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Links 8/10/15

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The mystery of Neanderthals’ massive eyes BBC

Some STIs Are Beneficial, and May Have Boosted Evolutionary Promiscuity Scientific American

Cancer-detecting dogs approved for NHS trial Guardian

Goldman Hires Ex-NATO Chief to Guard $1.5 Billion Danish Stake Bloomberg (EM). Revolving military door.

China under mounting pressure to ease policy as economy stumbles Reuters

Brazil’s Central Bank to Increase Foreign-Exchange Intervention WSJ

Pentagon prepares for century of climate emergencies and oil wars Middle East Eye (MP). From the DoD report: “Global resource constraints will also undermine the integrity of the Army’s supply chain… We can no longer assume unimpeded access to the energy, water, land, and other resources required to train, sustain, and deploy a globally responsive Army.”

Looking for a Job? How’s Your COBOL? LazerFiche (MP).

What Is Nature Worth to You? NYT

In Which I Agree in Part and Dissent in Part with Paul Romer’s Narrative of the Intellectual Collapse of Chicago-School Macro Brad Delong

Grexit?

Greece, Creditors Make Progress in Talks to Secure Bailout WSJ

Cyprus has provided Greece with an object (and abject) bail-out lesson Telegraph

Greece inches closer to third bail-out deal but Finns insist rescue package ‘won’t work  Telegraph

New refugee camp backed by 1 mln in public funds  Ekathimerini

Greece nears €86bn accord with creditors FT “However, to sell the deal to the German parliament, the chancellor will want to have the IMF on board. Fund negotiators have signalled that they will back the proposed deal, but the IMF board has been warned by the institution’s staff that Greece no longer qualifies for support, because of high debt levels and its poor reforms record. A final IMF decision on the programme may come only late this year and could depend on the EU creditors granting Athens more relief on Greece’s €320bn foreign debt.”

2016

Hillary Clinton starts taking some risks — and landing some punches WaPo

Sanders: Some criticism of Hillary Clinton is motivated by sexism MSNBC

Donald Trump is Hillary Clinton’s dream come true The Australian

Hillary Clinton readies student loan reform rollout  Politico “Her advisers have also discussed creating a bill of rights for student loan carriers and risk-sharing for colleges, which means schools could be penalized when students default or can’t repay their loans.” Students don’t need a “bill of rights”, they need bankruptcy and/or debt cancellations. Additionally, “risk sharing” with colleges pushes for more tuition increases on new students, punishes schools for a bad economy and incentivizes them to shrink certain majors seen as “unprofitable”. Fear democrats bearing solutions.

How Hillary Can Keep Biden Out Politico

Donald Trump Remains Defiant on News Programs Amid G.O.P. Backlash NYT

Donald Trump: “I will be phenomenal to the women” CBS News

New NBC News/Survey Monkey Poll: Donald Trump Still in the Lead After Debates

Talk of Biden bid grows louder among Iowa liberals The Des Moines Register

Syraqistan

Behind Israel’s Hysterical Opposition to the Iran Nuclear Deal Counterpunch (Glenn F)

Buchanan: Obama vs. Bibi MIsh Shedlock (EM)

ISIS battles Syria rebels for key supply lifeline Al Arabiya

Iraq’s Premier, Facing Protests, Proposes Government Overhaul NYT

Oil price slump pushes Saudi Arabia to fund raise with $US5.3b bonds sale Sydney Morning Herald

Black Injustice Tipping Point

A year after Michael Brown’s fatal shooting, unarmed black men are seven times more likely than whites to die by police gunfire WaPo

Unarmed Black Teen Killed By Police at Texas Car Dealership New York Magazine.

Kasich open to requiring police body cameras Houston Chronicle

‘Black Lives Matter’ and the G.O.P. NYT Op Ed.

2 arrested at peaceful Black Lives Matter protest KOIN, Portland CBS affiliate

The Friedmans N+1. About the Child Abuse Hysteria of the 1980s. Important Read. The author, Richard Beck, has a book coming out on the topic called “We Believe the Children”. He did a good interview on the radio show This is Hell.

