Human intelligence to fall below level of household appliances Daily Mash
India leopard on loose causes panic in Meerut town BBC
Plankton: the tiny sentinels of the deep Aeon
The new alternative to Nuke-o-Meter: Scalago, an interactive flood map (it allows for watersheds and flood plains, so much more realistic than simple sea level rise versions).
Calif. officials baffled why children suffering paralysis UPI
Air purifier rush as smog shrouds northern China PhysOrg
4 dead in attacks on anti-government protesters raises specter of increased violence Associated Press
Thailand crisis: Army rules out intervention as blast toll rises BBC
Trained snipers escalate violence in Bangkok Sydney Morning Herald. Lambert: “The headline is carefully written. ‘Trained’ does not equate to ‘currently serving in the armed forces.'”
Scandal of Europe’s 11m empty homes Guardian. This is a real disgrace. New York City for a while had a homesteading program, where abandoned properties could be taken over by someone who could assemble a team (as in relatives, friends, whatever) that had the right skills (plumbing, electrical, carpentry, masonry, as appropriate) and could show they’d have enough cash for materials. The city would also monitor construction (not intensively, but periodic checks to make sure they were making progress). This was a great sweat equity program and it enabled working-class and immigrant families to attain real stability and create an asset of real economic value.
Arrest warrant issued for Yanukovich Financial Times
Ukraine: “From the spirits that I called – Sir, deliver me! Moon of Alabama
Careful what you wish for in Ukraine Asia Times
Egypt: Military-backed government resigns Washington Post
Big Brother is Watching You Watch
Exclusive Essay: Anatomy of the Deep State Mike Lofgren, Bill Moyers (Bob H)
Courage Is Contagious: Snowden Has Inspired New High-Level Whistleblowers George Washington
Apple Gotofail bug: Simple mistake or NSA conspiracy? Los Angeles Times
U.S. now bugging German ministers in place of Merkel – report Reuters
Obamacare Launch
Obamacare stats still hard to nail down Politico
ObamaCare Deductibles Hit Patient Pocketbooks And Hospital Finances Forbes
How the health care law has evolved McClatchy. Evolved?
What the hell is Barack Obama’s presidency for? Guardian. Um, the graft.
Pentagon Plans to Shrink Army to Pre-World War II Level New York Times. I assume this is a big headfake, in that every defense lobbyist and every Congressman with a military base in his district can be relied upon to put up a fight. But maybe this is just a small headfake and the military really is ready to do some (but not really all that much) downsizing.
Peggy Noonan writes the most ironic, un-self-aware column in the history of Western civilization Daily Kos (Robert M). From last week, still germane.
The One Thing “House of Cards” Gets Right Matt Stoller
Detroit’s Plan Submission — Now What? John Pottow, Credit Slips
ExxonMobil CEO sues to block fracking project near his home Raw Story (Nikki)
What is the Opposite of a Weasel Word? Angry Bear. The problem is “weasel words” are seldom words but phrases. The opposite is close to hate speech, expect it may target ideas and policy positions as well as people or groups (but often economic targets rather than ethnic targets: “deadbeat” is one such word). I like “viper” or “vituperation” over “wolverine”. These attacks are sneaky and nasty and also play on bad stereotypes, which is lost in the wolverine metaphor (which suggests trying to rip out an opponent’s throat, so a frontal and obvious attack).
Felix Salmon smackdown watch, pensions edition Felix Salmon. In which Felix takes on John Arnold (the billionaire John Arnold who had PBS refund his grant to pay for an public pension scaremongering series).
What CFPB’s Harsh Words to Servicers Mean for Banks American Bankers
Carney says banks should pay their own way: live Telegraph. Contrast whining above over a mere expectation that servicers do the bare minimum adequately as overregulation.
