Links 10/4/14

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Cancer-Detecting Yogurt Could Replace Colonoscopies MIT Technology Review (David L)

Are Bots Hijacking Your Marketing Budget? TechCrunch

The Unpatchable Malware That Infects USBs Is Now on the Loose Wired (Robert M)

Solar could beat coal as world’s top power source by 2050, says IEA Telegraph (David L)

Ebola

Dallas Hospital Alters Account, Raising Questions on Ebola Case New York Times (furzy mouse)

Office Networks Reveal Which Co-Workers To Avoid During Infectious Outbreaks MIT Technology Review (David L)

U.S. Ebola Patient Came to Get Married Daily Beast (furzy mouse)

Ebola: WHO seeks to test Thai antibody Thailand Forum (furzy mouse)

Exclusive: U.S. nears solution for safe disposal of Ebola waste Reuters (EM)

Hong Kong

Will China Crush the Hong Kong Protests? WSJ China Real Time

Occupy Central Is Doomed to Fail The Diplomat

Hong Kong leader’s daughter mocks taxpayers amid protests: Thank you for funding ‘all my beautiful shoes and dresses’ New York Daily News

Police arrest triad gang members in Hong Kong clashes Bangkok Post

North Korea capital ‘under lockdown’ amid rumours of threat to Kim Jong-un Telegraph

Reconciliation in Cambodia – a low priority for government and donors DW

IMF Report: Asian Crisis v. Europe’s Disaster Learn Signal

ECB’s treatment of Ireland and Italy is a constitutional scandal, yet nobody held to account Ambrose Evans-Pritchard, Telegraph

Centralisation-Without-Representation: A reply to Frances Coppola, Simon Wren-Lewis and Niall Ferguson Yanis Varoufakis. Wonky, but explains how austerity in Europe will lead to even more authoritarianism.

Will the European economy’s summer squalls turn into an autumn tempest? Reuters

Sweden to recognise Palestinian state BBC (furzy mouse)

What Is Wrong With Zionism Corey Robin

Syraqistan

A War for Power Jacobin (barrisj)

Islamic State committing ‘staggering’ crimes in Iraq: U.N. report Reuters. EM: “More selective outrage: Obviously IS are not nice folks, but where are the strident UN calls for prosecution of U.S. war crimes related to the 2003 invasion and its aftermath?”

Big Brother is Watching You Watch

Man Shoots Down Drone, Lawyers Scratch Their Heads Popular Science (Robert M)

The Continuing Myth about USA Freedom Transparency Marcy Wheeler

Why Twitter Is Handing Over Your Tweets To MIT Business Insider (David L)

Relationship Mining on Twitter Shows How Being Dumped Hurts More than Dumping MIT Technology Review (David L)

JUDGE ORDERS GOVERNMENT TO RELEASE VIDEOS OF GUANTANAMO FORCE-FEEDINGS The Intercept (Howard Beale IV). Ooh, if this were to happen, you can bet the practice would stop, pronto.

Obama seeks to restore trust with disappointed Latinos Reuters (EM)

Edward Baptist’s New Book Follows the Money on Slavery New York Times

Hackers’ Attack Cracked 10 Companies in Major Assault New York Times

The Missing Trio in Today’s Jobs Report Mohamed El-Erian, Bloomberg

Jobs report not so impressive Scott Grannis

The Wonks Battle for the Fed Bloomberg

Whither Markets?

What Do Treasury Yields Say About Job Expectations, Inflation Expectations, and the Recovery? Michael Shedlock

Is a Market Crash Coming? The Dental Indicator Says Yes – Businessweek (furzy mouse)

Who’s in control – nation states or global corporations? Guardian (Christine P)

Antidote du jour (Cult Cat, via Richard Smith):

sweet cult cat links

See yesterday’s Links and Antidote du Jour here.

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83 comments

  1. financial matters

    Good example for how interconnected we are. A man helps carry a dying Ebola patient home in Liberia and 10 days later shows up in a Dallas ER.

    1. abynormal

      TT.
      The fundamental delusion of humanity is to suppose that I am here and you are out there
      .
      Roshi

      1. jgordon

        That’s pretty insightful. The illusion of separation is a cultural affectation that is rooted in a basic misconception of reality, a misconception that can be readily corrected with the study and practice of mycology. I think in time even Americans will be forced by circumstance to forsake this listless life of rapacious materialism, and that such fantastic insights will become merely ordinary commonsense.

  2. Eureka Springs

    Applause for the man who shot down a drone. If potential or real surveillance, much more potential or real armed aerial presence in or around ones own home/property isn’t considered illegal trespassing then what should be considered trespassing?

