Records Show Triple Crown Contender Had History of Ailments New York Times
Hidden Government Scanners Will Instantly Know Everything About You From 164 Feet Away Gizmodo (Dr. Kevin)
Freak weather linked to global warming Financial Times
Google would pay record FTC fine under tentative Apple Safari settlement Washington Post
Economically Healthy ‘Daily Planet’ Now Most Unrealistic Part Of Superman Universe Onion
David Brooks Blames Women for Income Inequality Helaine Olen, Forbes
The mysterious tools of Chinese monetary policy MacroBusiness
U.S. and Russia Send Numerous Warships to Middle East George Washington
Norway intervenes to avert oil industry closure CNBC (bob)
Spain reveals further austerity measures Financial Times
Desperate Europeans Are Entering Sham Marriages To Get Brazilian Visas Clusterstock
Revealed: The £93m City lobby machine The Bureau of Investigative Journalism (Richard Smith)
Liborfest!
Rate Scandal Stirs Scramble for Damages New York Times (furzy mouse)
The Libor $candal Explained – The Largest Banking Scandal in History 4ClosureFraud (furzy mouse). Nice infographic
Libor scandal: Bob Diamond ‘dismayed’ by MPs’ claims BBC (Richard Smith)
How They Do Drought in Texas The Daily Impact (martha r)
San Bernardino, California, Weighs Chapter 9 Bankruptcy Bloomberg
Weimar America: Four Major Ways We’re Following In Germany’s Fascist Footsteps Alternet
Jeff Daniels Rants About Why America Isn’t The Greatest Country In The World On ‘The Newsroom’ Manolith. This has been making the rounds, but in case you haven’t seen it yet…
Oligarchy in the USSA Edwin Tucker (furzy mouse)
The Spreading Scourge of Corporate Corruption New York Times. So it’s finally OK to talk about the obvious?
The Vanishing Entrepreneur Washington Monthly. You have to be nuts to start a business. 90% fail. Being on the corporate meal ticket, if you have the personality and survival skills, is vastly easier.
Scandal Shakes Trading Firm Wall Street Journal
Ain’t No Criminals on Wall Street masaccio, Firedoglake (Carol B)
Living Cells Show How to Fix the Financial System Bloomberg
Claw Is Out for ‘Whale’ Officials Wall Street Journal
The Politics of Getting a Life Jacobin (martha r)
D – 59 and counting*
“After all, the chief business of the American people is business. We make no concealment of the fact that we want wealth, but there are many other things we want very much more. We want peace and honor and that charity which is so strong an element of all civilization.” — Calvin Coolidge
Occupy. #NatGat retrospective: “I left on a quest to the Society of Friends parking lot, a few blocks away, made available to Occupy National Gathering organizers by the Society’s consent as refuge. The lot would shortly become a very real sanctuary.”
The National Park Service is what we thought it was, but Quakers are awesome.
Montreal. Scaling: “The co-spokesperson for CLASSE, Gabriel Nadeau-Dubois, will be at the University of Ottawa Thursday to talk about the success of the Quebec student movement. ‘[GND:] The key principle of success in Quebec is exportable. Because it’s our mode of organization.'” …. Symbol production: “Thus was born the École de la montagne rouge: a meeting place, an office, a workshop, but also a small-scale silkscreening factory.”
AK. Extractive economy, local businessman called “Mayor”: “Initially, I was very supportive of [The Pebble Project]. I am now avowed neutral, awaiting a site specific detailed plan, so I can make an intelligent response to a concrete proposal.” … Extractive economy: “What is happening [at Pebble Mine] is so extreme and contentious that it is setting the pinnacle (and possible the standard) for debate about opening new mines in sensitive places.” …. Pebble Mine, Walker’s iron mine, mountain-top removal, uranium mining, landfills, fracking: One story. Not six.
AZ. “I was hoping to see evidence of an Obama For America Voter Registration Drive surge by now.”
CO. Romney: “Mitt Romney rolled up his sleeves and used his teeth to rip open plastic food packaging during a stop at a food bank.” … Obama: “President Barack Obama has directed federal officials to offer seasonal firefighters the option of purchasing federal health insurance coverage.” It’s great that swing state firefighters are recipients of the imperial largesse. But we are all seasonal firefighters!
FL. Epidemic planning: “Last year, Duval County sent 11 patients to [TB hospital] A.G. Holley under court order. With A.G. Holley now closed [by the State], one was sent to Jackson Memorial Hospital in Miami instead of the nearby Shands hospital. [Other TB patients] remaining in Jacksonville are being placed in motels to make it easier for public health nurses to keep tabs on them, Duval County officials said. “It’s scary,” [State Sen D Maria] Sachs said. “All they have to do is go on a city bus.” Yes, you read that right. TB is an airborne illness. And the state of FL is warehousing TB patients in motels. … Mice roar: “My name is Lisa Epstein. I am running for Clerk of Circuit Court in Palm Beach County’s August 14, 2012 election. Our county’s voters have spoken loud and clear; expose and rid our county of fraud.” … Voting: Media misreporting skews Federal court ruling on FL’s deceptive purge of ‘non-citizen’ voters. Defeat for Scott reported as victory.
GA. Mass incarceration: “About 40 demonstrators gathered outside the state Capitol in Atlanta on Monday to express support for Georgia prison inmates who have reportedly been on a hunger strike for nearly a month. The protesters, including members of the Occupy Atlanta movement, also demanded that the state enact prison reform. ” … Food: “A food-safety law enacted in the wake of nine deaths from tainted peanut butter at a Georgia plant isn’t being strictly enforced.” … Corporate GOTV: Sam Williams, president and CEO of the Metro Atlanta Chamber, is leading the charge in this effort to squeeze employees into voting themselves a 10-year tax increase for a transportation plan.
IA. Kleptocracy, Cedar Falls Council member: “Shock. That was the principal reaction [to Peregrine CEO’s Russell Wasendorf’s suicide attempt] and then a feeling of sadness really. Mr. Wasendorf was quite an influential figure in town.” What’s shocking isn’t that another FIRE firm looted customer accounts, but that the CEO attempted suicide. … Civics 201, Area Man: “It’s neat to see what the President is all about. I mean there had to be 25-to-30 vehicles.” … Tax cuts: “I continue to believe that no matter what he promises today, Obama will sign another bill extending the Bush tax cuts at all income levels (either for a year or two, or perhaps permanently). As he did in late 2010, the president endorses the Republican message that we can’t afford to let taxes go up in a weak economy.” Staunch D, BTW.
