Here are the INET Finance & Society speech transcripts from Janet Yellen and Christine Lagarde. The entire day’s events here. And Yellen made news there, with her “irrational exuberance”-like comments on stock valuations. I’m sure Yves will have plenty to say about it.
Your Winter Vegetables: Brought to You by California’s Very Last Drops of Water Mother Jones
The promise of work in the fields in California has dried up Pacific Standard
Tesla’s New Battery Doesn’t Work That Well With Solar Bloomberg
Oil Train Derailment Prompts Evacuation in North Dakota Town ABC News
Trade Treachery:
Barack Obama works to mobilize Black Caucus on trade pact Politico
Trade with Asia Isn’t About Jobs Politico Magazine
WH takes on Reid over trade The Hill
McConnell Puts Trade Bill on Senate Agenda WSJ
Democratic candidates slam Obama trade agenda The Hill. Basically every single Democratic Senate candidate is against it. They’re closest to needing the people’s votes.
In Iowa, Huckabee Defends Social Security and Attacks Fast Track for Trade Bloomberg Politics
Clinton Campaign Chairman On Trade Deal: ‘Can You Make It Go Away?’ Huffington Post
On Five-Year Anniversary Of ‘Flash Crash,’ Zero Progress On Curbing High-Frequency Trading Abuses Think Progress
Futures Watchdog Can’t Afford Routine Inspections, Massad Says Bloomberg
Former FDIC Chair Sheila Bair Named 28th President of Washington College Press Release
Dodd-Frank Rules Could Shave $895 Billion Off Economic Growth Over a Decade, Think Tank Says – Real Time Economics WSJ. Regardless of what you think of Dodd-Frank, this is one of the most hackish things I’ve seen in quite a while. Doug Holtz-Eakin, who used to consider himself a moderate, pulls a number out of his posterior that even he knows is fake. “Clearly, such a computation is subject to large uncertainties,” he says. “It doesn’t change the growth rate dramatically—it’s not even a percentage point,” he adds. “Everyone should take this all with a grain of salt… I have no belief that I’ve nailed it.” And then WSJ runs it anyway with a big headline including the number that Holtz-Eakin spends the entire article disavowing. Shorter version: “This is a meaningless number, but it is big, and therefore important.” What clowns.
2016 Watch:
Clinton Embraces ‘Super PAC’ in Bid to Erode G.O.P. Edge NYTimes
Jeb Bush Administration Invested Florida Pension Money In Porn Purveyor IBTimes
Bernie Sanders’s Presidential Bid Represents a Long Tradition of American Socialism The American Prospect
Mayor Bill de Blasio’s Crusade Rolling Stone. A “contract with America from the left”? What’s his angle?
Andrew M. Cuomo: Fast-Food Workers Deserve a Raise NYTimes. The power of the Fight for 15 movement strikes again. This is pretty incredible.
Chicago to Pay $5.5 Million in Reparations for Police Torture Victims Rolling Stone
Chelsea Manning: US security policies need ‘healthy dose of sunlight’ The Hill
Israel’s Benjamin Netanyahu agrees coalition deal BBC News
Alberta Loses Its Goddamn Mind for the Fourth Time: A Guide for the Perplexed VICE
What Alberta’s shocking election results could mean for the oil sands Brad Plumer, Vox
Handelsblatt poll says the majority of Germany’s business executives now want Grexit Business Insider
Black Lives Matter:
‘Our Demand Is Simple: Stop Killing Us’ – NYTMag
Los Angeles police chief disturbed after his cops kill an unarmed transient on Venice Beach Raw Story. This happened less than a mile from my house last night, in an area I frequent.
LAPD Chief Beck: No ‘Extraordinary Circumstances’ to Justify Venice Fatal Police Shooting KTLA
DEA to traveler: Thanks, I’ll take that cash Albuquerque Journal News
Aide to Kamala Harris, 2 others accused of running rogue police force – LA Times. “Aide” to Harris means in this case community affairs liaison, AKA “the guy who takes pictures of the Attorney General at events when she comes to town.” Not exactly a top counselor.
How Growing Up Poor Changes Politicians WaPo. Featuring friend of the blog Brad Miller.
Dead Comedy Greats Will Perform Again — in Hologram Form NYTimes
Antidote du Jour:
See yesterday’s Links and Antidote du Jour here.
