Only in America: Pennsylvania judge reminds citizens not to wear pajamas to court The Week (resilc)
150,000 penguins die after giant iceberg renders colony landlocked Guardian (Bob K, Chuck L)
Reindeer herding in Norway is a thing of exquisite beauty (video) TreeHugger
What’s the coolest mathematical fact you know of? AskReddit (EM)
How small is the world, really? Medium (resilc)
Over half the world’s population suffers from ‘severe’ water scarcity, scientists say Washington Post
The quake-maker you’ve never heard of: Cascadia (David L). CNN. But NC readers have heard of this!
What Happened to the Great Urban Design Projects? New York Times
Women accepted as better coders as long as no gender link TechXplore (Chuck L). More proof of the depth of prejudice against women.
How to Brick an iPhone By Changing the Date Guardian (William B)
Smartphones could become the earthquake sensors of the future Business Insider (David L)
CenturyLink joins Comcast in bringing data caps to home internet Verge
China?
IN PERSPECTIVE How Bad is the Chinese Stock Market Getting Hit? Economic Policy Journal
The EU is finished if it doesn’t allow Italy to fix its banks Telegraph. Important
EU’s Dutch Presidency: You can’t go wrong with “Blame Greece for Schengen-at-risk” Keep Talking Greece.
Scalia is Dead (I resisted the impulse to say something less respectful, but I am sure readers will have fewer inhibitions)
Antonin Scalia, Supreme Court justice, dies at 79 CNN (Judy B)
Supreme court justice Antonin Scalia dies: political and legal worlds react Guardian
President Obama Will Submit a Nomination to Replace Justice Scalia; GOP Signals Resistance Wall Street Journal
Hillary Clinton, Bernie Sanders Blast Republicans for Threatening to Block Scalia Replacement ABC
Big Brother is Watching You Watch
Cryptome’s searing critique of Snowden Inc. Tim Shorrock. A must read. I haven’t had time to play the underlying interview. but bob says it really is worth a listen and sent the link: Interview with Cryptome.
Drawbacks to the Saudi Offer to Send Troops to Syria to Fight ISIS WSJ Washington Wire
Syria Daily: Assad — We Will Retake The Entire Country EA WorldView (resilc)
Is New York State About to Create a Blacklist of BDS Supporters? Nation (Dr. Kevin)
Imperial Collapse Watch
AMERICA AT BAY – EVADING DESTINY Sic Semper Tyrannis (resilc)
2016
The CBS News Republican debate transcript, annotated Washington Post
35 WTF Moments From the Craziest GOP Debate Yet Rolling Stone
Why Are George Soros-Linked Financiers Giving Big Bucks to Support John Kasich? Mother Jones (resilc)
Broken | Hillary Clinton YouTube(Kevin C). Contrast with Erica Garner endorsement of Bernie Sanders for President You Tube if you haven’t see it yet.
When Hillary Clinton Killed Feminism Maureen Dowd, New York Times (David L, resilc). Ooh, she’s in unusually good form.
Superdelegates Might Not Save Hillary Clinton FiveThirtyEight
Bill Clinton downplays Obama as first black president American Mirror (resilc)
In South Carolina, Clinton goes on the attack against Sanders for disloyalty to Obama Washington Post. Lambert: “Must be read to be believed.”
Warning signs for Hillary Clinton in South Carolina MSNBC
There will be blood in South Carolina Washington Post. Lambert: “Anecdote but well chosen.”
This Is How Hillary Clinton Gets the Coverage She Wants Gawker (Li)
Congress wants to privatize US air traffic control, but what does it mean for flyers? Verge
Heading Down the Wrong Track on Amtrak’s Northeast Corridor Prospect (resilc)
How one Democrat is using SEC football to raise taxes New Republic (resilc)
Corporations Killed Medicine. Here’s How to Take It Back Nation (resilc)
Police who profit from seized goods betray those they are supposed to help Guardian
Citigroup Bucks Repo Gloom With One of Most Profitable Years Bloomberg (Scott). From January, still interesting.
Puppy shoots Florida man Boing Boing
Police State Watch
How Police Use a Dangerous Anti-Terrorism Tactic to End Pursuits Intercept (resilc)
What Cops Are Saying About an NYPD Officer’s Conviction for Killing an Unarmed Black Man Vice (resilc)
The Feds Busted a Gang of Georgia Prison Guards for Overseeing Major Coke and Meth Deals Vice
Fed
The next recession could be around the corner, and the Fed isn’t ready for it Vox
Class Warfare
Alcoholism Epidemic at Indian Reservation – Deregulation, Tentherism to Blame Esquire (reslic)
The History of Lead Poisoning in the U.S. Atlantic (resilc)
Antidote du jour (Lawrence R):
See yesterday’s Links and Antidote du Jour here.
242 comments
Comments are closed.
The Asteroid Cometh
I think the space aliens are reading NC, or at they’re sympathetic with the editorial stance and general disposition of the peanut gallery.
This is a real newspaper story from Ireland last week about a retired carpenter taken up into a ship and then taken on a tour of the North Pole and also told how the world will end — by asteroid in 850 years.
This is also what the aliens told him:
“In 850 years from now, a giant asteroid the size of Munster is going to obliterate your planet. The asteroid will approach your planet from the 35th Quadrant.
We are four million light years more advanced than you are. We have been observing you for Millennia. In all that time you have only excelled at two things — global warfare and lying to your own species.
Additionally, the observant alien told him not to trust politicians or banks, which is likely advice he didn’t really need from the ETs.”
This should have been a Link today. If any of you guys aren’t too hungover from a pre-Valentine’s day binge on beers and flaming shots at the stip club last night, check this out.
It’s real! Check this dude out and be honest with yourself. Is this dude a wacko? He looks pretty normal. Why would he make up something as ridiculous as this? He’s not even a banker trying to stuff a muppet with a derivative deal. He has nothing to gain. 850 years is a long time, so it’s not panic time yet, but it makes you think maybe we need a space laser with some real juice just in case.
limerickpost.ie/2016/02/11/close-encounters-of-the-county-limerick-kind/
Weird stuff happens – that’s for sure. Like today’s link, “Puppy shoots Florida man Boing Boing”. Ouch. Bet that guy isn’t gonna be bragging about it at the local tavern after a couple beers.
The Space Alien story sure seems believable. The Irish carpenter dude quoted the Alien saying, “We are four million light years more advanced than you are.” Space Aliens usually use parsecs, but I guess they may have converted parsecs to light years just so the Irish carpenter would understand.
Then the Space Alien did say “Use The Force” to push the Munster Asteroid away. That makes a lot of sense, because in 850 years we will be outta energy!
I wonder if they meant Herman Munster? I don’t want to be too critical of alien physics, but a light year is a span of distance not a duration of time. I frankly doubt these beings are telling the truth and I don’t think they really are aliens. But that’s even weirder than if they are aliens,
When you spend a lotta time jumping thru wormholes, things get all mixed up. It probably does make sense to the Space Aliens. But I don’t think Space Aliens watch the Munsters, even though it is on youtube. That’s kinda hard to believe.
neither a light year or a parsec are likely to be within an alien vocabulary. Since we are all waves, here is a wave to everyone on this Sunday.
I think they meant Munster , IN
In all that time you have only excelled at two things — global warfare and lying to your own species.
Haute Couture?
Maybe like our own Planets sea mammals, Aliens derive no aesthetic appreciation for cloths?
“we come in Peas”…….er….Pods!”
I really hope they are not like John Varleys’ Aliens who prefer sea mammals to bipedal hominids.
What about rock and roll?
The aliens who are telepathically communicating and have access to a persons thoughts/memories obviously would make use of concepts that a particular human
can understand. This man gets his scientific/technological concepts from movies and TV, so the aliens use these same constructs to communicate with him. Munster
might refer to the place https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Munster or even to this man’s own peculiar fantasy of producing a Guinness World Record Munster Cheese http://www.guinnessworldrecords.com/world-records/largest-cheese-(sheeps-milk).
If this end of earth message had a lot to do with wood and dovetails and other carpentry based knowledge, I am sure the aliens would have used these terms.
May the force be with you!
Have you ever met the Pleidians? :-)
(in person or through channeling, either way)
I think I met them while on psychedelics in the early ’70’s.
Actually , I think I’d be good if we get to flog this old blue ball for another 850 years. And frankly, if we get taken out with a big wheel of cheese, not such a bad to go? If not that our best case scenario is to be consumed by the Sun as it transmutes down to an cold lump of iron.
–Given the choice of asteroid composition, my preference would be a nice stilton or a soft pecorino –but that’s just me.
You just know it’d be industrial, hard pecorino romano. It’s always pecorino romano here when they say pecorino.
Isn’t the Moon supposed to be green cheese? What type of cheese is green? This suggests that most asteroids are ‘cheesoniferous achondrites’. I sincerely hope our fate is not to be semi sentient fondues.
I think the “green” cheese in the fable is “unripe” cheese. Don’t certain types of cheese have to age a couple of years before they’re fit to eat? I’m afraid I’m not that familiar with the process of making cheese.
I like this idea. Now, we can figure the age of or solar system from the educated surmises of cheese experts! It also gives new meaning to “the wheel of the heavens.” Not least of the attractions here is the surprising vindication of the “Milky Way.”
How can you have 35 quadrants?
Multi dimensionality.
You start with 50 and lose 15 going for the 10 bagger.
Thanks craazyman, that was a fun read.
Pallaskenry, Limerick and Moffat, CO may humanities last hope.
Pallaskenry, Limerick, and Moffat, CO, would make great twin towns – some serious UFO stuff going on there.
https://downthegreatdivide.files.wordpress.com/2010/10/dsc00952.jpg
Obviously a Pookah messing with the poor guy.
Obviously had too much Welsh Rabbit last night. What Erse could it be?
Scalia: just one anecdote, which is really more about the media and D.C. and spin than it is about Scalia.
Back in 1986, when Scalia was nominated by Reagan, I remember Nina Totenberg of NPR doing a background piece [not online, AFAIK] with lots of fluffing, on and off the record, from members of the D.C. legal community about what a great, modest, mild-tempered guy `Nino’ was. One anonymous story Totenberg passed on was about how Scalia went so far as to gently suggest privately to colleagues on the bench that they tone down the language in their opinions because it was too intemperate. No, really.
Just something to keep in mind with whomever the nominee to replace him is.
Dying did not make Scalia a decent human being. All the airbrushing, from the President to Anderson Cooper cannot change the body of opinions he left behind. He was in the same category of US Justices as Taney.