LA. Corruption: “District Judge Tim Kelley, of the 19th Judicial District, ruled that he did not have jurisdiction to provide an injunction sought by opponents of the [charter schools] program, saying his hands were tied by a state law that prohibits him from blocking the policy if that would create a deficit. Because affidavits from state school Superintendent John White and Commissioner of Administration Paul Rainwater said that would be the effect of an injunction, there was nothing the court could do, Kelley said.” Totally not gameable!
ME. Privatization: “[Eastern Maine Medical Center] wants to outsource its dialysis services to DaVita Inc. The Denver company is the nation’s largest for profit provider of dialysis services.” What could go wrong?
NV. Voting: “The plaintiffs argue that the voters who choose NOTA [None Of The Above, which is on NV ballots] are not being treated equally, because a vote for NOTA is a vote but the state isn’t giving that vote any legal effect.”
NY. Fracking: “[Cuomo] says his administrations’ hydro-fracking policy will be released later this summer. Cuomo says if communities want fracking, or are against fracking, then home rule should be taken into ‘consideration’, if fracking is in the end allowed.”
OH. Kleptocracy: “An AEP Ohio spokeswoman said that the company planned to ask the Ohio Public Utilities Commission to pass [millions to restore power to hundreds of thousands of Ohioans after the derecho on] to customers. Last year, AEP Ohio earned $1.9 billion in profits, $700 million more than the previous year.” See, making the system work reliably comes extra.
ONT, Canada. Extractive economy: “In just the first leg of [Enbridge’s] Line 9 pipeline, 357 ‘crack-like features’ were detected during the last inspection, which led to the rupture in Michigan.’
PA. Razor thin margin: “A poll released on June 27 by Quinnipiac suggests that both [candidates] face similar rates of defection by their party bases: Obama carries Democrats by a margin of 82 percent to 7; Romney wins Republicans 76 to 10.” … Extractive economy: “D candidate Linda Small has called on Harrisburg to end $3 billion in taxpayer subsidies to oil, gas and coal corporations, saying it would help people not only in York County, but across the state.”
TN. Tinpot tyrants: “While invitees [to Gov Bill Haslam’s conference on the future of higher education] include politicians and even representatives of the Tennessee Chamber of Commerce, the Governor’s office left out invitations to faculty, staff, and students.”
TX. Water: “Last summer, during the height of the drought, West TX farmers kept watering their cotton crops despite knowing they wouldn’t grow. They needed to do so to qualify for federal crop insurance.” …. Neanderthals: “Harris County even went so far as to ban piñatas at nearly 3 dozen of its parks.”
VA. Uranium mining: “At a rough count, based on the number of people applauding different speakers, about two-thirds of the attendees were anti-mining and a third supported lifting the [uranium mining] moratorium” (Pittsylvania County).
VT. Privatization? “Low levels of two herbicides, clopyralid and picloram, have been detected in some samples of compost made at Chittenden Solid Waste District facilities. … Many gardeners have reported that some plants grown in some of the compost products have damage characteristic of these herbicides: cupped leaves, twisted stems, distorted growing points and reduced fruit set.” (Can’t figure out the trash flows from CSWD’s site, but I’m guessing that Casella, the Materials Recovery Facility contractor, also single-streams UVM’s food scraps into the Compost operation. And who knows what else.)
WI. Civics 201: “Wisconsin Power & Light is warning customers about a scam that claims President Barack Obama is providing credits or applying payments to utility bills.” Works for banksters!
Media critique. “Americans’ confidence in television news is at a new low by one percentage point, with 21% of adults expressing a great deal or quite a lot of confidence in it. This marks a decline from 27% last year.” … How top election journalists are framing their campaign coverage. Handy chart!
HCR. The narrative: [ObamaCare requires that] every state must have an exchange where consumers can go online and compare insurers’ offerings. This means not only that the market for health insurance is going to expand but also that much of it is likely to be sold directly to individual consumers rather than through an employer. …. That there is already a robust community of [health care specialists in] public relations, marketing, advertising, and market research professionals … is itself an interesting story. But getting inside the dynamics of how that business is now going to explode – and which big players, such as the largest ad agencies, are likely to start buying up the specialists – is a much bigger deal.” Direct marketing of health insurance to consumers by public relations professionals. What could go wrong?
The trail. Katie, bar the door! Dinesh D’Souza interviews Obama’s brother, George, in Kenya, for “documentary” film. … Stasis: “About two-thirds of Americans consider the country seriously off course, a majority have not approved of Obama’s overall job performance in more than a year, and the president remains in negative territory on dealing with the economy, health care and immigration. Also unmoved since fall are Americans’ attitudes toward spending, with as many saying they would prefer an increase in federal spending to try to spur economic growth as wanting to prioritize deficit reduction.” You’d never know the last point from our famously free press. …. Charlie Cook: “If President Obama’s campaign machine can define Mitt Romney before his own campaign even tries, my bet is Obama wins reelection. … A willingness to fire the president is only one step. Voters also have to be willing to hire Romney. [A] potentially decisive slice of the electorate could reluctantly return to the incumbent. Voters’ willingness to hire Romney is being severely damaged, at least in swing states, by the advertising efforts of the Obama campaign and Priorities USA, a pro-Obama super PAC. The ads are devastatingly tough.” Maybe. Priorities USA certainly commissioned a poll to show it. …. Independents: “The collective total of independents grew by about 443,000 in CO, FL, IA, NV, NH and NC since 2008 [via Bloomberg]. During the same time, Democrats saw a net decline of about 480,000 in those six states, while Republicans — boosted in part by a competitive primary earlier this year — added roughly 38,000 voters in them.” … Legacy party: “[The Rs are] a bunch of old, white guys, and unfortunately, a lot of them are fat like me.”
Greens. Ballot access: “This year, it’s actually easier being Green. … While candidates seeking the R or D lines in most areas must file 500 signatures for an Assembly seat and 1,000 for the state Senate, people looking for third party nominations need 5 percent of its enrollees in a district. The Greens are fielding two candidates in Bronx districts where, because they are so outnumbered, the threshold was just one nomination signature.”
