Diamond inclusions suggest free flowing water at boundary between upper and lower mantle PhyrOrg (Robert M)
Sea Level Rise in the SF Bay Area Just Got a Lot More Dire Wired (Chuck L)
7 Years on, Sailors Exposed to Fukushima Radiation Seek Their Day in Court The Nation (Donna M)
First rising tides, now sinking shores: Study finds new trouble for Bay Area San Francisco Chronicle
Bitcoin Is Ridiculous. Blockchain Is Dangerous Bloomberg
Children need microbes — not antibiotics — to develop immunity, scientists say Toronto Star
Scott Kelly: NASA Twins Study Confirms Astronaut’s DNA Actually Changed in Space Newsweek (Kevin W)
Omega-3s Aren’t So Great For Your Heart After All LifeHack (David L)
Real Organic Project is being born Medium. Glenn F:
Real organic farmers have been hinting at taking steps to disavow the USDA’s NOSB (National Organic Standards Board) for its inclusion of hydroponically grown vegetables into the approved-as-organic list and for not excluding CAFO (Concentrated Animal Feeding Operations) from the list for awhile now. It looks like a new organic project is here. The Real Organic Project will work to support real organic farming.
North Korea
History in the making: US president to meet North Korean leader Asia Times
Trump-Kim talks: US signals hardline stance as it scrambles to define position Guardian
Trump rolls the dice on North Korea The Hill
China?
Why China’s silence on Xi’s term limits move portends trouble South China Morning Post
New Cold War
Newly revealed Russian weapons systems: political implications The Saker, Unz Review (Olga, Wat). Important. A few sour notes in some asides. One of the reasons why Russia can credibly meet or beat the US in terms military-related technological superiority is that top mathematical and physics grads have been going into finance since the mid 1980s. And much of the effort deployed in Silicon Valley since the dot-bomb era has been towards technologically trivial products, like “apps” or at most surveillance, which does more to protect US elites from the riff-raff than from foreign threats. Be sure to get at least as far as the discussion of the “cruise missile in a container”.
Poisioned British-Russian Double-Agent Has Links To Clinton Campaign Moon of Alabama
New Huge Anti-Russian Provocation ahead of Russian election Defend Democracy
Current U.S. Policy of Provoking Russia is Fundamentally Flawed Army Press [Military Review, 2009] (Mirko)
Imperial Collapse Watch
The Gulf monarchies and the corruption of US foreign policy NationofChange (furzy)
Big Brother is Watching You Watch
Think One Military Drone is Bad? Drone Swarms Are Terrifyingly Difficult to Stop ExtremeTech (furzy)
There Are No Guardrails on Our Privacy Dystopia Motherboard
Documents Prove Local Cops Have Bought Cheap iPhone Cracking Tech Motherboard
Tariff Tantrum
Trump Takes the Bait From Musk, Attacks China Auto Import Duties Bloomberg (UserFriendly)
In Tariff Talk, Trump Puts World On Notice; China Next In Line Forbes (furzy)
Trump Transition
Sam Nunberg, Ex-Trump Campaign Aide Who Resisted Subpoena, Appears in Court Associated Press
Michael Cohen used Trump company email in Stormy Daniels arrangements NBC (furzy)
Does Stormy Daniels Have a Case Against Donald Trump? New Yorker
Jeff Sessions’ misleading claim: California bans police cooperation with ICE PolitiFact
Bernie Sanders campaigns in Trump country Politico
Border wall built in 1990s cut illegal immigration, but it also brought problems for small town Los Angeles Times
Exploring Federal Models: American Federalism from the 20th Century Onwards La Nouvelle Union (UserFriendly)
Fake News
YouTube Is Full of Easy-to-Find Neo-Nazi Propaganda Motherboard
This is nuts: SPLC smears @MaxBlumenthal, @RaniaKhalek and @BenjaminNorton as part of some kind of made up left-fascist conspiracy orchestrated by Putin.
Comes complete with Glenn Beck diagrams.
Next up: anti-fracking activists? pic.twitter.com/WhDGHbBQml
— Yasha Levine (@yashalevine) March 9, 2018
Good to see SPLC took down this ugly hit piece. https://t.co/ljGVXdPVU6
— Mark Ames (@MarkAmesExiled) March 10, 2018
Anyway, I meant what I said.
I'm done for a while.
Too much… much.
There's something happening out here that doesn't make sense to be but smells a lot like a new version of Correct the Record with more pro-union/commie stickers on the tour bus.
— Nina Illingworth (@EIWBM_Cat) March 10, 2018
Gunz
NRA Sues Florida Over Ban on Gun Sales to Under-21 Year-Olds CNBC
JPMorgan Co-President Sees Possible 40% Correction in Equity Markets Bloomberg
Crude Oil’s Next Move? Clues from Soybean Oil CME Group (furzy)
Toys ‘R’ Us Is Prepping to Liquidate Its U.S. Operations Bloomberg
Why Goldman investors could be happy when Lloyd Blankfein leaves MarketWatch (furzy)
Guillotine Watch
Martin Shkreli Sentenced to Seven Years in Prison Bloomberg (furzy)
Class Warfare
Bernie hosting town hall on income inequality with Michael Moore and Elizabeth Warren NationofChange (furzy)
West Virginia Strike Highlights Corporate Media’s Atrophied Labor Coverage FAIR. UserFriendly: “Important”
Judge rules Seattle homeless man’s truck is a home Seattle Times. Katy: “I’m disturbed by this article. On the one hand, I’m glad that the man won. But what happens when the government decides that you’re not homeless if you’re living in a car?”
The Secret Sorrows of Over-Achievers Book of Life (Chuck L). Yes, this sounds familiar…
Antidote du jour (Kittie Wilson via Lawrence R):
And a bonus (I think Richard Smith, forgive me if not). Looks like he’s wearing gel. Our New York City subway rats (Norwegian rats) are plumper and have fluffy coats. Cute if you can get past your reflexes about them.
Rehearsing a sewer rat. On the day there will be hundreds of them. #goodomens pic.twitter.com/2ggpMCtrN4
— Neil Gaiman (@neilhimself) February 17, 2018
See yesterday’s Links and Antidote du Jour here.
130 comments
Comments are closed.
Martin Shkreli Sentenced to Seven Years in Prison
In a further development, in line with his Daraprim price hike, Martin Shkreli’s sentence has been therefore increased from 7 years imprisonment to 389 years imprisonment.
Sources are saying that the Yacking Yam’s about to pardon Martin and give him a really nice cabinet position. (maybe at HHS)
A Bloomberg editorial details why Congress won’t overturn the orange charlatan’s trade war:
Having abjectly surrendered to the imperial executive the power to start everything from trade wars to shooting wars, solons now realize that they are consigned to the peanut gallery like the rest of us, hollering impotently at each fresh outrage.
But $174K a year plus great bennies for serving as a well-coiffed bit actor in our post-constitutional democracy theater is a nice gig if you can get it.
Does my hair look okay?
In a trade war, any trade war, now or in the future, you need a trade-commander-in-chief, to engage trade enemies.
