Patient readers, Yves apologizes for the lack of an original post from her, but she’s under the weather. She sends word: “Maybe you can tell them I am having a war wound addressed and underestimated how painful the treatment is.” –lambert
Lobster Emoji Now Has Proper Number of Legs Because a Bunch of People From Maine Complained New York Times. Victory is ours!
CNY bank staff ‘terrified’ by hungry hawk dining at building’s entrance Syracuse.com (Bob).
Animals Are Losing Their Vagility, or Ability to Roam Freely NYT (original).
Driverless cars: mapping the trouble ahead FT. Very important! And cf. On Exactitude in Science…..
The Car of the Future Will Sell Your Data Bloomberg (Re Silc).
Airbnb and the Unintended Consequences of ‘Disruption’ The Atlantic
The Mess at Meetup Gizmodo. This is too bad. The 2004 Howard Dean campaign (remember “the Democratic wing of the Democratic party”?) used Meetup quite successfully as an organizing tool.
The case for ending Amazon’s dominance The Undercover Economist
US economy: The growth puzzle FT
Syraqistan
Foreign Powers Compete for a Slice of Syria Der Spiegel
The Post-Islamic State Marshall Plan That Never Was Foreign Policy. I’m shocked.
A Nuclear Angle to the 2014 PNS Zulfiquar Attack? The Diplomat
Brexit
Aviation cliff-edge: How Brexit is sabotaging a British success story Politics (Richard Smith).
‘No choice’ but for UK to impose budget on Northern Ireland, Bradley warns Sky News
Latvian crisis illustrates limits of ECB’s reach FT
Can a party founded by a comedian run a major European country? Italy may soon find out. WaPo
North Korea
South Koreans react to their president’s historic invitation to North Korea Mic
Indonesia’s military craves more power Asia Times
New Cold War
Robert Mueller’s America–A Farce Wrapped in Hypocrisy by Publius Tacitus Sic Semper Tyrannis (Darius). “Let me state it succinctly–if you posted a blog suggesting that Hillary deserved to go to jail then you might be a criminal.”
Lawyer charged in Mueller probe pleads guilty to lying to federal investigators The Hill. From Skadden Arps (!).
Conservatives urge Trump to grant pardons in Russia probe Politico (Re Silc). With friends like these…
Democrats in Disarray
Sympathy for the Drivel: On the Vocabulary of President Nitwit Counterpunch. Same tactics used against Bush. I know because I used them! Bush won two terms.
Trump Transition
FCC reversal of net neutrality rules expected to be published Thursday: sources Reuters. Here we go!
A decade after meltdown, Senate moves to roll back bank rules Politico. Elizabeth Warren: “I’m amazed that, on the 10th anniversary of the 2008 financial crisis, some Democrats are supporting the Trump administration and Senate Republicans on a bill to roll back the financial rules we put in place.” I’m not.
Dems demand fair-lending docs from CFPB’s Mulvaney American Banker. But see above. No consistency.
Health Care
As Some Got Free Health Care, Gwen Got Squeezed: An Obamacare Dilemma NYT (Re Silc). “President Trump’s attempts to undermine the health law have exacerbated a tension at the heart of it — while it aims to provide health coverage for all [sic], the law is far more generous to the poor and near poor than the middle class.” Perhaps the best way to measure intent is to look at what actually happens and proceed from there. ObamaCare, in its system architecture, always sends some to HappyVille and some to Pain City, arbitrarily. (Recall that those on the bubble between Medicaid and ObamaCare were advised to lie about their income to get onto Medicaid.) Re Silc comments: “[I]n the spring of 2016, I spent a lot of time at my local sawmill in southern Vermont. This was a major issue by loads of worker bees making $15-20 an hour.” “Good jobs at good wages” don’t help, then….
Trump Administration Proposes Rule To Loosen Curbs On Short-Term Health Plans KHN
Maternal Health Care Is Disappearing in Rural America Scientific American
Charity care spending flat among top hospitals Modern Healthcare. At least it’s not going down, as in past years. Most of these hospitals are putative non-profits, let us remember.
Our Famously Free Press
Why is the Manhattan DA Looking at Newsweek’s Ties to a Christian University? Newsweek (DK). “This story was written and edited Tuesday, free of interference from company executives.”
How the Washington Post Missed the Biggest Watergate Story of All Consortium News
Gunz
Trump moves to ban rapid-fire gun ‘bump stocks’ NBC. Via regulation.
Student reporter interviews classmates hiding from gunman in Florida high school Forth Worth Star-Telegram
Florida lawmaker’s aide fired after saying outspoken Parkland students are actors Tampa Bay Times
Florida Teachers’ Pension Fund Invested in Maker of School Massacre Gun Bloomberg (Re Silc).
If We Want Kids to Stop Killing, the Adults Have to Stop, Too Matt Taibbi, Rolling Stone
Imperial Collapse Watch
Witnessing the Collapse of the Global Elite The Atlantic (Re Silc). The deck: “Last weekend’s security conference in Munich was a stark reminder that this class has nothing of substance to offer a world in turmoil.” When you’ve lost The Atlantic…
Class Warfare
The great ‘living within our means’ con: Why you’re more in debt than ever ABC News (Australia (naturally)). “The greatest lie ever sold is that the Australian Government can run out of Australian dollars.”
Come the Recession, Don’t Count on That Safety Net Eduardo Porter, NYT. Why? “The federal debt burden.” In other words, Porter is still locked in the austerity box, along with liberal Democrats. I’m also heartily sick of the “safety net” trope. Why should life be like a tightrope walk? Who benefits from that, besides the carnival barkers?
Anti-poverty Policy Innovations: New Proposals for Addressing Poverty in the United States Russel Sage Foundation
Why Equality Matters More Than Income JSTOR Daily
Let’s face it. There will never be room for the middle class in Boston Boston Globe
From Cop Dramas to Co-op Dramas (part 1) and The Kinds of Stories We Can Tell Grassroots Economic Organizing (part 2). “Why We Need Media Cooperativism.”
Are alpha males worse investors? The Economist (original; n = 3,228).
Feathered, Furred or Coloured LRN Dinosaurs!
