Links 5/25/13

Posted on by

Apologies for thin links. I’m on Melissa Harris-Perry’s MSNBC show at around 11:30 on Saturday, which entails some prep and turning in earlier than usual. I’ll catch up in tomorrow’s links.

Cockroaches quickly lose sweet tooth to survive R&D Magazine (furzy mouse)

Whey Too Much: Greek Yogurt’s Dark Side Modern Farmer (Carol B)

5 Most Horrifying Things About Monsanto—Why You Should Join the Global Movement and Protest on Saturday Alternet

Physicists Create Quantum Link Between Photons That Don’t Exist at the Same Time Science Now (furzy mouse)

Weinstein’s theory of everything is probably nothing New Scientist (Lambert). Countering an enthusiast link from yesterday

Veteran fears ‘beginning of the end’ for Japan as bond market buckles Ambrose Evans-Pritchard, Telegraph

Fracking could ruin German beer industry, brewers tell Angela Merkel Telegraph (Lambert)

Stay Out of Syria! New York Review of Books. This looks to be an example of what I call leading edge conventional wisdom.

America’s Wars, Ranked Gawker. The shortcoming of this list is that it does not include America’s undeclared wars. Can readers point to a good tally?

Has Obama tightened US drone strike policy, or not? Christian Science Monitor

Apologia pro dronis suis Michael Smith (Carol B)

The future impact of US defense spending Cardiff Garcia, FT Alphaville

Falling inflation complicates the Fed’s QE exit plan Gavyn Davies, Financial Times

The Resurrection of Ben Bernanke Counterpunch (Chuck L)

Bet against Treasuries at your own risk Financial Times

Cooper Union: Secret Transcript of Board of Trustee Meeting Reveals Talk of Shut Down Village Voice (Lambert)

Anthony Weiner’s mayoral site features the Pittsburgh skyline Capital New York (Chuck L)

Alabama cities lead list of porn-loving religious places, poll says Alabama.com (Chuck L)

Does Apple’s Cook Cook the (U.S. tax) Books? Linda Beale

Internal Wall Street pitchbook shows that you, the clients, are suckers Daily Kos (Carol B). Quelle surprise!

America’s Top Colleges Have A Rich-Kid Problem Clusterstock

Antidote du jour (martha r):

3563_497786240275095_2012923271_n

Print Friendly, PDF & Email

58 comments

  1. gonzomarx

    Unrest may spread across Europe, warns Red Cross chief
    http://tinyurl.com/poj277c

    before it goes down the memory hole.
    Woolwich murder suspect’s ‘friend’ arrested after claiming on Newsnight MI5 tried to recruit Michael Adebolajo
    http://tinyurl.com/pss8lvj

    another interesting op-ed from mr brand
    Russell Brand on parliament: ‘The whole joint is a deeply encoded temple of hegemonic power’
    http://tinyurl.com/oy8lt76

    and in the service of rhetoric
    George Galloway’s finest moments – now available on iTunes
    http://tinyurl.com/q46wbmr

    1. AbyNormal

      from your 1st link…so the EU RedX recognizes this is a Depression. ” In some areas of Greece, that figure has hit 75 per cent, while in Portugal youth unemployment soared from around 30 per cent two years ago to 43 per cent now.”
      Twelve per cent of Europe’s workforce is out of a job, while EU figures show that 120 million people – nearly a quarter of the bloc’s population – are at risk of poverty and social exclusion.

      “The figures are not going down, said Mr Geleta. “So we are worried, and we would like to warn governments this could be a serious concern.”

      …the corner is being turned for Genocide!

      “In Greece, deep cuts to healthcare and social budgets have led to a resurgence of diseases such as malaria, while the number of suicides increased 26 per cent between 2011 and 2012. Homelessness in Spain is soaring, while in Bulgaria six people have self-immolated to protest against economic hardship.”

      …“What distinguishes genocide from murder, and even from acts of political murder that claim as many victims, is the intent. The crime is wanting to make a people extinct. The idea is the crime.” Gourevitch

    2. diptherio

      Russel Brand may well turn out to be one of this generation’s most eloquent social critics…weird

      Gotta love that get-up he wore to Paliment, eh? Nothing like putting on a little class when addressing one’s “betters” (snicker).

      1. neo-realist

        Brand X on the FX Network is or was a cool outside of the box talk show with questioning lines, issues and people that don’t come up on the likes of Kimmel, Letterman or Fallon. Hope it come back.