If HFT is here to stay it needs to be regulated Paul Murphy, Financial Times
The 140 year cycle in macroeconomic thought MacroBusiness
Worse than Wal-Mart: Amazon’s sick brutality and secret history of ruthlessly intimidating workers Salon
Antidote du jour (Chuck L):
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In a shameless attempt at self promotion, I posted this at the Orange Giant.
more detail on the polio-like outbreak in california:
Rare ‘polio-like’ disease reports
Polio-like disease seen in California children
I’m sure we can cure it with more chemicals.
Is ammonia the holy grail for renewable energy storage?
(lots more interesting info at the link. seems ‘deliverable’ in a couple of years.)
“…to make ammonia in quantities so large…”
When I read that I shuddered.
I was a great proponent of Ammonia generation from stranded wind and solar until I researched what it takes to handle it in quantity, use it for IC engines and how incredibly dangerous it can be. Knowing first hand how accidents can happen on farm I think it would only be a matter of time before serious accidents shut it down.
I still believe there are certain applications for it but it is not going to become a big player in energy storage.
For more info check the Oil Drum archives back several years ammonia has been talked about and analyzed thoroughly for many years.
thanks for sharing your knowledge and personal experience. i’ll head over to the oil drum for some reading.
Why not just use the hydrogen directly?
Vapor pressure
The Pentagon plans to downsize the workforce, and presumably outsource yet more of the labor – shifting spending to contracting and technology.
That seems pretty un-newsworthy actually. Who needs troops when you have drones and mercenaries?
These days, the actual war-fighting is off-budget anyway. So talking about the base budget is just the tip of the iceberg.
Who needs bases? The 4th can be ignored as suits the national interest. That’s what all this “balancing” sophistry is for.
re: Scandal of Europe’s 11m empty homes
what about this? America’s 14.2 Million Vacant Homes: A National Crisis
(2013, from RealtyTrac)
Good catch. And if Europe’s 11 million vacant houses in a population of nearly 800 million constitutes a scandal, then what do we call America’s 14 million vacant houses in a population of 300 million? When an estimated 3.5 million Americans are homeless, this is not a scandal, it’s a moral obscenity (yes John Kerry, it is), on par with ObamneyCare. No, on second thought, considering the special favors, accounting forbearance, “FED” MBS purchases, and easy money to Wall Street slumlords, it is actually a heinous crime. The kleptocracy and all of its enablers face a long list of indictments.
re Noonan. The US went to hell on your watch. http://finaw.blogspot.com/2011/02/reagan-revolution-in-charts-everything.html [some dead links]
Note how many trends relating to broad prosperity, the middle class, etc have their inflection point right across the Reagan presidency.
Reagan doubled FICA. It was the largest tax hike in history. It effectively ended the middle class.
I disagree. While FICA cut into discretionary income in the present tense, FICA is a net asset (or at least wash) on the middle classes’ balance sheet.
It is a forced savings program, one with a decent return when averaged actuarially across the population. It is very much like the government forced people to open their own savings accounts, which means it is not a tax.
Of course, if Wall Street manages to raid Social Security and kill it, then all bets are off.
Now, reducing the middle class’s discretionary income at the exact same time that wages were stagnated, jobs offshored, and certain costs like health care and college exploded, THAT is what killed the middle class.
Important to realize that the Social Security surpluses generated by the hike in the payroll tax under Reagan (the Greenspan plan) were a straight out tax increase. Those monies are not held anywhere. They were put in the general revenue account and spent. IOUs were left with the Social Security Administration. These will be repaid by taxpayers. The wrinkle is that the rich have stolen so much of the nation’s wealth that even at their low tax rates they still pay most of the income taxes, and it would be them repaying these IOUs. This explains in recent years the repeated attempts by both Democrats and Republicans to change Social Security to reduce this “burden” on the rich. These reductions would, of course, also free up revenues for our political classes to pursue more worthwhile activities, from their point of view, like empire, senseless wars, and the maintenance and expansion of a police/surveillance state.
Enough with the IOUs crap. The Social Security fund has BONDS. They aren’t IOUs anymore than any other person(foreign entities, Fed, etc, etc) who invests in the US government for whatever reason gets an IOU.
