Links 3/23/16

Dear patient readers,

You are getting a big dose of Links today to make for the lack of original posts by me (although Richard Smith has another episode from his ongoing international fraud gumshoe work). The reason for that is I spent four hours on tech issues that are still unresolved and will probably not be wrapped up until the weekend at best. They are yet another illustration of crapification, but I need to calm dawn before I can write it up properly (assuming I determine that there are enough implications to be worth discussing). BTW this is despite the help of a very able and good natured expert.

Tracey Emin announces she has married a rock Telegraph. Wow, the Telegraph has turned into the Daily Mail, save the wonderfully long headlines.

World Makes Final Attempt To Try To Understand This Shit Onion (David L)

Nude with seafood: Mark Rylance and Emma Thompson pose for marine protection Telegraph. We all need to eat further down the food chain….

What SeaWorld’s striking decision to end its orca breeding program means for other exhibits Business Insider (furzy)

Runaway Japanese zebra dies in golf course lake BBC :-(

Map of Europe 1000 AD to present day YouTube (Scott). In just over three minutes! It then runs again much slower for those who want to see more detail.

Global Warming Could Yield Catastrophic Effects Sooner Than We Think Fortune (David L). I never know who “we” is. I’ve always assumed tail risks are much greater than are widely assumed (or put it another way, the impact of positive feedback loops are too often ignored or underestimated).

The scientist who first warned of climate change says it’s much worse than we thought Grist (Jeff W)

Kepler watched two supernovae burst out of the surface of stars ars technica

For Chronic Low Back Pain, Mindfulness Can Beat Painkillers NPR (David L). This is two-decade old news, but not surprising that this has taken so long to get mainstream attention.

Caribbean nations make styrofoam illegal Business Insider (furzy)

Brussels

Brussels attacks: ‘Two brothers’ behind airport suicide bombings BBC

Zero-Sum in Brussels: the Savage Vision Driving a Terror-Ridden World Counterpunch (resilc, Judy B)

Brussels attacks: live blog Politico

China?

China’s struggle for a new normal Martin Wolf, Financial Times

Is China Exporting Its Environmental Problems? Bloomberg

Brazil

Judge Orders Lula da Silva Case to Supreme Court Wall Street Journal

Brazil officials conduct raids linked to Petrobras corruption investigation Guardian

Hungary’s central bank is the latest to go negative Telegraph

From poetry-lover to genocide suspect, Karadzic faces verdict Reuters (furzy)

Brexit?

Britain’s ‘Out’ campaign leads by 2 percent points ahead of EU referendum: ICM poll Reuters

Brussels attacks could shift public opinion in favour of Brexit Globe and Mail

Grexit?

WikiLeaks reveal that Schauble was afraid of the collapse of eurozone failed evolution. Gives some important detail from 204, but its interpretation re 2105 is off. As we discussed in detail contemporaneously, and reconfirmed after the fact by looking at the IT issues in depth, Greece not only was not even seriously considering a Grexit, but operationally it was simply impossible at anything less than catastrophic cost. And yes, we are fully aware of the cost of implementing the memorandum as a fallback. Many observers sympathetic to the Greek people (as we are) fail to appreciate that there are situations, and this was one, where the key actor is faced with only terrible choices.

Obama’s Argentina visit stirs memories of ‘dirty war’ DW

Ukraine/Russia

The Ever-Curiouser MH-17 Case Robert Parry, Consortium News

Syraqistan

How Bush-Cheneyism made Mideast in its Image: Wars, WOT, With us or Against Us Juan Cole (resilc)

Massive US airstrike in Yemen kills ‘dozens’ of people, Pentagon says Guardian

“Families Were Blown Up” — Scenes From a Saudi-Led Bombing in Yemen Intercept (resilc)

Big Brother is Watching You Watch

From Reagan’s Cyber Plan To Apple Vs. FBI: ‘Everything Is Up For Grabs’ NPR

Apple Win Comes With Cost Wall Street Journal

Palantir, Credit Suisse venture targets rogue traders Financial Times (David L)

Imperial Collapse Watch

Uncovering the Secret Locations Where the US Government Illegally Interrogates Its Captives Vice

2016

Sanders Lags Clinton Despite Winning Two State Caucuses Wall Street Journal. Testament to the effectiveness of the big media wall of silence.

Hillary Clinton won big in Arizona, but she might not win again for three weeks. New Republic (resilc)

Latest Reuters Data Shows Hillary Losing to Trump, but Bernie Wins Medium

Sanders is the king of credibility in 2016 The Hill (martha r)

Magical Thinking: Sanders, Clinton, and the Federal Reserve Board Dean Baker

Bravest man in Politics: Bernie Sanders harshly criticizes Israeli Occupation: ‘Absurd’ Settlements, 44% Unemployment Juan Cole (resilc)

The ACTUAL Likely Reason That Clinton Won Ohio by 15 Points: Blue-Collar Whites Voted in Large Numbers for Kasich Against Trump. (This matters. Maybe a lot.) Beverly Mann, Angry Bear. I love the Daily-Mailish headlines.

Why Paul Krugman’s Attacks on Bernie Sanders Miss the Mark Salon. More people starting to call out Krugman’s Dem/elite tribalism.

Bernie Sanders Walks a Tightrope in First Middle East Speech Mother Jones (Judy B)

Why We Support Bernie Sanders Over Hillary Clinton for President Pam Martens and Russ Martens (Scott)

Top Experts Confounded by Advisers to Donald Trump New York Times

How Trump Became a Master of Manipulating the Media Vanity Fair (resilc)

The Rule-or-Ruin Republicans Patrick J. Buchanan (Chuck L)

Jeb Bush Backs Ted Cruz for President Bloomberg (resilc). As if anyone will care.

Paul Ryan’s Commitment To ‘Regular Order’ Collides With Major Heroin Legislation Huffington Post

Democracy Struggles To Recover From Betrayal Paul Craig Roberts (Wat)

Nuclear Plant Leak Threatens Drinking Water Wells in Florida New York Times (David L)

US supreme court signals support for bill to relieve Puerto Rico of $70bn debt Guaridan

Black Injustice Tipping Point

Fired Texas trooper pleads not guilty to perjury charge in Sandra Bland’s death Guardian

10 housing markets where first-time buyers have no chance Business Insider (furzy)

Why we should fear a cashless world Guardian (Chuck L)

Guillotine Watch

‘Uber for private jets’ on-demand service launched Telegraph

Class Warfare

A new study says elderly Americans aren’t working nearly enough Fiscal Times (furzy). By Cato, ‘natch.

Forty millionaires ask New York to raise taxes on wealthy in ‘1% plan for fairness’ Guardian. Millionaires, not billionaires, but still a good sign.

Measure to hike California’s minimum wage to $15 qualifies for ballot Reuters

Union ‘Persuader’ Rule to Be Unveiled Wall Street Journal

How a Democrat-Led, Education-Focused PAC Channels Out-of-State Dark Money TruthOut (Judy B)

For Beacon Hill immigrant, American dream turned foreclosure nightmare Seattle Globalist (Steve M). Key statement: “… trying to navigate programs meant to help her avoid foreclosure in the eight years since has been even worse.”

Why Voters Will Stay Angry Bloomberg. Today’s must read.

Antidote du jour. Lawrence R sends this note with a Kittie Wilson photo:

A bit of a challenge, but our birders helped to figure this one out! The short conical bill, the whitish eyebrow streak and the thick brown streaking on white underparts all identify this as the Female Purple Finch. But, just to add a sense of mystery, the Stokes Field Guide reminds us that a first year male looks like the adult female, but may have a pinkish or yellowish tinge. A close look at this bird does show a yellowish tinge, so it is probably a First Year Male Purple Finch. Congratulations!

mystery bird links

See yesterday’s Links and Antidote du Jour here.

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211 comments

  1. ahimsa

    The MSM are pathethic. Where are the headlines of Sanders victory over Clinton?
    Okay, he didn’t take Arizona and didn’t make big inroads. But he did eat into her lead, and he did win both the majority of delegates and states last night.

    1. ahimsa

      Just noticed Bernie was on Jimmy Kimmel last night. I hope he also hits the talk show circuit in the run up to the big media markets of NY and CA.

    2. Llewelyn Moss

      Bernie crushed Hellery in Idaho and Utah ~ 80-20% in both states.

      And in AZ he did decent (40-58%) despite being a closed primary which means the 1 million independents in the state could not vote. Plus The state’s retirement-age population is around 30% of total population. All those ‘Walkers’ voting for Hellery. Hahahaha.