      2. Glenn Condell

        Only 12 months ago he wasn’t even on my radar but I read a fascinating blog about him by Dennis Perrin, whose girlfriend dragged him along to see Brand (with Matt Stoller as sidekick) Perrin, also a comedy writer and performer of note was impressed, indeed almost humbled, despite himself:

        http://dennisperrin.blogspot.com.au/2012/02/brand-oh.html

        Can’t agree with Dennis about Get Him to the Greek, mildly diverting is all, but I was gobsmacked by the quality of Brand’s Thatcher obit, up there with the redoubtable Galloway as the best. Then there was a psychologically and socially acute (and very funny) piece on the retirement of Alex Ferguson last week, plus his forceful support of pure common sense on drugs.

        Pity they couldn’t have made him stay in the halls of power.

  2. FaustCarton

    Re The Resurrection of Ben Bernanke: Sylvia Nasar ( Author of A Beautiful Mind ) was on ABC radio today as part of The Sydney Writers Festival. She said, as I understood, that despite all the criticism, this man’s ‘strategy’ of QE is apparently being proven correct because the USA is beginning to recover from the GFC, whereas Europe is still struggling.
    How could such a highly intelligent journalist like Her believe this? After reading the NC blog for nearly four years now, I don’t see any sign of this ‘recovery’ in the States. On the contrary, it appears more like a larger, far more drastic situation is building up and an underlying sense of this impending event is being felt everywhere.

    1. Yves Smith Post author

      I thought her take was a strain too but figured readers would have fun chewing over it.

      And more generally, there are a lot of Vichy Left economists here who are defending the Fed as having helped.

      1. F. Beard

        I thought her take was a strain too Yves Smith

        Most non-engineers do not know that “strain” is another word for “stretch” and think that it means “stress” instead.

        You continue to amaze.

        1. MyLessThanPrimeBeef

          Unless we are talking about some divinity like Kirtimukha the Time Monster, or Viracocha, the Staff God et al, stress and strain are related thusly:

          stress = (modulus of elasticity) x (strain)

          Almost all engineers know that when you have strain, you have stress.

          1. F. Beard

            Almost all engineers know that when you have strain, you have stress. Beefy

            Not if MOE = 0, according to that equation.

            But a Buddhist should know that since a Buddhist is not to be attached to material things, such as gold.

    2. Glenn Condell

      Hullo FC, had a good night with AC last week, hope all well with you. GC

      PS, Nasar has the cred required for Operation Burnish Ben… but not for long!

  3. Jim Haygood

    Yesterday in a drug store I saw something that made me do a double take: stacks of printed newspapers for sale. It was like being time-warped back to the 20th century or something.

    In an ink-laden stack of the day’s Times-Titanic, the lead article about Obama’s drone speech was accompanied by this color photograph:

    http://static.globalgrind.com/sites/default/files/imagecache/article_images_540/images/2013_may/obama_drones_0.jpg

    Massed flag displays of this nature are a fetishistic symbol of militarist nationalism, first popularized by the Nazi regime in the 1930s.

    Americanos got such an overdose of flag-waving after 9/11 that no one even notices the fascist symbolism anymore. But try finding a photo of say, John Kennedy, in front of such a menacing display of militarist belligerence. He wouldn’t have stood for it.

    1. Chris Engel

      Interesting observation…I’m not sure how accurate the perspective you’ve provided is, but I’m not surprised by it if it is true.

      1. Jim Haygood

        Here is one reference:

        ‘The symbolism of massed flags … was utilized in Nazi mass rallies. It was used to evoke aspirations to national grandeur, chauvinistic conquest and subjugation of other nations and ethnic groups.’

        Christel Lane, The Rites of Rulers: Ritual in Industrial Society, p. 276. Google Books link:

        http://tinyurl.com/nasxgkv

    2. from Mexico

      There is, however, an important difference between Nazi racially-based imperialism and our ideologically-based imperialism.

      The fact that racism has been a weapon of imperialistic politics has been recognized for a long time, and the intersection of race, class, gender, and sexual orientation within the logic of hierarchy and domination has also long been acknowledged. Less known, however, is the equally long tradition of non-racist ideologies being employed to justify imperialistic policies.

      Nowhere was the difference made clearer than in the famous debate in 1551 and 1552 between Fray Bartolomé de las Casas and Juan Ginés de Sepúlveda. Neither contestant to the debate was opposed to Spain’s imperialistic politics in the New World, but their justifications for the conquest were strikingly different, as well as the ways in which the Indians would be treated by their conquerors.

