Toronto: 150 crocodiles and alligators rescued from man’s home International Business Times. They were all in good shape.
Humanity exceeds nature’s budget for 2015 PhysOrg (Chuck L)
New Study Finds That Having Your First Child Makes You Miserable Alternet
By 2100, Earth Will Have an Entirely Different Ocean Motherboard. Translation: the jackpot is coming sooner than you think.
Amazon slowly eaten away by gold rush’s illegal mines PhysOrg (Chuck L) :-(
MIT Has Plans for a Real ARC Fusion Reactor IEEE Spectrum. Chuck L: “Fusion power. Again. On this issue I’m an adopted son of Missouri.”
Clinical trials begin for Russia’s first medical exoskeleton Robohub. Chuck L: “Watch the video.”
China Currency Whackage
China Seeks to Calm Markets as It Devalues Currency for 3rd Consecutive Day New York Times
Reading the renminbi runes John Authers, Financial Times
China denies currency war as global steel industry cries foul Ambrose Evans-Pritchard, Telegraph
Volatility Saps Momentum for China’s Market Reform Wall Street Journal
Study Links Polluted Air in China to 1.6 Million Deaths a Year New York Times
Tainjin Explosion
Dangerous chemicals at Tianjin blast site were stored just 600 metres from residential complex Hong Kong Free Press
Aerial tour of the China blast site BBC. This is of the explosion itself
What caused the Tianjin blasts? China authorities hunt for clues. Christian Science Monitor
BHP iron ore shipments affected by China blast Sydney Morning Herald
Back to Fundamentals in Emerging Markets Dani Rodrik, Project Syndicate (David L). This part has implications for Greece, which is much more like a developing economy than an advanced economy:
For developing economies, the three key growth fundamentals are acquisition of skills and education by the workforce; improvement of institutions and governance; and structural transformation from low-productivity to high-productivity activities (as typified by industrialization…
Unlike East Asian economies, today’s emerging markets cannot rely on export surpluses in manufactures as their engine of structural transformation and growth. So they are forced to rely more on the longer-term fundamentals of education and institutions. These do generate growth – and indeed are ultimately indispensable to it. But they generate 2-3% annual growth at best, not East Asia’s 7-8% rates.
TTIP: The View from the Other CEPR CEPR. From the press release:
A new issue brief from the Center for Economic and Policy Research (CEPR) examines widely cited studies on the potential gains from the Trans-Atlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP) and finds that they would deliver just 40 cents per person per day in the U.S., and 0.2 euros per person per day in the EU. Supporters of the deal between the U.S. and EU have touted the supposed gains, but the CEPR brief notes that these gains would easily be dwarfed by losses the great majority of workers would experience due to increased inequality, and also that the original studies did not examine the costs from protections for pharmaceuticals and other non-tariff barriers (NTB).
Rumours of the euro’s likely demise are greatly exaggerated EUROPP
Jeremy Corbyn, the socialist who’s tearing Britain’s Labour Party apart, explained Vox
Grexit?
IMF: Lagarde eyes new act in Greek drama Financial Times
Syraqistan
Dubai is the most decadent place on earth Business Insider
The messy US ‘strategy’ in Syria RT (resilc)
Big Brother is Watching You Watch
Chelsea Manning ‘could face indefinite solitary confinement’ BBC
Imperial Collapse Watch
Meet Erik Munday, New Jersey Skateboarder Turned Mercenary Vice (resilc)
Hillary Clinton turns in ‘blank’ email server to investigators New York Post
Released Hillary Clinton Emails Reveal…She Was Reading a Book on How to Delete Emails Michael Krieger
Jeb Bush’s Appalling Idea of a “Good Deal” American Conservative. Resilc: “He makes Rick Perry seem like an MIT grad.”
Election 2016: Jeb Bush Leveraged Political Connections For Clients And Allies After Leaving Florida Governorship, Emails Show International Business Times. Important.
An alpha-male fantasy that trumps reality Financial Times
Abraham Trump’s Gettysburg Address from longbrothers and … FunnyorDie
Black Injustice Tipping Point
Officials extend state of emergency in Ferguson for another 24 hours Raw Story
Black Labor Organizers Urge AFL-CIO to Reexamine Its Ties to the Police Truthout
Mentally-Ill Black Women Suffer Horrific Abuses In LA Jails ShadowProof. Resilc: “Where are the Black Congressionals on this outrage? Too busy cashing in with the white guys in Congress?