It isn’t helpful for people to suggest that the investment the working class made into the USG is somehow more negotiable than other bondholders.
It may not be helpful, but it’s definitely more accurate. A Bond IS a form of IOU – just as a dollar bill is an IOU.
In this case, the IOU was given by the government to the social security administration. It is guaranteed by the “full faith and credit” of the best Congress money can buy.
The original FICA money was borrowed and spent.
Right now the trust fund is in the vicinity of $3 trillion dollars. When the social security administrators need to write a check, they send one of their special purpose interest bearing bonds to the general fund in exchange for a set of dollar bill IOU’s.
Right now it’s not a problem since social security only has to redeem 10 to 20 B of those IOUs in the current year. As the boomers retire, that amount is going to increase rapidly.
Our Congress is stuck with coming up with the money unless they can welsh on the deal thru the chained CPI or by finding some other way to avoid paying what is owed.
Otherwise they have to tax the rich (the only ones with any money) or they have to run the printing press.
Well then the Chinese should be worrying and the Fed and so should municipalities because they hold IOUS(otherwise known as BONDS too.)
The original FICA money was invested in USG bonds. Why? Because it is one of the SAFEST investments that can be made. The only reason there is even any discussion on this is because for some dumb reason some of you seem to be suffering under the delusion that one form of IOU is much more in danger of being reneged upon than another. That’s utter bullshit. The only reason it might be reneged on is because people stupidly seem to be saying that the retiree’s bonds are IOUs that the government can renege on. They can’t. As it is all the things they are suggesting are to slow down the bonds being cashed in so that the money that goes into the trust fund can continue to be a slush fund for Congress rather than the retirement program that it was meant to be.
It’s utterly disingenuous for anyone to suggest that the retirement fund is pilfered money anymore than saying we pilfered from China or from the Fed. It’s borrowed money that must be repaid with interest.
I don’t disagree about the appeal to the rich for raiding social security.
But the fact that the SS trust lent the money to general government does not make it a tax. Every SS account holder still has on their personal balance sheet a calculatable asset that is their’s to claim.
These things you deride as mere IOU’s are exactly the same thing as what investors the world over call US Treasury bonds. They consider them investments.
Now then, if the government chooses someday to default on SS promises, THEN it will have become a tax retroactively. But not until that actually happens, not yet now, when it is only a theoretical possibility.
To answer the two comments together. Bonds are IOUs. The SSA is a part of government, and so we are talking about money the government owes itself. The surpluses came in and were spent. They are gone. The con is this. The obligations they were supposed to cover the government would have had (due to the general public backing of Social Security) even if there had not been one thin red dime of surplus.
Under law backed by an admittedly reactionary Supreme Court, Social Security is not an insurance program. That is those who pay in do not have a right to any particular level of pay out.
The debate now is how the rich who pay most of the income taxes can avoid having their money go in the form of general revenues to pay future Social Security obligations, you know the ones that would be there anyway. The general approach championed by the likes of Obama is to reduce benefits. Taking the caps off income subject to the FICA is not discussed by serious people in Washington because this would be taxing the rich, just under a different accounting heading. As I said, the whole object of the exercise is how to reduce the net transfer of wealth from the rich to workers by spreading it out over a greater number of years.
FICA the rich!
Inverse the tax. Everyone above 107k pays, everyone below doesn’t.
Actually the conversation has largely been about slowing down the bonds from being redeemed. Social Security is actually considered BOTH an asset and a deficit on the books since it IS money we owe ourselves. If you raise the age on Social Security you aren’t going to affect the money already owed to the fund, however, it means you can slow down the payout of those bonds and re roll the excess collected into more BONDS(since BY LAW this is what any money exceeding the payouts must have happen.) This isn’t about Congress reneging on paying those bonds. This about them attempting to renegotiate the terms of their borrowing(and it will happen if more Americans continue to adopt this absurd idea that the USG can totally print money to fund wars or bailout banks but when it comes to paying out the money they owe retirees they’re just plain broke and can’t afford it.)
