Dear patient readers,
My sleep cycle has gotten even more out of whack than usual, and we had a lot of good material on we Innertubes, as Lambert calls them, so I hope you’ll forgive the lack of an original post.
Viewers brave muck, mosquitoes to see 90th Chincoteague Pony Swimm Baltimore Sun (furzy mouse)
The United States Is The Biggest Importer Of Trophy Lions Like Cecil FiveThirtyEight (resilc). :-(
Killer of Cecil the Lion Finds Out That He Is a Target Now, of Internet Vigilantism New York Times. Furzy mouse is getting her wish.
Chinese Man Tries To Sell Pet Alpaca After Losing Big On Stocks Huffington Post (EM)
The bank of WTF: the fake finance brochure that slams the super-rich Guardian (furzy mouse)
Amazon details its plan for how drones can fly safely over U.S. skies Washington Post. Resilc: “Is the wapo now a licensed lobbyist for Amazon?”
Sex trafficking: Lifelong struggle of exploited children BBC. Watch the vides in this article
AMA Prepares Gag Order for Medical Dissenters Alliance for Natural Health (furzy mouse)
The Case for Fetal-Cell Research New York Times
Debris Is Thought to Come From Malaysia Airlines Flight 370 New York Times
MH370 search: plane debris found on Réunion Island under investigation – rolling updates Guardian. The quasi live blog treatment seems like overkill.
Caution urged on plane debris find BBC
The regional security debate Australia has to have China Spectator
China’s Headaches Are the Fed’s, Too Bloomberg
Cambodia’s Armed Forces ‘Belong’ to The Ruling Party: Four-Star General Radio Free Asia
European ‘alliance of national liberation fronts’ emerges to avenge Greek defeat Ambrose Evans-Pritchard, Telegraph. Huh? Podemos distanced itself from Syriza when the fight was on, moved to the center, and it’s still taken a big hit in the polls. The notion that there are real, effective left-wing radicals in Europe remains very much in doubt.
Schäuble outlines plan to limit European Commission powers Financial Times. Wow. The EC may not be all that good at it, but it sees itself as the defender of smaller countries in the Eurozone.
Britain and France Scramble as Channel Becomes Choke Point in Migration Crisis New York Times
Grexit?
‘Iron lady’ set to play central role in next act of Greek bailout drama Guardian. Wow, she could be from central casting. And having done Cyprus, she will be a kneecap breaker.
Anything else we should know of? ekathimerini (IsabelS)
U.S. Importers and Greek Suppliers Stymied by Cash Controls New York Times. As we warned….these exporters rely on imports.
Green light from the IMF board to discuss the new program Kathimerini. This Google translate version is unusually readable (original here for those who read Greek). This part is consistent with what we’ve argued:
In relation to debt, in fact, the information of “K” say that Europeans now accept the need for restructuring, although not discussed details on how to do this – or indeed on the financing needs of the program or the budgetary targets who will define the size of the adjustment in the years ahead.
Syraquistan
The War Nerd: Don’t be fooled — Turkey is attacking the Kurds War Nerd, Pando. A must read.
Has Iran cut off Hamas? Is Hamas turning to Saudi Arabia? Juan Cole (resilc)
Iran Analysis: France Wants to Do Business With Tehran EA WorldView (resilc)
Iran Nuclear Agreement C-Span (Kevin C)
Big Brother is Watching You Watch
FBI’s Key West Counterterrorism Sting Target “A Little Slow” Intercept (resilc)
West eyes Dr Strangelove tactics in cyber wars Financial Times
Obamacare
Senate Republicans Plan to Repeal Obamacare With 51 Votes Bloomberg. Keep in mind Obama will veto even assuming they do their rider passed.
One Email That Proves Campaign Finance Laws Are A Joke Huffington Post (EM)
UBS Deal Shows Clinton’s Complicated Ties Wall Street Journal. You can see a damning table of Bill Clinton’s top sources of speech income on the WSJ front page, outside the paywall.
Donald Trump’s Troubles Are Just Beginning New Yorker
Team Trump capable of regret after all MSNBC. Furzy mouse: “Must read what Cohen says to Daily Beast reporter….serious threats.”