  3. abynormal

    this should get interesting: Supreme Court to Consider Whether Police Ignorance of the Law Justifies Stop
    On Monday, October 6, the U.S. Supreme Court will hear arguments in a North Carolina case that asks whether a traffic stop based on a police officer’s mistaken understanding of traffic laws violates the Fourth Amendment’s prohibition on unreasonable searches and seizures.
    ***
    The defendant, Nicholas Heien, was the passenger in a car that was stopped by the police because the car, which he owned, had only one working tail light, which the police officer mistakenly believed was a violation of North Carolina law. (One working tail light is legal in North Carolina.) After conducting a search, police subsequently found cocaine and charged Heien with drug trafficking. The North Carolina Court of Appeals overturned the decision, finding that the mistaken stop violated Heien’s Fourth Amendment rights. The North Carolina Supreme Court later reversed that ruling, 4-3, prompting an appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court.

    uhh will cops now stop confiscating our phones when we record them Breaking The Law?

    1. alex morfesis

      nobody is recording police officers with their phones…who told you that…they are simply looking to create stock footage for their accounts…they regularly take pictures of people and the public and inside buildings and of cars and sidewalks…its right there in their easy to see stock footage accounts they have with five web based companies…and they always carry small releases printed and cut into four per page just so that when they catch an image that might have a person they might get that persons signature on a release…they must have dozens of these put away in their files somewhere and they “just happened” to be driving in their patrol cars…” I mean walking around the neighborhood when suddenly they came a cross a situation and just reacted as they usually do…in fact…if you look at their web based stock footage…you would notice they have lots of images of police and almost all of them show police doing normal every day things…and they were just shocked…SHOCKED…that unlike all the other images showing police officers doing their usual nice work, THIS TIME…they suddenly caught the officers doing something most americans would find confusing and disgusting…I mean really…the proof is right there your honor…they are all just upstanding members of our community and proud representatives of the concerned citizens brigade…they were not “taking pictures of police officers or trying to “interfere”…look at all these wonderful pictures of police officers just minding their own business…and this ONE time the events turned into inappropriate police reaction and violence…it was just an anomaly…

      oh dear fearless leader…thank you for the long lines in havana for stale pork as this helps us build strength and courage against the day we have to defend out great leader…i mean nation against the great invasion…no fearless leader I am not protesting against you by hiding under your dress…we should all be proud of the way you have found a way to keep us in rags and stuck in the 50’s with your brilliant defense against the invading horde of capitalists who laugh so hard when they think of your aging “fleet of MIG’s”…we love the way you keep the capitalists strategists unfocused…keeping them laughing off their bar stools is the perfect way to keep our socialist paradise functioning…

      every evil fool with power is easily undone, when those who might do what is needed focus on victory instead of waiting for justice…

    2. abynormal

      “what you forgot is that the supreme court is exempt from ignorance of the law…”
      rjs
      exactly why i don’t think it’ll fly…
      police would have to be re-eduated and where would the money come from for that.
      profit prisons won’t stand for it!
      other law regulators would have to fall in line (lookout fin. ind.).
      and how else would the supreme court remain exempt (good one rj)

      1. abynormal

        why am i not getting 3min. to edit / re-educated :-/
        (if i can’t laff at myself i’ll bore myself to death)

  4. Ned Ludd

    Ferguson Police Are Still Locking Up Mike Brown Protesters, Even In Broad Daylight

    Nearly two months after police officer Darren Wilson gunned down unarmed teenager Michael Brown in this St. Louis suburb, protesters calling for Wilson’s prosecution are still regularly being locked up by police, even when they are just standing on a public sidewalk in the middle of the day.

    • “This is what you get for a noise violation in Ferguson, MO.” – pic.twitter.com

    Ferguson is a police state. There seems to be no law there but the cops who make it up as they go & don’t abide by it themselves.

    • They don’t even wear badges. Cops in #Ferguson look like some kinda police-themed gang from the Warriors movie. – pic.twitter.com

    1. ambrit

      Here in America we are far down the slope towards Third World policing, where the police are a gang. (They are not even remotely like Captain Renaud in “Casablanca” either. More like Officer Dim in “A Clockwork Orange.”)
      The basic tactic is erosion. Wear away at the anti-establishment forces without going full out ‘force majeure.’ (As if the police were a force of nature!)
      I thought that agents of the State, when in uniform, had to show identification at all times. Is the asking for identification from a police officer now a crime?
      In Jean Cocteau’s “Orpheus” the minions of Death who come to carry people away are portrayed as motorcycle riding henchmen, semi military, having no aversion to force, willing to murder. In the film, they serve Death, a Princess. In modern America they serve, an Oligarchy.

      1. Ned Ludd

        During the Seattle WTO protests, hundreds of people were detained in buses, forced to sit while restrained in plastic zip tie cuffs, waiting up to 12 hours to be released and not allowed to leave to use the bathroom. This tactic is called “catch & release”. Even a small political assembly will face mass arrest by the police, to quash momentum and send a message that keeps other people away.

        Ferguson Activist Arrested With 12 Others, Live Tweets Her Detention

        A protester in Ferguson, Missouri, who was apparently arrested along with 12 others last night, has been documenting the entire experience on her Twitter feed.

