ISIS
Mind-boggling to see clickbait headlines for war news. War isn’t a racket, apparently, but a virus. WaPo: [“Five Takeaways from President Obama’s Islamic State Speech”]; [“Four questions out Obama’s ISIL Strategy”]. And Newsweek: “The Four Most-Depressing Moments in Obama’s Speech.”
Obama: “Eradicate cancer” (!) [The Hill]. Rand Paul: Cautious [WSJ]. Boehner: Thumbs up [Politico]. But House split [The Hill]. Democrats: Hawkish because midterms [WSJ]. Even if nobody actually knows what the threat is or why it’s imminent [HuffPo].
Kos front-pagers figure out what to say: “Republicans criticize Obama for not wanting enough war” [Kos]. And Atrios flips two Friedman Units ahead in his calendar and marks the date, to remind himself to check back in a year and see how everything’s going [Eschaton]. Because this time — 1 FU, 2 FU, 3 FU … N FU –it’s gonna be different. But I don’t know where Atrios gets one year from; I thought it was three (18 FUs) [Informed Comment].
Meanwhile, good jobs at good wages for mercs in Iraq [Triple Canopy].
And oh, hai, Dubya [FOX].Why am I thinking “you’ve covered your ass, now”? My advice, stick to painting.
Ferguson
An important article from on the roots of resistance in Ferguson [WaPo]. There’s a history here from the July 2000 “Jack in the Box shooting” that involves significant civil resistance, including highway shutdowns, then as now [Times]. New witnesses: “the youth threw his hands up and pleaded with the officer to stop shooting” [USA Today]. Ferguson does, however, plan to cut down on those court fees ($12 to plead guilty), which supply 21% of local revenues and disproportionately affect blacks [NPR]. The Google News put this headline for the story in its search snippet: “How Court Fees Became An Emotional Issue In Ferguson, Mo.” Cooler heads at NPR, bless their hearts, have prevailed, and the headline has been revised: “Ferguson’s Plan To Cut Back On Court Fees Could Inspire Change.” But as you can see, the old headline lives on in the URL. It’s not an “emotional issue,” forsooth. It’s a justice issue.
Land Use
Ferguson’s issues are intimately tied to patterns of land use. Here’s more on how the suburbs got poor [Slate]. And here’s how Detroit suburbanites escaped the costs of sharing public goods with poorer and darker Americans [Robert Reich]. More generally, the history of barbed wire should make us think of the social costs of enforcing boundaries [Ribbon Farm, ChuckL].
Election 2014
The Democrats can’t win the House no matter what [Times]. But polls say that the Democrats will win the Senate (Sam Wang) or — if you add secret sauce to the polling results — won’t (Nate Silver and everybody else) [New Yorker].
Stats Watch
Wholesale trade for July: Lower than expected, at 0.01% vs. Econoday’s forecast of 0.05%. Good news, since low inventories (one side of the ratio) mean restocking and high sales (the other side) signal demand. Inventories of farm products, computer equipment, and petroleum fell. Inventories of drugs, apparel, and autos rose.
News of The Wired
- A quote fest on Apple Pay, the $350 replacement for my wallet [Fortune]. And “a watch guy’s thoughts” on the Apple Watch, with
pr0nphotos [Hodinkee]. And it’s “Apple Watch,” not iWatch. Delivery Q1 2015 [Tech Radar]. Not a watch guy, but the size of that thing reminds me of the first Mac Portable (or “luggable,” as we fondly called it). If the man-sized version won’t fit under my French cuffs, why would I wear it? - Oscar Pistorius not guilty of pre-mediated murder [Daily News].
- “Martial arts and the cycle of bullshit” [Charlie’s Diary]. When Yves went to fight school, she actually learned to fight. Not all do!
- The growing creativity of work in the last five decades [HBR]. Oh? What work? And whose? And for whom?
- The Frankfurt School is coming up on the charts [New Yorker]. Remember Marcuse? [Truthout].