69 comments
Comments are closed.
with neighbours like this…
http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/toronto/lake-huron-nuclear-waste-plan-passes-environmental-assessment-1.3064356
It’s too bad that Cuomo’s
con jobconversion on the minimum wage comes after he made sure that the GOP maintained control of the state senate in last November’s election.All the world’s a stage, and all the men and women merely players
Maybe this:
In that case, we might as well imagine or dream we da people, together, are the leading Oscar-winning actors in charge.
“Behold the newborn baby fiat money. It comes for everyone.”
Burn the script.
On policemen … I have never wanted a confrontation with anyone, including any policemen. And I know that they are just as human as the rest of us. But the real reason for all the killings … isn’t about the person being killed, but as a “warning to the others” that … unless you accept your slavery (everyone, not just African-Americans) … we know where you live. A no-knock raid on the “wrong house” by police out of uniform and well armed … is about as intimidating as it gets. But there is good news … there is finally a push-back against civil seizures that are little better than Third World corruption.
http://www.wikihow.com/Avoid-Getting-Shot-by-a-Police-Officer
…or drop to all fours, chomp grass/mud an moo for full effect
(but do it slowly…keep inline with the officers delusion)
Sometimes the warnings are a bit more subtle than murder, yet still disturbing: A few years ago, I was browsing in a book store in front of a shelf and one or two cops come up to within a few feet of me along side of me and start browsing a book as well. A few minutes later in another part of the store, I’m still doing some browsing and I believe the same cop (I believe just one cop), comes along side of me and starts browsing a book. I didn’t, and normally don’t, look like a street dude or a guy w/ a record—black raincoat, granny glasses, and shoes. Maybe he was looking to identify a suspect, or just being an a**hole, who knows.
Another time, a longer time ago, I came out of a supermarket, and a cop car was parked along side of my car. I don’t drive a rapper car—it was a early 90’s Honda hatchback model. Anyway, as soon as I got in my car with my groceries and drove out of the lot, the cop car followed directly behind for a few blocks, I made a turn on the block I live on, and the cop just kept going straight after that.
Wasn’t confronted or questioned in either circumstance, but as I said, the long arm of the state can make its “warnings” felt in such a way to make your life or at least moments of life miserable.
… and sometimes they’re over the top!
Here on the “American Riviera” we have cruise ships that make port calls (they actually anchor off-shore and shuttle “guests” into port). We also have a weekly locals regatta with sailboats large (9 meter AC racing sloops) and small (40′) sail boats competing on a nautical course that takes them very close to these occasional cruise ships. This past week the Coast Guard showed up and pointed machine guns at these citizen sailors warning them to stay 500 meters (quarter mile) from this “soft target” ship.
These wealthy sailors and their well-to-do crews were not amused with the gunsmanship, since the “clear zone” change was unannounced (even the local CG Commandant was not informed). Unlike in Baltimore or Ferguson, there were repercussions. The local CG Commandant has been lectured and ridiculed and the cruise ships now anchor a quarter mile farther out to sea (making the guest port call logistics more difficult). Equal justice, of course.
for those that are interested
UK Election 2015: a guide to results night
http://www.theguardian.com/politics/2015/may/07/election-2015-a-guide-to-results-night
If you’re sick of economics and politics yada yada and you wanna to see the space alien who crashed a flying saucer at Roswell, New Mexico in 1947 you can click here . . .
http://www.coasttocoastam.com/pages/slide-image-roswell-alien-body
It looks like a dried pickle. Sheezus H. Kreyest
Man has gone out to explore other worlds and other civilizations without having explored his own labyrinth of dark passages and secret chambers, and without finding what lies behind doorways that he himself has sealed.
Stanisław Lem, Solaris
‘ )
A lot easier to explore new worlds than delve into the labyrinth of the human psyche.
A lot easier to externalize one’s costs than internalize, to be sure.
Obviously just a mummified human corpse on display in a museum somewhere.
That’s what you look like after reading too many macroeconomic articles on the internet.
Or at least, that’s what I look like.
Beam me up Scotty before I hurt myself forever!
Space aliens don’t travel alone. When you see one, there are hundreds more lurking.
A few survived that crash.
This might explain our world history after 1947.
From that “Roswell thing” page, this was the embedded advert: “Boeing Apache Guardian: See how unmanned aircraft control keeps soldiers safe,” https://www.youtube.com/user/Boeing?v=N73-6xVSUrA One’s reaction to that pitch ought to be a good measure of how blind to the idiocies of Empire and Forever War one is…
That’s an Antidote???
