Oysters galore! How whisky is helping to bring back native molluscs to the Scottish Highlands The Conversation (J-LS).
How whales got so big: mystery solved? Japan Times
Mysterious ‘Alien Megastructure’ Star Is at It Again NBC (Furzy Mouse).
Who’s in Charge of Outer Space? WSJ
Bitcoin: Ponzi gone global Macrobusiness. Prosecution futures, as Yves has often said.
Uber to Repay Millions to Drivers, Who Could Be Owed Far More NYT. Travis just can’t help himself, can he?
Why is the world suffering from a penicillin shortage? Al Jazeera
2 more leaks found along Dakota Access pipeline Missoulian
Venezuela Calls Elections as Protesters Demand Maduro’s Ouster Bloomberg
Inside Google’s Fight To Keep The US Government Out Of Gmail Inboxes Forbes
China?
China’s sovereign debt downgraded by Moody’s FT
Charting China’s Competitive Eaters Bloomberg
India’s population already overtaken China’s: Chinese demographer India Today (J-LS).
Calls to reform food system: ‘Factory farming belongs in a museum’ Guardian
Brexit
Theresa May, Jamie Dimon and how to answer tough questions FT
Sinn Féin calls for unity referendum within five years Raidió Teilifís Éireann
Moscovici: Blueprint on future of Eurozone will be an “offer you cannot refuse” Open Europe
Eurozone at six-year high as economy turns corner The Times
Coalition feeling the heat after failing to secure funds, debt relief Ekathimerini
Syraqistan
The Orb – Wahhabis And Zionists Urge Trump To Regime-Change Syria To Fight Iran Moon of Alabama
The Saudi Arabia Arms Deal: What Weapons Did Trump Sell & Which Scumbags Profit From It? The Writings of John Laurits (MR).
There’s Less than Meets the Eye in Trump’s Saudi Arms Deal Defense One (Furzy Mouse).
Trump’s Messy, Mostly Successful Israel Visit The Atlantic
An ambitious young prince wants to reimagine Saudi Arabia — and make it fun WaPo. A particularly egregious beat sweetener.
Who are the new jihadis? Guardian
The endless loop of terror victims: Lazy journalism that lets ISIS run the newsroom Poynter Institute
Manchester
The Manchester bombing: what the papers say The Spectator
Manchester bombing live updates: UK terror threat level will remain critical, says Home Secretary The Independent
Everything we know about Salman Abedi, named as the Manchester suicide bomber Telegraph
Manchester Bombing: Here’s how people are coming together to help attack victims MIC
How the Manchester Arena Attack Unfolded NYT
Manchester Attacks: What Price Hypocrisy? Counterpunch (GF).
Trump Transition
President Trump meets with Pope Francis at Vatican USA Today
Trump to call on Congress to push through $3.6tn of spending cuts FT
Trump Budget Would Erase $38 Billion in Farm Supports AgWeb
Trump’s Cuts to SNAP and Social Security Would Hit the Rust Belt Hard The Atlantic (Re Silc).
Trump’s gift to at-risk Republicans? A budget they can bash McClatchy
Trump advisers weigh privatizing some public assets to build new infrastructure WaPo
The Case For President Pence Robert Kuttner, HuffPo. Just for grins, here’s a parallel example of 11-dimensional chess from 2016: Why Liberals Should Support a Trump Republican Nomination Jonathan Chait, New York Magazine
New Cold War
Five takeaways from a busy day of Russia hearings The Hill
President Trump vs. James B. Comey: A timeline WaPo
Senate panel threatens Flynn with criminal contempt over subpoenas McClatchy
Lessons from Nixonland (podcast) Christopher Lydon. Patrick Buchanan, John Aloysius Farrell, Beverly Gage, and Glenn Greenwald. Well worth a listen.
2016 Post Mortem
No, Hillary Clinton Shouldn’t Run For President Again Syracuse New Times
Many Illegal Immigrants Arrive Legally WSJ
Health Care
The Surprising Cross-Partisan Appeal of Single-Payer Healthcare In These Times
Black Injustice Tipping Point
Land Installment Contracts: The Newest Wave of Predatory Home Lending Threatening Communities of Color Federal Reserve Bank of Boston
Transcript of New Orleans Mayor Landrieu’s address on Confederate monuments The Pulse
Class Warfare
Shave the Billionaire Baffler (J-LS). Brazil sends squillionaires to jail. Here in the Third World, we can’t even manage to do that with banksters.
Fed’s Kashkari: Unclear if U.S. at Full Employment Amid Signs of Soft Inflation WSJ
The Library of Books and Bombs The Paris Review (MR).
Perceived social presence reduces fact-checking PNAS
The Spirit of ’40 and ’45 and ’74 and ’79 and ’97 n+1
It Pays to Write Well The Harvard Law School Forum on Corporate Governance and Financial Regulation
Antidote du jour:
See yesterday’s Links and Antidote du Jour here.
111 comments
Comments are closed.
Independent Journalism
“”Narratives of a “humanitarian” motivated West seeking to end conflict and bring a brighter future to Syria simply does not add up in any context.
The special interests promoting regime change in Syria have a decades-long track record of deceiving the public, dividing and destroying nations, and leaving a path of destruction cutting across entire regions of the planet. While Western audiences are tempted to believe Western narratives regarding Syria in pursuit of US-backed regime change, nations like Libya, Iraq, Afghanistan, and Ukraine smolder in the ruination of Western military intervention. By adding up the big picture, it is clear that alternative media sources are providing invaluable insight into global conflict the Western media has systematically and intentionally covered up for years.
Shifting in the minds of the global public the perceived reputation of Western media organizations versus their demonstrated serial deceptions is the first step toward truly ending conflicts like that raging in Syria, and truly bringing peace and a better future to the people trapped within these conflicts.””