- “There is money to be made” [Cat and Girl].
- Yes, I remember where I was on 9/11. I think where we ended up is more important.
Readers, feel free to send me (a) links, and even better (b) sources I should curate regularly, and (c) images of plants; I now have some of yours to choose from, and I’ll start running them. Vegetables are fine! See the previous Water Cooler (with plant) here. Don’t mail Yves! And here’s a plant:
And more plants, please! Bigger images (say, 1200px or thereabouts) preferred. Thank you!
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Talk amongst yourselves!
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Hunter S. Thompson on 9/12/2001:
“The towers are gone now, reduced to bloody rubble, along with all hopes for peace in our time, in the U.S. or any other country. Make no mistake about it: we are at War now- with somebody- and we will stay at war with that strange and mysterious enemy for the rest of our lives.”
HST’s voice is missed, especially now.
Even HST’s talented colleague Ralph Steadman couldn’t caricature these clowns, since they are already caricatures:
BRUSSELS — European leaders agreed on Thursday to go ahead with additional economic sanctions meant to punish Russia for its role in promoting separatist warfare in eastern Ukraine, officials in Brussels and Moscow said.
The measures will take effect on Friday when they are published in the Official Journal of the European Union. That final step had been delayed for nearly two weeks, most recently because some European leaders wanted to assess compliance with a cease-fire in eastern Ukraine before going ahead.
Russia’s energy industry, and especially deepwater drilling for oil, would once again be a primary target.
http://www.nytimes.com/2014/09/12/world/europe/eu-pushes-forward-with-tougher-sanctions-on-russia.html
————
Official Journal of the European Union — it’s what replaced the telephone book. *yawn*
Got firewood?
Will the sanctions take affect before Obama drops his first bombs in Syria?
Hard to handicap these sovereign races to the bottom.
There may be a bomb shortage after we resupplied Israel’s leveling of Gaza.
If only our military were not so woefully underfunded! /sarc
“There may be a bomb shortage….”
Well Obama could always offer his Nobel Peace Prize trophy to be placed in the air bomb tubes like they did in one of the original Star Trek episodes.
What we have is more like the episode where Kirk and the Caesar-like emperor of the planet used mind control to forced the “little” dude (wielding a dagger), to conduct a battle between themselves. Kirk won, of course.
Goddamned Federation propaganda.
Maybe they will succeed sanctioning themselves back into the Stone Age.
Got firewood?
Know any good caves?
Read somewhere (don’t recall where) that Poland is protesting that Russia reduced it’s gas flow by 45% these past few days, supposedly in reaction to Poland selling gas to Ukraine. Russia is playing dumb saying it did no such thing.
Things are starting to get interesting.
Russia may do what it damned-well pleases with its natural resources — political leverage, included. That’s part of the “free” markets. Nations dependent on Russia’s energy resources can bend, or they can go cold in the winter, and hot in the summer.
The dismantlement of the USSR had more to do with allowing those at the top of the old power structure to grab resources, personally, for power and profit. Of course, Putin — ever the political schemer — ended up on top.
The “tourist” on the left, with the camera, is Putin, when he worked for the KGB:
http://www.bagnewsnotes.com/files/2014/03/Putin-Reagan-Souza-1988.jpg
Europe needs to figure out how to warm itself. I’m surprised that the invisible hand of the aforementioned “free” markets hasn’t automatically provided a solution.
BTW:
This is the REAL reason right-wing wing-dings have lately been calling for Putin to be OUR President, as an antidote for what ails us:
http://www.buzzfeed.com/copyranter/16-homoerotic-photos-of-vladimir-putin#2o1vl4i
Can you imaging the shit hemorrhage these same folks would be having if Obama did the same?
“I’m looking for a someone to take long walks on the beach with that makes me laugh”.. “but no damn tartars!”
