This tree in Greece is Europe’s oldest known living tree Christian Science Monitor
Is this irrational exuberance? — markets questions for the week FT
Deutsche Bank’s $10-Billion Scandal The New Yorker
SNP moves to close Scottish tax haven loophole in Westminster The Herald (RS).
Questions about central bank firepower loom at Jackson Hole FT
Reserve Bank of India: Inflation hawk Urjit Patel to take top job BBC (J-LS).
Why No One Trusts China’s Markets Bloomberg
Bay Area transit system to subsidize Uber, Lyft rides Mercury News. The grift continues.
Carbon capture can drive a 21st Century revival of British industry Ambrose Evans-Pritchard, Telegraph. Green Tories?
Define the Anthropocene in terms of the whole Earth Nature
This Drug Could End America’s Painkiller Epidemic Bloomberg. Seems a little meta.
Syraqistan
Ex-president Saleh offers ‘all Yemen’s facilities’ to Russia Al Bab
In Response to Indiscriminate Saudi Bombing, MSF Evacuates Northern Yemen The American Conservative
Interview with Libya’s Prime Minister: ‘We Will Not Become Like Somalia’ Der Speigel. Let me know how that works out…
After 10 Years, US B-52H Resumes Operations in Afghanistan The Diplomat
Cognitive biases for Corbyn Stumbling and Mumbling
Black Injustice Tipping Point
White Lives Matter group protests outside NAACP in Houston’s Third Ward Houston Chronicle. Small turnout.
Condemnation of Charter Schools Exposes a Rift Over Black Students NYT
Attending Texas Charter Schools Hurt Students’ Future Wages, Study Finds Education Week
War Drums
‘We will defend ourselves if we feel threatened’: Top commander warns Russia that US will fight back after attack near American forces operating in Syria Daily Mail. Tees up the no-fly zone.
US Hawks Advance a War Agenda in Syria Consortium News (Furzy Mouse).
US at crossroads on drone ops CNN
Russia Emerges as a Campaign Issue That Can’t Be Ignored WSJ
2016
Trump gains ground against Clinton, tracking poll finds Los Angeles Times
An Economics Lesson for Political Pollsters Bloomberg
Focus group: Trump’s “erratic” attacks are costing him supporters CBS. Frank Luntz.
North Carolina a snapshot of Trump’s shrinking trade appeal McClatchy. Reframe as the sovereignty issue TPP is?
Colin Powell sets record straight on involvement in email scandal Page Six. Powell: “Her people have been trying to pin it on me.” Guess the firewall thing is over and done, then?
Clinton Foundation Needs ‘Some Time’ Before Cutting Foreign Money Newsweek
Democrats fret over timing of Clintons’ charity fete Politico
Early Voting Dictates a New Clinton Campaign Structure Bloomberg. “[T]he structure acknowledges the increasing importance of early voting, which offers Clinton the potential to lock in an early lead when ballots begin to be cast in late September.” Hence the current focus of the Clinton campaign and the press — supposing them to be distinct — on declaring Clinton already the victor. People like to vote for a winner.
Clinton campaign manager suggests Donald Trump may be a ‘puppet for the Kremlin’ Business Insider. A Red Scare is a two-fer for liberals: Beating the war drums and kicking the left. Mild-mannered Robbie Mook. Who could have known?
Clinton Allies Say They’re Ready for Rough Campaign After Trump Shakeup Bloomberg. Hard to imagine a rougher campaign than accusing your opponent of treason; I can’t recall an example of a Presidential candidate doing that. Brock is making Karl Rove and Lee Atwater look like choirboys.
Ads for Presidential Race Drop 60%, Hurting Local Broadcasters Bloomberg
Silicon Valley Keeps Its Distance From Donald Trump WSJ. Unsurprisingly, given that Eric Schmidt is all in for Clinton.
Democratic mega-donors plow money into Senate, Clinton bids Yahoo Finance
Hillary Clinton’s Cash Lead over Donald Trump Grew in July WSJ
The Real Way the 2016 Election Is Rigged BIll Moyers
Trump, Clinton ‘Have Not Earned Our Vote,’ says Jill Stein ABC
On dating men with “potential” Medium
Planned, forgotten: Unfinished projects could’ve spared thousands from Louisiana flood The Advocate
Fascism and Democracy Jacobin. Remember when Trump was a fascist? Before he was a Russian agent? Good times.
The Panopticons are coming! And they’ll know when we think the grass is greener The Conversation
The History of Money: Not What You Think The Minskys
JMK Writings Project New Economic Perspectives
Antidote du jour (via):
See yesterday’s Links and Antidote du Jour here.
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LA Times has The Donald ahead by two points. The article states the LA Times uses a “different methodology” than other polls, which show Hill ahead. But as we know, there is only one “poll” that means anything—the election tally. Trump is correct in calling for people to observe anything fishy. If he loses a close one, the notoriously litigious Donald will sue like crazy.
Trump is not using the correct tactic. Observing the election will not address the problem which is now in the open and should be addressed effectively by many millions of people, including the Green Party, Bernie supporters, and U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of New York Preet Bharara who is investigating the Clinton Foundation and may find more evidence of collusion for election theft :
http://blackboxvoting.org/fraction-magic-1/
Fraction Magic – Part 1: Votes are being counted as fractions instead of as whole numbers –
Summary – This report summarizes the results of our review of the GEMS election management system, which counts approximately 25 percent of all votes in the United States. The results of this study demonstrate that a fractional vote feature is embedded in each GEMS application which can be used to invisibly, yet radically, alter election outcomes by pre-setting desired vote percentages to redistribute votes. This tampering is not visible to election observers, even if they are standing in the room and watching the computer. Use of the decimalized vote feature is unlikely to be detected by auditing or canvass procedures, and can be applied across large jurisdictions in less than 60 seconds.
http://www.opednews.com/Quicklink/Open-Letter-from-Cliff-Arn-in-General_News-Bernie-Sanders_Bernie-Sanders-2016-Presidential-Candidate_Bernie-Sanders-Presidential-Campaign_Primary-160810-441.html
Open Letter from Cliff Arnebeck: Theft of the Primary Election
I have been litigating against Karl Rove’s corrupt election practices since the 2000 general election cycle. In this 2016 Democratic Presidential primary election cycle, our opposition research has determined that an advanced technology election hacking system invented by Rove’s technical genius, Mikey Cunnyngham, was successfully implemented.
http://trustvote.org/
As a large group of people, perhaps millions of people, learn about the unfortunate nature of our election process, that same large group will have a chance to begin to demand and create a much more transparent system, a system that is run by the people and for the people.
https://twitter.com/GreenPartyUS
http://www.democracynow.org/2016/8/18/jill_stein_to_bernie_sanders_supporters
Stein & Baraka to Bernie Sanders Supporters: Vote Green & Abandon the Party of War and Wall Street
“Democrats fret over timing of Clintons’ charity fete”
. . . but have no problem with the content. If it were straightforward charity, why would the timing be embarrassing? Perhaps known philanthropist President Nazarbaev of Kazakstan will be hosting a table?
Be careful…more talk like this, and people will begin to think that the Democrats’ primary concern is the management of perceptions.