The Bail Trap New York Times and A Night in Brooklyn Criminal Court New York Times (resilc)
The junk bond market ‘is having a coronary’: David Rosenberg CNBC
SEC Admits It’s Not Monitoring Stock Buybacks to Prevent Market Manipulation Dave Dayen, Intercept (Glenn F)
Bernanke, Paulson and Geithner Join Yale Effort to Update Crisis-Response Playbook Wall Street Journal (Chuck L). Bernanke advises Citadel and Geithner is the head of Warburg Pincus. This stinks, even before we get to the “Why should we listen to their advice” problem…
Class Warfare
Food Banks Struggle to Meet Surprising Demand Associated Press (resilc) That word “surprising” is increasingly serving as a marker to Bad Thing Happening for which TPTB disavow all responsibility.
The Outrageous Ascent of CEO Pay Bill Moyers
The Economic Inequality in Academia Counterpunch
The Fight Over Transparency: Round Two PLOS (Chuck L). Has implications well beyond the corruption of health care research.
Antidote du jour. Since we’ve been neglecting octopus and they are now in the news, we are making up for lost opportunities. @_bmturner_ via Richard Smith:
See yesterday’s Links and Antidote du Jour here.
89 comments
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The articles aren’t necessary. You read the links and get a spiritual vertigo that staggers your mind into a spinning nausea. Where did the world go? Where are the familiar planks of sanity that formed a bedrock for your stolid mental equilibrium? Gone. What’s left in the wake of its absence is a vaccuum filled with a montage of kalediescopic lunacy. 150 alligators in somebody’s house? An entirely different ocean on earth? I thought there were 7 seas. What does the headline even mean? More “drama” from Greece? hasn’t that killed everybody by now? How could there be more? Chelsea Manning in solitary for a magazine? White Lives Matter vs. Black Lives Matter? WTF? How many chanting embiciles does it take to make you plug your ears? More news about Hillary and Jeb Bush? Oh man. Is this something out of Clockwork Orange and Beethoven (bonus points for metaphor recognition! please send your answer to: Peanut Gallery Metahpor Contest, PO Box 8, Magonia. The winner will receive honorable mention). Somebody wrote something about Abraham Trump and Gettysburg? Oh Jesus H. Christ. That’s too much to even think about. Bernanke, Paulson, Geithner and Yale in one sentence? Let me vomit right on the floor. Any one of them would do it but all four? That’s a projectile vomit. Then there’s the Octopus. That color is absolutely perfect. Even Turner couldn’t do that. Even Rembrandt couldn’t do that. Nobody can do that. How does an Octopus do that? that’s even more incredible. This is too much for anybody’s tender sensitiblity. This is a bludgeoning. Thank God football season is about to start. I just hope there aren’t player tattoo pictures all over the place. That always ruins it. You like to think of dignity and sportsmanship as the primary motivations.
As Art Buchwald said: “If you can’t stand the heat, get out of the cabana.”
@Bunk If your brains were dynamite there wouldn’t be enough to blow your hat off.
Vonnegut
@CraazyM “You are very clever. I would like to eat your brains, one day.”
Pratchett
Alpine: NPR Music Tiny Desk Concert
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ukz2JXvGR5w
Skippy…. NFL = Diffuse axonal injury for profit… sorry crazzy…
This is perfect. Almost. Could you go into a little more detail?
I’ve had similar thoughts. Vonnegut, Kafka, and Heller are pikers compared with this reality.
TighT, 17 min. or less.
Talent is a long patience, and originality an effort of will and intense observation. Flaubert
Wouldn’t surprise Jonathan Swift tho.
At least we have an octopus for our anchor on reality today. An organism that has a nose for a body and rimmed with landing lights no less. When it swims, the back of it’s head faces forward and it’s eyes see where it’s been. Unless it blinds itself with a squirt of ink. The species did not go technically bankrupt during The Great Crash.
I hope looking at the pic too long doesn’t make me hate octopi. Does that count for the Clockwork Orange-Beethoven Metaphor contest? I hope so, otherwise I’m having trouble understanding craazyman. That means we might have multiple realities too. I don’t know if I could take that.
BTW: Yes, It’s starting to look like GWB was the smart one.