-vlad
true then and more so now
Prediction is correct about perpetual war. However the unfortunate thing is that “enemy” is actually us. For all the lamenting about the twin towers the entire country STILL does not grasp that the people our govt say were the perpetrators, were actually their guys – the terrorists they cultivated as proxy warriors in Afghanistant during the cold war.
And now AGAIN out govt says ISIS is the bogeyman. But they dont mention that they and their gulf dictator puppets have been helping cultivate ISIS!
As far as I’m concerned the problem isnt the govt or the military industrial machine – the problem is the public is unbelievably dim and has the attention span and comprehension capabilities of a gnat.
“Mind-boggling to see clickbait headlines for war news. War isn’t a racket….”
And the Vichy, left, too: If Digby says one more time it’s all the fault of the Deep State as a reason it’s not so much Obama’s fault and ignores Obama’s pro-active aggression towards Syria and Russia, I’ll….do something!
I had no idea Digby used this putatively analytical tool; but she does! She does! I realize this is, like, an argument from dis-authority….
I still like Digby a lot but like her more before she started at Salon. Not necessarily that she’s moved a bit more towards establishment left thinking (though perhaps true) but she seems to have less time for her blog which she is good at.
timbers,
I like Digby a lot too, but her “establishment left thinking” precedes her involvement at Salon by many years. Her comments and incite into Women’s Issues is as good as it gets, if you are interested in understanding that dynamic. But she is no more “progressive” than Jane Hamsher, Markos, or Joan Walsh. Nice people all, but all too willing to try and change the political duopoly (aka – legacy parties) in incremental steps from within the electoral process. Anyway, they are all very smart and have significant political experience but caveat emptor. They do not have the answers to really affect the change that is past the point of being necessary. YMMV but that’s my 2 cents.
I liked her till she brought that David “SpooniePoo” Atkins person onto her blog and began disappearing, stealth-censoring, retro-removing, etc. the politically anti-Obama comments from me and others. My like for her went to long-term near-zero when she cancelled her comments and erased all her archived comments.
She still writes well, and I sometimes read her, but I go there once every two or three weeks and read the whole bunch of posts in one visit in order to keep my countable clicks there to a
credit-hogging minimum.
Lambert in following the URL to Digbys blog then follow a Digbys URL ended up at Moyers reading and essay by Mike Lofgren which really explains how Deep State effectively over rules the popular vote.
Something we may be over looking in a positive respect to the good the tea party has done. That we progress for all the ass kissing have not been able to make a dent on which is the Deep State, which is where all the ideal logs of deregulation, globalization, and loss of privacy is coming from. This ideal log have made policy of constant war affordable, yet says we do not have funds to prevent bridges from collapsing when we drive across them.
“The Deep State thrives when there is tolerable functionality in the day-to-day operations of the federal government. As long as appropriations bills get passed on time, promotion lists get confirmed, black (i.e., secret) budgets get rubber-stamped, special tax subsidies for certain corporations are approved without controversy, as long as too many awkward questions are not asked, the gears of the hybrid state will mesh noiselessly. But when one house of Congress is taken over by tea party Wahhabites, life for the ruling class becomes more trying.
After helping finance the tea party to advance its own plutocratic ambitions, America’s Big Money is now regretting the Frankenstein’s monster it has created. Like children playing with dynamite, the tea party and its compulsion to drive the nation into credit default has alarmed the grown-ups commanding the heights of capital; the latter are now telling the politicians they thought they had hired to knock it off.” Essay: Anatomy of the Deep State February 21, 2014 by Mike Lofgren
Read entire essay of Lofgren at http://billmoyers.com/2014/02/21/anatomy-of-the-deep-state/
I think you’ve invented a new comments game: compose clickbait for current events.
– You won’t believe what Obama wants to do to ISIS!
– 5 Senators who are as dumb in person as they seem on TV!
– Pentagon briefing: real or fake?
Whack Assad with This One Trick!
Ooh, that’s wicked good.
Step away from the Huffpost sir.