Re organizing and the Greens, which I know lambert is something of an interest of yours, have you seen this by Bruce Dixon? In addition to the points he makes about Baraka potentially being an important organizer for the Greens, I wonder if there’s a central library (for lack of a better word) that collects all the various third-party restrictions re ballots? It would probably make very interesting reading. I wonder if something like that doesn’t exist, if it could be crowd sourced.
In some states the percent of votes a party candidate received in the previous election can qualify the party for ballot access. Other requirements:
https://ballotpedia.org/Ballot_access_for_presidential_candidates#Requirements_for_independents
Richard Winger’s Ballot Access News website does just that: http://ballot-access.org/. Great resource & Winger usually responds to requests if you need information about particular states/reform efforts.
thanks for the link
another BEST in Antidotes!
‘It’s like finding out there really are fairies at the bottom of the garden!”
K.Pryor, Lads Before the Wind: Diary of a Dolphin Trainer
What are the odds of this happening?
As I read your comment about the dolphin antidote, I was listening for the first time to a CD of mezzo Cathy Berberian singing “There Are Fairies at the Bottom of Our Garden” at the Edinburgh Festival in 1973!
Magic.
yet, another example for why NC is so important to me…
i can’t find Cathy performing that particular song but i have an idea why your listening to her…Remarkable Voice.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IwAvkHEAQzc
and here is ‘our’ particular song by Beatrice Lille…’Campy’ indeed lol! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JNz7Gx5miBU (would thrill to hear Cathy’s voice with the rise & twist!)
now for the entire quote i borrowed…a triple dose of synchronicity:
“As he [Sir Malcolm Sargeant, conductor of the London Philharmonic] stood in waist deep in the shallows of Whaler’s Cove, the littler spinners came drifting over, sleek and dainty, gazing at him curiously with their soft dark eyes. Malcolm was a tactful, graceful man in his movements, and so the spinners were not afraid of him. In moments, he had them all pressing around him, swimming into his arms, and begging him to swim away with them. He looked up, suffused with delight, and remarked to me, ‘It’s like finding out there really are fairies at the bottom of the garden!”
It bothers no one that it appears the Fairy Dolphin is confined behind glass ?
hopefully, fully healed before release…
Fairies, black, grey, green, and white,
You moonshine revellers, and shades of night,
You orphan heirs of fixed destiny,
Attend your office and your quality.
Billy S.
re: Cognitive Biases for Corbyn
? Just What? Just what is the writer trying to relay?
The biggest cognitive biased statement since one J Corbyn won the Labour leadership contest is that he can’t win the next general election. Every media pundit (journalism died long ago) and so-called Labour mainstream loyalist (Blairite) have been screaming this messsage since day dot. These “experts” (read: my pay packet depends on Corbyn’s demise) have this cyrstal ball, you see, and they tell the future with clarity.
Since they know the future, there is only cognitive bias by J Corbyn supporters?
Or is their bias the basis of there own utternaces. We, the elected elite, are against Corbyn and his supporters (even when they are the majority) and we will never cease to promote the negatives of him and his supporters. It’s a self eating cake. Our desired outcome must come to pass because we will destory all before us if need be in order to maintain the status quo or take the status quo deeper into elitism.
Plus, the author relates a right – left divide. It’s not. It’s an above and a below divide.
It really appears quite a few people are getting tired of this thing called democracy. They want better management. Worker collective bargaining has been destroyed. Now it’s time for democracy.
We will have the best democracy that money can buy.
Thanks. Yes, that was a very poor article. I’m fascinated by the Corbyn phenomenon and by the crazy stuff that gets thrown at him. More interested in British news than in US news at the moment for this reason. It’s nice to see that all the multiple lies and dirty tricks are not going to beat him yet, but after the election I think the Labour PLP and Blairites are going to try and split the Labour Party, sigh.
The scottish labour leader, Kezia Dugdale, heroically declared her support for Corbin’s challenger in the guardian today.
An endorsement from her is the equivalent of a political black spot. Corbin is now home and dry.
The red Tories will then try to get an early election or split the party in the most destructive way it can.
I couldn’t make head nor tail of the article either.
The biases to worry about are in the political environment that is implacably united against anyone like Corbin.
It’s funny, but it’s not.
I’ve been waiting for the now well-worn MSM tactic of daily Labour party stalwarts re-re-defecting to the Blairite wing. We’ll get daily doses of this until the day of the election. We’ll also get why Corbyn supporters via MSM articles and “professsional” commentary are:
trotskyites
fascists
racists
antisemites
anti-working class
putin supporters
all great grandchildren of stalin
all the above
blah, blah, blah
The Scottish population largely saw throught this ruse during the indy referendum, and it really began to backfire towards the end. Will the rest of the UK Labour Party supporters also see the ruse, or is the timing better employed by the MSM now?
As for the Scottish Labour Party, the party hacks have almost ensured that they have destroyed the party in Scotland. Dugdale is just turning off the lights as she leaves.
There is only one question I have about London Mayor Kahn, Dugdale and the rest.
What was your price? How cheap did you sell your constituent’s needs and desires?
Please don’t tell us you sold them for nothing, because yeese are certainly not selling them for democratic or Labour Party principles.
Who benefits from the Labour Party debacle? It isn’t the electorate.
We’ve had that for a while now. Where’ve you been?
re the colin powell article; seems like the mighty wurlitzer is playing a few discordant notes.
I guess some people don’t like getting dragged through the mud, in order to provide cover for the Clintons.
Seems pretty rational by the Clinton camp. If you’re looking for someone with a proven trackrecord of being willing and able to publicly besmirch his name by stating ridiculous lies to benefit those in power, Colin Powell has the perfect résumé.
+1
Yet miraculously, Powell still gives Clinton cover (i.e., ‘her people are trying to pin it on me.”). The Empress’ clothes remain. (In threads, but they remain.)
Re: dating men with potential
Good to know that to even be considered part of the “loser” caste and not the winners who “start companies and movements”, you still have to be an extremely talented and attractive artistic professional held back by one or two eccentric flaws.
Bottom line of “Dating Men w/ Potential” is go with the achievers. Interesting to see how neoliberalism affects dating.choices.
Well of course it would, if women are unpaid caretakers (for young or old – at least having kids is usually a choice, taking care of old people seldom is) money has to come from somewhere and with no UBI in sight, no protections for working part-time etc. – ergo date a winner or even better than that choose winner parents!! Even when women work the same jobs they earn 80% of what men do, part of this may be that they take time off to be those very caretakers. The other part is probably that women often aren’t raised with the kind of competitiveness, assertiveness, “confidence” that the modern workplaces prizes. And those are the issues that tend to disproportionately affect women.
Then there are the issues facing both sexes. Difficult, difficult job market, periods or unemployment, periods or permanent under-employment. And so who of either sex couldn’t use a rich partner as a safety net? Of course it’s unattractive to be a golddigger and better to stand on one’s own two feet (better for the relationship too) but neoliberalism is precisely labor reduced to being increasingly unable to make it, standing on one’s own two feet doesn’t amount to much if it’s at the food kitchen.