Tony Cartalucci, Bangkok-based geopolitical researcher and writer, especially for the online magazine “New Eastern Outlook”.
http://journal-neo.org/2017/05/24/independent-journalists-reveal-americas-sinister-war-in-syria/“”
https://www.rt.com/news/389032-libya-militia-kills-hundreds-airbase/
Because Libya is practically a paradise already.
Important breaking news: Consumption of chocolate is associated with lower atrial fibrillation risks
A study published online in the journal Heart found that regular consumption of chocolate may be associated with a lower risk of developing irregular heart rhythm, atrial fibrillation (heart flutter).
The findings suggested that the associations seem to be the strongest for 1 weekly chocolate serving in women (21 percent lower risk) and between 2 and 6 weekly servings in men (23 percent lower risk).
Globally 33 million people are affected by atrial fibrillation, with 1 in 4 adults developing it at some point in their life span.
Make mine a Mocha Latte!
Double double.
Yippee! I knew I was going to live to be 100, with credit going to the fact I’m a chocolate lover. Been sayin’ it for years.
Actually, my heart test performed before I began my chemo came in exceptionally high. Normal outflow is 50-75% (the higher the better). Mine came in at 72.3%.
I credit it all to chocolate.
This is credible, because there were thousands of people involved. That’s a good sample size. Here’s an article about a hoax involving chocolate, and about how easy it is to publish bogus research. This particular hoax claimed that there were only 15 test subjects, which is a pretty good indication that the science is bad, yet the article was published:
http://www.cbsnews.com/news/how-the-chocolate-diet-hoax-fooled-millions/
There is ( or was ) a list of predatory publishers who publish fake data for a fee. See this for more information (there are some good comments following the article):
https://www.insidehighered.com/news/2017/01/18/librarians-list-predatory-journals-reportedly-removed-due-threats-and-politics
The list is archived here:
http://beallslist.weebly.com/
and here:
https://web.archive.org/web/20170103170850/https://scholarlyoa.com/publishers/
Let me reiterate: I think that today’s article about chocolate and Afib is probably valid, and I will continue to eat dark chocolate.
Trump’s Messy, Mostly Successful Israel Visit The Atlantic
This is an interesting article by Heather Hurlburt, who seems to be a Democratic ‘imperialist’ in that she appears to favor stability in the Middle East as an ‘old guard’ foreign policy person interested in keeping the peace to keep the oil flowing for one reason. (http://www.huffingtonpost.com/heather-hurlburt/gop-foreign-policy-debate_b_1109209.html)
I am contrasting this to the ‘new guard’ neocon faction who appears to want war in Syria, Iran, Libya etc in order to disrupt these states to be less of a terrorist threat to Israel primarily and also the US.
I think this is interesting in light of the ‘deep state’. Are there both ‘old guard’ and ‘new guard’ members of the deep state? Where does Trump stand?
If the deep state is mainly tied to the MIC complex to keep money coming to these corporations it would probably favor the continued neocon war policy. It would like to see all the arms sales going on and the new focus on Iran which has for many years been a neocon target of interest.
Certainly not all military and intelligence strategists would agree with this and would be interested in all out war with Russia and Iran. Although there are definitely political proponents on both sides of the aisle such as McCain and Lieberman.
———————
Back to the current article.
“”What’s more, peace advocates across ethnic and ideological lines have struggled to come up with ways any American president, of any political persuasion, can shift growing skepticism among both Israelis and Palestinians as to whether a two-state solution is achievable.
Trump’s visit did nothing to help with that fundamental problem. And while the Israeli government breathed a sigh of relief, the very public rage of the Israeli intelligence establishment may be undercutting one of the strongest U.S. relationships in the region.””
————–
Trumps tour is interesting and there are a lot of cards in the air.
I always very much appreciate the Antidote du jour and today’s is no exception. An Abert’s squirrel and aspen. What a great capture! Too funny. I’m still smiling.
Flying squirrels? Sure. More fake news.
Squirrels have at times infuriated and then amused me with their antics around my bird feeder. They are clever and determined, with some calculations about how far to jump from which spot to try to reach that hanging food. They also patrol the ground amiably with little birds, looking for all the seed that others seem to drop or scatter. They have worked out a little ecosystem, except for that remaining clean-up chore of empty seed hulls.
Cleaning up is apparently your niche in the ecosystem…didn’t they tell you :-D
There’s little doubt that squirrels are “cute”. bright eyes and bushy tails and chittering at danger from tree branches in forests have an appeal.
Too many of the creatures wreak havoc in houses by invading the attics and walls to mate and mother, to seek out yummy plastic insulution from wiring, and to steal insulation to line their homes away from home. In human habitats their toiletry habits can be somewhat disgusting and pestilent both.
Like raccoons, the critters can be obnoxious and invasive pests causing curses rather than smiles.
I’m hard pressed to consider the beasts desireable – pigeons, raccoons and squirrels have no fan in me.
I like the ‘Zen awareness of the present’ look on its face.
“Tomorrow do thy worst, for I have lived today!”
That squirrel needs a cape !
What Big Brother Barack done to us:
Anybody serving on a federal grand jury this week? 0bama’s just an ordinary citizen now. Let’s indict his ass and LOCK HIM UP.
I think this is an even better reason to indict his ass: (love David Dayen)
https://livinglies.wordpress.com/2017/05/21/david-dayen-repost-inside-the-abortive-fbi-investigation-of-illegal-foreclosure-in-florida/
Mysteriously, the mtg fraud that caused ‘the great recession’ (Gawd how I hate that phrase as it’s a misnomer. It should be called for what it was: the greatest financial fraud in the history of mankind) could have been nipped in the bud were it not for someone who shut down the FBI investigation. Wouldn’t that have been Obummer himself?
If the president does it, it is not illegal. QED.
Unless it’s Trump. Quite possible the whole Russia thing cooked up by Obama and his pal Brennan. Nobody will investigate.
I would prefer a trifecta of indictments: Bush, Cheney, and Obama. After all, in addition to illegal surveillance, sending canon fodder to die under false pretenses is just as criminal, if not more. Also, Bush/Cheney Junta got the ball rolling on warrantless surveillance.