Black Injustice Tipping Point
University of Cincinnati Officer Indicted in Shooting Death of Samuel Dubose New York Times. JCC: “The Cincinnati Chief of Police is right, it doesn’t look good at all.” I had to watch it twice. The prosecutor, in a separate set of clips, sounds convincingly saddened and appalled.
The Shooting of Samuel Dubose Charles Blow, New York Times
Harlem principal suicide: She was being investigated for cheating allegations Slate. Resilc: “Why not Cheney and W?”
US Treasuries market faces liquidity concerns Financial Times. As reader Li has said, “Dr. Strangelove was a documentary.”
Fed
FOMC Recap Tim Duy
Fed Sheds No Light, Plays Charades with Media; Tiptoe Balancing Act Michael Shedlock
The ‘Real’ Reason The Fed Wants To Raise Rates TalkMarkets. Um, this is news?
Whole Foods Sales Slow After Price Scandal Wall Street Journal
Judge Won’t Let Medical Company Sell Itself Short Matt Levine, Bloomberg. This is so convoluted it makes my head hurt. But tax does that to most people.
Class Warfare
“Selfie” Fashion Trends: Cheap Dresses and “Rentabag”; Mish Handbag Tips Michael Shedlock (furzy mouse). No, I would not take fashion tips from Mish, but he is right about the stupidity of high end bags. If you want to make a status statement, watches and jewelry hold their value much better (and never buy retail) . But be warned they trade down hard in bad markets too.
Angry Mob Attacks Uber Drivers in Mexico NBC
Anyone who thinks that “sharing” involves charging people’s credit cards to borrow your stuff wasn’t brought up properly. @stilgherrian
Antidote du jour. This is Jia Jia, now the oldest panda in the world, although this is a photo when she was younger:
And a bonus video antidote. The Chincoteague swim reminded me of it:
See yesterday’s Links and Antidote du Jour here.
85 comments
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Maybe the Iron Lady will wear velvet gloves and things will be smoother than with Mr. Blue Eyes…
Gag orders…. what will become of Mr. Thompson and his testimony?
“Just as startling, the CDC scientist, Dr. William Thompson, says the study co-authors “scheduled a meeting to destroy documents related to the study. The remaining four co-authors all met and brought a big garbage can into the meeting room, and reviewed and went through all the hardcopy documents that we had thought we should discard, and put them into a huge garbage can.”
The…co-authors…brought a big garbage can into the meeting room… [and put the documents]…into a huge garbage can. –CDC Senior Scientist Dr. William Thompson
https://sharylattkisson.com/cdc-scientist-we-scheduled-meeting-to-destroy-vaccine-autism-study-documents/
Pharmaceutical Industry “Science” 101:
1) Create pre-determined out come for product safety and effectiveness.
2) Pay “scientists” to produce studies to support pre-determined outcome.
3) Pay journals to publish and TV people to regurgitate.
4) Take real, ethical, scientific studies that contradict pre-determined outcome and toss them in the rubbish bin.
Boom. Wet it, wipe it, good night. Shots for everyone…. oh, and tax payers, you get to pick up the tabs for the damage.
Or one can read the about the entire episode and the facts surrounding this entire brough-hau…and currently made for media event. http://www.snopes.com/medical/disease/cdcwhistleblower.asp
TL:DR What got lost in the brouhaha over Dr. Thompson’s “confession,” allegations about a “cover-up” at the CDC, and threats of whistleblower lawsuits was what should have been the main point: Did collected data actually prove that the MMR vaccine produces a 340% increased risk of autism in African-American boys? The answer is no, it did not.
On 27 August 2014, Dr. Hooker’s article published in the journal Translational Neurodegeneration that concluded “African American males receiving the MMR vaccine prior to 24 months of age or 36 months of age are more likely to receive an autism diagnosis” was removed from public domain due to issues of conflict of interest and the questionable validity of its methods:
Read more at http://www.snopes.com/medical/disease/cdcwhistleblower.asp#jvCfIzhCjsO5WsBU.99
Wow, Snopes! Quite an honor!