        Starting with the tweet, “We are all arrested,” about 17 hours ago, Twitter user @bdoulablongata describes being detained for violating a “noise ordinance” with a bail set at $2,300. According to the tweets, officers told the group their bail would be doubled if they had been arrested previously.

        Martin Luther King, Jr. was defeated in Albany by this tactic.

        The Albany police chief, Laurie Pritchett, carefully studied the movement’s strategy and developed a strategy he hoped could subvert it. He used mass arrests but avoided the kind of violent incidents that might backfire by attracting national publicity. Pritchett arranged to disperse the prisoners to county jails all over southwest Georgia to prevent his jail from filling up. The Birmingham Post-Herald stated: “The manner in which Albany’s chief of police has enforced the law and maintained order has won the admiration of… thousands.” […]

        After nearly a year of intense activism with few tangible results, the movement began to deteriorate.

        The Wikipedia article later quotes King’s autobiography: “When we planned our strategy for Birmingham months later, we spent many hours assessing Albany and trying to learn from its errors.” For any protest or dissident movement, the police and the establishment will develop countermoves to undermine effective tactics. Dissidents need to continually evolve new forms of dissent.

  5. Banger

    This weekend’s Counterpunch has two articles that act as bookends. The first is by Joshua Frank CPs managing editor:

    We don’t need more feel-good marches. We need anger. We need direct action as well as voters who aren’t afraid to stick their necks out and vote against the fossil fueled two-party system. We need radical opposition. We need a political awakening and we need it now. It’s time for McKibben to raise the stakes and call for a boycott of the do-nothing Democrats. They won’t fear us until we give them a reason to.

    The fate of the planet depends on it.

    In the article Frank shoots down McKibben and his march as a positive force for change and emphasizes the uselessness of the Democratic Party for any kind of change.

    The second article is by Tariq Ali who urges major changes in the UK “from below”:

    Politically, we need a party to the left of this centre. The constitutional mess can only be sorted out by a constitutional convention that gives us a written constitution which sweeps away all the cobwebs (the antiquated and unrepresentative voting system, the unelected second chamber, the monarchy etc) and guarantees the right to self-determination of nations within the UK. This will not happen unless there is a grand remonstrance from below.

    Here the Scottish campaign for independence offers a good model.

    Ali believes that there is no leftist party in the UK as Labour has gone on to become a virtual Tory party as we all know.

    I think those two are right. Demonstrations are next to useless. Revolt from below may be possible in the UK, one person I know who lives there tells me its simmering underneath the surface. But I don’t think it’s possible in the US. People in my country are genuinely confused and repelled by politics–there is no clear view, no clear vision. Occupy tried to begin to focus that vision but failed ultimately for a whole number of reasons to do with its tendency to be culturally boho and without effective leadership and true organization–it was a good experiment in “emergent” structures but in that case it didn’t and, in my view, could not work. Since then there’s been a lot of talk on income inequality but Americans like income inequality and believe people of high ability should be paid enormous sums so that argument will get us nowhere. The argument we should have been emphasizing is the end of the Constitution and rule-of-law almost exclusively. I would include here the illegality of how we conduct our wars and the high cost of those wars which accomplish nothing but creating more chaos. In this our natural allies are libertarians and we, instead, throw eggs at them. Other issues, at this time, can simmer in the background, even climate change. How can you be for an issue that requires literacy to understand and most Americans are functionally illiterate–even members of the mainstream media. So, secondarily, our function would be to educate people as best we can–not to come to conclusions we like but to use reason to get where they need to go.

    1. Massinissa

      If the planet depends on those things like Counterpunch says, we should give the planet a funeral right now, because those things are NOT going to happen. They certainly never have before.

      1. Massinissa

        Well, not since before WW2 anyway. I know the history of socialism, I know whats been done.

        But the American people are not going to ‘get angry’ until someone forces them to. Theyre not going to do it just because a bunch of leftists on Counterpunch and other websites are pontificating about getting angry.

        The only way Americans are going to ‘get angry’ is for someone to deny them access to food and water.

        Though, we might only have to wait a few decades for that…

        1. ambrit

          Dear Massinissa;
          The wait is almost over. Go and check out, (no pun intended,) the prices of staple items on store shelves. There is a steady inflation of the prices of basic items. The standard of living in America is falling for the majority of the population. It doesn’t need to be extreme, just observed and internalized. One doesn’t need to be absolutely poor to understand that one will be poor soon. That will generate the fear and anger needed. That’s where effective propaganda proves its worth.

          1. abynormal

            and we’re all ONE flu, tumor or heart murmur from individual financial collapse

            Those candle flames were like the lives of men. So fragile. So deadly. Left alone, they lit and warmed. Let run rampant, they would destroy the very things they were meant to illuminate. Embryonic bonfires, each bearing a seed of destruction so potent it could tumble cities and dash kings to their knees.
            Sanderson, The Way of Kings

          2. jrs

            If people lack food and water they aren’t going to be able to put up much of a fight of any sort (mental of physical) anyway. Because that’s what “basic needs” actually means.