Peggy Noonan always looks to be one sip shy from falling off the bar stool.
The size of the active duty Army in 1940 was 269,000. The current Army is north of 500,000. The budget plans being discussed are to reduce it over an undetermined number of years to 440,000-450,000. There is a big difference between saying that the Army will be reduced in size to 1940 levels and saying that it will be reduced in size to a level not seen since after 1940.
And that’s only the Army. Total active duty troops in all branches numbered 1.388 million at the end of 2012, with about 250,000 posted overseas in countries such as Japan (50,937), Germany (47,761) and Italy (10,922), where hostilities ended nearly seven decades ago.
http://www.vetfriends.com/us-deployments-overseas/
This negative rate-of-return military empire, which sucks up close to 5 percent of GDP, is the main driver of falling U.S. living standards.
Once you add decentralized activities, off books wars, and black budgets, Total security spending is much loser to 10% GDP.
I don’t suppose the Air Force will be rewound back to being the Army Air Corp..
And don’t forget that the Air Force was part of the Army in 1940.
If I understand correctly, you could think about adding wolverine words and phrases like: entirely, no one would or does, everyone would or does, universally, required (requires), naturally (follows naturally), assuredly, undoubtedly, without question, inevitably, in every instance, without exception
On: Scandal of Europes 11 m. Empty Homes.
Just recently, the Swiss voted in the Weber initiative. This, like the Minder initiative, was the work of one man, though he had a lot of help (aide-de-camp dynamic daughter.) It stipulates that in any commune the % of secondary residences may not exceed 20%. Ba-da-boom. This left the Alpine tourist regions reeling in shock and voting anti-establishment on our latest “against foreignors” initiative.
But the building has stopped. Yes, a lot of problems, even torment, yes, unemployment. The law is almost ready to go and will have many exceptions (too many according to Weber) – such as shepherd’s huts, chalets owned for 200 years by the same family, and so on.
In the Canton I live in (Switz.) a house owner who leaves it empty for more than 3 months is already liable for State expropriation. Of course that never happens and *at least* a year must go by, combined with other considerations such as: property not kept up, danger to passers-by, property tax / municipal rates unpaid, and so on.
One solution to the empty homes problem – Ireland, Spain could do this imho, is to legislate squatter’s rights.
The blanket contract: a) ownership is not affected, b) occupants pay a symbolic low rent, plus rates etc., c) no major, structural changes can be made, d) investment to ameliorate property are reviewed by Board X, > e) squatters become similar to ‘tenants’ with many rights, but can be kicked out more easily.
That is what we have here. I have one friend who has been a legal squatter for 17 years.
The question is why are such common-sense solutions not envisaged.
Because direct democracy is against the American Exceptionalist religion. Without hierarchy and abuse of office, there’s barely a credible reward for the middle class to even get up in the morning.
In Barcelona, at least, squatters’ rights are simply taken.
Reviewing this blog on a daily basis, I find some educational truths, along with the expected political propaganda and ideology on the principal social, economic and political issues of the day. What I do not find, however, is any on-going discourse on the most important global problem we now face as a result of the deadly, continuous, and non-stoppable radiation spewing from Fukushima via global wind and ocean currents. It has already severely impacted all marine life in the Pacific as well as those who reside along the Pacific Rim. Radcon 5 alerts appear on a daily basis in American cities; no one should be eating Pacific fish or even California produce or berries, and yet there is no warning from the “captured” MSM or our Government. You have to wonder why?
I feel like a religious person (e.g. “pray harder”) on this advice, but “read more” Naked Capitalism. For example, starfish deaths on the West Coast from Fukushima have been debated (see Comments section in attached link) and somewhat debunked to date. I’m not saying Fukushima isn’t important or a really big issue–just saying it’s been discussed here.
http://www.nakedcapitalism.com/2014/02/links-21014.html
“If there isn’t a solution, it isn’t a problem.” -Yiddish proverb.