And when Congress declares one (a gradually evolving formality, like its shooting war counterpart), that trade-commander-in-chief can be pretty powerful.
Maybe even to command the breakup of internet giants.
As the fetching Stephanie K pointed out the other day, a trade deficit represents vendor financing. We send them keystrokes; they send us flat screens and iPhones — cool!
Cut off this E-Z terms vendor financing by forcibly driving the trade deficit back to balance, and US domestic consumption must fall — it’s an accounting identity.
A back-of-envelope calc indicates that achieving trade balance in two years would knock nominal GDP growth down by a third, from the present 4.4% to 2.9%. Subtract 2.0% inflation and we’re left with real growth of a feeble 0.9%.
Although political pressure to cut the trade deficit won’t be the sole or even main driver, a recession in 2020 is not unlikely as crackpot fiscal stim recedes and the Fed dumps securities with its demented normalization
pogromprogram.We don’t just send keystrokes.
We send jobs as well, except burger flipping work. That, we reserve for our native-born robots (for now).
And our keystrokes are not as desirable now. People elsewhere want their own keystrokes.
Right, right, right!
Emaciated out-of-workers do not buy much of anything. If they are entrepreneurial enough, they steal things.
Theft! It’s the American Way!
(Or; when the elites steal our jobs and sell them overseas, we return the favour.)
And these aren’t ‘keystrokes’ we send.
I can keystroke all day long at my computer and at the end of the day I can’t buy anything with them.
It is money we are sending. Money that is then used to buy assets and debt, creating asset and debt bubbles that will burst.
” US domestic consumption must fall — it’s an accounting identity.” – that doesn’t make much sense. If the jobs come home, too, that just transfers production back to the States – and the income associated with them. Seems like consumption could RISE, since Americans earn more than Chinese (or whoever). Not that increasing consumption is a good thing. Paying off some of our debts might be better.
Granted, it would take time for that to happen, just as it did to ship them overseas (literally – I had a long conversation with a guy whose business it was to pack up lumber mills and ship them overseas. He expressed no pangs of conscience. And my son helped do that with a giant drydock, at the place where he worked, that went to some tropical island.) So a more gradual program would go better.
And incidentally: those of us who aren’t accountants aren’t terribly impressed with arguments from accounting, which can be used to fictionalize just like everything else. What are the “concrete material benefits” – or costs?
@Jim Haygood
>> “Fetching Stephanie K”
Due respect, sir. Prof. Stephanie Kelton. Sure there are better ways to compliment her.
A trade deficit subtracts directly from GDP, reducing labor demand and wage growth. That’s why our plutocrats of both parties love it.
It is that “math” thingy.
I would not place Shkreli under “Guillotine Watch.” I teach a lesson in Technology, Art & Design on how far we’ve come since the Salk vaccine: “There is no patent. Could you patent the sun?” Shkreli’s take on Daraprim is the model for much of what’s going on in Big Pharma, but he is A LOT more memorable! When I play Shkreli on video, *everyone* in class gets it! He HAD to go to prison, lest stay the standard-bearer for the whole cadre of execs who ought to be in there with him.
re: New Cold War
Western journalists, especially in the US, generally paint Putin as an absolute dictator of a coherent and obedient government apparatus, this is a simplification at best. As the elected/appointed/asserted leader of any large territory must, he balances and appeases divided and divisive political factions operating within and beyond Russia, including significant nationalist/supremacist movements who feel Putin is far to liberal in domestic and economic policy. Putin rattles the saber in part to appease them.
I’m Sorry for Creating the ‘Gerasimov Doctrine’
https://foreignpolicy.com/2018/03/05/im-sorry-for-creating-the-gerasimov-doctrine/
See the embedded video titled “Valery Morozov: “Skripal and Putin are both targets””, currently 3rd video down in this post:
Russian spy: Military deployed after poisoning
http://www.bbc.com/news/uk-43344725
Morozov suggests that the attack on the Skripals is as much against Putin as it is against the West. The attack is poorly timed in a diplomatic context (which overlaps the intelligence context), violates norms (children out of bounds), and will be interpreted within Russia as a sign of Putin’s lack of control.
Many in the US and west IC and periphery dismiss this model of Putin’s Russia as intrinsically disinformational fabrication, and advance the absolute-ruler model. But their model may be disinformational itself; a monolithic Russia would be more permeable to US and EU-member (and exited UK) intelligence penetration, making the presentation of funding proposals more straightforward for authorizing Congressional committees. But if in fact Putin and Russia are weaker than portrayed, it serves them as well to be thought fearsome and sinister, rather than weakened and scrambling.
Like the alleged chem weapons attacks in Syria blamed on Assad, I have to ask cui bono? Why the family blog would Putin try to kill (with a nerve agent!) a nobody ex-spy?
What possible reason?
OTOH, someone trying to discredit Russia might have a lot of motivation……
My own guess is not so much the Russian Presidential elections shortly but the true target is to wreck the FIFA Cup in Russia in June and July. Boris Johnston has already come out and said that the UK will boycott the FIFA Cup if they can pin it on Russia. The US would agree as soccer is still small in the US compared to the rest of the world. Expect to see all sorts of dirty tricks.
Remember that politician, Boris Nemtsov, gunned down outside the Kremlin? Made for a great photograph, didn’t it? I would not be surprised that he was killed to make that photo possible. The media helps here too. Remember when Jimmy Kimmel had it look like there was a wolf roaming the hallways of the 2014 Sochi Winter Olympics? Yeah, you can bet that he would not have done that if it was the games at Salt Lake City or Vancouver. As I said, expect to see all sorts of dirty tricks.
The US would agree as soccer is still small in the US compared to the rest of the world.
The US didn’t qualify for the 2018 FIFA World Cup so won’t be attending regardless. In any case, I tend to think the theory with the most merit is that Skripal was involved with the Steele dossier and, along with his daughter, became too much of a liability. Of course, that won’t stop the usual suspects in the UK and US from seeking to extract maximum anti-Russia propaganda value from their deaths. Maybe they can rename the street on which Russia’s UK embassy is located to Skripal St.
Toffs like Boris don’t follow football so he probably doesn’t realise the jeopardy this would put his career, and possibly his personal safety, in.
On the other hand, the UK government boycotted the 1980 Moscow Olympics due to the Soviet “invasion” of Afghanistan. Team GB turned up anyway.
Burger-flipping robot taken offline after one day BBC
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Chastened speedily by humans claiming it was too slow, Flippy applied for a job @ IHOP, and even though it was the same sort of skill set, the robot’s reputation doomed it in the end.
One thing led to another and before you knew it, Flippy was addicted to opiods and living rough outside with a sign hung around what some felt was it’s neck that said: “Will flip for food”.
Flippy copied that sign from Biden, you know.
That might be a lottoral translation you know. Flip flops are common currency at the beach. A ‘fiat meme’ if you will.
…a fiat accompli?
Or a cheap ‘flipper,’ the Fiat 500.
(Biden is certainly not a ‘cheap’ flipper. He does ‘sausage,’ Beltway Style with Swamp Sauce. “We aim to please our overlords, er, customers.”)
