God Admits Stealing Idea For Messiah From Zoroastrianism Onion (David L)
The Night I Almost Peed on Henry Kissinger Oxy (Skip K)
Tiger cub bodies found at Thai temple BBC :-(
Research hints at the canine equivalent of IQ Scientific American
Can Planting More Milkweed Save Monarch Butterflies? It’s Complicated NPR (David L)
Google Patents Sticky Car Hood to Trap Pedestrians in a Collision ABC (furzy)
Teenage brain on social media: Findings shed light on influence of peers, much more MedicalXpress (Chuck L)
How to feed a happy, healthy gut Washington Post (furzy)
China?
The Trade Slowdown, China, and the Rest of the World Menzie Chinn, Econbrowser
China could be about to plunge us all into a world of pain Business Insider
Pacific-Rim Property Firms Hurt by Slowdown in China Growth Wall Street Journal
Refugee Crisis
The Dalai Lama says ‘too many’ refugees are going to Germany Washington Post
The Brazilian Coup and Washington’s “Rollback” in Latin America Defend Democracy
Germany: Draghi v the banks Financial Times. Important.
France industrial unrest: Open-ended rail strike takes hold BBC
Rising anti-Semitism forces Jews out of Paris suburbs The Local (furzy)
Brexit?
A British Test of Reason Project Syndicate. Notice how the Leave camp is depicted as irrational? How about, “They see that globalization has increased inequality. Unequal societies are less happy and less healthy. They believe that an exit will hurt the rich more than the average person.”
UK voters shift toward ‘Out’ as EU referendum nears Reuters. The official scolding seems to be backfiring.
Greece, lenders at odds over loose ends in reform programme Reuters
Syraqistan
What Happened to Netanyahu? Counterpunch
Big Brother is Watching You Watch
Government may access citizens’ phone location data without a warrant – US Court of Appeals RT (Wat)
The Secretive World of Selling Data About You Newsweek (Dr. Kevin)
Trade Traitors
Europe and US in race to salvage TTIP Financial Times. So once again, call or e-mail your Congresscritters and tell them “Hell no!”
Clinton E-mail Tar Baby
Aide: Clinton wasn’t close to IT expert who managed server The Hill. Read the bit about the lawyers getting into a row during the deposition.
Veteran Clinton aide cites email server talks in testimony Washington Post. Notably uninformative headline…
Cheryl Mills Testifies: Hillary Clinton’s Emails Were NOT Available For FOIA Requests Breibart. Carol L: “I hate to say this, but Breitbart brings out some more important points.”
JW v State Mills deposition 01363 Judicial Watch 2016
Campaign Chairman: Clinton Knows Email Setup Was A “Mistake” BuzzFeed (Li). Has full text of letter.
2016
Bernie Sanders Fights On: The Rolling Stone Interview Rolling Stone
An Open Letter to California Democrats and Independents Jerry Brown. Martha r: “They are scared…Just like Reich’s piece–she has shown, she has convincingly made the case…When did she do that? We’re supposed to just believe you? So lame!”
Barbara Boxer in Nevada: A Chapter In ‘The Art Of Tough’ Huffington Post. Jess M: “Bogus article by novelist Robert North Patterson about how tough and reliable a progressive Barbara Boxer is, and repeats the chair-throwing canard. Comments, at least so far, are brutal. BRUTAL.”
Trump rails against scrutiny over delayed donations to veterans groups Washington Post (furzy)
Trump deflects on veterans donations by attacking media ‘losers’ Financial Times
Trump involved in crafting controversial Trump University ads, executive testified Washington Post
The Daily Trail: In which Donald Trump does not appreciate our questions Washington Post
Native Americans move to frontlines in battle over voting rights Reuters (EM)
America Started the Summer Off with a Massive Wave of Gun Violence Vice (resilc)
Changes to unrelated-adult housing rules could bring intentional communities out of the shadows MinnPost. Chuck L: “I’ve been interested in the notion of intentional communities for decades. Haven’t done much, however, since the spouse doesn’t share the interest. I suspect it will pick up steam in the coming years as societies and individuals try to survive the splat of fundamentalist neo-liberalism hitting the wall.”
Portland District Failed to Disclose Excessive Lead Levels at 47 School Buildings Willamette Week. Scott B: “Simultaneously breaks my heart and enrages me.”
California transparency bill moves to Assembly floor PE Hub. CalPERS amendments still being written? This is cute and not in a good way.
US consumer spending confirms rebound Financial Times
With a basic income, the numbers just do not add up John Kay, Financial Times (David L)
Class Warfare
Where the World’s Slaves Live Atlantic (resilc)
Anger builds against CWA conspiracy to end Verizon strike WSWS (Judy B)
The Verizon Strike Proves the Internet Still Needs Humans Wired (resilc)
Fed Honchos Pining for Wage Gains Got Nice Pay Raises Themselves Bloomberg (resilc)
American Death Rate Rises for First Time in a Decade New York Times
Antidote du jour (Kittie Wilson via Lawrence R):
See yesterday’s Links and Antidote du Jour here.
115 comments
Comments are closed.
gorillagate: http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2016/may/31/cincinnati-zoo-gorilla-harambe-shooting-mothers-blame
i tend to agree with this view. lots of people here were blaming the mother but i sympathise.
i know it’s easy to momentarily lose track of a kid when supervising several. i guess they just need to put more layers of protection around the animals’ habitats (or cells).
well, i see that the cincinnati police have launched a criminal probe of the incident. I wonder if that includes zoo officials or workers?
Here’s what I wonder: why the hell can’t they/won’t they use a tranquilizer
in these situations? Surely, it’s worth it for zoos to have such a thing on hand.
It’s deplorable to contemplate this gorilla: imprisoned and probably bored,
his space invaded and according to some witnesses, he might have been trying to help
the strange little primate who fell into his space. Or just curious.
This policy of preemptory killing is wrong.