Antidote du jour (via). Little dinosaurs:
Abyssinian Roller (Coracias abyssinica).
Bonus antidote:
"when you see only one set of footprints in the sand it was then that I carried you" pic.twitter.com/7swqrAyrbT
— Caroline Conrad (@CPConrad) February 20, 2018
See yesterday’s Links and Antidote du Jour here.
163 comments
Comments are closed.
“There will never be room for the middle class in Boston” because the state Legislature ended rent control in 1994. How quickly people forget. The article makes no mention of this.
And there was room for the middle class everywhere when the upper class wasn’t at a nosebleeding level above them.
I lived in Boston in 1994, and before. There was no middle class even then. Eliminating rent control (on units that were substandard) was merely the final nail in a coffin for the middle class that took decades to build.
To Yves,Get well soon, or as long as it takes
+1
One more.
Here is another one.
Uno mas for health and happiness!
I’ve got a pot of lemon balm tea on the wood stove with your name on it…cure what ails you! (and, if you’ve a mind and prefer old-fashioned Tlingit remedies, there is also some fresh devil’s club bark ready to go into the pot too… :)
Get well, Yves, and health to all.
Feel better~
Old joke:
“How do you collect devil’s club bark?”
“Very, very carefully.”
(For those who haven’t seen devil’s club, the name is descriptive: https://search.yahoo.com/yhs/search?hsimp=yhst-goodsearch_yhs&hspart=goodsearch&p=Devil%27s+club+picture¶m2=88ba33516d0655c743e3a5b2324d0015 (Sorry about the long link, but it has a lot of pictures.)
Yves, if you are in NYC and you can swing it,
it’s a great day for a turn thru a park — it’s gonna be 70 degrees.
Green space is healing for body and spirit.
with best wishes to you and much appreciation
Dear Yves, when you constantly immerse yourself, as you voluntarily do, in the dark realities of this world, it abrades your psyche, your soul, your being. And when the mind is sometimes the only thing that keeps one’s body going …. well, yeah … a healing of both needs to take place. So, everyone who loves Yves, clap your hands!
Yes! And I find that Mozart helps when too much anxiety gets induced looking at the state of the world…
I find baroque music very relaxing, especially Vivaldi’s Four Seasons. Maybe some Creedence Clearwater Revival too or even Fleetwood Mac.
Once when I was getting sick I spent the afternoon listening to Mozart. Cured me.
However, it sounds like Yves’ problem is the treatment. All I can say is, hang in there.
And another.
And another from soggy texas
Who’s this Yves character everyone’s going on about?
Here’s the lineup, which one is it?
“Yves” site:nakedcapitalism.com
Do get better, if it’s not too much trouble:)
Driverless cars: mapping the trouble ahead
The other day my son was using the map or path finder or what ever it’s called on his Android based smart phone to get in and out of Boston (he went to the boat show). In both directions, the mapping software sent him all over the place though he did indeed make his destination. On the way back it was even worse taking him on an itinerary that seemed almost purely random except it did keep him in the general direction he wanted to go. It took him down just about every back street there was between the boat show and his home some 40 or so miles out in the Metro area. The trip was on a Sunday, so traffic was not a concern and I assume even the simplest algorithm can figure that much out. I suspect the software was using that crazy route as part of an effort to learn to learn the back roads in real time by its network of hapless Android based cell phone users.
I had some experiences like that and then found out “avoid highways” was turned on. Just in case!
Get well soon Yves.
Thanks, that might be it. I’ll have him check.
Interesting.
My wife never trusts us getting anywhere, she always wants to use SIRI, until SIRI got us lost several times. Maybe we had “avoid roads’ turned on.
:-)
As a test, I tried using Siri to help me get around the small town where I live. For some reason she couldn’t understand what I was saying and I eventually gave up in frustration.
Yes, that was indeed the issue, avoid highways was turned on..
I remember a turkish taxi driver telling me the nearest bridge was closed and proceeding to take an entirely superfluous tour of night time istanbul.
That night did not work out for the driver.
Maybe Uber’s route to profitability is maximizing the route for consumers.
I was in a taxi and the driver didn’t like the route it recommended so he went another way and left the GPS on.
The GPS did not recognize what he was doing and kept giving him instructions from the route it had mapped. And mind you, not instructions to get from where he was to that route, it just kept calling out the old route, based on its apparent guesstimated of how fast he was driving.
Not a good look.
Perhaps my Borges reference was too oblique; the joke is that creating map of the world done at the level of detail required by the Imperial Cartographer’s Guild would be the same size as the world, that is, a useless and unachievable project.
I may just be spitballing here, but I’m thinking this is a sign of technical desperation on Google’s part (and hence, I would think, on the part of the entire robot car “community”). The only reason they would want a detailed map like this is that sensors + algos can’t do the job (possibly because they involve a ginormous data integration problem in real time, like the F-35 helmet, another debacle). And I am very dubious that such a map can be created; Google Maps is helpful, but there’s absolutely no way I’d trust them at random locations because they aren’t updated often enough, and they often aren’t accurate (for things like shops) even to meters. At best, they’re a heuristic, and robot cars need better than that.
Oh Lambert…
https://www.nationalreview.com/2018/02/set-nasa-free/
yes, because private companies are lining up to use the station but that darn govt regulation won’t let them.
Yes, so overbudget is nasa. $1.4b in 2017 to fund the station. that’s like 1/16th the cost of a new air craft carrier.
One thing I question is how “hotel guests” would affect research being done on the station.
Look i agree the station is worthless. until the problem of getting up into space is solved (so much time and money is put into just getting off the planet), then space stations and moon bases are complete wastes of money and distractions in priorities. You spend a million times the cost of anything just to lift it 200 miles into the air. And like any gov’t project, if it requires more than a term in office of someone, it never turns out the way it’s supposed to. When they say it will take 20 years and $1 billion to build, all it takes is the next president to cancel the project (so he can look like a deficit saving hero). And the majority of costs of nasa projects occur in the first years of development (sunk costs).