Now, a ‘Fiat’ acomplice would be, say, a Ural, with sidecar. The soon to be the ‘Ride of the Deplorables.’ Not to be confused with the segment form Wagners Rock Oper, the part sung by Brunhillary. “Kill the rabbit! Kill the rabbit! Kill the rabbit!”
Because it is relevant to todays’ situation in too many ways to fully explicate, The Immolation of Brunhillary: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2JgMt8GWdyU
Ural motorcycles (I have no holdings in this company): https://www.imz-ural.com/
…the Fiat 500L model is produced at the very same plant that brought us the Yugo
Oh no! Are you suggesting that Motorcity will ‘induce’ it’s congresscritters to repeat the ‘regime change’ that doomed the similarly lower priced Yugo, and threatened the American Auto industries quarterly dividends?
Will Hilz get shot at again at the airport?
¡Heavens no!
Regime change went down under, or is thinking of doing so, where the workers are grossly underpaid by our standards.
I heard Hil was awarded the purple art medal for taking fire, and we almost lost out on her being able to lose so awfully in 2016, perish the thought.
A 500 abarth with stick is one of the most fun cars around a city ever built. If you drive stick, you owe it to yourself to take a test drive.
Almost as fun, but way more comfortable and available, than a Caterham.
Holy cow. Those are (still, apparently) based on a pre-war BMW design. I can’t believe they still make them, let alone sell them in the US.
Do you mean the BMW R-75 with second wheel power take off gear? I got a good look at an original, restored model many years ago. A well designed machine. Perfect for off road work, as I expect Russia would have many opportunities for doing. I’ve seen Urals out and about the Gulf Coast area. Owners were generally very satisfied with what they had. Sort of a Volks Cycle. I’m surprised that motorcycle and enclosed sidecar machines aren’t more popular.
Thank you for that sweet comment. It makes this morning breakfast much more digestible.
What Flippy needs here is more education, more training.
And let’s not forget, flippy needs to move to where the jobs are
Flippin, Awkinsaw might have the perfect job for Flippy, flippin grilled trout. Makes me hongry just the thought, growl!
Flippy needs to go into debt so that she doesn’t have the choice to do anything else than work as fast as the employer screams she has to
They aren’t giving up on Flippy. He gets an upgrade and another shot. They’re just monitoring the human movements – his retraining.
You know what else they’re noticing about temporarily unemployed Flippy? No unemployment insurance necessary.
There’s something strange about the affair in that the restaurant named CaliBurger, only has a few locations in California and most of the rest are overseas, and if you asked a native here where Cali was, we’d say Colombia.
I drink coffee while hating myself at the same time. For I believe drinking it is me (and my soul) adapting to the schedule of our system of modern satanic mills.
But I adapt I must, and I drink coffee reluctantly (no time in my resenting heart to appreciate qualities like it subtle favor, etc. Sorry, coffee. I know you’re beautiful.).
In the same way, I will eventually get used to Flippy’s eccentricities.
“I love you because of all the weird movements you have, my darling.”
Wukchumni
March 10, 2018 at 7:43 am
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=64GHrP3bCWk
========================================================
My age must be showing…not one comment proposes a contest between the steam powered flippy and that steel spatula welding John Henry?
that was my first thought as well. having been a line cook in my younger years, i recall burger flipping as an art not easily taught
Who cleans flippy’s flippers from all that burger grease? It has to be done as it accumulates for hygienic reasons. Or has that cost been externalized to the human staff? Seems like flippy needs his own persona assistant to work around him as well so yeah, great time saving device they have here. As a publicity stunt, it has already made its money back in all the publicity achieved. For real world application? Nope!
We’ve all known plenty of overachievers, and hasn’t it always been apparent what kind of demons are driving them? More sympathy might be forthcoming if we didn’t live in a society where those of us not under the whip of a relentlessly demanding daddy are punished for a more sensible approach to life.
“Bright Baby Blues” – Jackson Browne
Here’s a tune for ya: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n2xODjbfYw8&list=PL22FEFB381FB43C2B&index=41
ALL IN for Big Tech:
When seasoned ETF watcher Eric Balchunas waxes lyrical about punters “buying when they feel good,” ol’ Jim’s contrarian reflexes start twitching. Tech was the first sector to break out to fresh highs after the February dip. Obviously chart-huggers bought the breakout hard.
As the article notes, four of our Five Horsemen make up an astonishing 42.9% of the tech fund, though it holds 72 names in all. (Juggernaut Amazon resides in the Consumer Discretionary sector.) The Nifty Fifty of the Sixties have morphed into the Fab Five today. “It’s easy!” as our market-cheerleader president is wont to say.
Meanwhile, all of the Fab Five are represented in the Nasdaq 100 ETF, where they sum to an even heavier 44.5% weighting.
When the market’s dominated by five giant stocks — so incontestably canonical that the Swiss National Bank piles them up alongside its trove of sovereign bonds — one might want to take a discreet glance round the bull market ballroom to locate the fire exits. :-0
Uneven stock ownership distribution.
For every 1% increase in the Dow, there is a corresponding 1% increase, or some other percentage increase, in wealth inequality.
And for every 1% increase in the Nasdaq, wealth inequality widens similarly.
Even then, most of us, those of us who are falling behind (absolutely and relatively speaking) are considerate enough to know that we don’t want stocks to ever go lower, 1% or 5%.
Regarding the Obama Netflix Show: Isn’t it ironic that the Showman became President and a President wants to become a Showman?
Wasn’t he talking about getting into private equity at one point last year? Funny how that didn’t pan out. I guess money is its own reward after all.
> The Secret Sorrows of Over-Achievers
Don’t much care for the term over-achiever. It’s almost as bad as multi-task. We know who they are talking about. The students who spend close to all of their time studying and don’t have any time to party. See Nietzsche on resentment. It is far less self-destructive to hate spoiled rich kids if you must hate somebody.
Fun fact: did you know Richard Nixon’s nickname in law school was cement-ass? He got this because of the amount of time he spent seated in the library poring over law books.
The author lumps a large number of successful people into one bucket of Freudian psychological description. The author is wrong. All happy families are alike and every tortured genius is tortured in their own distinct way.
The linked article brought to mind this poem by e.e. cummings:
http://eecummings.tumblr.com/post/83255135/you-no-tice-nobod-y-wants-lessnot-to-men
No matter how unready for office Trump is proving, I am glad to this day that Hillary is not president for I believe she fits the description of an overachiever haunted by internal ghosts. I may feel sorry for her personally, but I am not ready to let the entire country serve as a therapy exercise. (Here I’m reminded of something someone (Elliot Richardson ?) once said about Nixon: (paraphrasing) ‘he had all the intellect and talents to be a great president, if only he hadn’t had his flaws, if only someone had loved him as a child. But maybe without the flaws he would never have been president.’)
And an aside: I think Richardson and Bork – (yes, Bork. Look up his fealty to law and the Constitution during what’s called Nixon’s ‘Saturday Night Massacre’) – and so many others are heroes in the best sense for their actions at a critical moment in US history, and are also largely ignored by MSM and politicians for their risking personal destruction in order to fight for the greater good (not personal enrichment or advancement). My opinion only, of course.
adding: NC’s willingness to risk official disapprobation in order to report facts that may disagree with the officially approved narrative also falls into the heroism category, imo. That’s ‘heroism’ with a small ‘h’. Which I think many many people are part of, in our small scope, in our quiet day-to-day lives. Just my opinion.