I’m dopey enough to think that all that’s needed is a nice catalytic statement of a decent organizing principle, maybe something as simple as “Treat others as you would like to be treated,” carving out a big exception for masochists.
Have you considered the virtuous, calming world view held by adherents of Global Futilitarianism? https://www.questia.com/magazine/1P3-737386501/futilitarianism and http://theanarchistlibrary.org/library/d-j-ivison-futilitarianism.pdf See how much fun it can be?
La Nausee… https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nausea_(novel). Interesting, what actually defines and directs the outcomes “we” get from “our” political economy…
“And then, one Thursday, nearly 2,000 years after one man had been nailed to a tree for saying how great it would be for people to be nice to each other for a change…” -Douglas Adams
So…
the octopus actually looks attractive; grotesquely so, but still. a lot of times i just read the titles on the linked articles, and quietly give up for the day.
Yes, Ludwig van did write “Singing in the Rain.”
Octopi can communicate by tentanipulating chromatophores in their skin.
Are you really conflating dignity and sportsmanship with Professional Sports??? Time for some Zanies and a bottle of plonk.
I thought there were 7 seas
not so much really, seven oceans that are really just one..
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_Ocean
The octopus.. IMO if you wanted insight to how extraterrestrials might process information and think, (in their case ex-terrestrial), Octopuses would be a good place to start. I’ve had a few as pets and they are supremely inscrutable. I think mother nature endowed them with such an unfortunately short lifespan for a reason, so they cant organize, kinda like the replicants in Blade Runner, only Octopus do sleep and I believe dream —radiating shaft of light.. well color and texture anyway while they are..
The reality is that the Cephalopods are already organized. They’ve been developing humanoid bipedal forms and training in warfare for years:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8L54s2m1dPs
Already attempted outright conquest of the naked monkeys with limited success:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lttzCgtbHXw
And attempted infiltration:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oOpJiPISO3k
Only the Multi-tentacled God knows what the cuttlefish divisions are up to.
Craazyman, you are bang-on!
Great comment C-man!! My advice? Jump on the A train and ride all the way up to Ft. Tryon Park, walk to the Cloisters– and take several deep breaths. The world will still be insane, but at least you can inhabit a more serene piece of it for a few moments.
Any octopus’s luminescence resonates in all, because it is part of an indivisible nature; and therefore never send to know for whom the light shines; it shines for thee.
“There is light in all living cells of plants, animals and human beings.”
The world is crazy like that.
not crazy, just not understood.
I’ll invoke my favorite unintentional philosopher, DAdams. He nails the high level case with an elegant economy of words.
“There is a theory which states that if ever anyone discovers exactly what the Universe is for and why it is here, it will instantly disappear and be replaced by something even more bizarre and inexplicable.
There is another theory which states that this has already happened.”
― Douglas Adams, The Restaurant at the End of the Universe
It’s so true.
Before I read that passage of his, the world was mysterious.
Afterwards, that is to say, now, the world is mysterious, but in a different way, however subtly different, but not enough that I can’t tell this universe now is not the same as the that mystery universe that I was in, before I read it.
The one that does it for me is “Wise Mindlessness”. Don’t know where I first read it (Whole Earth Catalog maybe?), but it constantly pops up in my mind these days. I think “Politically Correct” might be its bastard child somewhere along the line.
Your post and the subsequent responses gave me a chuckle this morning. BTW, I think like you do all the time, it’s like we’re living in the Twilight Zone. But, no, it’s actual reality.
I’m going to add to another episode to the Twilight Zone for you here: my state legislature actually dropped a bill this last session that would have allowed the bankers to foreclose on a home non-judicially without any evidence they were the owner of the underlying debt. Because of massive homeowner outrage, they took it off the table, but still, the fact that they would even THINK that they could possibly allow this……esp when the banks have continued their felonious activities.
Anyway, try to have a good day. And, BTW, I find professional football appalling, but glad that it provides you a safe place to land.
“a vaccuum filled with a montage of kalediescopic lunacy”
You outta copyright that one.
RE:Bernanke, Paulson, Geithner and Yale
Not only that but an article yesterday, I think posted by Lambert as ” important,” suggested Summers may have been a better choice than Yellen for Fed chief.
I agree – that was an amazingly beautiful octopus.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-9poCAuYT-s
BALL OF CONFUSION
That’s
What
The
World Is
Today!!
