Update 7:50 AM. Comments were turned off on this post and I have no idea why or how. Apologies to early readers. Back to normal programming.
Yes, Cat Yoga Is A Thing Now, And It’s Pretty Purrfect NPR (David L). I like this because it will select against the people who go to yoga classes and are competitive, which is the antithesis of what yoga should be about. Admittedly, it’s better to focus on your practice, but next best is to be relaxed about the class and enjoy yourself (and not be self conscious if you aren’t terribly limber or are a novice), and the cats-as-distraction help.
How seaweed eating super cows will save the world Inhabitat (furzy)
Bookish fools aeon
Oil Production Could Have Caused Century-Old California Earthquakes Scientific American (Lulu)
What Silicon Valley Can Learn From Buddha’s Diet Wired (furzy). Um, like Theranos’ blood tests and self driving cars?
China?
Australia and Indonesia consider joint South China Sea patrols Financial Times
Asset Bubbles Threaten China’s Economy Wall Street Journal/blockquote>
Kuroda admits BoJ will not meet inflation target before term ends Financial Times. Quelle surprise!
Brexit
Huge Brexit margin calls stoke intra-day funding fears Risk (paywalled but free trial). Vlade:
From what I heard from others:
– large Treasuries move translated into large initial margin increases
– banks asked for (in some cases) billions with 60 minutes noticeIt all ended well – I think because CBs stood ready and had the liquidity ready. Now imagine that something similar happened unexpectedly…
Mark Carney writes his own departure script Politico
Request for an opinion concerning the appointment of former President Barroso at Goldman Sachs International. European Commission. Short version: he was cleared. Some animals are more equal than others, particularly ones connected with Goldman.
Pontius Pilate’s Opinion: The Ethical Committe’s Opinion on Barroso Alberto Alemanno
Scuffles in Paris as police move in to tear down makeshift migrant camps euronews
Study Finds Shark Fins & Meat Contain High Levels of Neurotoxins Linked to Alzheimer’s Disease University of Miami (guurst).
Syraqistan
This is What Will Happen to Mosul After ISIS is Evicted Counterpunch (resilc)
Big Brother is Watching You Watch
Standing Rock pipeline protest was absent from Facebook Trends TechCrunch (Dan K). Why your humble blogger has nothing to do with FaceBorg.
Why do we still accept that governments collect and snoop on our data? Guardian
Imperial Collapse Watch
The Doctrine of Armed Exceptionalism LobeLog (resilc)
How Putin Derailed the West Counterpunch. Resilc: “‘Why is Hillary Clinton so eager to intensify US involvement in Syria when US interventions in Afghanistan, Iraq and Libya have all gone so terribly wrong?’ The USG incentive system for DoD/CIA/State/USAID et al is more war and more interventions.”
Inside the Invisible Government: War, Propaganda, Clinton & Trump Strategic Culture Watch (Chuck L)
The fatal expense of American imperialism Boston Globe (furzy)
Trade Traitors
TPP Is Exciting. Let’s Make the Case for It. Bloomberg (resilc). Four alarm fires and bombings are exciting too, but not in a good way.
2016
Clinton camp blasts FBI ‘double standards’ BBC. This line of attack is unlikely to succeed. The FBI is consistently depicted as upstanding and competent in crime and CSI shows. The fact that the Obamamometer has basically thrown Clinton under the bus v. Comey says that he reads the public pulse more or less the same way.
FBI chief said to oppose US statement blaming Russia for hacks Financial Times. Lordie. Based on a single anonymous source, then amplified with glee by Robby Mook.
Spy told FBI that Russia wants to cultivate Trump: report The Hill (furzy). Mark Ames via e-mail:
What we learned even in the 90s—there are never, ever any standards for a journalist writing about Russia. Ever. The more bigoted and fantastical, the better. And when your hack crap is completely 100% debunked by other revelations, no editor will ever, ever discipline you. The only way you can have problems with Russia journalism is if you step away from the herd. No editor will ever forgive you for it.
And John Helmer debunked it more specifically by e-mail. Since his message was long, some key bits:
My wife is linked to Putin – she’s Russian. I’m linked to Putin – his friend Oleg Deripaska tried to kill me.
Fridman is busy exiting from Russia as fast as he can go – and may lose Vimpelcom Russia in consequence. The recent DoJ corruption penalty for Vimpelcom — $795M – indicates a reasonable lack of fondness on his part for the current US administration, but then Fridman has hired Richard Burt (Reagan-Bush) and Tom McLarty (Clinton) to “advise” – meaning lobby for him to get approvals from the Treasury, State and CIA for takeovers of fresh US assets, such as FreedomPop. And they are going through the Committee on Foreign Investment in the US, so the Trump “connection” can’t be as bad as the Clintonites make out.
Burt and McLarty are advisors to the LetterOne board, not directors on the Alfa Bank board. If Burt is considered a Trump man – e.g., , http://www.politico.com/story/2016/10/donald-trump-campaign-lobbyist-russian-pipeline-229264 — how to explain he was vintage Reagan and Bush? I remember Burt well – short, narcissistic (adolescent acne the cause), not very bright, would do anything to please, especially for money: http://www.politico.com/story/2016/10/donald-trump-campaign-lobbyist-russian-pipeline-229264 If Burt is such a Trumpie, and McLarty a Clintonite, what happens when they want to use the office toilet at the same time? And then John Negroponte arrives, hustled by Stu Eizenstat (ex Carter) – does ideology get in their way, or do their money interests encourage them to form an orderly line? Look at this list of McLarty’s associates: http://maglobal.com/about-us/our-team/john-negroponte/
And another desperate story at Slate, which I cringe at dignifying by linking to it: Was a Trump Server Communicating With Russia?I hate having to attack this garbage; recall Glenn Greenwald saying how he despised Trump yet excoriating the MSM going all in running any and every fact-challenged or badly stretched attack on Trump, when there is plenty of bona-fide dirt on him already. Outsourcing this again to Ames who has seen more of this than I have:
The super-secret server linkup is one of the most inane supermarket spy pulp fantasies I’ve seen. It’s cartoon-bad. Most conspiracy theorists work a lot harder on their inane inventions than this. It relies on total ignorance, on a cartoonish grasp of how linkups would work.
And Helmer again:
A computer channel to a bank that doesn’t do the one thing banks are meant to do – transfer money. In the forensics of sex crimes, is that one of those Jimmy Carter “adulteries in the mind”?
FT endorsement: For all her weaknesses, Clinton is the best hope Financial Times. Surprising amount of opposition in the comments section (as in lots) given reader demographics. And the US is now the FT’s biggest market.
Donald Trump Used Legally Dubious Method to Avoid Paying Taxes New York Times. Par for the course for the New York Times. Article hyperventilates about supposedly improper behavior by Trump, yet the basis for the case is that what he did was later made impermissible. I deducted interest I paid on my one little student loan in the early 1980s because prior to the 1986 Tax Reform Act, all consumer interest was tax deductible. By the standards of the Times’ fulminating, what I did then was similarly “legally dubious.” Help me.
On top of that, from what I infer from this piece, which is not at all clear on what Trump supposedly did (it tries to make his sin about failure to report, which sounds like a stretch; the IRS does have audit powers), it still appears that Lee Sheppard’s analysis of why what Trump did in 1995 was kosher then but not kosher later is the best account to date. And that was out a full month ago. Her article specifically discussed why the cancellation of debt income did not appear on his tax return at the time. I am putting the key part of her discussion (it was unpaywalled for weeks but now Tax Analysts has hidden it again) at the very end of this post so the geeky can see what a stretch the Times’ treatment is.
Trump Amps Up Criticism of Clinton Amid Probe Wall Street Journal
Trump Plan to ‘Build the Wall’ May Cost Him in Border States Bloomberg
Hillary Clinton’s presidency is inevitable. It’s also over. The Week (resilc)
Secretary Biden? Don’t Bet on It American Conservative (resilc). Nuland is coming! Assume the brace position!
Clinton’s Coalition: Hispanic Support Appears To Be Up, Black Turnout Down FiveThirtyEight
Clinton Campaign Chief John Podesta’s Interest In UFOs is Out of This World NBC (furzy). Nancy had her astrologer…
Mike Murphy: ‘We’re Going to Have a Civil War’ in the Party NBC. “Going to have”?
How Hillary Clinton’s State Department Sold Fracking to the World Mother Jones (furzy)
Culture War: The ‘Have Mores’ Mock DAPL Protectors for Halloween Waking Times (Judy B). This looks a lot more like Jay Gould in operation.
Black Injustice Tipping Point
When You’re a Protester, the Color of Your Skin Is All That Matters Esquire (furzy)
Fund industry assets fall for first time in five years Financial Times. No wonder top dogs at two of the biggest players, Blackrock and Blackstone, are gunning for a Treasury Secretary position and looking to have all US workers make direct mandatory payments to the fund management industry.
Class Warfare
Paid Leave and Daycare: Luxuries of the Wealthy New Economic Perspectives
Infrastructure: Can We Finally Think Big? American Prospect. Reslic is not optimistic.
West Virginia: OxyContin maker dashes efforts to address opioid epidemic WSWS
As promised further up, here is the key section of Lee Sheppard’s Tax Notes discussion of Trump’s tax losses. Contrast this analysis with the vague and hyperventilating NYT account a full month later. Looks like the Clintons have run out of new oppo and are mining existing material to see if they can wring more outrage from it. From Tax Notes:
Why doesn’t the COD [cancellation of debt] income appear on the state return? Most of the relief occurred in years before 1995. Here’s what we assume would have been his structure, because it was a common structure at the time.We assume that he entered the partnerships that owned the casinos using his own S corporation as partner. That S corporation probably was the general partner. An S corporation is a corporation under state law.