      1. MojaveWolf

        He probably did even better. See my comment below. Massive, massive massive voter suppression and flat out open cheating. At this point I’m worried about my mail in ballot in Cali (but if I show up in person, because I’m in a rural area with no official polling place, I always have to fill out provisional ballot, and I’m even more nervous about that …)

    3. edmondo

      Well, you are at Anger – that’s progress. Only Bargaining, Depression and Acceptance to go.

      1. ahimsa

        Careful, Edmondo, acceptance of things as they are does not mean silent passivity or failing to call people out. Current primary cycle is evidence enough of that. Consider my own comment as simply phishing for positive Sanders headlines and/or egregious pro Clinton ones.
        P.s. Where does your cynicism fit in Kübler-Ross model of progress?

        1. edmondo

          Look, this party is over (in the meta sense as well).

          If Bernie can’t carry Pima County – the home of 40000 University of Arizona students and the core of the congressional district of Raul Grijalva, the chair of the House Progressive Caucus (who endorsed Bernie by the way) – then why on earth would anyone take the Sanders’ campaign seriously?

          1. amnesiac

            “Cynic, n. A blackguard whose faulty vision sees things as they are not as they ought to be.” ― Ambrose Bierce, The Unabridged Devil’s Dictionary

            also, not the best legacy to leave the young people.

          2. nippersdad

            Why would anyone take Sanders’ campaign seriously? They are only three hundred pledged delegates apart, and California, alone, has 475 up for grabs. Half the states have yet to weigh in. It ain’t over until the last ballot is counted.

            1. Benedict@Large

              Pay no attention. The Hillary-Bots have been called the election over since before it began. I guess they know deep down that the only way Hillary wins is to get a free pass.

            2. participant-observer-observed

              But why should dnc hrc folks be entrusted with an entire nation when they couldn’t even organize a campaign primary election in a single state without debacle, innuendo, and fraud surrounding the whole thing? ?

          3. perpetualWAR

            “Why on earth would anyone take Sanders’ campaign seriously”

            Why don’t you look at the huge numbers of people he’s drawing at rallies vs. Clinton’s. Then come back and discuss which campaign should be taken seriously?

            Jesus.

          4. Llewelyn Moss

            @edmondo, By all means, please regale us with who you think should win the presidency and why he/she/it is the best choice.

              1. Llewelyn Moss

                So what, it’s fun Raising Hell anyway.
                They can take my Bernie Ballot from My Cold Dead Hand. Hahaha.

                1. Ian

                  At this stage there seems little doubt that there is a lot of targeted electoral fraud going on, to game in favor of Hillary.

                  1. Lord Koos

                    Yes, the Dem machine is being deployed in force wherever possible. “Leaders from the Arizona branch of the Democratic Party have confirmed that its lawyers are officially making an inquiry after multiple Democratic voters showed up to the polls only to find that they were listed as independents, Republicans, or had no party affiliation at all.”

                    http://usuncut.com/news/arizona-polling-disaster/

                  2. Bev

                    https://richardcharnin.wordpress.com/2016/03/02/ma-primary-unadjusted-exit-poll-indicates-bernie-won/

                    MA Primary: Unadjusted Exit poll Indicates Bernie won
                    Richard Charnin
                    Mar.8, 2016 (updated for AAPOR link)

                    Late changes to the MA Democratic Primary exit poll indicate that the election was likely stolen. As always, the exit poll was adjusted to match the recorded vote.
                    ……….

                    https://richardcharnin.wordpress.com/2016/03/16/five-democratic-primaries-exit-poll-discrepancies-and-win-probabilities/

                    Five Democratic Primaries: Exit Poll Discrepancies and Win Probabilities
                    Richard Charnin
                    Updated March 20, 2016

                    Effects of Election Fraud on the Delegate count

                    Officially, HRC has 8,653,327 votes (58.6%), Bernie has 6,115,550 (41.4%).

                    Applying the approximate 6.6% exit poll discrepancy (972,168 of 14,768,877 total votes), HRC has 8,167,189 votes and Bernie 6,601,688 (55.3-44.7%).

                    Clinton leads by 306 delegates (1119-813). Applying Clinton’s adjusted 55.3% share of the current 1932 delegates, she leads by just 204 (1068-864). Super delegates are excluded.

                    Clinton’s votes appear to have been padded in the RED states to increase her delegate count.

                    Primary Votes/Exit Polls
                    https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1sGxtIofohrj3POpwq-85Id2_fYKgvgoWbPZacZw0XlY/edit#gid=1476097125

                    Delegates
                    https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1sGxtIofohrj3POpwq-85Id2_fYKgvgoWbPZacZw0XlY/edit#gid=1368619048

                    View the spreadsheet: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1sGxtIofohrj3POpwq-85Id2_fYKgvgoWbPZacZw0XlY/edit#gid=1710111458
                    ……..

                1. MyLessThanPrimeBeef

                  Voting is an inexact science.

                  Predicting voting outcomes is also an inexact science, science being inductive.

          5. ahimsa

            @edmondo, I don’t discount your critique (although, the demographics and closed nature of the Arizona primary certainly hurt Sanders alot more than Clinton). You do know that on a meta level the party never ends, right? Anyone who doesn’t see this Sanders campaign as both a serious sign of the times and a serious portent of the future is stuck at denial.

            1. edmondo

              Bernie lost Maricopa County – which, by the way, is probably one of the most conservative counties in AZ – by 58/40 – the same percentage he lost the entire state. The so-called voter fraud is what happens when you don’t read the rules. Voters had to change their party affiliations THREE WEEKS before the primary date. Bernie’s people were out last week urging people to switch their affiliations from independent to “D”. Sometimes incompetence trumps evil.

              1. pretzelattack

                lots of stories on this corruption of the process today; coupled with the north carolina sabotage, it justifies our efforts to keep supporting sanders, to the election and beyond.

              2. JohnnyGL

                US Uncut article has lots of claims of people who switched but didn’t get updated to Dem in the county database and were given provisional ballots.

                I’d love to see data on how many votes get “thrown away” by the clerks because they weren’t a party member.

              3. pretzelattack

                so that’s why they cut the number of voting locations, it all makes sense now! thanks “bernie supporter”.

            2. Llewelyn Moss

              Holy cr@p. That link is a jaw dropper.

              AZ People waiting 4-5 hours to vote; lines a half mile long; Maricopa county had 60 polling places open for 3 million residents; suspicious packages causing polls evacuations… Geezus.

              Move over FL, there is a new lead contender for Most Third World State.

              1. pretzelattack

                i wonder how much sabotage and ratf*cking is going on in other states. this is just sickening.

                1. MyLessThanPrimeBeef

                  Make one wonder how long this has been going on?

                  One year?

                  Ten years?

                  One hundred years?

                  Did she learn it from the masters of the Republican party?

                  Can she out-do them?

              2. Katniss Everdeen

                Really! Suspicious packages on the same day as nothing but Brussels.

                I wish I could say I was “mystified,” except that I’m not.

                1. MyLessThanPrimeBeef

                  I wonder how much that helped (or will help going forward) the isolationists, law-and-order guys, or interventionists?

                1. MyLessThanPrimeBeef

                  The Chinese are probably happy to help us out.

                  “Our unemployed coal miners will be happy to work for food and board.”

              3. Steve Gunderson

                Maricopa count went from 400 sites in 2008 to 60..you gotta wonder whose idea that was?

              4. Louis Renault

                Absentee ballots. Who could possibly have foreseen long lines and inconvenience. Because actually voting for a presidential nominee once every four years shouldn’t really take us away from ……

                  1. MyLessThanPrimeBeef

                    Paid holiday to vote.

                    Or just pay people for voting.

                    “Guarantee to increase voter turnout.”

            3. Vatch

              From the article:

              In 2012, Maricopa County, which is the most populous county in Arizona, had over 200 polling locations open on primary day. In 2016, that number was reduced to just 60. This amounted to over 20,000 voters for every polling location, meaning voters had to stand in line for hours to cast their ballots.
              . . .
              Maricopa County Recorder Helen Purcell was responsible for the reduction in polling places in 2016, justifying it by saying turnout was traditionally low, so the solution was to reduce the number of places where citizens could cast their vote.

              http://recorder.maricopa.gov/

              Helen Purcell (Republican) was elected to the office of Maricopa County Recorder in November 1988; is now serving her 7th term and is only the second woman to hold this position since 1871.

              Saving money for the taxpayers. You’re doing a heck of a job, Helen!