Which side is the U.S. backing in Syria? Rebels, Assad, neither, both? Take our online poll!
10 signs that the moderate opposition might not to be moderate. How to know BEFORE you commit!
When this man invaded Iraq, no one guessed what would happen next
That’s a keeper. It’s this year’s model of “Nobody could have predicted…” which people actually did say, amazingly enough.
I thought, “nobody could have predicted,” was the DC beltway motto. The who could have ever imagined chorus can be predicted to show up on just about any and every issue that DC touches.
100 Worst Banks!
PUTIN’S NAKED AGGRESSION!
Scotland
a 97% voter registration for the referendum (with stat-tasic spreadsheet)
http://tinyurl.com/pjwf2lo
my sense of humour, top boy!
Labour MPs Get Chased Through Glasgow By A Rickshaw Playing “The Imperial March”
http://tinyurl.com/qy9gj2y
“And oh, hai, Dubya [FOX].Why am I thinking “you’ve covered your ass, now”? My advice, stick to painting.”
GWB, An Incurious Mind.
What I don’t get about CT champions is why they so over-estimate our bureaucracies evil organs ability to synthesize and successfully execute these sinister and complex plots, yet miserably fail at much simpler and conventional violent initiatives oh so consistently ?
btw… “stick to painting.”
http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2011/05/20/george-w-bushs-15-million-speech-payday.html
For an extra $10K, he’ll wear the codpiece.
Also, there is never a failure for these folks. It’s not about body count, to them. It’s about money.
“there is never a failure for these folks”
Lesson One at the Military Academies, there is never ever a Failure, rather only limited degrees of success.
re Martial Arts BS.
The salient concept is the Stages of Simulacra.
Reminded me of unknown/untested US Generals promoted to lead wars, (apparently) solely based on some political Peter Principle. The good warriors often make lousy press spokesmen (and to be fair sometimes not very good teacher/mentor/leaders either).
Reminded me also of the story that Stephen Segal was blackmailed by some thugs, on whom he did not try and beat up with his mad karate skills, but chose instead to rely on the police.
I would think that martial arts training still has benefits in terms of feeling and projecting self-confidence, but you forget at your own risk the old adage that there is always someone richer & better looking (and Badder Ass… Bad Asser) than you.
PS. Never get in a fight with a guy named Tiny.
Never eat at a place called Mom’s….
Unless of course it is Mom’s, my personal irony being that my Dad does all the cooking,..
. . . or Burger King . . .
. . . or most other similar places . . .
. . . but especially Burger King.
____________
My granddad, who owned an interstate trucking company in the ’30s- 50’s, said to eat where you saw the long haul truckers eating. Of course, that was before the interstate system and ubiquitous chain restaurants (In the Canada maritimes, the Irving Big Stop seems to be the place to go). Then again, there’s not much else, unless you’re in one of the “larger” towns).
lol. I figured that meant the place was cheap and fast, and the waitress showed a little cleavage.
Granddad appreciated those things, too. Maybe he was only repeating, to us, what he told grandma.
That the waitress showed a little cleavage?
Yup.
Okay, back story:
Granddad came out of the Depression a wealthy man (he graduated into breeding and racing thoroughbreds). He went into the depression as a taxi driver with 2 kids. He said he made his fortune because he had $600 cash, in the mattress, when everyone else was in the markets (the family scuttlebutt was he worked as a rum-runner, then as a bootlegger, to get that seed money. Taxi driver simply didn’t cut it).
It was a well-known but little discussed fact that he kept a woman at an apartment, in the city. For years.
What happened to the wealth?
Grandma wised up, and a Virginia divorce ensued. Very messy. Nonetheless, both grandparents retired in their late 40s, lived until their mid-80s, and never worked a day in between.
” he worked as a rum-runner, then as a bootlegger”
WTF, I would have preferred that story.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nucky_Thompson
And calls you “Hon.” Not that there’s anything wrong with any of that.