When I heard Scalia was dead, my first (and I mean first) thought was that the bankers committed another assisted suicide.
Scalia penned Jesinoski, a decision that has the bankers reeling. I thought that Scalia’s death was Jamie Dimon’s payback. I still wonder…..
Was he in bad health?
79 is not that all. 60 is the new 40 and 80 is the new 60.
What did he died of? Seemed quite sudden…the next morning he was found dead.
Details seem to be very sketchy. The only thing that is reported is that he went to bed early and in the morning was found dead. It is notable that he was attending a party the night before. He was not at his own home. We have no way of knowing if Jamie Dimon slipped something into Scalia’s meal. I find it fascinating. And again, I still wonder…..
The lingering smell of cordite and gun oil after 40 guests of the ranch spent all Friday’s killing quail covered up the smell of brimstone that permeated Scalia’s room by Saturday noon.
Evidence of the collection of a bargain made long ago? Balaam keeps very careful books.
well… i’m allllmost 60……sure don’t feel like 40…..
In the end, we’re all deader……….
That’s the propaganda anyway.
My mother is over 80. My brother and I take care of her, and she’s starting to act, not just feel, like a kid.
Maybe 80 is the new 20.
80 has always been the new 10.
and she’s starting to act, not just feel, like a kid.
heh, great way to put it mltpb
I’m heading towards 50 and I feel old. I can’t imagine thinking 79 isn’t that old when the median age for mortality is the early 70s.
Mind you that number is probably on the low end for 1%ers like the ones Scalia mingled with but for me almost 80 is a pretty long life.
I believe the average lifespan for MEN (born in the 1930’s) is 77. I’m a decade short of that and maintaining strength and good health takes a concerted effort.
I’m 78, and, trust me, the effort does not get less as you grow older. On the other hand, the older I get the more glad I am I expended the effort when I was younger and the more I am motivated to put in as much effort as I can now.
I’m right with you there. I only wish I felt 40 again.
ambrit, you write with the wisdom of an 80 year old, but the vigor of a 30 year old (not an easy task to comment almost every day. Trust me, I know).
Thanks MLTPB. You caught me at the right time, (when I needed a bit of a boost.) Now, we could discourse on that wonderful habit some people develop, such as myself, of trying to come across as all so humble and self effacing. B——s! I’ve got an ego, as Phyllis will attest. Fighting that has taught me the most.
Hope to meet you wandering along that Eightfold path!
that kinda sounds like common-cored math to me
LOL! You’re right though. Thirty from eighty leaves fifty. Fifty, the time when we begin to see more clearly.
I’m with you, MLTPB. I really enjoy ambrit’s posts, which strike a balanced tone.
Thank you. The balanced part is up for debate however. I often don’t see that aspect clearly.
I’m heading towards 50 and I feel old.
spring chicken, quitcherbellyachin
Amrit, glad to see your back from the flu, That took be down for 40 hours straight a couple weeks ago, begrudgingly leaving me w/ a chest cold cough. Bernie Sanders had the same damn thing during his last debate.
Aaaaargthhhh…. That’s the sound I make when I try to get all the mucosial substances out in one go. I know what you mean. I’ve had pneumonia twice in the last ten years, the walking around sort. So, I’m a bit, er, retiring when any influenza strikes. The congestion gets a lot thicker after sundown. How did we get through all this when we were kids? (My parents would give me a stiff, hot Rum and Lemon when I came down with anything. A quiet sick kid is the optimal sort.)
More like a fall chicken.
They warn you that puberty sucks……no one even mentions perimenopause. It makes puberty feel like a walk in the park. I’m pretty sure my estrogen is out to get me.
Ah, I empathize with you at the second hand. When Phyllis ‘made the change,’ she was in her middle fifties. Both of us were ‘dazed and confused’ at how her body mistreated her. She would tell all and sundry; “Watch out for PMSD.”
Have hope madame. After ‘things’ settled down, Phyllis would sometimes tell me; “You men don’t know how lucky you are not to have to work through a hormonal storm whenever the Moon rises.”
Scalia was rather obese. If he had some long standing heart disease, it may not be that much of a surprise given his age that his physical state may have led to a natural causes death.
… No autopsy on the death of a sitting Supreme Court Justice? Why?
IIRC, this ranch was one of the places where the 1% goes so they can pay to shoot animals. Makes me wonder if Cheney was in the vicinity!
We’ll be holding a dance on scalia’s grave directly after the planting. Free keg beer for celebrants.
And I agree with Repubs that a lame duck Pres should not appoint his replacement. I’d rather have Pres Sanders do it. (I stole this quote from someone but I love the sentiment)
Y’all better keep your mouths shut when the Right celebrates Ginsburg’s death.
24.media.tumblr.com/65f923a6c967193ada732a3782075357/tumblr_n45hb1L3DD1tw1vhco1_500.gif
Dang it.
http://24.media.tumblr.com/65f923a6c967193ada732a3782075357/tumblr_n45hb1L3DD1tw1vhco1_500.gif
Yes, because a justice who has dedicated her life to making the country a better place for women, minorities and the poor is exactly equivalent to one who spent his every second on the bench making things worse, and doing so in as snide and petty a manner as possible.
Shorter you:
Once Scalia has been replaced by a center-right corporate sellout, you can ask yourself how much there really was to celebrate.
I’m pretty sure that center right would be an improvement over Justice Scalia and no on would ever know the difference on the corporate sell out part since they’d be replacing Mr “Corporations are special people” (unlike women or gays).
I agree with Tom. No comparison at all.
And besides, as Hemingway is supposed to have said, “A sonofabitch alive is a sonofabitch dead.”
When I first read your comment, I thought; “Allen Ginsberg???”
See: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8A_tDB7t5eg
Sunflower Sutra.
Excellent article by attorney bmaz at Emptywheel. Points out that Scalia at times was quite good on Fourth Amendment and the Sixth. and on who Obama is likely to choose.
—-Obama has already said he will make a nomination, and I believe he will. If I had to bet right now, my bet is that the nominee is Sri Srinivasan. I have long thought this, and Sri, while being a decent guy, is a dead nuts centrist, barely a “liberal” at all kind schlub that Obama loves. But I doubt the crazed GOP led Senate would confirm even a milquetoast centrist like Srinivasan. Let other speculation begin now even though the chances of confirmation of any nominee are close to nil.—-
https://www.emptywheel.net/2016/02/13/el-nino-scalia/
Vox article lists seven SCOTUS candidates ready to roll.
All wedded to status quo policies,…Regardless of party affinity….
none who’s appointed will be thinking,thus deciding, out of the box we’re sealed in……just more destructive policy.
Supremely Hubristic Bought & Paid for Court
……….like every other branch of governme….
And what a bargain!!!
You paid a finite purchase price to gain an infinite money creation machine.
John Kerry highly likely to be confirmed, though 72, not ideal.
Imo only current or former senator will get through, any other nominee will just be bottled up.
OMFG….NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO
I mean,….imagine how good he’d be with ajudication when he cant’ even articulate, and execute a valid foreign policy !!………let alone reeking of over-priced ketchup!
That’s a very interesting first name,
In Hindu, it has the root meaning of goddess of prosperity.
For her believers.
What, ‘Antonin’? (Surely not ‘Polecat’ or … ‘John’!) I always thought it was a fitting reference to Antonin Artaud, inventor of the Theater of Cruelty.
Or maybe not so fitting: at least when Artaud came out of Rodez lunatic asylum after 50+ electroshock treatments, he wanted ‘To Have Done With the Judgement of God’. (This was announced on French national radio, with ‘God’ characterized as a swarm of morpions, or crab lice.)
There is a lot of Hindu stuff in Balinese dance and Artaud was impressed.
Due to his originalist philosophy, Scalia was indeed quite good on the Sixth Amendment. I’m not so sure about the Fourth Amendment, however. And, as for the Sixth, much of what Scalia insisted upon was the primacy of juries over judges in decison-making, which is positive in that it imposed systemic burdens that probably benefitted civil rights indirectly. But it was really formalism and there wasn’t much more to his Sixth Amendment jurisprudence than that. Still, Scalia had some positives, unlike Thomas and Alito who are uniformly horrid.
This Srinivasan person sounds like another go-along-get-along mainstream jurist. Since the legal mainstream today is quasi-fascist, that is scarcely an endorsement. I’d rather give President Bernie the pick.
One could speculate that he may also have been the vote that would keep Cruz from claiming natural born citizenship. Not a scenario that would have been all that likely, fortunately.
priceless tags on the gun puppy story:
animal cruelty / assholes / karma / puppies
Re: Washington Post’s water scarcity article compared to the Guardian’s same article.
The Washington Post left out the finding that cows consume 25% of all fresh water.
In 2009, Scientific American warned that human agriculture would end in 60 years because of soil degradation and depletion rates. Combining these two stories, we can state the following:
1) 50% of humanity’s soil will be gone in 30 years.
2) 50% of humanity will be without water in 30 years.
CONCLUSION: 50% of humanity will go hungry in 30 years.
This means we will run out of enough water, soil and food before we get 100% renewable power. Northern Europe currently gets 50% of its “renewable energy” by burning wood they ship in from all over the world. They import soy oil from South America and palm oil from Indonesia to burn in their diesel cars.
If you would like to know more, you can look here:
https://lokisrevengeblog.wordpress.com/2016/01/24/no-soil-water-before-100-renwable-energy/
Robert, you bring up some important broad points about unsustainable agricultural practices.
But allow me to refine some of them. Cows/Cattle do not directly consume 25% of all freshwater. That percentage is close to the amount of freshwater/groundwater that goes into ALL livestock and crops and pasture to feed them. (Big difference, since alfalfa (huge water consumer) is the primary feed for most livestock.)
Without doubt agriculture and world population are on a crash course. Change is needed. That will be by choice or calamity. (See: Jared Diamond)
The republican debate. Same baloney, sliced thinner.
But at least there was some pretty hilarious stuff (fortunately, I don’t have carpet, so when I spewed out my red wine during some of these lines, no damage done:
BUSH: He has had the gall to go after my mother.
Hold on. Let me finish. He has had the gall to go after my mother.
TRUMP: That’s not keeping us safe.
TRUMP: How did he keep us safe when the World Trade Center — the World — excuse me. I lost hundreds of friends. The World Trade Center came down during the reign of George Bush. He kept us safe? That is not safe. That is not safe, Marco. That is not safe.