        2. MyLessThanPrimeBeef

          Don’t worry , access to food and water will not be denied.

          Because GMO and high fructose corn syrup.

          Access to healthy, nutritious food and clean water – that’s another matter. Luckily, Americans have been brainwashed, sorry, educated to ignore this. We are too smart to fall for that.

          So, we are more or less ‘well-fed.’ They have cheap solutions for those emaciated poor.

          Never mind all these sick people later on in their lives…diabetes, heart attacks, etc.

          Remember, sick people don’t make waves…they can hardly get out of beds, much less revolting.

          “Quality, not quantity.”

          Not food, but quality food.

          Not job guarantee, but job quality guarantee.

          Not basic income, but ‘enhanced, auto-adjusted (to GDP) income’ or wealth sharing.

          1. abynormal

            side note:
            GMOs Are Old Hat. Synthetically Modified Food Is The New Frontier
            In essence, synthetic biology is about designing and building workhorse organisms that can make things more efficiently than nature (or make things we might need that nature doesn’t make at all). According to Todd Kuiken, a senior program associate with the Synthetic Biology Project at the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars, “It’s the next stage of genetic engineering.”

            While there’s been far more hype around synthetic biology’s potential to create drugs, biofuels and even designer creatures, some of the most recent “synbio” products to hit the market are actually (somewhere) in our food. http://www.npr.org/blogs/thesalt/2014/10/03/353024980/gmos-are-old-hat-synthetically-modified-food-is-the-new-frontier

            1. MyLessThanPrimeBeef

              When we can synthesize food from rocks, it would be unethical to maim and kill living vegetables.

              Welcome to relative morality.

              ‘Looking at our bright technological future, we reflect on our current caveman-ish sins.’

          2. Lambert Strether

            If the job guarantee is implemented democratically, as its advocates propose, the jobs will be quality — what other metric would you propose but the vote? Yes, politics will have to be practiced, successfully, to bring that about, quelle horreur.

    2. Massinissa

      One more note:

      I think what we need is more Ferguson style riots. That way people will have to choose sides. Right now nothing is pushing the center off the fence. The ‘anger’ you speak of wont happen until the center is pushed by necessity.

      1. Ulysses

        I think that “informational pickets” and street theater can be useful tools to push onlookers to begin questioning the MSM narrative. TPTB are always looking to co-opt, crush, or discredit dissenters. Ned Ludd is absolutely right: “Dissidents need to continually evolve new forms of dissent.”

        One mistake sometimes made by well-intentioned activists is to arrange such watered-down, pre-permitted, corporate-friendly marches and rallies that any true expression of outrage or anger isn’t really possible. Jeering, swearing, burning effigies, throwing rotten fruit, etc., all of these angry expressions of discontent have been popular for centuries because they are authentic.

        Right now too many people are afraid of the elites and their militarized goons. We need to reverse that dynamic and put some healthy fear of the people into the greedy little minds of the kleptocrats!

        1. Lambert Strether

          Why it’s important to watch events like Hong Kong at a very very very granular level, besides all the big picture stuff.

          Tying the barriers together with zip-lock ties was clever; I remember a Gezi protester tweeting: “Why didn’t we think of that?” And so on.

        1. ambrit

          Sorry to disagree, but, it was a Police riot. People have been conditioned to always assume that riot means badly acting protesters. I have personally watched badly acting police start a riot.

  6. Eeyores enigma

    That solar story is complete technocopian clap trap. Makes it sound like we will naturally evolve from fossil fuels, a cheap, almost free, highly dense energy source that can literally be put in a bucket and carried where ever you need it when ever you need it, to solar which requires highly complex devices to capture, store, transport, and is fleeting.

    Solar technology is not an energy resource. It is an increadably complex, toxic, and expensive method of capturing a tiny % of the suns energy for a brief time. The only reason solar has come down in price is because of massive subsidies and Chinas unsustainable production via slave labor and nonexistent environmental regulation throughout the process.

    It all comes down to storage to be even remotely viable even at 10 times the price ( the real price) which has been the issue for energy generation for over a 100 years. Right now over 50% of energy production is not used, just dumped. If we could solve the storage problem and adopt reasonable conservation practices we could cut FF use by 75% in just a few years without ANY so called renewable energy. By the way renewable energy isn’t renewable. The suns rays are somewhat constant and the wind will blow but the Highly complex and toxic system for capturing some of this energy is so far from being renewable it isn’t even funny.

    The biggest problem with articles like that one is that people see it and think that there is nothing to worry about, it will all workout in the end and everyone will get rich doing it.

    1. Massinissa

      Thank you for clarifying this for everyone.

      The ‘sustainable development’ people need to realize that civilization is completely unsustainable and is living on borrowed time from millions of years in the past.

