury Investigation Kevin Gosztola, Firedoglake
China and Russia Almost Definitely have the Snowden Docs Wired
Mixed Effects Are Seen if Health Care Law Is Repealed New York Times
American politics? They’ve become a family affair. McLeans
Rand Paul comes to the rescue of America’s most vulnerable: Its wealthy Salon (furzy mouse)
Health Care Fraud Takedown: 243 Arrested, Charged with $712 Million in False Medicare Billings FBI.gov. This is actually a big number. One wonders what they’d get if they ever bothered to go after private insurer abuses.
Black Injustice Tipping Point
What to Read: The Charleston Massacre The Marshall Project
The Reconstruction-Era Violence Lurking in the Southern Air Nation (furzy mouse)
Vigil for Charleston Church Shooting Victims Dispersed by Bomb Threats Real News Network
It’s Not About Mental Illness: The Big Lie That Always Follows Mass Shootings By White Males Salon
Judge in Dylann Roof Case Has A History of Racist Comments Mother Jones
City of Clanton ends contract with firm allegedly running ‘debtor’s prison’ AL.com
New Rules Allow Early Adopters to Become Early Investors Tech Crunch (David L)
Share sale signals from bank executives Financial Times
The Most Powerful Person at the Federal Reserve You’ve Never Heard Of Bloomberg. Fromm a DC insider: “Alvarez at the fed under fire.”
Class Warfare
‘Poshness tests’ are about what you know Financial Times
Antidote du jour. Isabel: “Baby bird saved by its parents after falling from the nest.”
See yesterday’s Links and Antidote du Jour here.
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From the Der Spiegel bit:
I wonder what Juncker envisions as everybody losing?
The interview showed Juncker to be pretty philosophical. It avoided bashing Merkel. And it praised to high heaven Herr Schaeuble. Tsipras took the brunt. Rock and a hard place for Alexis, no? Interviews like this say things conversationally that cannot be calculated. Juncker almost said that for the EU it is not important anymore just to be trading partners because the EU has become more political. But if it has truly become political, and it must to save itself which Juncker knows, then why is it still unbending about monetary stuff? Monetary is secondary to political. In fact, it is meaningless without Political. So he points out that the EU offered 35Bn for investment in Greece. If Tsipras turned this down it must have had to do with control over that money. Greece wants its sovereignty back. Period. I will always remember Schaeuble in NYC at the dias saying “We are overbanked.” Banks ate everything in just a short time, but when it came to eating sovereignty it was a tough stick. I wonder what Juncker and Schaeuble think about the practice of all the banksters creating money rather than intermediating it. I’m not sure where that leaves them any claim for repayment, let alone interest on such easy monetary self promotion.
Juncker said a little over a month ago:
“Grexit is not an option.”… “If we were to accept, if Greece were to accept, if others were to accept that Greece could leave the area of solidarity and prosperity that is the eurozone, we would put ourselves at risk because some, notably in the Anglo Saxon world, would try everything to deconstruct the euro area piece by piece, little by little.”
I recall that Cameron reportedly tried to block Juncker’s appointment.
I’m here in Delphi with Syriza leaders and others, including James Galbraith, Boris Kargelitsky and others.
I repeat what I’ve been saying for a month. Greece will NOT give in on the red lines that have been drawn by Yanis V. and Alex Ts. They are NOT “caught” in a vice.
Their official stance is indeed “We want to pay.” That is only polite. The key is the follow up: “But we don’t have the money to do so.” The implicit follow-up is, “to do so without cutting pensions or privatizing assets that we refuse to do.”
Syriza has little love for the bank oligarchs. If they’re wiped out, they’ll reopen soon, either scaled down or possibly nationalized (it depends on many factors).
I see that some on the Left (James Petras for instance) are very negative, because he’s unable to see others succeeding. But it looks to me that these guys are serious. I like all the contingency plans I’ve heard.
The meetings should be on internet, so I’m not leaking anything confidential at all. The US and European press simply are giving a false impression of what’s happening.
One factor that’s come quite clear is that the Greek people support nonpayment now. This moral issue trumps all others, including the possible move to the drachma if the EU forces matters in that direction.
This is contradicted by media reports in Macropolis (Greece government friendly, which also states that local media are carrying these reports), the Guardian, and Wall Street Journal that the Finance Ministry has been working on plans on Saturday to make the numbers work that include pension cuts of as much as 0.5% of GDP. The Journal names the specific government officials working on these plans.
Your sources are not in this loop. These plans are going to Tsipras today to be debated and for him to make a final decision.
You were wrong in May. Things are in play. Issues you assert are off the table are in fact being considered right now. Tsipras may indeed hold firm but you are not able to read his mind any more than I can. Your latest remarks shows that your colleagues are less close to decision-making than they have led you to believe.
Yves,
I am really surprised on your insistence on your stand. Michael says that his sources are the finance minister, his close allies, even prime minister, no less. So he does not cite anonymous government sources.
Of course, one can claim that there are part of a posturing schema but why do you consider that your sources are not doing exactly the same thing?
I believe you lost the plot here. Besides there is no “honorable” compromise anymore. It is clear that EU wants a complete surrender, a humiliating one. Under these circumstances why would any government give in? Given the fact the alternative is also hardship with no sight of any improvement, perhaps for decades.
You did not read what Hudson wrote with any care. HIs sources are NOT Tsipras or Varoufakis, He is not in at the table where the discussions are being held as of when the media reports were being made. Galbraith is an advisor to Varoufakis, not Varoufakis himself. Boris Kargelitsky is a Russian and an advisor at most, and not a member of the government.
Who are these unnamed Syriza leaders? Syriza is split, and the Left Faction is at odds with the moderates who are now reported to be drawing up proposals that Tsipras is considering. And in fact the media reports this evening that Greece had made its first “serious” offer, as in one with real concessions, which is again consistent with my reading of events, not Hudson’s.
Hudson’s ties, in other words, are to a group of foreign advisors. He made a bad call in May based on relying on their reading. He looks to have made a second bad call, as I anticipated based on the narrowness and the confirmation bias of his sources. Now a deal many not get done, but Tsipras is not only considering but has apparently submitted a proposal with pension cuts, which means he has crossed one of his red lines. This Handelsblatt story reports that negotiations are underway, with the creditors demanding, and by implication, the Greek government conceding, that pension funds will be cut in 2016, but (if I read the Google Translate correctly) small pensions will be spared.
https://translate.google.com/translate?sl=de&tl=en&js=y&prev=_t&hl=en&ie=UTF-8&u=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.handelsblatt.com%2Fpolitik%2Finternational%2Ffranzoesische-kreise-darum-ging-es-offenbar-beim-krisen-telefonat%2F11948458.html&edit-text=
I’ve been blogging since 2006. I’ve gotten plenty of inside reports, and I’ve learned to cautious with single source accounts. Even when what they are saying is narrowly true, it is too easy from them to miss elements of the story that would change the interpretation. There’s a good reason why it is considered poor journalistic practice to rely on single sourced accounts. I suggest you consider these incidents with Hudson as object lessons.
Wyden notes that “Technology has made it possible to conduct round-the-clock aerial surveillance”. He then goes on to say (emphasis added):
Oversight legislation, written to help surveillance drone manufacturers, is going to be artifice that simply puts perfunctory oversight in place (like the FISA Court) to assure liberals that they no longer need to worry about round-the-clock aerial surveillance.