I wonder if China’s working on that color revolution by way of nuke scares.
We regularly link to Fukushima news. However,
1. This is a finance and economics blog.
2. We can’t do anything about Fukushima. I prefer to focus more attention on issues the readership might be able to influence.
More on the Right Sector group in Ukraine:
http://www.paulcraigroberts.org/2014/02/23/democracy-murdered-protest-ukraine-falls-intrigue-violence/
i prefer timothy snyder’s take.
http://www.nybooks.com/articles/archives/2014/mar/20/fascism-russia-and-ukraine/?insrc=hpss
It’s so easy to demonize any group by calling them ‘nazis’. Crazy ranting bigoted racists can be found everywhere, not just in the Pravyi Sektor. The Pravyi Sektor are only a group of street fighters from the Maidan demonstrations. They have no representation whatsoever in the Ukrainian parliament. So, are we to believe that all of Ukraine is turning ‘nazi’, because a few street thugs voice racist comments? Likewise, it’s easy to tar any group by finding single members who voice bigotry. There are plenty of Republicans or Democrats that say stupid and racist things, so maybe we can generalize to all Pubs and Dems and declare that the entire USA is racist and stupid?
Rather, it’s the people who loosely use the word ‘nazi’ to describe entire groups, who are themselves engaging in a kind of defamation. The quality of debate about Ukraine would be much better if people relied on balanced news coverage, such as can be obtained from the BBC and the Guardian. But if you really enjoy tagging Ukrainians as ‘nazis’, read from the website, Moon of Alabama.
While I know enough protestors to say confidently that not all are Nazis, I also know enough about organizations such as svoboda, pravovyii sektor to say there isnt much point in joining them unless you are a nazi.
Just like noone joins the kkk because of the religious imagery, the all-cotton bedsheets, the spirit of companionship as the Grand Lizard gives a hysterical, spit-filled exhortation round a flaming cross…
Weasel words and their opposites
Attorneys arguing cases use very different sets of words for opposite emotional effects. Like if a dog bites a child, prosecution will refer to the dog as, “The animal” while defense will call it “Ms. Defendant’s companion”.
Both are still manipulations.
Human intelligence…household appliances.
When they start making smart dumbbells, that’s when we know the bottom has been formed, as analysts say.
Excellent riposte to kurzweil’s latest guff.
AI is to consciousness is as conjuring is to magic.
Pentagon to shrink Army.
But counting non-human soldiers, i.e combat robots and drones, the Singularity Army is actually more lethal, stronger, faster and probably bigger, if one robot can do the job of a platoon or a division.
How ever the efficiencies compare, drone warriors lower the barrier to war. (ie no caskets, coming home at least).
and one can always visit the shadow of their loved one…on the neighbors hovel
It also raises the barriers to war, for the insurgent. It’s hard enough to get such things started without such an observational advantage.
Well, there they go again. Stock buyers, I mean. The day after the G20 promised an extra $2 trillion in GDP in five years — presumably by printing our way to prosperity — the equity greyhounds are off to the races at the marble-fronted NYSE dog track.
At this point, it would take less than an 8 percent further gain to reach the Flying Yellendas’ unwritten target of ‘S&P 2K by springtime.’
Like the fondly-remembered Helicopter Ben Bernanke, Yellen sees no asset bubbles anywhere. Everybody back in the pool, the water’s fine!
Bloomberg floats new excuses for money printing:
With the jobless rate dropping to 6.6 percent and the economy still in need of support from the Fed, the strategy [of tightening when unemployment falls below 6.5%] is nearly obsolete.
Now, the FOMC’s challenge is to move away from the unemployment threshold of 6.5 percent without raising expectations of an increase in the short-term interest rate. One option discussed last month is to rely instead on their forecasts — known as the Summary of Economic Projections — as a way to signal their policy intentions.