I fully support funding NASA to the tune of $300 billion a year (think of the math and science jobs! Oh that’s right we don’t want our kids to know that evil witchcraft. better that they play football and concuss themselves into retardation). But this NASA stuff by trump is just showboating to gain a few contractor votes.
Actually, a properly functioning moon base can solve quite a lot of the ‘getting to space’ cost.
By properly functioning, I mean the following:
– Able to refine lunar basalt to magnesium, aluminium, Iron and oxygen.
– Able to use ice (from the polar craters on the moon) to produce fuel and water.
– (Stretch) Able to grow own food with a surplus.
Bear in mind that launch costs from the moon to Earth orbit are trivial, so this can lead to an abundance of material to build with in earth orbit. So further missions are far easier, you no longer have to drag everything up from Earth’s gravity well.
I’d also add.. once you develop the capacity to mine asteroids (the next logical step), you no longer need nuclear weapons for deterrence. Small asteroids have the same impact without the fallout. Spending $200 billion a year on space would quickly give the US military dominance for the next century..
“Dominance for the next century.” Until some inventive coder working at the “”Grand Fenwick” Department of Statelet Security” figures out a way to electronically hijack the tugs shepherding those errant asteroids around. Then “the grounds the limit!”
Alternatively, those people forced to go work on the Moon mining, building, and fabricating stuff – in horrendously dangerous conditions – might decide to have a little freedom come their way, for once, and take over the means of production….and launch….and guidance.
See also the novel by Heinlein, The Moon is a Harsh Mistress
That book also had an AI as a character.
As far as mother country colony relations go, I see self sufficiency for the colony as the breaking point.
Use robots. We don’t need no stink’n people.
Not gonna happen until after the singularity.
Also the new Expanse scifi series. If we are going to start pulling asteroids out of orbit, it would be extremely wise to first have in place some sort of defense in case these rocks make their way down the gravity well, either accidentally or on purpose.
But we as a species haven’t shown any particular wisdom deploying other technologies, so it’s doubtful we’re going to start here.
Lyman Alpha Blob: it would be extremely wise to first have in place some sort of defense in case these rocks make their way down the gravity well
Yeah. The best defense — the only defense, probably — is to park those rocks in lunar orbit, do the mining and refining there, and only send consignments of processed materials down the gravity well to Earth in a limited, controlled fashion.
That’s one big reason for the moon base that poster Andrew Dodd advocates for above.
Another is that chemical rockets make no sense for going anywhere beyond the Moon. This has been known since Tsiolkovsky’s rocket equation back in 1903, and Elon Musk’s fantasies about going to Mars with a big chemical rocket are technologically nonsense.
Nuclear drives are what’s necessary. And no, not a nuclear pulse drive like Dyson’s Project Orion, but like NASA’s NERVA, a nuclear thermal rocket which was fully developed by 1972 for a manned Mars mission in 1978 but which wasn’t then implemented in a spacecraft because Richard Nixon cancelled that mission.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NERVA
Nuclear thermal rockets are a well-understood technology. If long-term we’re going to be using nuclear rockets to get around the solar system, however, it would be nice to mostly cordon that activity off away from Earth orbit by using Luna and lunar orbit as everybody’s shipyards. Another reason for a moon base.
I think for cargo, solar sails are the best method, but I don’t recall how that’s done for coming from Mars or Jupiter. I recall the technique was known in the ’50s, but don’t remember. Suppose I should go look it up. I think someone showed it’s even feasible with human passengers, but am not sure of that. The thing is your acceleration is tiny, but it’s continuous, so after a while you’re reaching really impressive velocities.
Space elevator. Railgun launcher. (Japan rail was talking about using its maglev technology for the latter at the Aichi expo in 2005).
Dominance on Earth.
Would it be hard to defend that Lunar military base? Or the Moon-Earth supply route? Can we dominate on the Moon. and the space between the two bodies?
Can we dominate on the Moon. and the space between the two bodies?
Ultimately, it’s doubtful. It’s easier to knock down stuff in orbit than to put it up there. The Chinese did a demonstration to send that message to the U.S. back in 2007 —
https://www.technologyreview.com/s/407454/chinas-antisatellite-missile-test-why/
Obviously, hitting something gets harder with greater distance, like all the way out to the Moon’s dark side. Nevertheless, in 2017 a sufficiently-advanced nation-state (China, Russia, the U.S, maybe India) can probably target anything that another such nation-state launches into the frame of space you’re talking about.
So outright dominance isn’t feasible, whatever delusions U.S. Space Command has. However, mutual assured deterrence — since a state can take down anything another state puts up there if it feels strongly enough to risk war — is possible.
> And like any gov’t project, if it requires more than a term in office of someone, it never turns out the way it’s supposed to.
This is a bit facile. You can’t make politics go away, ever. Nevertheless, despite being consistently under assault, Social Security and Medicare have been “turning out they way they were supposed to” for generations.
In another part of the forest, you might say that any number of national security and defense projects are “turning out they way they were supposed to,” especially the self-licking ice cream cones.
Here is hoping that Yves has a speedy recovery and gets well soon.
How the Washington Post Missed the Biggest Watergate Story of All
Yeah, that was a pretty bad story that but is it any different than the time Reagan negotiated with the Iranians to hold those fifty-two American diplomats and citizens hostage longer until he had been elected to make him look good? Sometimes lies take years to come out – such as how some of the Challenger astronauts were still alive when it hit the ocean back in ’86. Others come out almost right away – like the time a New York official denied that any people had jumped from the twin towers on 9/11 in spite of all the photos and videos. I have no doubt that one day that the real Russiagate will come out as there are too many people involved. Time will tell.
I think that that seagull image, by the way, has the wrong caption on it. It should read “If I have seen further than others, it is by standing upon the shoulders of giants”.
That was (or would have been) poorly managed by Reagan and his team.
Never ‘Hold them until after’ but just ‘Well, here is one more detail, one more demand (maybe asking for a public apology, or whatever) to be worked out.’
Or just ‘We have to think about that.’
Then, who is going to prove you purposely had them captured longer than otherwise?
Particular applause & thanks, Lambert, for this:
“I’m also heartily sick of the “safety net” trope. Why should life be like a tightrope walk? Who benefits from that, besides the carnival barkers?”