Thank you for that,Flora.
North Korea
I leave it to an accomplished cartoonist to render the following image: Trump and Kim running and leaping toward one another in midflight, heading for an obvious chest pump, with Trump sporting a bouquet and Kim a box of chocolates and both with bullseyes painted on their arses.
Why wait until May when it’s obvious these two are highly motivated to end mutual hostilities that could result in their personal demise? Obviously, Kim was duly informed by China and Russia that his plan to target America’s biggest concentration of wealth, that resides America’s largest cities, was a guarantor that Trump threats for the complete destruction of his country were real and imminent. For once, it was the 1% who were in the line fire, along with millions of innocents.
The skepticism that surrounds this meeting is ridiculous. Never have two individuals been more highly motivated to secure their personal interests and the elite who support them. It’s fun watch how fast progress can be made when the very wealthiest are only 22 minutes from losing it all.
Was there no other way, other than that ‘Trump threats for the complete destruction of his country were real and imminent,’ could someone force Kim to back down from putting millions of innocents as collateral damage?
When Kim threatened those millions of innocent children, could we have
1. sent Dennis Rodman again
2. Jimmy Carter one more time
3. Perhaps Hillary Clinton this time
4. asked China and Russia nicely
5. turn over the other cheek
6. sent more food
7. withdrew from South Korea
8. what Trump did
What options did we have when Kim threatened so?
I prefer #7.
And Putin or Xi can act similarly in the future, justified or not.
“We will withdraw from the Middle East, now that you have served your nuclear notice.”
“We will withdraw from California, knowing you desire it so much that you would risk millions of lives.”
“We will withdraw from California…”
There goes the West Coast housing market.
An idea for a new “H&G” programme: “Flip or Flop.” The adventures of a core cadre of ‘investors’ in the fast paced world of Beachside Time Share Condo rentals. (Guest appearances from “Jamacia” Joe Biden in between 2020 campaign non-events.)
GLOUSTER, Ohio — At first, the experiment didn’t have a name.
Right after the election, Erik Hagerman decided he’d take a break from reading about the hoopla of politics.
Donald Trump’s victory shook him. Badly. And so Mr. Hagerman developed his own eccentric experiment, one that was part silent protest, part coping mechanism, part extreme self-care plan.
He swore that he would avoid learning about anything that happened to America after Nov. 8, 2016.
“It was draconian and complete,” he said. “It’s not like I wanted to just steer away from Trump or shift the conversation. It was like I was a vampire and any photon of Trump would turn me to dust.”
https://www.nytimes.com/2018/03/10/style/the-man-who-knew-too-little.html?hp&action=click&pgtype=Homepage&clickSource=story-heading&module=second-column-region®ion=top-
news&WT.nav=top-news
~~~~~~~~~
I can relate, as we wanted to get away from the country we’d become but not leave, and in our case, ‘ssshrubery was our catalyst.
“We are the knights who now say: ‘Hillary really won! Russia! Russia! Russia!”‘
Or as Sir Hillary says: “It’s only a flesh wound!”
Is it not written that reality is defined as “that which doesn’t go away of you ignore it”?
I just hope Erik never buries his head in the sand there, with a lit cigarette? Damn, those tricky Rooskis! https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2017-11-10/why-even-84-billion-from-china-can-t-buy-a-u-s-east-gas-hub https://www.ogj.com/articles/print/volume-92/issue-21/in-this-issue/general-interest/gas-trading-hub-planned-fop-ohio.html https://www.desmogblog.com/2018/01/29/shell-petrochemical-falcon-pipeline-plan-fractracker-assessment
The photo at the top of the page and his story brought back an old Beatles song-
Day after day, alone on a hill
The man with the foolish grin is sitting perfectly still
Nobody wants to know him
They can see that he’s just a fool
But he never gives an answer
But the fool on the hill
Sees the sun going down
And the eyes in his head
See the world spinning round
Friend of mine did the same thing. Cancelled all of his newspaper and magazine subscriptions; stopped listening to NPR; stopped watching the news. He is among the more sane of my acquaintance. Have yet to hear him accuse Russia of anything.
On the SPLC article; I have a few “anarchist” friends who are active on Facebook (I am not, and yes, to me it is an oxymoron to be on Facebook if you are an anarchist). I was surprised when I glanced at one of their feeds to see Pepe the Frog and links to GAB (do not go to that website and give them the hits, it is filled with neo-nazis) being shared by their friends along with pro gun rights messages. I pointed this out to them and they seemed perplexed as to why that is a problem and antithetical to the tenets of anarchism. He replied “anyone that is an enemy of the state is my friend.” =/
So you see, where I worry is that people without a deep understanding of anarchism can be co-opted by neo-nazi groups making the link seem real when it is actually tenuous. Could this be a psy-ops play to de-legitimatize the left? Maybe.
Hey Croatoan,
I’ve been on FB for 5 years, and involved with many anarchists in bay area for 30 years, and have never heard a comment like you said, from any one of them. “any enemy of the state..” From my experience and 30 years of reading anarchist stuff, I’ve always heard the opposite: That the anarchist has chosen the most precarious position, anti state, even democratic capitalist, but also must be street level militant against our own working class’s fascist members, as well as fight top down union boss control. Three fronts. The vast majority of antifa are anarchist btw. Yes, Reid has been published by AK press (I know them, and love them), but at this point that may stop, I hope anyway. This guilt by association is by him and SPLC is absolutely ridiculous. Ray McGovern? and he claims on a tweet Consortium news is also part of this ‘nexus’? My god. Anyway, respect to you, for keeping an eye on possible manipulation or false alliances. I just don’t think it’s a real problem. And most anarchists, this has been true all my life, are extremely good at critical thinking, self examination, and wary of any alliances outside the real left, unless localized mutual aid, housing defense immediate one issue good things.. etc…
Tommy, I agree with you which is why I said they were “anarchists” and not anarchists. Like you, I have a breadth of knowledge on the subject so when I saw those themes on their feed I was taken aback.
Anecdotally, the people I found who are not as aware seem to be newcomers that were Sanders supporters. Just a learning curve I suppose.
solidarity. As you may have seen also, the good thing about the DNC/DCCC smashing the popular will against sanders, has also resulted in many of his supporters going farther left. Well, I’m seeing it. Bigger dig into history etc. Take care, comrade.
Here is an archived version for anyone interested. They went after Black Agenda Report too.
After reading that I think the author was going after something more subtle. He di not go after the black agenda report. He merely said:
He merely said that a few delegates from anarchists and fascists were at this meeting under the guise of “self determination” and helping the people of Syria. I think he might be trying to say that this idea of “multipolarism”, which is being pushed by the neo-nazis is attractin left wing attention via its support for Syria. If you read some on multipolarism you might begin to understand how the language is being pushed and how messed up it is.