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2014-02-24/yellen-seeking-new-low-rate-guidance-can-turn-to-fed-forecasts.html
————
In other words, if actual data isn’t trending in the preferred direction, just switch to using your own predictions.
Why don’t they use chicken bones?
I just don’t think we’re at that “giddy” stage of a bubble yet. Will the market continue to drive higher until we’re checking our 401k’s daily and day trading again?
Air purifier rush…northern China.
More problems that can ‘stimulate the manufacturing economy.’
Imagine smog in southern China. That would double the stimulus effect.
Welcome to the twilight zone of GDP counting.
A new nightmare for Ukraine
http://failedevolution.blogspot.gr/2014/02/ukraine-between-nightmares.html
putin’ll starve them quickly or we can do it slowly with an imf loan
“When reason fails, the devil helps!”
Dostoyevsky, Crime and Punishment
RE: Pentagon Plans to Shrink Army to Pre-World War II Level
It’s very little considering the need, and the continuing trucculence of the neocons trying to pick quarrels with everybody and his uncle does not help! Eleven carriers especially are far too many.
And when all advanced aircraft will be robotic and far more capable, let’s get those trained pilots into science and technology, and space research, which has a bigger payoff, and even economic benefits.
It’s became all the rage to buy into the RT meme that #euromaiden was all about violent rightwingers doing the bidding of the US/EU. It’s not even that hard to go directly to the source and watch videos by english-speaking Ukrainians on the ground to arrive at broader perspective of whose involved in the anarchist/socialist uprising.
Nevermind they are socialist, they spoke out against gay marriage, and that’s ‘one strike you are out’ too many.
The real mistake is to view the protestors as a unified mass. There may have been some mild-mannered social democrats and anarchist hipsters out there. There definitely were Nazis and others, and it was the Nazis that provided the shock troops that actually toppled the regime.
No matter. Lots of revolutions are ended by different forces than the ones that began them.
The reason themaidan will likely fail is simply the fact that the various opposition forces have nothing in common, other than they all hate Yanukovich. Well, he’s gone, the country is sliding towards default, and noone is in charge in many regions.
Clear recipe for succss!
Overthrowing a corrupt autocrat was the easy bit.
The difficult part starts now. There’s absolutely no appetite in the EU for Ukrainian membership, and half the country is instictively sympathetic towards Russia. The money’s fast running out, and the US seems convinced that the Germans are going to pay for everything. Which they’re not.
The entire political class in the Ukraine is made up of corrupt oligarchs and their gangs. There might be somne sort of refferendum on splitting the country in 2, but that’s a massive pandoras box.
The whole things an ugly mess. Even if the fascists can be sidelined, there are still huge problems.
About the Anarchists: http://www.timothyeastman.com/uncategorized/an-interview-with-mira-andrei-and-sascha-of-antifascist-action-ukraine/
Thanks. I noted the mention in passing.
Some news on the Vatican and financial matters:
http://www.thetablet.co.uk/news/461/0/pell-named-vatican-chancellor-of-the-exchequer-at-helm-of-new-council-for-the-economy
http://ncronline.org/blogs/ncr-today/cardinal-pell-new-vatican-financial-watchdog
(this one’s just a little reminder as to the U.S. having its own problems with “Bling” Bishops:
http://ncronline.org/news/people/editorial-nj-archbishops-retirement-home-assualt-parishioners-goodwill )
Thomas Reese, a Jesuit and past ousted editor of “America Magazine”, has many years of scholarly church and political learning with also plenty of real-life experience so it’s a shame his analysis here is so short, but it’s something. Also, for people interested in catholic church history, social impact and power struggles, tomorrow’s “Frontline” deals with the retirement (?), resignation (?), abdication (?) -whatever exactly he did- of Benedict. No idea what the quality will be, or how well Frontline will be able to expose/explain events within an institution/culture so expertly designed/trained not to reveal its inner-workings, but from a historical perspective, the “resignation” was quite amazing.