As general partner, that S corporation may have been allocated more losses in the form of interest expenses, operating expenses, and depreciation deductions than it could use against the three casinos’ insufficient income. Once the income was Doc 2016-19994 (3 pgs) exhausted, losses could be applied to reduce the owner’s basis in the S corporation, but it is likely that basis was small. Passthrough of losses is limited to the shareholder’s basis in S corporation shares (section 1363(d)).
When the debt was forgiven at the S corporation level, it would have produced a basis bump to Trump as sole shareholder so that unused losses could be used, even if the S corporation qualified for a COD income exclusion because it was insolvent or filed bankruptcy. It probably would have invoked one of those COD income exclusions (section 108(a)(1)(A), (B)). That basis bump would have enabled him to use the resulting loss overhang in perpetuity to offset his income. Essentially, the basis increase allowed the unused NOLs to flow through to the shareholder and avoided attribute reduction because the NOLs were no longer in the corporation.
Gee, shouldn’t there have been a suspension of related tax attributes? Not under the law at the time.The Supreme Court held in 2001 that the law literally permitted this apparent double dip result (Gitlitz v. Commissioner, 531 U.S. 206 (2001)). Congress reversed the decision in 2002, grandfathering basis bumps incurred before the date of enactment, so Trump would have been grandfathered (section 108(d)(7)). (Prior analysis: Tax Notes, Jan. 29, 2001, p. 577.)
What happened to the taxpayer in Gitlitz helps explain what probably happened to Trump. Gitlitz and another individual were shareholders in an S corporation that incurred $2 million of COD income in 1991. Because the S corporation was insolvent, it was allowed to exclude the COD income.The two shareholders increased their bases in their shares by the amount of the excluded COD income (section 1366(a)(1)(A)). They used the basis increase to offset income from prior years (section 1366(d)). That is, COD income that had been excluded was replicated in a basis increase.
The IRS argued that the COD income should reduce the S corporation’s basis in its assets — effectively confining it to the corporate level (reg. section 1.1366-1(a)(2)(viii)).
But the Court stuck with the literal wording of the law, which did not spell out that result at the time.The excluded COD income was not specifically removed from income items of an S corporation, so it would have caused a basis bump (section 1367(a)). The shareholders could use associated NOLs (section 1366(a)(1)(A)).
Antidote du jour (apologize for not crediting the reader who flagged finalists for the Wildlife comedy photos, will update if you pipe up in comments). This one is “Bighorn rams exhibiting attitudes during the rut, Gardiner, Mont., in December 2014.”
See yesterday’s Links and Antidote du Jour here.
245 comments
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Every Venezuelan a millionaire:
With 100-bolivar bills having a purchasing power of 10 US cents, it’s not even worth counterfeiting them any more.
uh, you quoted taylor swift.
anyhoo, i’ve noticed you seem to be somewhat fixated on the demise of bolivarian revolution.
but, have you asked yourself what life was like for the average deplorable before señor chavez?
venezuela’s current woes are collateral damage from mr. kerry’s oil price war on russia, not that washington is displeased with this.
would you rather be poor in cuba or haiti?
gloat all you want. but remember the u.s. economy is based on weapons, pork and money shuffling. how sturdy is that house of cards?
* http://www.worldbank.org/en/country/venezuela/overview
Thank you for restoring the cultural cred of this site
We should all be relieved… just like a burst of buds in the spring, Jim resuming complaining about Venezuela is a signal election season is almost over.
Sturdy enough, apparently, to keep Haygood and other “investors” who are fortunate enough to have some skill at finding alpha in the general bleeding-out-and-up. At least long enough to have a comfortable personal space. While yet he lives. Gotta give him credit for staying so consistently on message for his personal shibboleths, and for his other often trenchant contributions to the symtomatology most of us grimly engage in here.
What outcomes do “we” want from “our” political economy? And how in the heck do “we”, whoever “we” are, bring them about? I keep hoping for an inkling of what would be the flutter of the butterfly’s wing, someplace, that would set in train all the Rube Goldbergian pocketa-pocketa-pocketa collisions and maybe gentler interactions that would institute a Just and Fair and Decent Social Order… but then I recall how all the feedback mechanisms are in place to damp and tamp and plain old CRUSH any catalysis in that direction. (How “smart” we humans are: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/journal/09205861/)
You eat what you can kill.
The Reform will not be televised.
Venezuela’s currency mismanagement predated the oil price collapse, and has made it much worse.
A gov’t whose people have to weigh cash has failed, regardless of where it stands on the ideological spectrum.
Venezuela is the global poster child of economic mismanagement. Maybe the purpose of its sad existence is to serve as a cautionary tale for others.
Chavez gutted the professionals out of the PDVSA and politicized it and drove into the ground.That predates anything Kerry did.
Oil is a global commodity. Many straws into the drum.
“Chavez gutted the professionals out of the PDVSA and politicized it and drove into the ground.”
Or, seen another way, “Chavez successfully won back state control of the state-owned oil company against the traitorous mutiny staged by a privileged core of special interests comprised of the corrupt oil company management and their equally corrupt unions who saw no problem with trashing the country’s economy and plunging the population into poverty so they could achieve ‘regime change’ more to their liking.”
Who politicized first? If you look at the history of Chavez’s reign, he initially tried to move in a mildly reformist direction, but faced a huge reactionary backlash against every move he made (coup attempt and oil co strike). The only way he could save his own skin against a reactionary elite that was openly calling for his head on a pike was to organize and radicalize the poor. He didn’t “drag” the country to the left, he was backed into a corner by the hard right.
If you want to see what happens to ‘moderate’ lefty governments governments that DO NOT organize to defend themselves and try to partially sell out and strike a bargain with the corrupt right….have a look at Dilma Rouseff in Brazil. The hard right in Latin America takes no prisoners and sees the left as something to be stomped out of existence through the ballot box or failing that, through legal technicalities or outright military intervention, if needed.
+T’s “The hard right in Latin America takes no prisoners and sees the left as something to be stomped out of existence through the ballot box or failing that, through legal technicalities or outright military intervention, if needed.”
I have acquaintance with Venezuelans that left the country as well as US, Italian, Ecuadorian and other Central /South American professionals that supported “the industry” in-country as well as the local Citco refinery.
So yeah some external bad history to be laid at various doorsteps, but even the Venezuelans I have met, to the person they concede that their people have a long thread of perceived entitlement. Venezuela has economically operated as an resource extraction “monoculture’ with little or no diversification or reinvestment.
Unsustainable economic planning based on a resource extraction cyclical industry.
No a big John Kerry fan, but Venezuela’s problems are deeper than anything he could accomplish
I don’t think that even in the Middle East there are countries more utterly dependent on direct oil exports (even the Saudi’s have a big oil products industry). The divide between the upper classes and regular Venezuelans is enormous, they really don’t inhabit the same country. The utter refusal of the wealthy elite to share the wealth makes any attempt at diversification almost impossible.
The divide between the upper classes and regular Venezuelans is enormous, they really don’t inhabit the same country. The utter refusal of the wealthy elite to share the wealth makes any attempt at diversification almost impossible.
I have no doubt about that.. The connected (I understand conversationally, not first person) have a dynamic cost of living adjustment chained to inflation, the average person is screwed..
Worse, even, than the US Homeland? Because “we” don’t have to weigh our cash? Those of us who have any? On the way to cash being illegal for tender, chipped out of existence?
Mismanagement only if the elites aren’t doing well — the true functional measure — and it appears that both here and there (“here” being notionally bigger, having more inertia and such, and thus the pseudo-stability that comes from greater mass) said elites and their undertiers are doing just fine. In the realm where those convenient fictions, “national boundaries and sovereignty.”which they have figured out how to exploit to catalyze the looting, count for nothing to the operators…
Recognizing that it has always been thus, since some Fokker invented “civilization,” with sporadic temporary excursions and exceptions advantaging parts of the Lower Orders a momentary tad — “That’s just the way it is…” Too bad that “blowing it all up and trying to start over,” whether by heating up the biosphere or nuclear weapons “exchange” or some runaway phenom not yet in sight or “pitchforks and tumbrels” (Who has ANY of either any more?)…
And this “nuclear exchange,” why spend all that money and effort on missiles? Why not just do like that Star Trek episode and just have Death Chambers and a docile population happy to stroll on in, in umber determined by an algo in their version of the Forever War? Or just locate nukes “owned” by one military idiocy or another at the predetermined megadeath points on the “opponent’s” territory, controlled by yet another Infallible AI Algo, to be detonated on given conditions? What is the fixation (Freud? Are you listening?) on having to “deliver” warheads via pointy-headed rocket-science complex missiles? Maybe a privatized postal service, or FedUPS, could contract to manage the “delivery,” for cost plus 15%?
“A curious and stupid species this appears to have been,” said Gnorxq to Bpargt as their vessel established its standard orbit above the grey-brown orb. “Even the hydrogen dioxide seas appear to have been rendered toxic… Truly complete devastation, since the last visitation only 2 Fllimtags [2000 planetary years] ago.. Ah well, let us descend and silence that idiotic annoying beacon still transmitting on long wave what we translate to read ‘Fokking stupid humans’…”
Then there’s this, not Taylor Swift, quite, but still — https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=qJPQyfAVOmc. Sweet dreams, everyone…
Jim, I really think you should read more and write less. Your comments demonstrate a shocking lack of nuance–indicative of someone who consistently fails to do their research before speaking, quite loudly. I believe the 20th century term for this type of behavior was “boorish.”
Anyways–
1) Ever heard of Dutch disease? Or Carlos Andres Perez?
2) Glib oversimplifications always get things wrong.
Here’s something meaty– I have a strong feeling Jim will fail to read it.
https://newleftreview.org/II/99/julia-buxton-venezuela-after-chavez
I’ll defend Haygood here. He covers a lot of material and most of it is interesting and/or enjoyable.