I believe the problem with using a tranquilizer dart is that it takes several minutes for the trank to take effect and during that time the gorilla might have done all kinds of harm to the child.
And therefore, after tranquilizing/ tazing , if/when the gorilla does actually become an impending danger rather than a potential one – then shooting him becomes the regrettable escalation.
Personally i dont buy into any excuse short of becoming incapacitated for a parent to “loose track” of a three year old to the point it can find its way into a gorilla habitat.
Put the kid on a leash if you otherwise are not cofident you can keep track of them.
This business of its someone elses fault-couldnt be helped will result in one more incremental turn of the “DangerDanger– its for your safety! / Its for the Children” loss of free movement/diminished experience for the American public
Is “loosing track” at the waterfall or peering into the grand canyon acceptable?
No not so much
Just yesterday, I was walking my dog in the park and saw a fellow with his kid on a leash. The tot maybe 4 or 5? it isn’t a bad idea at all.
Both father and kid seemed totally fine and in case of an emergency, he could
reel the kid back in and avert disaster.
I agree it’s pathetic when people try to out-source parental responsibility onto the world at large. It’s hard to keep kids out of mischief. Parenting is hard. You can’t ‘kid proof’ the entire world.
I heard a long time ago they put kids on a leash in Germany. It’s like don’t play in the autobahn, gorilla cage, etc….
popular w/ certain adults in Berlin as well.. not that there is anything wrong with it.
It’s not unusual for male primates to kill immatures they’re not related to. It’s a leading cause of infant mortality in the wild.
The gorilla was dragging the three-year-old around, reports say he was agitated by the screaming human audience. I trust the zoo keepers in this instance. What a tragedy.
+100
Then maybe they should have more adults available to supervise. In the length of time it took the child to climb over several barriers into the enclosure, he could also have been snatched by a stranger, or in different circumstances, run out into traffic.
Bottom line for me is, a member of an endangered species- who never asked to be put in a zoo in the first place- was killed in the prime of his life due to human stupidity and negligence, despite the fact that the animal was where the humans had decided he was supposed to be, minding his own business and doing his own gorilla thing. A species, mind you, that is endangered to begin with because of human greed, stupidity and negligence.
Having raised four children all within two years of each other in birth, I am constantly aggravated by those who immediately blame Mom when a small child escapes in a crowd. I can only assume too many people have either (1) never had to deal with several small children at one time, (2) have never had children, (3) are misogynistically prepared to blame the mother for everything that happens, and/or (4) never tried to stop ANYONE’S determined youngster when said youngster has a goal.
In the aftermath of this incident, I’ve read comments from at least three people who said they tried to stop the child and simply couldn’t catch him. Try to keep in mind that we are talking about a fairly dense crowd of people, most of them adults, apparently, and one person under three feet tall who wants to get to point A and knows all those grownups will try to stop him because he’s not supposed to go there.
It wasn’t only the danger that between the time the tranquilizer dart hit home and the tranquilizer itself took effect that the guerrilla, irritated or otherwise agitated by the fact of the darting itself, might’ve harmed the child. It was also the matter that they were standing at the very edge of the moat. Those dealing with the situation were justifiably concerned that the gorilla might have toppled forward into the moat and drowned, drowning the child in the process.
What keeps getting lost in all the finger-pointing is the fact that no child or anyone else that size should have been able to get into that enclosure. As a person with disabilities who constantly has to deal with what some designer and/or architect has decided is “accessible,” it doesn’t strike me as being outside the realm of possibility that whoever designed this particular enclosure never stop to think about the possibility of a small child’s being able to get inside easily.
And that, in my opinion, is where the fault lies. Having been a single parent myself with the aforementioned small children, unless people are prepared to say unequivocally that small children should not be permitted into zoos, trying to put all the blame on the mother and claiming she was somehow negligent is the worst case of privilege I’ve ever heard. This is a woman who had to stand helpless and watch what appeared to be a 400 pound monster dragging her child in a place where she could not help rescue him, and all because all she did was look away for a moment to attend to another child.
Because, you see, I’ve been in that position, too. I’ve been accused of being negligent for what basically amounts to nothing more nor less than an accident. Fortunately, the situations were never as horrific as this one, but the overall rules apply. For some reason, in our culture, whenever anything like this happens, there is immediate outrage and mother-blaming. If, indeed, the police are looking into criminal proceedings, then it will be nothing more nor less than a situation of taking one’s children to the zoo while black.
I wasn’t aware of the racial composition of the family, so please don’t tar me with the “taking one’s children to the zoo while black” brush. I also don’t specifically blame “mothers” when both parents are involved in a situation, so spare me the lecture on misogyny, too, please.
There is plenty of blame to go around in this situation. I agree with Optimader that intermediate steps should have at least been attempted rather than immediately defaulting to death to the gorilla. Why is there any greater danger of the gorilla falling into the moat and knocking/carrying the child with it as a result of being tased than as a result of being shot? That argument fails on its face.
The child is fine. The gorilla is dead. The gorilla is the victim here, not any of the humans involved.
I think part of the “blame the parents” mindset is also a defense mechanism at work. It goes beyond the moralizing inherent in “bad things happen to bad people” to a psychological defense to distance people from the reality that such a tragedy could indeed happen to them whether they are good or bad: “I can put that out of my mind because I’m a good parent”.
I am reminded of an event 20 or so years ago where a baby sitter murdered a small child. The parents were members of a swingers club and had gone out on dates for the evening. When that was reported, so many people said the murder happened because the parents were swingers which, of course, had zero to do with the murder. But it was a way for some of the public to not only moralize, but at least as importantly to distance themselves from an unforeseen tragedy.
Not unlike the 1% thinking they earned and deserve to have more than everyone else because they are better people.
A little humility is in order here.
Since its soo difficult, I imagine the only safe answer is to ban all children from zoos.