RUBIO: The World Trade Center came down because Bill Clinton didn’t kill Osama bin Laden when he had the chance to kill him.
(((The only thing surprising is that Jimmy Carter wasn’t blamed)))
(APPLAUSE) TRUMP: And George Bush– by the way, George Bush had the chance, also, and he didn’t listen to the advice of his CIA.
BUSH: Look, I won the lottery when I was born 63 years ago, looked up, and I saw my mom. My mom is the strongest woman I know.
TRUMP: She should be running.
(((BEST LINE OF THE NIGHT!!!!! Actually, if you were to substitute Ronald Reagan for Barbara Bush, it could be used on every candidate)))
BUSH: I’m not going to invite Donald Trump to the rally in Charleston on Monday afternoon when he brother is coming to speak.
TRUMP: I don’t want to go.
….
CRUZ: You know, the lines are very, very clear. Marco right now supports citizenship for 12 million people here illegally. I oppose citizenship. Marco stood on the debate stage and said that.
But I would note not only that, Marco has a long record when it comes to amnesty. In the state of Florida, as speaker of the house, he supported in-state tuition for illegal immigrants. In addition to that, Marco went on Univision in Spanish and said he would not rescind President Obama’s illegal executive amnesty on his first day in office.
I have promised to rescind every single illegal executive action, including that one.
(MIX OF APPLAUSE AND BOOING)
CRUZ: And on the question…
(CROSSTALK)
RUBIO: Well, first of all, I don’t know how he knows what I said on Univision because he doesn’t speak Spanish. And second of all, the other point that I would make…
CRUZ: (SPEAKING SPANISH).
BUSH: (INAUDIBLE) Just, for the record (INAUDIBLE) make sure my mother’s listening, if she’s watching the debate. I didn’t say that I was going to moon somebody…
(((LOL – Clintonian parsing – Bush did not say he WOULD moon, but did say IF he mooned….)))
TRUMP: … You did say it, You did say it. Been reported in 10 different news…
GARRET: … We will leave the moon metaphors to be adjudicated later, I assure you…
I actually thought the most telling moment was when Jeb (+/- !) complained to the moderators that he was “tired of Trump going after my family.” Of course he didn’t confront Trump directly because he knew he would get pummeled again so – like the candy ass that he is – he complained to the teacher. Bad move Jebbie.
Jeb’s problem is he is the younger brother.
Hillary’s problem is she’s Bill’s wife.
Older brothers first.
Husbands first.
That’s the Dark Ages Way.
I don’t know about younger brothers, but I can imagine how women feel, the prejudice is pervasive and deep.
“Identity politics is our bread and butter. But not this time.”
Oh please!
Jeb’s problem is that he is an establishment candidate and the third member of his direct family to attempt to run the country.
Hillary’s problem is that she is an establishment candidate with a record kowtowing to the 1% and generally being a neocon on economic, military, and foreign relations issues.
Hillary is not losing because she is a woman: Hillary is losing in spite of being a woman. If she had Sander’s record to run on, she would be unstoppable. Her problem is that she’s having a hard time distancing herself from her own record of supporting war and taking bribes from banksters. You know all this MLTPB, I know you do.
Timing.
It’s easier to fool people the first time, or even the second time.
hillary is no Tulsi Gabbard !
Yep if Elizabeth Warren was the candidate she would have been the big favorite for the nomination even though the establishment could not care for her.
Trump needs to eliminate Bush first because in Republican illogical logic he is the most unifying and electable. Trump can then go after Cruz who adds new meaning to the phrase “Jesus freak”. Rubio is next which won’t be a problem for Trump because Rubio, the clean cut, good looking Spanish Obama reminds people of a high school honor student running for president of the United States. Ain’t gonna happen! This leaves Kasich another midwest republican governor hell bent on selling everything that isn’t nailed down to private interests. Kasich will self-immolate. Some time real soon the republicans “see we ain’t racists” candidate Carson will unretire and rush back to surgery probaly going to the wrong hospital. Man, when that Carson gets on the camera I get embarrassed for the guy.
Soon Trump will be able to put it in neutral and coast until it gets Hill-ary!
On “Face the Nation” this morning, the always reliable conservative cheerleader Peggy Noonan took issue with jeb!’s whining. She found it “odd” and “unbecoming” for a 63-year-old man to be constantly invoking his mom and “pop” in a debate where “serious issues” were being discussed.
She wasn’t buying the assessment that these “attacks” on Trump made jeb! look “strong.” From the looks of it, Trump wasn’t buying it either. Jeb! is starting to look like that fly that just won’t quit buzzing around, forcing you to go find the fly swatter and make sure it never bothers anyone again.
I am a fear that Jeb!, should his polls continue to decline, will actually resort to the “moon” shot that he mentioned as a possibility to get attention – the thought of that pale, flabby 63 year old as* can’t be unthought!
http://www.politifact.com/florida/statements/2016/feb/14/donald-trump/donald-trump-says-jeb-bush-said-he-would-moon-ever/
Trump’s spokeswoman referred us to a a Feb. 6 article by Matt Viser in the Boston Globe a few days before the New Hampshire primary. The main point of the article was that Bush had to do well in New Hampshire — or later this month in South Carolina — or he would face pressure to end his campaign.
“Sitting on his campaign bus — laptop, turkey jerky, and coffee all nearby — Jeb Bush was befuddled over his campaign’s failure to capture more attention from the news media.
“I could drop my pants,” he said in an interview. “Moon the whole crowd. Everybody would be aghast, except the press guys would never notice.”
So it was actually Bush who suggested — in jest here — to the Boston Globe reporter that he could even pull down his pants and moon people and he still would get no media attention.
It’s fair to say that Bush was exaggerating here to make a point about the lack of media coverage he was getting. And Bush made that point to a reporter from a major publication. And that reporter led with it in an article three days before the primary.
==============================================
Well, Jeb! brought it up! Jeb! did not definitively rule it out! Who know what he will do if he gets desperate enough! How does the reporter KNOW Jeb! was jesting! ? !
exclamation point!
Jeb!
They are stealing the Onions material.
Are they trying to make the Republicans a fun bunch?
Nothing but laughter from that camp.
WaPo roundup featured “tweets” from Repub commentariat that essentially said that Trump “lost” the debate because he shouted out plain truths re: Iraq/WMD…crowd continually booed him when he pressed his points, especially when Trump threw back at Jeb! the latter’s remark that his bro “kept us safe”…SC Repubs still love Dubya, are in complete denial re: Iraq invasion and occupation…just dumbfounding.
That courage or is it recklessness, to say what is in his mind, forfeiting whatever advantage doing otherwise might bring…
Calling weak weak.
Long-time lurker, first-time poster. Please be nice. :)
The new vacancy on the Court puts Obama in a tough spot. He’s likely to nominate another Wall Street-approved, corporate-friendly judge who happens to check off the identity-politics boxes one way or another, thus providing the illusion that we’re getting a “liberal” nominee. The Republicans will try to block him/her anyway (and probably succeed, given the Dems’ chronic fecklessness). But the Bernie Sanders surge has many of the Dem primary voters paying extra attention to corporate whoring, and if Obama puts forth the faux-liberal, pro-1% nominee I expect him to, the argument that “We need Hillary because of the Supreme Court” loses whatever resonance it retains.
One good indicator will be how prominently the Citizens United decision (which Obama and Clinton claim to oppose) figures in the confirmation hearings.
Excellent summary! Not sure, however, that Bernie won’t suffer more than Hillary because of this.
True, we don’t really know how the dynamics of the open SCOTUS position will play in the primary. Voters can be strange — rationally speaking, I don’t know on what planet Hillary is more “electable” than Bernie, but that’s a mindset that’s been tough to dislodge among many Dem primary voters, even those otherwise supportive of Bernie. Let’s see which candidate can leverage this opportunity the best…
Oh, that’s the planet where the moderate wing of the Party can still buy the results they want, Parties’ laity tranquilly consume their respective propaganda drips and arguments stay carefully within the policy space and arguments provided by their bosses and supervisors.
Welcome aboard!
This is an opportunity for Sanders to reiterate his position that Citizens United should be overturned.
It’s a popular position on both sides of an aisle.
I had much the same thought. Obama’s choice for the SCOTUS could shatter one of the key “electability” talking points, that Dems must control the Whitehouse because of SCOTUS. If he picks a Wall-Street approved candidate, then the detractors are proven correct – there is no difference. Obama could damage the Dem base further – and still end up with little to show for it when the Reps refuse to hold a vote.
Still, I am also skeptical this would help Berny any. So far, he has had a very light touch when it comes to Obama’s policies and actions. Still, Berny has proven himself a very shrewd politician. He might use it to call out the Republicans, rather than Clinton. This would expose Clintion’s pragmatic cowardice indirectly.
The Washington Post left out the finding that cows consume 25% of all fresh water.
In 2009, Scientific American warned that human agriculture would end in 60 years because of soil degradation and depletion rates. Combining these two stories, we can state the following:
1) 50% of humanity’s soil will be gone in 30 years.
2) 50% of humanity will be without water in 30 years.
CONCLUSION: 50% of humanity will go hungry in 30 years.
This means we will run out of enough water, soil and food before we get 100% renewable power. Northern Europe currently gets 50% of its “renewable energy” by burning wood they ship in from all over the world. They import soy oil from South America and palm oil from Indonesia to burn in their diesel cars.
If you would like to know more, you can look for this:
lokisrevengeblog.wordpress.com/2016/01/24/no-soil-water-before-100-renwable-energy/
If one looks at the disparity between the First World and the Third World (in anything, energy, water, food, etc), one can sees many in the latter consume less than 50% of the former.
The First World could, if must, subsist at 50%.
The problem is, and has always been, the option to loot the Third World so many in the First World don’t die.
“Let’s put more solar in Africa to power more beef jerky factories there. Our beautiful, scenic country is for a park, not a giant pasture. And more wind in Latin America to process chicken, so they can earn imperial currency reserves, lest they have to default on their debts and devalue their currencies again.”
And we must support our soldiers who protect our self-driving electric trucks hauling bottled water from Mosi-oa-Tunya to giant sailboats that will bring fresh water home to quench our thirst.
We must not consume less.
But we are greener now, but eat more beef jerky and enjoy your chicken.
We are keeping the price of bottled water down.
No inflation here.
You can keep the rates negative.
And we have told our proconsuls to capture a few more wage slaves. Hey, we don’t condone slavery, and we don’t do slavery ourselves. We are the good guys. In any case, to keep it short, your laminating flooring should stay cheap for a long time.