Women who depend on a male breadwinner, some are happy stay at home mothers doing what they always wanted (that is caretaking), sometimes the story is not so happy and amounts to: “i’m working class, I don’t know how working class people even make it in this expensive city, I don’t have a college degree even my parents just went from part time job to part time job, I had to choose a man different than I would normally” (said out of the deep shame of women who have seen their failures in the eyes of this society as well – they haven’t been able to succeed on it’s harsh terms, they may not even be SELF-educated enough to have been exposed to decent capitalist critique and other social critique which is almost saddest of all – but they understand their failure)
From the female author — “For the last fifteen years, a pressure has been building up in me. For nine of those years, a therapist told me, ‘Write.'”
If he’s a good enough writer, even a layabout can seduce a new partner with words that thrill. Lookit ol’ Dylan Thomas, a hopeless tippler who made his rounds of poetry readings, often being granted the host’s marital bed (with the faculty wife in it) for the night.
Epistolary romance, comrades: its works better with a full keyboard than an iPhone, at least for guys with fat fingers.
I couldn’t even finish the article…it just made me feel all icky.
Step 1. divide everyone into “winners” and “losers.”
Step 2. ignore the losers, even if you love them — get with a winner who has
Ah yes…only dudes who start comanies or movements(???), who are successfully exploiting a bunch of “loser” workers, and who not only have a house on land, but a spare one that floats in water…only these are “Real men.” The rest of us? We’re just fakers.
I feel truly sorry for any man who ends up with this woman. What a depressing and judgemental (not to mention ludicrous) way of looking at the world.
While I did finish the article and think I understand what she was saying, it’s obvious she has yet to ask herself why those ‘successful’ men who aren’t cokeheads, methheads or alcoholics are single if they’re so great? (Philanderers, abusers, egomaniacs…….?) No one is perfect.
She obviously still has much to learn.
Sounds like her friends are trying to steer her onto the right track by suggesting she needs to heal herself, first.
Perhaps it’s also worth asking why those ‘successful’ men are interested in her? If it’s because of the way she looks then she’d better think about what happens when she’s forty years old and her husband decides to trade her in for a pair of twenties :)
Personally, I don’t want my daughters chasing drug addicts OR rich jerks. They’re both bad news!
… Except rich men in community property states pay well.
I know too many women who are after the money.
As a woman myself, they disgust me because they give a bad name to the rest of us in the eyes of many men, as both genders tend to ‘categorize’.
Alcoholism and hard drug use are deal-breakers for me, as well.
But to lump genders into such narrow categories as she did is shallow, IMO.
Sorry. For JohnnyGL:
In the beginning of the writing, she states she’s 48.
Nonetheless, I suspect that when/if she finds that ‘perfect’ man, it won’t last because she’ll discover he’s not so ‘perfect’, and he’ll tire of trying to be her ‘perfect’ man.
” I don’t want my daughters chasing drug addicts OR rich jerks. They’re both bad news!”
I would certainly be in agreement with that, be they a son or a daughter.
One has to wonder how it computes when the rich guys are drug addicts, too! Do you stick with your man because he has so much financial ‘potential’? :)
The autobiographical snippets in this piece go some way to explain how the author became so disgustingly shallow and materialistic. Her father was gone all the time, making money in far-away places. Her mother drank herself to death.
Still, “icky” is probably the kindest adjective that we can use here for the article.
Sounds like she serves as a living example of that old saying, “better to remain silent and be thought a fool than to speak out and remove all doubt”.
And guys, remember, there are woman out there like that. Another old saying, “Marry in haste, repent at leisure.”
“Write” …. even if you have basically nothing to say. Granted there are plenty of places to write whether or not you have something to say (your dairy, facebook, emails, internet comment boards … uh – btw Trump is a bigot – I worked hard to come up with that insight) but with a little less arrogance to the whole thing.
Sorry if that went over your head. Not for everybody.
I should add that I hope she gets over her issues (as we see them) and finds a good, healthy relationship. Goddess knows we could use more of those around.
TL;DR – young gal finds broken men exciting, successful ones boring and unmemorable.
I’m not sure what is supposed to be learned by reading an article from a woman who clearly needed the structure/internal strength from Al-Anon due to her drunk/abusive/not present mother more than a relationship.. The one constant in that article was the author, not the men she chose to date.
Pia Mellody’s “Facing Love Addiction” will help the reader come to grips with and then address the internal reasons why they continue to fall for the wrong people.
Everyone deserves love..
That therapist of hers has got to have paid off the boat by now…so she needs to do something constructive…
she should go stalk Bob newhart and get with the five minute program…
Just….S.I.
Or not…
seems she is quite content to live a life of perpetual complaining…
otherwise she would do otherwise…
LinkedIn — answer to the author’s prayers:
“Network and chill,” as the saying goes.
LinkedIn — now owned by Microsoft. You may not find a date, but you’ll probably get Windows 10 push-downloaded into your computer.
Which is why I’m hanging on to this vintage laptop. It can run Win7, but doesn’t have enough processor juice for Win10.
There is always Linux and no tribute to the Oz in the Emerald City!
“…when a man comes along that is getting serious shit done, you can see yourself reflected in his eyes, and by his side.” Sounds like…the Good Provider. Take it away, Ambrose:
“MALE, n. A member of the unconsidered, or negligible sex. The male of the human race is commonly known (to the female) as Mere Man. The genus has two varieties: good providers and bad providers.”
Reminds me of the marriage politics in a Jane Austen novel. Have to have a man with an income.
Exactly why Great American Novels are like unto hazardous waste.
But yeah, I know a bit about San Luis Obispo. Christiana’s mother is exemplary of the place. Credentials, smarmy right-wing limousine liberalism (“family” this and “family” that) and wine grapes were indeed the top three local products. Tipper Gore was their matron saint. It’s part of why I refuse to get that town’s dust on my feet ever again.
I don’t love Austen like some do, but let’s not slander her by suggesting she was similar to this. Austen was Victorian-era British, and even pulled out of context her dating advice was light years better than this article. Which made me feel sorry for the author and very, very happy that I ignored practicalities, married someone I cared about who cared about me and who had completely different priorities than someone like this, and that I’ve been out the dating pool for 20 years. Cause AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!
MojaveWolf,
Jane Austen wrote during the Regency, well before Victoria came to the throne. English society became quite different under Victoria.
Wonderful literature came out of both periods, though.
No, Austen was before the Victorian Era. She died in 1817. Queen Victoria took the throne in 1837.
Not to pile on, but Austen also didn’t do “dating advice.” Although her books often constructed marital happy endings for their protagonists, they didn’t sugarcoat the options facing women in her social sphere. Lizzy Bennett’s happy ending was neither the result of following her mother’s dating advice nor any other realistic advice a woman in her position would have received. It is beloved in part BECAUSE it offers a fantasy in which a woman disobeys the rules and is rewarded with status and economic security in addition to romance because she is smart and mouthy. And the narrative underlines how abnormal this is by illustrating many less romantic outcomes for other women in the story.
I realize you’re sort of getting at that, but Austen isn’t a romance novelist, and her work is often misrepresented and misunderstood because of the “smart poor girl gets rich guy” aspect of P&P.