“…….help the unmanned aircraft industry reach its potential as an economic powerhouse in Oregon and the United States.”
Was there ever a more clear statement of whom the congress “works for” than that?
Re-elect Ron Wyden. Bringing economic prosperity to Oregonians through the 24/7 aerial surveillance industry. Time to enter the 21st century. The sky is not just for “gazing” any more.
In Ron Wyden’s Oregon, sky gazes at you….
sky-grazing
Are we really that interesting? Will drones understand what they are seeing, or we will need lots and lots of humans watching drone footage to interpret things? Would this make the deficit worse? (I hope not) Wouldn’t they rather watch the Kardashians? Strange things are happening there.
If it brings prosperity to the community they will embrace and even subsidize a cluster-bomb/land-mine manufacturer setting up shop in the area. Its the only way we have to raise people out of poverty.
I, for one, welcome the future availability of videos of nude backyard sunbathers after the Chinese determine that the only thing of any value in the American “intelligence” community computers they hack is monetizing those trillions upon trillions of pixels of collected videos on porn sites.
I wish Youtube had a snippet from the Simpsons episode where Homer is recruited to spy on Mr. Burns, because Mr. Burns had stolen a 1 trillion dollar bill. The FBI agent explains that Burns had been under aerial surveillance for years, but that had only revealed that Burns had not hidden the bill on the roof…
Interesting article here by Yanis Varoufakis – unfortunately its a bit late to be trying to get Ireland as an ally.
http://www.irishtimes.com/opinion/yanis-varoufakis-a-pressing-question-for-ireland-before-monday-s-meeting-on-greece-1.2256339
Note that this little island of common sense in the Irish Times is flanked by made to order defences of the Troika narrative:
‘It has to be acknowledged, however, that when the storm struck Brian Lenihan and Brian Cowen did what was required to stop the country sliding over the edge of the abyss and their successors in office had the guts to stick to the plan, …The economic recovery, which is gathering pace by the day, has come about because our democratically elected leaders held their nerve in the face of widespread opposition and worked with the EU institutions to restore the public finances and keep the banks afloat. They did this despite a vocal array of pundits and politicians who insisted that hardship could be avoided if Ireland defaulted on its debts and told the EU institutions what to do with themselves. The Syriza government in Greece was elected on just such a populist platform with appeals to national pride and promises to end austerity as if that could be brought about by wishing it so. The Irish electorate only has to look at what is happening to Greece now to see the dire consequences of following such a course of action. Hopefully, for the sake of the long-suffering Greek people a compromise solution can still be found but Syriza’s negotiating stance to date gives no grounds for believing that will happen…To be fair to Europe its leaders do seem to care. German Chancellor Angela Merkel and European Commission president Jean-Claude Juncker in particular have been leaning over backwards to try to get a resolution but so far without avail. What they can’t do is bow to Greek demands’
http://www.irishtimes.com/opinion/stephen-collins-theatre-of-banking-inquiry-shows-right-course-was-followed-1.2256324
‘We have succeeded in persuading the markets that “Ireland is not Greece”, but to really underpin our public finances for the future – particularly if uncertainty builds – we need to persuade them that we are boring, fiscally righteous northern Europeans. This calls for caution as we approach budget 2016, rather than the pre-budget giveaway which is in the offing’ (would love to see Bill Mitchell shred that one)
http://www.irishtimes.com/opinion/cliff-taylor-why-should-we-care-if-greece-has-to-leave-the-euro-1.2256364
All the refutation you need for such balderdash is contained in Varoufakis’s concise and pointed summary.
And this, from Varoufakis:
‘Perhaps the most telling remark by any finance minister in that meeting came from Michael Noonan. He protested that ministers had not been made privy to the institutions’ proposal to my government before being asked to participate in the discussion. To his protest, I wish to add my own: I was not allowed to share with Mr Noonan, or indeed with any other finance minister, our written proposals. In fact, as our German counterpart was later to confirm, any written submission to a finance minister by either Greece or the institutions was “unacceptable”, as he would then need to table it at the Bundestag, thus negating its utility as a negotiating bid.
The euro zone moves in a mysterious way. Momentous decisions are rubber- stamped by finance ministers who remain in the dark on the details, while unelected officials of mighty institutions are locked into one-sided negotiations with a solitary government-in-distress. It is as if Europe has determined that elected finance ministers are not up to the task of mastering the technical details; a task best left to “experts” representing not voters but the institutions. One can only wonder to what extent such an arrangement is efficient, let alone remotely democratic’
I am getting a very strong whiff of TPP in that.
I know YV has ben linked to recently but I would have thought that each and every piece he writes ought to be linked here, given his centrality to what is going on. We get deal minutiae and tea-leaf reading pieces on the changing opinions, real or manufactured, of every top table Euro technocrat via the FT and other organs of the status quo, but the recent stronger medicine of:
AEP: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/economics/11687229/Greek-debt-crisis-is-the-Iraq-War-of-finance.html
Mish: http://globaleconomicanalysis.blogspot.com.au/2015/06/greece-played-germany-like-violin.html
Bilbo: http://bilbo.economicoutlook.net/blog/?p=31174 (Germany should look at itself in the mirror)
and Ilargi: http://www.theautomaticearth.com/2015/06/inciting-bank-runs-as-a-negotiating-tactic/
has been notably MIA recently. Yes, they may have appeared but it is the more anodyne descriptive pieces rather than the increasingly direct anti-Troika jeremiads that make the cut. I do understand the sheer amount of relevant material and the Grexit-fatigue factor you have alluded to, but if we can have a Spiegel soft soaping of Juncker’s latest safe-for-the-public ruminations deemed important, and the evasive musings of former Greece tax collection supremo (great job Harry!) and current opposition MP Harry Theoharis, surely we can get some of the more sensible pro-Syriza voices as well.
I may have missed it but while we got a post on the BOG’s Grexit warning, I can’t recall a direct link to the Greek Parliamentary Committee’s report which declares the debt odious. There was this exchange:
http://www.nakedcapitalism.com/2015/06/links-61715.html#comment-2459518
which leaves me a little uneasy.. I am with Susan PIzzo, and Michael Hudson, on that one. This is the sovereign government talking, after all.
Background on the impressive lady at the forefront of the report is thin on the ground, but there is this:
http://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-33179593
One last piece I think is worth a link:
http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2015-06-19/imf-trained-greek-journalists-washington-spin-stories-favor-troika
I wonder if there were some Irish journos in that program too..
Testing.. did my other reply to PK not pass muster?
No, it was not in the mod queue. Really sorry. I’ll check in the spam folder later but I MUST turn in now.
Tried again. No luck… no matter, hope you got some shut-eye.