Looks like the naked jaws of capitalism to me.
It looks like a fake monster mouth somebody bought at a low-class novelty store then stuffed it into the cute little dog’s jaws as a gag. I bet you could pet that little critter and he’d chase a ball and bring it back to you. He’ll need therapy after this stunt.
Spotted hyena, I think.
There’s some guy in South Africa who’s worked for years to incorporate himself into a clan, with some success. Also with a few trips to the hospital.
maybe that’s him . . . in the photo!
…but you can only see a tiny piece of him…
http://www.theglobeandmail.com/globe-debate/editorials/bill-c-51-soon-to-be-law-and-as-murky-as-ever/article24267240/ Passed in Parliament yesterday. Justin Trudeau Liberal leader got flamed on FB, Liberals likely to lose at least a few more percentage points of the populace because of this single act. Hopefully most going towards the NDP.
Hot Drugs Show Sharp Price Hikes in Shadow Market
On May 30 last year, the price for a vial of the blockbuster diabetes medication Lantus went up by 16.1 percent. On the next day, Lantus’s direct competitor, Levemir, also registered a price increase — of 16.1 percent.
The pattern repeated itself six months later when Lantus, from French drugmaker Sanofi, was marked up 11.9 percent, and Levemir, made by Novo Nordisk A/S, matched again exactly.
In 13 instances since 2009, prices of Lantus and Levemir — which dominate the global market for long-acting injectable insulin with $11 billion in combined sales — have gone up in tandem in the U.S., according to SSR Health, a market researcher in Montclair, New Jersey.
Contrary to the consumer’s ideal in which bare-knuckled rivals cut prices to grab market share, competitors in branded pharmaceuticals often drive each other’s prices higher. This behavior, known as “shadow pricing,” is one reason U.S. drug costs are surging. Prescription spending rose 13 percent last year to $374 billion, according to IMS Health Holdings Inc.
Sanofi sets the price of its drugs independently, according to a company statement. Novo Nordisk, based in Bagsvaerd, Denmark, said greater insulin demand is helping to drive price increases.
Within the last two years, Eli Lilly & Co.’s Humalog, a shorter-acting diabetes treatment, and Novo Nordisk’s Novolog have matched three of each other’s price increases, according to data compiled by Bloomberg. Eli Lilly, based in Indianapolis, declined to comment on its pricing moves.
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2015-05-06/diabetes-drugs-compete-with-prices-that-rise-in-lockstep
I’ve come to the conclusion that *all* medical research must by law be publicly funded, and further that any medicines or therapies developed must be free of any patent protections and free to be produced as generics. Anything less will inevitably result in the for-profit pharma holding people’s lives and health ransom to maximize profits. There is no way to fix the system in place, no way to “reform” it; the perverse incentives are so baked into the private research model that they cannot be addressed within it. Where private enterprise could perhaps be helpful is competition among regulated and certified private labs to produce the generic formulations developed by public research.
Frosty Zoom – take your snark and stick it where the sun don’t shine. As a Canadian, IMHO our greatest national tragedy is that we are stuck with the USA as “neighbors”.
I suppose you think it’s a good idea to keep storing the nuclear waste in above ground storage tanks where it is now, instead of putting it deep underground. Typical greentarded “logic” there. I’d tell you what I really think of you, but in the interests of semi-politeness I’ll hold off.
Your comment is completely out of line and you are rapid accumulating troll points. Lake Huron is a joint resource, there is considerable opposition in Canada, so the “neighbors” issue is apt.
For-profit medicine, what could possibly go wrong?
http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2015/05/11/overkill-atul-gawande
There’s no way to reform private health care or to make it efficient, the incentives are irredeemably perverted. The magic of markets strikes again.
I had to do a cute puppy search for an antidote to the antidote.
That’s a magnificent set of dentures.
A reminder to floss every day.
All animals are born free and equal in cuteness. Furthermore, no distinction shall be made on the basis of pettability, adorability or cuddliness.
Police shooting unarmed transient (again)…this time, Venice Beach.
Time for police gun control?
Patrol officers should not be allowed to routinely patrol with a sidearm. If a situation arises where potentially lethal force becomes necessary, have a separate SWAT-like team respond or at least make the officers have to return to their patrol cars and unlock a long arm, doing so which triggers an investigative review.