Cha ching! I’m sure Dr. Thompson will receive the all-too predictable treatment from the pharmaceutical industry. Public relations, we have another one, send in the cleaning crew… dissent is not tolerated.
Gee, I wonder if multiple doses of heavy metal cocktails injected into a child could possibly cause neuroinflammation. The science and the studies are there, you just have to wade through the corporate technocracy swamp to get there.
Zero risk profiteers promoting “science” is an oxymoron.
A rather charitable view of itself, to put it politely. In reality a collection of Eurocrats drawing jumbo-sized pay checks to serve as the Neoliberal Orthodoxy police and inquisition.
If you think the EC is expensive, try the EU without it.
Eff the EU. The EC being a collection of overpaid eurocrats is the least of my issues with it. Much worse is the fact that the EC, as the real center of power in Europe, is a collection of unelected and overpaid bureaucrats that issue neoliberal diktats to benefit their corporate and financial owners while screwing the little people and completely taking away national sovereignty.
This was half a joke because I didn’t think it was the “price” that was bothering you.
It is probably extremely un-PC to say this, but I am glad that the EC is a collection of unelected bureaucrats and I regret that it is losing power to the EP (and the Council) with time. The EC was the touch of genius of the “founding fathers” of EU. And yes, coming from a small country (or a medium one, to be more precise), I do believe it is the defender of smaller countries. One can hardly complain at the undue power of Germany, for example, and take shots at the EC at the same time. (Incidentally, it always amused me, so to speak, that Tsipras, of all people, did his best to ignore and dismiss the smaller countries, bowing to “size” in a way that I don’t remember having seen before).
So according to you, the unelected EC is a check on the power of one of the main architects of the EU, Germany. Sorry but that’s inane. The entire apparatus of the EU only amplifies German dominance, while it gradually destroys whatever pitiful remnants of national sovereignty do remain. I say this as a dual citizen of the US and a small and poor EU member.
It certainly was designed that way. And the general purpose of the whole exercise was to keep in check national sovereignties, namely that of Germany. Inane as the notion might be.
in order to give the power to corporations and finance, the most dominant of which just happen to be German. That checks German power by unknown means, but it checks it nonetheless. Or so you want to believe.
Except it doesn’t. The EC is a tool of German power, ever more effective now that sovereignty is gone. It has allowed Germany to achieve that vision of the Prussian Mitteleuropa on a continental scale. What Hitler couldn’t do with panzers, his successors achieved by lofty BS rhetoric about our “common European home”. Well played, indeed.
“So far so good”, as the guy that fell from a 20th floor said when he passed the 8th floor.
EZ, EC, and EU supporters are quite the optimists, as your example so perfectly illustrates.
Yep.
Good luck with the landing then, I am not sure optimism is of any use in such a fall.
Did you read the article? Schauble is wanting to rein in the EC because Juncker was too active. That means he actually made a difference. If the EC was ineffective, Schauble wouldn’t bother. In fact, it would be useful to talk them up as a fig leaf for Germany.
I read it, but I still see things differently. Just because Schauble wants to make changes to the EC does not mean that the EC has been a boon for the poorer nations and the bane of Germany’s existence. Neither does the EC’s self-claimed status as “defender of smaller countries” make it so. The current set up has been great for Germany, and it wants to make it that much better. What difference has the EC made for the weaker members, when the periphery continues to fall further behind. The article cites the case of France as having precipitated Schauble’s ire. France, while having problems, is hardly the little guy in Europe, and it only shows how the big ones can selectively follow the rules. Now that it’s becoming weaker, Schauble wants to go for its throat by way of the EC. It’s what predators do.
Juncker’s investment plan, which he announced to great fanfare, is particularly good example of how little the EC does for the have nots. Once the details came out, it turned out that the lion’s share will go to those who are already well-off. The have nots will have to do with a few crumbs. That’s how Juncker plans to close the gap between rich and poor. Good luck with that.
The FT doesn’t agree with your interpretation of reality. From the article,
Yes, Berlin blew through the budget controls when they were rebuilding the East. Also,
Schäuble seems like the only leader willing to address the EU’s problems and not kick the can down the road.