Antidote du jour, hat tip Marie Calloway:

81015 links antidote

See yesterday’s Links and Antidote du Jour here.

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76 comments

  1. MikeNY

    Re Mish on Bibi.

    We are tormented by the creature of our own device. But ITA that Bibi needs a serious smackdown.

    1. Jim Haygood

      A big Republican delegation arrived in Israel yesterday. From the previous visit:

      Congressman Barry Loudermilk (R-Georgia) said that he felt safer during his recent trip to Israel that he would have felt “in certain parts of New York City or Chicago.”

      “In fact, I can say that we felt safer in Israel than we would in certain parts of New York City or Chicago,” Loudermilk said.

      “Yeah — or Baltimore, I would think, as well,” host Tony Perkins added, which a laughing Loudermilk affirmed.

      http://www.haaretz.com/news/world/1.657224

      Ha ha, yeah, we all know what the problem is in ‘certain parts’ of NYC, Chicago and Baltimore. Israel can help us build security walls to keep undesirables permanently on their side of the barrier. Apartheid rocks!

      1. ambrit

        Also, apartheidees throw rocks. They throw them at walls, over walls, and (hopefully) through walls. Unfortunately, the strongest walls are those in our heads.

  3. Steve H.

    Neanderthals’ massive eyes:

    I believe that’s the same Robin Dunbar of the Dunbar Limit (about 150 tightly coupled social relations for humans). The methodology is similar (the Limit was a brain-size extrapolation). But Dunbar never claimed it as absolute science, more as informed musings. At least eye-size can be interpolated.

    1. MyLessThanPrimeBeef

      Interesting point connecting the brain size to a limit on possible tightly coupled social relations.

      Is that limit lower than the limit that can be extrapolated from the heart size? That is, based on our heart size, are we capable of more than 150 tightly coupled social relations?

      1. Steve H.

        I under-represented the scales. Only a couple of very tightly coupled couples relations.

        As to your questions: there is allometric information that says most hearts beat around the same number of times, but the bigger the heart the slower the beat and the longer the lifespan. Those who have many relations don’t have the same time devoted per relation, so there is an upper limit to how tight their coupling is. Which means heart size is correlated with a greater potential duration of relationship, or (given that whales have the biggest hearts), we could say it correlates with potential depth of the relation, and the number of dimensions of coupling.

        1. MyLessThanPrimeBeef

          Thanks.

          A bigger heart, to most people, I guess, can mean a bigger physical heart, though, I distinguish between a bigger physical heart and a bigger metaphysical heart, I should have been clearer that I was not asking about a bigger physical heart.

          But you make an interesting point in your comment – that the length of time corresponds positively with the tightly coupled relations. Are there quality relations we can have that are not tightly coupled and are not time duration dependent?

          For example, can a blogger be inspiring with, say, 10,000 readers on a daily basis, and have quality relations with them or even tightly coupled relations?

          1. Steve H.

            “Resonant energy transfer between molecules is an example of a fast process. It occurs typically in 10^-14s, whereas the molecular vibrations themselves die down, or thermalize, in 10^-9s to 10^1s. It is 100% efficient and highly specific, being determined by the frequency of the vibration itself; and resonating molecules (like people) can attract one another.”

            – Mae-Wan Ho

            As for the metaphysical heart, one can love the whole world and everyone in it, and that affects ones own world, without seeming to affect the objects of affection. That is a powerful one-way internal path, and as you note, a one-way external path can have great impact on the world without much gain itself.

            Heading to the Tip Jar, hope some will join me.