I don’t want to sail with this ship of fools, no
Where’s it comin’ from or where’s it goin’ to?
It’s just a, it’s just a ship of fools
Scientific studies of solitary confinement and its damages have actually come in waves, first emerging in the mid-19th century, when the practice fell from widespread favor in the United States and Europe. More study came in the 1950s, as a response to reports of prisoner isolation and brainwashing during the Korean War. The renewed popularity of solitary confinement in the United States, which dates to the prison overcrowding and rehabilitation program cuts of the 1980s, spurred the most recent research.
Consistent patterns emerge, centering around the aforementioned extreme anxiety, anger, hallucinations, mood swings and flatness, and loss of impulse control. In the absence of stimuli, prisoners may also become hypersensitive to any stimuli at all. Often they obsess uncontrollably, as if their minds didn’t belong to them, over tiny details or personal grievances. Panic attacks are routine, as is depression and loss of memory and cognitive function.
“Most of these people will return to our communities,” said Rice. “When we punish them in such a manner that they’re coming out more damaged than they went in, and are ill-equipped to re-enter communities and be productive citizens, we’re doing a disservice to society as a whole.” http://www.wired.com/2013/07/solitary-confinement-2/
OWNERS OF THE PRISON SYSTEM IN AMERICA
(Super Max Prisons) Enlightening ‘Follow The Money’ Read:
The moment an order is written, whether it’s a warrant or a traffic ticket, or whatever, the money machine is activated. Every prisoner has a monetary value to our government whether its local, county, state or federal. Bonds are written based on the person’s name and social security number and are sold through a brokerage firm such as AG Edwards or Merrill Lynch who has the contract to sell all the prison bonds for the city, county, state or federal prisons. Over 50% of the money market bonds right now are purchased in Japan or China. I’ve been told by researchers that Walmart and, used to be, Kmart also purchase these bonds, Walmart mostly doing so by emptying out bank accounts at night. Both companies are fronts for enormous money machines.
****
The cop does all the paper work in the car. He is creating the assessment and the paperwork in his car when he makes out the ticket by using name, social security number, and driver’s license number. They assume you voluntarily gave it to the cop and make the trade. Every cop is a private business contractor working for the corporation. If this is true then you can follow up on every trade made in your name on your exemption. Find the bond written on your birth certificate. Use that and access your exemption through the stock market that way. http://parentsinaction.net/english/Prison/OWNERS-OF-THE-PRISON-SYSTEM-IN-AMERICA.htm
breathe aby come on BREATHE
We’re all in solitary confinement, just this small wormhole of a textbox to reach out.
Perhaps I’m making too much of your comment but I am offended that it is so glib, so irrelevant, and so unfeeling of Chelsea Manning’s particular circumstances, of the general comment concerning “Abynormal’s” information and citation about the profiteering of corporations and government, and about the horror of solitary confinement.
I realize that we, or many of us can be labelled solitary rather than alone or isolated. I also realize that our physical nature can be compared to ‘confinement’, either to that nature personally and privately, but the fact that people are confined in solitary by coercion, for great lengths of time, and treated as if the laws and its enforcers have a right to commit abuse, is monstrous and horrific.
Is there not a constitutional right that can be claimed? A moral right?
If you have a family and friends, even a community as passing as, say, the commentors on Naked Capitalism, you are not alone. Nor are you confined by force.
The simple act of asking a question, or talking to a stranger who has asked to be staked for a cup of coffee or bit of food, or hugging another being is yours to do.
Solitary confinement, an act of torture and committed against such a person as Chelsea Manning or any other who has acted to expose illegal or evil behaviour, is meant to scare the rest of us into acquiesence or acceptance.
Without other human contact I’d expect a mental illness to develop. Who deserves to be made insane as punishment?
I certainly do not mean to offend you but I ask that you consider your comment in light of the crimes committed against your country and its citizens.
… and let us never forget, those of us who still harbor a belief in technocracy, that Bern, Paulson and Geith are “experts,” whose entry onto the playing field was hailed by many as a summum bonum, the moment when the adults took charge… See, they saved the world banking system ™ (sic)!!!!!!!!!
Comment on the comments above: A friend of mine and I have be describing this situation as a slow-motion national nervous breakdown. I will also take the liberty of giving my favorite quote from Antonio Gramsci (which may explain a thing or two):
The crisis consists precisely in the fact that the old is dying away and the new cannot yet be born; in this interregnum, a great number of morbid symptoms is appearing.