I don’t like some of his politics, but he’s on solid ground to slam currency mismanagement. The relevant comparisons are with Bolivia and Ecuador who have both held up better than Venezuela. Really, it’s Maduro’s fault more than Chavez per my link above (a quick skim of your above link looks like it covers this area, I’ll check it out).
Lambert and I have been discussing that Haygood has been speaking up with too much frequency in comments. We don’t like anyone regularly dominating discussions.
Yves Smith,
J Haygood provides information to illustrate his points and coherent discussion based on them. He, and his approach, are outnumbered by posts that are of lessened worth (or none) because of finger-pointing, innuendo, gloating, and lack of content. I’ll take his approach any day.
To suggest that J Haygood may be dominating discussion on the site is to point out the lack of comparably valuable discussion here from other posters. Haygood isn’t the problem.
If everyone represented the same opinion this would be a boring place.
I enjoy that he offers his take on things wether I agree or not, Any lively debate deserves a devils advocate, Frankly many that dont agree w/JH offer superficial rebuttal. Skippy’s are fun to read.
i agree with this viewpoint. jh is often witty and offers a different viewpoint. even when he’s wrong his posts often provoke interesting discussions.
Jim can be witty and very funny, but on the subject of Venezuela its mostly {praxy} proxy preaching, seemingly ordained from ‘on high’ AND high on “the” Austrian golden order…red herrings that taint and distract from meaningful exchanges. Are you honestly suggesting that cherry-picked, cut and pasted “anecdotes” from bloomberg and taylor swift lyrics ” provide information” AND are conducive to “valuable discussion” about his obsession with “hyper-inflation”?
Are you and Jim aware that Venezuela has five(5) branches of government, one of which is empowered to ensure fair, honest and democratic elections?—An interesting and ” valuable discussion” might be how this power would counter any efforts of RIGGING elections.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Constitution_of_Venezuela#Five_branches_in_the_Venezuelan_government
Not anywhere near Hyper-Inflation.
http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2016-10-30/venezuela%E2%80%99s-inflation-%E2%80%93-zero-hedge-repeats-errors-printed-ad-nauseam-financial-press
Don’t be so quick to construe Venezuela’s current condition as something unavoidable, brought on only by unlucky outside circumstances. What’s happening in Venezuela is merely a small foretaste of what will be happening everywhere soon enough, due to environmental collapse and resourse depletion (which precipates financial distortions and then financial/societal collapse).
All these events have done is speed up the time table a bit for them. If they are lucky they’ll come out the other side much like the Cubans have, with small, local, and ecologically sustainable economy. Actually that is the best any of can hope for. A cross between a Mad Max and Fallout 4 world is what the future of the few of us left will be like if we fail in that.
…Can I get a big “AMEN!” from the congregation?
Well, this is a congregation, but we’re essentially skeptics first and only mildly ‘true believers’.
It’s all really a matter of smelling salts or smelling farts, selling salts or selling farts…..
ah, there’s the biscuit.
of whom? if you are saying “us”, then of course this is an awesome outcome.
if you are saying “them”, please consider that borders are invisible lines.
from your first paragraph i can assume you mean “us”. perhaps, however, while countries still exist, one would be wise to focus upon the affairs closer to home*, as in for example, how the american revolution is proceeding in its quest to bring bienestar to all.
gloating over financial mismanagement’s misery inducing wake upon distant lands might be inappropriate when your neighbours buy their groceries at dollartree.
of course the european exploitation of the america has a long and sordid historia, and that obviously any person can arise from the muck to become a muckety-muck, and hence, corrupt themselves to no end. i just felt like giving a shout out to mr. kerry.
*hahaha, i’m “canadian”.
I would add that the population of Venezuela is still growing, even though there is net emigration of 2 people per thousand. See the details at:
http://www.prb.org/Publications/DataSheets/2016/2016-world-population-data-sheet.aspx
Cuba’s population is stable, by the way.
Yup – very astute – note the two biggest causes of the economic chaos in Venezuela are the low oil prices and the failure of the rains to fill the country;s main hydro-electric reservoir. Add to the all manner of dirty tricks from the usual local authoritarians allied and aided by external actors actively fomenting unrest and chaos as in Syria.
Yup – America – bayonating the wounded all over the world.
A desperately needed comment.
Haygood’s an excellent commentator and strong contributor to the site, regardless of whether you like his views or not.
Ripping into Venezuela’s currency and forex mismanagement is fair game, you can point to Bolivia, Ecuador and Russia and even Iran as counterexamples of what they might have managed if they’d gotten rid of the screwy exchange rate system. All of those countries have faced oil/gas boom/bust cycles and/or some form of outside (read here: western) pressure in the form of some level of sanctions.
For those who are interested, I remember reading this article months ago, linked here at nakedcap, I believe. http://www.counterpunch.org/2016/05/25/does-venezuelas-crisis-prove-socialism-doesnt-work/
This seems like the fairest critique I’ve seen. Short version: Venezuela’s problems have little to do with ideology and LOTS to do with bad management. Even Mark Weisbrot has agreed. Sooner or later, they’ve got to: 1) unify the exchange rate (while still prudently using appropriate capital controls) to get rid of the professional arbitragers/speculators and 2) slash the fuel subsidies.
For what it’s worth, politically, it seems the situation has stabilized and I get the feeling the Chavistas will do much better at the next round of elections.
I really love this site! Thanks all for the links, and even to Jim for picking the fight!
might as well include paid for Warlords of Africa / Diamonds & Oil
maybe we just need to go back to 1491.
as to any anti-haygooding you may suspect me of, i only wished to point out that itoldyousoing is never helpful. i make no pretension of ever being correct.
Hi Jim,
I was in Angola in the late 1990s working for CARE at a time when the exchange rate was 250,000 “readjusted” kwanzaa to the dollar and the largest bill in circulation was 10,000, worth about 4 cents US. We too used backpacks to carry the money that dinner in a restaurant would require. They just piled it up! At the airport guards shook you down lest you deplete their nation of their precious currency…
I also happened to be in Peru in 1992 just after they knocked 6 zeros off their money. One day a millionaire, the next day one “nuevo sol”. This kind of runaway inflation will come home to roost if our petrodollar friends ever abandon us.
Microburst initiates rapid descent:
When even the Bezos Broadsheet [WaPo] fesses up … it’s OVAHHHHH.
After watching Hillary auger into terrain from 39,000 feet, the rest of our lives is gonna be a bit anticlimactic. :-(
I wouldn’t expect accurate reporting on Venezuela from Bloomberg. Venezuelanalysis.com and The Real News Network are better sources, if you want to go beyond US propaganda. Venezuela has problems and many are self-inflicted. A number of recent policies are moves in the right direction. There are powerful industries and monopolies backed by US, and that corruption is combined with the Venezuelan government’s own corruption in some people. But the anti-Venezuela hype should be recognized for what it is. Venezuela has areas in which their administrative integrity is far ahead of other countries–e.g., running elections. US elections are a corrupt shambles in comparison–but you won’t hear about that on Bloomberg, nor about the ways that the US is actively supporting the elites that head the opposition, going back decades.
Wow… after going from a 12 point Clinton lead to a 1 point Trump lead in what, one and a half, two weeks?… how and why is anyone still even considering this poll as relevant? I suspect that this finding is more accurate, but better polls have already illustrated this type of point spread for weeks.
*coughs* Oh it was Washington Post was it? Wait where have I heard of them before?
That’s right! Those are the slimy little weasels whose effluents were still being relayed to readers without disclaimers long after they were proven to be sock puppets for the Hillary campaign by Wikileaks. Add in Google, the NYT, Politico, etc to that number as well.
There is no excuse for content from these weasels appearing anywhere without extra explicit warnings that they are known inveterate liars and that everything they’re saying is probably some crap they got paid to make up.
Does anyone still believe that any of these polls do not have a margin of error of around 10% You know who the people reporting the results are and you honestly think they are not drunk from their own Koolaid. Come on man. To the extent that they end up near the mark they are nothing more than self-fulfilling prophesies. Vote for me – I’m going to win.
Voting for the winner shows you’re a winner.
Voting for the loser shows you’re a loser.
Not knowing the winner ahead of time shows you’re a loser.
Polls stop being even remotely valid when answering machines and later cell phones becoming common. Without randomness they have as much meaning as web poll.
I’m going to go out and set a car on fire. My team just won the championship ring.
If Those three parens are, in fact, the Acela bubble inside which their wearers live, perhaps they might also serve as warning labels on all those other things that issue from within said bubble.
Well said!
in regards to cat yoga:
our cher phydeaux is an avid yogi. one cannot perform a “camel” or “locust” without a cat “helpfully helping”, usually with a tail in your face for good measure.
in fact, after showing you how real stretching works, he’ll one up himself and stretch so far as to [family friendly edit].
my Wilzen is slightly stretched across my foot while enjoying a break…cup of java and my Favorite moment with NC. funny, when my heart rate blast over the Pres. race or central planning quagmire…Wilzen stretches a couple feet longer. Wilson, my telltale to breathe n stroke his soft winter fur…that he’s burning up in bc its 85 for the high all week. Taking care of my mother (alone while the family leaves hateful messages for money on her cell), i notice Wilzen posed without thought but eyes on every move. Thanks Wil, my guide for ataraxia.
“Exercises are like prose, whereas yoga is the poetry of movements. Once you understand the grammar of yoga; you can write your poetry of movements.”
Amit Ray
RE: Why do we still accept that governments collect and snoop on our data?
A great example of presumptious framing as a way to smooth over a controversy.
First, the use of “We.” What we? Some mysterious unified monolithic acceptance? To call this a logical fallacy is missing the point.
The word accept. I’m not intending to read further than this headline, but what evidence could there be? Polls may say people agree, but c’mon. That’s the terrorism talking. (*hint* – check out Osama’s ears before and after Oct. 2000… remember in 2002 when OBL was reported on Fox as having organ failure and being on dialysis? What a miracle he lived so long… It’s not like you could quite put the guy on an organ donor list.)