  4. direction

    Thank you for posting the “What is Nature Worth to You” piece. I was hiking in the Alps a couple days ago with my friend and her children and during this hot day we were shown a beautiful little moss covered hole by the trail that was releasing very cold air from a cavern below. Colder than your refrigerator, probably an underground watercourse from the glacier melt above us. Her teen age boy is a bit slow, and after we had walked away he decided to tear apart this beautiful little hole. I looked back and shouted “stop!” Not in a mean way but as if you were to shout “stop hitting that stranger!” and “now I’m going to compassionately explain to you why it’s a bad idea to hit a stranger.” I was galloping back toward him and his mother became agitated about me deciding to instruct her boy, saying something about that’s not how we do things in our family and children should be allowed to tear up things or pull the wings off flies because their environmental destruction is small in comparison to what corporations do. In the meantime, I described to him that the biological diversity in his country is a precious resource and that places that occur on the edge between two worlds, like a coral reef or a cave and the warm forest can sometimes be special and host unique species, which is possibly just a platitude from permaculture, but is also often true. To my surprise, she later disciplined him (even more harshly) for pulling up a common plant in a mowed field. She didn’t like the social repercussions of what a farmer might think seeing him disturbing the mown field, where obviously this common flower was surviving in spite of cows and equipment. I always forget that “artists” and “progressives” do not necessarily value nature the way I do. They should check her brain out.

    1. abynormal

      Good For You! unfortunately time was not on your side, and that’s life too. thru years of instructing children, i’ve learned to look around for parent bear. i’ve always held the mantra: 1st break no child’s spirit…their future may need every ounce, plus. and then there’s the fact that the child’s spirit won’t be nurtured by parents protecting (sometimes promoting) dangerous behavior. i seldom go near lill ones anymo…too often i’ve witness the parents as the real predators…end sum game.

      Children have never been very good at listening to their elders, but they have never failed to imitate them.
      ~Baldwin

      And there is one sure thing about the fall of gods: they do not fall a little; they crash and shatter or sink deeply into green muck. It is a tedious job to build them up again; they never quite shine. And the child’s world is never quite whole again. It is an aching kind of growing.
      Steinbeck / East of Eden

    2. MyLessThanPrimeBeef

      It’ so true about being on the edge between two worlds.

      And it’s often the case that people don’t see the world the way each of us does, even though, I believe, we are all artists, you, me and everyone else here and everywhere. But not everyone is a progressive, or rather, we are all progressive in some areas, to some extent, and conservative and conservationist in other areas, to some other extent,

    3. Chris in Paris

      In France we have a difficulty understanding “deep ecology” having spent 2000 years turning this hexagon into a man-made paradise

        1. RWood

          Prolly have to spec “children” here, but the one above was a bit bit by humanoid virus.

          Within and without [title]
          The other thing necessary for this education
          is the willingness to learn
          from everything and everybody,
          the openness to new things.
          Real growth in art and life
          comes to us from the outside
          as well as from within,
          comes to us from our relationships
          with other things and other people.
          It does not come to us
          from within or from without,
          but from within and without
          at the same time,
          so that we must always be building bridges.
          Without bridges we go nowhere.
          It is the genius of children in this matter
          that they know how to go out
          to other things and people,
          that they know how
          to build a bridge spontaneously
          and to establish a relationship easily.

          Eugene S. Geissler

          1. abynormal

            Pleasant surprise RWood, Thank You

            Without bridges we go nowhere.
            It is the genius of children in this matter

            1. direction

              I didn’t know you were a teacher. You have a wonderful sense of humor and care, and you probably had an important effect on many little lives. There are inevitably many people out there that think of you still but don’t have time to track you down to tell you how much they appreciated you.

              1. abynormal

                direction, if the story be told correctly…the children grew me.

                i’ve made the effect contagious. i just returned from the grocery store where i enjoyed a personal conversation with the manager…out of the blue he mentions his son has Asperger syndrome. i smiled while noticing he did too. my hat goes off to courageous people pushing thru disabilities, bankrupt histories etc. later in the car my mother asked what Asperger is…i smiled and told her nothing, nothing at all.

                i spent my youth working with children and adults at the Atlanta Retardation Center. later i found Montessori children ideal…did a couple water downed Montessori schools until i finally found Montessori instructors with a firm handle on the theory. they have my undying gratitude and yep i check in on them periodically.

                maybe im taking a break from children…taking care of parents (one passed last year) is like relating to children but with more patients, if that’s possible.
                i’ll join back up with the kiddos…they’ll need my abyness that’s for sure. i’ll need them…or what is it all for?