Elizabeth Warren. Money: “Warren is already the nation’s leading congressional fundraiser and the latest figures are likely to widen her lead.” 2016!
Robama vs. Obomney watch. Meme watch, “extreme”: “[ROMNEY:] It’s the sort of thing only an extreme liberal could come up with.” “…[Obama IA spokeshole:] Mitt Romney and his extreme conservative allies….” “A majority of American voters said the political views of [Obama and Romney] are extreme.” [Noises off: Head pounding on desk. Screams. Breaking glass] … Money, Lynn Sweet: “What Romney and Obama have in common: the campaigns will offer up fund-raising statistics about low-dollar donors–and ignore data to show the importance of high-dollar donations.”
Obama. Oh ha ha ha: “[MICHELLE OBAMA:] That fundamental promise of no matter who you are, if you work hard, you can build a decent life for yourself and an even better life for your kids. That is the American dream.” … Meme watch: “[OBAMA:] Let’s stand up for families like yours that are working hard every day, give you some certainty so you can start planning, so you have an idea of what’s coming next year.” I like this vile “uncertainty” meme as much today as I did yesterday. … Razor thin margin: “Axelrod briefed House and Senate lawmakers about the president’s nine-state campaign strategy…” Why not just airdrop palettes of cash in the swing counties of those nine states? That would create “certainty”….
* 59 days ’til the Democratic National Convention ends with Chinese take-out on the floor of the Bank of America Stadium, Charlotte, NC. Satchel Paige became the oldest major league baseball player at age 59.
Antidote du jour (martha r):
90 comments
Comments are closed.
Now here’s triumph of corporate behaviour.
http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/news/tomchiversscience/100170114/london-2012-olympics-mcdonalds-is-watching-you-and-your-chips/
Jeff Daniel’s speech was fine until he started waxing lyrical about how great America used to be. When? Certainly America is a stunning economic story, but otherwise our history is littered with oppression, war, intervention, corruption, and arrogance. Of course, so is the rest of the world, but the honest truth is that Americans believe in a myth about their past and present.
And now, let’s hear from the “Oh, if it’s so bad here why : don’t you leave; do people try to come here; are we the only superpower; etc.” crowd.
Yeah. America is, broadly, the same as its always been. Rotten.
I watched the show about coverage of the BP oil volcano in the gulf of mexico where the main character asks the tough questions of the BP execs, oh, and the main character is supposedly a republican asking the tough questions, what a fantasy. TV/Cable news anchors never asked the tough questions, only the bloggers did and the best reporting I found came from locals with their own planes, boats, cameras. This show Newsroom is ridiculous.
No one beats Howard Beale for TV rants:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WINDtlPXmmE
Lambert, are you aware of what a mess pinatas leave? They are made of paper that winds up everywhere, they are full of confetti, and you never get EVERY piece of candy and plastic toy. That couple of stray pieces of candy feed the fire ants, and draw hordes of them.
I grew up using pinatas. I love pinatas. Banning them in certain places is regrettable, but completely makes sense. Concentrate clean up resources where they are allowed and keep going.
It’s just going to fuel the black market for pinatas. Who knows what kind of quality those will be. Probably made of glass and filled with lead paint chips.
The potential enormity
of George Hartzman’s Wells Fargo Whistleblower filing
on Envision Investment Plans and 4front
http://hartzman.blogspot.com/2012/07/potential-enormity-of-george-hartzmans.html
Could George Hartzman’s Wells Fargo Whistleblower filing
affect what could be more than $150 billion of Wells Fargo Advisors client assets?
Reading the “Weimar America” article, I would quote a little bit from one a 1932 essay by Paul Scheffer, republished in Foreign Affairs’s lookback issue from feb 2012:
One can, it seems to me, draw a nice analogy here between the way those guys understood themselves (and how they asw their interests as aligned with those of the corporate class), and the way members of the tea party think about themselves, and how they think society should be organized. (In that light, you might wonder to what extent their desire to live in a “meritocratic” — hierarchically organized — society could be considered altruistic, insofar as they support this idea knowing that organizing society this way leaves them worse off.)
PS. Leafing through the issue, I ran into another quote that seems interesting.
I missed your comment the first time. Good one!
But you write: “One can, it seems to me, draw a nice analogy here between the way those guys understood themselves (and how they asw their interests as aligned with those of the corporate class), and the way members of the tea party think about themselves. . . ”
Can we?
First, how do we know we are reading how the Nazis saw themselves? We are reading a story in the victor’s journals, Foreign Affairs, from a “Paul Scheffer.” How accurate is this purported inner look at Nazis?
I suggest it may be crap. Some of it doesn’t comport with the fact that Hitler did seem to get rid of massive unemployment much faster than FDR did, for instance. And he did promote the idea that anyone could advance, no? Didn’t Germany have the 40 hour work week and other pro-worker policies? At least compared to the U.S. wasn’t Germany pretty egalitarian and wasn’t unemployment super low?
Also, it appears Paul Scheffer could have been a spy for the West! He was secretly working in New York in 1941: http://www.garethjones.org/scheffer/sabotage.htm
We need to reevaluate all this history. It’s a fact all sides were engaging in propaganda and lies and we should not just accept one story from Paul Scheffer about what was going on in the average Nazi supporters minds . . .
And I know that the book that talks about Scheffer hiding in New York in 1941 speculates that he was working for or sympathetic to the Nazis.
But like I say, I think we need to re evaluate this history. I now suspect these stories were propaganda.
He would be a good person to spread tales about what’s really going on in Germany (and notice he’s safely in allied hands so as to avoid Hitler’s reach). Plus, he seems to back stop much of what we think we know about the Nazi realationship with the Soviet Union.
Allow me to note that this article was originally published 9 months prior to Hitler becoming the German chancellor, in a period in which the USA public opinion was fairly unconcerned with what went on in Germany. As such, I don’t really understand your critique, nor why your comparison to FDR is apropos, sorry.
As for Gareth Jones: Maybe there is something to his allegations, but I don’t know the guy, so..