              1. OpenThePodBayDoorsHAL

                It’s no longer the fact that they will steal it from Bernie that gets me, it’s the variety of ways that are required to do so, everything from MSM blackouts to infiltrations to polling fraud to dog whistles to gender baiting to fear mongering to revisionist lies. Americans love a fair fight and that ain’t what we got here.
                Someone noted that Hilary seems to be struggling to get up the steps of a podium these days, looking very feeble indeed, maybe another massive stroke will end this horrible nightmare.
                And I’ve stopped thinking in Red/Blue terms any more anyway, the axis for me is Billionaires Vs.People, now THOSE are the “party” lines I will be voting on, the D or R or I or X before the candidates name no longer have any meaning.

                1. MojaveWolf

                  Oh yeah, at this point I think anyone who still supports the DNC or the HRC campaign is clearly and openly waving a flag saying they are voting for permanent indentured servitude to the plutocracy, and that they wish to end the democratic process entirely. They are basically saying they are fine with open, blatant cheating as long as it gets their person in. I view these people as greater threats to the future than Ted Cruz supporters, and that is saying a LOT.

                2. Lambert Strether

                  I saw the same (single) comment on Clinton’s steps to the podium, and on all stuff like this, I’m “clips or it didn’t happen.” And even then, I want to know the provenance of the clip.

                  Please don’t repeat unsubstantiated rumors.

          6. john

            So I had an epiphany that even if Donald Trump loses, at either point in the race, then he’s not just going to go away.

            He will be critizing every decision and disaster, and saying if he was president, things would be different.

            Also, he’d be the first president to not come from ‘The Skulls’ in quite some time.

          7. afisher

            Please ignore the 4-6hour wait lines. Students need to cut most classes? In Phoenix the polls closed at 11PM. No voter problems /s

          8. tegnost

            do you have numbers to support your claim that it’s over, or are you just trying to get an echo going? If you have no numbers, it’s you who should not be taken seriously

          9. Gio Bruno

            Edmondo, it is exasperating that Pima County went to HRC, but 40,000 UofA students may not all be registered as Democrats (AZ is a closed Primary). Arizona is a Red state, not Blue. That said, it was reported that major Sanders donations were coming from AZ, and I expected a closer result.

            The democratic machine in AZ seems to have had a thumb on the scale. Hopefully, that won’t occur in CA. ;).

          10. m

            First U of A is a party school, will they vote? Aside from the cheating. Outside of the city most people watch Fox news and are most likely Trumpers.

      2. vidimi

        looks like a lot of older voters are in the acceptance stage and that’s why they’re voting shillary

    4. Jim Haygood

      ‘I never know who “we” is.’ — Yves Smith

      ‘We’ is the MSM, cosily and presumptuously pretending to be one of us.

      Every time I read this smug formulation, I reach for my revolver.

      1. MyLessThanPrimeBeef

        The term that confuses me is ‘people.’

        “People these days eat too much/are too lazy/less informed/etc.”

        1. OpenThePodBayDoorsHAL

          See my definition above, there are Billionaires (and their minions) and then there’s everyone else. That’s who “people” are.

    5. ahimsa

      *Newsflash* (that you won’t see in the MSM)

      Based on the figures available, the folks over at 538 have now chalked Sanders up with the following delegate counts (might yet shift a little):

      Dems abroad 9/13
      Arizona 29/75 (massive voter suppresion)
      Idaho 18/23
      Utah 27/33

      Total 83/143 = 58%

      I thought delegate hauls of 58% for Sanders were considered preposterous!?

    6. MojaveWolf

      Not just “why are the ignoring record-setting landslide wins for Sanders” but also “why aren’t they ignoring blatant and obvious CHEATING on a massive, historic, record setting scale in Arizona???” Voter suppression, both blatant and sorta-subtle. Who among working class can afford to stand in five hour lines? Why reduce number of polling places in Maricopa County from 200 in uncontested 2012 primary to 60 in 2016???? Why put some polling places in hard to enter gated communities?

      And why isn’t the media up in arms about the hordes of independents & some Republicans who tried to register as Democrat and DID register as democrat but who were denied voting or given provisional ballots that appear not to have been counted because the voting software “mistakenly” had them as still independent? Or the lifelong democrats who just happened to be Bernie supporters who were told they were listed as Libertarian?

      A registrar who blames voters for getting in line?

      For anyone who thinks the long lines & few polling places affected both candidates equally, it should be noted that Bernie actually won among people who showed up on election day, even among the votes that were actually counted, and probably would have won by more among this group had everyone been able to vote. The state probably would have been the neck and neck race that was expected had all his people been able to vote (see: Michigan, and imagine taking out all the independents; Bernie would have gotten hammered instead of winning)

      2. Clear voter suppression in Latino neighborhoods

      In Helen Purcell’s mad dash to consolidate polling locations across Maricopa County, she somehow forgot to have polling places open in densely-populated Latino communities on the day of the primary. This is a glaring oversight, given that 40.8 percent of Phoenix’s 1.5 million residents are Latino…

      “In my district, there is only one polling place,’’ Sen. Quezada said. “In my neighboring district, LD 30, there are no polling places.”

      “It is no coincidence many poor and predominantly Latino areas didn’t get a polling place,”

      .

      &

      As Arizona voters were still waiting to cast their ballots, US Uncut reported on allegations that voters who had previously registered as Democrat were instead listed in the voter database as “independent,” “No party listed,” or even “Libertarian.” In Arizona’s closed primary system, independent voters are denied their voice by having to vote with a provisional ballot. But what voters classified as “independent” who cast provisional ballots don’t realize is that their ballots are never counted.

      42-year-old Kelly Thornton, who worked as an Election Day Technician in Yavapai County voting center 5 on Tuesday, told US Uncut that roughly two-thirds of voters who came to her precinct had been mistakenly identified as independent by the election software. All of those voters were subsequently forced to cast a provisional ballot.

      “One man was a lifelong Democrat who was listed as independent. He left the precinct, went to his house, and came back with a card showing that he was registered as a Democrat,” Thornton told US Uncut. “But when I called the election center (administered by the county recorder’s office), they told me to just give him a provisional ballot anyway.”

      “People were so cavalier about it, it was like no big deal,” Thornton added.

      Thornton was also given a script by the Yavapai County recorder’s office to read to voters, verbatim, when they asked if their provisional ballots would be counted. The script outright tells the voter that if they cast a provisional ballot when the system lists them as independent, their vote will not be counted

      4 polling stations being evacuated for over an hr because of bogus bomb threats, & calling the state for Hillary while people still in line??

      Yes, let’s call AZ for Hillary while people still in line. That’s not voter suppression at all. It’s not like they didn’t wait till most of the nation had gone to bed to call Utah & Idaho even tho Bernie was winning those by FAR greater margins than Hillary, was winning Arizona even with blatant cheating on her side (& who knows what cheating that hasn’t been discovered yet–I mean really, when you cheat this much out in the open, how can anyone trust anything at all that goes your way without a 100% fully documented paper trail every step of the way? And even that would be hard to trust at this point).

      This is horrible and should not be tolerated. This is the sort of thing the American media and public used to deride when it happened in other countries. Now we’re blase about it here & expecting people to just go along with this sort of thing? NO.

      Also, apparently no exit polls for Arizona? That’s not strange at all …

      & Bernie seems to have won among predominantly Native American areas, also not being reported.

  2. abynormal

    a few quotes i lifted from the Consumerist:

    “Like penguins on a melting iceberg.” — Staples’ lawyer describing her client during opening arguments in the company’s court fight with the Federal Trade Commission.

    “Alaska is often the exception, not the rule.” — U.S. Supreme Court Chief Justice John Roberts in a ruling that supports a hovercraft-riding moose hunter’s case against the National Park Service. (head shaking)

    “And I flipped it off onto the ground and it got under someone’s seat, and the flames were just getting higher and a bunch of people stood up.” — Woman whose iPhone burst into flames on an Alaska Airlines flight.

  3. allan

    New York Assembly Approves Mixed Martial Arts [WXXI]

    Governor Cuomo spoke in favor of mixed martial arts during an event in Niagara Falls. He says he understands some people object to the violence, and he agrees with [Assembly Majority Leader] Morelle that other sports are violent too.

    “Boxing is violent”, Cuomo said. “Politics can be, is violent.”

    This from a governor and legislature unwilling and/or incapable of passing meaningful ethics reform.
    File under Corruption and Bread and Circuses.

    1. MyLessThanPrimeBeef

      I wonder if old houses (from the 1950’s or earlier) with fallout shelters are more in demand, for buyers interested in converting them into violence shelters?

      Recommended: food, water, medicines, Swiss-army knives and maybe some gold coins (just in case, you never know).

  4. Cry Shop

    Florida drinking water – It would have been much, much worse if the plant built 40 years ago had been coal fired, which would likely have been the case. The huge ponds of boiler ash, boiler clinker, would be full of mercury, arsenic, and lots of really nasty elements that do degrade into something less toxic. Coal fired plants also need a lot more water than a nuclear plants which would have aggravated the salinity issue.