LOL@ this:
The normally supportive [FISA] court censured administration officials, saying the failure to disclose the extent of the violations earlier amounted to an “institutional lack of candor” and that the improper searches constituted a “very serious Fourth Amendment issue…”
As opposed to the secret FISA court system itself, making and interpreting secret law in secret and where the government is the only witness for “both” sides – all that is perfectly within a reasonable interpretation of the Fourth Amendment. Der Prozess ist völlig legal, Herr Kafka.
Eric Peters rips DMCA feudalism on the farm:
Young Eric seems to be indulging in a bit of hyperbole. My understanding is that one can buy a Mahendra tractor from India, and stick it to John Deere and the DMC-fuckin-A. :-)
Or just download the hacking tools from the internet which is what some farmers do. As Cory Doctorow says the DMCA often makes “piracy the obvious choice.” Computers have empowered companies like John Deere but have also empowered us.
Re: no-hillary-clinton-shouldnt-run-for-president-again
Hillary should strive to tie/break the record of Harold Stassen who sought the Republican nomination for president NINE times.
She needs 7 more to tie Stassen’s record, which could be accomplished by running in 2020, 2024, 2028, 2032, 2036, 2040 and 2044.
HRC was born on October 26, 1947, so she would be 97 for the 2044 election.
Matching Stassen’s record could be a possible goal for HRC, but breaking it by running at age 101 in 2048 seems out of reach.
One can hope she will have interesting and varied reasons for each defeat.
The only thing stopping hilary is the almighty putin and as he is obviously an inhuman robot in full control of the american polity, her ‘persistence’ will be in vain.
Perhaps her simulacra,having clawed up from oxford and CNBC, will outlive the crafty russian and seize the flag of liberty once again!
Losing to Trump should ban one from running for POTUS ever again.
Re: Statement on coverage of Seth Rich murder investigation FOX
I was thinking about linking to this in various Facebook discussions that I have had with people over this, but this retraction is so vague as to be completely useless. It doesn’t specifically link to what they are retracting and it doesn’t make any statement about what was incorrect about it. It’s a completely deniable retraction.
Sounds like they were “spooked”, somehow?
The “journalists” and “investigators” have botched the whole damn thing. Between Hannity’s and Dotcom’s attention whoring and Dave Wiegel’s obsessive and self-righteous insistence–triumphantly echoed throughout the MSM-o-sphere–that any questioning of the police’s failure was de facto conspiracy theorizing, whatever chance the Fourth Estate had of finding out the truth has evaporated.
Wapo is now reporting that someone sent Seth Rich’s gmail a hacking attempt and his dad (who still checks his dead son’s email? weird) noticed it, and then suggests that it was Dotcom trying to plant fake emails implicating him in the DNC leak:
https://www.washingtonpost.com/powerpost/the-life-and-death-of-the-seth-rich-conspiracy-theory/2017/05/23/aba640c4-3ff3-11e7-adba-394ee67a7582_story.html?utm_term=.5d3bcafca667
The “plant fake emails with fake timestamps in a place that’s already been searched a zillion times” scheme they’re accusing Kim of is…unlikely.
Hacking it to search for a smoking gun he didn’t have, maybe.
Rich’s family doesn’t talk to the press except through their DNC spokesperson Brad Bauman. I see no reason to treat WaPoo’s report as anything more than an artful attempt to pre-smear the information Kim claims to hold regarding having been in contact with Seth Rich.
4chan is infested with shills right now trying to get people to make bad decisions. Working Seth Rich’s gmail account may have been one of them.
Thankyou for not posting Facebook sh*t, the sh*t part being redundant. The only reason that it exists is because people use it
SpaceX Technician Says Concerns About Tests Got Him Fired [Bloomberg]
Wait, isn’t being “disruptive” supposed to be a good thing?
File under Crapification Slips the Surly Bonds of Earth.
Maybe he was?
Disruptive is great, as long as you’re not on the wrong end of the focusing technology.
Chrome OS users can hear the full version of Lessons From Nixonland on its page at radioopensource.org.
I apologize for the bloglike comment but this is worrisome.
The Intercept has obtained transcripts of a call between Trump and Philippine President Duterte.
Duterte came to office on a platform of ending drugs. Since he started he has encouraged extrajudicial killings, protected police who engage in extortion and promised immunity to anyone who kills a suspected drug user or drug dealer. This has left thousands dead. In response to tepid criticism of random violence from Obama he took to calling him a “son of a whore” and to declaring his intention to cozy up to China who has promised him weapons and paramilitary training for his war.
Shortly after his election, Trump called Duterte and congratulated him on the drug war saying that he understood the killings; “You are doing an amazing job” he said. The two also chatted casually about nuking North Korea. You can read the full transcripts here here and here.
All of which begs two very important question:
In the conversation Trump comes off as particularly out of touch, unaware, cold-blooded and scarily somewhat unstable as does Duterte. But Duterte has cultivated a public image as a ruthless killer with nothing to lose so anyone who hoped to damage him gains nothing. What it does do is show that his actions have the support of the U.S. President which would serve to innoculate him against any criticism from the U.S. and probably complicate matters for anyone else. So Duterte wins overall.
For Trump the call will reinforce his already growing image as unaware but more importantly it puts him on record as being pro-war, supportive of assassination (and Duterte’s goons do favor gunning people down in public) and particularly loose with talk of bombing millions of people. It also undermines any U.S. credibility on human rights since our dear leader is on record as being cool with this and is clearly both unreliable and unstable in what he says.
But for China, and anyone seeking to cozy up to them this call is a win win. It makes clear that the U.S. is an unstable and unreliable ally. It paints the U.S. President as an untrustworthy man and it fits within the foreign narrative that the U.S. is the cause of wars or violence and does not solve problems (Trump is recorded on the call saying that he hopes China deals with North Korea but if that fails we have bombs.) And it fits within their domestic narrative that America is screwed up by Democracy because we elect people like this. For China this one transcript is a gift from the heavenly emperor.