Guys, guys, guys. Fret not. This is pretty boiler-plate advice from an older woman to a younger. It’s all over the Internet at places like Black Women’s Empowerment blogs, and before that it was what mothers of all races taught their daughters and middle-aged undergraduate advisors and gas station shift supervisors told their advisees and underlings. None of the daughters or advisees or underlings listened then and none of them will now. There will always be plenty of 18-year-old versions of this writer ready to lick the boo-boos (and whatever else is at hand) your assh*le supervisor/your b*tch of an ex/the child support payment apparatus in your county/the police/your father/your mother/your band-mates have inflicted on you.
Whether she’s still around at 28 when she realizes she’s had three kids with someone who still can’t deal with the world operating as it is rather than how he would like it to be, well, that’s another question. Probably she’ll be pulling extra shifts at Great Clips and trying to finish up her degree, telling all her newly licensed co-workers and the PSEO girls in her study group at the community college not to make the mistakes she made.
It will be useless on her part. They will not listen.
I know I didn’t.
Nobody is encouraging women to date degenerates. The article is sick because it objectifies success as the only measure of a man’s character. Its on the same level of nastiness as writing an article to explain to guys that an overweight girl with potential to look good is never going to lose the weight and make herself up attractively. She’s just trying to cheapen and commoditize relationships by coldly analyzing a man’s worth from an investor’s perspective
I dunno. Sounds like she was raised by a substance abusing mom and emotionally incoherent household; grew up learning how to relate to substance abusing people; had a string of attachments to substance abusing men since that’s the emotional dynamic she learned growing up; and still has no idea what “normal” means – so she tries to calculate what “normal” is on a spread sheet. Kinda sad.
I thought mothers taught their daughters to focus on their own education and careers first and foremost these days – date a rich guy or date a poor guy but establish some financial security for yourself if you can.
My mother did. The church she took me to and my extended family did not. The values of the wider circle of relationships in a kid’s life matter. I’ve seen this now over two generations in my family and in the small towns where they live, first with my cousins and now with my nieces. Babies first, and then, sometimes, usually after the divorce, education and financial security.
I am so relived that I am out of the dating pool. If such dating advice is common among contemporary women I would have remained a single to this day. I had potential, but I was also a bit damaged from life and war. And broke too. My now-SO didn’t run for the hills, yet things worked out just fine for the both of us. Anecdotal evidence, exception to the author’s “rule”, whatever, one thing I realized is that any lasting relationship is built on mutual respect and compassion. My SO has plenty of both, unlike the whiny author.
When I read “dating men with potential” I thought of people talking about sports draft prospects.
Wish I’d known about this before, I could’ve sold myself way better on first dates. “Sure, I’m a raw prospect, but my ceiling is super high! My athleticism is off the charts! Where are you going?”
– Anthropocene
“More recently, members of the Anthropocene Working Group have proposed — I think correctly — 1945 as an unambiguous beginning for people causing a shift in the functioning of the Earth system.”
1945 is also the year the earth started to act like a star.
RE: Colin Powell sets record straight on involvement on email scandal (sorta, kinda … ahhh, not so much)
In the article, Powell says:
But the second paragraph makes it clear it wasn’t Clinton’s people that tried to pin the blame on Powell:
So why didn’t Powell really let her have it directly? Something more like, “Clinton is trying to pin it on me.” Or, to be even more clear, “Clinton is lying.”
Alas, another victim of the Clinton slime machine tiptoes up to the brink and falters.
I’ll shed no tears for Powell. Hillary could try to blame the Clinton Global Slush Fund on Powell for all I care.
Although in Clinton land, it’s clearly still 1993. When she was rehearsing answers for the FBI, I wonder how many people high five after coming up with the idea of using “Colin Powell did it” as an excuse.
At this point, outside of Versailles on the Potomac does anyone who still remembers Colin Powell not want to see him in an orange jumpsuit at the Hague?
He’s actually a little far down the line of people I want in an orange jumpsuit at the Hague. Oh, I’d still get him there eventually, but there are easily twenty or more others I want there first, including Clinton and Obama.
But yes, even if he wanted to spread the blame around, eventually he should have bit the bullet and made it clear that CLINTON was the one who made the final decision and told the lie. As in “I’m not sure which of her people thought blaming me was a good idea, but it is a lie and Clinton should have rejected that advice. But rather then telling the truth she choose to lie about my very limited use of public email and advice regarding it in order to excuse herself.”
Agreed, but who says there is no honor among theives? The fact that Powell still sugarcoats his rebuttal of Clinton’s lie astounds me. When the levy breaks — and I pray that day arrives soon — how many scores or hundreds will come forward with damning evidence against the Clinton machine once the omertà is finally broken once and for all?
What the Clinton campaign has unleashed in its connection of Trump with Putin is only a Red Scare because so many people are under the illusion that the former KGB agent is a cap-C Communist instead of what he has become — a Russian Orthodox nationalist, more closely akin to UKIP, French National Front, and what is being called the alt-right than to the US left that sees Russian-controlled media as a non-biased option to counter the Wall Street media.
Of course Robbie Mook feeds this illusion to suppress the Bernie voters. Not to mention all positions left of that.
The TINA strategy continues.
Correct.
It’s bizarre that anyone would consider Putin or the current iteration of the Russian Federation as “Red,” but there you are.
Useful shorthand I guess for those who must revive the Cold War no matter what. And that includes a lot of Dems and Rs, pretty much the entire political class in the Anglo-American world, and pretty much all of their media enablers, droolies, and sycophants.
Closest comparison is the lead-up to the Iraq invasion-occupation debacle. Lies and more lies (Gen. Powell was no slouch in spreading them — yah but how many Iraqis did he personally kill? Huh, huh?) on top of hysterics over non-existent threats.
Here we are again. Why not? It worked so well before.
“We got the B-52 back in the fight in Afghanistan and Iraq,”
The US has given up on “hearts and minds.”
Consistent with our policy: No boots on the ground just lotsa bombs from the sky.
America’s obsession with aerial bombing is a variant of the cargo cult: “If we deliver enough payload, they will be pacified.”
Yup, nothing more pacified than a dead man.
Since the bombing is really only effective at destroying infrastructure, is this another self-licker – to abbreviate Lambert’s phrase – to bomb the roads we funded to build to rinse and repeat and/or is the US trying to pacify a path through Helmand Province for the TAPI pipeline funded by the Asian Development Bank.
The use of drones to be combined with low yield nuclear devices on brown people far away are going to change warfare just as machine guns, barbed wire and mustard gas changed it once before. We all ready have the military geniuses encircling Russia and whole swaths of politicians taking offense at minor scuffles unable to differeciate the minor from seismic threats.
And just as the smart people tried to remind the brain trusts/military geniuses only to lose or have two of the longest conflicts in American history ongoing. The other truism is that those who go to war with Russia lose. But these idiots don’t even bother to listen to those who should know better.
http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2015-11-07/legendary-us-army-commander-says-russia-would-annihilate-us-head-head-battle
But the armchair generals think otherwise. And leading that parade is Clinton. Mind you this might be one time when she won’t have enough time to find out that she was didn’t know diddly and enough distance to be able to blame someone else before the disaster overwhelms us.