Your feelings touch on my two cents of the whole situation I wrote on my ghost town blog:
Ultimately human beings do not recognize (at least fully or in a largely consistent sense) or respect the consciousness of other species. This is the root of the problem–the reason natural habitats are vanishing, why animals are being hunted, why they are caged for preservation and/or entertainment value, and why this particular Gorilla was killed.
This situation was always doomed because the way we live does not reflect the responsibility we have to choose to live in conscious regard to other species.
If you are interested I also compiled a great list of emotion filled, inter-species videos (https://ofworldsanddreams.wordpress.com/2016/06/01/on-harambe)
+ terrible failure of imagination and compassion by stupid humans.
I can’t believe I am even commenting on this basically nationally unimportant story but the ‘fault’ lies completely with the zoo and whomever designed this enclosure. It should have been 100% visitor entrance proof. It can be done. And if visitors don’t like looking through heavy mesh or whatever they can stop visiting. You do not need a picture of the gorilla or lion or whatever at the zoo. Get a pix off the net for zeus’ sake….
And to anyone automatically blaming the parent – Anyone who has ever parented or I guess grandparented as well, has had a child dash away in a split second. It is what kids do. You can be the most vigilant parent on earth and it will STILL happen.
Enough already. Whomever designs these unfortunate accessible enclosures need to be put out of the design profession. Now. Get some designers who actually care about the animals AND their observers.
The gorilla should not have been held captive in a zoo in the first place, and rather, should have been in its natural habitat. Both mothers and their children can also respect and better learn about wild animals when they are carefully conserved and looked after in the wild.
Zoos are often trying to help with conservation efforts. Natural habitats change and as a result animals become endangered. Zoos are supposed to help to ensure a species survives if possible.
By killing it?
this is a disgrace to humans and gorillas. Humans have no business being animal jail keepers for display purposes. Humans can not expect to go where wild animals exist and not understand the animals rule that location.
It was not beauty that killed the beast
The mother was an idiot, the zoo was an idiot, and the gorilla is dead due to pure stupidity.
Humans are idiots.
+
Teaching respect for animals, at the very least, is what should happen at zoos.
Agree, this was a sad and galling display of stupid humans in action.
Well i know how you will be spending your charitable donations.
Everything cannot be made idiot proof includng zoos. Tbe world is intrinsically unsafe. So i presume you would advocate a http addy to monitor the animals remotely from a padded room at home! That would be the safest approach, why accept less?
We could all stay at home, and be represented by proxy robots, as in the movie “Surrogates”, perhaps?
From the bookmark archive
a moment of Gorilla Zen
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hg2hCuDy2wg
Touched by a Wild Mountain Gorilla (HD Version)
Gorilla chewed off a robot arm? No problem, -500pts and off to the spare shop.
The MMORPG-ification of everything proceeds apace.
64 Hillary Units awarded for damages (hat tip to craazyboy)
1. The kid was talking about wanting to get in the habitat. Apparently the mother was much to busy (reports indicate she was fussing with her phone/camera) to do anything but say no, and even though he expressed interest in endangering himself, she chose to be inattentive.
2. That habitat has been there, in basically its current form, for almost 40 years. I have been going to that zoo since I was younger than that child. We can talk about how good an environment it was for a gorilla, but it’s just disingenuous to say it wasn’t perfectly acceptable to keep people out. If we have to start redesigning zoos to keep out people intent on getting into habitats, we’re going to have to move back to iron bars.
That said:
Somebody is going to end up being held accountable. Seriously, as a local, the outrage is pretty palpable. It’s actually pretty sad, and there is a variety of social commentary I’m inclined to make, but nonetheless, this issue resonates here. There has to be some official response, or elected officials will lose their jobs. The US has had several incidents like this, and as far as I can tell in exactly none of them was the zoo staff held responsible for “having” to kill the animal. So, all that leaves the rather unfortunate prospect of holding the mother accountable, regardless of how stupid it is to hold people criminally liable essentially for being crappy parents (not abusive, just bad.)
Long story short, I agree that the mother deserves some sympathy, and probably shouldn’t be getting the treatment she’s getting. Mostly because I tend to think that, while the mother is clearly responsible for the situation to begin with, and the zoo officials are actually responsible for the criminal decision to kill an endangered species. The problem is the only real outcome to be expected is the mother to be slapped with some kind fairly low level court order, like parenting classes or something.
Again, I’m a local. This is how these things play out ’round these parts.
Cant fix stupid
http://www.mygrandcanyonpark.com/falling-to-death-grand-canyon/
from above
(3) are misogynistically prepared to blame the mother for everything that happens…
ohhh.pleease..
A story from my mother the Misogynist…
On one of my parents driving trips down to Arizona they would sometimes do the Grand Canyon detour because it is one of those scenic overdose place you can never get enough of.
Fast forward to the park store near a major look out, mom is buying a beverage, in walks tinted hair mom from SUV after deploying unattended kid outside.
Desk clerk calls her out and tells her to mind her kid. We all know how parents like to be corrected on there parenting judgment or childs public behavior…. BS comments ensue,
Clerk tells her in so many words to shut her yap and advises outsid the door is an inherently dangerous place, people fall off the edge regularly.
PARENT does eyeroll “Oh sure.. like when was the last time that happened!?”
CLERK: Well let me think .. LIKE last week!
PARENT (sashaying out) crickets.. no “oh wow, thanks for the heads up!”
You can witness this kinda stupid behavior pretty regularly in National Parks.. People standing on the slimy /mossy/crumbling rock at the top of cliff or even just a precipitous grade where once going you’ll keep accelerating until stopped by a hard surface or impaled.
If the gorilla had killed the child the outrage would be all on the other side, and that is very much within the repertoire of primate behavior, especially for males. That was the risk the zoo staff had to weigh. They had far more information about this particular individual’s behavior, history, and body language. I’m sure they’re extremely upset about what happened.