“Safety net” could almost be seen as the “I’m no racist, but…” of welfare op-ed rhetoric. As in “of course we support a robust social safety net for those in genuine need, but [insert new proposal to shave a few more mm off tightrope width & slap ‘welfare fraud’ charges on those who fall]”.
Emphasis on tightrope-type existence for all those whose whole live is spent on the verge of falling into safety net *where there is one) – i.e. entire working class on broadest definition – is especially welcome.
Who knows whether the many commentators/politicians using this consensual,uncontroversial “safety net” metaphor a.) grossly underestimate how many people walk the tightrope, &/or actually believe that that’s how things should be: funambulist hell=character-building experience/incentive to hard work etcetc.
The Atlantic’s despair over our ineffectual elites’ gathering is really PNAC’s Eliot Cohen grousing that those international warmongers who met in Munich were not warlike enough, certainly not in the same league as Johnny Mac-Cain, for whom dear Eliot has a permanently throbbing tumescence. True fascist that he is, Cohen is upset that these big shots seem more interested in schmoozing and self-promotion than doing something important like getting their war thing on against that devil Putin.
That The Atlantic publishes neocon Cohen’s piece is a sign of how comfy liberals are in the same bed as neocons.
“… the most severe attack on American democracy in our lifetime.” What did Citizen’s United have to do with Munich?
Oh……my bad.
“Eliot Cohen …is the author of The Big Stick: The Limits of Soft Power and the Necessity of Military Force.” tells us all we need to know about him. The Atlantic is vying with the Times as House Organ of the American Empire.
Johnny Mac-Cain, for whom dear Eliot has a permanently throbbing tumescence.
He does. It’s remarkable — remarkably ludicrous, actually — to see McCain painted in such hagiographic terms as a great and wise man.
Neolib s are also neocons.
When you’ve lost The Atlantic…
Don’t worry, The Atlantic hasn’t had an epiphany regarding the evils of neoconservatism or anything crazy like that. Eliot Cohen is just upset that warmonger-in-chief John McCain can no longer attend:
Probably best to avoid reading this article if you’ve just eaten.
Oh Man. that’s gold. I love it. John McCain’s Team America. Yeah, I have seen them at work-
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Lrf29R4H9pQ
Lol. That’s exactly where I stopped reading. Yes, Mr. Keating5 McCain who should have been thrown out on his [family blog] after the revelation that he took bribes from banksters….oh those many decades ago.
What’s wrong with Arizona?
Nothing. Come visit us, perpetualWAR. You’ll find plenty of good people in this state. Including my neighbor, Chuck. About McCain, he has this to say:
“I knew what kind of a crook he was. I worked for American Continental!”
For the record, American Continental was one of Keating’s companies.
Both of Arizona’s presidential nominees proved to be too non-mainstream.
Barry Goldwater garnered 52 electoral votes in 1964, while the Palin/McCain ticket [ladies first!] upped the ante to a still-insufficient 173 in 2008.
Third time’s the charm? That’s what Flake Jeff Flake is thinkin’. Like Hillary he wrote a book, positioning hisself as a statesman and man of letters. *wink*
We also have politicians like this one. Meet my long-time friend and mentor:
https://powersforthepeople.net/
I have been to Arizona: Sedona, lovely; Grand Canyon, blow you away marvelous; Lake Powell, both fun and beautiful, Flagstaff, nice town; various ghost towns, cool; Phoenix, I wanna stab my eyes out horrible (but to be honest, there’s always one eye-sore in every state).
I still don’t understand keeping McCain in office after he proved he was a crook.
Rich Crook, loyal to his donors.
Phoenix, I wanna stab my eyes out horrible (but to be honest, there’s always one eye-sore in every state).
~~~~~~~~~~~~~
We noticed an interesting thing driving on the main interstates through Phoenix, which all had electronic billboards that allowed the driver to see 3 different on each of them whilst passing by, that about 40% were for lawyers, such as “In a wreck-need a check?”, a ‘burn lawyer’, ‘husband and wife attorney’, etc. Every tom dick and harriette variety was on display, all vying to get you a settlement.
It added to the al’ Dante flavor of the place.
Perhaps we need to all share the definition of liberal and conservative with each other? When each is a curse word to some and motivation for others, mightn’t we fix the definition so the nooos talkers can’t change it? Decimation now means a mighty slaughter when it truly means only 1 in 10 need die. When did our language go so far off the rails?
I would say the snowball got rolling with raygun and accelerated under clinton, what the meaning of ISIS, and now they just laugh in our faces.
CNY bank staff ‘terrified’ by hungry hawk dining at building’s entrance
A hawk, outside a bank, feasting on pigeons. The joke is already written.
Had a hawk last summer that used the canopy over the convenience store gas pumps as its mess hall. People liked it and encouraged its pigeon catching.
Same thing locally with an owl family that would go out at twilight and fly around with squirrels in their talons to the applause of our squirrel infested neighbors.
Guess us rural folks lack the sensitivities of bankers.
Sigh! I take it that initiative is not something that they choose CNY bank staff for. Somebody tell them that there is a mob called “Syracuse Bird Control” in their city. Their telephone number is 315-816-3404 if they need it. They look like very nice people on their website (http://bird-removal.com/Syracuse-NY.html) and they should be able to help out. They are even nice enough to mention on their website that large plastic owls are only for scaring pigeons but are basically a waste of money for even that purpose.
Properly placed plastic owls work on squirrels contemplating a jump to your roof from a tree branch. Squirrels like to explore on multilevel roofs for opportunities to chew through siding for the purpose of nesting in your attic.
We have hawks in our neighborhood but I’ve never seen a squirrel when they are soaring.
Yes. I would think the bankers would side with the hawk.
I think they’re afraid that it’s a message from god
I’m afraid that the neo-bankers would see this as a “Chicken Hawk” moment and all pile into the ‘Cuddle Puddle.’
The hawks have been given goals to eat a certain number of pigeons everyday. The bank is the obvious place to find complacent pigeons waiting to be plucked every day.
The bank employees probably don’t realize that they are bigger than the hawks and unlikely to be food for them. It is hard to shift a mindset away from viewing the hawk like managers and executives, but they do need to realize that the hawks are less likely to attack them.