So basically, there was a conference and a lot of people attended. But to mee it looks like psy-ops. Look at their webpage:
http://anti-global.ru/?lang=en
Re: Bernie’s campaign and town halls, this is what all Democratic politicians should be doing yet when I go to partisan websites like Democratic Underground, Daily Kos and Lawyers, Guns and Money there are still plenty of people complaining about Sanders and the evil “Bernie Bros.” I guess many Democrats still blame Sanders for somehow causing Clinton to lose.
Sanders understands that not all Trump voters are hardcore racists. At least some of them voted for Obama in the past. In tight races even small numbers of people can be the difference between winning and losing. I am dismayed by the refusal of some partisan Democrats to even think about reaching out to some Trump voters. I think many Democrats are assuming that “rising American electorate” groups such as non-whites and college graduates can replace white working-class voters but there are many states where that strategy won’t work, including many swing states in the Midwest where I live.
In a few places, at least that I recall now, in the last 17 or 18 yeaars or so, we have seen really tight races.
So, a master meddler could easily place a few driver-license-voters, strategically located, to put his/her Manchurian candidate on the throne, can he/she not?
Talk about leverage.
I wonder if some ever did that in Florida or Cleveland, or perhaps this is so fantastical that it is more sci fi* than reality.
*Can anyone recommend such fictions to read?
The events of the 2000 Presidential race are so outre as to be easily confused with fictions from the Mauve Decade or a bit later; say, early Robert W Chambers, or James Branch Cabell.
Many initiates will guide you towards the “Prophecies of Dick.” Somewhat related to the “Revelations of Glaaki.” All this makes me wonder if Lovecraft was using some misdirection on his readers. The real ‘Monsters From Outside’ have turned out to be merely humans of a sinister bent.
I was surprised to see a quite strong editorial from the Toronto Star against Means Testing, in support of universal programs. Hits many of Lambert’s common themes: builds broad political support, reduces bureaucratic complexity and arbitrary denials of enrollment, paid for through progressive taxation so not a regressive policy.
https://www.thestar.com/opinion/editorials/2018/03/09/justin-trudeau-should-not-glibly-dismiss-universal-programs.html
I don’t know why you’re surprised. The Toronto Star is the house organ for the Liberal party. As such, they always advocate for total government control and programs to support a complete cradle-to-grave system where the government supplies everything. After all, the Liberals know what’s best for people, it wouldn’t be right to let people make any decisions on their own that might be incorrect.
I don’t know where this “progressive” tax nonsense comes from either. I suppose it’s progressive in the sense that you make more you pay more, but really it’s a tax on ability or hard work. I don’t understand why the government doesn’t simply confiscate all wealth above the minimum wage, at least that would display some honesty for a change.
I think, ArthurJ, that you might have wandered a little too far from Libertarian-Central.
This statement has appeal, and at some level of taxation it is even true, but there are some problems.
One of the reasons given for the progressive income tax, when it was proposed during the Progressive Era, was that the poor and the destitute, which was the main class then and a growing class today, could not afford to pay for living never mind the government functions like infrastructure, schools, and the military. Yet many people actually work themselves to an early death still hungry. The wealthy can pay for living out of pocket change, and then buy a second yacht. At some point it’s no longer a reward, it is a hobby.
Also, the very wealthy almost always inherit their wealth, or depend on stocks, bonds, and other investments at a certain level to grow their wealth and live off it. No, or little work, is required.
Lastly, if you combine all taxes, federal, state, and municipal, the tax rate tends to be flat not progressive. How much does depend on the location of course.
The Grauniad is flogging a “Putin did it” fable about the likely neuro poisoning of double agent Skripal. No comments allowed in the articles there, of course. I wanted to take issue with the “experts know” part that was peddling the “truth” that neurotoxins are “special” and take sophisticated high tech chemists and labs to make, and that only malevolent “state actors” and “sophisticated terror cells” could perform such horrific actions. That claim is utter BS.
A good friend almost died as a result of brief exposure to an off the supermarket shelf “roach bomb” that disperses a cloud of organophosphate toxins. But of course the Narrative has to fill the air with its own cloud of organo-dysinformation. Here’s some info on these substances —sources and effects, both “nerve agents” and “EPA and EU approved and licensed pesticides:” https://www.poison.org/articles/2010-jun/pesticide-and-nerve-agent-commonality
Of course “we mopes” will never know what actually happened to Skripal, his daughter and the policeman…
I wonder what the panopticon thinks of people who look up and pass on bits of information like this…
I think the panopticon is working overtime to shut down the internet to a free exchange of diverse viewpoints.
Naked Capitalism and a subreddit site “Way of the Bern” are two of the surviving progressive and independent places to gather and exchange views.
Re: Whether Putin did it or not (JTmcPhee)
Honour or Evil Stupidity?
Whether or not Putin did ‘it is’ of no importance whatsoever. In politics perception and guilt by association are paramount. What we do know is that Putin is an ex- KGB officer – thus the stain of Bolshevism is all over him and his every action – whatever he does, benign or not. The long history of the tactic of extra-territorial killing of hated opponents (eg Trotsky) is part of the stain he wears – just as the British, US and Japanese (to name a few) can never wash off their own particular stains – no matter what.
The only way for matters to improve is for nations to swallow the bitter pill of false honour, and do the truly honourable thing and admit their errors, stupidities, atrocities and evil activities. That would be the truly honourable thing to do.
But no, Lenin’s embalmed body is still in its hallowed mausoleum, (a sure sign that the cold war never ended) and a recent comedy film about the death of Stalin cannot be shown in Russia. The old ethos remains. Same-same but different.
Watch out Jerusalem! The Russians may be coming again (check out the Crimean war back in the 19th century day).
Pip-Pip
Not sure where you are really going with all this. Sure Putin was an ex-KGB agent. And George H. W. Bush was once the Director of the Central Intelligence Agency. What is he stained with then? And OK, Lenin is still where it has been the past several decades. But that is not our country. Probably too many people there would kick up a fuss if they buried it but again, not our country. And you don’t think that films critical of the west are not banned here by being sentenced to commercial oblivion. But I will let that one go except to say that it was the west that gave an Academy Award to a Jihadist propaganda unit. And your history may be a bit off too. Jerusalem? You do know that it was the Russians which helped organized with their clients to vote for the creation of Israel in 1947, right? Also, you do know that Crimea was Russian in the Crimean War and it was fighting off an invasion by British, French and Turkish troops, right? To make a point, countries do not not have honour but only honourable behaviour which serves their interests.
Re Honour or Evil Stupidity? (Did Putin do it?)
It is always the moment to swallow foolish pride and move on (unless you are not a true leader but merely a hostage to doctrine and/or a very selective view of history).
As for Jerusalem (part of the Ottoman empire that Katherine the Great and following Czars chipped away at, and in the 19th century focus of Russian Orthodox fervour): – that will only be a sideline to the acquisition of a warm-water port. …. Just pulling ya chain and extrapolating! …But with Israel full of Russians, and the Ruskies cosying up to Turkey… Could someone place a long-odds wager with the British bookies for me? What is the Aramaic for 5th column?