“Hon” is pure Baltimorese.
I grew up less than 30 miles from Bal’mer, and I still can’t capture the accent (although I have a nephew who has it down). Maryland, generally, has dialects out the wazoo.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Baltimore_accent
Personally, when relaxed, I have what is known as a “PG County” accent. I’ll be damned if I can hear it, though.
“Hon” is Philly/South Jersey, too. Even I say it now and again, and I’m not a waitress hoppin’ the counter.
It’s a streamlined dialect around here, placing a premium on skating across consonantal sounds while simultaneously reducing the number of syllables in words as you go. For example:
“Phidelfya Mummers Prade n String Ban Show o Shows”
Translated: “Philadelphia Mummers Parade and String Band Show of Shows” (a great local tradition here; no New Years Day is complete without the Mummers Parade, either 2 sheets to the wind standing along Broad Street, or having it on the TV in the background for hours)
Or: “Phidelfya Plece Deparmen”
Translated: “Philadelphia Police Department”
There are some great nasalizations of words, and as one might expect from the economization on articulation of consonants and syllables, sounds are often moved forward in the mouth.
Localisms:
Mahoff – Big Cheese, uncertain in origin
Downashore – Down [to] the [New Jersey] Shore, generally the Southern New Jersey shore, not that Northern New Jersey shore where the North Jersey or New York types go.
Yo, Chief, or, Yo, Ace – A borderline, or actually, disrespectful form of address to a male individual, the exact intended meaning of which is conveyed by how it is articulated. Chief is generally more ambiguous, while Ace is almost invariably sarcastic.
Anymore – as in “Anymore ya can… [terminal extreme nasal n shading into implied consonantal t]…”, conveying “Nowadays, you can’t…”
Fun. Philly’s my city, although I’m from Jersey. But not Joizy, ffs.
“Downashore”
Similar phrase in Baltimorese:
Hey, hon, let’s go danny oshin and get’s some crayubs.
I loved Philly, though it took me awhile. Philly has slack.
To quote: “I remember where I was on 9/11. I think where we ended up is more important.” Indeed. The minute of silence today wasn’t for the trillions of dollars squandered, our over-stretched supply lines, the thousands of Iraqi dead, the 4 million internal displaced or refugee Iraqis, the 3 million Syrians in the same situation, the mysteries of the Veterans Administration, or the Libyan Parliament, lately seen afloat on a ship. No, the minute of silence was for the new consensus of endless war.
A minute of STFU, rather. Not that I’m cranky or bitter.
I remember where I was on 9/11. In the lab doing research. The lab managers daugher worked in Manhattan and we were concerned for her safety. Once we found out she was fine, we went back to doing research for the day. I went home and had dinner with my room mate and we discussed how the attack was kind of expected, given our behavior in various regions of the world over decades. And how we would likely be on the war path for a generation or more over a significant, but easily launched attack.
Obama’s ISIS strategy repeats his intent to murder anyone who threatens our “core interests”. IIRC he first claimed this exceptional right to preventive murder for oil and other resources about a year ago at the UN … then as now with little outcry or pushback. No analyst, columnist or ‘journalist’ seems to even question this new just-war sleight-of-mind change from self defense to preemptive aggression. Obama has out-bushed Bush in almost every area of domestic and foreign policy, but it’s okay because, well, he’s the messiah. I understand that, but this particular rift from Bush Doctrine is quite horrifying.
Not quite. The Intercept is one blog to watch, and McClatchy is the media outlet to read (just like 2002). Everything old is new again!
How do you read McClatchy, Lambert? When I went to the online star-telegram in Ft Worth, it seemed most articles were Associated Press articles. How do you get the best McClatchy articles w/o reading through the drivel?
http://www.mcclatchydc.com
I’m not saying they’re the pure well of truth, mind you. Just that, as Knight-Ridder, the same news organization, ALONE, got it right on Iraq, and they seem not to be foaming at the mouth and waving pom poms this time, either.