If I am reading this right it would seem that Trump, the “great deal-maker” has just gotten outmaneuvered Asia by one damn phone call.
Did the Chinese discover our spies by hacking? Did they also find out about our spies elsewhere when they hacked?
Are they the ones leaking?
The Art of War strategy then calls for deceptively shifting the blame to someone else, maybe the neighbor to the north, the bear.
I am not sure about the spying case but in this case the documents were leaked and then confirmed by “sources within the Philippine government” according to The Intercept. The transcript itself is the official government transcript and thus is accessible to anyone there. Presumably no hacking would be required in this case.
All of that of course raises another interesting question. Presumably someone in the room would have thought that the conversation would be recorded (at least I hope) did they not think this would show up? Or did Trump not care?
“It makes clear that the U.S. is an unstable and unreliable ally. It paints the U.S. President as an untrustworthy man and it fits within the foreign narrative that the U.S. is the cause of wars or violence and does not solve problems.”
This has been the case since the end of WWII (arguably earlier). It’s tricky to apply game theory when the most powerful actor also happens to be quite irrational. It keeps the other players on their toes and fearful.
“and it fits within the foreign narrative that the U.S. is the cause of wars or violence and does not solve problems .”
You telling me this’s merely a “foreign narrative?” Really, you telling me this?
Guess he was right about his phone being tapped. By who? Probably the usual suspects.
Can I suggest a new tracking category for NC? “Oh, who can effing care any more?” My entry for today is from MoonofAlabama, that generous soul who manages on a shoestring and vast effort to track and report so much of what goes on in the “horror and dismay and disappointment and hypocrisy” parts of the global political economy: “Libya [remember that place]: Massacre at al-Shatti AI Force Base May Trigger larger Civil War,” http://www.moonofalabama.org/2017/05/libya-massacre-at-brak-al-shatti-may-trigger-larger-civil-war.html
It seems most folks including here have a hard time even starting to keep track of the ebb and flow of “alliances” and “allegiances” and “coalitions” and such among the warbands and gunmen/women that the many rounds of play of the Great Game have raised up. (Aside, Defense Industry Daily notes that Venezuela’s armed forces are reportedly stockpiling MANPADS — for the unaware, those are shoulder-fired very portable and praise be to their manufacturers, effective and deadly, anti-aircraft missile launchers — civilian airliners and personal jet owners take note.) So Cackle Girl Hillary and the rest of her horde were all a-twitter about the fall and fatal buggering of Gaddafi. Per bernard (MoA blogger), here is current apparent US “policy” toward what used to be called Libya: “Trump’s declaration weeks ago that the US has “no role” in LIbya left the field clear for Russia in Libya. Ibid.
Where are there any indications that there are any drivers or incentives toward even metastability, let alone any kind of political-economy homeostasis, in the whole human infestation of the planet? Maybe some local efforts by a few who feel a calling to prolong the species or at least their local-interest parts of it — but by an dlarge, it’s all looting with greater or lesser violence. One tiny example of the zeitgeist: How about “Vi Et Armis Esau de Parfum:”
Vi Et Armis Eau De Parfum
£95.00 exc. VAT £79.17
Vi Et Armis Eau De Parfum – Exploring Britain’s complex relationships with other nations and its dominance of international sea trade across the centuries, this heady, narcotic scent challenges as much as it beguiles.
Using the historical cargoes of British ships as its key notes, this addictive fragrance recalls the words of George Bernard Shaw: “Emotional excitement reaches men through Tea, Tobacco, Opium, Whisky and religion”
Paradoxical and challenging, we imagine the roots of our island nation steeped in contradictions.
A 2ml sample of this product is available to buy for £5.00 here
https://beaufortlondon.com/product/vi-et-armis/
Vi Et Armis — “by force and arms.” Echoes of “Veni. Vidi. Vici.” Or as rendered by that classical scholar HRC, “We came. We saw. He died.”
Remember that scene in “Lawrence of Arabia” where the Bedouins were about to attack the Turkish train? Omar Sharif and the rest of the gunmen and saber swingers, eyes starting to bulge at the berserker prospect of combat, Sharif starting up the cry, “Allah AND NO QUARTER!” And O’Toole getting into the spirit of things, having lost his dear young friend to injury from a misfiring blasting cap while setting an IED under the rails, rising in his stirrups and yelling “NO QUARTER!” too, and the massacre that follows.
What we humans do for entertainment — or for those addicted to “Call of Duty” and the like, maybe given the economics of that “play,” RENTertainment…
Sorry, just having a bad day after a night of bad dreams…
Minor quibble: The Lawrence scene with the ‘NO PRISONERS!’ action was when the Arab army comes upon the village of Tafas, that had just been destroyed by the retreating Turkish army. One of the Arabs who happens to be of the village (not Omar Sharif’s character) sees the slaughter and charges his horse alone at the Turks…to be shot down by the Turks at the back of the column.
It is at that moment that Lawrence, appearing conflicted and emotional in PREVIOUS closeups, then echoes the man’s ‘NO PRISONERS!’ cry and leads the charge. Omar Sharif’s character, far from encouraging the attack – instead tries to focus Lawrence on the END goal: “…Damascus!…not this…go ’round…DAMASCUS!…”
There is a lesson there, presumably – in a conflicted, confusing, and complicated world – focus on the end goal, and not ones emotions or petty feuds.
And even now…a century later…the end goal – Damascus – yet lives on the bloodspattered lips our Neocon/NeoLiberal overlords.