    The claim that ammonia is not a by-product of the nuclear process is true but disingenuous. Ammonia/amines is used to treat the secondary loop water, just as it, or ammonia/amines are used to treat the boiler water coal fired plants. This is done to reduce the rate of pipe corrosion. Best guess is some of their (non-condenser) heat exchangers have leaks and it’s been cheaper to make up the process water losses than fix the leaks. At least acid raid should be neutralizing the ammonia fairly quickly, but the extra fertility could easily cause a bloom of red tide.

    1. Cry Shop

      earlier comment error, should read “that do not degrade”

      https://www.bing.com/search?q=ash+pond+disaster&PC=U316&FORM=CHROMN

      A long, long list of ash pond disasters, you won’t find anyone doing the extremely expensive testing to find out how many people have had their lives shortened by the toxins that leaked out of these. There are many, many more other unreported cases where the liners of ash ponds have failed and contaminated water. It’s invisible and very hard and expensive to detect. In the case of the Nuclear Plant, the scientist admit that they are using the deuterium to figure out what’s going on. Not nearly so easy with coal, or for that mater what happens with exhaust from heavily contaminated natural gas burning, and a lot of it is just that.

    2. bob

      How about the reporter calling both tritium and ammonia “nutrients”?

      “The company is also moving to address the spikes in nutrients, tritium and ammonia, Mr. Gould said, although he added that ammonia was not a byproduct of nuclear plants.’

      How about a nice ammonia tritium smoothie for all involved? It’s nutritious! And it glows in the dark!

      1. Cry Shop

        Perhaps Mr. Gould (rather than the reporter, who was quoting Mr. Gould in the article) was listing out the items as nutrients, titrium, and ammonia. This is an American paper and I assume an American reporter. If the reporter had used a colon, or if the USA applied the “Commonwealth” practice of the comma before and in lists, then we could have more certainty.

        Hence the other hand, you may be right. Perhaps Mr. Gould singled out Ammonia from the other nutrients that were being released as it was a specific item of concern, as was salt which is another essential nutrient (to animal life in this case). Ammonia is an extremely powerful nutrient for photosynthesis, but even a small build up inside an animal cell can quickly turns toxic for respiration, which is why our kidneys are busy passing the stuff. One of the main “pollutants” from agricultural land run off is Ammonia and it’s amines, which cause algae/water plant blooms

        As to tritium, it is naturally present in water and thus in all living things an (unwanted?) “gift” from the sun. There also is no indication it provides any useful biological role, though nutrition, like most medicine, is barely two steps out of being a black art.

        ** Alle Ding’ sind Gift, und nichts ohn’ Gift; allein die Dosis macht, daß ein Ding kein Gift ist. — Paracelsus
        All things are poison and nothing is without poison, only the dose makes that a thing is not a poison.

        (Also, be wary not only of Greeks bearing gifts, but Swiss Germans as well.

        1. bob

          As to the reporter “quoting” gould, isn’t that normally done with quotes?

          What’s the queens ruling?

          Ammonia as a nutrient- No. It can be watered down and provide nitrogen, lots of it. But I don’t think you’ll find any ammonia supplements in the drugs store. Ditto with pouring some on a plant. Dead.

          1. Cry Shop

            Nutrients are for humans only? Someone will have to warn the biologist, farmers, veterinarians, dictionary editors, and so forth that they all have it wrong.

            As to the failure of reporter and his editors to use quotes, as noted, he is an American reporter (and we’ll now add working for the Grey Lady), That says something right there. Read my earlier comment; you’ll see I’ve left two options open.

  5. JSM

    Read the Sanders for President thread on reddit. The Arizona primary was conducted with a stunning degree of deliberate ineptitude, with regard to registered Democrats who were told they were registered Republicans, the 1/3 of 2008’s polling places utilized in Maricopa county despite this year’s near-record turnout, etc. The Sanders camp thought the race was a toss-up 3-4 weeks ago. Is there a separate reason why Sanders just won two caucuses with 80% of the vote, but ‘has difficulty’ winning a primary?

    1. voteforno6

      Sometimes it’s hard to tell if the Democratic Party is deliberately incompetent, or if this is just standard operating procedure.

      1. Daize

        If you cannot see how there was obvious and clear election fraud in AZ, you are either unaware of the facts, or willfully blind.

        1. sid_finster

          Remind me again which party brought us machine politics, and what candidate does the machine support?

      1. MyLessThanPrimeBeef

        Probably only younger voters who were still up at midnight.

        Older voters would not be able to stay up that late. Their votes were probably never cast.

    2. JCC

      There are already two Petitions at whitehouse.gov addressing the Arizona situation. Of course Obama will do nothing even if it reaches the required 100,000 signers, but it only takes a couple of minutes to sign both.

    3. nycTerrierist

      “Is there a separate reason why Sanders just won two caucuses with 80% of the vote, but ‘has difficulty’ winning a primary?”

      Great question. Something smells fishy.
      Too many shady situations btwn Bill Clinton stumping near the polls in MA, the sabotage in North Carolina…

      It is galling to see the Dems pulling dirty tricks left and right. Nixon has nothing on Hellary:

      https://www.reddit.com/r/politics/comments/4b517o/new_allegations_raised_that_bernie_sanders/

      1. MojaveWolf

        Thank you. That makes at least 3 states with definite cheating, getting more egregious each time. At least this time the state’s voters are angry. About time.

    4. ahimsa

      Question: Though it’s reasonable to accept Clinton was expected to do better in the absentee votes (hardcore Dems, older voters, etc.), how can the percentages barely budge over the night as the massive live vote (presumably younger and some more recently registered) was tallied? Is the absentee vote normally such a rockfast indicator of statewide support?

      Anyone know where to find the detailed breakdown of the votes?

  6. RabidGandhi

    Re two related stories in links: NPR on back pain & HuffPo on House opioid bill.

    ________

    I’ve got 2 herniated discs myself and must (grudgingly) agree with NPR: what turned my life around was a surgeon who told me to stay away from meds and surgery and instead work on an exercise programme that led to me running 3/4 times a week. When he said ‘running’ it sounded like the dumbest idea ever: high impact exercise?!? But it was the best thing ever.

    That said, my doc was not in the US and is not being bombarded by pharma lobbyists tossing him goodies/bribes for prescribing opiates.

    1. Milton

      Wholeheartedly agree. Back pain sufferer since my 30s (50s now) and found relief only through stretching, deliberate breathing while doing yoga poses and miles and miles of walking. I will occasionally suffer an episode where I am unable to bend at all from the waist but the occurrences of these have dimished. I will never go under the knife but an occasional muscle relaxant with my wine is a cocktail I find not disagreeable.

  7. Howard

    There is anecdotal evidence of voter suppression/election fraud taking place in Arizona’s primary yesterday. I am not sure if the Sanders campaign will pursue this but I think it might become an issue in the coming days.

  8. diptherio

    Oh Onion, how far thou art fallen…

    Well, maybe I’m just over-reacting, but the “World Makes Final Attempt to Understand This Sh*t” article is basically just more of the same BS. Why do they hate us? It’s so confusing!

    Only it’s not, at all. Checkout out US foreign policy for the last couple decades. Killing civilians in other countries to “protect American interests” is business as usual for us. When we go around beating up and murdering people all over the place (I know Brussels isn’t the US, but NATO makes the distinction one of minor importance in this case), how can we possibly be confused when it blows back in our faces and ends up harming us? What are we, a bunch of three year olds? How do we not understand the totally predicable consequences of our actions?

    The message of this propaganda piece is that there is nothing to understand, so don’t even bother. Bad people did bad things to us, that’s all you need to know — don’t bother asking any questions.

    There was a time when the Onion might have mocked that kind of BS, now they’re slinging it…but like I said, maybe I’m over-reacting.

    1. JCC

      You are definitely NOT over-reacting. The Onion’s humor quality has diminished rapidly over the last two months.

    2. fresno dan

      I agree – but I think the days of an “adversarial” press are long, long, long (did I say long?) gone.
      The premises are never, ever challenged (and facts inimical to those premises are never brought up) – – well, I guess in the immediate aftermath of 9/11, for a few days we actually got to hear a different opinion – who was that former CIA guy – ?Sheer? ?Shera? that we being over there and supporting corrupt governments was part of the reason for the attack. But he was blacklisted pretty quick, and the absolute unanimity in never, ever bringing that up tells me that very few people control the “news” to particular ends…

      Zero-Sum in Brussels: the Savage Vision Driving a Terror-Ridden World Counterpunch (resilc, Judy B)
      You really have to come to non mainstream sites to get any REAL diversity of opinion…

    3. OpenThePodBayDoorsHAL

      Trump says “we should kill the families of terrorists” and the reaction is complete media outrage. Obama DOES kill the families of terrorists (and doctors in hospitals) as a matter of his everyday course of business and the reaction is “look how great he looks at that Cuban baseball game, what a statesman”.
      He belongs in an orange jumpsuit, behind Plexiglas, at The Hague.