La crisi consiste precisamente nel fatto che il vecchio sta morendo ed il nuovo non può ancora nascere; in questo interregno appaiono una gran quantità di sintomi morbosi.
Gramsci—Prison Notebooks
https://www.change.org/p/doj-indict-hillary-clinton?recruiter=361119592&utm_source=share_for_starters&utm_medium=copyLink
Here’s Vox’ rundown of the “extreme” policies favored by Corbyn.
Sounds like a beautiful dream (well, maybe not the coal mines). However Vox seems to find all this deeply sinister–makes hopeful sounds that perhaps the voting can be rigged to prevent it.
That was my take on it too. A lot of journalists refuse to acknowledge that the popularity of people like Sanders, Corbyn and Trump represent a grassroots rejection of the status quo centrism to which they are intellectually wed. The FT piece by Slate’s Jacob Weisberg is cut from the same cloth: Trump is really just another tired reworking of traditional American xenophobia and class resentment. Nothing to see here folks, please move along.
Gavin Haynes has another take on Corbyn in Vice that I think is more balanced and worth reading. One of the possibilities he raises is that a Corbyn win (assuming Labour’s executive would allow him to win, which IMO is far from certain) could tear the party apart.
The octopus. Anyone know which species is in the photo? Is that the “common” octopus showing off, or a species that can bioluminesce as a hobby?
The link, though, is intellectually disappointing. No, octopodes are not aliens. (This loose talk comes from the current desperate fashion to make an outré quote. Sorry, but outré, like twee, dampens information rather than transmitting information.)
Instead, octopuses are a product of evolution. Their eyes are astounding, possibly the best among invertebrates. Their big brains make them adaptable. Evolution has “forced” them toward such heights.
Now to get over my regret at eating them. They are tasty. (Or maybe I should have regret about eating a creature that is at least as intelligent as Jeb Bush and swear off the occasional dinner of tentacles.)
Don’t know what spp. that octopus, but the benthic variety exhibit bio-luminosity. The brightness in the photo may be from reflectivity (lighting in the setting) and not bio-luminescence.
I had Fritto Misto for lunch. I’m thinking if you are really smart you don’t get floured and fried. Fried elephant? Fried dolphin? Fried chimp? Nope.
Original picture here; http://onebigphoto.com/blue-glowing-coconut-octopus/
Species; https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amphioctopus_marginatus
Right click on a picture to do a visual search on Google (if that’s your default search engine).
re Chinese port explosion
Residential apts 600 meters away? Whoa! That far? We’ll call that incremental progress!
Except the “migrant worker’s” flimsy dormitories were closer, see BBC video for the flattened two story dorms of sheet metal. The death and casualty numbers from this seem purposely understated by a lot. Thousands must have died.
I didn’t use the appropriate sarcasm imoji. There is no doubt in my mind that many living rough in the port were vaporized with no papertrail as it where. Anywhere in China, as far as population goes, the “hundreds” place mark is at best the least significant digit.
Excellent point. Thanks. Stevodores, porters….
Because free markets…
I wonder if they will find evidence of a nuclear signature in the ashes as was the case in the WTC? Western psychopathic elites not too happy with China’s latest activity in the currency wars, better known as the “race to debase”.
Cause still unknown, apparently.
And there was another explosion, this time at a second factory, less than 24 hours after the one in Tianjin.
From the same website, South China Morning Post:
“Malaysia says most of the debris in Maldives is not from the missing MH370 plane.”
The transparency article is important. So is the counterpunch article on privileged academicians.
People are always for equality when it means they get something from someone else. People are generally opposed to equality when they are the privileged ones who have to do the giving up.
In this case, professors and scientists.
Yes, that piece in counterpunch is great.
The exploitation of non-tenured faculty (who comprise 75% of faculty)
is indefensible. And their tenured colleagues are the beneficiaries.
The whole situation stinks.
Here in Texas 5 of the top ten highest government/ education salaries are Athletics Oriented ( coaching), and 3 are the top 3 with salaries $3.8M to 2.6M.
Only #2.6 – $3.8 mil? For top college football coaches in Texas? You’re getting a bargain. Many top coaches at powerhouse schools make $5-$8 mil.
Same here in Washington.