Thanks for refreshing my failing memory. Mass graves and My Lais and the British attempt to flee Afghanistan way back when, Wounded Knee Hiroshima Nagasaki Dresden Tokyo even Pyongyang in the ’50s, Gaza West Bank Lebanon , USS Liberty oh and one must not omit the German “solutions,” and oh so many other markers of Sophisticated Modern Civilization, which made more efficient and organized slaughter possible… also “trade” and “finance” and the other tools of looting. One mildly interesting tale of how it was, back in the days of serious Empire building: “Nathaniel’s Nutmeg,” https://www.publishersweekly.com/978-0-374-21936-9. I’m sure there are better examples.
“Vengeance is mine,” sayeth the tribesman.
And the end goal for T.E. Lawrence was, again…? Imperial War Museum Reveals Lawrence Of Arabia’s Middle East Plan
By Graham Spicer 12/10/2005 http://www.adespicabletruce.org.uk/page73.html
Damascus…the return of jesus(isa) at the white minaret of the umayyad mosque where the head of john the baptist(yahya) is kept…yes…for those dc warmonger crazies in the national prayer day movement who want to bring on the rapture…Damascus in fact has always been the target and goal…
The pressure to get out must be more every day now.
The thing is they have been getting out for a long time and the pressure is still building, apparently at a faster rate than at least China (pressure is building in almost every country in the world, unless famine, war or some other crises).
Austerity makes stocks go higher. It works!
But stock indices have little, if not being contrarian indicators, to do with the working people.
Yes but this is the Times of London so stock people are their people.
… and, for those unaware, the Times of London is yet another once august paper-of-record wrecked by Rupert Murdoch.
Perhaps a new term – Murdified – is needed since whatever he touches rapidly turns to c**p. Even the Sun used to have the occasional bit of serious reporting in amongst sport and the page 3 girls soft porn.
I don’t normally post feel good stories, but it does help to remember the world isn’t just terrorism and Trump:
http://b3ta.com/blog/simply-a-great-story-about-roger-moore-thatll-make-you-feel-good/
craig murray has a fond memory
As I say in the comments, best bond ever, even if george lazenby scooped the most interesting role.
roger had a website back in the day, his replies were disarmingly charming.
Never has a bureaucratic assasin been so sympathethically embodied
paul
May 24, 2017 at 11:49 am
He (Moore) was charming and suave, just as you would expect, with a fund of brilliant stories beginning with lines like “One day Frank, Dean, Tony and I decided to play a trick on Marilyn…” But while he played the role of Roger Moore to perfection, there was much more to him than that. He was genuinely very well briefed about children’s issues in Ghana, and was prepared not just to do the PR stuff, but to get his hands dirty helping out in refugee camps without a camera in sight. I was impressed by Roger Moore.
=============================
Thanks for that
Thanks, Dan. Shared with a friend of mine who is a big Roger Moore fan.
cool
Thanks Dan, cheered me up that did.
Radio Silence on Slain DNC worker case.
Murdoch son pressures Hannity to stay stumm on Seth Rich case.
http://bigleaguepolitics.com/exclusive-murdoch-son-pressured-sean-hannity-cease-seth-rich-coverage/
Uber: the headline over at Reuters is Uber inadvertently underpaid New York City drivers for over two years
“Inadvertently” ??? As the saying goes, extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence.
So the counterfactual case would be, “Uber inadvertently overpaid…”
The Phantom Infrastructure Proposal in Trump’s Budget
See also WapPo post in Links re privatizing public assets:
Even if the full 200 billion was spent and not offset by other cuts (but they want to cut spending on Amtrak etc. as well, so they don’t even believe in infrastructure really) this is of course SMALLER than Obama’s stimulus for which he was much derided for it being insufficient. Obama’s stimulus included 275 billion federal contacts, grants and loans and most of it was spent in the first 3 years (not over 10 years).
Some weird privatization scheme seems to have been Trump’s infrastructure plan for awhile now. I could understand involving private companies maybe to do something unprecedented like massive amping up of green power and green retrofitting, but roads and bridges, the public already owns those, smells like bezzle to me.
Yes, it seems his idea to spur infrastructure development is to privatize all – for example, the budget proposes “to divest the transmission assets of three Power Marketing Administrations (PMAs), which include the Southwestern Power Administration (SWPA), the Western Area Power Administration (WAPA), and the Bonneville Power Administration (BPA). The PMAs provide millions of Americans served by not-for-profit public power and rural cooperative electric utilities with cost-based hydroelectric power produced at federal dams. PMA rates are set to cover all generation and transmission costs, as well as repayment, with interest, of the federal investment in these hydropower projects. None of the costs are borne by taxpayers.Selling the PMA transmission assets would threaten the ability of the PMAs to provide reliable, cost-based power to the approximately 1,200 public power systems and rural electric cooperatives in 33 states and the millions of customers they serve.
Disruption and higher electric rates – here I come…!
Presidents can’t undo national monuments, new study says [Salt Lake Trib]
And as a public service announcement: at Regulations.gov,
Trump is the only president who has ever tried to undo National Monuments like this. It’s unprecedented. So yes U.S. presidents are often bad, but Trump has managed to find ways to be uniquely, in a category all of his own, awful.
Thanks for the public service announcement.
Please note he is being egged on by the wackos in Utah who have always tried to get the Federal lands turned over to the states.
And I believe he has mainly objected to the Obama designated Bears Ears–part of their ongoing petty feud.
How whales got so big?
Also, how krill got so small?
“One must be curious about bigness as well as smallness.”
“Land Installment Contracts: The Newest Wave of Predatory Home Lending Threatening Communities of Color”
These abusive purchase contracts are used all over Iowa. The house next door is being “sold” that way. The present “buyer” is the second one in about 6 years. There are some regulations here, but many loopholes.
Wow. It’s the real estate version of “Buy Here, Pay Here” used car lots. I suppose if the 30% interest rate on your car loan doesn’t take you out, the predators now have another angle to tee you up.
Disgusting.
It dovetails perfectly with the gig economy when all investment and risk is borne by the Uber driver or the contract-to-buy home purchaser where no one is really an employee or a purchaser with the attendant regulatory protections those concepts would bring.