      1. Jim Haygood

        With her promises of industrial-scale slaughter to crush Isis, Hillary makes Obama look like a skinny kid with a rubber-band slingshot.

        1. frosty zoom

          Come, you spirits
          That tend on mortal thoughts, unsex me here,
          And fill me from the crown to the toe top-full
          Of direst cruelty. Make thick my blood…

          1. optimader

            The Huma herself is hoarse
            That croaks the fatal entrance of Killary
            Under my battlements….

  9. JCC

    The media blackout on Sanders seems to be getting worse. I check Google News every morning (mainly to find out what I am supposed to believe, not news) and I’ve noticed a new section, “election news”.

    Today I clicked on that to see the poll results and there were only two headlines with Sanders mentioned… Hillary’s win in Arizona and the Kimmel interview, nothing on Idaho or Utah. I had to do an in-depth search (“democratic primary election results”) and even then I had to restrict it to the last 24 hours in order to avoid wade through multiple Clinton/Trump articles from months ago.

    Shameful.

    1. allan

      x2. Fox tv personality Mara Liasson concern trolling on NPR this morning about how
      there is `some concern’ about how Sanders is running his primary campaign and whether it will damage
      the (inevitable™) Clinton campaign in the fall.

    2. petal

      I have noticed that, too, just in the past week it went from really bad to a lot worse-now there is almost nothing. I don’t look around too much, but at the Guardian it has gone to almost zero(some days literally nothing), and same at Huffpo. The final squeeze-out, or like when they start playing music and cut to commercial while someone is still giving their acceptance speech.

      1. MyLessThanPrimeBeef

        I wonder if it would help (maybe experts in PR or publicity can say) for Sanders to swim the Yangtze or the Mississippi, overturn a few tables at the AIPAC meeting or proclaim we don’t need taxes to fund Single Payer Health Insurance?

        Maybe he can repeat a few times that Obama has been weak (the Southern primaries had been over since last week).

        Will that help generate some media coverage?

        1. Ulysses

          I’m not sure that Bernie would benefit from more coverage of his campaign. His biggest problem, with the MSM, is that so much of their coverage is deliberately misleading. The MSM are now actively pushing a disinformation campaign against Sanders. Yet they haven’t ramped it up all the way, because they are hoping they can simply pretend that Hillary already has everything in the bag.

          This “ignore him until he goes away” strategy is not working very well. The huge number of enthusiastic supporters turning up to caucus in Idaho and Utah make that clear. The MSM hacks aren’t quite desperate, but I noticed an almost manic intensity to their efforts yesterday–. to hype the Brussels attacks and to tell many thousands of Arizonians, still waiting in line to vote, that they might as well go home since Clinton had already won.

      2. nippersdad

        Re: Huffpo, sixth story down on the politics page! With wins in the eighty percents in two out of three states that is just journalistic malfeasance. Last week Clinton “swept” states with far smaller margins.

        Pretty disgusting.

      3. EndOfTheWorld

        There’s one meme they run a lot, to the effect that “Dems think Bernie should wind it down.” (ie ” Dem establishment wishes Bernie would just go away.”) or (“DWS would be happier if Bernie didn’t exist. Waaah.”) HRC is gonna look really bad showing up at the convention to claim her crown after losing a lot of primaries, with only the Confederacy carrying her to the top.

        1. EndOfTheWorld

          There’s one headline in RCP that’s an outright lie: ” Trump and Clinton Pad Leads in Races for Parties Nominations”. Actually, Trump did but Clinton didn’t. Bernie won the day’s delegate count by about 67-51.

          1. MyLessThanPrimeBeef

            Thanks for that information.

            The delegate count is what matters.

            It will probably come down to New York, the host of Wall Street. It should be home turf for the neoliberal candidate. If Clinton can’t defend it, she deserves to lose.

          2. Isolato

            Even Steve Rosenfeld at Alternet (!) was headlining that Hillary increased her lead. Unbelievable…

            1. EndOfTheWorld

              Latest count is about 71-54. Yeah I guess they can (just barely) plausibly say that HRC won the Arizona primary, which was announced earlier, so for a brief moment Hillary did “pad her lead”, until they added up the Idaho and Utah results. Then they can conveniently forget to tell anybody that the overall total was in Bernie’s favor by claiming “that story is over—that’s yesterday’s news”—–like the info somehow fell threw the cracks of their billion dollar info gathering machine.

              1. EndOfTheWorld

                Not to mention there is evidence of at least voter suppression and probably voter fraud in Arizona. Can lawsuits be filed? Can a protest be successfully conducted? It’s interesting that Bernie is not aggressively protesting the apparent fraud in some of these states. Maybe he thinks he can win so big in the west coast states that it won’t matter. Or the protests may be filed later. Or the threat of aggressive protests can be hung over HRC’s head later.

                1. Patricia

                  FWIW, that’s ‘election’ fraud, not ‘voter’ fraud, since electoral structures are being corrupted rather than that voters are corrupting their vote.

                  (Nearly non-existent) voter fraud is why the Repubs decided to establish onerous ID laws.

      4. Jerry Denim

        Huffington Post- I got fed up with that site at least as far back as 2009 due to the non-stop stream of Obama apologetics. I peep in once in a while these days to see what Time-Warner (or is it Verizon?) is feeding the masses that like to think of themselves as left of Fox News. Huffington Post has been one of the absolute worst sites regarding Sanders coverage. Near-total blackout. If there’s any Sanders coverage at all it’s dripping with negative spin and buried far, far down the page scroll. I don’t think Bernie Sanders could get a positive headline over there if he cured cancer during a live debate and won both New York and California with 99% of the vote. The way the supposed “left-leaning” media organizations have treated Sanders this year makes me certain I am supporting the right candidate. Rigged political system, rigged economy, rigged media. The freedom of the press does truly belong to those who own one.

        1. MyLessThanPrimeBeef

          The Obama apologetic have been apologizing since 2008.

          2012 would have been 4 years too late in challenging Barry.

          Wonder why Sanders didn’t run against him in 2012…

          Still, today, not separating himself, not backing up the ‘He’s weak’ claim.

          1. pretzelattack

            maybe sanders still had some hope obama would change, maybe it was the difficulty of running against an incumbent, maybe sanders hadn’t fully accepted that he was the only alternative to the neoliberal stranglehold, hoping warren or somebody would do it. bernie doesn’t seem to be consumed with ambition, like most candidates, and he isn’t interested in the grifting that is available to candidates.

          2. Left in Wisconsin

            Sanders was running for re-election in 2012. Not sure if Vermont allows one to run for both at same time. He did an interview (w/ Thom Hartmann IIRC) in the run-up to 2012 suggesting that someone challenge Obama in a primary.

            1. MyLessThanPrimeBeef

              Wonder how it would have turned out had he ran in 2012, won or gained valuable experience for taking on Hillary now.

    3. Cry Shop

      Don’t have time to dig it up again, but either Yves or Lambert posted a link that Alphabet (Google’s holding company) set up a subsidiary to provide election support to Clinton, with a lengthy follow on comment about how critical this issue is. If you get your news links from Google, then don’t expect them to show Sanders in a good light.

      Unfortunately, so has Gates, so Bing’s been pushing Sanders down in their news search engine results, but not nearly as obviously as Google. Most other mainstream home page engines, like Yahoo’s or AOL’s use Google’s engines under the wrapper. Naturally Fecebook is backing Clinton too.

      Best thing to avoid the bubble is to look to blog based agglomeration services, kind of like what Yves does on the links and Lambert with his 2:00pm thing, ie run by humans, not AI’s, and expect to pay for it if your interests are outside the mainstream box. . Don’t panic, unless you subscribe to a lot of them, then they are still cheaper in sum total than the olde local newspaper.

        1. Jerry Denim

          The writers for the Netflix series “House of Cards” must have read that story as well. A big name internet search engine throwing the election was a plot-line in season 4.