      Las Casas maintained that the authority of the Catholic kings over the Indians derived from the donation of Pope Alejandro VI. The obligation of the Spanish monarchs, therefore, was to preside over the conversion of the Indians to the Christian faith so that they could be civilized and become part of the community of man and of Spain.

      Las Casas, falling back on Judeo-Christian theology, argued that “all the people in the world are human beings.” The American Indians

      are not beasts, or slaves by their own nature, they are not like children, with a limited and static thought, they are human beings, they can be Christians, they have a right to enjoy their possessions, their political liberty and their human dignity, and in their belief they should be incorporated to Spanish and Christian civilization instead of being enslaved or destroyed.

      –Alfonso Maestre Sanches, “All the people in the world are human beings: The great debate between Fray Bartolomé de las Casas and Juan Ginés de Sepúlveda” http://revistas.ucm.es/index.php/ASHF/article/view/ASHF0404110091A

      Las Casas “saw the mind of the Indian as a tabula rasa on which it would not be hard to inscribe the principles and precepts of Christianity.” (J.H. Elliott, Empires of the Atlantic World) The Indians should be allowed into the community of mankind and of Spain, Las Casas argued, because unlike the Muslims, Jews and protestant heretics, they had never known Christianity before, never caused grave damage to Christians, nor impeded the evangelization of the one true faith. As long as the Indians converted to Christianity, then they should be allowed into the community of mankind and of Spain.

      Sepúlveda, on the other hand, basing his position on the late-classical philosophy of Aristotle and Plato, maintained that the authority of the Spanish monarch’s over the Indians derived from Natural Law. He argued that the Indians should not be allowed into the community of mankind or of Spain, regardless of whether they accepted the one true faith or not, and should instead be enslaved or destroyed because they were, by nature, inferior. He stated that:

      It is with perfect right that the Spanish dominate these barbarians of the New World…who are so inferior to the Spanish in prudence, intelligence, virtue, and humanity, as children are to adults, or women to men, that I am tempted to say that there is between us both as much difference as between…monkeys and men. [N]othing more healthy could have occurred to these barbarians than to be subjected to the empire of those [Spanish] whose prudence, virtue, and religion shall convert the barbarians, who hardly deserve the name of human beings, into civilized men, as far as they can become so.
      –Carlos Fuentes, The Buried Mirror

      If we fast-forward the clock 343 years to 1894, we see the Las Casas philosophy resurface in Teddy Roosevelt’s address called “True Americanism.” Other peoples will be allowed into the national tribe, but only if they “assimilate” and convert to America’s secular faith. As Roosevelt said:

      We freely extend the hand of welcome and of good-fellowship to every man, no matter what his creed or birthplace, who comes here honestly intent on becoming a good United States citizen like the rest of us. But we have a right, and it is our duty, to demand that he shall indeed become so and shall not confuse the issues with which we are struggling by introducing among us Old World quarrels and prejudices.
      –Stanley Kurtz, “Acculturation without assimilation”
      https://www.nationalreview.com/nrd/articles/347184/acculturation-without-assimilation

      On the opposite end of the imperial spectrum, we see the Sepúlveda philosophy resurface in the ideologies of the Third Reich. Racism is a supranational ideology (i.e., a “Jew in general” is a “Jew everywhere and nowhere”), and in racist ideologies, the state does not let some races in, regardless of what ideology they profess. Being a Jew, according to German racial science, was immutable, and excluded one not only from inclusion in the national tribe but the community of mankind as well. “German Darwinists argued that innate racial inequalities gave each individual life a different value, and extermination of ‘inferior’ races was not only appropriate but unavoidable.” (Francois Haas, “German science and black racism – roots of the Nazi Holocaust” http://www.fasebj.org/content/22/2/332.full.pdf+html )

      If we then fast-forward the clock another 119 years, we see the Las Casas philosophy resurface in Barak Obama’s commencement speech to Moorehouse College, which he gave a few days ago. The Atlanta-based historically black private college is exclusively for men, and here’s what Obama had to say to them:

      As Morehouse Men, many of you know what it’s like to be an outsider; know what it’s like to be marginalized; know what it’s like to feel the sting of discrimination. And that’s an experience that a lot of Americans share. Hispanic Americans know that feeling when somebody asks them where they come from or tell them to go back.