                Thank You Deeply Driection

  5. craazyman

    A National Day of Fraud and Looting

    Just wanted to share an idea I had this morning. Maybe some of youze guys who know DC politicos can suggest this when yur on “The Hill”.

    Here’s the idea:

    “A National Day of Fraud and Looting” — sort of like a holiday, but in this case, everybody who earns less than $150,000 per year has to work for 24 hours straight chained to their cubicle, work station or other location of employment.

    Wages from the additional 24 – 8 = 16 hours of labor will be confiscated and contributed to a Wall Street Bailout Fund, to be used to fund bonuses of Wall Street executives during the next crisis. The monies will only be symbolic, of course, since there won’t be enough to actually fund the bonuses — that will require Federal Reserve money printing and possible changes to accounting law to recognize profits where losses would have been. But symbolism matters. It will help reinforce the civic duty of all Americans to pitch in and rescue “the system” during tough times.

    4. GuyFawkesLives

      “National Day of Fraud and Looting” should be where anyone earning less than $150,000 per year can legally loot and steal for a full 24 hours without fear of arrest.

      Now, that is something I could get behind.

        1. abynormal

          please be full of care when referencing Newt…2hrs before or after lunch

          Newt Gingrich, the soon-to-be Republican Speaker of the House, was eager to flex his muscle. Minor controversy erupted over remarks he made about welfare reform and orphanages. Some Republicans had suggested that the nation could reduce welfare rolls by placing the children of welfare mothers in orphanages. The idea was to prohibit states from paying welfare benefits for two groups of children: Those whose paternity was not established and those born out of wedlock to women under 18. The savings, according to this proposal, would be used to establish and operate orphanages and group homes for unwed mothers.

          Gingrich swung back: “I’d ask her to go to Blockbuster and rent the Mickey Rooney movie about Boys Town [an orphanage]. I don’t understand liberals who live in enclaves of safety who say, ‘Oh, this would be a terrible thing.'”
          http://www.ontheissues.org/2012/Newt_Gingrich_Welfare_+_Poverty.htm

    6. afisher

      This is in concert with the current Rand Paul logic – the reason the poor folks are poor, relative to CEO’s is because they don’t work hard enough.

      1. MyLessThanPrimeBeef

        The other one is, if you are not a professor or a Nobel prize winner, you are not smart enough.

        And for a certain age group, if you don’t have a boyfriend, you’re not friendly enough.

    9. craazyboy

      To be on the safe side, we’d better specify that the money raised will be managed by a hedge fund, until it’s needed to pay bonuses. Just so it’s safe and the gubmint can’t steal it. That would make a mockery of Fraud and Looting Day. Wouldn’t it? hahahaha

  7. Brindle

    2016…

    Bernie Sanders to hold rally in 15,000 seat arena in Los Angeles monday night. Bernie continues to get huge turnout (28,000 in Portland OR on Sunday). The MSM is barely mentioning Sanders—reminds me of the nationwide and global protests against the looming Iraq Invasion in 2003—the U.S. media mostly ignored the huge demonstrations.

    —The Los Angeles rally concludes a three-day West Coast swing for the 73-year- old Sanders, who would be the nation’s first Jewish president, as well as the first president to be an avowed socialist. He is scheduled to begin his day in Oakland at a news conference organized by National Nurses United, the nation’s largest nurses union.—-

    http://mynewsla.com/government/2015/08/10/sen-bernie-sanders-to-speak-at-sports-arena-monday-night/

  8. fresno dan

    The Friedmans N+1. About the Child Abuse Hysteria of the 1980s. Important Read. The author, Richard Beck, has a book coming out on the topic called “We Believe the Children”. He did a good interview on the radio show This is Hell.