It’s not about acceptance, the government doesn’t care, as evidenced by the 20+ years wiretapping going on domestically before 9/11. ‘We’ were not consulted.
Third, the word ‘snoop’ what a nice euphamism.
If the government breaks the law, is it still a government?
I’d take the linguistic mangling you identify a bit further:
“We” means the MSM, not to be confused with, I mean deliberately to be taken as, “we” as a people.
“Accept” means that no objections appear in the MSM.
“Collect and snoop” means to keep us under surveillance.
So the question becomes, “Why isn’t the MSM objecting to the fact that governments keep us under surveillance?” The obvious answer is to identify another another implied conflation: that the MSM has something to do with a “Free Press”. There; isn’t that much better?
“We” means the bourgeoisie, naturally, but is used with the intent to recruit the “intrinsically” wayward proletariat into the moral onus at hand. Top-down ethos, in other words.
Rumors …
Israeli diplomats should not be shocked if there’s some payback for Netanyahu condemning 0bama’s foreign policy from the dais of the House of Representatives … without even an invitation from the president.
…or payback for trying to sink a US Navy ship to hide their doings, or earning the title of “greatest espionage threat to the US,” or scamming the rest of the world into accepting their making of something between 200 and 600 nuclear weapons, and killing people they don’t happen to care for by assassination and “mowing the lawn”, http://fpif.org/mowing-lawn-gaza/, and engaging in all kinds of corruption, and Israeli “businessmen” intermediating the sale of “ISIS oil” to the Outer World, and AIPAC “is not a foreign terrorist organization,” and on and on and on… But hey, everyone plays the Game, right?
Hey, it ain’t just Netanyahoo…
This nonsense gets floated at the end of POTUS terms. BHO is fully poached, no?
Faceborg:
Goyo Marquez sparked the idea that Zuck is able to be ahead of the wave from trends from Faceb. I keep my feed on ‘most recent’ and limit the number of friends, so I see everything. I noticed a steep drop in pro-Hillary commenting a few days ago and traced it to the Comey letter. So Goyo’s son is likely right.
OTO, Faceb is splendid at pretty pictures, hahas and well-worded pithies. (MySpace kept whirling on for years as a band venue for musicians.) As the election got caustic people on my feed began being absent, which means that it was losing its happy place value. So the twist is that while it may be good for marketing cat food and yoga pants, just as political conditions are heating up its value drops.
A decent metaphor is an electric circuit, as it gets hot resistance increases, energy gets dumped and message efficiency drops. As people drop out the marketing capacity decreases. Interesting conundrum for Zuck.
I’m noticing the same thing on my Faceborg feed, Steve H. It’s as if the Hillary supporters have gone silent.
A friend reports that here in Massachusetts a 12-14 year old kid had an interesting costume this year.
He was an FBI agent… walking around asking “Anyone seen Hillary Clinton?”
Lol, great costume! I bet some gave alot of candy and some very little or none.
That’s fantastic! I would’ve dumped my whole candy bucket into his bag and ended the night on that high note. The craziest I saw last night was a princess walking on dog leashes two pygmy goats dressed as cows around my apartment complex. Her husband and kids were knights, I think, so maybe they were getting their Holy Grail on.
Now you’ve got me wondering how to dress two pygmy goats as cows.
My FB feed was full of little Donalds in suits with the trademark hat and Hillarys in prison garb. Surprising amount of prisoner Hillarys coming from fairly steadfast liberals.
The point of Halloween is to dress up as the things that scare you. That is consistent with the trend toward sexual display in women’s costumes during the height of the culture war.
So liberal-types dress up as Inmate Hillary, their deepest terror. Conservative-types dressing up as Dear Leader seems to defy that link, somehow, unless those so dressed are actually liberal types. (Melanias may have to wear more costume than the role calls for in public.)
I dress up to scare the bejeezsus out of the little shavers.
Unintuitively the moms and dads that wait in the driveway are tickled to see their kids express momentary mortal fear.
Why is that i wonder? A subtle passive agressive response to those occasional moments of frustration that stack up all year as a a parent I suppose.
For the little shavers, it makes the single Lindt chocolate ball ever so much more satisfying after enduring an encounter with Nosferatu only to move on to the boring neighbors to get some nasty little M&& Mars Bros HF cornsyrup confectionary.
Most will remember the encounter forever, like i do w/the guy dressed as a zombie that had that bag of chilled spaghetti and tomato sauce that he held too high to look into before shoving my paw in to get a handfull off goodies!
He gave out Hershey bars in the end, so it all worked out for the undecerning chocolate palate of a 5yo. Didnt need to burn his house down.
On the Halloween of 1969, I dressed up as a hippy
and knocked on doors asking for Pot, not candy.
One couple in their 20’s gave me a brownie which I was too chicken
to eat.
So your the guy that jumped the shark on the hippy thing in 1969 and catalyzed a lifestyle implosion.
Butterfly flapping its wings…
I hope in a Russian accent.
Full disclosure, I was a Russian this halloween.
It’s just my humor.
obviously you drank like one…humor intact ‘)
When the joke is on some person, the f, uh, the soprano has sung.
Did he get pelted with eggs from all the girls wearing shrieking mommy lawyer costumes ?? ‘:]
“Inexplicably there has been no hint by Democrats that Anthony Weiner may be responsible for providing the FBI with the latest batch of emails, late breaking news is that Weiner, who is looking at a possible fifteen years in the slammer, is ‘cooperating’ with the FBI and might have traded his wife’s emails for a deal.”
Renee Parsons
Amazing.
I suspected the reason the Clinton associates were so technically incompetent with the emails/gmails was because they feared letting in competent but possibly decent and ethical technical people into the Clinton inner circle with unrestricted access to the dirt.
Fear of a Snowden, so to speak.
Now even the trusted, somewhat vetted, inner circle people may be turning on them.
“US DoJ Assistant AG briefing Congress about the Huma Abedin email investigation is Peter Kadzik. This Peter Kadzik:”
https://twitter.com/wikileaks/status/793285558487412736
Podesta: “Kept me out of jail.”
I am also reading the email Comey sent to every FBI agent as, “this is our story, no one peeked. I’ll go to war for you, but no bullshit no leaks.”
Another exercise in sweeping things under the rug isn’t going to go down any better than the last one. One would think worse.
How Weiner would have traded the emails (which were apparently known to the FBI) for anything is perhaps equally inexplicable. Who/what was Trump’s source for this?
http://www.politico.com/story/2016/10/donald-trump-anthony-weiner-fbi-230494
Additionally, one last time, if anyone cares to speculate:
http://truepundit.com/exclusive-fbi-used-agents-as-pawns-to-insulate-hillary-aides-clinton-foundation-from-prosecutions/
Sounds like someone either needs to investigate the FBI, or alternatively, fact and source check True Pundit. I have no way of knowing which.
But if Hillary’s “sensitive e-mails” where known to be both at Yahoo and at Messrs. Weiner since April, should they be required to scrub and clean those areas – for our national security’s sake?
(Remember how Men In Black had the “flashy thing” to wipe memories.)
With a name like true pundit I really don’t need to waste my time fact checking them. If you have to tell people you are a truthful pundit, most likely you are neither.
E-mail 40450. Kadzik contacted Clinton campaign wanting to help. The belief that powerful people are going to be prosecuted by people they have dined and vacationed with since college is unfounded.
40450 image
https://pbs.twimg.com/media/CwMEz6oUsAAysFE.jpg
[I would love to find some time to connect and see if there may be an opportunity for me to help on the campaign.]
I believe that the exact relationship is more properly described as ‘wined, dined, and 69ed’ one another.
What, you were expecting honor among thieves?
just goes to show he’s a putin agent, who cleverly faked being a pedophile so he could be busted and then have to roll over.
First thing they do in such cases is grab all the perp’s devices… He wouldn’t have anything to trade.
he might have, even outside the emails. he was part of the inner circle, so he was probably told a lot of things.
would they have needed the new subpoena if he had?
Yesterday my wife and I received six fliers in the mail demanding that we do not vote 3rd party, along with the Katie McGinty/Iran Deal takedowns (we’re in PA).
Along with Stein and Johnson, they wanted to make sure we did not vote for Deez Nuts or the Giant Meteor extinction event.
I can’t remember the name of the PAC, something like “JVC victory fund”, but it was pretty bizarre to see them put deez nuts and giant meteor on there like people were actually going to vote for that.
I was in a bar in a very blue enclave with an “open” congressional race featuring a female candidate against a slob of a Republican (a Democrat won in 2008 along with Obama, but there had been years worth of building), and I was chatting with the lady bartender who was probably 23 or so. It was the afternoon before a football game two weeks ago.
She had voted for Bernie, lived in city limits not the county (I swear I wasn’t being a creep), and was a fellow alum. I had originally asked about the political enthusiasm situation, and she said she had never been contacted by any campaign except by student booths. Here was a Sanders, Obama 2012 voter, woman who was unsure about voting in November and had never been contacted by Hillary for America or the woman Democratic candidate despite her primary voter status being part of the public record.
Duh, all women will vote for the woman. Even the Clinton campaign knows that one. Yeeesh!
She could be volunteering for a campaign. If she works nights, that means her days are free. Seniors and students can be reached.
Given the apathy towards hard and unsexy work (speeches are sexy; data entry at 930 and lobbying individual members of Congress are unsexy) by elite Democrats, I think the Democratic elite convinced themselves they could Facebook and Google their voter problems away and then not have to worry about a dearth of volunteers.
I wonder if the campaign knew Clinton could not inspire the kind of authentic dedication it would take to get people like her involved from the get go. Podesta: “Well that is a no go right there. Spend the money somewhere else.” Tanden: “I know, tell me about it. She is the best and I am her soldier, but she has horrible judgement.”