Well, of course America was concerned with Germany in 1932. America had just gone through a world war with Germany and there were many connections between American capital:
In the 1920s many big American corporations enjoyed sizeable investments in Germany. IBM established a German subsidiary, Dehomag, before World War I; in the 1920s General Motors took over Germany’s largest car manufacturer, Adam Opel AG; and Ford founded a branch plant, later known as the Ford-Werke, in Cologne. Other US firms contracted strategic partnerships with German companies. Standard Oil of New Jersey — today’s Exxon — developed intimate links with the German trust IG Farben. By the early 1930s, an élite of about twenty of the largest American corporations had a German connection including Du Pont, Union Carbide, Westinghouse, General Electric, Gilette, Goodrich, Singer, Eastman Kodak, Coca-Cola, IBM, and ITT. Finally, many American law firms, investment companies, and banks were deeply involved in America’s investment offensive in Germany, among them the renowned Wall Street law firm Sullivan & Cromwell, and the banks J. P. Morgan and Dillon, Read and Company, as well as the Union Bank of New York, owned by Brown Brothers & Harriman. The Union Bank was intimately linked with the financial and industrial empire of German steel magnate Thyssen, whose financial support enabled Hitler to come to power. This bank was managed by Prescott Bush, grandfather of George W. Bush. Prescott Bush was allegedly also an eager supporter of Hitler, funnelled money to him via Thyssen, and in return made considerable profits by doing business with Nazi Germany; with the profits he launched his son, the later president, in the oil business. 6 http://www.historycooperative.org/journals/llt/51/pauwels.html
And if you read on you see that the linked article supports a similar version of history that the FA piece pushes–that Nazi Germany was fascist and pro-capitalist and the names “socialist” or “worker’s party” were not accurate representations. And this has been my traditional understanding as well. I simply saw contrary information that conflicts with this data and now I’m curious and wonder if this wasn’t part of a Big Lie. Maybe Hitler was more left-wing (like FDR), like Jonas Goldberg wrote (God help us). I think it’s good to question something we all just unquestionably believed. What other story came with a harder sale? If you asked Americans to list top ten evil people Hitler and the Nazis would be right up there . . . maybe they do deserve this top billing but this is precisely what we were told to believe. And when huge wars and profits are at stake people have an incentive to lie.
Also, the Gareth Jones link is actually quoting a book from 1942 that claimed he was a Nazi propagandist! So you have to take issue with Michael Sayers and Albert E. Kahn, who you also probably don’t know since they wrote their book in 1942.
The FDR information is simply comparing and contrasting these two leaders and their economic policy and calling into question the official story that one was a fascist and the other a “liberal.” I want to compare policies and I’m surprised some basic stuff has been obscured.
btw, for those who havent seen it, ive posted charlie ferguson’s documentary “inside job” (full length movie – HD)
http://marketwatch666.blogspot.com/2012/07/inside-job-full-length-movie-hd.html
its over an hour & a half…
worth the watch
i’m am drawn back to the 1932 essay on Weimar
part of why we are where we are is the similar belief and sense of self of some of our fellow citizens that would rather look the other way as they too cling to the preserving if not at least tolerance of a system where they too or perhaps their children might become a “big shot”
Florida officials rushing austerity by dispersing serious TB cases into the streets are just trying to do a little job creation.
A full-blown TB epidemic will certainly boost GDP:
1) There will be a rush to build luxurious new sanitariums for the well-to-do (think Magic Mountain with Five-Star amenities and lots and lots of attendants);
2) There will be huge profits for the Big Pharma as the price of anti-TB drugs skyrockets, driven by a panicked “middle class” still clinging to their health insurance;
3) There will be jobs for at least a portion of the old construction industry as guys with backhoes find work again digging mass graves for the poor who die.
Ain’t the “free market” grand, turning lemons into lemonade?
i think it’s quite possible that the epic disaster that stirs public outrage to the point of overturning the current kleptocratic system will be an epidemic of massive proportions, during which it will be discovered that there is no succor available because the social agreement to protect the common good is busted; the public pharmacy is empty and/or public medical science is of no avail, having all been eviscerated and left to rot by the financial predators. sort of like the way fema isn’t showing up with much help nowadays, only much more widespread and involving far more mortality.
Re: “The National Park Service is what we thought it was, but Quakers are awesome.”
Your link goes to a Youtube recording of Az Cardinal coach Dennis Green – was that your intention?
Yes, “They are who we thought they were” is a wonderful rant with wide application.
The link to the Quakers is inside the quote.
Gee, I love the smell of fascism in the morning:
More on In-Q-Tel the VC arm of the CIA that has it’s tentacles in most every tech innovation in the entire country.
Nah, don’t worry, techies, I’m sure your brilliant ideas will be put to the most beneficial and altruistic purposes.
You’re just building a “smarter big brother…sorry…planet!!”
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/In-Q-Tel
Regarding the other articles on fascism:
The problem with these analyses is that they tend to try and highlight the overt fascists like the tea partiers et al while they miss(?) the technocratic fascism that is literally being imposed upon the world in real-time.
Look, it’s not the goose-stepping wackjobs that people need to fear with inverted totalitarian fascism – it’s the suits and their academic/political lackeys that have normalized the neoliberal world we are witnessing today.
The current new normal in the US and the EU IS fascism and people have to wake up to the fact that what they are ALREADY witnessing/experiencing is fascism.
It’s just that the fascists have learned a thing or two about power/control and how best to subdue/oppress populations.
The Nazis were pikers compared to the current lot and couldn’t have imagined the toys that our sociopathic elite have at their disposal – that is, if you forget that the U.S. employed over 1600 ex(hah)-Nazi scientists through Operation Paperclip after WWII.
Yeah, it’s funny. I’ve been trained to think of Nazis as the worst of the worst. But when I put their deeds next to the deeds of the fascists that run America the American Nazis (the ruling class, Democrats and Republicans) are worse!
Re Q-Tel, yeah again. The public history of the CIA states that they become known as “The Enterprise” starting a few decades ago because of its corporate cover tentacles reaching farther and farther. Previously, I think these cover organization may have been more limited, like for operational purposes like George Bush’s cover company, Arbusto. Or Obama’s previous company, BCI.
I now suspect that many of these tech millionaires are actually CIA assets/agents. For instance, Oracle. Oracle was created from a contract with the CIA and involved the CIA’s database. Did the CIA create Oracle with the idea to control events decades in the future? Are we to accept that an organization can start out pursuing secret and nefarious goals, like Oracle, but then transform magically into a legitimate corporation that follows its own interests rather than serve a secret government?