Again, no inflation.
WE”REALLLLLLLLGONNADIEEEEEE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
……….I just can’t help myself…. Mr C’s doom brings out my inner scream
Well besides being doomed, it really is a great big lottery for the annual holocaust of 5.5 millions deaths per year from air pollution. We get to die everyday by the thousands from this alone. I mean, we don’t have to wait for the(fill in your favorite ticking time bomb/disaster waiting to happen end of the world scenario here-_______________________________________).
WE ARE DYING BY A MILLION EVERY 66 DAYS!!!!!!! AAAAARRRRGGGGGHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
We now return you to your regularly scheduled anxiety and panic attack brought on by genuflecting to our corporate overlords.
Thank You For Your Patience, Your Business is Precious To Us
The Management
http://www.hngn.com/articles/178993/20160214/air-pollution-kills-5-million-worldwide-year-new-research.htm
You keep posting this crap. My question is how much the Koch’s are paying you? Just more Kochsucker crap that is put out to confuse people:
“Spot The Solar Fig Leaf That Will Cover China’s Environmental Degradation” “Learn why the Rockefellers fund Bill McKibben and Naomi Klein” “It takes 1 ton of coal to make 6-12 solar panels.”
“it takes 10X as much solar & wind energy to close 1 fossil fuel power plant simply because they don’t produce energy all the time” – BS, the capacity factor of solar and wind ranges from 17-45%.
Soil and agriculture are under huge strain but that is just because of the evil empire of Monsanto! Yes, palm oil needs to end now but humans and livestock are not the cause of every thing you list. Show me an energy flow for all the crops and livestock and show how that causes all extinctions you list. Otherwise, you are just a vegan on steroids.
Also, you don’t have to worry about all the billions of humans mucking things up; the Saudi’s and Turkey are going to start WWIII and millions and maybe billions will be killed when Obama takes their side.
Doom and gloom; so just go on blowing up those mountains for coal, frack everywhere, more oil sand oil on first nation land, bow down to the 12th century barbarian house of Saud, etc, etc, etc.
Debbie Wasserman Schultz admits that the super-delegate FIX IS IN. Finally someone admits that this Dem Primary system is just a charade. Why bother.
Link for above quote. Posted separately in case Skynet is irritable today.
http://truthinmedia.com/dnc-chair-superdelegates-protect-party-leaders-from-grassroots-competition/
Did you read, Superdelegates Might Not Save Hillary Clinton -Nate Silver ?
It argues that the super thumb
jiltingtilting the score with super delegates will only matter if the elected delegates are fairly close.But then vote counting fraud is more likely when results are judged to be close. Close is what Hillary wants most right now and the MSM comes in mightily in support of that when it deviates from the facts and when they can get away with it.
I have no idea what she is saying, not when I watched her say it and not even re-reading it several times.
I think the translation is: it’s not a democratic voting process. The Democratic party is controlled by the elites and we humor the grassroots into believing that they matter to us.
I really, really hope DWS, the other Democratic apparatchiks and the billionaires feel the Bern this election.
I hate to defend DWS on anything because it sours my stomach, but it sounds more like she’s saying that those delegates are “unpledged” so that if the rank and file vote against their original endorsement they can change sides and not “[run] against grassroots activists.” That’s a hell of a word salad though, I could certainly be misreading it.
I just thought of a possible reform the the Democratic nomination process (that will never be implemented).
Keep the super delegates, but don’t let them vote in the first ballot, and maybe not in the second one, either. If the delegates who were actually elected in state primaries or caucuses can’t decide on a candidate, then allow the party insiders who constitute the legion of super delegates to participate in the balloting along with the elected delegates.
The view from abroad: what the hell are all of these mechanisms that disenfranchise the citizens of the country? How can the American people continue to allow them?
Iowa caucuses. The entire Electoral College. Winner take all states. And now “Superdelegates”. Do Americans still think they are too lazy or too stupid to elect their own leaders?
I think the Swiss have it right. Elect a council of 6, for 6 years. Rotate the leadership each year among the six, to briefly give that faction a leg up and tie-breaker power. Then put *everything major* up for nationwide referendums, all the time. People flock to the Gasthaus on Sunday, more than a dozen times per year, to decide their own fate.
Good question.
I don’t know how many Americans actually believe that, but I’m certain that a majority of our political and financial leaders believe that.
Trump at SC debate
What can one say but–yes! I have no read on whether this will hurt him with local Repubs but at least give him credit for speaking the untidy truth. No dry powder here.
Link for above.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/trump-amplifies-personal-attacks-and-sc-voters-will-tell-us-if-it-worked/2016/02/13/f3b496fc-d1f1-11e5-abc9-ea152f0b9561_story.html
Hahaha. That’s a good one. Every once in a while Trump says something truthful — albeit in the voice of a high school bully.
I can’t imagine what Jebbie is thinking by bringing Dubya out to campaign for him. Maybe he thinks there is a core of dead-ender party loyalists that still have a warm feeling for Dubya.
There are a lot of Republicans who like W: Bush is more popular than Obama. I guess once you’ve made the reality-defying decision to be or stay Republican, why not like W? And Obama has done a lot of stuff for honest people on the left to dislike him over. (Libya, unregulated banks, TPP, domestic spying, etc.)
43 is good on the campaign trail. People do like him personally. I think 43 just hates Jeb and has told him to talk up Barb at every opportunity.
Too bad Trump didn’t preface his statements about George W. with “The American people aren’t stupid!” which was Bernie’s best line in my opinion. That would have demonstrated that the emperor has no clothes on both sides of the aisle. File this under “I hate it when Trump is right.”.
Reagan was right, more than he realized (unless he was not senile already at the time) when the soldiers showed up and said,
“Hey, I am from the Big American government, with global footprint, and we are here to help you, Mr. Syrian/Iraqi/Afghan citizen.”
“Here is my associate, Mr. Private Contractor, from Big Business.”
“He is also here to help you.”
If it ends up being Clinton v. Trump in the general election, in many ways he will be running to her left.
Which is why I think the usual analyses of “oh the liberals might bitch and moan but in the end they’ll vote for whoever we run in the general” is…not going to be accurate this time.
Looking more and more possible at one of the possible match-ups:
Clinton vs. Trump – Clinton wins.
I think Trump absolutely smokes Clinton in the general. A candidate with a message usually impresses the voters much more than a candidate with no message.
The Dem insiders have to know this. I’m yet to see any evidence that it bothers them, though.
The insiders are already looking at finding there Plan B. That’s why we’ve got rumblings of a Bloomberg nomination.
I’ve said it forever. I don’t understand why activists don’t utilize third parties because I can assure you the Republicratic political machine that our corporate stooges own have absolutely no problem using them to thwart activists.
So if the Dems (and the GOP, for that matter) nominate a candidate on the basis of strong anti-Wall Street sentiment, the establishment’s countermove is to plug a Wall Street billionaire into the race?
That’ll work.
I didn’t say they were smart(as evidenced by the state of the country.)
Wall Street establishment believes they can buy elections and for YEARS they’ve been successfully able to do so, they aren’t going to stop trying to game the system simply because the rest of us are tired of it. They’ll continue to try to manipulate the system as long as they can.
Sincerely doubt Team Red has a shot, this (dated) link explains why:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pTC06FmFNCY&feature=youtu.be
So the real battle is Bernie vs Hilary. For a handy examination of Her Majesty’s verisimilitude over the years, try this, it veers into the ideological from time to time but just the laundry list of the actual investigations, indictments and judgments is quite useful:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kypl1MYuKDY
WaPo claims Trump lost the debate. I looked at the online polls (very unscientific) and they all had Trump the winner by anywhere from 30% to 50%. I think online polls do show something about enthusiasm for a candidate and Trump certainly seems to have very passionate support.
Reality can be distorting.
One angry, agitated guy will say 10,000 words.
10,000 calm guys might not say a word.
Many signs and not a sign – they are not reliable indicators.
Carolinian
February 14, 2016 at 8:42 am
I’ve said it many times, but a significant, if not a majority of repubs (well, dems too) don’t really scrutinize what politicians say for logic or consistency or adherence to party “principals.”
But in this cycle, two outliers – Trump & Sanders – are giving people a real choice. Trump exposes that a good number of repubs think Iraq was a disaster. And that repub economics are a failure. Sanders likewise exposes that saying you are a dem and being a dem are two different things, and that there was no “change”
Probably together Sanders and Trump supporters are a majority, and I believe that Trump and Sanders have more in common than they do with the “dems” or “repubs” – but unfortunately, people segregate themselves by color….red or blue, that really has nothing to do with anything, EXCEPT disempowering the majority.
http://www.gocomics.com/pearlsbeforeswine/2015/02/01
Its bad enough that people mindlessly support sports teams – its even worse that they mindlessly support political parties. Than on top of that, the two choices are very, very bad and much, much worse…
Maybe it’s time to look at an alternative:
http://www.counterpunch.org/2016/02/12/when-plan-a-meets-plan-b-talking-politics-and-revolution-with-the-green-partys-jill-stein/
I’ve been voting for 3rd parties most of my life.
But people tell me that I’m wasting my vote…
they than bitch and whine about the dem and repub choices…
and they say this WITHOUT irony…
Two old ladies go to a resort in the Catskills….
1st old lady: the food here is soooooo bad!
2nd old lady: yes! and the portions are so small!
Not yet. It will definitely be time to look at that alternative if Hillary Clinton becomes the Democratic nominee. I voted for Stein the alternative in 2012, but this year I hope to vote for Sanders the alternative.
Yes! We need another dilettante to run for president! If they can pull 0.36 percent of the vote when America was treated to an Obama-Romney sleep-fest just imagine what Jill Stein could pull off when half the Democratic Party voted for a Socialist!
Jill Stein –.LOL!
They would have been better off running Roseanne Barr – at least she played a working class person on TV.
Not just a socialist. A Democratic Socialist!
But Jill has better free stuff and a pony. And she won’t throw her delegates to Hillary. I think I’ll vote for her.
If Hillary is the candidate then I think I’ll join you in the general and vote for Jill. I’ll go dillatente over status quo or nut job every day and twice on Fridays.
Trump is very canny in his own way and understands that saying the emperor is unclothed gains you a certain credibility. Sanders, while a lot less in your face, is doing the same with the Kissinger comments. It’s definitely getting interesting. Can the truth conquer tribalism? Or perhaps new tribes are forming.
With luck, this election goes to the Supreme Court again.