I know if a woman tells me that she would rather date a Russian hacker than me, it’s time to move on.
Well, actual some soul searching.
In a way, voting for Trump will trigger that kind of catharsis as well.
Don’t take it too hard. Some women are just weird.
Are You Outside Your Mind? you know how well generalization go over on this site! Yeeesh!!
That’s interesting. Kind of mirrors my experience. I changed my affiliation this year from (I) to (D) to vote for Bernie in our closed primary and also never got contacted by the HRC campaign. The PACs are obviously pro-hillary, though.
I’m not sure what makes it into the rolls but the HRC “ground game” is lacking in this swing state if my experience is any indication of a trend.
I also changed my affiliation from (I) to (D) here in Florida, a state clinton is, supposedly, desperately trying to win, to vote for Bernie in the primary. My millenial daughter did the same.
I am smack in the middle of clinton’s supposed demographic–college educated, baby boomer, female.
Neither of us have heard a peep from the clinton campaign beyond some robo-calls on our land line. I’ve been waiting for a knock on the door so I can read someone the riot act, but, so far, no joy.
Anyone done a yard sign/bumper sticker count recently? In deep blue, affluent Brookline MA I’ve only seen one yard sign and one bumper sticker and the bumper sticker was on a car belonging to a cleaning lady. Clinton carried Brookline over Bernie but there is absolutely no sign of enthusiasm here. Completely different mood from the primaries and election of 2008.
I actually saw some signs for Dr. Jill Stein on my morning commute today from MD to NoVA. WAS not expecting that! I see lots of Trump signs too, but no Hillary signs, and few Hillary bumper stickers or magnets.
Tavis Smiley has a debate between Jill Stein and Gary Johnson. Part 1 was last night and Part 2 is tonight on PBS. I found Part 1 on the PBS Roku channel and it may be available at other sites. It is the first time these 2 candidates have debated head-to-head that I am aware.
It is available here:
http://www.pbs.org/wnet/tavissmiley/interviews/presidential-candidates-dr-jill-stein-gary-johnson-pt-1/
My daughter and I took a drive the other day with the top down and counted two Hillary and two Trump signs in our NW of Boston very blue enclave. I also noticed a lot of down ballot Dems signs in yards but, no HRC signs with them. I suspect they may not too enthusiastic to show their support for her or like me, voting 3rd party for president.
Ther are no HRC signs because the campaign won’t pay for them. Here in the middle of WI the local county party paid to make signs because so many people were coming in asking for them. The local HRC campaign person told me the national campaigns never pay for signs.
If that’s also true for the Republican’s, it might explain all the handmade signs I saw for Trump on my way up to Maine through NH. I don’t recall ever seeing a handmade Hillary sign.
I’m thinking of putting out my own “Nobody” for President sign because…
“Nobody” knows you when you’re down and out
Jimmy Cox -1923
A good bumper sticker I saw here in ID:
Hillary for Prison
2016
i see a fair number of down ballot signs, though iirc fewer than normal for a presidential election year. but few trump or clinton signs.
In 2008, there was the coming of the Savior.
This year, it’s the resurrection of Trump’s candidacy, a few days after the death of his campaign.
Too bad it’s November, not December, close to the time of winter solstice, when the sun ‘dies.’
Here in Tucson, the yard signs are pretty much about the state legislative and local races. Matter of fact, the campaigns for unpaid slots on the Tucson Unified School District board are getting pretty nasty.
Yard signs on A1A in Cocoa Beach are all Trump/Pence and, in some sections where the houses are ocean front, every house has one. It’s really pretty remarkable.
I don’t live in that neighborhood, but I do go to the beach there.
What about where Haitians live?
Yes in wealthy areas of Southern California. In areas where the houses cost over 1 million, sometimes more, the houses have Hillary signs. LOTS AND LOTS of Hillary signs. So a certain privileged demographic is all in for Hillary. They haven’t got the apathetic memo. Somehow, I don’t remember them ever having Bernie signs.
Turn on a TV and you’ll see where Hillary’s money is being funneled. Every time I’ve had the misfortune to be stuck next to a TV there’s an incessant torrent of Hillary ads coming out. It’s all I can do to hold down the puke.
Isn’t there a saying that familiarity breed contempt. Too true with Hillary; the more people see her the more they hate her.
That being the case, wouldn’t it have been a better strategy for her to avoid being seen at all, by anyone? I bet she’d have run a much better campaign if she’d just given up the ghost two years ago and her staff had done a Weekend at Bernie’s campaign. Then the taxidermists could have wheeled her out in January to be sworn in and the job of looting America could have been turned over to Kaine without a hitch. As awful Trump is that would have worked! But noooo. Too late now.
How’s your spam folder? For the last year-and-a-half or so, I’ve been inundated with pro-H email solicitations, to which I’ve dutifully responded that I’d never vote for her, accompanied by examples of her behavior that have led me to this decision. As far as I can tell it doesn’t matter. But the em’s keep coming, possibly with the hope that I’ll break my perfect zero-donation DNC record.
Not much of an email user. Maybe I should run for something!
Secretary of State, CIA Director….
They will remove you from e-mail and phone lists immediately if you use profanity. It can’t just be ‘bullsh$t’. Cuss like a sailor and although the person will say ‘have a nice day’ it will get a de-listing.
I also changed from (I) to (D) so I could vote in the Democrats undemocratic primary. I don’t know if it’s because of that, or if I signed a petition at some point, but the End Citizens United PAC has been absolutely spamming my email. As in at least half a dozen appeals for cash daily. I could simply unsubscribe, but the steadily increasing screech factor gives me a certain joy:
Nate Silver: We likely ‘have very close election and perhaps a President Trump’
THAT’S AWFUL NEWS.
The FBI’s investigation could RUIN our chance to elect Hillary and end the Republican Majority.
*name here* — our FINAL end-of-month deadline is tonight. If we hit our goal, we can keep our ads on the air and turn this around… if not: DEMOCRATS LOSE.
It’s up to you to turn the tide. Are you in?
ALL GIFTS TRIPLE-MATCHED
and
Our hearts just dropped:
This morning’s ABC News Poll shows that Hillary is LOSING to Donald Trump. That’s right. SHE’S LOSING TO TRUMP.
New ABC News/Washington Post Poll
Trump: 46% ⬆︎
Clinton: 45% ⬇︎
It’s no surprise Nate Silver says Trump is SURGING.
We need 5,OOO QUADRUPLE-MATCHED donations TODAY to fight back, or Trump will WIN.
Republicans are CRUSHING us. If you care AT ALL about Democrats, we need you to chip in $1 NOW.
The ALL CAPS are straight from the original emails.
Plenue, thank you for the smile. Neera’s right. There really IS something to be said for the power of torture. (If true.)
I live in Iowa. Since the caucuses, when I received about 3 pounds of campaign mail a day, I have yet to receive one piece of literature from either the Trump or Clinton campaigns.
My PO Box is stuffed to the gills. Every week when I pick up my mail, I chant “Die, trees, die!” as I dump them all in the recycling bin. Anyone picking up their mail at the same time snorts in sympathy. Nada from Trump or Clinton.
As to signs, about 50/50 trump and Clinton. One 4×8 from each has been savaged. My neighbor kept her Bernie signs up until September. Then replaced them with Clinton signs…and now those are gone.
I can contribute that Hillary is emailing Republicans in California on a daily basis. For donations, not for volunteering.
On the FRONT PAGE of the Washington Post: don’t let your dog eat your “stash;” it’s dangerous for him/her.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/animalia/wp/2016/10/28/as-marijuana-legalization-spreads-more-pets-are-getting-high/
thank god the washington post is addressing this crucial issue now. that’s why the elites fear it.
Remember, legalization is on the ballot in many states. This article isn’t coming out of nowhere.
So really, it’s the chocolate killing the dogs, not the weed. The minimum lethal oral dose for dogs for THC is more than 3 g/kg and vets generally don’t see it as lethal except in a few cases.
We’ve moved on from “protect the children” to “protect the cats and dogs”. This is a non story.
Chocolate killing dogs? Someone forgot to tell my family’s dogs about that one.
We had a couple of dachshunds who were chocolholics. And both of them lived to ripe old ages.
Ditto for Mom’s border collie mix. Who adored chocolate raisins. She lived a long life too.
My mom’s standard poodle devoured a 2 pound (wrapped) gift box of chocolate truffles. No prob.
Lived to be a grizzled and demented 18 years old.
This might be a commentary on the quality of the chocolate, typical commercial candy chocolates may be less than 20% cacao. Though the double-wammy of chocolate and raisins (grapes) is a bit concerning.
It’s the sugar they are probably really addicted to. Though one wonders if the norephineprine high gets them too as it does us humans.
Mine once ate a small piece of chocolate cookie that had fallen on the floor. She was essentially doggie bed-bound for the next week, couldn’t walk without stumbling for several weeks after, and had her head stuck in a permanent quizzical tilt for at least a month. Don’t give your dogs chocolate.
My vet described it as more of a common allergy in dogs. Yes most dogs can eat chocolate and nothing bad will happen but a significant minority will react badly, so it isn’t ever worth taking that chance.
refer pet madness ?? or MADD …(Mastiffs Against Drugged Danes) ??
The Dogs eat weed and then sleep all day.
My dogs already sleep all day. How does one discern between a week driven sleep and normal behavior?
they start chasing the dream rabbits, then say meh whatever and give up.
as they absently paw for a kibble …..
“Why do we still accept that governments collect and snoop on our data? Guardian”
Why do we still accept that corporations collect and snoop on our data?
The government only becomes an issue if we threaten to become politically effective: corporations are bleeding us penny by penny every second of every day.
oh no Hillary is going to start cheating
https://www.rt.com/usa/364894-dhs-voter-registration-hacking/
This was always a concern.