Follow the money, war is not about strategy or tactics or resources or even who wins and who loses in the end, it’s about maintaining the flow of chump taxpayer dollars to arms merchants, think tanks, senators, and our state (Pravda) media organs. The “who wins” stuff is just for show, war policy outcomes no longer have any bearing on future war policy decisions. Will it keep the big bucks flowing? OK then let’s do it. Nuclear war outcomes are measured in mega-deaths (1 million human deaths) but who cares if the bezzle can continue, imagine Humana’s bottom line after they get to treat all those radiation burns, ka-ching-a-palooza.
e other truism is that those who go to war with Russia lose.
Well there are a few aging Afgan warlords that eould choose to disagree with that statement
You probably mean those who choose to pick a fight with Russia on their turf
The old saw about logistics vs strategy. The former trumps the later ultimately.
Sorry, but Afghanistan does not disprove the thesis.
A coup in 1978 installed a pro-Soviet government which tried aggressively modernizing the country and met with substantial domestic opposition. The USSR sent in advisers and then troops.
Afghanistan did not go to war with the USSR. The USSR got deeply bogged down in trying to create a client state and failing.
Did we ever really embrace “hearts and minds”?
I’m just wondering if I missed something along the way.
People forget that ‘winning hearts and minds’ (that exact phrasing too) was also supposedly part of our strategy in Vietnam. As far as I can tell that consisted first of forcibly relocating large numbers of people into prison villages surrounded by barbed wire and then escalated up to designating vast swathes of countryside free-fire zones and assuming everything moving within was a VC combatant. And then being perplexed when, despite years of mining, napalming, shelling, and carpet bombing, the civilian population still overwhelming hated us. Can’t imagine why.
On the contrary – the US has just decided that it’s easier to count the hearts and minds you’ve conquered by counting the ones lying around on the ground after a ‘surgical’ strike.
Link for article Russia Emerges as a Campaign Issue…
http://blogs.wsj.com/washwire/2016/08/19/russia-emerges-as-a-campaign-issue-that-cant-be-ignored/
From the Jacobin piece linked above:
This statement is true, not only because of the many ways that big-money interests have corrupted the electoral process, but also because there is no such thing as the will of the people.
“The people” always include parasitical elements who owe their status to the oppression of others among “the people.” Historically, the oppressed have managed to wrest some power away from the oppressors only after horrific, bloody struggles. The gains from these struggles are never secure, as the neoliberal assault on workers over the last half-century makes abundantly clear.
I fear that Dylan Riley is also right when he suggests that:
Those of us who don’t relish the prospect of a far-right authoritarian regime need to very clearly step away from the “corrupt parliamentary clique” of the establishment parties, and pursue justice through extra-electoral means. We tried playing by the rules of our corrupt institutions to get a decent man, Bernie Sanders, nominated. What happened during the rigged primaries makes clear that our kleptocratic rulers won’t allow a peaceful revolution to occur here in the U.S.
You can’t hold a hardened war criminal’s “feet to the fire”. Our current system has firmly rejected our input and should be regarded as something to resist, not collaborate with!
Riley could have gone a lot farther in talking about problems with liberal democracy that encourage fascism. In fact, for a NLR editor I’m very puzzled as to why he made no reference to a demand to organize the economy to ensure something approaching full employment. (All those guys marching with shovels in “Triumph of the Will” weren’t just showing off garden hardware.) Also, as the Frankfurt School emphasized, the tendency toward social fragmentation in market societies blended with economic regulation demands to encourage talk of common social purpose and solidarity. This fits with Riley’s criticism of “political formulas,” formalistic affirmations that don’t have much to do with everyday life in the market, wherein it’s all too easy to come to feel marginal and precarious.
“Hard to imagine a rougher campaign than accusing your opponent of treason; I can’t recall an example of a Presidential candidate doing that.”
I understand it’s not popular to acknowledge reality while aboard the Trump Train because of how painful the resulting cognitive dissonance is, but did you somehow miss your candidate accusing Clinton of founding ISIS? And have you forgotten 2012, where Obama was accused of treason by Romney supporters?
And nasty, no-holds-barred campaigns go back to Adams vs. Jefferson.
Or Burr vs. Hamilton, if we’re talkin’ REAL no-holds-barred.
Is it proper for a man to duel with a female opponent?
Letitia Baldrige bequeathed us no guidance on this question.
Unfortunately Clinton and Trump with pistols at dawn would probably leave us with their VPs running for the Presidency otherwise I would have something new to pray for every night (along with them both ‘winning’ said encounter).
So let’s see making an hyperbolic statement about how his opponent and her former boss’s foreign policy has helped lead to the rise of ISIS is the same as saying he is corroborating with someone we aren’t actually at war with for financial gain and is a puppet of said foreign leader. There is no comparison on being reality based.
But then I do get that expecting Clinton’s foot soldiers to tell the truth about her opponents is, well pointless. It is SOP for Clinton campaigns. This one is telling because it is once again lining up reasons to attack Russia, and they call Trump crazy (and treasonous).
“So let’s see making an hyperbolic statement about how his opponent and her former boss’s foreign policy has helped lead to the rise of ISIS”
uh no, that’s not what Trump said. That’s the favorable interpretation but as Trump kept saying that isn’t what he meant.
Trump said the hyperbolic version of it.
huh?…you enter a heavily trafficked site of thick-skinned free thinkers in an attempt to manipulate with insults? it is Monday…
“The greatest enemy of knowledge is not ignorance, it is the illusion of knowledge.”
I’m thick skinned? Not at all. l am proud to be thick witted.
pardon my illusions… ‘ )
Reality has few takers on team D either:
http://www.blackagendareport.com/obama_clinton_created_isis
https://www.yahoo.com/news/germany-tell-people-stockpile-food-water-case-attacks-154318206–sector.html
I am sure can read the scarcely hidden sub text. Neat it comes out with Olympic circus in full throttle….
Very interesting link Richard. That is quite something if true. Surprised it hasn’t got more coverage.
I’m still trying to get my head around it. “Each individual will be obliged to hold 5-10 days of water and food…prepare appropriately for a development that could threaten our existence…potential large scale militant attacks”.
They talk about threats from terrorism being the reason for the proposed public directive. To me this would seem to suggest they see a change of approach in terrorists targeting critical infrastructure such as water or electricity rather than just people in crowded locations as they have in the past. Unless they now plan on locking down entire cities for a period of days when a threat arises. Don’t let a good crisis go to waste to scare the bejesus out of the public and keep them where they want them – cowering in the corner.
But then part of me wonders if they are just using a terrorist threat as a cover for the real risks from escalating tensions from NATO/Ukraine/Russia standoff or some similar based threat. But 5-10 days supplies wont be much good if that situation goes pear shaped.
I better stop before my head spins right off its shoulders…
As Homeless Find Refuge in Forests, ‘Anger Is Palpable’ in Nearby Towns [NYT]
Loosely patrolled? Why might that be?
Surely this is a perfect opportunity for a public private partnership.
Even mountain towns are costly and housing there scarce??
Nederland, Colorado is about 12 miles west of Boulder, a “built out” city.
The average price of a home sold in Boulder County was $638,146 in October 2015, 17.7 percent higher than the average a year earlier.
Concentrate enough demand in an area bounded by unbuildable mountains and national forests, and house prices can be driven to eye-watering levels.
It ain’t Vancouver, but it ain’t bad.
Here are more recent figures from July 2016. Prices have continued to escalate.