The Dalai Lama says ‘too many’ refugees are going to Germany
This just in, irony too much to handle, world tilts off its axis and plunges toward sun as temperatures break 160 degrees Fahrenheit
as a refugee, his stance has never changed: “The goal should be that they return and help rebuild their countries.”…but we’re not done bombing the rubble your holiness!
Know the rules well, so you can break them effectively. dalai lama xiv
“but we’re not done bombing the rubble your holiness!”
++
“Not in my backyard! …well okay… but just for the weekend!” Don’t get me wrong, I understand that clash of cultures and strain on social structure this mass influx can cause, it is a problem you have to put some work into. I find it odd that the Dalai Lama fails to mention the large global powers destructive tendencies (ahem… U.S./Russia whomever else is using this as a proxy battle) fueling this.
good point. if he had to admit to the destructive structures, he’d have to admit how grossly negligent he was during his ‘talks’ with China…just sayn
like i said ‘he has never changed his stance’…if he admits to today’s destructive tendencies of the powerful, he would have to admit how his ‘talks’ with China resulted in the massacre of his own people.
we’re just humans
Did his people do something wrong in their past lives to suffer the massacre?
How do they see the past 50 or so years?
Dalai Lama has always been a CIA spokesman. I hate how the US foreign policy establishment props up economically “conservative” foreign dissidents like White Russians, Latin American landowners, Muslim theocrats, etc.
This “holy” person supported NATO bombing of Afghanistan and did not want Pinochet to be prosecuted. It’s amazing how his cooped existence and his past pronouncements have been swept under the rug. At least Michael Parenti wrote a proper takedown of this fraud.
“strain on social structure” – Massive increase in rapes, attacks on jews and others, murder, mayhem — just collateral damage on the glorious road to One World, no worries.
“Jews and others” — care to unpack that precious, arrogant, condescending phrase for us?
“And others” is to politely imply objectivity without needing to engage in tedious enumeration of lesser demographic affiliates
Fed Records Show Dozens of Cybersecurity Breaches
… or lack thereof.
I know the vets kerfuffle seems like just another instance of Trump being an arrogant blowhard, but I’m beginning to think the played the whole thing beautifully. Most of us figured that if they seemed shady about the amounts and disbursements it’s because there was dishonesty to hide. That may still be the case, but it’s clear now that the real purpose of the lack of detail was as a faint to draw lots of media criticism so that the campaign could deliver the one two punch of concrete details on amounts raised and disbursed plus the usual media hate-fest.
Kayfabe indeed. It’s hard to take the media portrayal of Trump as a moron seriously when they play into his hands over and over.
He comes out of this looking good? I had been thinking he is such a sleazeball crybaby that a few more months and his numbers will be in the tank.
People don’t want business as usual but the more they see of him the less convinced I am there is any real danger of him becoming prez.
Which resolves any second thoughts i might have about writing in Bernie…sadly, I am coming to the conclusion that it really is gonna be Clinton Foundation in a house coat getting sworn in come January
According to one of the “Game Change” guys this morning on msnbs, Trump had the facts on his side. His “crime” was taking on the “media” with such “unpresidential” fervor.
Something tells me the “media” are the only ones who considered that an unjustifiable “offense.”
But we’re talking “charities” now. And if there’s one can of worms the clintons should try to avoid, I’d think it would be Trump’s “dishonest” use of “charitable” funds he raises and controls. They seem a tad vulnerable here.
I saw the Post’ article on the true conservative “replacement” for Trump
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/powerpost/paloma/daily-202/2016/06/01/daily-202-david-french-trial-balloon-underscores-the-failure-of-never-trump-conservatives-to-field-an-independent-candidate/574e4cd8981b92a22dcdf01d/?wpmm=1&wpisrc=nl_daily202
You know, for people who do nothing but kowtow to the 1%, its hard to believe they could be so inept – and its hard to believe that they could actually find somebody who makes Trump look good in comparison
Now, don’t get me wrong – French is much more honest, brave, and sincere than Trump (which isn’t saying anything). But read his “deal” with his wife when he went to Iraq, and I would say French probably shares more with ISIS thinking on the PLACE OF WOMEN in society than 99.9% of Americans….I am surprised he didn’t make her wear a chastity belt (maybe he did???)
Sooooo….is Krystal working for Trump undercover??? – cause he can’t POSSIBLY be that stupid – quantum mechanics tells us the universe would collapse if so much stupid was concentrated in such a small space…
Again, if Trump forces repubs and conservatives to TRULY state unambiguously what they REALLY, REALLY, SINCERELY believe….he will have done more for this country than any actual president since Roosevelt.
Never ask people what they really believe – because its horrifying…..
These people are so awful Trump already made it through, but the elite, Washington is Hollywood for ugly people, don’t want to acknowledge how deeply unpopular they are. FoxNews (many other outlets) is greater than the sum of its parts. Maybe O’Reilly could beat FoxNews for an hour time slot, but the bulk of their employees are nothings elevated by Fox. If Murdoch realized that, he’d stop paying Kristol for appearances, and then he wouldn’t be a celebrity anymore.
Instead they are choosing to chalk everything up to temporary madness or shallowness on the Democratic side. The courtesans on both teams are particularly at risk. The trapping of celebrity are at risk. Trump is a real celebrity, and he’s demonstrating Washington celebrity counts for nothing. Hillary is largely running on celebrity.
People like Kristol are desperate to protect themselves. If Hillary can’t get over the finish line, what standing does a Barbara Boxer really have? This terrifies them.
http://www.washingtonexaminer.com/politico-reporter-badly-mangles-anecdote-about-david-frenchs-marriage-iraq-deployment/article/2592673
So I see this and I think maybe the original story is too good to be true. But the “debunking” is taken from a NATIONAL REVIEW article that is supposedly (I don’t have the book so I can’t vouch for the accuracy of the quote) a verbatim quote from a book BY DAVID FRENCH. The outrage seems to be the quote was accurate.