US is now applying the Benghazi philosophy to its own elections: ‘Forget about what stories are out there, just make sure no one can find out the truth.’
Protesters and skin color.
As far as I can tell only somewhat well-to-do, white dudes with guns get a pass. Even when they kill government agents. Probably something to do the the fear that their friends have guns. The fact that they usually have friends in local authority probably matters as well.
Native Americans are treated worst of all (as ND shows), then other minorities, then everyone else.
Rs and Ds both agree that protesting should only be done when the goal is to pose as if offended. Real protesting is completely unacceptable. Environmentalists are just as despised as Occupy Wall Street, or people seeking social justice.
Lavoy Finicum might beg to differ, were he not deceased.
Suicide by cop. He wasn’t going to go to jail.
neither were the others, had he only known.
Well, Harry Reid telegraphed it yesterday…and this morning, alleged journalist David Corn ran a story on how some guy reported to the FBI that Donald Trump is a Russian sleeper agent, or something like that. The Democratic commentariat, of course, is lapping it up.
Meanwhile, Thomas Frank is doing the lord’s work, in dissecting the Podesta emails.
Forget the FBI cache; the Podesta emails show how America is run
Of course, I had to find that link at Drudge – the Democrats would never discuss such things.
This week is going to be painful.
Yesterday, Obama activated his Operation Valkyrie, metaphorically speaking.
Now, Reid is merely hoping Operation Wacht am Rhine will do something. But there is nothing there to power that offensive.
someone should mop up Reid ….. and wring him out .. onto the dusty Nevada dirt ..!
maybe he can give some extra moisture to a creosote bush ..
used to respect david corn. jesus, so many shills.
To paraphrase HAL 9000 ….
“My God ! ..SHE’s Full Of Shills !!”
Wow.
Read the email from Eric Schmidt to Cheryl Mills on Google plans to help Hillary win the presidency:
https://wikileaks.org/podesta-emails/emailid/37262
It’s like a neoliberal mantra: reward your most loyal by paying them terribly, that way they’ll invent all the sunshine and rainbows necessary to justify their situation.
It’s not even implied or insinuated. He literally comes right out and says to pay them poorly.
Hah … like minds.
‘hive’ minds ..
Wasn’t he also caught up in the Silicon Valley wage suppression scheme?
Wow is right:
And: Cloud. Cloud!! CLOUD!!!!
It’s almost as if ES wanted all campaign data to go through easily hackable pipes. Nah, couldn’t be.
“And: Cloud. Cloud!! CLOUD!!!!
= Black Rain ….
Ah, Google. How Luciferian thy vain expanse.
My favorite part is this:
Its important to have a very large hiring pool (such as Chicago or NYC) from which to choose enthusiastic, smart and low paid permanent employees.
Followed by this:
The key is a large population of talented people who are dying to work for you.
Is that last participle a metaphor, or not, I wonder?
Not a metaphor, they will literally be dying, what with the decreasing life expectancy that is the new normal in neoliberal America.
As soon as you die you go straight to the Cloud.
…where, like in lower-class graveyards and charnel houses, your residue can remain, for $5.50 a month rent…
with an internet connection (google fiber)?
Two necessary ingredients –
1. train as many as you can, debt or not debt, tuition or free of it. Thus, fun college life is promoted (drinking, football games, etc).
2. H1B visas. Go forth and the world is your oyster. (Though Crassus – played by Laurence Olivier – in Sparticus curiously said he, as a Roman, enjoyed oysters and snails. Did Shakespeare leave the latter out on purpose?).
I thought this part was also a little creepy:
I imagine Google search histories, favorites, likes, etc. would generate quite a treasure trove of information.
The right vote?
FUCK GOOGLE !
i imagine mr. podesta is wishing he had said that in 1999.
Hey at least they had the common decency to drop the “don’t be evil” tagline. Good to know where we stand
This is standard practice in the social-enabled world of the internet. Analytics is pretty well developed, the machine learning / natural language parsing is on the way (although you can still easily hit issues with subgroup-specific language use – “shit” as opposed to “the shit” for example).
As has been referenced a few times on here, the cell phone number is your number one target to tie it all together.
The analytic engine for all this tends to be based around a large in-memory SQL database – these require a shitload of ram and are thus easiest to acquire as a cloud instance. My current version sits in about a hundred gigs of ram. It is possible to scale to 40 Terabytes – at a price, and not on the cloud (yet)
How’d that work out with Charles Delavan. BWAHAHA. I kinda wish I had a cleaner, less leftist record so that I could set the metaphorical building on fire next time around.
#TreatNotTrick National Day of Action
Health care for all, though not necessarily provided by physicians (human physicians that is. In the future, it’s likely it’s all machines and robot-physicians talking silently among themselves, after asking human patients all the questions they are programmed to ask).
Not to be the cynical fly in the punch bowl, but how many of these worthy young doctors-in-training will retain the courage of their convictions once their med school loans come due?
I think you find more primary care doctors and providers such as NPs (and staff, too) that are actually driven by courageous convictions, than in the other specialties. It’s a pretty significant cohort among PCPs. You almost have to be altruistic because the payscale and reimbursement schedule is so much lower than all other specialties. Thanks AMA! At least that’s my experience.
I can see that, and believe it too. But judging by the many article bemoaning the shortage of PCPs, the vast majority of medical graduates choose to go into far more lucrative specialties. Hence my cynicism.
Incidentally and off topic, I came across this McClatchy piece from Sept treating Clinton’s health issues, which I have never paid much attention to but which turn out to be really interesting:
http://www.mcclatchydc.com/news/politics-government/election/article101220622.html
There are all sorts of references to her “head” and confusion, fatigue, etc in the Podesta emails, and it does seem very likely that her actual medical records do not (surprise surprise) reflect the strong bill of health her physician has claimed for her. There is a hilarious email exchange between Neera Tanden and Podesta (1/17/16)on the topic of the idiocy of Brock demanding Sanders’s medical records, which, as Neera points out, is the most “counterproductive” strategy possible for the Clinton campaign to pursue.
She has a history of falling, suffers from double vision, light sensitivity, thrombosis (she’s been on Coumadin since 2012), fatigue followed by sudden weakness. WJC says she faints a lot when dehyradated (what a spouse, he). The emails often imply that she is slow; slow to learn facts, to master talking points, to understand her own position, etc., and it is fair to say (via ample testimony) that she has big mood swings relatively often. When at State she had aides researching Provigil and writing Bill Frist about “cracked heads” (I believe after her 2012 concussion), and she’s been on Amour for a long time–a natural thyroid hormone supplement prescribed for hypothyroid and, it turns out, lots of other things as well.
So there’s a lot there, and you don’t have to write for the World News Daily to acknowledge it. The emails, again, are the best evidence that something really is going on, or on again and off again, with her.
It is somewhat crass to speculate on the health issues of another human being in too cavalier a manner, but, hell, she’s running for president after all.
Has there been any discussion on this topic on NC? Forgive me for covering old ground if there has been.
My own view is that she has Hughes Syndrome, which is a thrombosis condition that presents similarly to MS, but is vascular rather than neurological at root. But what the hell do I know.
In the last couple of days, I’ve seen an e-mail screenshot in my Faceborg feed. It’s one of the Podesta e-mails, and it makes reference to, well, a certain odor emanating from Hillary. The e-mailer speculates that it may have to do with the fact that she doesn’t bathe very often.
Now, let’s consider that this is a screenshot. It’s pretty easy to create something like this in Photoshop.
But, if this e-mail is genuine, then she may be showing signs of early stage dementia. Infrequent bathing is one of the hallmarks of this condition.
If you find the original email (if it’s not a fake) I would be interested to read it. This has become very intriguing to me on account of the clear divorce between the official and unquestioned record and the events, implications and connotations that are now in the public record. Viva la transparencia
She may be trying to connect with the Great Unwashed Masses?
Have you any [family-friendly] verbatim text from that message so that the source message can be found? Signatures can be verified by the Wikileaks email number.
New feature at Wikileaks: a header at the top of each message that tells you whether that email’s DKIM signature verifies.
From the McClatchy story, this:
Stroke (and Coumadin (which needs careful adjustment for stress)) has been my story from the beginning and I’m sticking to it, especially given the family history.
from a Neera Tanden email to John Podesta
I’m reading wolf hall. There is something to be said for the power of torture.
sady this is what too many Americans learned from watching 24, so I am not sure the voters will have a problem with it.
Nearly all crime oriented TV shows and movies show that torture always works. Waterboarding gets results and people are saved. Usually within 15 minutes after the answers are obtained. Then the bad guys calmly admit their other misdeeds, because they now both like and respect their questioners and feel bad about breaking the law. Bad guys just want law enforcement to show that they care.
Movies are real. Movies are very real.
Antonin Scalia certainly thought so:
Is that just Scalia being provocative and smart, or just being Scalia? I vaguely recall that his jurisprudence on the WoT was often far better than the court’s moderate-liberals, but perhaps that is just wishful remembrance.
Scalia seems to have been both serious and enjoying himself at the same time.
The comments are from a 2007 legal conference in Ottawa.
I will convict. Put him in my hands and I will string him up.
This is important. Movies and TV are one of the most powerful forces for self-defeat out there. When Netflix first started and still mailed DVDs to your house, I spent six months or so watching movies I remembered from my childhood as being really good. They were awful! And not only that, but the stew of sexism, wealth envy, and ends-justify-the-means-ism was utterly repellent.
Me too.
I have been re-watching old Hollywood movies to discover where it went wrong for me and the world.
Pornography is virtual sex. RomComs are virtual relationships. Buddy films are virtual friends. Court drama is virtual justice. Cop shows are virtual investigation. Investigative journalism drama is virtual investigative drama. I could go on……..