US now bugging German ministers instead of Merkel.
I am shocked, shocked…that they are just doing it now. Someone was not doing his/her job.
DO NOT let this happen again.
“Erst kommt das Fressen, dann kommt die Moral.”
Bertolt Brecht
Ukraine is at a crossroads. Will it align with the kleptocratic West (the EU) or the kleptocratic East (Russia)? Will it pull a Czechoslovakia with the Russian-speaking regions in the East and Crimea splitting off and either joining or allying with Russia? And while the protesters could unite in what they were against, can they achieve the much harder task of achieving a workable consensus of what they are for?
“And while the protesters could unite in what they were against, can they achieve the much harder task of achieving a workable consensus of what they are for?”
If they do that successfully, the US will be wise to hire some Ukrainian political consultants.
From Matt Stoller’s piece on “House of Cards”
“today people seem to want to believe political leaders are deeply evil, sort of cynical anti-heroes.”
That statement is only partly correct. None of our political leaders are cynical anti-heroes. However, they are all deeply evil. In fact, there is NO ONE among the elected officials, key staff, and lobbyists in D.C. who is not THOROUGHLY evil. No one. Not one person. What did Dante have in “The Inferno”, ten levels of Hell. Well, the folks in D.C. all belong in the 11th level.
Wasn’t Stoller once a staffer to that wallowing mass of a liar, Alan Grayson? Grayson proves my point, and if Stoller has gone back to work for him (which I believe I read someplace) then as much as I like his writing and as much as sometimes he says the right things, Matt is just as bad and is simply waiting until someone offers him a sellout price too good to resist. (MHO, of course.)
Tylenol During Pregnancy Linked to Higher Risk of ADHD
Jess, Why do you call Grayson a liar? My hypothesis for testing is that Grayson is a sympathetic elite who’s biding his time because he’s cagey enough to know he has no influence in the cesspool institution he inhabits. My null hypothesis would be supported if he did a Mike Gravel and read great volumes of classified into the Congressional Record. But I would be grateful if you can help reject the null hypothesis. Then we could stop daydreaming about Daddy figures and get on with the forcible overthrow.
A bit of irony that Moon of Alabama, which tolerates quite blatantly anti-Semitic comments on its own pages (and I specifically mean anti-Semitic, not anti-Zionist commentary), is only too happy to seek to paint the Ukrainian revolution as essentially anti-Semitic when it fits Moon’s ideological purposes.
Yet more irony….
As noted by Timothy Snyder: “The protests in the Maidan, we are told again and again by Russian propaganda and by the Kremlin’s friends in Ukraine, mean the return of National Socialism to Europe. The Russian foreign minister, in Munich, lectured the Germans about their support of people who salute Hitler. The Russian media continually make the claim that the Ukrainians who protest are Nazis. Naturally, it is important to be attentive to the far right in Ukrainian politics and history. It is still a serious presence today, although less important than the far right in France, Austria, or the Netherlands. Yet it is the Ukrainian regime rather than its opponents that resorts to anti-Semitism, instructing its riot police that the opposition is led by Jews. In other words, the Ukrainian government is telling itself that its opponents are Jews and us that its opponents are Nazis.”
Just one example of this phenomenon – Yuri Andrukhovych: “My friend Josef Zissels, chairman of the Association of Jewish Organizations and Communities of Ukraine, and vice president of the World Jewish Congress, wrote a few days ago that the website of Berkut, the special police force (and a final line of defense for the powers that be) had been ‘flooded with anti-Semitic materials that allege that the Jews are to blame for organizing at Maidan,’ the central square, which has become synonymous with the protests. Mr. Zissels wrote: ‘This is completely absurd, but those who are armed with batons and shields, now facing the protesters, believe this. They are brainwashed into believing that the Maidan is a Jewish project, and thus there is no need to take pity on anyone — you can beat them all.’”
Pennsylvania fracking-related jobs numbers questioned