        1. Cry Shop

          Found the following when I had time to fight the site search engine. I do remember there was a more lengthy comment on another link which was marked out as critical / important, but can’t find it now.:

          http://www.nakedcapitalism.com/2016/03/200pm-water-cooler-392016.html

          Money
          “That Silicon Valley elites would support Clinton has been a foregone conclusion throughout the 2016 race so far. Eric Schmidt, chairman of Google parent company Alphabet, has funded two companies—The Groundwork and Civis Analytics—that are both working with the Clinton campaign. Laurene Powell Jobs, widow to Steve Jobs, has donated to Clinton’s campaign and plowed $25,000 into the Ready for Hillary Super PAC back in 2014. Also in Clinton’s corner are Facebook’s Sheryl Sandberg, venture capitalist John Doerr, Qualcomm founder Irwin Jacobs, Box CEO Aaron Levie, Tesla founder Elon Musk, and others” [Wired].

  10. fresno dan

    Zero-Sum in Brussels: the Savage Vision Driving a Terror-Ridden World Counterpunch (resilc, Judy B)

    Indeed, this point is scarcely disputed, although champions of domination claim it is a good thing. For decades, one has heard the argument from American exceptionalists that “if we don’t do it” — that is, if we don’t dominate the world militarily and economically — “then somebody else will.” The implication, of course, is that such a “somebody else” will be far worse than our own divinely blessed, goodhearted selves.
    ===================================================
    good article. A point of the article in keeping with the idea of how wonderful we are, is that I have to say I am absolutely sick of the meme that Europe has this violence because it has failed to “integrate” Muslims into their societies (implying America is champion, and the exceptional nation at integration don’t cha know), because it is said from an American commentator with a smug, self righteous arrogance that makes me want to put my foot through the tee vee.
    I want to scream how good a job has the US done of integrating blacks, and that’s with 400 years to do it! And latinos (the latinos that Jeb! is so willing to let immigrate, but doesn’t give a rat’s as* about after they have arrived) as anything that helps the poorer is verboten. But of course, I should know logic and facts are ignored when spreading propaganda

  11. DJG

    Considering the sang-froid of scientists, who even still (both men and women in science) cultivate that soft-spoken tone and the tattered tweed jackets, the findings and the alarm about climate change are dire. To go metaphorical, we are sitting in burning house praying to the god of Ted Cruz to save us. The lack of insight and the lack of will are deeply disturbing–the only reponse from the U S of A seems to be more drone strikes in Yemen. Indeed, when we talk about societies or countries on the verge of collapse from climate change, we’d better put the U S of A up top–sheer cluelessness will do us in.

    There have been debates here on whether or not to call the current stage of capitalism decadent. I’ll put it out there that ignoring the physical world in favor of religious and economic-theoretical delusion is decandent.

      1. nippersdad

        It made for a cool movie, too. Parts of The Day After Tomorrow were pretty hokey, but the storms were truly apocalyptic. If they are anything like, Inhofe should have no difficulty finding some snow to make snowballs out of.

    1. gordon

      You’ve got to look on the bright side – that 10 feet of sea level rise will mean huge civil engineering works to protect coastal cities. That means not only lots of trips to Venice, London and other cities already facing sea level problems (in aeroplanes of course), but massive, highly stimulatory expenditure. Finally, there will be some fiscal stimulus by way of infrastructure investment! Now, we’re going to need enormous amounts of concrete and steel…

      1. ambrit

        Silly rabbit! Your scenario assumes the political will to protect those regions. Cities are possible, but I worry about food producing areas, like the Bangladeshi rice growing acreage, and the Chinese coastal growing areas, etc. etc. Lest we forget, the full melt out sea level rise is conservatively estimated at 200 foot above present.

  12. diptherio

    Re: Palantir, Credit Suisse venture targets rogue traders

    Classic mis-direction. “Hey look, it’s a pickpocket!” they scream, as their slimy paw reaches for your wallet.

    Two criminals, on the hunt for criminals…I wonder if they laugh about the irony of it in private…

    1. rich

      JPMorgan Fined by CFTC for Failure to Submit Accurate Reports
      Matt Robinson robinsonmatt
      March 23, 2016 — 10:06 AM EDT

      JPMorgan Chase & Co., the biggest U.S. bank by assets, was ordered to pay $225,000 by the Commodity Futures Trading Commission to settle allegations that it failed to submit accurate large trader reports for commodity swaps.

      The company routinely filed reports that contained errors from March 2013 through April 2014, the CFTC said Wednesday in a statement. The CFTC tracks the physical positions of derivatives users to prevent or detect attempts to corner a market. New York-based JPMorgan consented to the order without admitting or denying the regulator’s findings.
      http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2016-03-23/jpmorgan-fined-by-cftc-for-failure-to-submit-accurate-reports

      reports can be doctored?

    1. nycTerrierist

      Thank you. Great round up.
      It’s galling to watch this rigged election in real time. Shaving away Sanders significant
      support with every dirty trick in the book:

      “…the elderly (see: Clinton supporters) make up the vast majority of early voters in Arizona.

      Hillary’s plan to steal Arizona was remarkably simple: Suppress voting on election day, and rely on her large lead with early voters to secure a win.

      It was a perfectly executed heist. Here’s how she did it:

      Drastically reduce the number of polling locations to make voting nearly impossible

      For starters, polling places were almost non-existent:

      As reported by The Arizona Republic’s Mary Jo Pitzl, Maricopa County reduced the number of polling places from more than the 200 available for the 2012 presidential election to…60 (snip)

      The fact that a voter could go to any polling place didn’t matter much when the lines were so long that many people were forced to abandon the line.”

      1. MyLessThanPrimeBeef

        When a foul is not called a foul, players will just go on doing the same.

        That’s what they do in many professional sports.

        Questions. Does the small number of polling place hurt older voters or younger voters? Are they more older voters in the county or more younger voters, or about the same?

        1. pretzelattack

          yeah, and the dnc and the msm are not going to call a foul on their preferred candidate. so it’s up to bernie and his supporters.

      2. Eureka Springs

        If I were a democrat I might at long last declare that ongoing criminally corrupt operation to be, you know, beyond redemption and not worthy of consideration under any circumstance. And I would look anyone I knew in the eye and ask wouldn’t it just be best to join the mafia? If I were still a democrat.

        1. MyLessThanPrimeBeef

          “Can I reform the D party?” would have been the first, basic question.

          One wrong decision, and it’s all for nothing…unless the goal is to blow the party up, by letting bare its underbelly.

          1. Lambert Strether

            Reform isn’t the same as a hostile takeover and a clean sweep of management.

            The Democrats still retain assets that could be seized and put to good use: VAN, and a lot of power embodied in state and local legislation, starting with ballot access and voter registration procedures.

      3. optimader

        Hillary’s plan to steal Arizona was remarkably simple: Suppress voting on election day, and rely on her large lead with early voters to secure a win.

        IS that accurate?
        1.) Early voting is smart, particularly in geographies with dysfunctional voting accessibility.
        2.) Russia Insider claims HRC is responsible for the reduction in poll sites for 200 to 60, but gives no basis for the claim. How so? Need some flesh on the claim, or I call BS.

        What I have read this is being laid on the doorstep of Helen Purcell(R ): http://recorder.maricopa.gov/recorder/
        –not some well oiled HRC AZ State Campaign Juggernaut.

        Vote suppression of Latinos by reduction of polling places in heavy Latino urban areas of Maricopa County , and suppression of independent voters in all of Maricopa County in general — Independents were receiving only provisional ballots that would not be counted, as I understand.

        Consequently does the voter suppression seem attributable to some HRC campaign organizational efficacy? Not so much to me, unless there is some video of Helen taking a crumpled paperbag from a dumpster.

        I will say, getting the early voting executed in a place like Maricopa County is probably a pretty smart thing to do.

        Amazing that Independent voters were not allowed to cast votes! In my County I am asked which ballot affiliation I want at the polling place.

        1. Lambert Strether

          I chalk this up to both party establishments have an interest in voter suppression. Hence the continued lack of a Democrat systematic, year-round, voter registration effort, seen as a normal party activity. What we get instead is a lot of finger pointing at evil Republicans, and some walking around money thrown to some clients every four years.

      1. hreik

        They are blowing it up. I’m leaving in 5 weeks after I vote for Bernie. (Closed primary in CT)

  13. afisher

    Visit to Argentina – less we forget what really happened during the 70’s. NSA archive circa 2006:

    NEW DECLASSIFIED DETAILS ON REPRESSION AND
    U.S. SUPPORT FOR MILITARY DICTATORSHIP

    Kissinger sought immediate support for the new
    military regime in spite of staff warnings on bloodshed

    22,000 people murdered or disappeared by military between
    1975 and 1978 according to secret Chilean intelligence report

    Secret Argentine documents record Operation Condor kidnappings
    and disappearances carried out by military intelligence Battalion 601.