And then Oracle is out there sponsoring huge sporting events and buying up islands . . .
Maybe the Bill Gates and Ellisons and other tech masters of the universe weren’t the winners of a fair market-based game, but were rather specifically chosen perps/agents/assets.
and now that I think of it maybe entertainers and sports stars serve a similar function. Are these people rich from real market forces or are governments involved and pumping huge amounts of money into these three areas? Entertainers, sports, and tech. [I’m just throwing ideas out there with the entertainment and sports angle but I am much more serious about the tech masters of the universe theory.
Regarding Oracle:
There are rumors out there – don’t know how founded they are – that the database technology that Oracle was based upon and which Ellison was working on was Soviet in origin.
Regarding your other ideas:
Of course.
We can’t have a society based entirely upon competition and Social Darwinism if we don’t have “winners” in every field, now could we?
“Winners” that never step out of line philosophically, never speak against the system that made them, never foster questions about the processes that led to their “stardom” or the fate of the “non-stars” in society.
Ever wonder why EVERY single sports interview is nearly identical: “It is what it is.”
Hmmm, ever wonder why the term “rock star” has permeated our culture to such an extent that it is applied to every single person who does something of note in any field:
“rock star” chef
“rock star” surgeon
“rock star” physicist
“rock star” rock star
I guess I started wondering about all this seriously when I saw the show “Cribs” on MTV a number of years ago.
I mean, how could these no name hip-hop stars et al really have the money to afford these places and 12 Bentleys etc etc?
Then it dawned on me.
They probably can’t and most are on some sort of retainer, one which can be easily stripped away or revoked if said “entertainer” doesn’t fulfill their end of the bargain or if they step out of line.
Research the careers of the current hiphop stars, for example, Rihanna, Usher, Lil Wayne and you’ll see that these people were signed to contracts when they were around 15 yet they didn’t really start producing anything until years later after they had been groomed.
Boy bands, the same thing.
The Disney machine.
Add to the mix the recent revelations – which we’ve talked about before – concerning the CIA infiltration of the New York School of painters, the Paris Review etc etc and a really grim picture of nearly every aspect of America life is painted.
One in which everything of artistic/intellectual value – even the lives of the artists themselves – has been completely commodified by the neoliberal state and put towards for the continuance of that state – nearly never overtly, though. (two notable exceptions: country music and football)
Gotta run.
Green Day? The Offspring? AM friendly punk that Mommy and Daddy approve of?
Here’s Bill Moyers on “The Enterprise”: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VQbqOkZbCfw
It’s part of a The Secret Government: The Constitution in Crises.
Thank you!
Man, I’ll bet Obummer wishes he had his young base back this time. I’m gonna laugh if he loses.
Can’t speak for the young, but he’s pickin’ up lots of us toothless Boomers by payin’ our electric bills — GLORY BE!
*HANGS UP THE PHONE, TURNS UP THE A/C, AND POPS ANOTHER BREWSKI*
On it.
“when a rider stood up and announced to fellow passengers…”
Yikes! Sad commentary on beople’s belief systems. Instead of thinking, “sad that so many mentally unstable are on the streets”, they rather seem to think, “wow, god is sending me another important message.”
I shall spit upon his face and burn his graven images. Obama is worse than Bush. Bush never raised hopes only to crush them.
How can we be sure he will lose if we don’t do whatever we can to MAKE sure he loses?
The Weimar article fails to mention the disastrous payments to the Allies through Versailles and the role of the
Rothschilds and Warburgs of the world in sucking the life out of the German economy.
Those same people are sucking the life out of our economy, but this time they think they are camouflaged behind a wall of social chaos, tolerance and diversity that they have forced on our society through their control of media and academia.
As usual, they overplay their hand.
Yes indeed!
Being a student of history I have to say I was shocked to realize the whole history about Germany that we’ve been told is complete bullshit!
And this banking/economy angle is the way to bust this deception wide open. I get the sense this is were the real diplomatic and political action was at the time and this history has been obscured (no wonder it’s illegal to talk about many aspect of German history in Germany!).
From what I’ve recently seen this Alternet article is completely wrong–like getting everything backwards.
1. Austerity. Furthermore, Hitler and the Nazis engaged in even more stimulus than FDR, from what I understand. Both FDR and Hitler took over at roughly the same time and look at their records on unemployment. They built the autobahn and created jobs.
Also, the Nazis took control over Germany’s privately held Rothschild central bank (after 4 years or so of trying to regulate them) and printed their own Marks! This is what many of us, including me, have advocated. Stimulative spending ending up in the hands of average people and using money printed by the people for the people. Hitler’s approach seems better than FDRs in many/most ways.
2. Attacks on Democracy. [bullshit] The U.S. had already killed Democracy and the Nazis weren’t doing anything much different than was going on in the U.S. and Britain. In fact, the U.S. had long had a secret forces running the government and had basically stamped out socialism during WW1. Also, the German ban on trade unions, etc. was overblown. The Nazis set up an alternative system that was not bad (afaik).
3. Enabling of Extremists. Maybe. But how much of this extremism was a direct result of Western meddling? The hyperinflation is looking more and more like a Soros style attack on a country rather than it being the Germans trying to “print” their way out of trouble. Ditto Versailles. Then there is the whole question of whether or not Hitler was actually a Rothschild type stooge that went rogue on them (or followed their diabolical plan).
Before you put up another story alleging that extreme weather is a consequence of global warming, please look at what the IPCC itself says in its recent special report on weather extremes (IPCC SREX), for example:
“There is medium evidence and high agreement that long-term trends in normalized losses have not been attributed to natural or anthropogenic climate change”
Repeat, NOT.
For more, go to Roger Pielke Jr.’s blog and search for “SREX.”
The way I read that statement (which I would really prefer to have more context for, as this ‘conclusion’ strikes me as very high level), it is merely claiming that the increase in “normalized (how?) losses” cannot be attributed to AGW (but rather to socio-economic and other factors: more people living in areas that are affected by extreme weather events, etc.). But that’s something different entirely from claiming that GW isn’t causing more EW events. (Which, furthermore, might also just not be visible in the data yet, given that the talk of the increase is at best two years old at the moment.)
Wunderground:
Your opinions I have heard before. Any facts or science to back them up?
Actually, your plane falling example sounds like an argument for a vulnerability approach.