The Isis strategy is a neoliberal construct dedicated to provide the capital, debt financing and management for a huge abattoir in Mesopotamia and the Levant. All that is missing is the labor. This is offered as a partnership. Since it is a war contracts would not likely to be enforceable, so a hardy reassurance from the USA should be enough to cement your future gains. Who could resist the recruiting slogan, “the gates of Hell are open!”
What if they gave a war an nobody came?
International Week of Action for Military-Free Education and Research: 25 – 31 October 2014
Washington Supreme Court holds state in contempt – Kitsap Sun
http://www.kitsapsun.com/news/state/washington-supreme-court-holds-state-in-contempt_06863033_
Possible sanctions include fines for the Legislature or individual lawmakers, or having the court rewrite the state budget.
Yes! Fine the hell out of the individual lawmakers. Now that’s a court of law with balls. Oh, hold on a second, it’s the women, so it’s a court of law with ovaries? estrogen?
Power.
I grew up in Washingtion state during the 60s-70s. At that time (still?) schools were funded by property tax special levies, which were always opposed by people with lots of property but relatively low incomes (farmers, retired people whose kids were grown but who still had the big old house, etc.). Schools always had to “cut the budget to the bone” to get political support from local newspapers. And of course a lot depended on how wealthy the area served by the school district was.
Here in Hawaii public schools are funded at the state level and try to spend equal amounts on each pupil, regardless of where they live. Not great (problems with poverty, English as second language, better-off students generally in private schools) but a better system than what I grew up with.
Testosterone makes women hairy, horny and husky, same as it does men.
Glad to see the concept of official immunity and the right-to-rule is starting to crack, in any case.
“Stones” is the gender-neutral term you are looking for….
Nothing to see about 9/11 let’s put it behind us and so on. Interesting to think about the dramatic changes–permanent Orwellian war, and the old Republic was taken out and shot in the middle of the night and it’s body dropped into the ocean. Ignore those men behind the curtain and just listen to the great and mighty Oz play the Mighty Wurlitzer. Open your eyes or don’t–I’m not going to lose sleep over it.
Lovely to see a mention of Marcuse a hero of mine in my youth–I discovered him around the time I discovered Joseph Campbell–you can see why I am a bit strange–both were important in my late teens. Marcuse linked culture and politics as it should be linked–if we are revolutionaries culture is where we play. Which brings me to Campbell. The political economy is closed, fixed and is now more tightly controlled that at any time in US history. Conventional political action is hard to work because of that. We must start with spiritual struggle and, frankly, magic in order to counter the system–it’s the only open door we have.
Hmm. Magic reminds me of ponies.
Banger,
As I said in the earlier comments — it has all been said. We know we have been lied to, manipulated, ripped off, mismanaged, and disenfranchised.
We can hash it all over again, or find a way, beyond our keyboards, to fight it.
I, too, warmed to the mention of Marcuse. Then reading on I came to: “FDR’s first hundred days creating the template of the welfare state”.
I don’t think so.
You can try starting your Utopia with a clean slate if you want to – it saves a whole lot of reading – but if you’re historically as shaky as that, you run a real risk of reinventing either Hitler or Stalin. Better to read the history, I think.
One word: Bismarck.
Let’s not forget Thomas Paine! http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Agrarian_Justice
I’ll give you an example of a practical magician–check out the career of Edward Bernays–now there was a sorcerer.
For those that don’t know Bernays (a NC fav)
http://topdocumentaryfilms.com/the-century-of-the-self/
A fav of NC in part about Bernays
http://topdocumentaryfilms.com/the-century-of-the-self/
ith almost complete certainty, I can predict that you, dear reader, are right-handed. If I were a betting man, I’d put money on it. I’d make the same bet if you were reading this in India or Iowa, Kansas or Kathmandu. And a hundred years from now, I’d make the same bet again.