      Gay and lesbian Americans feel it when a stranger passes judgment on their parenting skills or the love that they share. Muslim Americans feel it when they’re stared at with suspicion because of their faith. Any woman who knows the injustice of earning less pay for doing the same work — she knows what it’s like to be on the outside looking in.

      Obama makes his commitment to racial, gender, religious, and sexual-identity diversity explicit. But as has been demonstrated by other actions and statements of Obama (for example those pertaining to Bradley Manning), there is no equal commitment to ideological diversity. On the contrary, in the spirit of Las Casas, Obama has made it quite clear that anyone who doesn’t convert to the one true faith — American exceptionalism coupled with unwavering support for US imperial ambitions (world hegemony and full spectrum dominance) and free-market fundamentalism — will stand thoroughly outside the national culture and the community of mankind.

  4. diptherio

    Does Apple Cook the Books? Uh, does the Pope sh*t in the woods? (or something like that)…

    http://www.cartoonstock.com/newscartoons/cartoonists/jsi/lowres/jsin405l.jpg

    http://www.cartoonstock.com/newscartoons/cartoonists/mbc/lowres/mbcn840l.jpg

    Isn’t failure to cook the books and engage in tax-dodge schemes a firing offense for C-levels these days? I was under the impression that all this stuff was just industry “best-practices.” Gotta protect that shareholder value, ya know…

    1. wunsacon

      I can partly appreciate Rand Paul’s rant. Obama and Congress can fix the problem based on widely available public information. Berating Cook is for show.

  5. AbyNormal

    his frame quivered…eyes rolled to the back of head…mask tightened for his climatic gratification…’DRONE EXTREMIST’

    Blut muss fließen!

  6. Chris Engel

    I’ll break my rules and tune into MSNBC to check it out.

    By the way, for those who don’t have cable or live outside the US, there’s a free live MSNBC stream: http://www.livenewschat.tv/politics/

    While I do like Maddow and Chris Hayes, who cover Occupy, Wikileaks, and other stuff, the network as a whole is a major turnoff with the weird feel of it being like the propaganda arm of the Democratic Party.

    1. jr

      And why are they a propaganda arm for the Dem party? Because it sells? Is that really it. Or is it to advance the corporate goals, complete the loop with fox and keep any real dissent down forever.

  7. Ep3

    Re: rich schools Poor kids

    Yves, the article doesn’t mention much as far as reasons. Like that rich kid parents give large sums to the schools as well as the grads give large sums too. I could go onl

  8. Jessica

    Veteran fears ‘beginning of the end’ for Japan as bond market buckles

    Law of Export Economies: An economy industrialized based on manufactured exports develops a distribution of power that makes a shift to balanced growth impossible.

    Abenomics: One more attempt to miss the point?

    Japan was the first of the export-dependent economies to reach the point at which it had to switch over to domestic demand. That was 1985. Japanese media were full of discussions of “naijukakudai” (internal demand expansion). 28 years later, the economy is still export dependent. The effect of Abenomics so far has been to lower the exchange rate of the yen. This makes exporting easier and suppresses internal demand due to inflation, which is already showing up in food prices.
    Unless Abenomics will have powerful longer-term effects that are the opposite of its immediate effects, I fail to see how it can possibly work.

    1. MyLessThanPrimeBeef

      Export dependency might make one feel great in the beginning, but it seems like a Faustian deal.

      Do we know of anyone who recently (in the last 50 years) detoxed successfully?

      1. Jessica

        Export dependency can help a nation a great deal for quite a while as long as someone is willing to be the import sink.
        East Asia has done very well this way. But they do need to find some way to shift direction now.
        Whether or not China is able to make this change in direction will have a huge effect on the coming decades. Precisely because they have such an authoritarian system, they might be able to impose changes that other East Asian exporters could not. However, the export-dependent interests on whom those changes would have to be imposed are at the core of the Chinese Communist Party, which is who would have to impose the changes. So I suspect that they will fail also. But that failure may take a different shape.

    1. Valissa

      That horse reminded me of that ’80s phenomena… hair bands… flashback available here… The Best Hair of the 80’s Hair Metal Bands http://www.nowthatsnifty.com/2009/05/best-hair-of-80s-hair-metal-bands.html

      The band that most resembles the horse’s mane?