Boston fed demands kneegrows return to plantation slave quarters and give up ownin stuff…yup…nclc does what it does best…nimby organization cloaked in “we really care”…except…
Land contracts have a historical 35% default rate…but would never exist(or have ever existed) if the boston fed and the regulators in general did not tolerate redlining in the first place…
Nclc and other funded by bankers “community organizations” always forget to mention the real problem…
Banks are required under the community reinvestment act to fund ALL the financing needs to stabilize and grow local communities…but they are regularly allowed to squawk that certain communities are not “profitable enough”…
there is nothing in the law that allows them that out…
When in the early 60’s the banking industry lobbied to end funding of the postal savings system(it was actually never legally terminated) the arguments made were that bankers were universally giving access to accounts to everyone and the historical discrimination had ended…too funny that…discrimination had ended…with jim crow still around back then (& still around today)…
This new help the poor & the kneegrows from themselves is another manifestation of the new “corporate jim crow”…
Back to the slave quarters with ya…no nice things for you…didnt you notice that picture in memphis of that dude who wanted to do a poor peoples campaign ??
And nclc and boston fed…if you are advocating that homeowners should be refunded their monies when certain properties were sold for more than they were worth and the buyers were told they would go up in value and then we later found out it was not exactly true and they were told one interest rate and payments and then found out they were soon much higher…isn’t that what happened between 2004-2008 ??
It was fdic insurance fraud and collusion for large banks to be refusing to pay any money towards premiums for half a decade while at the same time shorting mortgage and lending instruments to cause the losses and local market crashes…
Eliminating land contracts will have the wonderful effect of eliminating the mortgage interest tax write off for working class people in neighborhoods lenders are allowed to redline in….
there would not be any elbow room for land contracts if lenders were actually forced to comply with the community reinvestment act and the boston fed and other regulators did not allow bankers to “opt out” of communities where the price of a home is less than 125 grand…
What urban renewal(kneegrow removal) did not accomplish…
redlining and now nclc will help finish off…the “anecdotal” stories presented are not much different than folks in the regular real estate market who buy more home than they can afford and instead of using the first tax refund to work on the home or put it into an emergency fund…the money is burnt up…
Besides…a land contract is not really any different than a trust deed mortgage…so how is it ok for half the country to have trust deeds but it is not ok for land contracts ??
Nclc & the boston fed know damn well trust deeds and land contracts are almost identical…
The simple solution is to have folks who buy using a land contract understand that they are not mortgages and are actually almost identical to trust deeds…not prevent working folks from owning a home…most land contracts work out just fine for most people…and they end up saving money from the mtge interest tax deduction…
what nclc never touches on is the predatory contractors who are racists and overcharge for repair work in black communities vs white communities…a roof replacement job in a white community costing 4 grand is jacked up to 8 to 10 grand in “other communities”…the predatory contractors who milk title 1 type loans to pocket monstrous premiums for simple repair and construction jobs…
But going after the real problems won’t fit neatly into the gentrification for your own good narrative…
Must be vigilant, also, about dedication speeches to buildings named after donors of apartheid states or corrupt states everywhere in the world.
“Why is this person’s name on the school building, who was a big time contributor to the Foundation?”
I taught in the New Orleans public school system for a number of years. Back in the 90s there was a big push to rename all schools named after slaveholders. The momentum fizzled when they realized that meant Washington Elementary, Jefferson Elementary, even the vaunted magnet school, Ben Franklin High School. Tough to find political icons of yore completely free of the stench.
The situation there is similar to one where a borrower enters into a loan not delinquent, but becomes delinquent afterwards.
“The bank and corporation got you into something you shouldn’t be in.”
Land Installment Contracts: The Newest Wave of Predatory Home Lending Threatening Communities of Color
I really hate this country. Someone needs to start murdering bankers.
While that may prove highly entertaining and satisfying, it is no more of an accomplishment than catching a fish: you only make space for more of his kind.
Not so much a question of hypocrisy as a question of choice between peace and justice.
Ideally, when you have justice, you have peace and when you have peace, you have justice.
But it’s quite possible to have peace without justice, short term. And short term could 3 months, 3 years or 3 centuries…if your legions are strong enough.
“We have added another province to Rome. Now, you can vacation in all parts of the known world.”
Many have been tempted to ‘impose peace.”
From the article:
Without talking, confronting the past, the above may bring peace, but not justice to many in that region.
Likely, even without more arms deals, tragedies like that in Manchester will still happen.
I find the question of who leaked the operational details to the NYT and why difficult.
The New York Times have always been the spooks’ preferred mouthpiece. They’ll reliably publish whatever they are fed anonymously, they worship and suck up to the kind of hard state power the so-called intelligence community has in spades and they, somehow in spite of this, retain the luster of a reputable organization.
It would be naive to think the leak to the NYT was a naive error or a mistake of any sort. It was very deliberate, the source more or less had to be inside US intelligence, but the US seems to come out looking bad. What motivated it?
Question: Why can’t the penicillin mfgs raise the price just as those making epipen? I missed the reason in the article.
well it’s obviously out of patent (actually I don’t think it ever was in it), so that probably has something to do with it.
It looks like there is no lack of veterinary penicillin available at vendors like Walmart or veterinary supply houses. Mr. Market must find human need invisable.
No monopoly – FDA wouldn’t even consider PCN somehow be “revolutionary” or PCN being an “orphan drug” . There is nothing manufacturing wise that would justify massive cost increases. This eats into profit margins
As such, manufacturer may consider increasing PCN price by market demand, however there may be higher profit margin drugs the manufacturer can make instead of PCN that will benefit the company immediately compared to ramping up production of PCN. Example: If i can tailor my company to make Zosyn (Pip/Tazo) instead pf Pen G Benzathine, with higher profit margins, I would try to make Zosyn. Making Zosyn at full capacity would therefore prevent my plant from making Pen G Benzathine. Retrofitting my plant back to making Pen G Benzathine must be worth the cost of switching – which can be hundred of millions of dollars, if you consider time spent on retrofitting the plan AGAIN and the loss of profit of making Zosyn during the retrofit process.