Excellent chart included showing the increases in the surrounding area.
http://www.dailycamera.com/boulder-business/ci_30129551/cost-average-home-boulder-surpasses-1m
I don’t know how I’ll ever be able to go ‘home’ again…
Still trying to wrap my head around Boulder (city) house prices trading in the same ballpark as San Jose, Calif in the heart of Silicon Valley … when Boulder’s nearly a thousand miles inland.
It’s beachfront prices without the beach! :-)
Post the late 80s Boulder became a play ground for elite children to attend University. Having the backing [family money + networks] and the chip off the old block entrepreneurial spirit it was only a matter of time until only the wealthy could live there. That’s not to forget the IT exodus out of Calif in the 90s finding purchase between Denver and Boulder and the resultant cashed up executives effects.
Disheveled Marsupial…. moved to Oz in mid 90s against the wife’s prostrations… she now understands..
Should add that supply and demand has very little to do with it jim, heaps of RE just a stones throw from Boulder if you look at a map.
Disheveled Marsupial…. desirability and lifestyle accoutrements are the major factors…. don’t be caught dead living where the poor people do thingy….
Mtn towns can be the most expensive housing, with many (most?) consisting of vacation homes now.
Mtn towns have become too expensive for all but the wealthy. That area, especially, is quite pricey.
The article fails to state another reason folks are living off the land—many millions lost their homes and housing has skyrocketed. Some would prefer to live in the woods compared to living in a city if homeless, I suspect. They probably feel safer.
Yes, I believe many of those living in the woods do have ‘issues’ other than the banks that caused their current condition, as well.
They aren’t the only idiots who don’t know how to care for a campfire, however.
I worked subcontracted under the forest service and carried 2 large water containers in my vehicle to put out unattended fires from campers on vacation, by my own choice because I owned land and a home in the area.
What was most frightening were the number of them I put out (sometimes with the campers standing there), when we were under highest fire danger and under full restrictions of any fires.
We referred to them as ‘clueless flatlanders’ (or worse).
I can understand those with homes in the area being concerned about fires because the homeless only add to the fire danger. I can see both sides.
Yet where are those homeless supposed to go?
‘Anywhere but here’, apparently.
Re: Carbon capture
I don’t like the term “Carbon capture” as it doesn’t really “capture” the difficulty of the problem.
People are familiar with pure carbon (electrodes in carbon-zinc batteries, brushes in motors, graphite, and coal (75% to 90% carbon)).
Capturing this type of already captured carbon is not what the “carbon capture” advocates are describing.
The article does immediately refer to CO2 once one reads past the headline.
Thus the “carbon capture” is of Carbon Dioxide gas (CO2), which must be stored in assumed very long term low leakage caverns, at high pressure to get reasonable storage efficiency.
Why not replace “Carbon capture” with “Carbon dioxide gas capture” as that is far more informative of what is being recommended and may give some people more awareness of the difficulty of the problem?.
Get rid of the usage of the term “carbon capture”.
It is possible to convert the carbon dioxide to carbonate minerals. If this occurs, there’s no need to worry about gas leakage, because the minerals are solids. However, I suspect there are numerous technical complexities, and I also don’t know how much additional energy is required to make the conversions.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carbon_capture_and_storage#Mineral_storage
We have a phytoplankton for that.
Ocean acidification is a serious problem that doesn’t seem to get enough attention. I don’t know whether the plankton can keep up with the increasing amounts of carbon dioxide (and carbonic acid).
It’s one of those existential science thingies.
Worry about the abstraction of some plankton you’ve never met, or fire off an important text message about your kids soccer schedule while piloting the 300hp allwheel drive Sears Shed to work?
Green slimy stuff has no context, it needs a good Hollywood PR firm. Maybe some anthropomorphic Disney character?
Most planktopomorphs working in the movies only get offers of monster parts. Better agents don’t help much.
Godzilla was rehabilitated from monster to a large critter w/ a environmental-centric social conscience. Never say never. Even Green Slime can presented sympathetically, just need to work in the over-scale large eyes… https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Manga_iconography
Godzilla’s allegiance and motivations have changed from film to film to suit the needs of the story. Although Godzilla does not like humans,[45] it will fight alongside humanity against common threats. However, it makes no special effort to protect human life or property[46] and will turn against its human allies on a whim. It is not motivated to attack by predatory instinct: it doesn’t eat people,[47] and instead sustains itself on radiation[48] and an omnivorous diet.[1][49] When inquired if Godzilla was “good or bad”, producer Shogo Tomiyama likened it to a Shinto “God of Destruction” which lacks moral agency and cannot be held to human standards of good and evil. “He totally destroys everything and then there is a rebirth. Something new and fresh can begin.”[47]
Godzilla would be a better presidential candidate than Cthulhu. Someone should start a Godzilla4America website and twitter account.
Also, Godzilla vs. Cthulhu would be a way more fun debate than Trump vs. Hillary (assuming Godzilla wins, of course).
Still would rather see either Godzilla or Cthulhu debate both Trump and Hillary. And all of Hillary’s backers. ::wistful sigh::
Point of order: comments on Godzilla and Cthulhu as actually existing beings in the material world and speculation on the likely outcomes of their encounters with neoliberals & neocons is just as productive and “reality-based” as speculation about holding Hillary and the DNC “accountable” to leftist/progressive policies by “holding their feet to the fire.” At least if Godzilla were here he could really put some fire on those feet. ::wistful sigh::
The term ‘carbon capture’ covers many possible techniques, not just underground storage of gaseous CO2. It includes, for example, the use of ‘biochar’, essentially turning vegetation into charcoal, and mixing it into into soil, and also the potential use of the natural mineral olivine to turn CO2 into carbonates.
And its not necessarily a matter of long term storage either, there is some promising research indicating that pumping CO2 into fractured basalt can turn it into rock carbonates within just two years.
> It includes, for example, the use of ‘biochar’, essentially turning vegetation into charcoal, and mixing it into into soil
Are you serious?! Destroying carbon-fixing organisms, with release of CO2 in the process, is being treated as a solution??? Who thought that up?
Biochar
Thank you! It may not be as crazy as it first sounds, but as the most promising (so far) of the cited references notes, “A full environmental risk assessment should be conducted to show the level of emissions and the impacts on soil associated with this technology.”
http://www.css.cornell.edu/faculty/lehmann/publ/FrontiersEcolEnv%205,%20381-387,%202007%20Lehmann.pdf
An afterthought on this. If you use the plant material to make charcoal instead of just letting it decompose, you are also, I would suppose, disrupting normal nitrogen and phosphorus cycles. I wonder if that aspect of the process will get the consideration it needs. We have such a history of producing solutions to problems without having fully considered their consequences, it makes me leery of the next generation of such solutions.
That’s a good point, although I understand that one of the potential benefits of ploughing charcoal into soil is that it aerates the soil and so encourages nitrogen fixing bacteria.
The one advantage of biochar is that its been used as a soil conditioner for millennia – there are layers found under tropical forests in Central America which seem to have been created deliberately by early pre-colombian farmers who used charcoal to improve soil quality. It seems to stay remarkably stable in soil over long periods, so we can be pretty sure there aren’t any nasty surprises to be found in its use.