Except many of Europe’s problems were caused by the very economic rules that the EC upholds, and which were designed from the get-go by German economic thinking. By insisting that budget rules be triggered automatically, Schauble is calling for abolishing the remnants of sovereignty, which is what I’ve been saying the EC is about all along. Schauble is right that his proposal doesn’t weaken the EC, in fact it strengthens its ability to enforce the rules that benefit Germany so well.
Examples? The financial problems discussed on this site can be tied back to EMU rules not being enforced (debt and budget ceilings).
This is what happens when you join a union. You can’t have the Euro without giving up your financial sovereignty. A lesson Puerto Rico is learning with the US dollar.
Life ain’t so grand in Germany. Enforcing the budget rules will mean less money for German imports, which may push Germany to better address their EMU problems. Growing pains for the young EU.
Is that so? Surely the cooked bookkeeping and the lack of workable tax collection system were well-known issues well in advance of Greece joining the Eurozone. Except it didn’t matter that much to the EZ as long as these follies were profitable way for their financial institutions to make a pile of easy money by servicing the Greek debt. Now that it blew up and the Troika had to rush in to save the private banks, Germany is suddenly discovering the virtues of enforcing the rules. Rules that are toxic to begin with: the 3%/60% rule in the growth and stability pact is all about forcing austerity on the masses and strangling the welfare state.
Except the Euro was never marketed as a suicide pact, which is what it has become for most members. Sure their elites benefit, but everybody else loses.
Thus illustrating my point. The German and Northern European powers have pretty much sucked the periphery dry, and the lack of national currencies make it impossible to fix that. Common Germans lose out too, but at least their elites made out well!
More like
the beginning of the death rattle. Some of the smart non-EZ countries have taken notes and are reconsidering EZ membership. In any case, the EU in its current form is toxic for the welfare of the common citizens, particularly those in the periphery.
Agreed. Either change it or dissolve it.
…not certain Puerto Rico is a good example of a Sovereign. It became a US territory after the Spanish American War (self-induced). And while the locals elect a Governor they have no direct representatives in the US Congress. Neoliberal finance controls the island.
I only meant it as PR could take advantage of it’s status to sell lots of triple tax-free bonds ($78 Billion), but it lacks the financial sovereignty to inflate or devalue it’s way out of default.
Defending smaller countries…
Potentially, a sovereign state of 3 citizens can have the clout as a sovereign state of 50 million
It’s the same here with electoral vote vs. popular vote
And it’s like that at the United Nations. Billion-plus India has one vote – the same as, for example, Malta.
re: MH370
http://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/jul/30/mh370-aircraft-debris-in-la-reunion-almost-certainly-from-a-boeing-777
i don’t know anything about the speeds of ocean currents or how quickly they could move a heavy object lying on the ocean floor, but if you look at the wreckage and the map of prevailing ocean currents in the link above, it looks suspiciously like the flaperon came from that bold blue dot located near diego garcia, which has been, for me, the most likely area to search for all along.
Diego Garcia, btw, is the home to what might be the most sophisticated satellite surveillance systems on the planet. Why then, haven’t the images during the time of the disappearance of this flight been released? Just as, and no different from, the questions about MH17.
“Diego Garcia, btw, is the home to what might be the most sophisticated satellite surveillance systems”
huh?
No more than any other place that has good communications links.
Diego Garcia, in the Indian Ocean, is a major American Air and Sea hub, and a large military base. (One of my relatives has served there.) In that role, it has state of the art radars and other more esoteric equipment. Unless the commercial aircrafts pilot flew the plane towards Diego Garcia at wave top height, someone on the island would have noticed it.
Some tin foil hatters, distant cousins of the Mad Hatter, have speculated that the commercial pilot may have decided to crash his plane on Diego Garcia in Cowboy Style. All any responsible Air Defense Director could do in such a circumstance is to shoot down the jet. Thus, a somewhat understandable coyness about the truth of the matter.