One more time, hope you got some sleep:
‘its a bit late to be trying to get Ireland as an ally’
As an illustration of that, note that this little island of Greek common sense in the Irish Times is flanked by made to order local defences of the Troika narrative:
‘It has to be acknowledged, however, that when the storm struck Brian Lenihan and Brian Cowen did what was required to stop the country sliding over the edge of the abyss and their successors in office had the guts to stick to the plan, …The economic recovery, which is gathering pace by the day, has come about because our democratically elected leaders held their nerve in the face of widespread opposition and worked with the EU institutions to restore the public finances and keep the banks afloat. They did this despite a vocal array of pundits and politicians who insisted that hardship could be avoided if Ireland defaulted on its debts and told the EU institutions what to do with themselves. The Syriza government in Greece was elected on just such a populist platform with appeals to national pride and promises to end austerity as if that could be brought about by wishing it so. The Irish electorate only has to look at what is happening to Greece now to see the dire consequences of following such a course of action. Hopefully, for the sake of the long-suffering Greek people a compromise solution can still be found but Syriza’s negotiating stance to date gives no grounds for believing that will happen…To be fair to Europe its leaders do seem to care. German Chancellor Angela Merkel and European Commission president Jean-Claude Juncker in particular have been leaning over backwards to try to get a resolution but so far without avail. What they can’t do is bow to Greek demands’
http://www.irishtimes.com/opinion/stephen-collins-theatre-of-banking-inquiry-shows-right-course-was-followed-1.2256324
‘We have succeeded in persuading the markets that “Ireland is not Greece”, but to really underpin our public finances for the future – particularly if uncertainty builds – we need to persuade them that we are boring, fiscally righteous northern Europeans. This calls for caution as we approach budget 2016, rather than the pre-budget giveaway which is in the offing’ (would love to see Bill Mitchell shred that one)
http://www.irishtimes.com/opinion/cliff-taylor-why-should-we-care-if-greece-has-to-leave-the-euro-1.2256364
All the refutation you need for such balderdash is contained in Varoufakis’s concise and pointed summary.
And this, from Varoufakis:
‘Perhaps the most telling remark by any finance minister in that meeting came from Michael Noonan. He protested that ministers had not been made privy to the institutions’ proposal to my government before being asked to participate in the discussion. To his protest, I wish to add my own: I was not allowed to share with Mr Noonan, or indeed with any other finance minister, our written proposals. In fact, as our German counterpart was later to confirm, any written submission to a finance minister by either Greece or the institutions was “unacceptable”, as he would then need to table it at the Bundestag, thus negating its utility as a negotiating bid.
The euro zone moves in a mysterious way. Momentous decisions are rubber- stamped by finance ministers who remain in the dark on the details, while unelected officials of mighty institutions are locked into one-sided negotiations with a solitary government-in-distress. It is as if Europe has determined that elected finance ministers are not up to the task of mastering the technical details; a task best left to “experts” representing not voters but the institutions. One can only wonder to what extent such an arrangement is efficient, let alone remotely democratic’
I am getting a very strong whiff of TPP in that.
I know YV has ben linked to recently but I would have thought that each and every piece he writes ought to be linked here, given his centrality to what is going on. We get deal minutiae and tea-leaf reading pieces on the changing opinions, real or manufactured, of every top table Euro technocrat via the FT and other organs of the status quo, but the recent stronger medicine of:
AEP: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/economics/11687229/Greek-debt-crisis-is-the-Iraq-War-of-finance.html
Mish: http://globaleconomicanalysis.blogspot.com.au/2015/06/greece-played-germany-like-violin.html
Bilbo: http://bilbo.economicoutlook.net/blog/?p=31174 (Germany should look at itself in the mirror)
and Ilargi: http://www.theautomaticearth.com/2015/06/inciting-bank-runs-as-a-negotiating-tactic/
has been notably MIA recently. Yes, they may have appeared but it is the more anodyne descriptive pieces rather than the increasingly direct anti-Troika jeremiads that make the cut. I do understand the sheer amount of relevant material and the Grexit-fatigue factor you have alluded to, but if we can have a Spiegel soft soaping of Juncker’s latest safe-for-the-public ruminations deemed important, and the evasive musings of former Greece tax collection supremo (great job Harry!) and current opposition MP Harry Theoharis, surely we can get some of the more sensible pro-Syriza voices as well.
I may have missed it but while we got a post on the BOG’s Grexit warning, I can’t recall a direct link to the Greek Parliamentary Committee’s report which declares the debt odious. There was this exchange:
http://www.nakedcapitalism.com/2015/06/links-61715.html#comment-2459518
which leaves me a little uneasy.. I am with Susan PIzzo, and Michael Hudson, on that one. This is the sovereign government talking, after all.
Background on the impressive lady at the forefront of the report is thin on the ground, but there is this:
http://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-33179593
One last piece I think is worth a link:
http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2015-06-19/imf-trained-greek-journalists-washington-spin-stories-favor-troika
I wonder if there were some Irish journos in that program too…
While the FT article in Links 6/20 had valuable insights, this one, which was linked in the comments, is more incisive, frank, and direct:
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/economics/11687229/Greek-debt-crisis-is-the-Iraq-War-of-finance.html
Greece has a corruption problem, which underlies its path to the current brink and also inhibits any possible plan for recovery even in the most oppressive terms. The article stops just short of stating the parallel fact: the EU is also rife with patronage, cronyism and insider, closed-door corruption.
And I think this is a problem in the US as well, regulatory capture and dark-money lobbying and astro-turfing, finance industry conspiracies like LIBOR, and the TPP drive, these are all variations on the theme of self-interested parties in executive roles choosing their own immediate benefit over long-term needs and opportunities for the entire economy and nation. “Corruption” is almost too bland a word for the magnitude of this beast.
Dante, in his “Inferno,” categorized such people as ‘Betrayers,’ and consigned them to the very lowest ring of H—. Right next to the Infernal One.
So even a guy who describes himself as a ‘Burkean conservative with free market views’ can see that the Troika was never really interested in solving Greece’s problem.
The Troika pushed privatisation of profitable state assets at knock-down depression prices to private monopolies, to the benefit of an entrenched elite. To call that reforms invites a bitter cynicism.
The only reason that the Troika pushed this policy was in order to extract money. It was acting at a debt collector. “The reforms were a smokescreen. Whenever I tried talking about proposals, they were bored. I could see it in their body language,” Mr Varoufakis told me.
As to the IMF, compare their hardball tactics on Greece with their stance on the basket case formerly known as Ukraine.
One week ago, we were stunned to learn just how low the political organization that is the mostly US-taxpayer funded IMF has stooped when, a day after its negotiators demonstratively stormed out of the Greek negotiations with “creditors”, Hermes’ ambassador-at-large Christone Lagarde said that the IMF “could lend to Ukraine even if Ukraine determines it cannot service its debt.”
IMF Humiliates Greece, Repeats It Will Keep Funding Ukraine Even If It Defaults
‘Greece has a corruption problem, which underlies its path to the current brink’
We shouldn’t forget its path to the corruption problem… it never had real independence, any chance to evolve a workable system, free from the dictates of more powerful actors. From throwing off the yoke of the Ottoman Turks they had primarily German overlords (Bavarian nobles cum monarchs) installed by Eng/Fra/Rus/Prus, with a series of generals and admirals to run the shop, then brief interludes of democracy surrounded by dictatorships, culminating in the military junta of 68-74. In the last century any faint hope of a socialist ‘people’s party’ taking power and instituting reforms (including licit tax structures) was brutally crushed, first by the Allies’ ‘naughty’ spheres of influence agreement which led Stalin to leave the communist partisans high and dry, then by Churchill’s vicious stab in the back to the Greek defenders he had recently praised so vocally, and finally by the CIA which moved in to cement in power (police, army, bureaucracy, media) the Nazi sympathising and tax-averse elite which in every other European nation had been named and shamed, while simultaneously repressing and sidelining the remnants of the sort of people feted in France for resistance.