      IMO, that would be Nitro…

      Nitro – freight train http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zEyI24nb010

      A classic of the era…

      Mötley Crüe – Smokin’ in the Boys Room http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x4E2nFXaeMA

  9. dearieme

    “the costs of delivering a first rate education has outstripped our ability to generate revenues to cover them”: there will be many universities singing this song in the next few decades.

      1. Optimader

        Yes, a false assumtion. The cost of the valuable educational bits is notthe issue. Go back to simple dorms, gut administration and double down on cultivating useful andrelevant curriculum. Universities dont need granite countertop chow halls. There has been huge competitive investments in facilites to emulate a higher standard of living than what many will achieve when kicked out on the street to workoff six figure no recourse loans.

        1. Ms G

          Yes, and at what point did it become de rigueur for universities to refashion their physical plant in the manner of 5 Star hotels (or the C-suite in corporate skyscraper offices), with vanity buildings, real estate empires and granite countertops?

          Has anybody traced the beginning the MBA/Asset Stripper infiltration of institutions of higher education? And it seems pretty clear that Board members and Trustees — who, it seems, hail mostly from the upper ranks of the FIRE sector — must be a huge piece of how this quiet take over has happened.

  10. rich

    House speaker cites “serious concerns” about Heritage-Citizens insurance deal
    Others call it $52 million in corporate welfare, ask Gov. Scott to return contribution

    State Rep. Mike Fasano, R-New Port Richey, called it “blatant” corporate welfare and questioned the timing and content of letters Heritage is sending to Citizens customers, citing a Palm Beach Post story in a letter to the state’s insurance commissioner.

    “In truth, the whole thing smells,” Dan Gelber, an attorney and former Democratic legislator from Broward County, wrote in a letter to Scott.

    Gelber described Heritage as “a company trying to obtain a no-bid giveaway from a quasi-state agency over which you have great influence. You make appointments directly to the Citizens board and regularly conduct oversight of them in your role as the leader of the Florida Cabinet.”

    Keeping Heritage’s $110,000 contribution in March to Scott’s Let’s Get To Work committee “only confirms the dark suspicions so many Floridians have about state government,” Gelber said.

    http://www.mypalmbeachpost.com/news/news/house-speaker-cites-serious-concerns-about-heritag/nX3LB/?

    this is how the winners and losers in our society are determined….from towns to big cities it keeps getting worse…I can’t imagine what it’s like on the federal level.

  11. wunsacon

    >> Has Obama tightened US drone strike policy, or not? Christian Science Monitor

    Colin Powell says the CIA should turn over its drone program to the Pentagon.

    Is the goal “more oversight” (as alleged)? Or is the goal to shift funding?

    1. Brian

      Dr. Weinstein didn’t ask to ruffle feathers of physicists. He simply put forth new math. Why do physicists get so uppity when someone produces something outside the legendary “academia”? Is it a gravy train issue? Ego?
      “Damn I should have come up with that one”. I am happy that something new has come forth to question.
      Woe that it wasn’t math Mr. Krugman might understand because there is one chicken with ruffled feathers about his puncture proof tire.

      1. Propertius

        Oh, there’s probably a fair amount of ego involved – physicists aren’t fundamentally different from any other pack of roving, tool-using, hairless apes after all.

        Still, it will be a lot easier to evaluate Weinstein’s claims when he gets around to actually putting the paper on arXiv so people can look at it, rather than relying on vague newspaper accounts. Personally, I hope he’s right but then I was really rooting for those FTL neutrinos.

  12. mookie

    David Simon, creator of The Wire, says new US drug laws help only ‘white, middle-class kids’ Guardian

    Simon took no prisoners. In his vision, the war on – and the curse of – drugs are inseparable from what he called, in his book, The Death of Working Class America, the de-industrialisation and ravaging of cities that were once the engine-rooms and, in Baltimore’s case, the seaboard of an industrial superpower.

    The war is about the disposal of what Simon called, in his most unforgiving but cogent term, “excess Americans”: once a labour force, but no longer of use to capitalism. He went so far as to call the war on drugs “a holocaust in slow motion”.

    Simon said he “begins with the assumption that drugs are bad”, but also that the war on drugs has “always proceeded along racial lines”, since the banning of opium.

    It is waged “not against dangerous substances but against the poor, the excess Americans,” he said, and with striking and subversive originality, posited the crisis in stark economic terms: “We do not need 10-12% of our population; they’ve been abandoned. They don’t have barbed wire around them, but they might as well.”