RE: Why China’s silence on Xi’s term limits move portends trouble
Who do they think is going to potentially challenge Xi’s position of power? It isn’t likely that Bo Xilai will lead the government from prison after he was caught up in the anti-corruption purge. Are Western media/elites going to oppose an individual who advocates for technocratic control over government instead of the collective consensus of the party when they’ve always been in favor of technocratic rule?
It sounds like utterly ridiculous anti-Chinese propaganda.
Perhaps they have always favored concentrated technocratic rule
But if they have not always favored that, and Xi is the first to come along, the first exception in a long time, then, it’s anti-Xi…for his personal power grabbing.
And if they have always favored concentrated technocratic rule, one can be against such feature in the Chinese setup, or anti-Chinese (not in general, but that particular feature in their system).
RE: Trump-Kim talks: US signals hardline stance as it scrambles to define position
It isn’t the bellicose rhetoric or diplomatic posturing that’s providing this historic opportunity. It’s the willingness of Trump to meet Kim in private and his political maneuvering outside normal State Department channels. I doubt it’s a coincidence that this announcement took place when Tillerson was out of the loop. Nor do I believe that Ivanka and Kim’s sister had nothing to chat about when they were in the same room during the Winter Olympics. It was officially denied after all.
There are several other factors at work in both Koreas when you ignore the grandstanding by American / Western sources. The North Koreans have shirked Chinese influence and stubbornly refused to bow to Chinese pressure involving economic sanctions ever since Kim Jong Un came to power. This was first apparent when Kim’s uncle, who was rumored to be very close to Beijing, was executed on charges of treason. This was a very significant development because China could always be counted upon to use North Korea as it’s own little backyard guard-dog. Although this was probably going to come about eventually when North Korea acquired it’s short range nuclear deterrent. While in the South the willingness of Moon to quietly defy American wishes during the domestic chaos of the Trump administration allowed for the improvement of diplomatic relations. As long as the North viewed the South as bound in a subservient and semi-colonial status no deals could ever be made in good faith. Both North and South Korea desire the reunification of Korea and can be counted upon to push hard for it in any negotiations.
It looks like Trump is on his way to earning two Noble Peace Prizes for the disarming of North Korean nukes and forging a peace treaty on the Korean peninsula. Possibly a third prize for the potential reunification of Korea. It’ll be well-deserved if he can seize the moment.
If Trump comes away from the meeting with nothing, that would be a big loss for him.
“Never should one appease a dictator.”
The same for Kim. If the meeting is outside North Korea, he has to make sure he has a country he can return to…and live safely upon his homecoming.
When someone, sometimes*, is willing to risk personal loss, it should be stated so, or acknowledged, whether that person is North Korean, progressive or deplorable.
* Because unlike the Dao De Jing passage quoted yesterday, there is no ‘kind man’ but a man, you or me, can sometimes be kind, and sometimes not…selfish acts and unselfish acts, etc.
I doubt that either Trump or Kim will walk away empty handed. Both Kim and Moon will attend a joint summit in Truce Village before the meeting with Trump where any agreements will be signed. They’re also said to be communicating through a direct line according to new reports,
I suppose Trump officials could try to nix any meeting between Kim and Trump. That effort doesn’t seem likely to succeed due to the fact all three leaders are doing end runs around their ‘crats. It’d be extremely humiliating if the US was the only country invited to the talks and wasn’t there for when a deal was struck too. It still remains a distinct possibility.
We’re dealing with the heirs of people who thought that just because Asians all look alike and speak a funny language that they will react the same. (eg; domino theory) Who gave these people the funny idea that they shouldn’t be governed by foreign overlords?! I blame communism!
RE: Current U.S. Policy of Provoking Russia is Fundamentally Flawed
This particular article is even more relevant then when it was written in 2009. Any kind of cooperation between Russia and US in Syria is a matter of importance. The Syrian Civil War is swiftly devolving into a negative sum game where everybody loses while deluding themselves into thinking they can win it all. It’d be a problem for the region if the conflict was confined but whatever happens in Syria is going to negatively affect it’s neighbors rendering it an even larger scale problem.
Our impotent Congress deserves a lot of blame for not passing a new AUMF in 2015. It would’ve lasted for three years and coming up for debate/renewal while reassuring Turkey that support for Syrian Kurds had it’s limits while proclaiming to all other players that we wouldn’t be occupying Syria indefinitely. This would’ve garnered a degree of trust for any negotiations that took place. It may have even forestalled a Turkish incursion into Afrin.
Yes, an excellent piece, worth reading. Thank you Yves for including it in today’s links.
The consequences of the 2003 Iraq Invasion and the Ukraine Coup of 2014 shows how delusion foreign policy has been in the 21st century. The Writing on the Wall like this article is clear. Yet, corporate media is silent. There is money to be made. No matter, the chickens are coming home to roost.
NewsHour:
Recep Tayyip Erdogan:
Right now, the target is Afrin. And entry into the city is imminent. Tomorrow, we will be in Manbij. The next day, with God’s help, we will succeed in clearing the east of Euphrates from the terrorists all the way to Iraqi border.
Judy Woodruff:
If they do drive east, Turkish forces could come into conflict with U.S. troops that are deployed in the area.
The thousands of American troops and contractors are under threat of attack by Turkey. Russia made a very cold calculation not to defend Syria from Turkey’s invasion. No doubt to force the Kurds to rejoin Syria. If the USA does not withdraw from Eastern Syria and Turkey attacks American troops; the Middle East blows up into World War III.
Entertaining article on leaked Whatsapp chats by Tory Brexiters:
https://www.buzzfeed.com/alexspence/this-huge-leak-of-whatsapp-chats-reveals-the-full-fury-of?utm_term=.kyNRB2mGv#.abz94v6mQ
Yves, I think you might be losing it a little. No mention at all in the SPLC piece.
Hahah, we don’t write original material on security matters.
I’ve read that rats make nice pets. Intelligent and affectionate. I’d almost break down and give them a try but rats and mice stink in a way that hamsters and gerbils don’t. I think it’s their urine. You have clean out their cages constantly. Sounds like a second job that costs money instead of making money.
I see rats in the alley from my bedroom window. I’ve developed a fascination with them going about their business. My wife doesn’t share my fascination. She sees me watching them and directs me to buy traps. You don’t say no to her. It’s also a reason, in addition to contaminated urban soil, I don’t grow vegetables.
“Yes, dear.” The ultimate safe word.
I had white rats as pets as a kid. I used to walk around with one or more perched on my shoulder. Most people found that unsettling, which was the point, I guess.
Now, living in a port town, we get a rat in the yard or even in the house now and then. Between the Airedale and the
pit bullStaffordshire Terrier, they don’t last too long. I have to admire the rats’ courage. Although resistance is futile, they always die fighting.re: You don’t say no to her.
For a little light relief check out ‘Rumpole of the Bailey’ and ‘she who must be obeyed’.
Pip Pip
I just had to trap out a pair of rats that had taken up residence, last winter. And yes, the compost pile is where I caught them. Ours isn’t the only open pile in the area. Haven’t seen any more. Just skunks, raccoons and a fox when we’re really lucky.