RE: Airbnb
They will be disrupting one less town after yesterday – https://www.pressherald.com/2018/02/20/south-portland-council-bans-unhosted-short-term-rentals-in-residential-zones/
The article doesn’t get into the specifics but this ordinance strikes a nice balance. Rentals less than a month are banned in residential neighborhoods completely for houses not occupied by the owner. If you live in the house you own, you can still do pretty much whatever you want regarding rentals, short or long term.
This was a much needed measure as people had begun buying up rows of houses in desirable neighborhoods and basically renting them out as disconnected hotels, really ticking off the remaining neighbors in the process. And the big companies were getting in on it too – Southeby’s had been buying and renting out properties, offering a chef service, etc – basically doing everything a hotel does but using Airbnb to avoid the regulations that would have gone along with being a hotel. Not anymore.
Here in Pima County, Arizona, the County Assessor’s office did a very mean thing. They cracked down on Air BnB rentals. It was easy. They monitored the ads, then sent Notices of Valuation to the property owners.
In essence, those notices said that if you’re advertising your property as a rental, it’s going to be taxed at a higher rate. That made for a lot of unhappy property owners, but they didn’t get much sympathy from the rest of us.
Hey, I have an idea of how Air BnB rentals could expand their business base. What if they started to get people to rent rooms by the hour. I’m sure that there would be a demand. So, win-win?
Antidote photographed flying
link: https://www.hbw.com/ibc/photo/abyssinian-roller-coracias-abyssinicus/perfect-flyby-adult-bird-prey
The link widget seems borked this morning for me. Boris and Natasha must be hacking on my laptop. They are messing with the wrong squirrel let me tell you.
Snazzy bird!
“I’m also heartily sick of the ‘safety net’ trope. Why should life be like a tightrope walk? Who benefits from that, besides the carnival barkers?”
The carnival owners.
My reactive thought was “carnival bankers” but that didn’t seem to make sense. However if each game of chance at the carnival were actually owned by the barker ….. OK, that’s a big stretch.
Sad to see a society with so many designed in death traps for decent but simple people. Sadder yet to recognize that we have done it to ourselves (collectively) without even knowing it. The only requirement for evil to win is for good people to do nothing. MSM propaganda promotes do nothing where it really counts.
The carnival owners’ creditors?
Excellent point!
Bulletproof backpacks the reality for students in 2018 America
greed created this.
Kids! Put your matching flak jack and helmet on! What a world we live in.
I would seriously doubt this would stop the assault rifles. I’m sorry “assault-style rifle”.
Maybe this backpack company could come out with a line of executive underwear with a bullet-proof, fire-resistant ass cover. I see a big market there. It would make a great gift item.
Could be a real winner – like Pet Rocks, if anyone else is old enough to remember.
The real utility would be about the same.
The backpack is a good start, but I see the need for a whole new curriculum more in line with today’s realities at school.
This is the kind of practical stuff that the kids can use later in life at work, at concerts or other activities (provided they make it through school).
How about lessons on Entrenching and Urban warfare?
Please we need a complete curriculum.
These students will then be well trained to “serve” the country around the globe.
Actually, coworkers are quite high on the list of people who murder people, so this course work would have real application to their future success in the work place.
I think there is more money, and more impressive to whomever you want to impress at a bar, to come up with robot body guards.
Let them be your own secret service agents.
They will gladly take a bullet for you (just make sure that is programmed in…a feature, and no bugs).
Something missing here is that fact that bullet-proof backpacks would not be enough. You would also have to insert Trauma Pads as well or there would still be a lot of damage to their bodies. They help avoid internal organ damage and broken ribs.
Lemmy Caution has good suggestions about a new curriculum but could I add one about making Molotov cocktails in the school science lab for self defense?
It is a world gone mad that arms teachers for a firefight in the lunchroom.
In the same way we’ve turned doctors into billing clerks, we’ve turned teachers into security guards.
Everything solid melts into crap, as The Bearded One did not quite say.
Re all Indonesia news stories, channel your Linda Hunt here: “You must first understand the Wayang, the shadow play.”
Natsec has precisely zero to do with this. The generals have felt left out of the latest boom phase of Indonesian grift oops growth. By usurping domestic police powers, they resume an ability to influence (read take a rake) on local commercial activities, both legal and illegal.
For all we Westerners worry about our MICs, down on the ground most of our servicemen remain capable and honest public servants. But in most of the world, and for most of human history, the common soldiery are thugs with badges, wholly unaccountable, wolves to the citizenry, and little better than the enemies foreign and domestic they claim to guard against.
Willful naivete? The distinction made between Indonesians and western personnel seems way-way rose-coloured-glass. Plus, it is not the folks on the ground who I’d worry about…
I think, ObjectiveFunction, it’s just that the positions of the two paramilitary forces in Indonesia are reverse those in the US. In Indonesia, the military has usurped police powers; in the US, the opposite is true.
Much like the old Soviet joke, huh? “Under capitalism, man is a wolf unto man. Under communism, it’s just the opposite.”
the kinds of stories we can tell ….
in the 2016 election i wrote in “frank sobotka”. i considered writing in “omar little” but i figured frank sobotka knew more abt running an organization.
Well… as far as “running an organization” goes, the correct write-in answer is obviously Stringer Bell.
“When you’ve lost The Atlantic…”
Well I’m not so sure…
E.g. describing the highly intelligent and witty Russian foreign minister who quite correctly said that anything claimed without supporting evidence is [choose your own translation of crap from Russian]. But had to add a supposed slavish adoration of the evil Putin…
“Sergei Lavrov, the Russian foreign minister, rather than appearing, as he usually does, like a man ready to rip a kitten’s head off to please his master in the Kremlin, merely stared with dead eyes as he delivered a ritual denunciation of European neo-Nazis
‘recent indictment of Russian internet trolls who interfered in American elections…. his boss, who still cannot admit, let alone choose to counter, the most severe attack on American democracy in our lifetime.’
Yes, of course, it is another Pearl Harbor!