My bad, the above was intended as reply to toxymoron.
Global warming causes extreme weather, just as smoking causes cancer. But you cannot state that global warming caused this derecho event or that Katrina disaster, just as you cannot state that this cigarette caused that cancer.
As for Pielke, while he might have something useful to say in his scientific papers, nothing useful has ever come out of his blog rants.
Consider yourself in a plane falling out of the air. You might debate whether its speed is excessive or not, whether its falling has a material cause or is human error, whether you’ll hit the ground soon or a bit later, we all know the final outcome of the story, so you’re better get the plane under control again.
You will find some context in the IPCC SREX report, if you care to follow up. For example, you will find an explanation of how losses are normalized (roughly what you said – more assets in harm’s way).
If you think there is another interpretation of “AGW cuasing more EW,” you might for starters compare recent US maps of the Palmer drought severity index (prepared by the National Climate Data Center) with the same maps for June 1934 or July 1936.
In fact, not only is the recent heat wave well within the limits of historical records, it is actually reasonably well understood what does contribute to this particular extreme (hint: not greenhouse gases). Here is another resource which you should ignore if you don’t want to challenge your cherished beliefs:
Gregory J. McCabe, Michael A. Palecki, and Julio L. Betancourt, 2004: Pacific and Atlantic Ocean influences on multidecadal drought frequency in the United States. PNAS 2004 101 (12) 4136-4141
Note: PNAS papers are thankfully not paywalled.
Nice lie there, focusing on the proximal meterological cause while avoiding the stochastic effects of global warming on current oscillations. This is not like where you live, there are smart people here. Go tell it to the drought-parched crackers who are next in line for for the refugee camps.
Quote from Gavin Schmidt in a post at RealClimate relating to climate model simulations:
“The basic issue is that for short time scales (in this case 1979-2000), grid point temperature trends are not a strong function of the forcings – rather they are a function of the (unique realisation of) internal variability and are thus strongly stochastic…..There are other issues, but his basic conceptual error is big one from which all other stem”
Note he is saying the grid point trends are strongly stochastic, not just the grid point temperatures themselves.
Have fun hiding in the noise, cherry-picking your filters. With luck, the rednecks won’t catch on until they’re eating real grits made of dirt and dying off in droves.
Re the FT article on Spain, is it just me or is Spain looking more and more like Greece? 25% unemployment, the economy contracting, and in the face of these depression conditions, Spain’s kleptocrat dominated government is cutting social spending and raising regressive taxes. I don’t know which it is more like the thinking that led to our own Great Depression or the French Revolution.
Events in Spain do seem to be heating up. Miners from northern Spain marched 450 km to Madrid for a large protest today:
http://exiledonline.com/shocking-video-from-spain-protest-austerity-gestapo-brutally-attacks-peaceful-protesters-over-76-injured-and-counting/
Re: Biology & Economy
The function of the financial sector in the economy is analogous to the function of the circulatory and lymphatic systems to the body–to allocate and distribute supplies where and when needed.
Today our financial system is bloated and maldistributive. Is there an analogous or comparable disease or syndrome, other than an enlarged heart?
Sure — TAPEWORMS.
Cancer.
Constipation, lacking fiber.
Dead.
How is Iceland dealing with its banksters? Here’s an interesting article (unfortunately in French):
http://www.lemonde.fr/europe/article/2012/07/11/l-islande-traque-ses-neo-vikings-de-la-finance-responsables-de-la-crise_1728783_3214.html
Very surprisingly, some have actually been put in jail:
“Deux anciens dirigeants de la banque Byr, premiers à avoir été jugés, purgent une peine de quatre ans et demi de prison. L’ancien directeur de cabinet du ministre des finances au moment de la crise, Baldur Gudlaugsson, a été condamné pour délit d’initiés à deux ans de prison ferme.”
That would be unthinkable here. But the people of Iceland are actually not satisfied. They have been very disappointed that their former prime ministers, Geir Haarde and David Oddson got away scot-free.
“Le cas de David Oddson est le plus emblématique.
Premier ministre conservateur de 1991 à 2004, puis directeur de la Banque centrale islandaise de 2005 à 2009, il a été l’un des principaux acteurs de la transformation économique de l’île, avec son groupe de réflexion néolibérale, “La Locomotive”. A la tête du pays, il fut à l’origine de toute une série de privatisations du secteur économique. En 2002, c’est même lui qui avait dissous l’Institut économique national d’Islande, autorité de régulation réputée pour son indépendance, pour ne plus se fier qu’aux départements d’analyse et de recherche des banques elles-mêmes.
Aujourd’hui pourtant, aucune charge n’a été retenue contre lui, et David Odsson est même devenu le rédacteur en chef du principal quotidien de Reykjavik, Morgunbladid. “Un peu comme si on avait nommé Richard Nixon à la tête du Washington Post pendant le Watergate”, souligne le Monde diplomatique.”
The More Gray Matter You Have, the More Altruistic You Are.
And vice versa?
The generous man will be prosperous, and he who waters will himself be watered. Proverbs 11:25
Compassionate…to all, including plants, vegetables, oysters, blades of grass, your old socks…
If you don’t want to tear holes in them. But then one must trim his toenails to avoid that!
Oh the ethical problems when one is his own spiritual guide!
You poor thing!
Except I doubt you follow your own ethical pronouncements else you would have starved to death by now?
The key is not to get too worked up.
Be compassionate.
What does it mean to you?
Why would one become a poor thing being compassionate?
Would one become bankrupt being generous?
Why would one become a poor thing being compassionate?
That’s not what I said. One is poor if he has no spiritual guide other than himself. One will either be too hard on himself or not hard enough.
But since you claim it is impossible to live ethically then please be consistent and starve to death?
Do you think being generous means bankruptcy?
What does being compassionate mean for you?
Bony Feet in and of themselves can have the same effect on socks.
Desperate Europeans and sham Brazilian marriages.
The linked article mentions a Spaninard who knows 3 Germans and one American who did the same.
It sounds like everyone wants to samba, even the Japanese with their sub-5% unemployment and the Lebanese. Feijoada, ummm, yummy.
It seems that it’s less stigmatizing for not only people and corporations, but also cities now to file for bankruptcy. inin
A Note on Fascism
Robert Paxton’s “The Five Stages of Fascism,” (The Journal of Modern History Vol. 70, No.1,March 1998) and his book “The Anatomy of Fascism” (2004) has struck me as a good introduction to the topic.