Low # of manufacturers + low margins + other more attractive alternatives + global low manufacturing capacity = no Pen G Benzathine.
Market failure ensues
Hopefully this makes sense?
From “No, Hillary Clinton Shouldn’t Run For President Again”:
On what planet?
Planet OldEducatedWhiteLady. The people I know who still admire her are entirely +50 years old, native born white women – many of them quite church going – who have B.A.s as a minimum. They mostly have had to live with being belittled for being old educated white ladies, so it’s not an unbiased or disinterested admiration. I can’t completely disagree with some of what impels them.
Almost everyone else is pretty lukewarm about her.
I fit in that category and I loathe her, and I have friends who feel the same way. Except for the church part. There are a lot of older women professionals who feel she represents them badly.
So she doesn’t even have a lock on that category.
Do you suppose there’s a regional difference? Of course, you’re in NY, which voted for her. Or just a matter of selecting your friends? Anybody seen polling that casts a light on that?
I can contribute a sample of one who fits FOC’s category and still supports her, I think – we cut the conversation short. But most of my friends are lefties and despise her.
Not that it matters a whole lot at this point.
Now that I think of it, the women I know who don’t like Hillary and are more or less in her demographic are mainly lawyers. The one who isn’t was in the securities industry. They are also finance savvy and like me recognized her as a crook when her 1978 commodities trade (which was a bribe) became public IIRC in 1992. All live in NY metro area. It also grates on them that she presents herself as self made when she rode Bill’s coattails.
Also in that demographic. I know plenty in the demographic who are lawyers and love her, much to my mystification. One ended our friendship because she insisted my claim that “trade” was a bribe just proved I was sexist (still boggles my mind there). The women I know who absolutely despise HRC are in ag, either as lawyers or otherwise and who saw what she and her hubby did to us as the behest of Tyson
Viva la Resistance©! (brought to you by Starbucks and the Washington Post)
Is this the reason why we are always searching for “intelligent life” elsewhere?
I am still processing this Fox retraction. Let me say at the outset (as I wish were obvious), this is not intended as a defense of Fox news or as an endorsement for the subject matter of the story at issue.
When is the last time any major news organization *retracted* a whole story, and indeed did so for something vague like failing to meet editorial standards? The only one I can recall is the fabricated Rolling Stone story, and even then not immediately, only once it was substantiated that the story was wholly made up. Meanwhile we’ve seen hasty, blatant mistakes (e.g., Russia tried to hack the U.S. power grid, no wait just Vermont, no wait…..) drive breathless coverage and then get quietly “corrected” or “updated” and everyone moves on. Where was the dramatic statement on editorial standards?
In this case, you had a source (the PI) apparently shift in what he was saying, but even that seems a bit muddled and not sure it’s been truly sorted out — not clear if he stated or implied falsehoods, deliberately or inadvertently, or whether, as can easily happen, in the course of re-stating things the understanding shifts. Whatever the case, seems that here’s where it makes sense to do a correction or clarification as Fox originally did. Then everyone freaks out about “fake news” and Fox quickly retracts the whole thing — without explaining what was wrong, or addressing the avalanche of characterizations from other news outlets. As someone already noted, we have no idea exactly what was being retracted. The rush from an “update” to a wholesale, vaguely explained retraction leaves the impression that the reason wasn’t the integrity of the reporting but the perceived outlandishness of the subject matter, and the perceived moral depravity of reporting accounts that differ from the grieving family’s wishes. This while the scandal of our time has grown from anonymous sources making claims and attesting to facts, which are dutifully reported with no concern that evidence ever be produced, or that readers ever be able to scrutinize the credibility of the sources.
This is just so upside down and messed up it’s hard to know where to begin. And amazing that it would be *Fox* succumbing to “fake news” hysteria over a story that may not be popular or plausible but was certainly newsworthy and, given current standards, appropriately sourced by any objective measure. Let’s remember, the Fox report was based on an identified source (the PI, who was investigating under contract with the family and paid by a third party), attesting to what he learned and observed first-hand, adding what seemed like appropriate caveats to highlight uncertainties; where his assertion wasn’t first-hand he noted as much, and when he cited a federal investigator anonymously, he explained exactly why he wouldn’t name the source. This is all appropriate. We don’t have to believe it — that’s what being a critical consumer of news is all about, you assess credibility. But there was nothing fundamentally dishonest about the story. There was no attempt to conceal or misrepresent the PI’s role; the contractual arrangement (as well as the family’s dismay) was reported; there was an attempt to obtain comment from the entities about which the PI made statements (DC police, the FBI, and the DNC).
This was by-the-book reporting, just on a third-rail topic, with a lot of uncertainties. But the hysteria gripping our press demanded not just a retraction — it demanded that the topic never, ever be spoken about again. This is a scalp for the newly-emboldened arbiters of truth stomping around DC, reporting with aggressive bias, openly and without apology and congratulating themselves for it. The same arbiters of truth who have enabled some of the worst atrocities of that last few decades, now suddenly thinking they’ve discovered something called “fake news” and that it’s their job to root it out, ironically with the same sycophancy and lack of self-awareness that has caused them to get so many things so wrong for so long, with impunity.
This also seems to be a watershed moment for the proudly-defiant Fox: Sean Hannity bold and bullish on twitter, only to be chastened on air a mere few hours later. His “brand” can’t survive this humiliation, and I think this means he’ll either be roaring back — soon — with some new “blockbuster” reporting, or he’ll leave the network, and if he does, others with the same brand are sure to follow, and the “Fox News” we’ve all come to know will be no longer.