QUOTE IN QUESTION
from Here’s how National Review’s Kathryn Jean Lopez characterized the mutual agreement::
“Before David left for Iraq, he and Nancy put together rules, in a painfully honest conversation about human frailty. There would be no drinking during the year of separation. Nancy would not “have phone conversations with men, or meaningful e-mail exchanges about politics or any other subject.” Nor would she be on Facebook, where “the ghosts of boyfriends past” could contact her. When Nancy innocently started e-mailing about faith with a man associated with a radio show she was on, she told David about it, and he asked her to end the relationship. David knew, with his “stomach clenching,” that “the most intimate conversations a person has are about life and faith” — and that “spiritual and emotional intimacy frequently leads to physical intimacy.”
=======================================
Now the above was written by a colleague at National Review – someone I expect to be entirely sympathetic to David French and put him into the best possible light.
SO, from the excerpt:
“When Nancy innocently started e-mailing about faith with a man associated with a radio show she was on, she told David about it, and he asked her to end the relationship. David knew, with his “stomach clenching,” that “the most intimate conversations a person has are about life and faith” — and that “spiritual and emotional intimacy frequently leads to physical intimacy.”
1. So who told the NR writer Lopez that French’s wife was “innocently” emailing? The wife? French?
As I am not married, a question for all the married people – when you email anyone, do you tell your spouse you did it “innocently???”
2. “David knew, with his “stomach clenching,” that “the most intimate conversations a person has are about life and faith” — and that “spiritual and emotional intimacy frequently leads to physical intimacy.””
Hmmmmm….does the above apply to French???? What if a female officer and/or subordinate spoke/issued an order to him – would that interaction be allowed?
As an aside, French seems awfully concerned that at the first opportunity his wife is gonna f*ck somebody else – didn’t he MAKE SURE he married somebody who would honor their marriage vows? And, very importantly to a conservative, not abscond with his money, while he was gone???
3. As always, what is not in the agreement is more fascinating. Did the OH SO MORAL Mr. French include in his morality pact that he would not participate in any way, shape, or form in the killing of children while in Iraq???? Women??? or that he would not participate in any way, shape, or form in torture and/or “enhanced interrogation”???
As usual, conservative outrage is that the truth, in context, has been revealed…
dunno. the media lap up his know-nothing unmeasured presentation of self because ratings. the question is whether the general population will overlook it as the Republicans did during the primary.
The average voter is far too partisan to jump ship over a scandal. McCain-Palin had 59 million votes. Romney-Idiot had 61 million votes. Trump-Reagan’s corpse isn’t going to drive voters away.
The issue is whether the Democrats have kicked their base often enough to drive turnout. Fear isn’t a great motivator, and Hillary plans to pursue GOP women which is a doomed strategy instead of focusing on turnout.
Yes…A REALLY BIG pot of corruption…..calling the kettle ??……..
I watched the press conference yesterday and Trump did play it well. He is someone who is able to project being comfortable in his own skin on TV—something Hillary is not so natural with.
Is it her skin? Ive often suspected she in a alien hive in a fleshbag
If being a sleazeball crybaby was going to tank him, it would have happened about twenty “scandals” ago. There is clearly a sizeable portion of the American public that either does not see him that way or does not give a damn, or for many people, a bit of both.
He comes out ahead because this plays perfectly into his narrative. The media swore up and down for months that his campaign was shafting veterans and using them as a talking point, and then they served him up a perfect platform to announce in great detail where all the money went. If you already believed that the “media” was “after” him, this reinforces that perfectly, and if you were on the fence this may have flipped you.
I’ve seen a theory floating around (no handy source, alas) that a part of Trump’s appeal has to do with different American regional cultures. That what broadly comes across as bullying, bullshit, and bluster in the West, Mid-West and Pacific Coast plays as a sort of blunt, sincere honesty, or at least no-frills and no-fools competence on the East Coast and Northeast.
As someone who’s spent his entire life west of the Mississippi, I’m not in a position to verify the latter half, but he certainly seems like a shallow and reprehensible ignoramus to me. It’s really been a stretch to try and understand how anyone could ever support him, no matter how awful his opponents are.
You’ll have to excuse the media for being a little rusty at their defined jobs. I mean, after one full year of breathless support, shameless clapping, and descending into their most comfortable position as Trump’s #1, most submissive Groupy Club, it’s quite understandable.
“Evaluating the privacy properties of telephone metadata”
Jonathan Mayer, Patrick Mutchler, and John C. Mitchell
Stanford University
http://www.pnas.org/content/113/20/5536.abstract.html
Article is open access.
823 volunteers downloaded and used an app for Android that delivered their call and sms metadata to researchers as well content from volunteers’ FB webpage for truth-grounding. Experiment shows that “telephone metadata is densely interconnected, can trivially be reidentified, and can be used to draw sensitive inferences.”
Authors described operations on their data as if they were trying to collect as much personal info as possible, such as ID, location, romantic relations, religion, health status.
Authors follow the recently-introduced constraints on metadata collection by important agency namely 2-hops and 18 mo retention max.
Google and Yelp feature prominently.
Cheryl Mills Testifies: Hillary Clinton’s Emails Were NOT Available For FOIA Requests
Can’t know what’s irrelevant if ya don’t ask.
Spot on.
“I wish I had thought about the fact that someone could be nongovernment — non-State — and those records might be not being captured,” she added. “I didn’t think about that.”
Such foresight, and tortured syntax, from those tasked by the indispensable nation with moving pieces around the global chessboard.
No wonder it never occurred to the geniuses at “state” that running captured Libyan weapons through Benghazi to Syrian Al Qaeda might have a downside.
We do what we want because we are better and smarter than you. If it fails it’s your fault. If someone says it’s illegal they can f*ck off. We’re better and smarter and more powerful so f*ck you.