    2. Jake Mudrosti

      It’s a given that current US energy usage is unsustainable, but your comments strike me as overblown — since, at any rate, many of these solar technologies replace photovoltaic/battery systems (e.g., thermal storage in molten salts, as mentioned in the article).
      And I’d say the article implicitly assumes a shift in total energy usage, with this line at the end: “Any such shift could lead to total self-sufficiency for households in warm dry climates, triggering a general stampede away from the grid.” Not mentioned in the article is the marriage of solar collectors and home-scale steam power (including direct-drive steam power), or hydrogen cell systems such as those already in use for storage of solar/wind-generated energy.

      A different article would of course deal with the social/technological changes that lead to reduced total consumption. For example, introducing new 24 volt DC standards for off-the-grid homes, developing local rail-based transit, etc. Population & urban planning are topics for yet another article.

      1. MyLessThanPrimeBeef

        We need both new technology and less consumption.

        Between the two, the latter is

        1. easier to implement
        2. proven to work
        3. without unforeseen side effects
        4. cheaper
        5. money saver
        6. not associated with Jevon’s Paradox.

      2. Eeyores enigma

        Jake – All of the technologies you mention still require highly complex systems that have limited life span, require lots of resources, and generate serious environmental degradation. Solar thermal is great but generally requires concentrators which are either exposed which toast whole populations of migrating birds, or are enclosed which reduces efficiency, increases complexity, and cost.

        Passive solar is the only true renewable solar.

        Any solar is only useful for about 50% of the areas of the planet if that. What about the other3 to 4 BILLION people?

    3. heresy101

      Rather than following my first impulse and labeling you a Koch stooge, it is very likely that you are not knowledgeable about electricity and energy production.

      Solar is on the cost curve that it will soon displace coal and later on natural gas. Current costs of solar PV are from $60-70/MWh in recent contracts (Palo Alto, Pasadena) and Austin has a $50/MWh project. Taking into account the ITC of 30%, these projects are running at $70-100/MWh which compare favorably to a recent highly efficient combined cycle natural gas plant at $68/MWh at $5/mmBTU natural gas. Are you willing to bet that fracking will provide $5/mmBTU gas for the next 30 years? New coal generated electricity is illegal in California and utilities are divesting themselves of out of state coal contracts. As air pollution and greenhouse gas costs are imposed, coal will become less and less competitive.

      Yes, solar can be put in a bucket and be carried anywhere that you want and 100,000’s of EV’s are carrying electricity anywhere they go. A growing number of them are charging from solar because we get requests all the time to structure electric rates for them.

      It is total BS to say that solar is not an energy source! PV panels are 14-23% efficient and run many off grid solar houses and are becoming more prevalent in the 3rd world. Our customers are generating 2.7 GWh of electricity each year that they are not buying from the utility. Do you actually know what energy is? There have been days that the CA ISO has had 20% of the energy at certain hours coming from solar.

      You are right that solar and wind are not going to become resources that can offset only the air conditioning load in the afternoon without storage. The comment that 50% energy is dumped is just a stupid description of Carnot’s law for heat engines efficiency. It has nothing to due with solar! There are combined cycle and reciprocating engines that are in the 65% efficient range (35% of the energy is lost as heat). We could not cut fossil fuel use by 75% by adopting storage; that is a ludicrous statement.

      Energy conservation is the first in the loading order of resources in California. In my case, I went to Home Depot, Costco, and others and replace all my lighting with LED’s. So far it appears that we are saving 20% in energy and 30% in cost. If that is what you are referring to regarding saving fossil fuels, then I would agree with you.

      After just attending the North American Energy Storage Conference last week, storage will become more cost effective and viable. Storage is about where PV was in terms of technology and costs about 7-10 years ago. An interesting tidbit from the conference is that an Australian company is pairing solar troughs with James Watt steam engine technology of 200 years ago for a viable storage/generation system!

      One thing the EIA had wrong in the article is that concentrating solar will not be built in the US. Ivanpah is the only and last system because several others have been canceled. Concentrating solar may be viable in the Sahara and Northern Africa with undersea cables to Europe, though.

      The EIA is much more conservative than solar evangelists who take the feel good flavor of the day (PV) and say it will solve all problems. Solar will be a major, maybe the major, energy source in the future. The big issue now is net energy metering where all the non-solar customers pay for the solar customers installation.

      Passive solar is not the only renewable solar. If one lives in areas where there are high heating loads, a thermal solar system with radiant floors and solar water heating makes more sense than passive solar.