I’ve wondered if just burying trees would work. Grow fast growing trees, chop them down, bury them, carbon captured?
No, once they are dead they rot and release carbon.
If so, then how do coal seams get started?
Both assertions can be true. A mix of capture and release is logical. Don’t let the perfect be the enemy of the wood.
To the best of my recollection, coal is said to have been formed in swamps, not aerated soils.
Coal formed under quite specific conditions which are rarely replicated. Its mostly thought it was when forests flooded in hot wet conditions and became covered with peat, preventing natural aerobic breakdown. Some are also thought to have formed in anaerobic conditions where trees and vegetation were washed into shallow seas or lakes and settled into low circulation zones.
There is also a theory (I don’t know how widely accepted this is), that in the Carboniferous period (when most big coal reserves formed), bacteria simply hadn’t evolved yet to fully break down cellulose so trees simply accumulated in half rotten piles.
PlutoniumKun,
If we look at the Carboniferous coal measures in the Appalachians and in NW Europe we find coal seams interspersed with marine sediments. Picture swampy coastal plains like those along the Gulf Coast today being gradually submerged by rising seas, which lay down the marine sediments, and, as sea level drops, those sediments emerging as new coastal plain which will be covered with new coastal swampy forest; this happened, if memory serves, about 80 times.
Burial pressure and heat, and time, convert the plant remains to coal. The marine sediments above and below the coal can be rich in plant fossils. Animal fossils too.
much higher temps and pressure are needed…http://www.zmescience.com/science/geology/how-coal-is-formed/ “The atmospheric content of oxygen was at its highest level in history: 35% compared with 21% today”
See my link above about biochar – as Katherine says, leave a dead tree long enough and it will eventually release most of its carbon back to the atmosphere. But turning it to charcoal does seem to stabilise the release, even if the charcoal is just ploughed back into soil (which actually benefits the soil).
It has a lot of potential in areas with exhausted or very low grade soil – grow trees, then charcoal them and plough in, use for some crops, then grow more trees..
@Goyo Marquez:
Yes, it works, but it isn’t permanent. In fact, it happens every time a tree is cut down – the roots are almost as large as the top. But as someone said, they start rotting (oxidizing), unless the conditions are anaerobic, so it has to be an ongoing process.
Soil storage (hope I’m not duplicating someone here) is probably the most promising way to dispose of carbon, since it also increases fertility hugely. There’s a book about it: “The Soil Will Save Us,” by Kristin Ohlson, from Rodale Books (figures). Extremely important. Turns out grasses do a good job of storing soil carbon, too.
The problem is the “ongoing process” part. It has to be part of agricultural and timber standard practice, and involves big changes. This is where permaculture and other sustainable practices come in.
The most obvious form of CO2 capture is promotion of the growth of forests. Unfortunately we are moving in the opposite direction.
Absolutely right. We’re chopping down the Amazon and other forests at a truly astounding rate… Another century should see the total destruction of the planets largest oxygen emitter.
Has anyone else looked into this? are sub-prime auto loans this bad?
@PhilU, uh yes we have http://www.nakedcapitalism.com/?s=sub+prime+car+loans
and we knew it wasn’t going to get any better.
Yeah, it’s as bad as Oliver makes it out to be. Sub-prime auto loans are the new sub-prime mortgages.
It is in fact a perfect storm for the automobile industry.
http://www.wsj.com/articles/record-vehicle-leasing-could-pinch-new-auto-margins-1457294745
“about 3.1 million vehicles will return to dealer lots off leases this year, up 20% from 2015 [and] the number will climb to 3.6 million in 2017 and 4 million in 2018.”
Last year I heard an interview on BBC Radio with a Bank of England economist who said that they had real fears that sub-prime lending and (in particular) car leasing was potentially a dangerously pro-cyclical form of lending – i.e. it could be a hidden time bomb for the car industry during an economic slow down, where people just walk away from their lease or loan, resulting in a huge pile up of second hand cars in lots making new cars almost unsellable due to all the cheap repossessed cars on the market.
I contend the oil glut will expire at about the same time, resulting in permanently high gas prices, inflaming an already terrible situation.
Brock is making Karl Rove and Lee Atwater look like choirboys.
A differentiation is that Atwater and Rove were “creating their own teality'”, in this case Clinton is creating her own. There is a very solid objective casis in law ( how quaint) to accuse, ok lets be fair, point out Ckinton’s admitted treasonous behavior. Parenthetically, in the past the Media would be ripping the flesh off the candidate, now they frame the opposition campaign (candidate) as being in “disarray” (crazy)
I feel it’s a big difference in the comparison to Atwater/Rove. Do I see this wtong?
I don’t think so. Machiavellian tactics cannot hide the reality that Hillary is the most corrupt candidate in modern political history,
For me, the Clinton Foundation ceasing to accept foreign donations is a tacit admission of guilt.
They have not ceased, so no admission. But we didn’t need that, anyway.
Machiavellian tactics cannot hide the reality that Hillary is the most corrupt candidate in modern political history,
You make my point.
Former French President Sarkozy Announces (on his fecalbk pg) He Will Run In 2017 Presidential Election
ABSOLUTE, adj. [1.] Independent, irresponsible. An absolute monarchy is one in which the sovereign does as he pleases so long as he pleases the assassins. Not many absolute monarchies are left, most of them having been replaced by limited monarchies, where the sovereign’s power for evil (and for good) is greatly curtailed, and by republics, which are governed by chance. [2.] In Philosophy existing without reference to anything, and for a purely selfish purpose. Absolute certainty is one of the possible degrees of probability. Absolute monarchy is a form of government in which the chief power is vested in a gentleman who is near his end. ~Devil’s Dic~
No matter how hard the French try, they still can’t top the US.
Even the thoroughly useless Hollande and the thoroughly corrupt Sarkozy and the thoroughly fascist Le Pen seem positively admirable candidates next to Trump and Clinton. They really gotta try harder.
this is true PK. let us hope their end is near.
A likely story:
With a “former Fed staffer” involved, one has to suspect astroturfing — as in meeting with some semi-friendly critics pushing some objectives that the Fed wants anyway, and thereby excluding REAL critics.
Yesterday the Z site published a hilarious screen grab from the Fed’s new Facebook page, on which hundreds of outraged citizens with near unanimity ripped the faces off the Fed’s PhD Eclowns, bluntly labeling them as counterfeiters, conspirators and abject failures. Needless to say, those critics aren’t invited to the meeting.
yep, and this statement is the tell: “until the economy improves further”
Re BZM-21.
Yes maybe it’s the solution but pregabalin was the last “big solution” and patient reports suggest its relatively good average effectiveness conceals huge heterogeneity.
Depressing. One more human-caused wildfire out West and the homeless will start getting hunted like animals.
what a wonderful antidote
reminder that Colin Powell is a completely horrible person https://consortiumnews.com/tag/colin-powell/
Here’s an object lesson in parsing Hillary’s artful lawyering.
Liar, liar; pantsuit on fire.
Let me put my Clinton supporter hat on.