And the vote is 4-4.
What now?
Ha,Ha……..nothing……
……….”and there was merriment and joy throughout the land”……….
……………..I wish…..
I’d love to see the Supremes adjudicate the African Swallow versus European Swallow dispute.
favorite color(s) ambrit ??
Ooooh. That’s a tough one.
My wife of many years, Phyllis, is an artist. Mainly dealing in watercolours. (Oil paints get expensive! Not to mention canvas, stretchers, gessos, turps, etc.) None-the-less, I have been exposed to mucho colour schemes, the colour wheel, hues, blends, tints, etc.
I’m not trying to fink out on your question. I just don’t see a particular colour when the word favourite comes up.
Is kaleidoscope a colour?
I’ll try. Phyllis favours fluorescent hues when depicting flowers. So, how about Candy Flake Mauve?
Cheers.
Sanders’ education bill is more interesting than I thought… I ran across this post from an adjunct professor talking about how it could change people’s lives in public universities. Here’s hoping it passes.
I’m your average adjunct professor. I’m broke and I’m fearful of the degradation of the US University system. Bernie’s “College for All Act” gives me hope.
Uh I definitely do not see the world in red or blue, but I assure you on policies, Trump and I have very little in common.
He’s horrible on wages(says we can’t raise them so we remain competitive with China), he’s horrible on immigration(believes people illegally coming here are murderers and rapists) and somehow thinks a country that has gone on the record as saying that America has a responsibility to find jobs for its people are going to pay for a wall for him, he’s horrible on domestic civil rights(says he would roll back gay marriage, comes off as misogynistic jerk)…….so no I’m not going to support him because I don’t believe I have much in common with a guy who thinks a million dollar loan from daddy is a “small loan” nor do I believe he would be a good leader.
I’m not voting for a putz simply because I agree with him on something like Iraq.
The SC primary results will be interesting. If Trump wins a Republican-only voter pool even in the wake of going after one of the establishment Republicans’ most sacred of cows (the Iraq war)… well, the establishment spin will probably power a few major cities for a month…
“How to Brick”
And Error 53 too!
But what about Magnuson-Moss. Does Apple have the right to do this?
Seems to me like grounds for a really, really, really big class action.
Thanks for the great Reddit link!
^
Couldn’t have a better handle to post the comment…
Smartphones could become earthquake sensors in the future, and involuntary psychology project sensors now.
“The goal of the conspiracy is to put an implant in every citizen.”
It seems we are all volunteering for that…except hard core Luddites. (I regret making fun of them before).
Sometimes I wonder if I should get a gun to keep government hands off of my flip-phone.
Im going to keep that flip phone as long as I possibly can.
Well, no firearm required. I love it when, instead of offering a superior alternative, no viable alternative is on offer. The Lesser of Two Evils really means that Evil wins every time.
‘we’re all goin straight down to Davy Jones Locker’
Or straight up to a Roerich monastery.
Scotus 2016 and the end of the republican party…in the last 100 years this is the first time a supreme court justice dies with a democrat in the white house during a presidential race…ike and nixon appointed during a presidential election year…this blatent attempt to parliamentorize the constitution will be the end of the republican party…
Hmmm…on second thought(cue jon lovitz)…go ahead mister soon to be former senator from kentucky…stand up(oh…you are standing up) and let that president know the constitution is now suspended and you have decreed a parliamentary government…power to the weebles…
If you think holding up an Obama appointee is going to hurt the GOP with their base, then you don’t know the GOP base. I would assume they will fundraise off of their ability to stall the nomination
Just a quick shout out to “thank” the democrats for blowing that 60/40 edge in Senate seats in only 6 years!
The race at the top may get more attention, but it should not be abut just a jousting match between 2 knights.
The house, the Senate, governorship, etc. are in many ways more important.
Believe it or not me has been a registered republistani for many and most of my years and have sat through many an after party and have served as an election judge for the party(will probaly go green this month though since i am an ike/tr republistani)
There is no “base” in either party and that is why most early favorite “front runners” never end up with the nomination…this nation goes forward when the losers fold graciously…nixon(lucifer rest his evil soul) had three nominees rejected but eventually got it done…not that Valerie Jarrett would pay attention…but an uber candidate the republicans must fight against will take down the republicans…advise and consent…not choose…ours is not a parliamentary system of government…thats elsewhere…the all bark republistanis will fold after the first rejection…
Posting a link, but its an enclosed quote that got me going. (There have been references to the research for years, which combines factors of woo and unintended consequences and how to maintain your killer. Not going there, tangenting to an enclosed fact.)
– Jake is the youngest ever person to be diagnosed with Highly Superior Autobiographical Memory, which makes it difficult for him to distinguish between trivial and important events from his past.
So its not that he forgets, he can’t filter by evaluation. The figurations are not abstracted, the Solomonoff short-form cannot be inducted and implemented. Some craazythoughts:
: If all your working memory is pushing long-term memory with the archiving brain, is there any room left over for thinking?
: Is every moment thus new, and there is no suffering from the condensation of time that is part of aging?
: Is there no distinction of what Stanislavski called ‘bright spots’ which are emotional highlights that we remember from a show (violence, sex, yelling), and that help us remember our lines when we’re acting? There doesn’t seem to be the sensory shutdown which comes from an accumulation of sorrows. Does stress then not have the usual impact on the telomeres, which is a cause of aging? He seems very happy in the photograph.
: It is the doom of men that they forget. Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it. But it is only entertainment to remember without abstracting lessons to enact, and filter what is important in terms of similarities for the future. Is he able to do this?
: Don’t matter how many neurons, it’s not enough. Nature finds a way to use the means available, so when are we going to figure out that our nervous systems use memristors? Or is it, as George Spencer-Brown stated, ‘ “in the blood,” as there is memory encoded in the immune system, which passes from mother to child.’ (Paraphrasing some, I can’t remember his exact words. A distinct point to make here.)
There is so much that we can learn from his brain! And then I look at the photo and see the attached war headdress and if it were a space alien movie I’d be crowbarring that thing off his head in a flash. Too many answers, searching for the question…
telegraph.co.uk/news/science/12152337/Scientists-have-discovered-how-to-delete-unwanted-memories.html
:
might I recommend a little Borges for you, Steve?
A recommendation preceded by an English teacher in high school, who affected me in ways there are not words for. You are in fine company.
“To sleep is to be abstracted from the world”
Clinton attacks Sanders for disloyalty.
That is a card you expect a shrewd opponent would play.
The question is not she is playing that.
The question is how you would respond.
“I am loyal to my country and the truth is he has been weak. You should not have voted for him based on his race.”
And if we had not voted for Obama “based on his race”…….. we would have had Hillary Clinton for President 8 years ago. McCain was not going to win against either of them.
Wouldn’t that have been swell.
Some voted for the lesser of two.
Some voted based on color. That’s a tactic, a strategy…applied consistently.
“Thank you for your votes.”
If the Sanders campaign is smart, they will respond by comparing her to George W Bush whose administration also demanded loyalty to the man and the party. Shouldn’t be too difficult to find some examples of Bush doing this and ask if the Democrats really want to become more like the Republicans party. Zing!
I haven’t heard too many arguments of hers against Sanders that aren’t complete bull***t and when pressed Sanders seems to eventually call her on it. Like shooting fish in a barrel really, just need to have the will to do it. She tried this “Obama is my BFF” ploy in the last debate and Sanders eventually ended that discussion by pointing out that only one person on the stage ever opposed Obama in a campaign and it wasn’t him which I thought worked out quite well.
I thought his answer should have been I am loyal to the American people. Period.
Scalia is Dead
They say that we shouldn’t speak ill of the dead, but…
Today’s airbrushed opinions about Scalia’s legacy remind me of 19th century Britain’s Lord Castlereagh and Lord Byron’s savage quip about his grave:
“Posterity will ne’er survey
a Nobler grave than this:
Here lie the bones of Castlereagh:
Stop, traveller, and piss!”
– Lord Byron, (1822)
That’s what I think
If I have to hear one more time about how he was an originalist who adhered to the Constitution I think I’m going to retch.
The idea that the people who created the 14th amendment did so to protect businesses like Hobby Lobby from providing full coverage for reproduction to its women employees but absolutely not females or gay people(minorities) is probably one of the most ridiculous assertions ever made.
Scalia was a pompous, self important windbag- and that’s me trying to say something “nice” about the guy and his “decisions.” Here’s hoping he gets to be reincarnated as a South African woman so his “decisions” can be a little more rounded out this go round instead of simply ones that would have benefitted people like himself. (Goes to say a bunch of Hail Marys and prays that God yet again helps her to understand compassion and forgiveness *sigh* Some days I really suck at Christianity.)
I fall back on Emersons’ reply to accusations that, with his opinions, he was flirting with the Devil.
“…if I am then the Devils’ child, I will live then from the Devil.”
I wonder if there is, or once was, a Saint for The Exasperated? That Saint should have a lot of clergy petitioning it.
Yes, the police are often out of control and are militarized.
As to the guy that weaved around cars at 100 MPH+ and “liked to run from the police”, the police did the right thing and in this case, I applaud them.
Wonder how many hundreds of crimes and dozens of lives this guy would have affected had he lived? Too bad he murdered the woman riding with him.
No, the police murdered the woman riding with him. That was a gamble or a choice they made. The perp made the choice to risk her life, and up to that point had committed no murder. The police weighed their options and chose to take the risk, presumably to save the lives of others. Call it for what it is.
Just because someone runs doesn’t mean that there needs to be a chase. Car chases are incredibly dangerous and should only be undertaken in the most serious of circumstances. This guy was being pulled over for a traffic stop, not because he was suspected of being a crazed serial killer. Does it really increase public safety to engage in a 111 mph chase over a traffic stop?
If someone decided to run from the police then they are only likely to stop in a two circumstances: they get away or their car is immobilised. Rather than chasing till the car is immobilised (with all the risk that entails) why not just let them get away for the moment? De-escalate the situation and follow up with a helicopter or simply go to the address of the car owner.
This isn’t pie in the sky, its what we actually do in Australia and it works.
Your error, sir, is that you assume that in America, rationality guides the actions of the ‘authorities.’ Pie is often assumed to come from “out of the sky” hereabouts.
Thanks much for the Cryptome duo talking turkey. Among the gems: See what Binney did there? Quoting Visner was a great gibe. Just as it’s forgotten fact that Snowden was CIA first, Visner was a spook first too. The spooks had a brainstorm: Why sneeze dust and get the shits when you can parley intelligence failures into lucrative programs for sitting on your ass in a desk chair, spying on whoever doesn’t hide? CIA wants to take over the cushy COMINT remit, that’s what’s going on here. The goal is to consolidate more state repressive capacity under CIA and its revolving door.