  7. ohmyheck

    I didn’t see this one in the links about Ebola, so I c&p’d it here. From The Onion:

    This week saw the first confirmed case of Ebola virus within the United States, the latest development in an outbreak that has already claimed over 3,000 lives. Here are some ways you can protect yourself against this deadly disease:

    Boil all bodily fluids before consumption.
    Regularly examine your DNA under an electron microscope for any indication that Ebola has attached itself to your cell membranes.
    Recognize the symptoms of Ebola, which include fever, chills, and developing symptoms too late to do anything about them.
    Cover the nose and mouth of Ebola patients when they sneeze to avoid spreading germs.
    Avoid eating bat soup, which is actually pretty sound advice whether there’s an ongoing Ebola outbreak or not.
    Ebola can only be spread once patients are symptomatic, so if you believe you’ve been exposed, get all your errands and public trips out of the way before your symptoms start showing.
    Be sure to stay up to date on developments by signing up for the official CDC phone tree.
    Try being born one of the 15 percent of rural Gabonese citizens with natural immunity to the virus.
    Give billions of dollars to pharmaceutical companies.
    If you see a suspicious-looking filamentous virus particle roughly one micron in length, stay away.
    Continue following lifelong plan of avoiding Dallas, TX at all costs.

    :-)

      1. ohmyheck

        As soon as I pressed “post’, I knew it had probably already been covered here.

        No worries! It’s for those who may have missed it yesterday.

        Viral, indeed….

    1. Iowa 786

      Thanks for the Onion story. Sound advice. My wife has been freaking out about the Ebola in Dallas. I sent her the link to the story. Also cc’d my son and daughter-in-law, who live in the Dallas area. I hope they can find some useful things here, especially the last point.

  8. jfleni

    RE: Cancer-Detecting Yogurt Could Replace Colonoscopies

    Eating Yogurt is better than a Colonoscopy, but not by much!

  9. jfleni

    RE: The Unpatchable Malware That Infects USBs Is Now on the Loose

    Every PC has original PS2 connections for mouse and keyboard. Use them not USB; much safer.

  10. Ahem

    Re the Guardian, It’s amazing how doggedly the authorized media hammer home the axiom, NO ONE HAS ANY ALTERNATIVE. This is the official fallback posture: acknowledge failure but wring your hands in hammy despair. No one knows what to do.

    Bullshit.

    In fact the world, or 80 per cent of it, has over the last 70 years constructed a coherent, consistent, and complete alternative, institutionalized it, and written it into law. This little corner of the world, the Western Bloc, has frantically suppressed it, not just in domestic public awareness, but bureaucratically. The unforgiveable transgression of Chavismo was working to that program.

    This up-and-running alternative includes the CESCR as binding conventional law, UNCTAD, the ILO, and ECOSOC as institutional support for implementation, and regional (really, global) cooperation for multilateral compliance in the G-77. The ideology is laid out clear as can be in UNGA Res. 39/11 and 41/128 and the Vienna Declaration and Program of Action. Never heard of it, Right? Or it’s somewhere in your mental attic filed next to hammers and sickles and Saddam Hussain’s face? Propaganda works. Out of earshot of the subject population the Clinton Administration called it a dangerous incitement. And for them, it is.

    1. jrs

      Actually if noone knows about it that doesn’t prove propaganda works so much as lack of information works.

  11. MyLessThanPrimeBeef

    Market crash, the dental indicator.

    Can we confirm that with the veterinarian indicator?

  12. witness

    Yves, maybe videos of the force-feeding of living creatures designated as *foie gras* factories should be shown simultaneously. There’s a certain *elite* mind-set behind both practices for *exceptional* profit and satisfaction of *exceptional* appetites.

  13. MyLessThanPrimeBeef

    Money on slavery.

    Slavery – violence (physical violence gruesomely visible; we don’t talk enough about emotional and spiritual violence)

    Money – non-violence…at least not physically violence itself or the display of it (the ways to get money are frequently violent).

    Thus, the rich is very comfortable with non-violence…if not smiling and congenial when they want to flaunt it.

    Both violence and non-violence can be fateful.

  14. optimader

    RE: Exclusive: U.S. nears solution for safe disposal of Ebola waste Reuters (EM)

    “CDC spokesman Tom Skinner said the waste management problem has not been resolved …Duchin said he has heard that the discussion “has been elevated at the fed to decision makers who can solve the problem.”

    Absurd
    I guess throwing it in the nearest river or feeding it to wild dogs didn’t make the cut?…Burn it in the parking lot..

    1. afisher

      Look for a solution via GSK – who just dumped 45 liters of live polio virus in Belgian river….or not. It is popular on the CT sites.

      Ebola and Bleach=death!

      Finding safe biohazard autoclaves must be tough in Dallas. One has to wonder why they don’t irradiate it to death.

  15. barrisj

    In re: my comment the other day about Africom personnel getting infected w/ Ebola virus and tracking it back to base or to the States, here is over-the-top Larry Johnson echoing the same theme:

    Obama’s Ebola Disaster
    Well, Obama has opened a new front on incompetence. We will soon have almost 4000 troops from Africom in West Africa. This is a damn fool decision by Obama. The Army is not a social work outfit. They are not development specialists. They are not a medical expeditionary force. It is a military force designed to fight. They are supposed to be a killing machine. But not in Obama’s fantasy world.
    The Walter Reed Medical Center in Bethesda, Maryland has been ordered to prepare to receive soldiers with Ebola. The odds are high that the soldiers of Africom will contract Ebola. When, not if, but when that happens, the combat effectiveness of Africom will be degraded.