We used to quip: “Don’t get on any small planes if you want to remain healthy.” Now we need to add large planes to that list.
gee, thanks for the tin foil dismissal
http://www.themalaymailonline.com/malaysia/article/in-maldives-frustration-over-ignored-claims-of-mh370-sightings
you can check for yourself DG’s position relative the maldives
Ye gods! I have been accused of “Wearing the Foil” many times, and consider it a badge of honour now. Too many Crazy Conspiracy Theories have turned out to be true; many more than the stopped clock hypothesis can account for.
I’m not sure how low one would have to fly a commercial jetliner to get below the radar line, but low enough to scare the locals might be low enough. That the witnesses are being ignored comes as no surprise. Such is standard operating procedure for cover ups of all kinds. The witnesses to Timmy McViegh being in the explosives truck with a passenger prior to the Oklahoma City Bombing were denied a hearing by the government committee “investigating” that incident.
Thanks for this information. Having to read other countries news outlets now for any semblance of the truth is a sad commentary on how corrupt our culture has become.
The website shows lots of native people, but I thought they were all forcibly deported by the British?
http://cnic.navy.mil/regions/cnrj/installations/nsf_diego_garcia.html
that’s strange that the US media buried the story. wonder why?
the british media covered it quite a bit: you can google mh370 maldives sighting and quite a few links from different sources will come up.
A reasonable question to me right off the bat is under the metrological conditions at the time at the assumed low altitude, what is a reasonable range guesstimate for the MH-370 B-777 (allegedly transiting over the Maldives) on its way to Diego Garcia?
I’m guessing way, way short of any thing like Diego Garcia.
MH370 had fuel on board for a maximum range of 3,900km assuming a normal flight profile.
DG is ~3,500km from the last known radar location foo the coast of Malaysia. A B-777 would be horribly inefficient at low altitude, factoring in a fuel burn like it is perpetually taking off, I speculate a range that is small fraction of the theoretical (3,900km)range.
The barnacle growth on the debris should be a clue on how long it was floating
it could have been at low altitude only for a hundred miles or so towards the end.
ambrit marks the spot…the area operates like yeast
http://militarybases.com/camp-justice-naval-base-in-diego-garcia/
All these storybook endings for Malaysia in the news, all of a sudden. The liveblogging treatment is lobbying the mass. See, America can still provide closure when you do their bidding.
“The criminalisation of any Grexit debate shuts off the option of an orderly return to the drachma…”
How dishonest can you get?
Podemos distanced itself from Syriza when the fight was on, moved to the center, and it’s still taken a big hit in the polls.
Is this actually true? On the wiki page one can see the rise of Ciudadanos eating Podemos’s lead and after that no clear trend.
We tweeted on July 16:
The more recent polls show some recovery but Podemos is still polling lower than it had been earlier in the year. And that is after moving to the center after it performed worse than expected in the March elections, to the point that one of the long-standing party leaders quit in May in protest.
I hate wearing a tinfoil hat, but it increasingly appears that someone or something is creating its own European fake left to forestall the rise of the genuine article. What’s concerning is that this is pushing people into the hard nationalist right that spouts appealing populist economic rhetoric but would be a disaster for minorities if it ever gains the reigns of power.
FWIW I find the Russian Yandex Translate to be far superior to Google, at least for translating from Russian, Ukrainian or Greek.
Thanks for the tip!
Given that the Greek Thing continues to be all about protecting the “interests” (including the banks) from the People’s Wrath, and protecting the European Core from the Sniveling Periphery, the strategy of the SYRIZA coalition has been surprisingly effective — along the lines of Beating the Whites with the Red Wedge. It’s not quick or easy, but it seems to be having an effect.
This may be one reason why the Greek people continue to support SYRIZA and the supposedly hapless Tsipras when “nothing they promised” seems to be coming forth. Austerity is getting worse after all… And they promised to end it. (They made a lot of promises; that’s just one…)
It may be taking longer than they anticipated to correct the errors and imbalances of the austerity impositions on Greece and to reverse the irrational and irresponsible demands of the Troika, but to have surrendered at the outset would have done nothing but preserve the unsustainable — and deadly — status quo. By rejecting the conditions of the Second Memorandum and by exposing the ludicrous nature of the Euro-Project, there is a chance of a better future — and not solely for Greece.