Ya gotta listen to it to get the full effect. Lots of long, uncomfortable pauses. I’ve always appreciated JY’s stance- Don’t trust anyone! Let alone someone trying to ask a question. Never accept the framing of the question!
I was wondering what the context was in Germany. There was tons going on in the recording, in the background, you can hear it.
I didn’t listen, I only read the Tim Shorrock post. But it left me confused rather than convinced that The Intercept was doing anything wrong.
My first question is, WHAT MONEY? Who is paying them money they wouldn’t get if they released the documents all at once? Glenn Greenwald is an employee of The Intercept, I believe, and would be paid (by Mr. Omidyar, if I understand it right) to write for that organization regardless.
I can easily think of at least two non-nefarious reasons why The Intercept might choose to release these documents over time rather than in a single vast data-dump.
One is so they and their lawyers can comb through it pre-release, to protect themselves against being pounced on by the U.S. government and charged with endangering national security or espionage or other serious offenses.
The other is so they, possibly in consultation with Snowden himself, can themselves process the significance of each major revelation and write about it in a way they hope will have maximum impact.
If The Intercept is writing ABOUT documents that it refuses to let anyone else see for themselves, that is problematic. But if it releases the actual documents at the same time as it writes about them, I don’t see where the problem is – ?
BTW, if there were long silences on the audio of this interview, that could simply be because Young and Natsios were coming from left field and the interviewer was unprepared for such a strange attack on The Intercept.
“WHAT MONEY?”
$250 million. Remeber, 2 people have the full set, both now work for Pierre.
They started working for pierre before “the intercept” existed. “the intercept” was launched on the announcement that the two with access to the docs were both working there.
There’s also book and movie deals. Sony for one who shall not be named.
“I can easily think of at least two non-nefarious reasons why”
I can easily think of at least a thousand reasons why they would not release, or only release parts that they wanted to. Parts that might hurt pierre and his NGO/PE herd, or say, his #1 benefactor Hillary.
But, until they release them…it’s all speculation.
http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/news/sony-nabs-film-rights-edward-704063
Hard finding a url without that person’s name in it.
That book is also #3 in the kindle store under “civil rights”
William Gibson, Mona Lisa Overdrive:
greenwald was very clear about this fact when explaining why he was leaving the guardian to set up the intercept with funding from the creepy omidyar. the guardian had no appetite for encurring any more financial penalty in the reporting of the story, nor did they want to face any more political pressure. remember, the british government sent a strong, thuggish message when they busted in and smashed up all of their computers. despite winning rewards for the series, the guardian were losing money by printing these stories. greenwald said that in the months following the first article until he decided to leave the legal costs exceeded 1 million pounds.
Can you provide a link where Greenwald said that he had to leave the Guardian because they “had no appetite for encurring [sic] any more financial penalty in the reporting of the story, nor did they want to face any more political pressure” as you say? I have never seen Greenwald make this excuse before, would be interested in seeing it.
As I recall Greenwald’s excuse for going to Omidyar was purely opportunistic:
And the Guardian’s response was that they were disappointed that he left:
As reported in The Hill, Congresswoman Cathy McMorris Rodgers points out the obvious: The Republicans have yet to come up with an alternative to the Affordable Care Act.
For a party that claims to have a superior understanding of economics, the Republicans sure seem clueless when it comes to the economics of healthcare. If the objective is a genuine universal healthcare access using insurance–not just platitudes about healthcare–something alone the lines of the ACA: i.e. a mandate coupled with premium support and guaranteed issue, is about as close to a “free-market” solution as you’re going to get.
It’s because the ACA is the Republican plan. It was originally conceived by the Heritage Foundation and implemented on a state level by Romney. I don’t know why that isn’t pointed out more.
Indeed.
Any realistic policy that provides universal healthcare or universal insurance requires some degree of government intervention. If this is too bitter a pill for the current crop of Republicans to swallow, they will never come up with a viable alternative for the Affordable Care Act.
They shot themselves in the foot, politically, by letting the Dems claim credit for the ACA and attacking their own corporate-capitalist wet dream of a policy. Now they don’t have anything to fall back on…apart from a pure market-driven policy, i.e. get rid of ACA, replace with nothing, let people fend for themselves and let insurers exclude who they want. Because Markets. Go Die. They just have to figure out a way to dress it up nice…but it would appear they’ve gone and dropped the lipstick in the slop-bucket and can’t seem to dig it out again…
How did they shoot themselves in the foot? They took both houses of Congress, destroyed Team Blue’s standing with young voters, and still saw passage of the Heritage Foundation wet dream.
They may have won the battle and lost the war. Even Trump is talking something that sounds suspiciously like single payer. I may be being too optimistic, though. We’ll see.
Intellectual honesty is just not practiced by the repubs….
H*ll (that is not Hill, but I’m getting “moderated” if I use a “e”) any honesty is not practiced by the repubs.
Really, the lying is about to make me burst. I don’t know which is worse – that such obvious lies are told, or how many rationalize it…
No intellectual honesty is practiced by the Dems either. They were plenty happy to shove Heritage-Care down our throats. Montana’s own Max Baucus (D) and our [cough] esteemed President are to thank for that.
They sold the ACA plan by only talking about monthly premiums and not at all about little things like deductibles, co-pays and narrow networks. So where is the intellectual honesty in our political debate?
I’ll tell you one thing: anything coming from someone with a (D) or an (R) behind their name, you can be 95% sure that it’s 95% BS.
Puppy shoots Florida man Boing Boing
A man who decided to shoot a bunch of puppies was himself shot by one of his intended victims.
=======================================
I have never seen a clearer cut case of self defense EVER!!!!!
Obviously, as puppies markpuppieship leaves something to be desired, they should be permitted, with proper registration, to own Uzi’s….
Irony, delicious irony!
Pollution is scaring away top recruits for global companies
In many cases, the executives who refuse to live in a polluted Third World city are either directly or indirectly responsible for that city’s pollution. The corporate and government policies and actions that they mandate cause pollution. Of course, they’re never fully responsible. A lot of the pollution is simply caused by far too many people living in close proximity to each other. The religious enthusiasts who oppose contraception are also responsible for heavy levels of pollution.
So what is the web for if not to let CEOs get paid from afoul, I mean afar?
Re: Cop sentenced for killing Gurley
The first thing I thought when I saw the picture was, “oh, of course, he’s Asian-American. No wonder they found him guilty.” And then one of the veteran cops interviewed said the same thing.
So we finally get some justice for one slain person, and it just turns out to be further evidence of racism. And, of course, just like with the financial fraud non-prosecutions, they’ll occasionally throw a low-level flunky under the bus but the people running the show never have to face the music (despite the fact that they endlessly justify the actions of their underlings). The next time an NYPD officer shoots an unarmed person, Bratton should be arrested.
What Cops Are Saying About an NYPD Officer’s Conviction for Killing an Unarmed Black Man Vice (resilc)
…Brooklyn District Attorney Ken Thompson told reporters outside the courtroom Thursday. The verdict, he said, was “in no way a conviction of the NYPD,” adding that officers have “the most dangerous ** job on earth.”
…..
Still, the officer thinks race is in play here, referring to the widely publicized death of Ramarley Graham, an unarmed black 18-year-old who was killed by Officer Richard Haste four years ago inside his own home in the Bronx. Haste, a white officer, not only got off, but even recently got a raise.***
“I think that if [Liang] was white, he would’ve gotten off,” the active-duty officer says. “That kid in the Bronx was murdered, and that officer doesn’t get in trouble? This is race, and they’re making an example of the wrong person.”
“If you’re gonna set an example,” the cop continues, “they should make it with everyone.”
……
O’Donnell argues the Gurley case—as well as the notorious Eric Garner tragedy, when the 43-year-old black man was killed in a chokehold by Officer Daniel Pantaleo in 2014—are “glaring examples” of how the cops are used as “cannon fodder” to protect the department’s flawed internal policies. In the Garner situation, the former prosecutor wants to know why an officer had to arrest Garner for selling cigarettes, and why he resorted to a chokehold, which is technically**** illegal by NYPD standards.
===================================
Police union: any time we shoot you, its a tragic accident.
** I think if has been well, WELL established on this blog that there are many jobs more dangerous than policeman in the US. There are probably hundreds of jobs on EARTH that are more dangerous. But the propagandizing of every cop and soldier a hero continues apace.
***He did what he was paid to do…
**** “Technically” – laws written to placate the outrage of injustice, but never intended to actually be enforced.
Some deaths are more painful than others.
Cancer from work is very gruesome .
Death from a bullet can be tragically quick.
Here’s what the BLS has to say (stats to 2014)
This chart, pg. 14, shows rates of workplace fatalities:
http://www.bls.gov/iif/oshwc/cfoi/cfch0013.pdf
Highest rates in Ag and Transportation. Ag has 24.9 deaths per 100,000 FTEs, compared to South Dakota, which has the highest rate of police officer deaths at 5.75 per 100,000.
governing.com/gov-data/law-enforcement-fatality-rates-by-state.html
Thanks for that – keep it for reference
on page 14, I presume police are lumped under government? I imagine not too many government weenies die from paper cuts, so I would imagine most civilian government employees who die on the job are police.
Cops. Sheesh. Soldiers have the most dangerous jobs on earth. Cops THINK they are like soldiers. No, they are more like the disgusting mercs from Blackwater and similar in their enthusiasm for popping “civilians” but lack all the military discipline.
I find it disgustingly amusing how cops refer to citizens as “civilians” as if they are not. To we military people, COPS are civilians too.
I hopped on Denver’s light rail yesterday to check out the Bernie Sander’s appearance at the Convention Center. To my surprise, the train was full of suburbanites heading to the rally. I arrived at 2:30, doors were to open at 3:00, Bernie to appear at 5:00. Line already wound around the entire building, but the weather was sunny and mild and everyone was in a jovial mood. Lots of young people, mostly white. The Sanders website this morning announced attendance at over 18,000.
I had interesting conversations as we stood, then, finally, moved forward when the doors opened. A couple of older women were still undecided between Hillary and Bernie. Women of all ages were appalled at the attempted shaming by Albright and Steinem. One young man, when I asked why he supported Bernie, said he liked his stance on money in elections; the young man firmly believed that the only issue was getting money out of politics and once that was accomplished, all would be rosy. When I asked him how we could get the people in power, who benefitted greatly from the current system, to abandon it, he did a lot of hand-waving.