    […]
    http://www.noquarterusa.net/blog/77546/obamas-ebola-disaster/#more-77546

    “…the combat effectiveness of Africom will be degraded…”. As I speculated, if it’s Nature v. Empire, perhaps Nature will indeed prevail. The “killing machine” stopped in its tracks by a virus…reminds me of George Pal’s “War of the Worlds”, where Martian “killing machines” were brought down by Earth’s endogenous viruses and bacteria…ah, life imitating art, yet again.

    1. MyLessThanPrimeBeef

      I doubt we have 10 ‘bio-warfare’ specialist soldiers, much less 4,000, in Africom.

      In any case, bio-warfare soldiers are for conducting bio-warfare on human enemies, with collateral damage to mammals and larger animals and plants, not for machine-gunning viruses.

      1. barrisj

        Well, I have no idea what the “bio-warfare” comment came from, but here is a link on current staffing of Africom, and it’s approaching 5000, and that’s what is reported…

        What 3,000 American Troops Will Be Doing To Fight Ebola In Africa
        […]
        “When asked about the size of the deployment, Lesley Anne Warner, an analyst of Africa’s political-military landscape, told ThinkProgress that “it is surprising on one hand because AFRICOM has limited assigned forces from which to draw.” In total, nearly two-thirds of AFRICOM’s 4,800 assigned personnel will be deployed to the region. “On the other hand, this deployment comes on the heels of a personal appeal made last week by President Ellen Johnson Sirleaf for U.S. military assistance,” Warner added, “a request that arguably carries greater weight coming from Liberia due to its historical ties to the United States.”

        http://thinkprogress.org/world/2014/09/16/3567892/what-3000-american-troops-will-be-doing-to-fight-ebola/

        1. MyLessThanPrimeBeef

          You’re right that soldiers are a not medical expeditionary force trained to combat viruses.

          One might stretch it to say that they are somehow equipped to do so, if they are ‘bio-warfare’ specialists. I was trying to say that hat would be stretching it, trying to anticipate more justifications.

    2. optimader

      You may not care for the philosophical framing, “..The Army is not a social work outfit. They are not development specialists. They are not a medical expeditionary force. It is a military force designed to fight. They are supposed to be a killing machine.”…. but that does not matter. the writer is correct.
      Working an epidemic, take your choice in Africa or anywhere IS NOT not be the role of the US military. Full stop. It’s stupid and naïve.

      The more “and um” amorphous the scope of responsibility creep assigned to the US Military, the more justifiable it size and budget. The role of the US Military should be strictly defense related, period.

      Working Ebola in Africa or anywhere ex-USA should be strictly the work of appropriate NGOs. Figure out how to fund them appropriately.

        1. abynormal

          “According to a recent statement issued by the Nobel Peace Prize winner, President Ellen Johnson, the American Oil company, Exxon Mobil will own a whooping 80% of the oil shares discovered in Liberia, while their Canadian neighbours, the Canadian Oversea Petroleum Limited (COPL), will own 20%. Therefore many are wondering: where does this place the people of Liberia? What percentage share does the government of Liberia have in this oil deal? The African people would want to know.”
          *****
          Is Liberia well-prepared to deal with corruption in the oil and gas sector? Is the government prepared to face the angry youth who are likely to take up arms as we see in Nigeria? In Nigeria, many agitated so-called rebel groups rose up and took arms to fight what they call “corruption in the oil and gas sector”, a situation which has currently gotten out of control. Will Liberia learn some lessons from Nigeria or as usual, the leadership will wait unprepared, for the problems to come up before they run back to their NATO saviours for solutions?

          Although President Ellen Johnson has not said what would happen to the Liberian share, the President and CEO of the National Oil Company of Liberia (NOCAL), Dr. Randolph McClain, explained that the negotiating team of the Liberian government secured a 5% citizens participation share in LB-13 and a further 5% royalty on oil produced from wells drilled under water depths of 0–1500 meters.

          Angered by the shocking news, Okechuku, a PhD student at Oxford University wondered:

          “When Liberia was in crisis, did the US and Canada send any help? I’m shocked at how a country’s wealth is being giving away for peanuts. Is this the reason why the president was awarded the Nobel Prize some months ago? Ellen Johnson has always been the World Bank’s darling girl anyway. You don’t get a Nobel Peace Award without signing such deals.” http://www.modernghana.com/news/453880/1/oil-in-liberia-how-could-liberians-settle-for-only.html

          now they have reason & need to revolt

          1. optimader

            This is a standard oil industry deal
            The developers take 100% of the risk and cover 100% of the cost to explore and develop the infrastructure. (The bogyman), XOMs interest, which they purchased, is in one Block (LB13), and they do the heavy lifting for Liberia to start developing this resource. Not a bad deal for Liberia, it’s in the Liberian government court to be equitable.
            http://www.epmag.com/Exploration-Land/Liberia-Enters-Landmark-Oil-Deal-ExxonMobil_114805

        2. optimader

          I doubt that this Ebola outbreak really has much in the way of critical implication one way or the other w/ the ongoing functioning of US military missions in Liberia. Involvement of USMil is more likely rooted in a hairbrained POTUSAdmin initiative that seemed like a good idea in a consensus meeting.