Whether it will be realized remains to be seen.
The Iron Lady might meet her match.
The article at the Telegraph does go on to say that Italy is in a position to heed the lesson of Syriza’s ‘failure’, rather than Spain which is, the article says, experiencing a period of false prosperity.
Also, the prosecution/persecution of Varoufakis, whose Plan B had Tsipras’ approval, has to be seen in a similar light, along with the UKIP leader in Great Britain sounding a ‘No’ in a speech against EU membership, claiming that for Great Britain to expect to retain status quo membership without being forced into the euro isn’t facing reality. So, I think your point is well taken. Syriza has been up against it from the getgo; I hope they can keep on opposing one another without fragmenting. It’s an edifying dialogue, as are the ones we’ve been having here.
Tsipras’ Plan B was not a plan, but he’s managed to get the media to treat it as something more serious than it was.
It was only a preliminary look at introducing a parallel currency. That could be used ONLY for domestic purposes, basically to allow the government to keep paying pensioners and wages. It would not be useful for paying imports, nor would they work for recapitalizing banks. So they would have done zero good even if they had gotten done when the ECB cut off the ELA.
Moreover, what little was done was daft, and I don’t just mean the hacking idea. The notion of distributing PINs electronically was insane and proves that Varoufakis was sorely lacking in relevant expertise among his advisors.
re: Amazon/ Drone Delivery
So basically Amazon is saying “trust us” in taking over civil air space behaviors of their drone fleet:
— Given this projected growth, Amazon believes responsibility for traditional air services such as navigation and air traffic control must be delegated. It imagines a civil aviation authority having underlying authority, yet much of the air navigation being handled in a distributed fashion as drone operators manage their fleets. Amazon sees such a model working provided that all parties follow the same protocols.—
such a model working provided that all parties follow the same protocols.—
almost forgot i was reading AMZN and not IMF or BIS BangHeadOnWall BS
If you buy a drone on Amazon, does it deliver your drone in another drone?
For me, and call me a cheapskate if that will make your day, but I will wait for the special – ‘buy a book and get a free drone.’
At this point I’m pretty sure a USPS delivery truck will have a Amazon Drone painted on both sides and the drone you bought will be in the USPS truck.
The R’s will still be complaining that the USPS loses money.
makes me wonder about the confluence of the amazon drones and the non-funding of our highways… the new infrastructure requires no paving
Cool! We can all stay home from work then too!!!!
Sounds like you are proposing Guarantee Income.
But I see things a little differently.
If we all stay home from work, that means, to me, Armistice in the War on Nature.
Hah, no. Your office has been externalized onto you and is now your responsibility.
The article contains the video of the Samuel DuBose murder
http://www.latimes.com/nation/nationnow/la-na-nn-dubose-shooting-footage-real-life-video-game-20150729-story.html
The attack on Varoufakis is a full-on witch hunt/scapegoating. While it was amateurish at best, the idea that the government should have some fallback position if Grexit were forced is logical. The EU elite, Greek media, and Greek old political guard are out for blood and to discredit what remains of the Syriza left after it was shattered by the party’s own incompetence and the hammer of the European bourgeoisie/troika.
Plus it has the added effect of occurring right as the initial talks between the Greek government and institutions are happening.
Interesting that the Plan B was to have a way to switch to drachma (a very prudent thing to do) but also included a stealth privacy-intrusion of Greek tax records… so the raging right wing oligarchs demanded an “investigation” and started a treason action in the Greek court… and it appears they are including Jamie Galbraith! Maybe Schaeuble knew the oligarch would go batshit and so offered Tsipras 50Bn plus five years to just get out of the EU.
Perhaps he can help himself and the Greek people by talking less.
It was not a fallback. See my comment above:
http://www.nakedcapitalism.com/2015/07/links-73015.html#comment-2479011
It would have allowed Greece at best to negotiate longer because they could keep paying pensions and government wages. But the end of the runway was July or August regardless. Greece could not pay external creditors (the ECB) using a parallel currency, nor could it have warded off the ECB from cutting off the ELA for a separate reason that the Greek banks were running out of eligible collateral (we flagged that as in issue IIRC in May).