‘McCain warned in 2015, as Russia despoiled Ukraine. ‘
Er, no mention of the many billions Nuland spent actually despoiling Ukraine?..
and the cliched description of Dr Evil himself “sinister visage of Vladimir Putin”
Even when you half lose the Atlantic, it still keeps pumping out evidence free cliches about Russia.
Yes, and we should not discount the fact that all this is very good for ratings, fills the airwaves for hours with blather (full employment for those spouting it), and is just soooo easy. Why do the hard work of actual journalism, when one can just keep pointing fingers at enemy No. 1. In other words, opportunism and laziness…
Call this a “third way” by the working class.
The revolt began suddenly one weekend, with a loud banging at some godawful early hour. From their bedroom windows, neighbours could see Eleanor Lee – wilful, hippyish Eleanor – hacking up concrete in the garden next door so that she could plant ivy. ….
…
The write-ups were fun and funny and heart-warming, and mainly missed the vital part about politics. Because what these women – and the central characters are nearly all women – have done is beat a housing system that comprehensively failed their community, and then judged that community a failure. …
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2018/feb/14/community-liverpool-residents-granby
Including video data from the backseat of your car?
There are many things adults can do that kids can’t.
That is true, today, yesterday and tomorrow (most likely), here and elsewhere.
What is more universal is that if we want something for ourselves, we should also desire it for the rest of the world, regardless of age.
So, perhaps we start with a quest for a drone-free planet.
Here is the local newspaper write-up about Shaheen’s talk/Q&A yesterday.
Thanks for that. I guess it’s appropriate that she spoke at the Hopkins Center for the Arts because her story might make a great fictional novel but she sure wasn’t presenting too many facts to the audience.
And this kind of stuff really chaps my rear end:
Yeah that oughta work – I’m sure nobody would ever use a SuperPAC or some other vehicle to hide where the funds were really coming from.
I see that youtube is now letting people know that RT is funded in part by the Russkies when you go to play one of their videos. Still waiting for the disclaimer that youtube itself is funded in part by the US government (and probably many other governments too if we were to know the extent of all their government contracts).
You are very welcome! She was giddy about forcing RT to register as a foreign agent, and about her mission going after Kaspersky Labs/Russians. It’s scary.
I’ve seen those RT disclaimers under Lee Camp’s “Redacted Tonight” videos. And, guess what, we who comment on Lee’s videos are having a whale of a good time. Y’know, comments like “Hi, Deep State!” and “Yo, CIA!”
So, YouTube, keep it up. We’re having way too much fun in the comment section.
A member of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee has no idea that the United States is interfering in other people’s elections? What the hell do they discuss on that committee anyway?
Lucky for her I included a link to the report in the tweet I gave her yesterday.
They cover it in the Intelligence Committees, not Foreign Relations. The Foreign Relations committee is focused on circumventing treaties instead.
Thanks for this.
Cars selling data like Google and Facebook… Yes we naively sign away our privacy to Google and Facebook, but they don’t charge us $10’s of thousands of dollars for the privileged. I might consider it if I can get that dreamy BMW for free.
There is a reason BMWs are called BM Troubleyous.
After much experience taking German Cars for “service” early in the morning, I rebelled, and to my better half that if she wished to continue having German cars, she could arise from bed at 6 am and take them in for “service.”
Is it not written, that one should never ever ever buy a German car out of warranty?
Selling data is the future of everything with a chip in it.
You’d think they could figure out how to put a chip in guns…
“A Cooper’s Hawk was deeply embarrassed to have to be sharing its’ dining area with a group of bankers, local residents reported yesterday. “Listen, I understand and they aren’t my choice of company either” said the hawk “but this is where the pigeons are, so what’s a guy to do?””
Clap clap clap!
https://www.jacobinmag.com/2018/02/national-rifle-association-members-florida-school-shooting
Good piece in Jacobin on why the NRA seems to be powerful. A large base of dues paying members shouldn’t be discounted.
Also, of course, passing ANYTHING in congress is hard and Dems don’t like to actually TRY to pass legislation (instead of talking about it).
> passing ANYTHING in congress is hard
Yes I will take this opportunity to again note the “fillibuster” is the most ridiculous anti-democratic wedge in the entire anti-democratic edifice. And it doesn’t trace back to the (anti-democratic) Constitution, even. Lordy.
Support, or not, for the filibuster is based almost entirely on whose ox is gored.
There are decisions, like lifetime judgeships, that obviously SHOULD require a super majority, but presently don’t.
This morning the 2-year T-note yield exceeded 2.25% — nearly a ten-year high — up from 1.25% less than six months ago. Chart:
Thirty-year conventional mortgage rates have gone from 3.78% to 4.38% in less than six months (FRED series MORTGAGE30US).
How’s that crackpot fiscal stim workin’ out for us?
I read up the Wikipedia entry on Treasury Direct, and a couple of things stand out.
1. Your purchases are in electronic form. Is that safe enough for a Luddite?
2. Nothing about selling to anyone else or back to the Treasury. Presumably that means hold-till-maturity.
There’s an escape hatch:
Thanks.
That 2 year 2.25% is better than you can get at almost all banks. Does it mean the banks will catch up soon?
Our credit union just gave my spouse and me Starbucks gift cards. In lieu of interest rate increases, maybe?
Banks always take their time at the retail level when it comes to raising deposit rates. I just did a quick googling and lots listed are still in the 1-2% range.
If you have a retail brokerage account, you can purchase at auction (most are free to do a no price-bid) or you can do ETFs that track two-year treasuries. I think ishares have some short term treasuries. Vanguard might not have an ETF for short term bonds.
I’d have to look it up and I gotta get back to work. Sorry.
That’s a good idea…I just checked with Fidelity.
Ishares are free to trade for Fidelity account holders. They have low expense ratios, actually.
Or, you can pay the $5 a trade and get Vanguard funds and stick it to the oligarchs :) Fidelity is growing in their hatred of Vanguard.
Ishares are pretty good products though, big ETFs, reliably liquid.