Public school teachers manage to deal with similar demographics as patrol officers unarmed on a daily basis. Having a sidearm is just too often a crutch for poor and abusive policing practices. Actually I’d love to see it be mandatory for prospective police to have to teach for a year in public schools in the neighborhoods they will be assigned to patrol, just to prove they possess the talents and character necessary to deal with the public without that sidearm crutch in place.
Properly administered it might weed out latently aggressive loosers that objectify having a gun as a symbol of dominance and authority while reinforcing those LEOs that are more motivated by community service and interaction.
As I keep saying: Take away their guns, take away their cars, and make them walk the beat.
Or ride a bike….but no firearms.
Futures watchdog can’t afford routine inspections.
But plenty of money for civic seizure/civil forfeiture inspections.
“We have enough money…just not spent wisely/distributed fairly.”
Tomgram: Nomi Prins, Hillary, Bill, and the Big Six Banks
In the coming months, whatever hours Clinton spends introducing herself to voters in small-town America, she will spend hundreds more raising money in four-star hotels and multimillion-dollar homes in Hollywood and San Francisco, New York and Boston, Washington and Miami. She will court wealthy liberals across the land and urge them to collectively give tens of millions of dollars to her campaign. The question underlying this inevitable mad dash for cash isn’t “Can Hillary Clinton raise the funds?” The Clintons are practiced buckrakers.
The question is: “Can Clinton claim to stand for ‘everyday Americans,’ while hauling in huge sums of cash from the very wealthiest of us?”
This much cannot be disputed: Clinton’s connections to the financiers and bankers of this country — and this country’s campaigns — run deep, as Nomi Prins, former Wall Street exec and author of All the Presidents’ Bankers: The Hidden Alliances that Drive American Power (just out in paperback), writes in today’s dispatch. As she documents in her book, the Clintons have longstanding ties to the mightiest banks on Wall Street. Those alliances will prove vital as Hillary tries to keep up in the “money primary” of the 2016 campaign. But as she tries to appeal to working and middle class people, you can expect her opponents to use Clinton’s Wall Street connections against her. And it’s reasonable to ask: Who counts more to such a candidate, the person you met over that chicken burrito bowl or the Citigroup partner you met over crudités and caviar? Andy Kroll
The Clintons and Their Banker Friends
The Wall Street Connection (1992 to 2016)
By Nomi Prins
http://www.tomdispatch.com/blog/175993/tomgram%3A_nomi_prins,_hillary,_bill,_and_the_big_six_banks/
The antidote du jour, while not warm and fuzzy by conventional standards, is still less terrifying than the two ferocious custodians of the tip jar!!
I found Chris Hedge’s recent piece to be a good antidote to the always-depressing spectacle of American political buckraking. We are indeed cursed to be living in interesting times:
http://www.truthdig.com/report/page3/make_the_rich_panic_20150503
I see not the slightest hint of such rot within the coercive organs of the state. We just passed yet another anniversary of Kent State. I would argue that the entire military apparatus is more gung ho and ready to shoot us than it was in 1970. Certainly the National Guard is much more an integrated organ of the Federal Government than it was in those days, and has been better indoctrinated to national (rather than local) priorities. The racial divide here will keep the cops on the side of the elite well past the point where you would expect them to defect. I completely sympathize with you Ulysses, but I have to fall back on the evidence, not my desires. If the next OWS got uppity and started to swell, the NYPD et al. would not flinch in following orders to gun the “troublemakers” down.
+1,
State Oppression by Raw Power
They keep filing us, they keep on suffocating us
They are shooting, torturing, they’re killing us
State Oppression!
Repression is already in every corner
The b**t**s, the mother*****s, are everywhere
State Oppression!!
– Written in the early 80’s, many of the punks knew the real deal
1970 was a moment where “law-abiding,” middle-class white folks could much more easily delude themselves into thinking the system was at least potentially fair to them. I don’t think we are that far away from a time where the rank-and file of the coercive organs will be asked to deal harshly with friends and relations who are former steelworkers, teamsters, machinists, etc., who might well have voted for Nixon had they been old enough, back in the day. The culture wars will work to keep us in the 99% divided, until they don’t.