The pink paper published an article today, presenting exactly the opposite conclusion of ekathimerini:
Can’t pay, won’t pay. You don’t need no PhD Econ to figure that out.
I read that version too and if it is true then Lagarde (always to be read USA) might be planning to scuttle the deal. Maybe explains why they brought in the Iron Lady from Romania. Let Romania do it. If Romania won’t do it maybe the IMF can ask Moldova. More South East Europe maneuvering.
file away under corruption (because olympics) or environmental catastrophe:
http://www.theguardian.com/sport/2015/jul/30/athletes-at-rio-olympics-to-compete-in-basically-raw-sewage-study-reveals
It’s all good that the o.01% athletes of the world compete among themselves.
What is more meaningful is the fitness of the 99.99% couch potatoes.
My concern is the the widening gap…the increasing fitness-inequality, as the couch potatoes sink ever deeper into their couches, while the ueber-athletes jump higher and further…leaving austerity-stricken host nations in its Olympian sewage wake…even as peoples everywhere refresh and strengthen their nationalistic identities.
It’s never ‘the poor in nation X are treated better than the poor in nation Y.’
It’s ‘the richest man in country A is richer than the riches man or woman in country B.’
And so it is that it’s not ‘the slowest runner from Europe vs the slowest runner from South America.’
We are conditioned to ignore, to look away, those at the bottom…in many subtle ways.
It’s when the couch potatoes and the austerity-stricken pool their acquired wisdoms as both fuse into a single entity that a new – not necessarily brave – world shall begin.
Dare we mention the drought that is being experienced there? http://www.nbcnews.com/science/environment/sao-paulo-worries-grow-serious-drought-grips-brazils-largest-city-n385136
That is just mind-boggling. The athletes should all just shit on a postcard of Rio and go home. The IOC is so corrupt it undoubtedly got plenty of bribes to just look the other way. It’s charter requires the members of the IOC to inspect all the venues. This one lands on them. Sue the Olympics, it’s far more corrupt than soccer.
Of course this is horrible, but not just for the athletes. There are millions of Brazilians who live among this crud, and they are the primary victims. Just like the half a billion people in India who don’t have access to a toilet, or the vast number of people in China’s mega cities who breathe heavily polluted air.
No one outside Brazil looked at this crud till non-Brazilian athletes faced media-visible danger from this crud. So now the visibility of the crud-danger to non-Brazilian athletes can be leveraged to extend awareness to ongoing-all-along danger to Sao Pauloans as well. And danger to any tourist who happens by, which might increase pressure on Sao Paulo to solve the problem.
Oh, I hope you’re correct! It really would be nice if something good would emerge from the Olympics for a change. Did the people of Beijing (2008) or Atlanta (1996) get any long term improvements from their games?
Today is Medicare’s 50th birthday.
I went to Bernie’s site, expecting to find single payer in his list of campaign issues, but alas it is nowhere to be found: https://berniesanders.com/issues/
(i see this list):
REAL FAMILY VALUES
CREATING DECENT PAYING JOBS
INCOME AND WEALTH INEQUALITY
GETTING BIG MONEY OUT OF POLITICS
CLIMATE CHANGE & ENVIRONMENT
A LIVING WAGE
I could swear universal coverage was on that page not too long ago :(
Let me rectify the coverage; he introducing a bill. (That’s the problem with vague feel-good buckets. Everybody genuflects to the labels on the buckets, but nobody knows what’s actually in them. Now, a truthteller and a nuts-and-bolts candidate… Such a candidate will go far. Clinton, alas, is a fail on the first.
Afterwards i was thinking maybe he removed it to keep his message focused.