Didn’t the Clintons pay for that legal defense? Could be wrong about that. Help us out on this one and you’ll have a nice position as an Assistant Associate Assistant Attorney General.
The amazing thing about the Clintons is how badly they handle power. It’s almost as if they can’t help themselves. As soon as they start to gain power, they’re out banging interns, putting secret servers in their bathroom, and funneling money through their nonprofit. It’s incredible.
They are nouveau riche and never met a dollar, an ounce of power, or in Bill’s case, a piece of a– they didn’t covet.
Odd that Cheryl Mills claims to remember no interactions between Bryan Pagliano and Hillary, or other top aides.
It was reported in March that Pagliano was a political “Schedule C” hire, causing confusion in the IT department since political hires are usually executive assistants. Somebody wanted him in there.
Hillary reportedly paid Pagliano out of her own pocket for helping with her server. Meanwhile, Pagliano’s supervisor Patrick Kennedy had little contact with him, and didn’t know about his role in the private server.
Cheryl Mills would have us believe that Pagliano just kind of materialized out of the mist like a summer thunderstorm. There was no agency, no one knew what he was doing, no one could stop him. It’s as if they were all young Bryan’s victims or something. Yeah, that’s it!
This is the familiar structure of a Clinton fairy tale. Keep the hit machine cranking.
Do you recall who the State Department had for their Inspector General during Hillary’s tenure? He or she would not have been puzzled at Pagliano’s role or duties — he or she would have called him in to find out, in detail.
But Hillary left that high echelon office of IG unfilled during her tenure. No one was minding the store except Hillary.
Inspector General?
His name was Harambe, wasn’t it?
just the usual attempt to establish plausible deniability.
her underlings did all the bad stuff. she did not know about it.
right on time.
From Judicial Watch:
The Clintons: all politics, all the time.
How can there even be a “political position in the IT group”? That’s like a “political position on the surgery team” — not in the patient’s best interest!
– Changes to unrelated-adult housing rules could bring intentional communities out of the shadows
“(According to Garwood, domestic servants remain an exception to the “unrelated adult” rule.)”
Well, there’s your solution…
Downton Abbey 2.0 ….
Or only register three people on the lease, like what I did with 10 other people in a fantastic Clifton Ave mansion in the late-90’s. Cheap, mostly fun, and perfect for post-college life.
I confess to being gobsmacked — to borrow an anglo-English term — by the Minneapolis law. Does that exist in many other U.S. cities? If so, how do the relatively poor (who are not always the young) rent a room short of an actual apartment? Even if the grossly infantilizing college dorm system takes students out of the equation, what about everyone else? From personal experience I can recommend squatting — actual or technical, which is how this law would seem to classify most shared housing — for some like-minded people, but that sort of ‘intentional community’ is not practical for everyone.
Apologies for ignorance of much of the North American continent, but in most cities I know (London/’other Europe’/Montreal+both sides of Pacific Rim), actual enforcement of something like this would create such chaos that it would backfire even on the legislators of generalized housing extortion. Any explanation welcome.
Calpers pension bribery ceo sentencing
http://www.latimes.com/business/la-fi-calpers-buenrostro-20160531-snap-story.html
http://fortune.com/2016/06/01/ceo-calpers-prison-bribery/
4.5 years. How long will he actually serve? credit for time served? and what will the prison and sentencing consultants be able to do to mitigate the horrific personal impact of jail time for such an upstanding citizen? Here’s one of many blurbs by one set of the many people, largely former government corrections employees and DoJ lawyers, who specialize in softening the harsh lash of a conviction:
At National Prison and Sentencing Consultants we assist and work with attorneys throughout the United States with all aspects of sentencing. We have been retained by large national law firms to solo practitioners to seasoned federal defense lawyers to novice practitioners. From investigations of possible downward departures to assistance in preparation of Defense Sentencing Memoranda to Guideline calculations, we work with the client’s legal team to ensure the best possible result. Our work is timely, confidential and of the highest quality. We appreciate the confidential nature of our work and respect the attorney-client and work product privileges.
More importantly, on November 30, 2009 in Porter v. McCollum, the US Supreme Court held that failure to investigate mitigating factors prior to sentencing can be a Strickland violation and hence a 6th Amendment violation. NPSC is available to assist with that required investigation.
Defense attorneys must recognize that the sentencing stage is the time at which for many defendants, the most important service of the entire criminal proceeding can be performed.” Nicholas N. Kittrie, et al., Sentencing, Sanctions, & Corrections: Federal & State Law, Policy, & Practice 134 (2d ed 2002).
As Justice Brennan stated that “[T]o the convicted defendant, the sentencing phase is certainly as critical as the guilt/innocence phase.” United States v. DiFrancesco, 449 US 117, 150, 101 S Ct 426, 66 L Ed 2d 328 (1980).
Please feel free to contact us to discuss our experience and qualifications.
http://www.nationalprisonconsultants.com/attorneys-page/
Cash up front, if you please… these are highly credentialed people, you know…
Hero’s journey:
After Tens of Thousands of Pigeons Vanish, One Comes Back
Newsweek data brokers.
This article just scratches the surface.
There is so much data out there it’s not even funny. There is many private nsas out there. You would not believe the level of information these companies have on you.
One I have used (reference USA) pulls in credit card and bank info among other “proprietary info” and build a full profile of a consumer, (IE they buy dog food they own ~2 dogs etc.)
These programs can be very granular as well, many allow you to search individual consumers and provide location information.
You could shut down the nsa and the government could buy nearly the same quality of data from these private firms.
Palantir got it’s start from the US Intelligence Community. Why wouldn’t other companies have similar funding and capabilities? Diversification and all that.
Re: Research hints at the canine equivalent of IQ
The whole testing regime smacks of the tests used in measuring of the “human equivalent of IQ”.