My most jaw-dropping conversation was with a dad who had brought along his 12 year old daughter – to experience the system. He had knocked on doors for Obama in 2012, along with his older daughter. He had qualms, though, about Bernie’s ‘inexperience’ in foreign policy matters. He then went on to propose bombing North Korea, to ‘teach them a lesson,’ because they had dared to threaten us with their missiles. When I mentioned non-nuclear small countries that we had invaded, he allowed that it would take generations before Syrian children would be able to communicate to their country how great the US was, all based on their encounters with US soldiers who were nice to them. It sounded like he was confusing those WWII movies about GI’s handing out chocolates and chewing gum to skinny kids in Italy and France with what is currently going on in Syrian, but since I have not visited Syrian, who am I to say what is truth. I suspect he will ultimately go with Hillary.
After standing in line for two hours, we finally made it inside to the security check …. and, exhausted, thirsty and hungry, (I did not pre-plan!), I left. Watched the video of his speech this morning.
While I was standing in line with 18,000 other discontented people, I could not dispel the dark thoughts gathering at the edges of my mind. Maybe it was the feeling of being livestock, patiently lining up at the slaughterhouse door, kept in place by the jibes and admonitions of the Sanders volunteers who raced up and down the lines, herding us forward, their clipboards at the ready, urging us to ‘sign in’ and receive the official Bernie sticker to place on our breasts: A Future to Believe In.
To get this future, it’s as easy as turning up at a political rally … and getting out for Colorado’s Caucus on March 1st. Bernie promises us a different, kinder, gentler future, while Hillary is business as usual, bomb a few more countries, do favors for a few more political cronies and underwriters. And, when Bernie finally folds and Hillary gets the nomination, he herds his hopeful followers towards Hillary: because Trump (Cruz) WORSE. And we all return to our foreclosed houses, our unemployment checks, our pitiful pensions, our crushing medical bills, our under-educated children and wonder what happened.
A lot of Bernie’s supporters are anti-establishment independents, and would not support Hillary in the general election. They may be more likely to go with Trump or Cruz, or just not show up to vote.
http://www.latimes.com/politics/la-na-clinton-sanders-20160206-story.html
Like me. I will write in Charlie Manson or Jeffrey Dahmer before I vote for Hillary.
Two days ago, I voted for Sanders in TN’s Dem primary. In the general I’ll vote for Stein, as I did in 2012, regardless of who wins either major party’s nomination. I would never in a million years vote for Clinton, because Honduras, Libya, Ukraine, Syria, Kissinger, Albright and everything else.
Although I would be happy to see Sanders win, a presidential vote for a Democrat in TN is wasted, because the state will go Republican, and Democrats are not in danger of losing ballot certification. Obviously, the Greens will not carry the state either, but they’re always in danger of being removed from the TN ballot.
I’m not an energetic fan of green ideas – I just want to try to help preserve a relatively-sane alternative to the psychopathic duopoly.
This Bernie voter will never vote for Hillary.
Has there been a petition for fellow Bernie voters who will
never vote for Hillary — to submit to the DNC?
Might be good to let them know there are alot of us.
I did have a rather unsettling conversation with a group of committed Dems, who said they were for Bernie, but would vote for Hillary if she were nominated, because, you know, the alternative would be even worse.
I was rather short-tempered at that point, and pointed out that I had ‘had it’ with the Democratic Party, who had been using this tactic to nominate candidates who were supporting policies of endless war, racist and punitive systems of incarceration, rising inequality and the gutting of social and physical infrastructure. And the transformation of our economy from actually producing stuff to moving around vast quantities of money. And, by pledging to vote Dem no matter who, we were simply encouraging the party elite to continue in their evil ways. As far as I was concerned, they were no longer the party of the working class.
They didn’t actually make signs of the cross and back away, but I think they were just trying to be polite.
A feeling shared by many and a beautifully expressed comment though sad .
And we all return to our foreclosed houses, our unemployment checks, our pitiful pensions, our crushing medical bills, our under-educated children and wonder what happened.
iPi = 0
i is the square root of -1, Pi is the ratio of circumference to radius of a circle.
Except your ‘math’ is wrong – i*Pi (a point on the imaginary (y) axis Pi units above the origin) is very definitely nonzero, it merely has zero real part. Were you perhaps thinking of Euler’s celebrated identity exp(i*Pi) + 1 = 0, which ties together the 5 most important constants in mathematics?
Apologies if someone else found this, but I believe the study I have linked worth some attention. I wanted to share this because it really strikes at the heart of what causes the need for gross inequality as seen by the most successful. Actually a brief writeup is linked first, then the whole study followed by a quote from the brief. I will admit upfront that I haven’t read the full study yet, but I feel a personal need for sharing this is compelling.
http://bigthink.com/praxis/a-new-study-shows-that-winners-will-cheat-to-keep-winning
http://www.pnas.org/content/early/2016/01/25/1515102113.full.pdf
“Why does winning turn us into complete a@*holes? Mr. Schurr and Ms. Ritov found that beating other people in competition enhances our sense of entitlement. People who are primed to recall winning click “yes” more often when asked to agree or disagree with statements like, “If I were on the Titanic, I would deserve to be on the first lifeboat!”; “People like me deserve an extra break now and then”; and simply, “Things should go my way.” It’s no wonder, then, that people like Shkreli act like the worst kind of spoiled brats when they come out on top and sense a chance to stick it to somebody else.”
Maybe I am so naive that your reader responses will mostly be “Well, Duh!” but so what!
I should have added the last paragraph in my quote above:
“But the upshot is troubling for people who care about the future of humankind. “It is difficult to overstate the importance of competition in advancing economic growth, technological progress, wealth creation, social mobility, and greater equality,” the authors write. “At the same time, however, it is vital to recognize the role of competition in eliciting censurable conduct. A greater tendency toward unethicality on the part of winners … is likely to impede social mobility and equality, exacerbating disparities in society rather than alleviating them.” There may be no way to completely remove this flaw from human nature, but “[f]inding ways to predict and overcome these tendencies” would seem to be a mission well worth pursuing.”
I think it’s like that – he has a higher IQ and gets better grades. He deserves more. We all wish we could be smart like him. Degrees from elite universities and ‘great’ qualifications for highest paid jobs.
Or so we have been indoctrinated.
No one “deserves” more, or less. So many are thrown aside, so few are embraced and treated as precious. Walk a mile in the shoes of the outcast! Today I saw a friend I hadn’t seen for decades. She has suffered a thousand lifetimes worth of troubles. Yet she has no higher priority every day than to do whatever she can to ease the burdens of others.
Love should be our default attitude to our fellow humans. The challenges humans now face are too great for us to meet with the old paradigms of fear, division, and competition.
— Marcus Aurelius
AMERICA AT BAY – EVADING DESTINY Sic Semper Tyrannis (resilc)
Irony alert!
. . After all, China’s economy has been growing at double digit rates for almost 30 years. The concrete evidence of its stunning achievements is visible to the naked eye.
We can also feel it with the extra carbon released from all that Portland cement placed all over China.
Maybe we should refer to it as ‘Porcelain cement’….hard but brittle
Kaolin Koncrete?
hey,, i kinda like that… has a ‘ring’ to it !!
That Cascadia story is worth some further reading – especially by those in the Northwest. By some estimates we’re 300+ years into a cycle that averages 240 – ish. The last one was massive – we’re talking a canoes-in-the-treetops event.
The Orphan Tsunami of 1700 by Brian F. Atwater of the University of Washington and four Japanese scholars is a well-written and accessible geological detective story which even the non-geologists here will enjoy. (The Japanese dubbed it an orphan because unlike most of the big waves they see, this one didn’t seem to have an earthquake associated with it.) The story involves digging around in sediments and counting tree rings on the US side, and tracking who said what to whom in Japan. A nifty piece of work- they think they have dated the thing within hours.
It’s also a beautifully produced paperback – lots of old maps and calligraphy, an old drawing of the Shogun’s retirement home, etc. – which is worth every nickel of the $30 which the University of Washington Press will charge you for it.
But on the chance that you are currently in cost-control mode, there is this: The US Geological Survey liked the book well enough that they made it one of their Professional Papers. That means you can download it, read it on your computer and even print it out if you’re so inclined. Your tax dollars at work! What’s not to like?
Here’s the link for the USGS download:
http://pubs.usgs.gov/pp/pp1707/pp1707.pdf
I’ll check that out…might be a great (if nervous) read being that I reside at the foot of the Olympic Mnts……..
,,,,,,cascadian rock n roll
Thanks for the link Pwelder!
The file is ~77 Mbytes and took me approximately 2 minutes to download at a connection rate of 130 Mbps.
RE: Cryptome’s searing critique of Snowden Inc. (& the interview)
There is a logical disconnect between the ethos of “All information should be free” and “They’re weaponizing our communications infrastructure”. In the latter case proliferation is a vital concern. Neither Young or Natsios are thinking through the dire consequences of what a complete disclosure could have in that context.
Information without knowledge is useless. Knowledge without enlightenment is dangerous. I haven’t seen any evidence that a full disclosure of the Snowden documents would do any good. People are assuming that we’ll know how to create secure communications with that information. The people who believe this are probably the same individuals who pointed out how secure TOR was based upon previous documents. This was a false assumption as events would later prove.
The fundamental problem with SIGINT isn’t with the collection but the separation of the signal from the noise. Technically illiterate people endow technology with magical prowess and with the metadata program they imagine it has the capability to anticipate the future. In reality any country that adopts such a program along the same parameters will be flushing tens of millions of dollars down the drain for very little gain. Needless to say, that’s winning through attrition.
The war for privacy is far from over.
because of the ever-lovin belief in progress as ‘all benevolent’ !!…….and “trust us” we know what’s good for you”
…………I just want to spit !
“I haven’t seen any evidence that a full disclosure of the Snowden documents would do any good.”
First up, that’s wonderful! More harm to that crowd is needed.
Second, how do you get evidence on the future? Are you speaking from ahead?
Then again, anyone who can presume platitudes and then frame the argument-
“There is a logical disconnect between the ethos of “All information should be free” and “They’re weaponizing our communications infrastructure”.
Step away from the spin. Follow the money.
Did you even read or listen to any of it?