The term “rednecks,” don’t forget. originally referred to red bandana wearing labor activists, in coal country, who fought and died bravely against Pinkertons. police, and military sent against them by the plutocrats of the gilded age.
http://www.jstor.org/discover/10.2307/25474784?uid=3739832&uid=2129&uid=2&uid=70&uid=4&uid=3739256&sid=21106744471003
All those countries he mentioned had an external omnipotent being, promising a ‘new and better*’ after (the current regime) life.
It showed the importance of faith…to believe in something.
Right now, the global leader in economic growth relies on cheap labor without regard to the environment. That’s a bleak vision.
* so claims the omnipotent one.
Oh I think they are really cute! They are kittens, albeit snow leopard kittens. And their teeth are not showing.
The teeth are not showing and this makes their hidden menace all the more intimidating. Imagination is always scarier than reality!
I should admit my daughter finds them “adorable”, so perhaps my reaction is overblown.
Ah, snow leopards. I figured they were leopards of some sort. Very cute.
.
I started reading the article on Brat– Deblasio, but I stopped reading at “thought leader.”
Institutionally, Deblasio’s angle is to lure progressive energy into a roach motel. That’s not unexpected, since that’s the Democratic Party’s social function. At least this time they’re doing it with policy proposals, as opposed to dime-store messianism and identity politics. Deblasio’s half- or quarter- or eighth-measures should be greeted with derision and cries of “that’s not enough!”, as they surely will not be, since their goals are institutional, not social.
Adding, wait for the riposte from Democratic loyalists and the Grand Bargain crowd — sorry for the redundancy — that “We can’t afford it!” Then it will be time for economists like Stiglitz to fish or cut bait.
I think you have read him exactly right.
Another “Liberal Lion” BS artist.
The NDP has an interesting history which includes having some very strong leaders. Tommy Douglas, as premier of Saskatchewan, introduced health care for all provincial residents (1961) and later the rest of Canada introduced universal health care for all Canadians. Douglas is called the Father of Medicare and in 2004 was chosen as the most important Canadian of all time ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Greatest_Canadian ).
When Mulcair became leader of the NDP, the word “socialist” was removed from descriptors of their policy. I believe that he is taking the party towards the centre in an effort to obtain more support.
See: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_Democratic_Party
Many people say that the provincial election of the NDP will not have any effect on the Federal election in October, but I sense that there are many Canadians who are really fed up with the policies of the Conservatives under Harper. Prentice, the PC who lost the election in Alberta, was a cohort of Harper’s and held many of the ideas of that leader. For the health of Canada’s environment, I hope that anyone except Harper gets elected in the next election.
Um, as a whole, you’re a right-wing nation just like the rest of the Anglosphere now. If you think “gaining support” means anything when it’ll go right back to the Tories as soon as the NDP dares disturb the Great Chain of Being… I’m not sure what that has to do with anything but horse racing.
Thought you might like to know, just got this e-mail from the ACLU : This is huge! Today in a landmark decision, a federal appeals court unanimously ruled that the NSA’s mass phone records program is unlawful.
When are we going to be able to press charges against Obama? Nixon had his time, a democrat should be next.
‘A small step back for Big (Brother, Omnipotent) Government, a giant leap for da People.’
Am I dreaming?
From the Albuquerque Journal News link:
Since its origin 100 years in the Harrison Act, the War on Drugs ALWAYS has been intended to bust the chops of minorities. You know, jazz musicians, Mexican migrants, smokin’ that loco weed.
How degenerate does the Drug War shakedown, and its comprehensive destruction of civil liberties, have to get before Americans say ‘no more’?
Right after the Boyd murder by police in Albuquerque and protest, I was sitting at my favorite pub patio with friends (most younger adults), some plain clothes officers (not announced or revealed) arrived and sat down with us. Casually they steered a discussion of guns, including offering to refer one young man to a source. It hit me later they were cops, other of my friends realized it then. The were also feeling out public sentiment on the Boyd case. Body builder physic, bulky coats, and shoes were the tells. That and pretending to drink a beer, or only water. Chilling, really.
Wow.
Adding, what did their shoes look like?
Sensible walking shoes, heavy soles, polished. Unusual in dusty, sunny, casual Albuquerque.
Coats, though cold out, bulky, one was odd patent leather look (hides gun). Much later story one was shot by DWI suspect, photo posted on news. I recognized him from that evening. Thankfully he recovered from his wounds.
http://visual.ly/how-spot-hidden-handgun
It is usually pretty obvious in a warm climate. In AZ, w/ perhaps the most wacky laws regarding unfettered handgun possession, presumably many non-LEOs concealed carry in bars and restaurants that don’t specifically post a weapons prohibited sign.