Turn off the TV and grow a forest garden maybe??
Learn to Lucid Dream?
http://www.shemeam.com/pdf/lucid_dreaming.pdf
Nobody seems to remember Israeli intel on the effectiveness of torture or the approach to Saddam Hussein’s debriefing after his capture.
. . . of for that matter:
Sovereignty was eventually transferred after years of posturing.
[all emphases added]
How many US troops in Iraq today?
The green zone is a part of America’s environmental task force. Nearly 4 square miles of ecological wonder and a nifty Republican Palace to boot. The palace was vacated by the previous occupant so the price was hard to ignore.
Couldn’t fight global warming in that part of the world without it.
And it only works on bad guys.
When the good guys get beat, they tough it out, they never crack. And then they escape!
There’s that “work ethic” again. Live like the dead so that you may die like the living.
The torturer in Wolf Hall is “Saint” Thomas More (hero of liberals as well as christians) who made it a practice to have suspected heretics tortured in his own house. Is Neera also a candidate for beatification?
Call it First Responder Programming. Police (always breaking the law to catch a bad guy) shows (along with law and court shows), fire control shows, hospital/medical practice shows. The next generation is the spy agency show (NSA,FBI,CIA) embedded even in scifi/superhero programming. (Scorpion, Flash) It is general police state programming saturation.
I was over at some friend’s house the other night. Their little girl was watching Disney channel and there was a super propaganda spy show for kids. The Americans were all multi-culti — no white people at all. Aren’t we suppsed to get one of each?! Anyway. Spies and dangerous ones? “Brown” girl with bad hair and bad “boris” Russian accent…constantly putting her big buddy arm around the neck of a small black kid, also with unruly hair. Arm around the neck like strong arm, strangle…that gesture big bad boys do to their girlfriends. She’s mine.
So while I am looking, mouth agape (I don’t watch TV, this is novel for me)…the narrative turns and suddenly a ‘holo’ image like in star wars when Leia’s holo appears on R2 and says “Help us, Obi Wan” — it’s this sort of Loretta Lynch black lady “FBI director” —in a holo. She announces that the American good-guys will be rounded up — for consorting with spies! We were just talking! Into the televisual living room charge 2 phalanxes of black clad and visored stormtroopers with Uzis — all black, no faces, no insignia.
It was bizarre! So obvious. And so obnoxious!
And there’s the kid, lolling on the couch, eating cheap frozen pizza for dinner and watching the Disney propaganda channel.
Yikes!
Fully agree about the Disney cultists. The early Disney television shows, the black and white era, were just as bad, but from a white supremacist viewpoint. “Spin and Marty” anyone?
Thinking back to the way Disney broke a strike threat by his illustrators, Hint: it involved mass firing, that organization has always been about the money.
We are still glad that we heavily restricted our children’s television viewing. In fact, when they were small, no television at all. (Fortuitous, yes, we lived way out where over the air reception was problematic. Cable then was for ‘rich folks.’)
Now. hypocrite that I am, I spend way too much time on the Internet. Go figure.
i think disney was a snitch for the fbi. maybe the fascist disneylike refuge in “a boy and his dog” was based on uncle walt’s fascist tendencies.
On “Uncle Walt’s” connection with J. Edgar Hoover, the Times (1993):
Lovely. Employees called Disney properties Mousewitz and Duckau for good reason.
full context:
“I repeat, why hasn’t this person been drawn and quartered? I’m reading wolf hall. There is something to be said for the power of torture. On Saturday, July 25, 2015, John Podesta wrote: > Don’t you think Cheryl? > > On Friday, July 24, 2015, Neera Tanden > wrote: > >> Do we actually know who told Hillary she could use a private email? And >> has that person been drawn and quartered? >>
Shark fins:
Killing an animal to eat small parts of it is a terrible idea.
Killing and eating part of a high level predator, where the highest levels of toxicity that we have put into the oceans are bound to reside, is nature providing one explanation about why this is a bad idea. If these culled sharks are from the Pacific then Alzheiner’s will probably be the least of the consumers problems. Think Fukushima.
Predators cull the weak, man culls the healthy.
Silicon Valley nor for that matter of fact any other industry like NYC bankers, DC politicians, Consumers will never learn anything. We have enough in our life to feed every one and still people die of hunger. We have answers and lives to prove those answers. We choose to overlook. It’s getting lot worse. Food concentration will move lot closer to the wealthy and they can never seem to remain healthy. We do have an excess problem. What will make us learn? Some thing extreme. I am guessing may be a human disease, natural calamity or some kind of obesity related problems that will take a toll on the lives of the ones that matter. Again its the wealthy…Don’t wait for that to happen. Be your own leader.
for the benefit of everyone who thinks that the never ending investigations began with the Clintons, The Destruction of the Carter Presidency by the Democratic Congress
they would have done the same thing to Bernie had he won. This is why we need a political revolution
thanks for the link! bookmarking it now.
The Clintons are not Carter.
That is a fascinating link, Deep State is older and goes further and deeper than one imagines. I don’t mind when the institutional center of gravity is mostly benign and moves us all around the middle with its checks and balances, my problem is when it’s no longer a collection of men of good will and a higher calling with best intentions for our nation and its citizens but rather a rank grifter’s enterprise that does nothing but extract for the further enrichment of those already fabulously rich.
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2016/oct/31/the-podesta-emails-show-who-runs-america-and-how-they-do-it
…but if your purpose is to understand the clique of people who dominate Washington today, the emails that really matter are the ones being slowly released by WikiLeaks from the hacked account of Hillary Clinton’s campaign chair John Podesta.
…
They are also the grandees of our national media; the architects of our software; the designers of our streets; the high officials of our banking system; the authors of just about every plan to fix social security or fine-tune the Middle East with precision droning. They are, they think, not a class at all but rather the enlightened ones, the people who must be answered to but who need never explain themselves.
….
Consider, for example, the 2015 email from a foundation executive to a retired mortgage banker (who then seems to have forwarded the note on to Podesta, and thus into history) expressing concern that “Hillary’s image is being torn apart in the media and there’s not enough effective push back”. The public eavesdrops as yet another financier invites Podesta to a dinner featuring “food produced exclusively by the island’s farmers and fishermen which will be matched with specially selected wines”. We learn how a Hillary campaign aide recommended that a policy statement appear on a certain day so that “It wont get in the way of any other news we are trying to make – but far enough ahead of Hamptons and Vineyard money events”. We even read the pleadings of a man who wants to be invited to a state dinner at the White House and who offers, as one of several exhibits in his favor, the fact that he “joined the DSCC Majority Trust in Martha’s Vineyard (contributing over $32,400 to Democratic senators) in July 2014”.
…
Everything blurs into everything else in this world. The state department, the banks, Silicon Valley, the nonprofits, the “Global CEO Advisory Firm” that appears to have solicited donations for the Clinton Foundation. Executives here go from foundation to government to thinktank to startup. There are honors. Venture capital. Foundation grants. Endowed chairs. Advanced degrees. For them the door revolves. The friends all succeed. They break every boundary.
But the One Big Boundary remains. Yes, it’s all supposed to be a meritocracy. But if you aren’t part of this happy, prosperous in-group – if you don’t have John Podesta’s email address – you’re out.
============================================
The happy shiny people….
“….with specially selected wines”
Hmmm, I just had some Malbac last night from Grocery Outlet bargain Market for 3.99 that was pretty good.
WikiLeaks: US, Israel, And Saudi Arabia Planned Overthrow Of Syrian Govt. In 2006
http://www.washingtonsblog.com/2011/11/neoconservatives-planned-regime-change-throughout-the-middle-east-and-northern-africa-20-years-ago.html
Just sayin’
Yes, and that has worked out so well that the 50 Million refugees will swamp Europe.
That works out well for some people.
NYT and Trump’s taxes.
I’m missing something a little less technical than their faux outrage. Does anyone believe that Trump does his own taxes? Does anyone even think he would be able to do his own taxes? Does anyone think that tax logic and math are part of his skill set?
If there’s something wrong with his taxes he may owe a fine but the CPA firm that did them would be at fault. I’m pretty sure he can fire people pretty easily but understanding tax law is way out of his skill set.
Not outrage, but rage at NYT.
And rage is something associated with Deplorables…the lowest caste. Apparently, that’s what has happened to the newspaper.
Timothy Geitner did his own taxes and look where that got him.
…not in jail, I understand…
I think you underestimate his intelligence just as the US did for George W Bush. He is intelligent enough to know not to trust his own expertise in tax law, except on his TV show. He is intelligent enough to have a meeting of his tax accountants and lawyers saying, “I demand that you arrange to pay the least amount of tax possible, and even get the IRS to pay me, while maintaining my plausible deniability, or YOU’RE FIRED.
He’s done lots of illegal stuff, judging by the fines meted out, and lots of legal but immoral stuff that destroyed individuals and contractors who worked for him. But that’s what the egregiously wealthy do.
Massive North Dakota Oil Leak Proves Native American Protesters Right For Fighting ILLEGAL DAPL Pipeline
All things being considered, the people there may see the pipeline as the lesser of two evils. The oil train derailment in Casselton scared the bejeezus out of some folks there, so they may consider this to be safer.
It’s not a massive spill (yet), but it is still bad, and it proves the protesters are correct. The article says that about 67,000 gallons have spilled so far (the amount is probably larger by now), which corresponds to about 217 tonnes (217 thousand kilograms). Wikipedia has a partial list of oil spills:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_oil_spills
Note the Lakeview California gusher of 1910: 1.23 million tonnes. That’s even worse than the Deepwater Horizon spill or the 1991 Gulf War spill!
There’s a Bismarck Tribune story on this is from 2015, but this seems to be a second blowout.