    Posted – March 23, 2006

    http://nsarchive.gwu.edu/NSAEBB/NSAEBB185/

  14. rich

    Israel Lobby Orders McGraw-Hill To Burn Textbooks And The Publisher Complies

    As Rania Khalek noted in an 11 March 2016 article on the incident in Electronic Intifada, these particular maps, showing the loss of Palestinian land over decades of Israeli expansion, “have the ability to cut through Israeli propaganda that portrays Palestinian anger and violence as rooted in religious intolerance and irrational hatred rather than a natural reaction to Israel’s colonial expansionism, land theft and ethnic cleansing, all of which continue today.” This gives insight into the strenuous efforts made by Zionists to keep the sequenced maps away from any mass market distribution. As it is, they seem to have overlooked this textbook source for some four years. However, once they spotted it, and began “flooding” McGraw-Hill with complaints from “multiple sources,” it took the publisher only about a week to suspend sales of the book.
    The next obvious question is why didn’t McGraw-Hill move to change the maps or just remove them? Why destroy the entire inventory? The extreme nature of the publisher’s response remains unexplained but may stand as a testimony to the fact that the Zionist lobby has the same power within the corporate ranks of this textbook publisher as the anti-evolution fundamentalists have over most biology textbooks.
    http://www.paulcraigroberts.org/2016/03/23/israel-lobby-orders-mcgraw-hill-to-burn-textbooks-and-the-publisher-complies/

    1. Jim Haygood

      It’s not just maps that can poison impressionable minds:

      Israel’s Education Ministry has disqualified a novel that describes a love story between an Israeli woman and a Palestinian man from use by high schools around the country.

      The Education Ministry expressed concern that “young people of adolescent age don’t have the systemic view that includes considerations involving maintaining the national-ethnic identity of the people and the significance of miscegenation.

      read more: http://www.haaretz.com/israel-news/.premium-1.694620

      From David Duke’s lips to G-d’s ear. Shared values!

  15. TedWa

    Nothing about Bernie’s wins, just Brussels 24/7 and constant. When will this fear mongering by the MSM since 9/11 become tiring to most Americans???? Living in constant fear has GOT to be exhausting. When the fear finally leaves and logic takes hold they’ll see that it’s blowback from failed policies and failed leaders whose only power over them is that fear.

    1. windsock

      You should read the British press. Apparently, it’s because we didn’t bomb Assad, according to the Spectator.

      1. cwaltz

        We? Were they out of their own bombs?

        Between the Saudis and the Brits you’d assume we had a mercenary army that anyone can and should be allowed to deploy.

        Considering the amount of money and blood it costs the US taxpayers to deploy our military I think these outside nations should STF about what our strategies should be in regard to other nations.

        1. windsock

          Sorry, by “we”. I meant the British as I write from UK. And I got it wrong, it was The Telegraph who said we are in a mess because “we” should have bombed Assad, not the Spectator, who actually wrote that we were being too namby pamby with ISIS.

    2. MyLessThanPrimeBeef

      I don’t think his speech would have been vetted.

      Yesterday, there was a golden opportunity to give his major speech on world peace at the AIPAC, had the invitation been accepted.

  16. human

    The Ever-Curiouser MH-17 Case – “Secretary of State John Kerry indicated just three days after the crash that the U.S. government possessed data that pinpointed the location of the suspected missile launch that allegedly downed the airliner, killing all 298 people onboard.”

    It’s just 9/11 all over again…and again, and again…

    “I think in the near future, we’ll be able to put out a paper, a document, that will describe quite clearly the evidence that we have linking [Bin Laden] to this attack,” ~ Secretary of State Colin Powell, September ’01

    “No hard evidence connecting Bin Laden to 9/11” ~ FBI, June ’06

    (Something telling here is that UBL’s poster at the FBI site is marked “Deceased” with a poster revision date of November 2001!)

    1. Eureka Springs

      To their credit the FBI most wanted page UBL was never wanted in connection to 9-11-2001. I checked every so often for years running.

  17. Steve in Flyover

    Oh Jeez……….another techie a-hole who is going to revolutionize corporate/business aviation with an “app”

    For starters, a CJ3 aint no Gulfstream. Think of it as a Dodge minivan. Better than flying airline coach, not better than airline first class. Designed for 1-2 hour flights, between places like Amarillo and Lincoln, NE.

    Second, the main reason people charter or own these airplanes is to avoid the masses of wretched refuse. If a group charters an airplane, arrives at the airport, and finds that they are sharing the trip with total strangers, they will no longer be chartering with that operator. Especially after the first time one of these Uber passengers blows up the airplane, or robs the passengers.

    Any charter company who signs up for this doesn’t understand their business, or is (usually) desperately attempting to generate cash flow/income. If they are this desperate, they are 100% guaranteed to be cutting corners elsewhere. Usually by operating old airplanes, maintained on the cheap, and flown by $15/hr newbies.

  18. Jim Haygood

    From the Guardian article:

    The two strikes, killing more than 200 people at what the Pentagon described as terrorist training camps, diverged so sharply from the previous years’ worth of relatively low-casualty strikes that observers speculated US policy may have quietly changed.

    The US airstrike happened hours after multiple attacks killed over 30 people and wounded more than 200 in Brussels, although it is unclear if any connection exists between the two events. Islamic State has claimed credit for the Brussels attacks.

    A counter-terrorism analyst at the Council on Foreign Relations who tracks the strikes estimated that the US has carried out 575 airstrikes in Yemen, Somalia and Pakistan, killing around 4,000 people, both militants and civilians.

    The Drone Laureate proves that he can take out a lot more folks than a couple of Belgian amateurs.

    Assuming 0zero was even involved. Maybe the Pentagon texted him a courtesy notice.

  19. JTMcPhee

    Bumper sticker: CRUZ! For America First! That Muslim fellow hasn’t worked out — so let’s try a Canadian!

    or

    CRUZ! BECAUSE THE GOD OF ABRAHAM SAYS HE WILL BE KING OF THE SEVEN HILLS DOMINION!

    CLINTON: BECAUSE IN YOUR HEART YOU KNOW SHE’S RIGHT!

    DRUMPF UBER AMERICA!

  20. pdehaan

    Regarding Brazil, despite it being a very good thing that corruption is being investigated, legal experts are divided on the methods, partiality and legality of actions taken by the judge responsible for investigating ex president Lula and other government figures, including taped conversation of current president Dilma being made public and constant leaks to mainstream opposition media. Main opposition figures, just as involved with corruption cases, have so far been shielded from investigation. Opposition coalition is coming to fruition between the PMDB and PSDB parties, that includes the current (corrupt) vice president. This coalition already announced the principal candidates to hold the office of minister of the economy. Preference is currently for ‘Armínio Fraga’, a former George Soros associate and advocate of neoliberalism and austerity policies. His first tasks will be pension reform and dismantling of social security provisions. A second important figure, José Serra, will probably be nominated to the vice-presidency. He appeared in wikileaks some years back, promising changes to the Brazilian pre-salt oil field exploitation laws in conversations with Chevron. These laws are currently very restrictive to international oil firms.
    pro-government voices, not surprisingly, see the recent developments as a cynical soft coup, set in motion after opposition candidate Aécio Neves narrowly lost the latest presidential election. He himself has been tagged no less than 5 times in different plea-bargaining hearings but despite of this is still protected by the judiciary and continues to be the main spokesperson in the media arguing in favor of president Dilma’s impeachment.

    The current “atomic bomb” under the government’s feet is to do with a major police action yesterday to round up and arrest Odebrecht employees. Odebrecht executives have just announced today that they agreed to cooperate with the ongoing investigations and plea-bargaining procedures. This will be the coup-de-grâce. Aécio Neves announced to the corporate sector (a couple of weeks ago in Brasilia’s corridors), that once Dilma is impeached, the “witch hunt” will be over. In other words, mission accomplished, end goal achieved and the “car wash” investigations will be dismantled.

    1. financial matters

      The short conical bill differentiates it from a sparrow.

      The main differential here is with the more common female/juvenile House Finch.

    2. grayslady

      The chubby beak is typical of members of the Finch family (northern cardinals, grosbeaks, finches). Finches are seed eaters, and they use their short, broad beaks to crack open seeds. Sparrows, while junk eaters (they are sort of the raccoons of the bird world, and will eat just about anything), prefer insects. I just had a sparrow on my window screen yesterday harvesting early insects.

        1. grayslady

          Illinois sparrow. S/he had her/his back to the sunlight, so I couldn’t tell a great deal. I suspect it was just the usual boring House Sparrow, not something nice like a Song Sparrow or Lincoln’s Sparrow.

  21. craazyman

    It could be a breakthrough or it good be reefer madness

    wow I had the most astounding thought today on the bus that hit me out of the blue like an invisible cloud that took over my mind.