It’s no wonder they have no functioning machinery for democratic governance. We talk of third world nations not being ready for the imposition of democracy; ironic that its birthplace can be spoken of in much the same way, and for much the same reason – the ruthless suppression of any expression of democratic will by greater powers.
‘The article stops just short of stating the parallel fact: the EU is also rife with patronage, cronyism and insider, closed-door corruption’
Yes indeed. It seems the Greeks still have a ‘corruption problem’.
Don’t want to link to Breitbart but interesting interview from the Ed Show with Ralston regarding Hillary and the TPP
http://www.breitbart.com/video/2015/06/19/ralston-hillary-was-uneasy-talking-about-tpa-trying-to-massage-tpp-history/
Hillary is is just treading water on TPP—even if it’s just the shallow end. There is a robotic quality about most of her answers and statements as if they are formed by the synthesis of results of a many focus groups.
David Coates has an interesting piece up at HuffPo. The dynamic of low wage workers being herded to big box stores is certainly one I have witnessed. When a simple piece of Patagonia underwear costs nearly a day’s wages, one settles for the big-box version costing two-thirds or three-quarters less.
—-” Even more deregulated trade will not correct that drift. It is much likely to intensify the widely-noted “Wal-Mart” effect: that pressure on suppliers that forces them out to cheaper labor sites, eroding US employment and wages as it does so, leaving more and more US consumers so income-deleted that they can only afford to shop at the very box stores generating the original pressures!”—
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/david-coates/trade-deals-and-the-impor_b_7627306.html
“There is a robotic quality about most of her answers and statements as if they are formed by the synthesis of results of many focus groups.”
Well said. And this statement actually may actually be applied to anything and everything I have heard Hillary say.
Oops…unable to edit out the second “actually”
I’d herd Hillary to a big box store, but she is already there.
Recall her Wal-Mart board membership during those late millenium days seen through Rose Firm-colored glasses, and the NAFTA impacts that emptied out small town factories and stores. I know, she didn’t vote for NAFTA, but her influences, along with Bill’s, are in evidence.
She sold out, triangulated and otherwise screwed over Americans to curry favor with benefactors.
Awesome Save
“This is wonderful, wonderful! Be the bird. You are the bird. Sacrifice yourself to abandoned family values….”
L H Anderson, Speak
This is why we have building codes.
if you think building codes result in quality buildings, you are sorely mistaken. In fact almost all superior alternatives to the standard unsustainable options are difficult to get through codes – or simply illegal.
But doesn’t this sort of thing discourage individual responsibility and encourage dependence?
Baby birds have to learn to live with their life choices.
Jerry: You ever been on the street?
Arlene: My mom took us pretty close.
Jerry: Well, you can’t know. Not until you look at a dumpster. But when you climb into that thing for the first time and you pull those newspapers over you, that’s when you know you’ve messed your life up. Somebody comes along like your son, and gives me a leg up, I’ll take it. Even from a kid, I’ll take it. pay it forward
at any moment, anyone of us will find ourselves zapped of interdependence…the reasons are countless
Indeed. Thank you, Isabel.
You have to imagine how quickly they responded to save the baby. Then I imagine the mother pulling the baby back up thru the breach and anchoring a new place with her body while the father repairs the weave.
Coddling and overprotecting the kiddies, just like we humans, looks like that nest is expressly designed to launch babies downward. It’s up to the kid to learn how to hang on until the time is right, but Oh No the parents have to step in and save the day. Just what the world needs, more fearful and depressed kiddies lacking confidence, maybe there’s a bird version of Zoloft or Paxil they could put them on?
Save? That’s no save. These are Winged Wallendas. This is everyday stuff.
Wow. Juncker’s phoney concern for the Greeks is quite sickening. He says there has been a 25% drop in GDP, but instead of admitting that is a disaster, he counts it as a “success” that Govt revenues are higher than expenditure. What a clown. Then he effectively crows about what a great job Europe did in 2010 screwing Greece to protect itself. No mention of debt restructuring I note. In other words, Greece should take a bit of chump change and the moment it gets off its knees they’ll kick it in the ball again. Yet he can’t understand why Tsipras doesn’t sign on.
If only Greece was called Amazon, or Apple… Juncker would have found a way to help:
http://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/dec/14/jean-claude-juncker-luxembourg-tax-deals-controversy
Ukies fiddle while Greece burns:
Henceforth to be known as the “Lending Out of Our Rears” policy.
When is the IMF freak show finally going to be shut down? How do we know that the ‘Christine Lagarde’ persona is not just the Tan Man, Angelo Mozilo, in drag?
My former favorite bond manager that ended up buying half the Ukraine may not be so dumb after all. I just never get the memos saying the IMF will make the payments to the fund. My lack of insights like this is why I get ZIRP.
Funny how Soros was outmaneuvered by Putin. What good is Ukraine to the the “West” if the oil pipelines are shut off? Why did Soros ever think Russia couldn’t build another pipeline network? And then what good is Soros if he is such a goofball that he screws up foreign policy like that?
Ya. Europe always had a mild concern that Russia could do that. Make it so, Captain Soros & Company.
I really don’t know why people like pipelines so much. With all the countries at either end and along the way, it’s a wonder they work at all.
Can’t they just ship it by rail on the New Silk Road?
We do it here, and the petro-cargo can go either way – east or west.
Russia and China have been eagerly thinking of ways to make it go east.
But the West will get Moldova. I think they make limburger cheese there.
Does it go well with exploding rail cars?
That’s in Burma and Mongolia. Moldova doesn’t ship there.
This is what the New Economy looks like:
Why Co-ops are Forming Support Cooperatives
Though I believe the Charleston shooter’s racism gave him a target for his crime, I would not rule out the trigger being a psychotic break brought on by drugs. He had been arrested in possession of Suboxone before, and a friend reported that he abused drugs like Xanax. Psychopharmaceuticals seem to be the common link in mass shootings, also in the Germanwings crash.
http://nymag.com/daily/intelligencer/2015/06/what-we-know-about-the-charleston-gunman.html
‘
Xanax can be prescribed for any number of reasons; Suboxone OTOH is normally used for opiate withdrawl. If he was taking these meds and wasn’t tapering off them properly that could have initiated a psychotic break. Unfortunately there’s still a lot we don’t know about the shooter.
im still musing on what drugs Judge James B.Gosnell is on…or needs to be on.
a park bench to sleep on is too good for him.
thanks Yves for posting the MJ piece.
It’s usually prescribed in any “treatment” program. Booze, coke, opiates….benzos…
if he was ‘abusing’ xanax, he might have been prescribed suboxone as part of treatment, along with an SSRI.
The arrest is odd, it’s not normally ‘abused’, but who knows. A google search turns up some pretty weird stories on a first run thru. Shooting it? there’s way better drugs out there.
You can smoke corn silk. Licking toads gets you really high.
Rather than blame the drugs, like good tories, we should probably begin to ask why we’re creating so many people who are so completely detached, and therefore ‘need’ these drugs.
Or, we could also give them better drugs. Arrested for suboxone? Too cheap, they need those oxy profits.