Interactive map: https://coast.noaa.gov/slr/
Living on an island in the sf bay area , I’m happy to report, that I don’t live on the large low-lying, highly likely to be inundated landfill portion of our happy isle upon which developers, who don’t live here, have been and continue constructing cheapo high density housing. For a time the locals were able to limit such developments through zoning restrictions, open space and historical preservation measures. But the state government, it its infinite wisdom, has passed laws that have our local measures illegal in the name of moar groaf.
That headline is bull. Sort of like
“The kitchen floor is rising to meet the slumping souffle.”
No one in their right mind buys a house on landfill. After the Big One, those “neighborhoods” will not have intact sewer or water pipes and buildings will be so wracked that they will probably be red-tagged.
I think that a bigger worry could be earthquake liquefaction (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Soil_liquefaction)where those same buildings actually start to sink into the ground during an earthquake. Christchurch in New Zealand copped a lot of that in their big earthquake.
The way out there climate change pontificators are talking about a 250 foot rise in sea level by 2100, which would really hurt SF’s bottom line.
We’d be fine here @ around 1,000 feet, with the narrowest of altitude bands in which to grow food for everybody, not including any of us by then, should push>meet<shove.
And I thought I was safe at 220 ft. I’ve mostly heard 200 as the maximum rise likely. At that level, we’d be living on an arm of the sea, probably a partly saline estuary. That’s even though we’re a couple hundred miles and 3 rivers from the mouth of the Columbia.
At 250, we’re underwater, and so is much of the Mississippi Valley, so the country’s cut in two.
With Omega fatty acids it is about a balance of 3,6,9. As with all nutrition it is always about balance. We somehow like to boil it all down to a handful of the main alphabet vitamins when everyone of them needs a dozen of other micronutrients in order to be beneficial.
Bottom line don’t eat bad fats, eat good fats. If you don’t take the time to understand nutrition in general at least learn about fats and you will live better.
One has two options (maybe more).
1. keep up with the latest. Yesterday, you wanted more omega 3s, but today’s best explanation by our top scientists is (definitely is, or maybe is) that you want less omega 3s. At all times, you’re the most current, most knowledgeable. And if you don’t like particular tastes or sourcing ethics of some of those wonder or super foods, you take them as supplemental pills or drinks.
2. keep it simple with a balanced diet, a variety of fresh fruits, vegetables and meats, preferably free-ranging and/or organic (hard to do, with wealth inequality, but we shouldn’t stop demanding or dreaming), knowing some (or all) of what you eat can be shockingly dangerous to the current wisdom-holders. “Omega 3’s are not so great.”
And exercise, lift weights, eat only moderately and with plenty of sleep.
Weston Price Institute baby!
I think an important truth, left out of that article, is that people are not all the same. You think you are doing good research by creating a large study, but often times you wash out the exceptions. And everyone is an exception in some aspect of their physiology; there is some distribution where each of us is on the tail end. Take the Greenlanders and have them move in with Yves in Manhattan. Dining with her regularly, who says the food won’t affect them in some odd way, leading to health problems she is unaffected by? Care must be taken in assuming that an individual possesses the average properties of the group in which you’ve bundled him/her in. If that even makes sense at all.
Re: Nasa Twin Study
I hate how science illiterate the journalists are who covered this, and the editor that chose the headline. Even IFL Science has a misleading headline. This just makes it harder for the general public to be science literate. The whole article talks about gene expression.
The DNA of the astronaut did not change. His gene expression changed. The difference is that a cytosine didn’t become a guanine, etc. The chemical bonds that allow for gene expression changed so that some genes couldn’t be expressed or are now expressed when they weren’t originally, or are now over expressed. So space may affect the chemical bonds that control how our genes are expressed.
DNA doesn’t often change, and when it does it is often not a big deal because we have oh so many base pairs and the likelihood of changing your genes is minuscule. Gene expression, on the other hand, is a big deal. When genes that were on turn off, via chemical bonds that hold DNA together more tightly, that can affect cellular machinery that check to make sure cells are ready before they divide (this is what cancer mutation genes do- they suspend this double checking system), among many other things.
This clear distinction would have made the article 100% better, even if you don’t understand a word of what I wrote.
Scientific literacy is kind of my passion, and I get so upset with news articles that get basics wrong.
A worthy bête noire!
I am glad to see somebody who promotes scientific literacy and rational skepticism. One major thing that angers me is when people confuse ionizing radiation with non-ionizing radiation like the hysteria surrounding cellular telephone use and their radiation output. Unless you are near a source of non-ionizing radiation that is concentrated enough to cause tissue damage from burns like if you are working on a radio tower, it is not a cause for concern. There is also the fact that the sun is a major source of radiowaves and non-ionizing radiation which dwarfs human devices in addition to ionizing radiation. Short of banning the sun, people should be more worried about the environmental impact of disposing of old or broken electronic devices that might contain heavy metals or toxic chemicals. Many high tech devices also utilize a lot of rare Earth elements, the mining of which is heavily polluting and largely come from China due to the infrastructure that they have dedicated for supplying the world its rare Earth metals. Demand for them is only going to increase, especially on how they are found in everything from wind turbines, car batteries, solar panels, and computers.
And it’s not just DNA science that journalists seem to come up short.
We’re all born with what our evolution has brought us, including the need for microbes and, perhaps the ability to hate, in order to develop immunity.
Is that possible that if hate is completely eliminated, instead of say, being contained and released in controlled cases,b we will have no immunity to it?
“Don’t say you hate broccoli.”
Regarding microbes: An excerpt from Anthony Bourdain’s Kitchen Confidential. Emphasis added.
“A few years back, at a swinging singles joint on Columbus Avenue, we had the misfortune to employ a sensitive young man as a waiter who, in addition to a wide and varied social life involving numerous unsafe sexual practices, was something of a jail house lawyer. After he was fired for incompetence, he took it on himself to sue the restaurant, claiming that his gastrointestinal problem, caused apparently by amoebas, was a result of his work there. Management took this litigation seriously enough to engage the services of an epidemiologist, who obtained stool samples from every employee. The results — which I was privy to — were enlightening to say the least. The waiter’s strain of amoebas, it was concluded, was common to persons of his lifestyle, and to many others. What was interesting were the results of our Mexican and South American prep cooks. These guys were teeming with numerous varieties of critters, none of which, in their cases, caused illness or discomfort. It was explained that the results in our restaurant were no different from results at any other restaurant and that, particularly amongst my recently arrived Latino brethren, this sort of thing is normal — that their systems are used to it, and it causes them no difficulties at all. Amoebas, however, are transferred most easily through the handling of raw, uncooked vegetables, particularly during the washing of salad greens and leafy produce. So think about that next time you want to exchange deep tongue kisses with a vegetarian.”
Bourdain, Anthony. Kitchen Confidential (pp. 70-71). Bloomsbury Publishing. Kindle Edition.
So that’s the advantage of digital form: you can copy and paste out of a book.