    I remember very well the McMartin child abuse case, being I was living in Fresno at the time.
    And if it shows anything, it shows how illogic, prejudice, and mob mentality drive many people – and government employees are not only not immune, but are in the forfront.
    And ideology on its face that is simply astounding – “children never lie” My view is that anyone who would ever say that must be imprisoned for life, as they are simply too naive to walk among real people.
    Though it never really was that the children were lying, as it was the adult prosecution complex with an agenda of appearing to “protect” children.

    We walk about, unaware of the evil done in prosecutors offices on a daily basis, because of “liberal” Hollywood that gives us a constant stream of fiction that the system, save for a bad apple now and again, is basically fair and just. It is too frightening to acknowledge that leviathan can crush us at its whim.

    1. tongorad

      Re the Child Abuse Hysteria of the 80’s, there is an excellent HBO dramatization of the McMartin case, titled Indictment:The McMartin Trial.

      Also, PBS Frontline produced a powerful series of documentary films about another infamous case, the Little Rascals Daycare case. The films can be viewed here: littlerascalsdaycare.org

      I’ve been deeply fascinated by this subject for years. I went through teacher certification training in the late 80’s and I vaguely recall a training pull-out session that featured an “expert” warning us about the dangers of the satanic cults & child abuse! Granted, I did do my teacher training in Texas.

      1. Petter

        No, it wasn’t just Texas. Did you have experts come not the classroom to talk to grade schoolers about “good touch, bad touch”? Way to scare the kids, guys. And the explosion in multiple personality disorder cases! According to the philosopher Ian Hacking in his book Rewriting the Soul: Multiple Personality and the Sciences of Memory, there were, IIRC something like 17 documented case of multiple personality prior to the 1970s. By the early nineties there were so many they could have their own cable channel (exaggeration but close).
        This is how crazy it got:
        https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LrwiVkF8ig8

    2. Jess

      Having grown up in Manhattan Beach and living only three miles away at the time, I remember McMartin all too well. Here’s the recipe for hysteria:

      Take one delusional, mentally unstable mother (who committed suicide a couple of years later).
      Add in a totally disreputable child abuse counselor with a lust for having her name in the news.
      Add one glory-hound news reporter who was secretly sleeping with the abuse counselor. (And lost his job over it.)
      Top off with DA lusting for high-profile case to bolster his tough re-election campaign.
      Garnish with sane jurors who acquit all defendants, after which DA loses election.

      1. Jess

        Forgot to add: The managing editor of the L.A. Times who oversaw coverage of the story, including the longest-ever trial in U.S. history (30 months), later married the prosecutor.

  9. Carolinian

    Important:

    Now you’d think that if you had a brand-spanking media-machine that can crank out 2000 cookie cutter articles overnight blasting “sexist” Trump as a first-class scoundrel and praising the dainty Ms Kelly as the unwitting victim of abusive male bullying, then dastardly Trump would plunge in the polls, right?

    Wrong. Trump is still comfortably in the lead and more popular that ever.

    Why?

    Because people don’t trust the lying media. Because people don’t trust the lying liars who run the Republican party.(or the Democratic party) And because people resent the fact that they’re being manipulated. Is that so hard to understand? The feeling now, is that, “if the assho**s who run this country are against Trump, then I’m for him. It’s that simple. It’s not about populism or channeling anger and frustration to a rebel candidate. Trump is no rebel, and he’s no reformer either. And he’d probably be a shitty president too. But Trump has one thing going for him that is sadly lacking in all the other candidates, all the party honchos, and all the flannel-mouth, stuffed-shirt fake politicians who are presently in office. What is that, you ask?

    He tells the truth, at least it sounds like the truth to a lot people. And that makes all the difference.

    Of course Sanders also speaks the truth (mostly–not as much on foreign policy) but he is preaching to the already converted so questionable whether that Overton Window is really being moved. Trump on the other hand could upset the apple cart in a big way and must be stopped– probably will be stopped.

    http://www.counterpunch.org/2015/08/10/swan-song-for-the-donald-gop-party-bosses-plan-to-take-out-trump/

    1. MyLessThanPrimeBeef

      In 1991, it was Ross Perot, Clinton and Bush.