  16. fresno dan

    http://www.nytimes.com/2014/10/04/opinion/sunday/our-misplaced-faith-in-free-trade.html?partner=rss&emc=rss&_r=0

    The skeptics are on to something. Free trade creates winners and losers — and American workers have been among the losers. Free trade has been a major (but not the only) factor behind the erosion in wages and job security among American workers. It has created tremendous prosperity — but mostly for those at the top.

    Little wonder, then, that Americans, in another Pew survey, last winter, ranked protecting jobs as the second-most-important goal for foreign policy, barely below protecting us from terrorism.
    ====================================================================
    Many economists dismiss these attitudes as the griping of people on the losing end of globalization, but they would do better to look inward, at the flaws in their models and theories.
    ………………………………………………………………
    But the consensus was flawed. Even free-trade advocates now admit that American wages have been reduced as a result of outsourcing, the erosion of manufacturing and an ever-increasing reliance on imports. Middle-income countries, meanwhile, have been blocked from adopting policies that might make them world-class competitors. Nations that have ignored the nostrums of the Washington Consensus — China, India and Brazil — have grown rapidly and raised their standards of living. Improvements in poverty and inequality occurred in Latin America only in the 2000s, after the I.M.F. and the World Bank reduced their grip on those nations.
    ======================================================
    I remember the NAFTA debate – crazy Ross Perot, there would be winners and losers – but HEY, so much more GDP!!! GDP, GDP, GDP!!!!
    If only I had known, 99.9% would be losers…..and by sheer coincidence, all the winners would be the very, very wealthiest. Whocudhaveknowed?????

    1. MyLessThanPrimeBeef

      Many economists….

      I think we do better with robot economists than human economists.

      Somehow, I sense we are not evolutionary-wise equipped to handle that sort of soul-less work, and will likely butcher any homework assignment in economics.

  17. MyLessThanPrimeBeef

    Will China crush the Hong Kong protests?

    And what will America do then?

    Economic sanctions, at the least?

    “I am sorry, we are not allowing in more subsidized solar panels?”

    Freezing all princeling’s mansions?

    1. ambrit

      Dear MLTPB;
      What did we do when the PRC sent in the Mongolian Divisions and gunned the Tiananmen Square demonstrators down? For that matter, what did we do when the president of Mexico sent the paramilitary killers in to “break up” the Tlatelolco Square protestors 46 years ago on Oct 2 1968? The consensus is that “hundreds” were killed. In the ultimate “what the,” what did America do when the DHS coordinated military style “dismantlings” of seventeen Occupy sites across the United States?
      As for China, if it decides to do what it wants to do with its own internal politics, why, we can slap a 20% tariff on all Wal Mart products. Then the 99% can pay for the lost “profits.”

  18. barrisj

    Some noises being made on behalf of Jenny Durkan , recently resigned US Attorney for the Western Washington District, for Eric Holder’s replacement, and who has compiled an excellent record locally, including coming down hard on the truly awful Seattle PD, and also serving as a DOJ advisor on cybercrime. However, her office had spent loads of time and effort examining the shocking conduct of WaMu and its chief officers before and during the 2008-9 financial meltdown, but (inevitably) her investigation ended without criminal charges, as “the evidence failed to meet the bar for prosecution”…sound familiar?

    US attorney exits amid Holder replacement rumors

    Jenny Durkan’s office put away a lot of criminals — terrorists, cartel operatives, killers — during her five-year tenure as Seattle’s top federal prosecutor

    http://seattletimes.com/html/nationworld/2024698333_apxseattleusattorney.html.

  19. Howard Beale IV

    Even if Kessler succeeds in getting the force feedings released to the media, do you honestly think the insanely compromised state media (Comcast, Disney, National Amusements, News Corp, Time Warner) would even dare to show such an atrocity?

    1. hunkerdown

      Or, that the insanely compromised online state media (YouTube, HuffPo, Reddit) would, based on precedent, let it stand for long if it somehow did slip into production?

  20. Tom Skowronski

    Please tell me that “Mish Shedlock” is not respected contributor to this site! Just read some of his older stuff. His cure for what ails America is to abolish unions. They are the problem for everything that is wrong. He is nothing but a Ron Paul hack that belongs on an island with all the gold he and Paul can carry. What a hack!

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