WSU, UW football coaches top pay list for state workers
China’s Long Minsky Moment The New Yorker
Three-card monte, comrades … it’s BACK:
Time for Hillary ‘Sister Serverjah’ Clinton to activate the turbochargers on the spin machine.
Toto … I’ve a feeling we’re not in Arkansas no more.
AP- “The two emails on Hillary Rodham Clinton’s private server that an auditor deemed “top secret” include a discussion of a news article detailing a U.S. drone operation and a separate conversation that could point back to highly classified material in an improper manner or merely reflect information collected independently, U.S. officials who have reviewed the correspondence told The Associated Press.
The emails came to light Tuesday after Sen. Chuck Grassley, R-Iowa, reported that McCullough found four “highly classified” emails on the unusual homebrew server that Clinton used while she was secretary of State. Two were sent back to the State Department for review, but Grassley said the other two were, in fact, classified at the closely guarded “Top Secret/SCI level.””
“A singing bird and a roaring lion are better than a foolish noisy human.”
Rosie the Server Geek: We Can Delete It! Illustration by Banzai7:
http://tinyurl.com/pfxpjn6
I wonder if Hillary even had a top secret/sci.
A very rarified clearance pertaining mostly to intelligence electronics.
Perhaps Secretarys of State automatically get one.
That incident alone is a very serious breach and a less ” important ” person would be looking at a problem with the security police
Which would cost them their job at the least.
Thanks for the link to the article by Bill Moyers on stratospheric CEO pay. A short quote from the article:
This is something I have said many times. The job creators are the customers, not the company’s executives or investors.
From Zen Economics:
If a CEO chops down a tree and there are no customers around, does he profit?
Sorry, it should be he/she/it.
With regards to the New York Times piece on pollution in China, I guess that is what the bozos who want to gut the EPA and environmental regulations have in mind.
It’s not what we usually think of as violence when we say violence, but it kills…16 million.
Poor diet also kills.
As does hunger. All these are forms of physical violence.
Hunger strike is not non-violent. It is violence on oneself. Perhaps it’s for a greater cause…so, violence is OK (or just violence to oneself, but not others – that is, violence is sometimes justified???).
Then, there is non-physical violence, just as deadly…like stress caused by any form of inequality (wealth, racial, gender, etc).
1.6 Million Chinese die every year due to unhealthy air, particulate matter so fine, they become lodged deep in people’s lungs causing asthma, heart disease and other health problems.
From the article:
“Much of China’s air pollution comes from the large-scale burning of coal. Using pollution measurements and wind patterns, the researchers concluded that much of the smog afflicting Beijing came not from sources in the city, but rather from coal-burning factories 200 miles southwest in Shijiazhuang, the capital of Hebei Province and a major industrial hub.”
———————————————————————————————————————————-
Most recently, the Sierra Club along with the deep pockets of Michael Bloomberg, announced the 200th coal burning power plant shut down since 2010.
http://ecowatch.com/2015/07/15/renewables-win-coal-plant-retire/
“After all, in 2010, when we were just getting started on coal-plant retirements, the Clean Air Task Force estimated that coal-fired power plants power plants contributed to 13,200 premature deaths, as well as 20,400 heart attacks and 217,600 asthma attacks. Saving those lives is one reason why the Clean Power Plan is so essential. But the benefits don’t stop there. Our responsibility to end the suffering caused by coal brings with it a singular opportunity to build something better to take its place.”
——————————————————————————————————————————-
As you can see, we are dying in the USA as well from the burning of coal. That is why, no matter how small the incremental displacement of coal by gas or solar, we are saving peoples lives. Despite this long known and well established fact for over 1/2 a century, the idiotic response of to any proposal for solar panels on roofs as not being enough all by itself, or not really dealing with the problem comprehensively or just being a silly idea, summed up by the attitude- ‘can I please see more scientific studies so I am perfectly sure you do not let me get blood on my pure middle class hands’??
We are living in a world wide plague of air and water pollution that is killing people right now by the millions. We do not have to wait for dramatic die offs from CO2 flooding cities, swallowing up farmlands and sending populated islands to the bottom of the sea, we are already suffering the ill effects of burning fossil fuels in our cars, in our homes and industries. Any movement, especially a large scale movement, such as 500,000,000 roof top solar panels is to be supported, commended and pushed for and not dismissed with the mindless posturing of a pseudo-intellectual enviromentalist posturing as a truth teller in the face of power. As the trend is so clear now that solar which also means wind, will displace most fossil fuels at an advanced pace that will arrive sooner than bureaucratic estimates of decades from now, the threat to environmentalist big wigs being supplanted by door to door solar sales reps must be emotionally traumatic.