    1. diane

      Great, thought provoking piece; thanks for that, very much. This part really stood out for me:

      The war is about the disposal of what Simon called, in his most unforgiving but cogent term, “excess Americans”: once a labour force, but no longer of use to capitalism. He went so far as to call the war on drugs “a holocaust in slow motion”.

      As I recollect, that scumbag Rahm Emanuel, with his dual citizenship[s] (DC/Chicago, U$/I$rael), is on record as proving Simon’s point and basically writing off a large segment of population who have never stood much of a chance for anything but a gruesome life.

      Something he didn’t bring up, which I think is also occurring, is the increasing criminalizing of drinking (except for the unaffordable to most (unpalatable to many), white whine goblet$ for POWER breakfast$, lunche$ and din din$, which those in the malarial DC $wamp are so commonly photographed with during their bu$ine$$ day), which would apply for many of the middle aged to older “excess Americans.” There was a recent ‘major nooz’ outlet piece about cutting down even further the DUI limit (which, to my mind, likely already snags millions who are driving safely, far safer than those: millions of sleep deprived, gadget wired, and simply bad drivers,) and elaborate car sniffer devices; which will mean the only ones able to drink any alcohol whatsoever, let alone taking certain light cough medications , will be those with paid drivers (I won’t comment on the fact that big Pharma is surely pushing behind the scene for replacing that pleasantly easing libation with their late$t.)

      Also, I wish he would’ve noted that it’s possible that on average, black youth over all, may imbibe less in drugs (and alchohol and tobacco) than white youth, though they’ve been portrayed as the predominant drug abusers, criminal at that.

      (By the way, speaking of Monsters, I added some links for you on the May 23rd Links ‘thread.’)

      1. diane

        (I’m thinking I should have clarified that I didn’t use the words “white whine” as a racial categorizing. I meant it, very much so, as a state of mind, one which actually does not even pertain to the majority of caucasions, or any other skin hue, it only refers to the $wineS ‘in the house’… I had my issues with Joe Bageant (sp.) but I sure miss much of his written commentary about “white trash.”)

  13. rich

    Park Avenue: money, power and the American dream – Why Poverty?
    How much inequality is too much?

    740 Park Ave, New York City, is home to some of the wealthiest Americans. Across the Harlem River, 10 minutes to the north, is the other Park Avenue in South Bronx, where more than half the population needs food stamps and children are 20 times more likely to be killed. In the last 30 years, inequality has rocketed in the US — the American Dream only applies to those with money to lobby politicians for friendly bills on Capitol Hill.

    http://youtu.be/6niWzomA_So

  14. diane

    Was very disturbed to read a nasty, Saturday, May 25th hit piece at the Dissident Voice site (which I’ve read some good pieces at) early this morning, trashing Ruth Fowler’s much needed Counterpunch piece: Of Privilege, Health Care and Tits – Angelina Jolie Under the Knife.

    The piece (written by a female for fock’s sake …. siiiiiighhhhhhhh, …….. which deceitfully and brazenly incorporates the word “sexism” in its title), easily found today at the site (I refuse to give it any link ‘play’), is stunningly insulting to the vast majority of females, and multiply signed by a self engorged and worthless crew of (entirely) Academia (and far too many males on that list who really have a whole lot of focking nerve even opining). Those signatories, I’m quite sure, have far better health insurance than the vast majority of all citizens remaining who even have any health insurance (that which actually also provides affordable health care). This, despite the fact that females make up the majority of uninsured and underinsured in the country, historically and currently, and therefore, for just one thing: the vast majority of those females would never be able to fund removing their breasts and perfectly remodeling them (even if that were the only solution and they actually needed/wanted to do that) if they were not first diagnosed with cancer. As it is, those millions of uninsured end up ‘diagnosed’ when it is way too late to do anything ‘so preventative’ let alone stay alive for another decade or two.

    Here’s a counter antidote for those who also unwittingly stumbled onto that to near ruin their day:

    The Ruling Class as Full-Time Sadistic Torturers

    … I’m referring to psychological and emotional torture.

    ….

    It is an article written by an unimaginably privileged person, about procedures available only to those who are enormously privileged. Those who can afford to do what Jolie did (even if it’s only being tested in the way she was) almost certainly already have all the information she offers. As for everyone else — which is most people — well, it’s just another meal or ticket they will never be able to afford, another trip they can never take, another home they can only look at and gape in wonder that people live in such splendor. This is how the people who matter live you worthless, putrid thing; gaze in wonder on your betters. Of course, in this case she’s talking about people’s lives, so the contrast is much starker. Jolie’s article is an exercise in narcissistic self-congratulation; it is immensely sadistic and cruel.