This one has an effective duration of 1.88 yrs. 30-day SEC Yield is 2.35%
That would most closely mimic the 2 yr treasury.
https://www.ishares.com/us/products/239451/ishares-13-year-credit-bond-etf
Here’s the full suite of fixed income stuff….
https://www.ishares.com/us/products/etf-product-list#!type=ishares&tab=overview&view=grouped&fac=43515
If you want longer-term stuff, go check Vanguard, the anti-wall street! :)
https://medium.com/insurge-intelligence/exclusive-documents-expose-direct-us-military-intelligence-influence-on-1-800-movies-and-tv-shows-36433107c307
“No matter how bad you think it is, it’s worse….”
That echoes Lily Tomlin’s quip “No matter how cynical I get I just can’t keep up.” But beware. It seems to get a lot of play in the DNC blog sniping at Trump and his minions.
One of the more blatant efforts was https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bombers_B-52, with Natalie Wood, no less. I think they even gave credit to the Air Force.
I think that it goes beyond what is in that article. Ever notice how the military will put in a heroic appearance at the end of a film, even when they have done diddley-squat during the film? The films “The Day After Tomorrow” and “I, Robot” come immediately to mind.
Just to put the boot in, anybody seen the original “Transformers” film? Twice in that film when the military were under attack, their immediate response was to head straight to the middle of a civilian town or city to have their battle. Did the military think that that was putting them in a good light?
All to give the appearance of opposition? (AoO).
And, by extension, the average American with a small vocabulary is likely to identify with Trump who is being attacked for the same things that he or she feels they suffer.
Already have seen a few ImPence! signs on cars in the Midwest.
‘Bush won two terms’
And Lance Armstrong won 5 Tours de France…
Yes, “stole” would have been more accurate.
Great chart from Marketwatch on the US twin deficits — 3.4% of GDP (fiscal) and 2.1% of GDP (current account).
Since the fiscal deficit is set to grow by another 2.0% of GDP over the next couple of years thanks to the R party’s crackpot fiscal stim, the twin deficit is also headed from the current 5.5% to 7.5% of GDP, should the current account deficit hold steady.
Unlike in the early 1980s when Reagan’s tax cut sent the US dollar soaring along with the fiscal deficit, this time round it’s drooping. Evidently foreigners have grown older & wiser … or are just expressing “no confidence” in US financial management under the economically illiterate R party.
Gold hit around $850 and closed 1990 at around $386.
So, maybe the next FDR will confiscate Bitcoin instead.
Matt nails it again – “If We Want Kids to Stop Killing, the Adults Have to Stop, Too Matt Taibbi”
Funny how the only time people seem to have a problem with assault weapons is when they are used on us here at home.
The dreaded Edifice complex strikes again:
Classic late-cycle hubris — you can absolutely bet that those 2.5 million square feet will open during or after a bruising recession, as the World Trade Center did just before the 1973-74 recession.
It’s easy to be bold when you’re backed by the US government’s generous bankster training wheels should you fail miserably. Gold-plated faucets for the executive washroom!
I saw some of the new skyscrapers going up along and near the Hudson riverfront in Manhattan. Many of those new buildings impressed my sensibilities as remarkably ugly architecture like a reality based on a “Futurama” intro to episode clip.
Chase is expected to begin demolition of the building at 270 Park early next year
Are they going to fly a plane into it?
For a spaceship…to Mars.
“Only elite men and women, to establish a better world.” Like the film “When Worlds Collide.”
Nah, all they need to do is set fire to some furniture on the lower floors, that way
the whole thing will neatly fall into its footprint like Building Seven did on 9/11.
:-)
Jamie better have that shute at the ready …
… or maybe he’ll just use his own gold-plated ‘Elevator to HELL’ … “Goin down !”
“My name is Ozymandias, king of kings; Look on my works, ye mighty, and despair!”
http://www.cyclingnews.com/news/abu-dhabi-tour-organisers-blame-automatic-brake-sensor-for-cavendish-crash/
Another instance of an ostensible automobile safety feature not being able to adapt to a novel situation and actually causing harm. In this case automatically engaging brakes when sensors detected bikes close to the rear. At least that’s what the article says, but seems odd to trip the brakes when someone is already close to the rear of the vehicle to an unsafe degree.
Remind me not to tailgate any Benzos whilst biking.
maaaan. chutzpah from the russell sage foundation. i can say from up close and personal experience that institutions like rsf and the entire “poverty” research industry bears enormous culpability for the nightmare we are in right now
I scanned that Russell Sage paper on poverty. Instead of cake we can let the poor eat empty words. I fear the next war on poverty will be weaponized.
I read the entire article. I completely agree. Most recommendations are previously abandoned programs or ones that had negative unintended consequences, such as paying poor women to reproduce (i.e., paying a monthly stipend for each child) despite labeling single parenthood as the #1 poverty cause.
My favorite innovation comes from Paul et al. 2018. It would make lobbyists fall down laughing. Paul calls for guaranteeing universal access to an above-poverty wage job. This ignores why the person was unemployed to begin with. It also ignores the impact of forcing an employer to hire the least-preferred co-workers of his employees. You know? The person who has a history of absenteeism, fights with co-workers, is a sexual harasser, uses alcohol at work, pilfers, is insubordinate, and has done jail time. That will surely increase industry productivity. Paying somebody whether they produce or not is UBI. Paying somebody to sabotage employer productivity is a poverty-creating program.
Biggest Watergate story of all… While I’ve read about the possibility that Nixon was on the hunt for documents pertaining to his interference in the Paris peace talks before, I have hypothesized that the real missed Watergate story was a different Vietnam War issue…
Last year I believe Yves re-posted an old The American Conservative article about McCain’s on-going interference with any investigation into Vietnam POWs and for the first time I decided to match-up dates with Watergate and the end of the war. What becomes apparent is that Watergate is becoming a big problem right as Nixon’s team is finalizing an agreement with North Vietnam and the return of POWs.
On Feb 2, 1973 it’s agreed the US will pay Vietnam $3.25 Billion and Vietnam will return all POWs – 591 were provided in a list to the US on Jan 28 (all US intelligence data indicated that there were many more). A key provision in the Feb 2 letter was that the US would pay per its “constitutionally mandated approval” (Congressional approval). Evidence suggests that Vietnam planned ahead for such shenanigans and withheld POWs as ransom to ensure the payment – just as they had done with final negotiations with France.