Meanwhile, our country is forcing us to accept the coal trains……Jesus Christ. Let’s ship the coal to China to kill the Chinese. OK, that sounds like a good plan. What the f*** are we doing as humans anymore???
Nature’s budget for 2015.
If Nature has a limit, it Nature has a budget every year, so too does each of us, individual human beings, corporations and sovereigns.
I always laugh when I hear politicians talking about how “it’s time for us to learn how to live within our means.” This makes for a good soundbite; however, what is usually means, in practice, is that the peasants should learn to accept less.
How about learning to live within our environmental means? If we don’t, there won’t be an economic means to concern ourselves with.
Personally, I’ve got my electric bill down to averaging $60/month(including heat in the “winter” here) and I drive about 4000 miles/year in a car, which works out to about 17 gallons of gasoline a month. So I figure it’s well past time for some else to start living within their means.
Have you looked into self-driving mules?
I am thinking maybe I should get one or perhaps I should wait till governor Brown install turtle lanes and mule lanes on our glorious freeway system here in the Golden State.
“Where can I park my self-driving mule?”
Personally, I think there is your next 10 bagger IPO.
They’ve got a size limit on pets here. Plus they charge an extra $25/month even for smaller ones. But that doesn’t cover anything like food or Mule Care. Just the privilege of your pet living indoors with you. Then there is only one bathroom. Room for a kitty litter box, sure, but a mule would be problematic.
Makes me think it is possible to impose footprint debit cards for all pollution consumption and when you are close to your limit you have to go on a strict diet.
Remember ‘mission accomplished’? It’s back!
Down, Wolfie! That’s a good dog.
Depending on who wins the election, Wolfie, Rumsfeld, Bolton and company could once again have sway over U.S. foreign policy (god help us all).
It’s nothing to be happy about, but at least we are informed of this frontal attack, instead of the Volker-Geithner sleight of hand.
“We are not voting for one person. We are voting for a team. Please state upfront who will be on your team…and your financial backers are.”
I just can’t shake the image of Bolton et al. slapping a befuddled jeb! around, George. S. Patton-style, and demanding that he “man up” before he blows their chances for a triumphant return to power.
It would appear that the situation is critical and calls for an immediate emergency mind-meld.
Yes, that worked so well last time. Wonder if ‘Murica remembers?
Who gets to be Cheney? Also too, Putin.
Direct translation: Jeb Bush Says: I am going to use nuclear weapons against Russia.
Re-announcing because it seems like such a good idea, he just forgot that he already lit that bag of sht on the front porch, or is it a latent fear of success thingy just to be sure everyone knows he is actually the real idiot son?
http://www.motherjones.com/politics/2015/05/jeb-bush-adviser-paul-wolfowitz
The Jeb Bush Adviser Who Should Scare You
Paul Wolfowitz not only championed the Iraq War—he obsessively promoted a bizarre conspiracy theory.
—By David Corn
| Wed May 13, 2015 6:05 AM EDT
In February, his campaign released a list of 21 foreign policy advisers; 17 of them served in the George W. Bush administration. And one name stood out: Paul Wolfowitz, a top policy architect of the Iraq War—for the prospect of Wolfowitz whispering into Jeb’s ear ought to scare the bejeezus out of anyone who yearns for a rational national security policy.
Yale……pffff.
Meanwhile, over at Harvard Law, they are writing burning indictments against MERS. Read the amicus brief submitted in support of County of Montgomery County in Montgomery County v. MERS: http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=2602929.
China seeks to calm markets…devalue..3rd day…
If I recall correctly, a lot of emerging market nations have taken out dollar denomiated loans in the last few years, because cheap (print, print, print, as much as we want, we are our own sovereign) global reserve money has to be forced on some not-so-prime borrowers, domestic or foreign (hey, stop blaming the borrowers, janitors or helpless states like Greece, so yes, forced on the victims, I say).
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With this competitive devaluation spiral, will they also be in trouble like the Mediterranean countries?
Prolly more like the 1997 Asian Crisis, but who’s counting.