In any case, it’s a safe bet that any “undercover” LEO will concealed carry, no matter if there is a gun prohibition sign or not, therefore it would be reasonable life practice to just ask any a-hole stranger that elects to sit w/ you at table to discuss illicit activity whether or not he/she/it is an LEO. Better life practice would probably be to move without responding, particularly if you perceive a conceal handgun.
LE can carry into bar here in NM. CCL can’t illegal.
AZ is now some bizarre fantasy wild west state.
http://www.opencarry.org/?page_id=186
I have relatives there in the Sonoras who I would like to visit, but I am really not too enthusiastic about going there for this reason.
‘just ask any a-hole stranger that elects to sit w/ you at table to discuss illicit activity whether or not he/she/it is an LEO.’
‘No, I’m an Aquarius,’ they’ll tell you, without batting an eye.
Maybe better to inquire, ‘Is that a gun bulging in your jacket, or an electric dildo?’
What could possibly be wrong with this link?
http://studentaffairs.sdsu.edu/EOP/Content/Guardian%20Scholars.html
I’m gonna guess the Cesar Chavez quote at the end of a bourgie-recruitment effort..
Actually, the kids in this program I know have personal backstories that would, I’m guess’in wither most the commentariat here, including me.
“Dead Comedy Greats”- why can’t they hire young comedians to just recite the dead guys’ material? It’s a time-honored way to get started in the biz.
Moving to the center can be costly for left wing parties is interesting. I got the link from a tweet by Doug Henwood.
Treats parties as sales and marketing organizations, rather than power players. How brilliantly infantilizing. But otherwise, an issue that dearly needs some discussion. Just maybe not by a periodical whose owner stands to gain as much or more from Fast Track as the benighted Waltons, and maybe not during the run-up to the quadrennial cereminy in which we choose what storyline will give us the best hits of self-righteousness as we let ourselves be milked and shorn by the aristocracy.
Completely off any of today’s topics —
I sometimes wonder what really matters for the future given the seemingly unstoppable momentum of forces working to burn up what remains of our fossil fuels and otherwise work to assure a worst case climate change.
I visited realclimate.org after a long time away and spotted a mildly troubling post from a little over a month ago:
http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2015/03/a-hypothesis-about-the-cold-winter-in-eastern-north-america/#more-18284
30 March 2015
And the referenced and somewhat more readable post from a few days earlier.
http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2015/03/whats-going-on-in-the-north-atlantic/
23 March 2015
NOAA released the temperature analysis for the past winter which indicated it was globally the warmest winter since records began in 1880. However, this last winter in the Eastern US — more generally the subpolar North Atlantic region — was the coldest on record. A recent paper shows that the long predicted slowdown of North Atlantic Current, also called the Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation (AMOC) – what most people think of as “The Gulf Stream” — has definitely started.
The increased slowing of the AMOC won’t lead to “The Day After Tomorrow” effects portrayed in the recent disaster movie, but it is expected to result in an extra sea level rise in the North Atlantic region. One study used the anomalously cold spot in the North Atlantic as a proxy for calculating the rate of the AMOC circulation. However the influence of the AMOC slowing on weather seems unresolved. As an inhabitant of an Eastern State this paper leaves me wondering what to expect for future climate.
The observed AMOC slowing seems to suggest some forth coming changes to the predictions for future climates in the Eastern US. Or as one commenter to these posts suggested:
#11 Robert (to 30 March 2015 link): “In any case, I’m wondering if this pattern is the new normal. If so, should we in the Boston area expect another interesting winter next year?”
Given the difficulties climate scientists have making their case before the American public the limited discussion of post #5 by Chuck Larlham (to 30 March 2015 link) seems informative. I get a strong sense that climate scientists are tribal, a feeling I felt strongly projected from the response to a fairly innocuous though ill-informed (possibly stupid) comment I made a realclimate.org in the past. [I do like to think that however ignorant or lazy I may be at least I’m not stupid — a feeling I believe I share with a preponderance of the American public.]
The NY Times article about holographic performances of dead comedians reminded me of the news a few weeks ago about the first virtual protest in Madrid using holograms after civil protests were banned there:
http://www.cnn.com/2015/04/12/europe/spain-hologram-protest/