Between Feb 2, 1973 and April13, 1973 when the 591 POWs are returned there are likely recorded conversations where discussions of what to do about the remaining POWs likely take place; including the eventual abandonment of the remaining POWs.
On July 13, 1973 Watergate testimony reveals that Nixon has been recording conversations since 1971. Nixon refuses to turn over the tapes.
In the late fall of 1973, under intense pressure, the Nixon White House turns over transcripts of some tapes, but unfortunately there is an 18.5 minute gap that can’t be fully explained and the corresponding tape recording had been erased. The assumption is the deliberate destruction of evidence.
On April 16, 1974 a subpoena is issued for 64 White House tapes. The tapes were meant to target conversations with Nixon and his chief aids around Watergate; however there is significant overlap in people and timing with likely conversation about the remaining POWs and what decisions were made and what the American public was not told. On April 30th the White House turns over 1,200 pages of edited transcripts of the tapes, but Congress demands the tapes. On July 27th the Supreme Court rules that Nixon must turn over the tapes. Nixon resigns on August 8th.
Was Nixon trying to hide from election crimes associated with the Watergate burglary or the murder of American POWs? The Nixon Library, interestingly, doesn’t list any tapes from March 23, 1973 to March 26, 1973 or from April 1st to April 7th, 1973.
Interesting. Thank you for making the effort. Some more reading on this matter:
McCain and the POW Cover-Up The American Conservative
Also, McCain’s father was instrumental in the USS Liberty cover-up:
John McCain Praises Father’s Whitewashing of Israel’s Attack on the USS LIBERTY! America Hijacked
Really nice to see a MMT piece on the Australian ABC, the government media service. My only beef is that loose language reinforces misconceptions.
The government does not have to borrow. It can just spend. It can choose to borrow if it wants to, which historically has been the case in Australia. Or it can just borrow from itself.
When language like this is used loosely it plays into the hands of the austerians. It makes it sound as if Australia will be indebted to some external party if it spends more Australian dollars than it receives, and none of us want that!
It’s interesting…about saving money.
A similar situation would be like that:
1. A political candidate issues promises.
2. And he/she tells you, to your face, that the more promises he/she makes, the more promises the voters, you and the rest of us, now have.
“Look at all the promises (from me) that you have SAVED UP!!!!!!!”
And that political candidate can issue as many promises as he/she wants.
I like your promise credits, but I don’t think save is quite meant in that sense. More ‘for the private sector to be in surplus, the government sector needs to be in deficit’, and if the opposite happens, well, we’re all running on private credit with no chance of saving in aggregate.
“Foreign Powers Compete for a Slice of Syria”
LOLOLOL
Kinda like “Foreign Powers Compete for a Slice of Afghanistan”
Here’s a hint, folks: there is nothing there. Syria is a smashed hulk with millions of refugee/citizens, Afghanistan is treeless mountains with no rivers, rails, or roads.
So let’s fix the title:
“Foreign Powers Compete for Taxpayer $$$ to Waste by Wasting Already-Wasted Wastelands”
Re: Tops bankruptcy http://www.syracuse.com/news/index.ssf/2018/02/crushing_debt_intense_competition_toxic_brew_for_plain_vanilla_tops_analysts_say.html#incart_m-rpt-1
http://www.syracuse.com/state/index.ssf/2018/02/tops_employee_union_says_it_is_monitoring_reported_bankruptcy_consideration.html
http://www.syracuse.com/state/index.ssf/2018/02/report_tops_files_for_bankruptcy_stores_wont_be_impacted_day-to-day.html
Tops and Wegmans stores geographic distribution overlap to a large extent. One is “private equity” that just went bankrupt under crushing debt and management fees. The other is actually private and appears to be doing quite well without a hint of financial issues.
It appears that adding the word “equity” to “private” makes all the difference in the world.
Furthermore, Wegman’s is once again rated as one of the best workplaces. I totally believe it, having close friends who work there, and I sometimes shop there. They seem to fix much of what is wrong economically nowdays, and with the workplace in general.
Jeanine Pirro gets plea deal that prevents license suspension. http://www.syracuse.com/state/index.ssf/2018/02/jeanine_pirro_guilty_speeding_upstate_ny.html
The ABC News ‘living within your means’ piece is excellent – a rare example of MMT explained in layman’s terms. She also heads off the usual question about constraints on spending in the absence of supply limitations.
On Feathered, Furred, or Coloured LRN Dinosaurs!
Yes, we still live in the age of dinosaurs. A bit baffled, though, that LRB left out one of the greatest dinosaur artists – Zdeněk Burian (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zden%C4%9Bk_Burian). Having a paleontologist in the family, we grew up with his books – incredible depictions of all known D. creatures (I can still see the picture of the Archeopteryx). “Many of Burian’s early paintings appeared in a series of large format books with text by Augusta, the first of which, Prehistoric Animals, was originally published in Czechoslovakia by Artia (1956).” Maybe that is the book I still have somewhere…
Re: Five Star
I thought I saw a story here on NC in the last week or so that said Beppe had stepped down from leading Five Star. From the little I had read about them, he really was the driving force in it, and unless he’s back it’s not clear that it will continue to prosper.
I read today’s link rather quickly and I don’t recall it saying anything about his current status.
He has, presumably why the headline reads “founded by” a comedian.
Yes, I read the “founded” part. I just found it odd that that was the only mention of him, as if he had founded it and left twenty years ago. He just left, I would have that he might still have some interest in the subject, or that they might have spoken to him.
” Are alpha males worse investors? ” – This one’s really odd. How reliable is this study for investment houses to start replacing alpha males with less-alpha males?
Holy Sh*t! The venezuelan govt released a crypto currency backed by their oil production! –
“The Venezuelan Government has officially announced the pre-sale of the Petro (PTR) cryptocurrency – the first commodity-secured currency of its kind in the world.” https://www.telesurtv.net/english/news/Venezuela-82.4M-Units-of-Petro-Cryptocurrency-Available-20180220-0004.html
Is NC staff on this?