In his book Paxton looks at the actual practice of fascism in Europe from 1919 until the end of World War II. Five chapters in his book help to define the successive phases of fascism in action.
Creating Fascist Movements (deals with intellectual foundations and history of ideas)
Taking Root (deals with a movement becoming a party capable of acting decisively)
Getting Power(cooperation with conservative elites)
Exercising Power(interesting discussion of distinction between fascism, authoritarianism, Stalinism)
Radicalization or Entropy.
This methodology allows Paxton to observe how in some countries fascism stopped short at phase one—the intellectual stage—while in others it reached stage two—Taking Root—where government instability, unemployment etc, made it possible to look to fascism as a possible solution.
Only in Italy and Germany did fascism(as he understands it) reach stage four—exercising power and keeping it by expansionist wars and only in Nazi Germany did it reach stage five or “radicalization” with its policy of mass exterminations.
Fascism is simply a mechanized and bureaucratic state of tribalism, which for tens of thousands of years was the natural state of most of humanity.
As such, fascism is effectively an innate and natural condition of group association, although one recently superceded by structures that arose from the mixing of civilizations into new cultures and the ascension of the invidual as a sacred object (a very recent historical development). It is only in the past few millenium that these alternate forms of social organization arose. And yet where they arise, we see fascistic structures latent and empowered when prevailing structures of social organization fail. Just like a person unconsciously reverts to pre-existing latent foundational pyschic structures when experimental structures assumed for personality progression prove to be unsuccessful.
It is, in the Freudian phrase, emblematic of the “slow return of the repressed” which exists, as a force of nature, in an eternal conflict with the ascension of individuated awareness, Both compete for command of the cultural operating system through their ability to ensure physical survival of the population and its cultural paradigms.
Fascism is widely misunderstood due to the German experience in the 1930s and 1940s, but that was a special case of a far more general phenomenon. I received this information from channeling and then remembered it and wrote it down.
“Paxton has put forward a definition of fascism:
“Fascism may be defined as a form of political behavior marked by obsessive preoccupation with community decline, humiliation, or victim-hood and by compensatory cults of unity, energy, and purity, in which a mass-based party of committed nationalist militants, working in uneasy but effective collaboration with traditional elites, abandons democratic liberties and pursues with redemptive violence and without ethical or legal restraints goals of internal cleansing and external expansion.””
Oh, you mean like Paul Berman.
Wow… talk about police state tactics. It’s good that they have a lead in the killing, but it’s only because they were using DNA analysis to try can catch protesters letting people ride free on the subway.
DNA Said to Link Occupy Wall St. Protest and 2004 Killing:
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/07/11/nyregion/dna-at-occupy-wall-street-protest-site-said-to-be-tied-to-sarah-fox-killing.html
These stories are planted to instill fear in the population. And it works!
The police have time to test DNA for people engaging in fare evasion?
Give me a break.
I think your right. DNA testing turned out to be a false positive:
http://slatest.slate.com/posts/2012/07/11/sarah_fox_s_murder_ows_link_dna_match_found_at_crime_scene_protest_.html
“Said to.” Yeah, well, the NYPD says a lot of things. And so does Izvestia *** cough *** Judy Miller *** cough.
Well, it’s more disturbing that DNA testing is being done to catch fare avoidance than having Occupy DNA somehow linked to an old murder.
BTW, re: “See, making the system work reliably comes extra.”
You’re hilarious sometimes!
The most intriguing thing about the Gizmodo laser scanner article is the claim that they can retrieve data from 50 meters away in “picoseconds”. This means that they’ve managed to exceed the speed of light by a factor of 2500 or so!
When should I plan my weekend jaunt to Alpha Centauri?
re: The Spreading Scourge of Corporate Corruption (NYT)
Good to see the obvious being discussed in the MSM, and I hope it continues. Don’t shy away from the ‘C’ word – use plain English (advice from the likes of Harry Truman, George Orwell and Jimmy Breslin). However, I have to take issue with a few points:
“The parade of financiers accused of misdeeds, booted from the executive suite and even occasionally jailed, is undermining this essential element. [trust]”
No, just the opposite. It’s the lack of prosecutions (or even dismissals or shunning) that undermines trust.
“It’s difficult to know why corruption may be spreading. But there are a few plausible explanations. …”
And yet they overlook the most obvious explanation: crime flourishes when it isn’t prosecuted. It’s even worse when those in charge of regulation purposely turn a blind eye.
Imagine what would happen if they stopped prosecuting car theft, and cops on the beat were told to ignore it when they saw it. Do you suppose car thefts might increase? Why should Wall Street be any different?
“And the furious rush of corporate cash into the political process — which differs from bribery in that companies pay politicians to change laws rather than bureaucrats to ignore them …”
Large campaign contributions vs. traditional style bribes is a distinction without a difference. Corruption is corruption.
Not that long ago we had a lot of negative comment regarding the JOBS bill. (In theory the bill turned the investment market over to the vandals.)
I sort of favored the bill for reasons nicely expressed in today’s linked article: “Oligarchy in the USSA”.
“Between the CFTC, SEC, FINRA, and NASD there are bureaucratic mules of mediocre intelligence by the thousands tasked with regulating the industry. Instead of protecting you, they spend all of their time preventing people from entering the business in order to protect the oligarchs. — Edwin Tucker” – The Dollar Vigilante
Comments invited.
With respect to new entrants into a field, I have a somehow related question.
Which ua better for the society, a billionaire trying to make his second billion, or some one attempting his first?
It seems it would be harder and therefore, hopefully would contribute more, for the latter, with the assumption that money making is a reward for contributing to the world, a world in another galaxy perhaps.
One could ask the same question of millionaires, six- figurers, etc, and by the powerful tool of induction, maybe come to some kind if conclusion about a personal limit of wealth above which it is better for the society that someone else makes the contribution and money.