Suboxone is for opiates, it’s an opiate itself but without the real high and that’s why it’s prescribed for opiate abuse and not any old grab bag of things under the sun. Suboxnine for booze, what kind of doctor feel good prescribes an already tightly controlled prescription for off label uses? Probably confusing it with naltrexone.
Xanax is supposed to have mild effects which it may when used with a prescription, but it really doesn’t when taken in large doses. I’ve seen it turn normally good people into capable of committing a murder (luckily that did not happen). So it can be a scary drug when abused. And it can be gotten from a dealer, so don’t assume it was prescription.
Google it. Lots do. It’s also a combo of 2 drugs, one is an anti-opiate. or opiate antagonist.
It been a while since I researched this, but there is apparently growing evidence that all addictions are based on an opiate response within the brain. Not saying I agree with it, but the theory is to block the “high” that the brain produces with its own opiates in a drunk when he/she drinks.
I assumed the suboxone was a script. xanax is also one of the first choices for most docs who just want to get the anxious guy out the door. “Need more? You sound like an addict…we better get you on another script.”
Xanax is dangerous, and a shitty drug.
http://keranews.org/post/rethinking-alcohol-can-heavy-drinkers-learn-cut-back
I heard a longer segment on the radio about its use with alcoholics in northern europe, but can’t find it. Essentially, it could turn a raging drunk into a 2-3 times a month “binge” drinker. Harm reduction, or some such.
Most people don’t realize that if they are carrying around an old bottle of any prescription X, and it’s been more than a month since the prescription was filled, they are probably breaking the law.
Having a legal prescription, within that month, not inside the bottle from the pharmacy is also a big no-no, and illegal, technically. Funny, you don’t see too many old white people arrested for using those daily pill organizers. Smashing granny’s kitchen table and shooting the cat.
Yes, your doc might be a good guy and trying to save you money and trips to the pharmacy. Double to number, halve the trips to the pharmacy, and possibly make out of pocket “deductibles” smaller.
But, that’s illegal, after one month. Application of this “law” is completely arbitrary, with deference to the white and wealthy.
This is just speculation, but if he did have a Suboxone script, and then was arrested for carrying it after the script expired, it might be proof that he wasn’t abusing it. He didn’t use it all in a month. He had leftovers.
Huh? That’s not right. Doctors will write, and pharmacies will fill 90 or 100 day scrips filled to get discount pricing. They probably aren’t so keen to do it with mood altering drugs.
And then there is media. I’d guess that the drugs blur the lines of reality vs. fantasy and increase paranoia. This would magnify the effect of hateful messaging and violent movies/video games/etc.
The sense I get is that #BlackLiveMatter protests have engendered a knee-jerk reaction that is not just PRO police but ANTI black/minority. I have seen quite a few comments in my online travels that play up the incidence of violence by blacks. Naturally such arguments are presented in a vacuum, making it seem as though blacks are inherently violent, criminal, and unproductive people.
“Rand Paul comes to the rescue of America’s most vulnerable: Its wealthy”
Oh well. I was hoping Rand Paul may be a dim glimmer on the Dark Side.
But it looks like Big Libertarians really are big sources of campaign funds.
The flat tax wins him my “Steve Forbes Intelligence Award”.
And the USofA wins the Darwin Award if we actually ever do it.
If you have been following Mark Ames, you will know there is no glimmer of anything on the dark side: just hate baby, pure crystallized hate.
That’s Dr.* Paul, sir.
*He board certified himself. The ultimate libertarian.
Rather like Napoleon crowning himself.
So only those Crowns bestowed by Religious Leaders like Archbishops, Patriarchs, Popes, Rabbis and Imams, have legitimacy in your eyes?
Or do you hold all Crowns, regardless of wherever and whenever they are or may have been held or obtained, in similar contempt?
If the latter reflects your opinion, then why single out the ex-communicated, anti-religious Napoleon Bonaparte for opprobrium in this regard?
In Greece, the courts side with the capitalists, but the people side with the workers. There’s a video of the “caravan” at the link. Impressive.
http://www.viome.org/2015/06/caravan-of-struggle-of-solidarity-and.html
Thanks, Diptherio, for the link and the description. I’m curious about a topic in your wheelhouse. Thinking of non-violent methods of protest and persuasion, I’m reminded by this caravan of “Mad as Hell Doctors” which makes me ask the question “Where is PNHP?” That is, where are the persisting institutions or networks?
One argument I’ve heard for why Grexit might not be so bad is that co-operative networks will pitch in (rather like Occupy Sandy, I suppose). But unless I missed it, no evidence of organization capability by networks on the left (presumably outside the party structure) has been presented.* This is the sort of thing you might know. Any thoughts? Thank you
NOTE * It’s entirely plausible that Golden Dawn isn’t the only organization feeding people, and that for the usual reasons, they are the ones who get press coverage. Nevertheless, networks like this do leave traces, even if they don’t get written up in the FT. But where are the traces?
The Greek Orthodox Church has assumed a lot of the heavy lifting for soup kitchens/ clothing distribution to the impoverished.
On Easter Day 2015:
http://www.thetoc.gr/eng/news/article/church-and-ngos-provide-easter-lunch-for-homeless-very-poor
A list of soup kitchens at Orthodox Churches in Thessaloniki:
http://www.imth.gr/default.aspx?page=226
This isn’t known among anglophone readers because not much of the Greek Orthodox Church’s work gets translated for English publication.
Thanks for that.
This gets interesting (in not a good way) because taxing or seizing church land was one proposal (not by the creditors) for dealing with the small tax base. The Church is apparently a huge landowner in Greece. Recall that France nationalized the Catholic Church’s land after the Revolution because it needed them as a source of income.
And let’s also recall that all Greek Orthodox priests are civil servants paid by the State. Taxing the Greek Church is, frankly, a very long-term goal. It would take almost superhuman diplomatic and leadership skills to fully secularize the Greek state and make the Church financially accountable. I hesitate to draw historical analogies, but the only comparable example I can think of would be Ataturk, who secularized Turkey in the 1920s.
The Greek Orthodox Church is actually THE largest property owner in Greece; cf. http://www.pare-dose.net/2670
for a big-picture summary of the Church’s wealth, which in the article linked is given a low-ball estimate of 15 billion euros excluding the Church’s ownership of 2,500 monasteries. (sorry it’s in Greek, but I know you have Greeks to translate for you)
This illustrates one reason why I personally feel ambiguous about charitable organizations undertaking what should properly be the State’s duty, viz. to ensure its citizens do not go hungry. The fact that an organization is officially classified as “charitable” (in the U.S. a 501c3) does not signify that it is disinterested. And this holds true everywhere.
Settlement Reached To Overhaul Mississippi Juvenile Courts
http://www.opb.org/news/article/npr-settlement-reached-to-overhaul-mississippi-juvenile-courts/
The deal follows a scathing report from federal civil rights investigators who uncovered systemic violations of due process rights of juveniles, some of whom moved into the justice system for minor infractions such as truancy or wearing the wrong clothes to school.
The terms of the settlement require city police in Meridian, Miss., to document they have probable cause to take juveniles into custody and bar law enforcement from interviewing those juveniles unless a guardian or defense lawyer is present. The deal also imposes new requirements on probation officers, to make sure young people understand their constitutional rights against self-incrimination.