This Wikileak casts an ugly shadow of influence on the Clinton campaign.
waking it back a few inches…
Investigating Donald Trump, F.B.I. Sees No Clear Link to Russia
http://www.nytimes.com/2016/11/01/us/politics/fbi-russia-election-donald-trump.html
But good for 24 hours of diversion, while the Leader works on another counter-offensive from her bunker.
Wonder if most members of her staff are busy sending out resumes…
but it still pushes the bullshit that the russians hacked the dnc and clinton.
Matt Taibbi’s latest http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/features/too-smug-to-jail-w447825
Peak iAnything: Chicago’s new riverfront Apple store costs $62 million [Chi Trib]
But the payroll will make up for it. As a great man once said, “it’s important to have a very large hiring pool
(such as Chicago or NYC) from which to choose enthusiastic, smart and low paid permanent employees.”
And they are putting their architectural wart on a lovely river front location
Asset bubbles threaten China’s economy.
I don’t think we should be casting any stones here. I would mind our own business first.
A cool $1T in shiny new PBOC money from thin air last month, oh, look, their PMI went up. Works a treat…until it doesn’t.
Regarding Bookish Fools…this year i was fortunate to brush against a young man from India collecting books for children living among the trash heaps. i collected what i could afford…children’s books in english but with big pics. a few months later i received an email attachment form the young Indian man…children running thru the trash heaps with books and smiles as wide as the possibilities they felt. maybe Woolf would frown upon these children ‘nature has not gifted’…i thank nature Woolf is but a writer among too many to count!
Regardless of medium, what matters is the very human aspiration to embark on this voyage. It’s not the performance, and not the optics that really matter, but the experience of the journey to the unknown.
Jacobin has an excellent review of a new book by Andreas Malm titled “Fossil Capital”. It offers a fascinating perspective on why capital will always want fossil fuels rather than renewables: the latter tie industry, although to a limited extent, to the natural cycles of nature and thus unable to fully exploit their workforce, whereas fossil fuels allow complete abstraction from real time and space, and allow capitalists to exploit the workforce both by running at whatever capacity it can afford at all times, and by disempowering workers by being able to locate industry where it has the most leverage over workers. https://www.jacobinmag.com/2016/10/climate-crisis-fossil-fuel-renewables-marx-malm/
Sounds great. Maybe the Center for American Progress will hold a symposium on it….
Podesta told Clinton team to ‘dump’ emails after use of private server emerged
Pretty sure this is intent.
‘oops !’
I would like to see an article that actually names which “intelligence agencies” think the Russians hacked into the DNC’s and Podesta’s email archives. It’s not enough to use red scare tactics. Show us the evidence or stop propagating a falsehood that helps your friends.
It doesn’t even matter, unless someone has some evidence that the FSB can forge DKIM signatures. One reply to Podesta’s email containing that quoted text passes DKIM verification.
Pretty sure that email suggests intent to destroy records.
I don’t read “dump” as “delete.” A “document dump” (as in release) is common Beltway parlance.
More damning is that her top advisor was telling her this, and she didn’t take his advice. So there must have been a very good reason, eh?
“When You’re a Protester, the Color of Your Skin Is All That Matters Esquire (furzy)”
I don’t know how well the title corresponds to the text, but on its face this is dangerously wrong. White protestors against globalization conferences or for Occupy report the same sorts of abuse. Remember the 3 young women pepper sprayed in a net in New York? Or the line of mostly-white student protestors in California, systematically pepper-sprayed by one cop? And complaints about horrible post-arrest conditions and systematic abuse of rights are very similar.
Race clearly affects the rate at which people are murdered by police, especially clearly unjustified killings – though about half are white, so your white privilege won’t really save you. But at demonstrations, what matters is how much of a threat you pose and how annoyed the police are. One obvious feature of police abuse is that they claim the right to abuse and even kill people who annoy them.
For all these reasons, I think the extreme emphasis on race, while understandable, is a strategic error. For one thing, it leaves blacks or other minorities hanging out there by themselves. More important, it makes it much more difficult to recruit whites, the majority, to oppose police impunity, the underlying problem. To their credit, quite a few whites show up for BLM demonstrations; I’ve attended demonstrations that were mostly white, because that’s who lives here. But those are lefties, the usual suspects (literally – I know most of them). We need to convince the majority that they have a problem, and we won’t do that by focusing on race. That lets them off the hook.
Specifically re your last para, I have said the same for a while. It’s divide and conquer, imho. But hey, they get invited to the Aspen and turn with the roots and all that so I guess it works for them. Sorry, I am way cynical on this topic. I am beyond tired of the hollow identity crap in any form. There’s real bad stuff been happening and getting worse and we’re all in it. All.
The first few words of Lloyd Blankfein’s Wikipedia entry are interesting, for the moment
anyway.. heh.
Lasted eight minutes.
https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Lloyd_Blankfein&type=revision&diff=747314917&oldid=747313890
bhaahahaahahaaa Catch of the Week! Thanks for Sharing!!
Original research, so had to go.
(179.25.211.42 = Uruguay?! B1whois, was that you? So naughty…)
Ahh, I see that it has already been changed. Sorry..
Anyone see this today? Hard to imagine this will be ignored with the latest information on the FBI still in the news.
https://www.judicialwatch.org/press-room/press-releases/judicial-watch-court-hearing-monday-november-7-fbi-clinton-email-records-case/
re: Imperial Collapse Watch
All four articles are excellent. Jeffrey Sachs’ article, The fatal expense of American imperialism should be required reading for all voting age Americans. Jill Stein as far as I can see is the only one raising these issues and of course she was kept out of the debates, and for a very good reason. I suspect a lot of Americans would understand the connection between our overseas adventures and the declining quality of living at home.
Wellie I can see Jim Haygood is riding his favorite hobby horse again, almost OCD like affliction of a preteen shoving coins in a video game to get high score…..
Anywho its just a continuation of the old game that brown people et al are bad at managing their money, hence it should be left to those that were either born or gifted from above to do it for them…. waves at the Chicago School….
Dear Jim…. Good Grief… stop looking out the window and perving on the neighbors…. when Milton, Greenspan, Rubin, etc are all hanging out in your lounge room at the Palatial Mansion Citizens United….
Disheveled Marsupial…. the epic cog dis you must feel in grousing on about Venezuela when compared to the Nation that triggered the GFC is astounding….
yeah, i’m disappointed…thought he’d out-grown that stage. he’s going to have to step down from Treasure of my mock cabinet. btw, your the eye n the sky Skips…keep us strait n narrow buddy.
“Some people’s blameless lives are to blame for a good deal.”
Dorothy L. Sayers
Old Jim’s a bit like a lame AM 70s rock radio station…. you have to take the good along with >>>>> the bad…
Disheveled Marsupial…. I guess its the result of Monetary theology YOY being confused with contextualized History… sorta like the same mental defect psychological anthropology suffers… you’ll get that when you let people like the old mythologist Sigmund Freud loose in the more evidence based soft social sciences… wheeeeeeee
Why I have suddenly found hope that young people may indeed save the planet, or at least survive the currently incoming inconveniences:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zQXvdFjRywY
____
‘Tis the gift to be simple, ’tis the gift to be free
‘Tis the gift to come down where we ought to be,
And when we find ourselves in the place just right,
‘Twill be in the valley of love and delight.
When true simplicity is gained,
To bow and to bend we shan’t be ashamed,
To turn, turn will be our delight,
Till by turning, turning we come ’round right!
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Simple_Gifts
‘Course, my cynical mind turns round in my petroleum-based made in China desk chair and notes that the Shakers were celibate, and have effectively died out:
“By the early 20th century, the once numerous Shaker communities were failing and closing. Today, in the 21st century, the Shaker community that still exists–the Sabbathday Lake Shaker Community–denies that Shakerism was a failed utopian experiment.[25]
Their message, surviving over two centuries in America, reads in part as follows:
Shakerism is not, as many would claim, an anachronism; nor can it be dismissed as the final sad flowering of 19th century liberal utopian fervor. Shakerism has a message for this present age–a message as valid today as when it was first expressed. It teaches above all else that God is Love and that our most solemn duty is to show forth that God who is love in the World.[25]
In 1957, after “months of prayer”, Eldresses Gertrude, Emma, and Ida, the leaders of the United Society of Believers and who were based out of Canterbury, voted to close the Shaker Covenant, the document which all new members need to sign to become members of the Shakers.[26] In 1988, speaking about the three men and women in their 20s and 30s who had joined the Shakers and were living in the Sabbathday Lake Shaker Village, Eldress Bertha Lindsay stated, “To become a Shaker you have to sign a legal document taking the necessary vows and that document, the official covenant, is locked up in our safe. Membership is closed forever.” https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shakers
Not to worry, many of the marvelously practical craft and artisanal items that Divine inspiration and a sense of comity led those religious folks to create are still readily available on line, from places like The Shaker Shoppe, http://shakershoppe.com/, and of course Amazon (made in China)… And any competent lawyer could draft up a resurrected Shaker Covenant…
PS: Anyone got plans for a composting bidet? I’m trying real hard to cut down my personal use of potable water, so there will be plenty for the rich peoples’ pools and water features and estate plantings and for the guy next door to wash the twigs and leaves and dust off his concrete driveway with his garden hose… and I am told Humanure grows wonderful radishes and tomatoes…
http://m.agrimoney.com/news/chinese-buying-pushes-dairy-prices-to-two-year-highs–10099.html
So why did I read the US is dumping milk??
Some high faluten economist here needs to essplayn that. I’ll give a listen to the podcast while I have a few portable flash dryers tacked together to produce powdered milk.
Seriously
> faluten
falutin’.
Faluten is a city in Iraq.
falutin’
I went to public school!
Why did the Russian wheat article get scraped? I thought the deeper look was interesting. I didnt know wheatwas graded based on protien content.
Who else knew protein was a wheat grading criteria?
A generally interesting trade website