I can be so sure of myself not because I am some prodigious prognosticator, but because about 90 percent of humans are right-handed. That phenotypic ratio—nine right-handed people for every lefty—is relatively stable, not just across cultures and geographic regions, but perhaps across the span of human evolution. The archaeological record suggests that hominins were predominantly right-handed as far back as 2 million years ago,1 and a 2010 study of the wear patterns on 32,000-year-old Neanderthal teeth found that this extinct cousin of Homo sapiens was likely about 88 percent right-handed.2
It’s a ratio that has baffled scientists for more than a century,…. http://www.the-scientist.com/?articles.view/articleNo/40868/title/On-the-Other-Hand/
of course I’m left handed..
Descendents of people whose right hands were squished by a mastodon?
I’m not going for it. Everyone knows that which hand a person favors is a matter of choice. Just like sexuality. That’s what the Rev. Billy Bob Johnson — down to the Church of the Only One Way to Heaven, Baptist — told me at the last revival, and I believe him. You should probably get an exorcism, and for Christ’s sake, don’t handle no snakes ’til then.
— John Q. Fencepost
I’m a member of the Church of the Only One Way to Heaven, Baptist (Reformed).
You heathen.
Ha! I know that bit! Great minds . . .
The only church that had fleeting appeal to me was near Maxwell St in Chicago, “The Good Times Baptist Church” . How can you go wrong w/ branding like that?
Related, and found at Ritholtz’s links:
http://www.salon.com/2014/09/10/newly_discovered_species_defies_all_existing_classifications_of_life/
“A new genus, Dendrogramma, with two new species of multicellular, non-bilaterian, mesogleal animals. . . “
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Handedness_of_Presidents_of_the_United_States
a sinister plot indeed.
https://www.flickr.com/photos/library_of_congress/2178285893/in/set-72157603671370361/
for diptherio
http://www.brookings.edu/research/interactives/2014/billionaires-us-political-power-index
Other than doing good for their own book, how many of those billionaires are ideological, and how many are ideological consistently right? I wonder how much of the lack of gun control and the general police state we have devolved into is actually due to these people. I guess the argument would be that they don’t leave any fingerprints – still, I wish more detail on what and HOW they are trying to accomplish politically would be helpful….But either Soros isn’t as liberal as they say he is, and Bloomberg isn’t as effective as a billionaire should be.
Everyone there is a multi-billionaire. A mere $Billion wont cut it.
“There are magnificent beings on this earth, son, that are walking around posing as humans.”
Flagg, Fried Green Tomatoes at the Whistle Stop Cafe
; ))
I’m pleased to see the link about Marcuse, as he doesn’t seem to be on the radar much anymore. 50 years later and he sounds very contemporary!
Apple watch water resistant not water proof. Oh boy!
When has Apple ever made a deep dive easy?
“Martial arts and the cycle of bullshit” Argh! First.what we really need are clubs that teach how not to fight. However, human nature being what it is, no school of martial arts, even the so called unlimited styles, call allow for real fights. The amount of damage that’s going to take place when teeth are used, eyes gorged, arms completely ripped from sockets, and usually more than one person are beating on another person all predicate few repeat bouts, if the loser survives.
Methinks NPR cribbed its Ferguson story from the Radley Balko WaPo article I linked to last week…McClatchy news blog:
http://www.mcclatchydc.com/
Bookmarked this in 2003, and has been a constant source of “real” news since…Uh-oh, we’re already getting ISIL “fighters” numbers inflation, as a few days ago the estimated strength across Syria and Iraq was ca. 20,000…today the CIA puts the figure at “as much as 31000″…probably a surge of enrolment following the O-man’s GWB moment last night.
Since you brought up Detroit, I thought I would post a link to this excellent book on the subject:
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0691121869/leftbusinessobseA/
Better still, for the condensed version you can listen to Doug Henwood interview the author:
http://www.leftbusinessobserver.com/Radio.html#S130815
http://kimjongunlookingatthings.tumblr.com/