“Bullish” newsflash this morning on CNBS: FDA approves use of oxycontin in CHILDREN.
Because 160 vaccinations and a life of daily ADHD drugs and SSRIs just isn’t enough.
Will no one deliver us from this evil?
http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/2015/08/14/fda-approves-oxycontin-kids/31711929/
Where there is money to be made….
The degree of brainwashing in the population concerning “doctors” and the infallibility of prescription drugs is breathtaking. I am usually seriously denounced whenever I opine that parents should do some homework and take control of medical interventions affecting their children. NC has had threads about the overprescription of ADHD drugs before. With doctors now generally employees of rent seeking corporations, paranoia is a logical attitude to adopt.
We have to deliver ourselves from evil. Sad but true.
Katniss, $uper Max Prison$ are Huge cash cows…
“The number of people in state prisons for drug offenses has increased 550 percent over the last 20 years [2009 est]. A recent JPI report found that the amount spent on ‘cops and courts’ – not rates of drug use — is correlated to admissions to prison for drug offenses. Counties that spend more on law enforcement and the judiciary admit more people to prison for drug offenses than counties that spend less. And increases in federal funding through the Edward Byrne Memorial State and Local Law Enforcement Assistance Grant Program have promoted increases in resources dedicated to drug enforcement. As crime continues to fall in many communities, law enforcement will have more time to focus on aggressive policing of drug offenses; this can be expected to lead to even higher drug imprisonment rates and crowded jails and prisons. According to FBI reports, 83 percent of drug arrests are for possession of illegal drugs alone.16 And regardless of crime in a particular jurisdiction, police often target the same neighborhoods to make drug arrests, which can increase the disproportionate incarceration of people of color.”
http://www.drugwarfacts.org/cms/Prisons_and_Drugs#sthash.08dDwRu7.dpuf
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from my link earlier today: The way the bond works is that a monetary value is placed on the alleged crime and then factored the way banks factor their money. In other words if a person is convicted of a felony the ‘value’ would be $4 million. The county/city/ state then multiplies it by ten, so the bond that goes out for sale with the prisoner’s name and social security number is a short-term ‘promissory’ note. It’s offered at $40 million. Perhaps an investor will offer 40% of the $40 million, or $16 million. Once this ‘promissory note’ of the face value of $40 million reaches the banks it is then multiplied again by 200 to 300% and sold as bank securities. For those of you who wonder why the US has more people in prison per capita than any other nation on earth, you’ll begin to understand how we can have a weakening economy and still fund wars overseas. It’s all based on prisoners….in other words, prison for profit.
oops, cut myself off…my point being, they need to feed the monster and children will work just fine. Newt GingRich wants to open more orphanage$..something tells me he’ll make plenty room for addicted children.
This planet is a broken bone that didn’t set right, a hundred pieces of crystal glued together. We’ve been shattered and reconstructed, told to make an effort every single day to pretend we still function the way we’re supposed to. But it’s a lie, it’s all a lie.” Tahereh Mafi
HRC on emails. I am all for transparency but the slag linked to here is pretty preposterous and right out of the RW 527 smear campaign. Having a book in your possession and lending it to someone – and the thought police are up in arms….really? The RW is entering Nazi territory.
Why don’t you explain why corporate Democratic presidential candidates shouldn’t live under the laws they create. If I can be prosecuted for what I read, why not her? Why are you sticking up for a clan of corporate aristocrats?
In fact, since there are two people involved, why doesn’t 18 USC 371 apply here?
Funny or Die. Ralph Nader was wrong. You can satirize the Trumpster. Very funny.
From “the jackpot” – an interview with William Gibson, on his latest, umm, fiction: “Given that they have literally a magical ability to make money, what could they not do? That was my assumption. If somebody had that ability right now, here, what could they not do? It’s literally magical. A lot of this narrative is rather consciously a fairy tale.”
Does this sound familiar, at all?
” China on Thursday sought to calm fears that the country’s depreciating currency had set off”
Devaluations on 3 successive days are going to “calm the markets?” Who thinks that?
Krugman today has an article about the Chinese government not understanding the monster they’ve unleased – as if anyone, including Krugman, actually does.
Don’t know if this was already linked here, but if not I’m sure the NC readership will find it of interest: http://qz.com/473779/several-dutch-cities-want-to-give-residents-a-no-strings-attached-basic-income/