You didn’t even attempt to answer the question of proliferation. How’d you feel about enabling other intelligence agencies to take shortcuts in developing similar programs? They’re probably already trying to do exactly that based upon what’s been released so far,
No. I’m speaking from prior knowledge. I’ve mentioned in the past that TOR wasn’t as secure as people thought and identified it’s area of weakness. This is contrary to both what most people believed at the time and what the Snowden documents have said on the matter.
Have you ever considered the possibility that the documents could be full of disinformation? I’m guessing the answer is no. Assuming they were released in full using them as a guide to developing counter-measures or encryption is imo a naive act of faith.
Gahaha! Somebody isn’t arguing in good faith. I provided direct quotes from the podcast. Nor did I dispute the notion that the whole media circus was exploitative or Young/Natsios’ reasoned criticism of the media and non-profit organizations.
Information without knowledge is useless.
Untrue: knowledge is discoverable. And stray/uncorrelated information is a good way to start putting things together.
Knowledge without enlightenment is dangerous.
Ah yes, only the priests of the inner temple are worthy… I guess that old saw still works on the rubes (Hillary is certainly putting it through its paces these days). Ignorance, that’s what’s dangerous. And a little knowledge doesn’t automatically banish ignorance. Trying to act with insufficient knowledge, yes, quite risky; but because of the residual ignorance, not because of the available knowledge.
Snowden never intended full disclosure, he wanted some journalist he could trust to be responsible to sift through the material for grossly abusive activity. He was very up front about that from the beginning. The vulnerabilities of TOR were inherently obvious from the outset; people who don’t take the time to understand how systems work probably shouldn’t comment either way. But hey, what’s life for if not to take a few risks?
Young and Natsios lack the chops to distinguish truth from rumor, and like to exaggerate everything to make it (and hence themselves) seem more important. Truly modest and selfless people don’t take every opportunity to trash talk.
True. Tor is also fully open source/gpl. The government CAN’T slip in backdoors and undermine it without the ability of many eyes to see it. Tor devs themselves are upfront about its strengths AND weaknesses.
If we take Cryptome’s word to the logical extreme, we need to quit using and trusting the internet at all. It was developed by US government money, specifically through the Pentagon, for the purposes of creating a robust, nuclear-survivable communications system. Without that Pentagon push, no internet, and since it was the PENTAGON it is clearly untrustable and to NOT be used.
Puerto Rico Recruits Greed & Leverage Boys with “No Tax” Residency
Paulson, who is spending more than $1bn on luxury hotels and resorts on the island, encouraged his fellow financiers to help him turn around the island by moving there and, in doing so, saving themselves a small fortune in tax.
More than 1,000 people, including private equity tycoons Nicholas Prouty and Michael Tennenbaum, have already taken advantage of the island’s “aggressive tax incentive” laws 20 and 22 that allow Americans to pay zero tax on US income if they spend at least 183 nights on the island. They also get to keep their US citizenship and passports, which they would have to surrender if they moved to other tax havens like Singapore.
The greed and leverage boys manipulate dislocation to their perpetual advantage. Politicians are but a tool to be used. In this case eminent domain has been used to seize homes and demolish them in order to build a hotel and casino. It’s the state of America and its territories, where politicians Red and Blue love PEU.
http://peureport.blogspot.com/2016/02/puerto-rico-recruits-greed-leverage.html
Rum and c(h)oke all around?
Favorite Math Fact? I’m big on the Fibonacci sequence, which is also highly photogenic when it manifests itself in nature.
I ran across some notes of mine this morning that Fibonacci “discovered” negative numbers. Considering that he also likely introduced Hindu-Arabic numerals into Europe, he was a busy guy.
Reindeer herding in Norway is a thing of exquisite beauty
Sheep herding in NZ is pretty cool too
http://www.techtimes.com/articles/133548/20160214/monsanto-larvicide-not-zika-virus-true-cause-of-brazils-microcephaly-outbreak-doctors.htm here is an interesting link.
> Congress wants to privatize US air traffic control, but what does it mean for flyers? Verge
Great, I always felt like air travel was too convenient.
Regarding “a recession around the corner,” I thought it would be a serious article, then realized it was from a “modern monetarist” perspective. These guys don’t seem to understand the Fed can’t directly control control GDP? The Fed targets interest rates because it’s the one variable it can control under normal economic conditions.
coolest mathematical fact?
Fourier series – a specific type of infinite mathematical series involving trigonometric functions. Fourier series are used to define curves and surfaces in a parametric form by expressing the coordinates of the points with different series. The series gets its name from a French mathematician and physicist named Jean Baptiste Joseph, Baron de Fourier, who lived during the 18th and 19th centuries.
“Fourier’s theorem is not only one of the most beautiful results of modern analysis, but it may be said to furnish an indispensable instrument in the treatment of nearly every recondite question in modern physics.” – William Thomson, Lord Kelvin (1867)
https://www.theguardian.com/science/2014/jul/13/fourier-transform-maths-equations-history
Computer-generated math art using Fourier series:
http://fourierart.tumblr.com/
Thinkorswim and TD Ameritrade Customers: Your Accounts May Be At Risk
For more information, check out the following websites:
cheatedinvestor (dot) com
consumeraffairs (dot) com/finance/ameritrade.html
Argh…. talking head on Meet the Press said “Sanders problem is that he thinks inequality in ethnic groups is about economics and not race”
Skippy…… &+*$@!
Say the people cheerfully buffing the system and profiting from it.
RE: Great Urban Design Projects?
Well, after 15 years of continuous war, deferred infrastructure maintenance, a declining property and sales tax base, only Billionaires with their own ideas about what constitutes “Great” can build in the urban centers.
Small cities, like mine, no longer have design professionals on staff to communicate big ideas to the political leaders. Hell, a simple bike path that could provide some visual and nature communing is being designed as nothing more than an adjunct roadway, here. Big ideas take talent to conjure and then implement. Today’s urban environment is all about “management”, not environmental experience. (end rant)
Snowden Inc:
No where that I’ve viewed or read has Snowden ever said he gave the papers/files to the “public”; can anyone point me to it (I’d appreciate it)? He did say that he turned them over to journalist organization that would vet them before they were released, and to report on and publicize their content to the public. This process of vetting to reduce the risk that innocents might be harmed during the process of disclosure is part of why Snowden could disarm charges that he was a dangerous traitor, rather than a whistle blower. It’s not enough to disclose documents, it’s getting the public and other powers that be to take on board what they reveal and to be ready and willing to act on them that’s important
Snowden gave up all copies of the documents before he departed Hong Kong, so that he could not be accused of giving sensitive information to Russians. Hence there is no way he could release them after his escape from the CIA/NSA attempts to apprehend him.
There are a few other issues of veracity and spin in the original blog that should give rise to concern that someone’s axe is being ground. Perhaps several axes are being ground.
As an side, the first rule to successfully getting the intelligent members of the public to accept questioning a persons veracity is to do a little self-check first, avoid lies,exaggeration and massaging the facts.
“Travel was once a means of being elsewhere, or of being nowhere. Today it is the only way we have of feeling that we are somewhere. At home, surrounded by information, by screens, I am no longer anywhere, but rather everywhere in the world at once, in the midst of a universal banality – a banality that is the same in every country. To arrive in a new city, or in a new language, is suddenly to find oneself here and nowhere else. The body rediscovers how to look. Delivered from images, it rediscovers the imagination.”
― Jean Baudrillard, The Transparency of Evil: Essays in Extreme Phenomena
And yet in many places in the west, Alfalfa is grown with zero supplemental water. Not everywhere is center-pivot.
Re: the lead article… shocking that Idaho’s silver valley (and downstream towards Spokane WA) left out of it; as far as lead pollution levels, Flint (horrible enough) is nothing in comparison. Google Bunker Hill + superfund …
http://missoulian.com/news/state-and-regional/victims-of-north-idaho-lead-pollution-still-suffer-physical-emotional/article_49524244-b911-11df-accd-001cc4c002e0.html
http://yosemite.epa.gov/R10/CLEANUP.NSF/bh/96709c7a3415f15e8825718e005cc081?OpenDocument
After 30 some years of remediation as a Superfund site, where the soil was removed around houses and replaced, still, when there’s high water, waterfowl die downstream.
Anniston Alabama has a similar problem with PCBs.
More on the heavy metal pollution in north Idaho.. since it seems we’re teetering on the edge of allowing corporations to resume doing anything they want, it needs reminding what can happen:
Young children continue to be exposed to unsafe lead levels in residential and recreational area soils. Throughout the Basin, about 20 miles of streams are unable to sustain a reproducing fish population, and about 10 miles of tributaries have virtually no aquatic life. Lead poisoning is responsible for many waterfowl deaths each year. More than 15,000 acres of wildlife habitat contain sediments and soils which are acutely toxic to waterfowl. Twenty-one of the 24 species of birds evaluated are at risk from the elevated metals.
This site covers a large geographic area, and is divided into areas for manageable cleanup. One such area is known as “the Box” – a 21-square-mile area surrounding the historic smelter area. The Box includes the Shoshone County cities of Kellogg, Wardner, Smelterville, and Pinehurst. Residential, community and smelter area cleanups have been ongoing since the 1980s.
http://yosemite.epa.gov/R10/CLEANUP.NSF/bh/Cleanup+Work
Disagree with a bit of the Cryptome interview. Can’t trust anyone with a security clearance? WTF? I had a high security clearance in the military. I could be trusted absolutely…to do whatever I felt was truly right AND to keep legitimate secrets. There ARE actually legit secrets out there but the clowns at Cryptome don’t seem to accept that fact. They literally want Snowden to hand them the entire intel dump so they can print ALL of it, damned be the real life consequences. They’d publish names, operations, regardless of their legitimacy and regardless of the danger it would put people in by doing so. What complete assholes.
I WANT to know about illegal/unconstitutional activities by the CIA, NSA, US government, corporations, rich people, etc, but I do NOT want to know who various “assets” are, their names, addresses. Spill the beans on informants in countries that would see them tortured and killed? Their families too? What kind of animals are these Cryptome assholes?
Believe it or not, some secrets are truly TRULY legit and necessary. Without them you get personnel killed. I would never spill secrets that would compromise actual ability of the military to conduct military operations, or that would compromise the military’s ability to protect the nation, but it seems Cryptome would have no qualms. Gotta say, I’m glad that Greenwald, Poitras, etc, are the ones going through the info dump and releasing, thus far, only truly important and criminal secrets. Using classification to cover up or hide illegal actions is NOT legit, but not all secrets are for covering up crimes.
Well said.