      Maybe this year, we get Trump, Clinton and Bush.

      1. fresno dan

        My hope is that Trump runs and breaks the duopoly.
        Both parties ignore the 90% – the republican party explicitly, and the democrats implicitly

      2. NotTimothyGeithner

        Or Sanders. 28,000 people showing up to an event is a big deal. That’s Taylor Swift pull.

        I suspect there is a real Clinton fatigue out there, more than I had realized. It’s not the scandals, but I think it’s the hush from Hillary versus the drumbeat for her candidacy. “Are you Ready for Hillary” bumper stickers without a point have eaten at the “silent majority” more than I had realized.

    2. Jess

      Never thought I’d say this, but I’d vote for Trump over Clinton or Biden or any of the other GOP candidates.

    3. Chris in Paris

      The best exchange of the debate:

      PAUL: …but I’d say that he’s already hedging his bets because he’s used to buying politicians.

      TRUMP: Well, I’ve given him plenty of money.

      1. MyLessThanPrimeBeef

        Give the Little People money (out of thin air is fine), so we, too, can buy politicians.

  10. MyLessThanPrimeBeef

    The Chinese 100% One-Way Solution as her economy stumbles.

    Step 1 – you can buy stock shares, but you can’t sell.

    Step 2 – you can put money into banks, but you can’t take it out.

    With these steps comes financial stability and eventually they will see economic recovery.

    1. DanB

      “If you destroy humanity’s relationship to the biosphere and, as well, over-consume finite and renewable natural resources you are….”

    2. NotSoSure

      Step 3: Only officials are allowed to sell and withdraw money (including transferring to overseas).

  11. Virginia Simson

    There is much good information IF you wade through his legal bias first about child sex abuse. That said, by the time you get there he’s ready to serve you an indigestible load of MOTHER BLAME that characterises most of our dealings with this abuse. This is a tipoff that he fails to understand that little progress at ending it has occurred. When child sexual abuse first hit the stands (and it,wasn’t *just* the insatiable Geraldo) there was an EXTREME reaction. Then society took a breather and the pendulum swung to a huge swing of denial. The next round of exposure was less dramatic than the first and the counter reaction of denial not as pronounced … it’s a PROCESS of “coming to grips with very uncomfortable truths … SECRETKEEPING, DENIAL and LIVING being hallmarks of abusers makes genuine progress against very difficult. We are looking for some middle reactions where sanity, prevention, good policy decisions and literally day to day concern for children’s welfare becomes the norm. The mother blaming indicates to me we are nowhere no how close to that place. ..

  12. susan the other

    The Middle East Eye. On the Pentagon’s Plans for controlling strategic resources. It was a bundle of confusion. If it had been published in the late 90s it would have made better sense – since most of this stuff has already happened and if they are not already on to new plans they certainly won’t last the “planned” century. No new plans except to keep on doing the same things? The military plans to resort whenever possible to local resources. Because it gets expensive when you have to pillage over a wide area? It isn’t very impressed by alternative energy but is dedicated to ending old industrial systems of resources use. Huh? It wants to control the distribution and use of oil. It wants to protect capitalism. I think the whole plan is tautological. Does the Pentagon ever go meta? Like what kind of capitalism would be best?

  13. craazyboy

    Pentagon prepares for century of climate emergencies and oil wars Middle East Eye (MP). From the DoD report: “Global resource constraints will also undermine the integrity of the Army’s supply chain… We can no longer assume unimpeded access to the energy, water, land, and other resources required to train, sustain, and deploy a globally responsive Army.”
    ———-

    Well boohoo. I would interpret that to mean Gawd is sending a message to the Neo-Templars running this country that He disapproves of the methodology.

    1. curlydan

      As my family drove over the river on Saturday on the way home from our vacation, we wondered why the water was yellow.