Wednesday, June 13, 2012
NIH Human Microbiome Project defines normal bacterial makeup of the body
If you’re interested in citizen science, The American Gut Project is really cool- they send you a kit to collect a sample, you send it back, and they colonize your sample and then tell you what your microbiome makeup is.
And at least they are telling you that they’re gonna use your info for science and how it’ll be used, as opposed to 23 and me et. al., who basically say that your DNA info belongs to them now.
Two movies come to mind, immediately (more, perhaps, from our film buffs):
1. Hitchcock’s The Birds
2 The Naked Jungle, with Heston and Eleanor Parker
The opposite of ‘buff’ would be, “The Night of the Living Dead.”
As any loyal Democrat Party Member will tell you, Romero, the director, is really a hispanization of Romanov, the wily Russian psyops specialist.
It’s a very long game those Tsarist agents play.
Abd a recent –Season 11–X-FILES episode riffed on all of the above!
The Southern Poverty Law Institute?
One guy sitting there and deciding who and what is “hate” as he sends out huge mass mailers to rake in the fear-bucks.
For an insight into this pyramid scheme of paranoia Google
“Southern Poverty Law Center fraud”
I dunno about that…
They pegged our dearly departed evangelical militia church pretty well, I thought. How many houses of worship have a target range on the property?
The faithful decamped for northern Idaho a few years ago, and some locals like to say:
“Idaho’s gain is our gain.”
https://www.splcenter.org/fighting-hate/intelligence-report/2012/church-kaweah-spreads-hateful-militant-christian-views
Bet the SPLC isn’t too worried about militant “settlers.”…
Judge rules Seattle homeless man’s truck is a home Seattle Times. Katy: “I’m disturbed by this article. On the one hand, I’m glad that the man won. But what happens when the government decides that you’re not homeless if you’re living in a car?”
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
I’m sure something similar happened in the later stages of the Roman Empire, plebeians living in their chariots because they blew the rent money on a flashy set of wheels~
That would mean that the Homestead Act
and
the 4th and 2nd Amendments would apply to their “dwellings.”
From the article on the USS Reagan sailors at Fukuchima: ““After that,” Cooper told me, “our ship went from ‘OK, we got this,’ to, like, ‘Oh, my God… we have no idea what we’re doing.’””
Holy family blog. This is a nuclear powered ship, carrying nukes, experiencing the conditions of a contained nuclear war – and they have “no idea” what they’re doing? Somebody in the Navy has been extremely negligent. Of course, that’s the same Fleet that’s had repeated collisions.
And the Nation’s current cover story: https://www.thenation.com/article/meet-katrin-jakobsdottir-icelands-left-wing-environmentalist-feminist-prime-minister/
Jakobsdottir is a Left-Green in an awkward coalition with a couple of right-wing parties, but the Greens are now the largest party in Iceland. This is quite a bit like a 5Star – Lega coalition. Hopefully the Left-Greens survive it.
By the time you realize your whole ship is sitting in a plume of reactor explosion/meltdown byproducts, what can you do? It is too late to panic, too late to run, impossible to clean up. They probably only had contingencies for leaks from their own reactor, and didn’t bother planning for scenarios that would kill them all anyway.
Today, in my daily review of alternative news, I discovered this: http://www.truth-out.org/news/item/43793-christian-dominionists-meet-at-trump-s-washington-hotel-to-answer-the-divine-call-to-war.
It would have had less of an impact had I not encountered this during the same procedure yesterday:
https://www.revealnews.org/article/youth-camps-shape-new-generations-with-patriotism-pushups-and-prayer/
I don’t know about anyone else, but I find this terrifying.
That’s what our up thread aforementioned flock were all about. They opened a ‘Survivalist Store’ in town and it only lasted a little over a year (irony alert) and I went in a few times to get the lay of the land and what a mess of a place it was, and bought a video of theirs for $10, titled “To Teach Them War”, about 45 minutes of indoctrination, on why pre-teens should be godly soldiers, ye gads.
High ranking beltway types paying obeisance to the fundies has been de rigeur for a while now. It doesn’t get as much press as it did during the Ralph Reed Christian Coalition days, but it never really stopped.
Want to be really creeped out? Check out this one about “The Family”, originally from Harper’s – Jesus Plus Nothing: The Political Right at Bible Study
These camps are probably an evolution of morally questionable summer camps here in the US. Go look at any ‘Civil War camp’ in the south, many of which have been around for decades at least, which barely ever mention slavery and push a narrative where either the South did nothing wrong, or at the very least was no less wrong than the North.
“Real Organic Project is being born”
I tried to tell them at the time that subjecting themselves to their enemies was a blunder.
It was really a conflict between the farmers, who wanted to keep control of the label, and the processors, who wanted consistency and the government imprimatur.
So, back to the beginning.
Sake article somehow fails to emphasize the most obvious conclusion : a giant excuse for the US military to explode spending to the astronomical levels that will dwarf current merely absurd levels
Not sure if this is addressed above, but the British now say Skripal and his daughter (and the policeman) were poisoned with nerve gas.
I think it is more sinister. How many know of this strike in 2015? The strike would not have been hard to cover but it was not. Atrophy implies something involuntary rather than deliberately created ignorance. A policy decision to not use even the still large numbers of reporters and editors to cover it.
Careful pruning of the news coveragedoes make the news media less important, and less relevant, but while still making the mega media companies great profit, and reduces that annoying power that the news media can have on the 1% for the bottom 80%.
The new Russian weapons make clear what most war games results have already shown :Aircraft carriers are gigantic sitting targets. The new Russian hypersonic anti-ship missiles make them more so.
“To put it simply, if naval exercises in the last two decades involving foreign diesel-electric submarines had been actual combat, most if not all, U.S. aircraft carriers would be at the bottom of the ocean: as many as 10 U.S. aircraft carriers have been reported “sunk” in these exercises.”
But as the generals and admirals are all so hide-bound so as insist on refighting the last war, you’d best hope that when we get into our next hot one, nobody you know is serving on an US AC…
http://nation.time.com/2012/12/04/more-than-the-navys-numbers-could-be-sinking/
Some of you might find this very interesting! Jeffrey St.Clair of Counterpunch posted a link to it yesterday.
https://aeon.co/essays/a-creative-multiplicity-the-philosophy-of-deleuze-and-guattari
And there is this;
https://www.themaven.net/theintellectualist/news/study-by-mit-economist-u-s-has-regressed-to-a-third-world-nation-for-most-of-its-citizens-Sb5A5HZ1rUiXavZapos30g?full=1
“The parallels are unsettling. As noted by the Institute for New Economic Thinking:
In the Lewis model of a dual economy, much of the low-wage sector has little influence over public policy. Check. The high-income sector will keep wages down in the other sector to provide cheap labor for its businesses. Check. Social control is used to keep the low-wage sector from challenging the policies favored by the high-income sector. Mass incarceration – check. The primary goal of the richest members of the high-income sector is to lower taxes. Check. Social and economic mobility is low. Check. “
Remember the Kenneth Starr Report? Republicans could not get enough of all the super risqué stories. This time… oh well, guess not so much.
With the Stormy Daniels story I am hoping for a blue….. what? I don’t know… a blue… what do porn stars wear, a blue thong?