“These agreements will help protect the children of Meridian from deprivations of educational opportunity as well as due process,” said U.S. Attorney Gregory Davis of the Southern District of Mississippi. “The goal really is … to use these agreements to promote best practices for when children actually come into contact with the system, while addressing the broader question of trying to keep children out of the system to begin with,” she added.
…hope this sets precedence. nationally, too many are waiting for arraignment in adult prisons for weeks/months at a time. then they’re released to do what? pay private probation with what?
Dear ‘aby’,
Take my word for it; Meridian is a total loss. It has very high teen unemployment, big gang presence, basically decaying housing stock, and drugs everywhere. (I fear I may have just described most of America.) The schools there are deprived of funds because the property tax base has eroded. What is most problematic is that there is no money to pay for the mandated reforms. (These reforms are to get the system back to what it was designed to be thirty years ago.)
I mentioned the school system earlier. What bothers me is the insistence on the probation officer being the one to educate the kid on his or her rights. That should have been done in school. The snatch and grab cops should have read them their rights.
Realistically, these kids have no future to look forward to. There are no good jobs locally available. What jobs are available are low paying menial positions. The only good money around is in the “recreational pharmaceutical retail” field. Oh, there is always the 186th Air Refueling Wing, Mississippi Air National Guard. Sorry, all the good jobs there require technical training. (Which you won’t get in the local vo-tech schools.)
Finally, to tie it all together, all this money being wasted on more prisons and jailers could be more efficiently spent on improving the schools, and building some industrial capacity. I know from driving around this region that there is a lot of idle plant space sitting around, decaying. Fix some of that up, (jobs in construction,) and fill it with manufacturing plant, (work for machine and tool shops,) and start working to save our country and planet, (work for ‘green’ project manpower.)
this is heartbreaking AmBrit. realistically, our children are already experiencing what our consumption enslaved upon third world generations of children. they won’t know what hit them…maybe that will be a saving grace.
silly of me to think one decent policy could spawn from our broken systems.
i watched a frontline last night…Solitary Nation Warden made a statement that still has me shivering…’we throw these kids in solitary confinement, sometimes for their entire sentence and they can’t take it. I wouldn’t want them living next to me after their released.’
The isolation of solitary confinement can cause anguish, provoke serious mental and physical health problems, and work against rehabilitation for juveniles.[10] Because young people are still developing, traumatic experiences like solitary confinement may have a profound effect on their chance to rehabilitate and grow.[7] Solitary confinement can worsen both short- and long-term psychological and physical problems or make it more likely that such problems will develop.[11] The ACLU and Human Rights Watch created a report that incorporated the testimony of some juvenile inmates. Many interviews described how their placement in solitary confinement exacerbated the stresses of being in jail or prison. Many spoke of harming themselves with staples or razors, having hallucinations, losing touch with reality, and having thoughts of or attempting suicide – all this while having very limited access to health care.[12]
Juveniles in solitary confinement are routinely denied access to treatment, services, and programming required to meet their medical, psychological, developmental, social, and rehabilitative needs.[13] The ACLU and the Human Rights Watch have made recommendations at both a State and Federal level regarding their lack of access to medical services etc.
‘Aby’
Yes, the prison conditions described are what the Geneva Convention would categorize as cruel and unusual. The primary use for solitary was to psych the “tough guys” out through sensory deprivation.
Mississippi has been going through a crisis concerning the prison system. See: http://www.nytimes.com/2014/11/17/us/indictment-of-ex-official-raises-questions-on-mississippis-private-prisons.html
The former Director of the Department of Corrections, a man names Epps, was forced to resign. He and a “contractor” crony have pled guilty to some big time corruption and are waiting for the sentencing phase. The post has been filled by our Republican governor with a former Head of the Drug Task Force. Oddly enough, while talking ‘tough’ the new man has started ruffling some feathers by questioning some of the old ways of doing things. His latest is the cessation of the practice of farming state prisoners out to counties as unpaid labour. The local potentates are crying bloody murder because they have come to rely on the unfree labour to put off any discussion of raising taxes or fees to fund much basic local government work. The trusties can be seen any day cleaning up the roadside verges, gardening the courthouse grounds, and who knows what else. I’ve seen them washing the police cars in the back parking lot of the old Hattiesburg Police Station. Remember, we are talking about State prisoners, not old Otis, the town drunk from Mayberry.
Another good take on this is from the always interesting Jackson Free Press:http://www.jacksonfreepress.com/news/2014/nov/12/mdoc-scandal-highlights-privatization-problems/
Well, it’s late and I’m making myself depressed. Time for a drink.
Night all.
The Interview with Junker and the ft article are mostly propaganda.
Greece has a media problem. They choose noncompliance over a quick GRexit. The can not publicly admit to such ‘bad faith’ and it has allowed the other side to label them incompetent. Now they are also being labeled as undemocratic and spurning “solidarity.” Lets not be fooled by the media blitz.
Well, again, we’re back to organizational capacity. I mean, does anybody seriously think the reaction to the merest love tap against neo-liberalism wouldn’t be answered in the media? So where’s the media operation?
Corporate Media + Access Journalism is sufficient.
For what?
As I wrote, just below, I initially misunderstood your question.
OK. I was working off the comment list backstage.
Sorry Lambert, I misunderstood.
1) I think after February, Greece tried making their case to the institutions. I think they really would prefer that a solution is reached that does not require default/GRexit. Stirring up the media was counter-productive to that effort.
Now we see “the media operation” in Tsipras’ Op-Ed and recent speech, the report on the validity of the debt, Greek protesting, etc.
2) Corporate ownership + Access Journalism results in a Media bias toward government and establishment interests. This is not done overtly, of course, but it means reporting the ‘party line’ and ignoring or mis-characterizing all or some part of opposing views. So I’d guess (there I go again!) that EU MSM is probably not very receptive to a Greek media operation.
Also, speaking practically, breaking through the false impression of Greeks and their government would probably take months of such an media operation and events are now proceeding rapidly.
Which is why the media operation should have been started immediately; all this was predictable. Organizational capacity once again, plus financial time moving faster than political time.
OK, there is a dynamic at work here, which I have described previously.
A key part of the Greek strategy is to be adamantly pro-Europe. This works for them in two ways:
1) Increases the chance for an agreement with the Troika.
2) Increases the political costs to the Troika of not reaching an agreement.
If by “media operation” you mean an effort build solidarity with citizens of Europe and attack the Troika, that is the kind of thing that a direct, populist approach would entail. But that would anger the Troika and nix the “lets work together” approach that has real and potential benefits.
Also, media attention is generated just by the impending default. It comes late, and generally more or less biased for the Troika, but it IS there. The biggest problem wrt the media, I think, is that Greece could not defend itself against the “incompetence” (as I mentioned above).
It’ll be interesting to see the “tell all” stories that come out of this Greek drama. But I think Greece’s success for failure in standing up to the Troika has wide implication and that is why it is important to understand (as best we can) why they are doing what they are doing. That requires looking beyond what both sides are saying.
By “media operation” I mean just that; people tasked with managing the press and getting whatever Syriza’s line of the day might be out there, hopefully with a spin favorable to them. It’s pure blocking and tackling that I would expect a functional political party and/or government to do. It has nothing to do with populism or “media attention.”
I give this song to Herr Juncker – Torna a Surriento (from wiki: The song is a plea to Zanardelli to keep his promise to help the very poor city of Sorrento which was especially in need of a sewage system. The song reflects the beauty of the city’s great surroundings and the love and passion of its citizens.).