My dog does has some very interesting behavior that demonstrates that he knows who he is, where and what he is in the world and what we humans are to him. He would balk at some complex labyrinth or agility exercise to get anything in exchange. He only plays games for a short period and then walks away to try something else. I think he participates in “ball catch” or the like because he knows that I enjoy the games!
In summary, I’m very sure those Border Collies have a higher IQ than my dog does. Perhaps they’ll be admitted to the canine equivalent of the Ivy League. My dog is going to a state school.
A dog can’t understand robotics because it doesn’t have the hardware – brain too small.
There are things the human brain can’t understand because we don’t have the hardware.
Those things are the paradoxes in physics, among other things.
Until we get upgraded, genius humans, with or without a Nobel prize, and not-so-genius humans are like dogs, though some mistakenly believe the intellectual uinverse revolves around the human brain.
“He would balk at some complex labyrinth or agility exercise to get anything in exchange.”
Unlike some humans, who will do ANYTHING to get something. Dogs have a dignity that prevents them from stooping to the things humans will do….
Actually, the dumbest dog in the agility course wasn’t the dog who took three minutes to finish. It was the mutt who ran over to the fence, dug a hole, ran off and hasn’t been seen since.
He probably found some gentle human to go home with, where he sleeps on the sofa all day, and gets treats all the time without having to work for them.
Researchers are now coming around to the position that this was actually the smartest dog in the study.
Is this dignity before or after they eat a pile of poop?
just feeding that happy healthy gut
We have had about twenty dogs over the years; taking in anyone who showed up. Some were freakishly intelligent (border collie) and some were so incredibly stupid one had to wonder if they would survive the day without being put in your pocket (mini-yorkie). It strikes me as funny that someone thought it worthwhile to spend actual money to research whether some are smarter than others. Anyone who has ever had dogs could have told them that for free.
There is another correlation between how smart dogs are and how much attention they need. It’s when they get bored that they start chewing up your shoes and rolls of TP in the bathroom. I read this is especially the case with border collies (generally acknowledged to be the smartest dog). Either you need a sheep ranch to keep them occupied, or you need to be there all day.
We were adopted by a real moron, a 90 pound purebred redbone coonhound who showed up at our door with porcupine quills in his face. The vet bill to fix that was $800 plus, and then we could find no one to claim him or adopt him, so we got him fixed and he was ours for two years. We called him Casey Jones in polite company, and many other things in private. Really, he was a magnificent animal from head to toe, but he had no brain, no sense, no grasp of anything.
He ate rocks. He ate bars of soap. He would regularly jump into the empty bathtub but could never discern how to jump out. He howled/bayed/vented like an old coal train night and day, at any provocation. He chewed the end off his own tail for reasons known only to him, and had to wear a plastic cone for a month, which he promptly used to try to hang himself from the front gate. He couldn’t wear a collar safely because he would promptly stick his back foot through it, fall over hogtied, and need rescuing. Having chased a squirrel up a tree, he would spend hours clawing at the trunk, mystified and wailing in consternation, long after the squirrel had jumped to another tree and gone about its day.
He slobbered shoestrings of drool at all times, was fond of strolling into the house and throwing up a pile of sticks, leaves, gravel, and grass, was afraid of snow, ice cubes, or anything cold, and although neutered he pursued lifelong love affairs with anything upholstered in the house.
He hunted and chased snakes in the North Carolina woods — never a good idea — and eventually I saw him bitten twice by a large copperhead. We rushed him to the vet, who examined him, pronounced him fine, kept him overnight, and pronounced him fine again the next morning. There was a very fine bill for services rendered.
His incorrigible stupidity went on until, around the age of two, he and I stepped out on the back deck one spring day for a walk. Casey instantly spotted a squirrel running across the yard, let out a joyous, baying yelp that turned into a curious gargling sound, and fell down stone dead, never to move again.
After a while of standing there numb, I fetched a shovel, and if you know where to look on this green earth, there is a big, mossy stone resting upon the dog tags and collar he never wore, and he is at rest under those.
+
That has got to be the world’s dumbest dog. But this is why I don’t own a dog. I just play with neighbor dogs.
Regarding the gun violence opener to the summer (Vice link), it isn’t the availability of guns causing it. Guns have ALWAYS been available. In the not too distant past even full auto machine guns were more easily had. Assault rifles have been available since 1947. No, it’s NOT the guns, it’s the neoliberalism. The article even ends on that point, obliquely. Neoliberalism is gutting society. Neoliberalism is creating anger, desperation, hopelessness. It is dehumanizing people, literally converting people into commodities to be bought and sold, or dispensed with, in markets. Neoliberalism converts people into redundancies, into deeply indebted proles with no future. Combine guns that have always been there with neoliberalism, a disease of recent vintage (like the epidemic of mass shootings is), and you get the logical end product of neoliberalism: unrest, violence, anger.
Great comment.
agree, and for a period the job creation will seem endless. we’re the Dawn of the NeoZombies…
It’s racial violence, not gun violence.
Neoliberalism has effects just as bad in say, Appalachia, but you don’t see waves of shooting there. I’m sure that there are far more guns there as well.
Maybe it’s all those brick buildings?
Forgot to add, Neoliberalism has effects just as bad in say, Appalachia, but you don’t see waves of shooting there. I’m sure that there are far more guns there as well.
Because there is no society, only individuals, and Appalachia was too “stupid” (read: déclassé, unmoved, contemptuous) to get the memo. Thank you, Maggie.
Not sure if I missed this specific article at NC, but I figure someone will appreciate reading through a couple of squillionaires cannibalizing each other in the media:
https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2016/jun/01/jeff-bezos-on-peter-thiel-seek-revenge-and-you-should-dig-two-graves
Agreed, great comment. Although Neoliberalism is just a subset of Capitalism which is the greater evil at this point.
Capitalism by definition has an end game. Who ever has the most capital wins. That is exactly what is happening. Wealth is concentrating into ever smaller groups while the 99% continue to sink.