People delete emails throughout their business life. There is no proof that these emails were in her custody after she left State. Clintonemail.com did not have an archival setting. If she deleted them in the days or weeks after they were received or sent, they would not have been among those searched by her lawyers. You are just being ridiculous, obviously the FBI had another means of accessing those emails, probably through State’s own archives and the accounts she corresponded with, so they were not hidden or concealed.
I’m sure I could twist myself in further knots to justify the situation. But I’m betting I’m giving a pretty good rendition of the major points.
People delete emails throughout their business life
The irony of your analogy … “People delete emails throughout their business life”… is not lost.
Your humor is unintentionally dry?
HRC: Don’t ask me about my business, Kay.
FBI interviewer Kay Adams: Is it true?
HRC: Don’t ask me about my business…
FBI Interviewer Kay Adams: No…
HRC: [slams the desk] ENOUGH!
(hat tip The Godfather)
I wish. It may be more ironic than you think. It is a direct quote from a ‘discussion’ with a Clinton supporter about why the emails were just another witch hunt after it came out that there were missing emails. Mind you they didn’t have an answer for my question about why Clinton kept all those Bed Bath and Beyond ads and wedding planning emails, but deleted work email.
“People delete emails throughout their business life. ”
Federal law mandates the a government official not delete any emails that might be work related. Arranging meetings for the SoS appears to be clearly work related.
From the North Carolina/McClatchy article:
“Trump’s down side is he doesn’t empathize with people or understand what they are going through,” she said.
It’s true that “Yes, I think it was worth it.” re 500,00 dead Iraqi children, was by Albright, re a Bill-supported program, but then there’s HC’s support of Iraqi and Libyan carnage, including the infamous “We came, we saw, he died.” But HC has shown a lot of empathy for the whistleblowers caught in inadvertent security predicaments similar to her own, hasn’t she? (Crickets)
Trump is castigated for committing faux-pas while HC gets passes for atrocities.
“On dating men with “potential”
I’m 48 years old ”
Yes, I know this is unbearably catty, but still: How much “potential” does SHE have?
It’s a two-way street.
A number of years ago I met a woman in a college neighborhood in Silicon Valley. She was in her 60s, and she was giving out flyers to look for a man. She was very slim and well dressed in very costly jeans (even I, a Goodwill patron, could tell). She wasn’t repulsive looking, but she was no beauty queen.
Her flyer was a list of the qualities she expected in a man: affluent homeowner, very well-educated, handsome, sharing her religious cultural heritage, with good taste in clothing, well traveled; a man who enjoyed fine food and wine, who had achieved a great deal: it was a full flyer, very long. She saw me patting my dog and said, “Oh, I should add must love animals.” It was un-f-ing believable. I took one of her flyers and tossed it later because you know what – there was not a SINGLE thing on the flyer about what she had to offer. Since I guess that was irrelevant.
I felt like I lived on a different planet. I guess I wasn’t told I was the center of the universe when I was growing up.
Heaven help me, I’m still thinking about this, so I want to add some substance to the cattiness.
First of all, her real point is true and unremarkable: saddling yourself with an addict or ne’er-do-well is a Bad Idea – for either sex. What got me was the arrogance of her tone. She actually thinks of herself (and the younger women she’s pretending to advise) as a prize for the winner, and that made me question how much of a prize she is. When her piece turned into a catalogue of Bad Boyfriends (a genre unto itself), I bailed, so I didn’t realize how damaging her background was until I read the comments. Maybe we should be more sympathetic.
The disturbing thing is, her attitude reflects the basic biology: that’s exactly how mating rituals work – and yes, humans do have them. And a commercial attitude reflects our reality until very recently: women made a living and supported their children by forming a relationship with the men who controlled the resources. Courtship and marriage were business decisions.
But we’re supposed to be overcoming all that. That’s why we found the article so offensive.
I hate to tell you, but the commercial aspects are still true. That’s why the degree of disapproval in the comments bothers me.
Now she may not have wanted kids, or to get married (which IMHO is pretty much the reason to get married, unless you or your hubby are in a very conservative social or business community, otherwise you can just be partners without all the formalities, and I do know couples who have had very happy durable relationships on that basis). If the woman expects to have kids, quite frankly she is a fool if she does not evaluate her prospective mate from the meal ticket perspective. Having kids and bringing them up at least adequately (unless you inherited a lot of $ or are in a super high paying job and thus can have them brought up by the help, as aristocrats typically did) wreaks havoc with your earning potential. The father of your children has the option on how involved he is in the childrearing (typically not much) and whether he will be an adequate provider. One in every seven single mothers wound up bankrupt (per Elizabeth Warren’s Two-Income Trap published in 2003) and the odds are high it’s even higher in our crappy new normal economy.
Marriage is about property and procreation. The somewhat improved access of women to jobs allows them not to get married and have kids as an option, which is a huge change, but if a woman wants to have children, things are not as different as all the feminist cheerleading would have you believe. The kids are her responsibility ultimately. Hence a legitimate need to assess a man’s stability and income producing potential, just as men assess women who are prospective mates in part as breeding stock.
Sadly, this is true. While I understand why some (mostly male I think) commentators here were quite angry about that article, it reflects pragmatic truths about relationships that are rarely spoken about. One reason I’ve completely given up reading so much modern feminist or progressive writing on families and relationships is that they just ignore realities like this.
On the economic side of things I’ve found in my travels that there is a cultural linear progression between northern Europe and Asia, with the US/southern Europe in the middle somewhere, about an openness about marriage being as much about pragmatic choices about income and fitness as romance. I would suspect that there would be a direct line relationship between countries with economic support for single mothers and poor families and a more ‘romantic’ approach to families compared to more hierarchical and unequal societies.
I would bet that refreshingly, or even breathtakingly pragmatic views on relationships correlates well with a high Gini co-efficient.
“We’re supposed to overcoming all that.” Ideally, sure. How do you overcome that in a time of ever rising income inequality? If anything, our now intensifies class distinctions. Class here, as I understand it, isn’t simply birth status. It includes the dimensions outlined by Pierre Bourdieu — social capital, social habitus, the actual fitness and attractiveness of one’s body (male or female), networks of knowledge/power. We can certainly include systemic racism in the dynamic.
She’s betting on a calculation that might include her. It’s a smart wager, given our now. To the degree that atomization effects us all, this is where we’re at. If we don’t like it, across the gender spectrum, we need to work for something else.
The neo-liberal angle is neoliberalism means less and less guys can make it in this system and be “good enough” providers (the less people able to make it problem of course also applies acutely to single women whether or not they have a lover).
This is excluding addicts and people that couldn’t hold down ANY job to save their life, they have their own set of sad problems likely due to extremely damaging upbringings. But people without anywhere near so severe problems find themselves radically underemployed just due to the harsh economic climate.
The ABC jill Stein link is broken. Here is the right one: http://abcn.ws/2b9FmqK
Google Lord Roberts of Kandahar.
Been there done that. Oh but “exceptionalism.”
And note “Up the Khyber Pass” is a Cockney expression for FUBAR
“Ads for Presidential Race Drop 60%, Hurting Local Broadcasters Bloomberg” I am a mail carrier, and I can testify that compared to previous Presidential election years, we are getting almost NOTHING in the way of political direct mailing. In other years, we would have begun to be inundated by this time of year. This season? Nothing. Nada. I imagine the local printing companies are hurting, too.