    ….

    (Bolding mine. Thanks so much for the link heads up, BLCKDGRD.)

    1. skippy

      Re-posting some info that will help.

      08 Nov 24

      The natural history of invasive breast cancers detected by screening mammography.

      Zahl PH, Maehlen J, Welch HG.

      Source

      VA Outcomes Group, Department of Veterans Affairs Medical Center, White River Junction, VT 05009, USA.

      Abstract

      BACKGROUND:

      The introduction of screening mammography has been associated with sustained increases in breast cancer incidence. The natural history of these screen-detected cancers is not well understood.

      METHODS:

      We compared cumulative breast cancer incidence in age-matched cohorts of women residing in 4 Norwegian counties before and after the initiation of biennial mammography. The screened group included all women who were invited for all 3 rounds of screening during the period 1996 through 2001 (age range in 1996, 50-64 years). The control group included all women who would have been invited for screening had there been a screening program during the period 1992 through 1997 (age range in 1992, 50-64 years). All women in the control group were invited to undergo a 1-time prevalence screen at the end of their observation period. Screening attendance was similar in both groups (screened, 78.3%, and controls, 79.5%). Counts of incident invasive breast cancers were obtained from the Norwegian Cancer Registry (in situ cancers were excluded).

      RESULTS:

      As expected, before the age-matched controls were invited to be screened at the end of their observation period, the cumulative incidence of invasive breast cancer was significantly higher in the screened group than in the controls (4-year cumulative incidence: 1268 vs 810 per 100 000 population; relative rate, 1.57; 95% confidence interval, 1.44-1.70). Even after prevalence screening in controls, however, the cumulative incidence of invasive breast cancer remained 22% higher in the screened group (6-year cumulative incidence: 1909 vs 1564 per 100 000 population; relative rate, 1.22; 95% confidence interval, 1.16-1.30). Higher incidence was observed in screened women at each year of age.

      CONCLUSIONS:

      Because the cumulative incidence among controls never reached that of the screened group, it appears that some breast cancers detected by repeated mammographic screening would not persist to be detectable by a single mammogram at the end of 6 years. This raises the possibility that the natural course of some screen-detected invasive breast cancers is to spontaneously regress.

      http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/19029493

      SEER Stat Fact Sheets: Breast

      http://seer.cancer.gov/statfacts/html/breast.html

      Read more at http://www.nakedcapitalism.com/2013/05/links-51513.html#dl0p19PwXcKrlyii.99

      ———-

      The hole Jolie’s thing is a distortion by MSM pundits to create traffic.

      CONCLUSIONS:

      “””Because the cumulative incidence among controls never reached that of the screened group, it appears that some breast cancers detected by repeated mammographic screening would not persist to be detectable by a single mammogram at the end of 6 years. This raises the possibility that the natural course of some screen-detected invasive breast cancers is to spontaneously regress.”””

      skip here…. as the above states: hyper screening can be actually a negative [induced] outcome, unnecessary invasive surgery. Especially when the percentage of Population effected by her genetic precursor is so damn small [see the SEER Stat Fact Sheets: Breast link.]

      Fear is a great way to drum up business see: insurance scams and assembly line medicine, TV evangelists. Most the pundits just want a horse – to whip – so they can burnish their image [make money]. American medicine is a… For Profit Industry, just like Prisons, Education, etc.

      Environmental toxins have more to do with cancer than genetics.

      “Researchers have estimated that as many as 2 in 3 cases of cancer (67 percent) are linked to some type of environmental factor”

      http://www.cancer.gov/cancertopics/understandingcancer/environment/AllPages

      skippy… hope this helps.

      1. diane

        It certainly is, quite the billion dollar, … Pink!!!!! ….. industry. If I had the energy, and time, I’d look up the article regarding Secord’s (of Iran Contra Infamy) Mormon, Fake Thermal Breast Imaging Company details (if they haven’t been already wiped from the nets …(anyone ever wonder why $ome names never appear on little jimmy whales wikipedia until someone asks why?)).

        Unfortunately some women actually do have breast cancer, and it does seem that it can be kind of deadly when one does not have the safety net to deal with it.

        (A tight embrace to you, skippy.)

Comments are closed.