Expect more violence.
Praise for the series of photos of the loon on the nest, with that snappy roof overhead and a floating garden. Without a doubt, the loon is contemplating the intelligence of dogs and the stupidity of human beings. Now, how will the parent loon convey these matters to the soon-to-be-hatched loonlings?
Moving into a pre-fab nest??? That’s just loony.
In Canada, those pre-fab nests only cost a twonie. That is cost-effectiveness in action, while we’d likely have the Neo-Liberal supply chain price at 2K for cost-effectiveness inaction.
Big Brother is watching, but hates it when you watch back.
https://www.propublica.org/article/the-dig-easy-recipes-for-investigative-stories-in-three-dot-bursts
After reading Richard North Patterson’s HuffPo piece and seeing Barbara I-feared-for-my-safety Boxer blowing kisses to the convention I wrote the HuffPo editor:
Does fiction writer Richard North Patterson have some unpublished video of the “rushing the stage” or “throwing chairs” or Barbara Boxer “worried for her safety”? I did see video of someone receiving a hug in lieu of throwing a chair and Senator Boxer blowing kisses to Sander supporters in apparent sarcasm. Mr. North Patterson is not entitled to his own facts.
Has he no shame? Does the HuffPo have editors or fact checkers?
I don’t think an organization based on Arianna Huffington not paying writers has any sense of shame. She was a Republican for two decades. Then she made a fortune attacking low hanging fruit.
I went to over to read the comments (and the article, of course), and they have been removed. Sad.
It was still there comments included (a/o 7:15 est). Over 100 comments had an impact:
“Addendum – As originally published, the above piece contained the phrase “angry Sanders partisans throwing chairs, charging the stage and cursing at speakers, including California’s very liberal senator.” The reference to “throwing chairs” was based upon the characterization of a video as reported in the New York Times and NPR and repeated on MSNBC. That reporting has since been questioned, and cannot be independently verified.
For this reason, I have deleted the reference to “throwing chairs”, and regret any error involved.”
When a mafia expert tells us Britain is the most corrupt country in the world, it’s time to start listening In London, the financial mafia don’t take out death warrants on truth tellers, but powerful financial firms will destroy the lives and reputations of whistleblowers. Newsnight found they have a 100 per cent success rate
Mafia expert Roberto Saviano was right this week when he said that it’s Britain, rather than Afghanistan, the South of Italy or Nigeria, which is the most corrupt country in the world. The fact of the matter is that the British public think they are detached from the mafia problem and corruption, yet London is the drug money laundering capital of the world, and 90 per cent of drug cash ends up in the US and Europe via London.
In London, the financial mafia don’t take out death warrants on truth tellers, but powerful financial firms will destroy the lives and reputations of whistleblowers without a moment’s hesitation, ensuring they never work in the financial services sector again.
Many of the criminal corporate activities within the City of London which have dominated the headlines over the past decade are not classified as corruption by Transparency International.
Instead, the media and financial regulators refer to these institutionalised corporate crimes as “inappropriate conduct” or “mis-selling”.
http://www.independent.co.uk/voices/when-a-mafia-expert-tells-us-britain-is-the-most-corrupt-country-in-the-world-its-time-to-start-a7057686.html
The economic situation on Planet Japan has developed not necessarily to their advantage:
All three previous sales tax hikes — from 0 to 3, 3 to 5, and 5 to 8 percent — produced recessions in Japan. So will the 8 to 10 hike. It’s just a question of when. Pencil it in your calendar.
Cranking up tax rates, which intrinsically produce more revenue as the economy grows, is the signature of a dying state.
Look at Puerto Rico, which went from zero sales tax ten years ago to 11.5% now, and still defaulted on its debt. Or New Jersey, which went from zero income tax 40 years ago to a 9.9% top marginal rate now, while its bond rating in parallel slipped from a pristine AAA to a junky A2 (nine levels lower).
Or Illinois, where the legislature just overrode a gubernatorial veto of a bill that would have forced Chicago to start funding its busted pensions.
Giving more money to politicians is a terrible idea. But bless their hearts, folks keep trying it, expecting different results this time.
Giving more money to politicians is a terrible idea?
Even politicians agree.
“Why do you need to give to us, when we can create money ourselves?”
Brexit: Currently re-reading Greg Palast book from 2006 Armed Madhouse. In it he discussed the Nobel Prize winning Robert Mundell, the godfather of the Euro. He retells part of the information in an article in the Guardian, 2012. http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2012/jun/26/robert-mundell-evil-genius-euro.
The euro would really do its work when crises hit, Mundell explained. Removing a government’s control over currency would prevent nasty little elected officials from using Keynesian monetary and fiscal juice to pull a nation out of recession.
“It puts monetary policy out of the reach of politicians,” he said. “[And] without fiscal policy, the only way nations can keep jobs is by the competitive reduction of rules on business.”
He cited labor laws, environmental regulations and, of course, taxes. All would be flushed away by the euro. Democracy would not be allowed to interfere with the marketplace.
IMHO: the austerity we are seeing today is not a bug, it is a feature.
A Canadian who planned the ruin of the European Union has succeeded. Interesting and maybe we in Canada are lucky he left Canada.
That’s one more undesirable immigrant.
The others include imperial warrior-immigrants.
“novelist Robert North Patterson”
Well, I know one persons books who I won’t be reading.
File under: Better life through Google.
The patent calls for a giant sticker to be placed on the front end of a vehicle, with a special coating over the layer that is only broken when something collides with the vehicle, exposing the adhesive and helping the colliding object to remain on the vehicle.
Only opportunity for unintended consequences are only limited to the imagination of kids in parking lots… and kats that like to jump on hoods.
High altitude bombing pigeons.
The ideas flowing through the cranial space of Sergei and Larry seem to be getting rather thin. Maybe they could do something with scratch and sniff as the cadavers collect on the nose of the vehicle.