Translated from Italian:
ook at the sea, how beautiful it is!
It inspires with a great feeling..
Like you
It dreams.
Look down, at this garden,
Smell these flowers of orange trees…
So fine fragrance,
It is penetrating straight into the heart.
And you are saying: “I am leaving. Good-bye!”
You are moving away from this heart,
From the earth of love.
Do you dare not to come back?
Don’t leave me,
Don’t give me such torments…
Come back to Sorrento,
Bring me back to life!…
Look, the sea in Sorrento,
What treasures it keeps on the bottom.
Who travelled all over the world
Didn’t see something like here!
Look around, these sirens,
Bewitched they are looking at you
And love you so much:
They would like to kiss you!
And you are saying: “I am leaving. Good-bye!”
You are moving away from this heart,
From the earth of love.
Do you dare not to come back?
Don’t leave me,
Don’t give me such torments…
Come back to Sorrento,
Bring me back to life!.
http://www.wired.com/2015/06/COURSE-CHINA-RUSSIA-SNOWDEN-DOCUMENTS/
“I am reminded of a comment made to me in confidence by a US intelligence official. I asked him what he was most worried about, and he replied: “I know how deep we are in our enemies’ networks without them having any idea that we’re there. I’m worried that our networks are penetrated just as deeply.”
im lost again…frosty, if “exfiltrate” data from specific computers since 2008”, then why is Snowden being touted as such a threat?
well, somebody has to play the role of emmanuel goldstein.
Every day the world we live in makes more sense– if we understand TPTB to have read Orwell’s1984 as an instruction manual on how to lord over us, and not as a cautionary piece of dystopian fiction. Huxley’s Brave New World, and Kafka’s The Trial, also offer useful insights into current trends.
Those guys were cockeyed optimists…
I’m sure 90% of the animated bipedal supposed biologic anthropomorphic entities are AI
Could ANY presidential candidate of the last decade pass a Turing test?
Cleverness is having played the game enough to play it well.
Wisdom is having played enough different games to understand the limits and uses of any particular game.
It does seem that in the grand scheme of things that the upper crust is turning into a scab that will be peeled off eventually and much of what happens between now and then are those elements on the dividing line deciding which side they want to be on. The one with the immediate advantages, or the side that understands this too shall pass.
For those us watching the process evolve, a useful game is to figure out what really matters and what is ultimately surface. This can be difficult on the demarcation line. Obviously it is safe to say that humans will still rule and the bots are not taking over this time. In the middle, what will end up in history’s trashcan and what will prove elemental?
I think one of the, if not the major philosophic issue revolves around the nature of money itself. We treat it as a commodity on which the economy runs and that everyone wants as much as possible.
This particular fact needs consideration. For instance, what a monetary system really is, is a very large voucher system and if we were to consider how voucher systems function and tried to apply those conditions to money, it would be an entirely different system and emotional convention.
For one thing voucher systems cannot allow much in the way of excess notes to build up. Basically it amounts to fat within the system and while it is necessary in moderation, will take over all other aspects in excess.
Another necessary and related point is voucher systems are built around distinct needs and not as a complete abstraction.
So these two aspects would mean there would have to actually be rules against infinite saving and requirements to channel that saving into the needs being saved for.
For instance, most savings is for a very limited number of needs; raising children, education, transportation, housing, health care, vacations, leisure activities, heath care, retirement, funerals. Am I missing anything?
So if we were to construct a system which would remove much of the financial middlemen and the resulting power this creates, then rather than put all one’s savings into a general purpose bank, a local community would direct investment into various public works, schools, hospitals, etc. Combining this with taxing systems for roads, andante other utilities.
There could be the traditional savings and loans that could focus on housing. Possibly incorporated into housing construction and repair businesses.
There would also be a concerted effort to reinvigorate community ties, obligations and relations, so sharing of efforts wouldn’t need as much of a system of accounting. Such as child and elder care. Possibly if it encouraged people to be more active and connected, there would be less physical and emotional health issues anyway.
Then there would be more regional associations, corporations, etc. to network on larger scales.
Money then as this voucher system, would be a community contract, built around the needs of the community and not simply as a rent extraction service provided by private groups. Monarchs used to provide a useful civil function as well, once, but eventually government became a public function. And now one usually in thrall to the financiers.
While this is some very nebulous thinking on my part, I do see it as the direction we need to go, once this monetary bubble of quantized wealth and hope is dashed and we need to dust ourselves off and start putting things back together.
So a possible topic for discussion, or addition to similar discussions.
The magistrate who conducted Dylann Roof’s bond hearing is not the judge with jurisdiction over the case. As obscene as his comments were, he will not have authority over any substantive issues in this case. The judge hand-picked by the South Carolina Supreme Court is JC Nicholson, Jr., an alumnus of The Citadel, first constructed as a bulwark against Emanuel AME Church. http://talkingpointsmemo.com/cafe/emanuel-ame-church-south-carolina-shooting-history-vesey-citadel http://www.judicial.state.sc.us/courtOrders/displayOrder.cfm?orderNo=2015-06-18-01
the judge could be mr. whitebread negrosquish and the dude will be convicted.
otherwise mr. roof will get his civil war.
The Papal Encylical
Worthy of a read.
Hey everybody — the 5th link is about HUMAN EXTINCTION. That doesn’t seem to be a very important subject in this forum, does it? Thus far, Mr. Merryman is the only one dealing with broader issues and root causes. Maybe that’s because most of you folks are deniers? Read what the scientists are saying about species extinction: “We are sawing off the limb that we are sitting on.” That article is far too conservative; let’s read the one that is linked at the end: http://www.sciencemag.org/content/344/6187/1246752.abstract —
“Current rates of extinction are about 1000 times the background rate of extinction. These are higher than previously estimated and likely still underestimated. Future rates will depend on many factors and are poised to increase. Finally, although there has been rapid progress in developing protected areas, such efforts are not ecologically representative, nor do they optimally protect biodiversity.”
And we talk of “fiddling while Rome burns”! More like “while our planet burns”. How come I don’t see any discussion of that here? Greece’s situation doesn’t mean “Jack” by comparison. Our economic system and our culture of denial are driving us to extinction. Are we paying attention here, or just looking at the cute animal pictures and saying, “aaaah”?
If one reads the current science, or several excellent science aggregating blogs, the stark reality comes through. We are well down the road to killing our planet’s ability to support life as we know it, and we are not immune.
This op ed, linked elsewhere in comments, nails it: http://www.truth-out.org/opinion/item/31372-getting-our-story-straight-honestly-framing-the-climate-crisis
“Climate Mayhem” is very apt. Say goodbye to the roses, iris, gardens, forests, grasslands, beautiful birds, seafood, fish, coral, marine mammals, and us!
When hungry urbanites lumber forth from our de-powered megatropolis to loot far-visioned, sustainable organic farmers, will it be the military-geared local police, bribed with the day’s fresh organic vegetables who come to the rescue?
Let me quote myself again: At the dawn of the Dark Ages, everyone knows it only gets darker.