“bureaucratic mules of mediocre intelligence by the thousands”
Isn’t that pretty much the financial services industry in 8 words? That’s the problem if you’re a regulator. You have these idiots in front of you youre supposed to regulate who can buy and sell you, your congressman and senator and boss’s boss like they were baseball cards and you think to yourself “These guys are rich as shit but they’re a bunch of complete fuhcking idiots! What do I do now?” And then I guess you say “Fuhck it. What can I do? If I do my job I’ll get fired and if I don’t do it I’ll get fired. So I might as well do half of it. Then I’ll look for another job if it turns out I did the wrong half.” Eventually everything blows up and we have to start over again. Somebody must be noticing all this, but it’s hard to figure out just who that might be.
Probably as good an explanation as any, crazyman. When I first saw the JOBS bill I had mixed feelings. Letting the finance industry run wild might be a big no-no, but even without this kind of deregulation they were already running wild.
I figured that opening up the business to anyone who wants to play can’t be a completely bad thing. By accident we might get some new financial players who were actually honest.
Just out of curiousity, are the Warburgs and Rothchilds what they are because they’re banksters, or because they’re Jews?
I need to deploy the appropriate CT mountain of crap appropriately, thanks.
For me it’s because they’re bankers. I don’t know about the Warburgs (any relation to Orphan Anny?).
I find the fact they were Jewish interesting and think that “Jewish” history has similarly been obscured.
I guess I’ve always assumed that any prevalence of Jews in banking had to do with the traditional prohibitions on interest in Christianity and Islam.
And I would like to learn more about Jewish history and Zionism just because I’m pretty ignorant of it. I’ve seen more about this history recently and found it interesting but don’t feel any sort of bias or agenda either way. I guess it’s possible but I’m mostly curious . . . I don’t want to condemn the U.S. or zionism or British imperialism I just want to find out.
I’m mostly curious on the central bank history because realized I didn’t have the full story about the German economy and banking system from this era. And this is important! How many government have broken free of a private banking system?
Maybe a better question is who owned Germany’s central bank during this time? Or what is the true story of Germany’s central bank?
The facts are amazingly hard to find.
Who owns the central banks now? I think the Rothschilds have a large interest in the world’s central banks, no?
In some country, people come yon to almost your face to have a typically amicable conversation.
Personal space is different, being culturally dependent
In North America, it is now 165 ft.
Come no closer, I say.
Richard Evans’s Third Reich series is terrific. It’s kinda keen to watch the Nazis wage election campaigns and create propaganda. Their techniques are primitive compared to our own, of course.
I comment it once before.
Men’s tendency to marry lower wagers would equalize.
As would women’s.
But people don’t always factor that. It’s more based on love. The long standing brainwashing goal is to make men equate love with hotness and for women to equate it wirh security. Smart ones overcome that.
There should be no pre determination that today we should have more power couples, percentage wise, concentrating wealth.
Commented.
Because the elevator doors open does not necessarily mean that the cab is at the floor. Watch your step. It’s a long fall down the SHAFT, to the viper PIT;
PM is a transmission;
The shark is subject to anxiety, just like the doe in the headlights, under the right conditions;
If the shark stops, it dies;
Turn the system on its head and take a good look at it;
Your patience is being tested by a machine running on automatic;
The best play is not to play, allowing the shark to assume you are playing, right up until it stops moving;
Have another shark ready to go;
There are many physical, intellectual, and spiritual means to maintain relative distance, and to enter and exit the event horizons, in parallel.
From the FT article linking AGW to freak weather:
“The idea here is to apply attribution science at the time when people are asking questions about what’s actually happening,” said Dr Stott. “The idea hopefully is this will become a regular thing, an annual report, but it is stretching the science. We are attempting to do this quickly and therefore we haven’t been able to be comprehensive.””
In other words, it is just PR dressed up as science. Don’t think so? Then, from the same article:
“It only covers six events: droughts in Texas and east Africa; Thailand’s floods; higher European temperatures; the UK’s warm November and its “big freeze” in the 2010-11 winter.”
You couldn’t find a more clear cut case of cherry picked evidence. Note that dates are only supplied for the UK event.
And every time I come across these increasingly desperate attempts at getting this excuse for the carbon credit scam back in the news, any critics are tainted as being funded by oil money. Well, what about the nuke industry money that has been funding plenty of AGW supporters? Alex Cockburn, certainly no capitalist shill, has written about it on counterpunch. It has become typical of AGW zealots to resort to attacks such as one in this forum half threatening a critic with hypothetical attacks by desperate rednecks. But it is just further proof of the zealotry’s own desperation.
Regardless of the thermometers machinations, profit will ride that wave, monetize it and trade it. This is not indicative of the observations T or F status. It is incentivising and with all market behavioral aspects noted, too date, the scientific becomes captured, distorted, T become F and the other way around.
skippy… before you get your nickers in a bunch over AGW, I would be investigating fish stocks, currant AG and livestock potential, potable water… globally. By the time AGW is set in stone, the others will manifest them selves.
Well it would be kind of ironic if all the most embarrassing parts of America got baked to hellish dustbowls filled with frantic destitute refugees penned in with razor wire and armed guards, lining up for dipperfuls of mealies or trudging back to their ragged FEMA tents with punctured cans dripping soy oil on their heads, and all because you can barely solve a 1st-order linear diffyq but you’re shooting your mouth off like you know the ins and outs of a GCM.
About those super-scanners, will the scannering authorities still offer a choice between the pervie patdown or the cancer-ray pornoscan? If so, it is better to accept the humiliation of the pervie patdown.
If they deny even the choice of the pervie patdown as against the cancer-ray pornoscan, then we can know that they are seriously serious about total datagathering. Would a percentage of fine metal threads woven into the cloth that clothes are made from defeat the cancer ray pornoscan machines? If so, there will be a booming market in metal-thread-rich clothing.
re: “The Politics of Getting a Life, Jacobin”
I do agree with the Committee of Public Safety to the extent that we need to rethink our knee-jerk attitudes about work.
It seems to me that the emergent new normal is the immersion workaholic, which model only works if you truly like what you’re doing for money and (let’s face it) most people don’t.
Of course, this pales in comparison to the way they have people begging for the right to be immersion workaholics at Walmart (or for the government on Walmart terms).
Just shoot me already, lest I end up at Foxconn.
Walter Wit Man: are you really anti-Semitic, and/or neo Nazi? Or simply too young and callow to know what you are saying? Because you sound more and more like a denier warming up to your real spiel.
When someone writes an article he/she maintains the idea of
a user in his/her brain that how a user can
know it. Therefore that’s why this piece of writing is amazing. Thanks!