  15. abynormal

    guess who is tweeting …this just won’t do ‘ ))

    Khamenei.ir @khamenei_ir

    Human rights issue still not solved in the country claiming liberty & human rights. Still people are insecure for being black! 8/97 #Ferguson
    11:29 AM – 10 Aug 2015

    40 40 Retweets
    49

  17. jrs

    So if one were to resign oneself to writing Cobol code for a living (I know, but it’s a living, and do what we love is bad advice – we must do what we hate!), what is to guarantee there isn’t a plan to just move Cobol coding to India/China/etc. anyway? Why should anyone follow or trust trends unless they are only a few years from being able to collect Social Security?

    “Consequently, active COBOL programmers are in short supply. So, thanks to the law of supply and demand, salaries for COBOL programmers are going up.”

    Yes but we’ve been here before, whenever salaries go up they eventually make a move to outsource or at least in-source (H1Bs), in addition to directly manipulating the market to suppress salaries. It doesn’t matter if the outsource is lower quality, it’s not about quality. Noone wants to code Cobol? Yea maybe, it is Cobol. But maybe few with better options want to play in your rigged I.T. labor market anymore either. They know the employers rig the game against the workers pretty much every single time and just leave them holding the bag. Salaries going up don’t mean: get into this field now. They mean: this field is going to be outsourced or the labor market flooded with skilled immigrants soon.

    1. Nathan Tankus Post author

      there are some COBOL programmers in India the problem is it takes time and coordination to transfer knowledge to them. there will need to be a large faction of COBOL programmers domestically no matter what. Let alone all the government programmers will be domestic. If you learn COBOL you will be able to find work.

  18. ewmayer

    o Russia’s Energy Giant Implodes | Wolf Street:
    http://wolfstreet.com/2015/08/05/how-russias-energy-giant-imploded/

    Paints both North Stream and the just-inked China deal as money losers. I found the comment by ‘MC’ especially interesting.

    o The Central Bank Enabled 30-Year Bull Run in Stocks Is Over | Wolf Street:

    http://wolfstreet.com/2015/08/05/stock-guru-birinyis-sp-3200-call-bull-from-a-30-year-bull/

    David Stockman on the great financialization bubble – I like the ‘national LBO’ framing. Also note Stockman does not advocate any ‘hard-asset-based money’ silliness, but does appear to call for a return to actual loanable-funds-based fractional reserve lending, rather than the purely fictional reserve banking we have today: ‘…today’s mountain of debt was not funded from honest savings..‘

    [Note one obvious typo: ‘In sum, at the time that Birinyi was peddling his Salomon stock research reports back in 1986, the financial sector—defined here as the market value of equities plus credit market debt outstanding—was about $12 billion. Today it is $93 trillion.‘ – first number should also be in trillions, as common sense dictates and the accompanying chart shows.]

    o The $12 Trillion Fat Finger: How A “Glitch” Nearly Crashed The Global Financial System – A True Story | Zero Hedge:
    http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2015-08-08/12-trillion-fat-finger-how-glitch-nearly-crashed-global-financials-system-true-story

    I know, it’s a ZH piece, but it is a great real-world illustration of the ‘bank IT is a disaster waiting to happen’ theme Yves has been blogging on regularly this year.

    o And on a lighter note, I confess to belatedness – this film opened end of June, but only happened across my personal radar when I saw a jingoistic TV ad for it last week, and saw it on the marquee of the second-run theater near me today:

    Max movie review: all dogs go to war | FlickFilosopher.com:
    http://www.flickfilosopher.com/2015/08/max-movie-review-all-dogs-go-to-war.html

    IMO, a better title would have been the sequel-esque American Sniper: Doggie Style, but I suspect Clint Eastwood and the other American Sniper producers and releasing studio would nix that one.

    Other alternate-title suggestions, anyone? Thinking of a few well-known war movies:

    A hydrant too far

    All quiet on the western haunch

    K-9: The piddlemaker

    Fleas of our fathers

    Full metal water dish

    Heartworm Ridge

    1. ambrit

      A Tree Grows in Baghdad

      Old Yeller Cake

      The Scent of a Bomb

      Beethoven: Ode to War

      Sieg Heel! (A WW2 documentary.)

      Battling Benji

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