“Killing the planet’s ability to support life as we know it”, rubbish, it’s just man’s hubris to think that somehow our species will end up as anything other than an interesting layer to be looked at by future insect geologists. One of the prior mass extinctions wiped out 95% of prior species including in the deep oceans, all sorts of life strategies disappeared, creatures like Hallucinogenicus with stomachs on the ends of their arms. But the remaining 5% evolved (ooh I know, dirty word in the US!) so today we get Harry Reid and Donald Trump. But they won’t be around for long.
I somewhat have to agree. I live on a farm in Maryland and in the spring it is serious work to keep Mother Nature from claiming everything back.
That said, yes we are destroying a lot with some very short sighted thinking. For instance, when the local grain farmers went to “no till farming,” which is a euphemism for spraying off the fields with herbicides, that was the end of the pigeons, pheasant and probably a number of less noticeable species. I will say though, some wild turkey, coyotes and bald eagles are coming back through.
I also would like to note that in their own fashion, the banksters are monkey wrenching the economy, by sucking all notational value out of it and while that will eventually short circuit the very foundation on which they are based and likely leave the military in charge, if third world cycles are any indication, it is reducing industrial waste to some extent.
I think there will be some small window of opportunity, after this bubble bursts and before we really tip over into the abyss, to use this global media and try to address some of the basic issues of society. If one were to look at biology as a teleological expression, either humanity is an effort to grow a planetary central nervous system, or it is the plants method of pumping more carbon back into the atmosphere. I am going to assume at least the possibility of the first.
There is that raw element of consciousness pushing up through everything and it can compete, or it can cooperate. The next few decades will be decisive for human history.
I agree – the fact that humans dislike slime, cockroaches, and rats doesn’t mean that these critters can’t prevail despite man’s puny efforts.
I think humanity is quite capable of destroying the planet enough to kill it all.
We know that already. It’s old news.
We like our cute animal pictures.
tis only way ta go
Gimme another solid 50 years and I can roll with it
Enjoy the toads while they last.
http://historicaltimes.tumblr.com/page/7
Little girl and her pet toad at a pet show, Venice Beach, California, 1936.
See “Why is Sex Fun” by Jared Diamond. While sex by homo sapiens is performed in private; population control is an external event.
Greek debt crisis is the Iraq War of finance AEP, Daily Telegraph:
A legitimacy crisis, then, of sorts (though sadly the bank run tactic was surely eminently predictable).
Here we are, a thousand Euro-class warships had been launched to take back Helen of Brussels.
One the first day of the odyssey, some over-eager hero on board one of the biggest ships shouted: “Mission accomplished.
Little did he know that this would be an epic…longer than War and Peace.
That “over-eager hero” was probably Achilles, lamenting the sacrifice of Iphigenia.
I don’t recall a link to the news about the Greek debt committee here. Or any discussion about it. Is it simply irrelevant at this point?
Greek Debt Committee Just Declared All Debt To The Troika “Illegal, Illegitimate, And Odious”
Many people linked to it in previous posts. The reason I have not featured it in Links is that this debt committee action is going nowhere and the committee is doing a great disservice to the Greek people in getting their hopes up. Previous democratically elected governments all signed the debt agreements and got the proceeds of the borrowings.
Argentina had a vastly better case for debt repudiation, namely that a significant amount of their debt had been incurred by a military junta, which diverted a large portion of the proceeds to personal accounts (as in Swiss banks or the equivalent). They didn’t try in court, since they knew it was a non-starter, or say they’d just not pay (as in refuse to enter into debt restructuring negotiations) because they knew they’d get pariah treatment.
Where Greece does have a good claim for recovery is on WWII looting, IIRC, on monies taken by Germany from the Greek central bank. But Greece has to purse that through the courts, and any recovery they get will be way too late to help with their upcoming debt payments.
I think Greece has an excellent case with the first rescue (the one at 2010). As the link says, a bankrupt banking system was “rescued” by transferring debts to the public sector, while breaching the normative of the involved institutions. At the time there were strong internal voices at the IMF opposing the rescue, and as Syriza is basically a new regime they will not be shy to send to jail their own formed public representatives. So it might prosper.
The second rescue comes naturally as an extension of the first, but the debt brought by the same institutions to perpetuate an insolvency situation in the benefit of the lenders is obviously illegitimate.
At the end it all depends on the negotiation and power struggle. If a solution magically appears by Monday, all will be forgotten. But if Greece defaults it will be used at international courts, and to appeal actions such as ELA cutoff. Most people have read Draghi’s affirmation about the ECB being rule-based as pressure towards the Greeks, but I have read it as defensive because the Greek Government will sue if the ECB dares repeat the Cyprus blackmail.
As I said, the committee is arguing legal theories recognized by no court. The Greek government was fully complicit in the money laundering operation to the French and German banks. It’s way too late to have second thoughts.
Moreover, newly elected governments do not get to repudiate agreements and arrangements by predecessor governments. That is why, for instance, the world ex Russia and China beats up on Iran. It was dumb enough to sign an agreement that allows for nuclear inspections. The row formally has been over whether Iran has been hiding nuclear weapons development from the inspectors (I’m oversimplifying but this is the drift of the gist). The Iranian government has never tried the argument, “Well that treaty was unfair, our nasty neighbors in Pakistan and Israel never signed that agreement and everyone knows they have nukes. We need nukes too for our own safety.”
Yves,
Your example of Iran does not work. Iran has already thrown away a lot agreements regarding its oil riches. It was a “revolution” after all.
They did not try the same about the NPT as they cannot possibly pursue and succeed a nuclear weapons program without suffering physical attacks by the US and allies. But, they will eventually have the technology to produce nuclear weapons. Once they are there, I am pretty sure they will just bin the NPT, as well.
1. Greece has not had a revolution. The constitution remains in place. This is a democratically elected government that has signed multiple treaties to join and continue as a member of the EU and Eurozone. Those treaties explicitly require the nations that join to surrender specific formerly sovereign rights and powers to Eurozone institutions
2. The ECB can’t do a ton of harm to Greece, not nuclear war level but tremendously damaging. In fact, the ECB now clearly has the right under its rules (which it has stretched considerably so as not to have done this already) and power to nuke the Greek banking system. It is refraining from doing so for political reasons. If Greece gets out of line and the ECB gets the political cover, do not underestimate what would be visited on Greece.
Cambodia…rats to detect landmines.
Over here, to reduce cost, they will train robot-rats.
Sorry, but real rats will be cheaper than robo-rats. Unless you intend on using Inside the Beltway Rats.
What Happens If Greek Banks Can’t Open? The Atlantic, quoting Simon Johnson heavily.
CLOWNS! There is a really interesting book on the spiritual traditions of the Nootka people. This book treats especially of female traditions which were ruthlessly suppressed by the Church. It is called: “Daughters of Copper Woman”. It’s a completely different way of living spirituality than either Western or Eastern religions teach. Here is part of the Clown story in the book:
“We had clowns, Granny smiled…Not clowns like you see now…Our clowns wore all different kinds of stuff…They didn’t just come out once in a while to act silly…our clowns were with us all the time, as important to the village as the chief, or the shaman, or the dancers or the poets…
A clown was like a newspaper…They made comment on everything’…If a clown thought that what the tribal council was gettin’ ready to do was foolish, why the clown would just show up at the council and imitate every move every one of the leaders made. Only the clown would imitate it in such a way every little wart on that person would show, every hole in their idea would suddenly look real big.” (p. 109)