Maybe the biggest “feature” of The ACA (from perspective of the healthcare industry), even more than the narrow networks and higher premiums, is its success in sucking all the oxygen out of the national conversation. Not only has it resulted in issue fatigue, or the mistaken notion that Obama has Solved the Problem, but it’s now twice as complicated to address as a campaign issue (“my opponent calls the ACA a complete disaster, and i agree, but for a completely different reason”)
Sanders/2016
Local media can be more friendly than the big networks and newspapers. This piece on the Sanders nationwide meetups yesterday from Grand Junction, CO is a good example:
http://www.nbc11news.com/home/headlines/319735551.html
Rent a handbag.
Probably Guinness world’s records time.
What country is the biggest importer of status statement bags?
What country is the biggest importer of trophy lions – that one is easy.
What country is the biggest importer of trophy wives?
What country is the biggest importer of mail order brides?
Back to hand bags. I would rather save and get a 5,000 year old Hongshan Culture jade pig-dragon for $250 than those handbags.
1. Whole Foods owners are now claiming that they are victims. First they admit they were over-charging and then upon reflection….oh my. finance.yahoo.com/news/whole-foods-ceo-says-company-230802709.html This coincides with recent article on why the Libertarians are so screwed up – they believed all the hype from the 60’s / 70’s and never grew up.
2. Great interview with Mark Ames / Pando. This and that are my favorite read sites of the day.
Can one be a victim of oneself!?
One can
1. lie to oneself
2. rob oneself
3. kill oneself
4. beat oneself up
5. starve oneself
6. spoil oneself
7. abuse oneself\
8. hurt oneself
9. love oneself
10. obsess over oneself
11. devote to oneself
Pretty much what one can do unto others, one can do unto oneself.
Isn’t that schizophrenia in a nutshell?
John Mackey, the libertarian CEO of Whole Foods, is getting an education in how markets work.
Seeing Matt Levine on NC’s morning links always puts a smile on my face.
Just like in the U.S., if “citizens” want to actually read the text of a document that will greatly influence their lives, they have to wait for “their” government to agree to it– without any public debate on its merits!
http://english.astroawani.com/business-news/malaysia-will-not-sign-tppa-hawaii-says-mustapa-67635
They should rename the panda Lady Jia Jia. Why has no one else already thought of this?
Re: Dolan on Turks & PKK.
One reason, as a leftist in the West, that I have distrusted the various Kurdish nationalist militias, is that too many of them sided with the invaders during the Iraq War.
The Iraqi Kurds cooperated to an extent far exceeding whatever level was needed to help improve Kurdish status within Iraq. Kurdish forces played a prominent role in helping to crush Iraqi resistance forces during the height of the Baghdad campaigns. Moreover, Kurdish nationalists performed a number of their own ethnic cleansing operations to secure their claims to Kirkuk and Mosul.
Over three years ago I predicted, in a comment I posted on this site, that the USA would sell out the Kurds in favour of the Turks. I did not of course anticipate the success of ISIS, which made the Kurds useful for longer than I expected, but I think that I was correct in recognizing the overall tendency of imperial policy.
The comment to which I refer is found here:
http://www.nakedcapitalism.com/2012/06/yanis-varoufakis-greece-is-finished.html#comment-746760
Is it surprising that Turkey wants to forestall the possible emergence of an autonomous Kurdish zone in Syria? Is it surprising that the USA regards Turkey as a more important ally than the Kurds? All the more so, since there is possibility of rising confrontation with Russia? All the more so, since Iraq and Syria are now both so weakened by war, that one would expect it would be a long time before any state, strong enough to contest US interests would be able to re-emerge in either of those regions?
What’s surprising is how few pro-Kurdish commentators can recognize that those who make themselves tools, will find themselves getting used and discarded.
Mind you, I can spare Dolan. He spent time in Suleimaniya and I imagine that he would feel strongly about Kurdish welfare.
One more thing: how can Dolan consider himself a leftist, when he so obviously despises the very large number of Turks who voted for Erdogan–the first really elected leader of post-Ottoman Turkey?
I hate Erdogan’s 2012 shift in policy, after he decided to help attack Syria. But I cannot despise millions of people in Turkey who tried to elect a government whose platform at least ostensibly reflected their religious beliefs. At any rate, Erdogan’s post-2012 aggressiveness is partly a sop to the military-led “secular” elements in Turkey.