If there was nothing wrong with the way Fox reported their story, based on journalistic standards, then maybe there’s a problem with those standards. The problem shared by too many news organizations is that they outsource their credibility to their sources. Journalists should use their own judgment in evaluating the claims made by their sources. If they don’t, they’re not much better than junior high students, passing along gossip in the hallway at school. Fox should have never reported the story they way they did – the P.I. made some extraordinary claims, without the evidence to back them up.
Of course, it would be nice if other news organizations applied the same standards to the “Russian hacking” claims, but it seems that anonymous government sources are automatically deemed to be credible, no matter how flimsy the evidence is.
Fair enough on journalistic standards — but the main point here is the hypocrisy and double-standard. And the P.I. story was better cited and attributed (setting aside what you think of the source) than most of the reporting that has resulted in a special counsel and drumbeat for impeachment. So I don’t disagree, I’m just not so terribly offended by this one single case compared to others that are far more consequential and egregious.
Too bad Fox just couldn’t help itself … if it had limited the interview to apparent deficiencies in the investigation (rather than offer up theories on what “really” happened), it might actually have been able to make a responsible contribution to advancing/galvanizing the investigation.
A repug buzz killah keeps the Jihad on Drugs going in good green Vermont:
How else are they gonna keep the Gulag filled in a little statelet like that?
“According to the Marijuana Policy Project, 57% of voters in Vermont support legalizing marijuana for adults 21 and older”
Seriously? How on earth do 43% of the voters think “Yes, marijuana prohibition is an excellent policy that we must retain”?
Single-payer healthcare could cost $400 billion to implement in California
http://www.latimes.com/politics/essential/la-pol-ca-essential-politics-updates-first-fiscal-analysis-of-single-payer-1495475434-htmlstory.html
Peanuts! So we can have it? Lessee, banks bailouts were what, $14 trillion (of made-up money), we can find billions or more for “defense”, ACA (aka yuuge!! subsidy to insurance co’s), and of course our protectors in the 17 alphabet agencies.
$400 billion is nada — whoohoo! we’re all covered!!!
Wait, what? Only California-wide ? Dang, shoulda voted for that old guy.
Kevin Drum tweeted a link to his post about how expensive single payer would be. The replies were inspiring.
https://twitter.com/kdrum/status/867247828053237760
the article also said how it would only need 200 billion to be raised in California, the rest would just be redirecting existing money that goes into having dozens of different healthcare programs.
And in some ways it might only cost 100 billion when you consider that employers are paying a lot for healthcare now. So the 400 billion is not even the figure here, 200 billion maybe.
California Single Payer Is a No-Brainer – Matt Bruenig
https://www.jacobinmag.com/2017/05/single-payer-california-plan-state-health-care
One response to Drum’s twitter announcement said it averaged out to a little over $5200 a person. Mind you none of them were doing what Bruenig did above, but let me point out that personally it would be a bargain – not that I get that choice I live in NY.
But let me break it down: I have premiums for insurance that do not include vision or dental that are just shy of $4000/yr. Add to that the $2200 deductible. Then after I have paid almost a thousand dollars more than the per person cost of single payer in California to get less, I also have to pay 50% of anything IN NETWORK except for physical.
Funny how when you break it down, you might find that a whole lot of people would be paying a whole lot less for a whole lot more. And once again that doesn’t include any discount for government costs and employer contributions (although we can probably assume that anything the federal government currently pays in subsidies would probably disappear just to be considered more for weapons and wars sadly.)
Yes I’ve had employer plans where the employer and me were putting in near 9k a year for coverage in California (luckily more is the employer but I’ve certainly had employer plans where I’ve ponied up 3-4k a year just my part of the payment).
Doesn’t NY also have a single payer proposal that may pass?
Here in the UK our single payer NHS costs us about 8% of GDP. Nevertheless, we have, I believe, better health outcomes than you do in the US. I think you Americans are so used to being ripped off by your healthcare industry you are inured to it to a significant degree. If they tried to treat us the way you are treated we would have a revolution.
You not been noticing the the corporate friendly crapification of the NHS?
I used to hold your view, bit now I realize the Brits wouldn’t go to the wall to save NHS. They didn’t and haven’t.
There is one being batted around but it is nowhere near close. AND we have Presidential hopeful Cuomo who has crapified pretty much every DFH idea he hasn’t been able to derail completely – most recently free tuition based on means with so many hoops, claw backs and asterisks very few will ever make use of it.
Much as I wish it were different, I truly believe if TPTB wanted to kill single payer for half a century they would task Cuomo with passing the version that finally made all the horror stories about government run health care true in NY as an example to the rest of the country. (And he would do it.)
That’s why single payer advocates need to be clear on what they mean: a publicly funded, publicly administered, universal, comprehensive not-for profit system; not a neoliberal contraption.
I agree. No letting up on demanding what is necessary to make this work, and screaming to high heaven from the beginning if they try to take it sideways.
Ideally, that $5,200 bill is all funded by the state.
That’s free health care, and that should come before, or at the same time, as free college.
o Dear Hahhhvid neolib shills: “It Pays to Write Good | The Harvard Law School Forum on Corporate Malgovernance and Financial Misregulation” — Fixed it for you. :)
The mysteriously fluctuating star? Obviously a marooned Pierson’s Puppeteer using a starseed lure to attract an Outsider ship for rescue.
How can the US be at full employment?
– Lots of discouraged searchers
– Many people are underemployed
– Wages after adjusting for higher living costs have gone down, which means that workers have no real bargaining power
To me, full employment means that:
1. Virtually no discouraged searchers who have given up <0.5%
2. Little or no underemployment <0.5%
3. More jobs than people available to fill them
4. Only unemployment is frictional or those who have voluntarily left (ex: those who go to study, stay at home parents, the disabled, etc).
It's Orwellian to suggest the Americans have full employment.
There are other less well-known measures of U.S. employment that are closer to what you suggest (and I’ve heard European nations use similar ones for their official figures). I don’t know how the measure common in the U.S. got to be that way — looks better I guess.
The Kuttner article suggests that establishment Dems are well into “burn the village to save it” territory.