    I haven’t worried too much about it, but I think about it like somebody doodles or daydreams. For a while now I’ve been puzzling over how difficult it is to demonstrate the irrationality of the concept of rational agents maximizing utility in an economic system. First, let’s start with capital allocation. Sure, there I’d say most people are “rational”, most capital is allocated through reasonably disciplined process that relies on varying degrees of lucidly applied logic. Clearly that’s the basis of the so-called “Efficient Market Hypothesis”, or it roughly is.

    It’s not easy to say that that particular decision making process isn’t rational. It frankly is pretty rational and any argument that it isn’t isn’t very persuasive. But then it hit me. All these fukkers are doing is analyzing economic reality in terms of quantitities of money. Financial statements, time series analysis, various mathematical approaches — they all take the concept money as a given elemental construct. A “Newtonian object” in my much-used metaphor.

    And then this is what I saw from the window of the bus. I didn’t actually see it outside the window, since that was a streetscape of sidewalks and buildings and cranes and people on the street walking. I saw it out the window in my mind. My entire mind was briefly out the window in that weird place the mind goes without the body looking at everything in one conceptual flash of illumination. And this is what occurred to me: since money is itself the elemental objective construct of so-called rational analysis, and it’s created by human actions and the human actions that create money are inherently both rational and irrational. Therefore the very idea of money contains in it an irrational aspect, the way a full day contains both dark and light.

    And so the idea of the rational optimization of a financial utility function falls apart not because the effort itself is irrational, but because the very objects of analysis, the very elemental particles of the molecules subject to the so-called “rational utility maximization” are themselves bundles of irrationality. And therefore the entire ensemble is pre-destined to be irrational as a phenomenon. QED from Magonia

    1. Jim Haygood

      It was reefer madness.

      At least till we transition to the opium-backed currency that I have long advocated, so folks can grow their own money.

    2. Ulysses

      Thanks Professor! Always great– to see that all the grant monies sent to Magonia are being put to good use.

    3. Steve H.

      craazyman, dwo-. Stewart Brand said ‘information wants to be free.’ Let’s say money is a form of information, and MIT declares ‘Money wants to be free.’ And lo they do so within a limited frame of reference.

      What Odum got is that information isn’t free, it’s way up the scale on emergy. For example, those server farms drawing a cities worth of electricity. The years invested in very expensive humans to allow us to communicate with language. And money is a very expensive form of information.

      The reproduction rate of zeroes in the accounting column is truly extraordinary. Can’t compete with that in the short term. The matching law doesn’t maximize rational utility, though, it says keep checking the alternatives. and take uncertainty into account. That bridges the ir- with the rational. And that means that money isn’t elemental, it’s always compared to other reinforcers.

    4. sillybill

      yer last paragraph sounds a little like the Heisenberg uncertainty principle – smoke another one and get back to us.

    5. Left in Wisconsin

      This isn’t very insightful (my comment, not yours craazyman) but aren’t you just saying that under capitalism money stands for both price and value, and it can only be “rational” if price=value ever and always, which it doesn’t. I’m not sure I would call this divergence irrational, unless you are defining irrational as “not rational as economists use the word, in which case OK (though I would say “not rational”).

      I think you are correct that non-rationality is baked in at the most elemental level. Waves too.

    6. Skippy

      Crazzyman….

      “Robinson doesn’t let the marginalists get away with this rather obvious blunder. She is quick to point out that this condition, one which is absolutely essential for marginalism to function, turns the theory into vacuous babble.

      We can observes the reaction of an individual to two different sets of prices only at two different times. How can we tell what part of the difference in his purchases is due to the difference in prices and what part to the change in his preferences that has taken place meanwhile? There is certainly no presumption that his character has not changed, for soap and whisky are not the only goods whose use affects tastes. Practically everything develops either an inertia of habit or a desire for change. (p51)

      This is a damning indictment of marginalist theory. It means that, in a very real sense, the framework cannot be applied to empirical material. Because it necessarily assumes fixed preferences it cannot deal with changes in these preferences. And due to this it cannot conceive, in experimental settings, of how much consumer activity responds to price fluctuations simply because it does not — and, indeed, cannot — assign any numerical value to preferences that are in a constant state of flux. Robinson continues,

      We have got one equation for two unknowns. Unless we can get some independent evidence about preferences the experiment is no good. But it was the experiment that we were supposed to rely on to observe the preferences. (p51)

      Let me just restate what Robinson has just pointed out so that people are crystal clear on this point. Marginalist doctrine claims that we cannot measure utility directly. We know of a person’s utility only due to the fact that they buy something — this is called ‘revealed preferences‘ in the literature. So, we only know the cause — i.e. the utility of a purchase — by the effect it produces — i.e. the actual purchase that is made by the consumer. If we consider preferences as being fixed then this makes some sense. But if we allow that preferences fluctuate the whole edifice falls apart because now we cannot be sure to what extent consumer decisions have changed due to price changes and to what extent they have changed due to a change in preferences.”

      https://fixingtheeconomists.wordpress.com/2014/02/17/joan-robinsons-critique-of-marginal-utility-theory/

      Skippy…. do have a read of the three NC links at the bottom of the post…

      PS. The incoherence of free will – https://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/rationally-speaking/200911/the-incoherence-free-will

        1. Skippy

          Sadly Lambert…. supply side with Bernays full immersion top shelf psychology bombarding… the majority of consumers [even those that don’t earn yet (4yr old)] is still an effective workaround.

          Skippy…. Although that does not mean people can’t wake up or that the siren song suffers diminishing returns at some point…

      1. Synoia

        But if we allow that preferences fluctuate

        Anyone who believe that preference is either constant or predictable needs to accompany my wife on a shopping trip with a promise to pay with their credit card.

  22. rich

    The New “Middle Class” – Families Making $250,000 a Year in Palo Alto Will Qualify for Housing Subsidies

    Welcome to the new normal, where in bubble communities, $250,000 per year is now a middle class income.

    Nothing to see here.

    From CBS News:

    PALO ALTO (CBS SF) — Palo Alto is seeking housing solutions for residents who are not among the region’s super-rich, but who also earn more than the threshhold to qualify for affordable housing programs.

    The city council has unanimously passed a housing plan that would essentially subsidize new housing for what qualifies as middle-class nowadays, families making from $150,000 to $250,000 a year.

    Sky-rocketing housing prices in Palo Alto have left some in limbo; with teachers, firefighters and other government workers not earning enough to afford cost of living.

    http://libertyblitzkrieg.com/2016/03/23/the-new-middle-class-families-making-250000-a-year-in-palo-alto-will-qualify-for-housing-subsidies/

    Wonder how the elderly do it in these high end areas?

    1. MyLessThanPrimeBeef

      The elderly do the same, I imagine, there as elsewhere – rich old people are doing fine, age-adjusted non-rich older people, well, not so well.

      Wealth has be to age-adjusted, because old people don’t work, but just spend away their savings.

      So, old people must have some wealth, and wealth questions must be age-adjusted.

    1. hunkerdown

      Looks like Bernie supporters will have to be more present in precinct staffing. Considering it myself for the general, if I’ve got a horse in it.

      1. Massinissa

        Without Bernie theres no point. Will it really matter if Trump or Cruz steals the nomination from Hillary? The first one might even be a good thing.

  23. Steve Gunderson

    Its extremely hard to believe that Houston and San Antonio are among the worst 10 cities for first time home buyers in the entire country. Both of those cities are huge, Houston alone has a population of over 2 million.

  24. fresno dan

    Uncovering the Secret Locations Where the US Government Illegally Interrogates Its Captives Vice

    The reproduction of the paper trails you followed, and the notes accompanying them, form a large part of the book. One thing I almost found reassuring was that this paper trail did exist. Even the US government has to file all these invoices.
    Black: Most of the paperwork in the book is from other entities or other countries. If they wanted to have an entirely secret prison system, they shouldn’t have invented one that involved flying prisoners all over the world. You simply can’t fly a plane from A to B without leaving a gigantic paper trail. You just can’t, otherwise planes would be bumping into each other. They could have just held their one hundred nineteen prisoners in Afghanistan, and we would probably have found it an awful lot more difficult to find out about it. But the peculiarities of how they wanted—or, at times, were forced to—use different locations… that made it detectable.
    ====================================================

    Absence of evidence is not evidence of absence. We simple do not how many paper records are fraudulent, not completed, rewritten, or destroyed afterwards. We don’t know how many invoices for Rubik’s cubes were for detainees…. Indeed, the documents found may be disinformation to give the implication that the program is far smaller than it really is…

    What I find particularly galling is the self righteous hypocrisy of those who criticize Trump for activities that have occurred, are occurring, and will continue to occur because instead of straight forward language, we get “extraordinary rendition” – – if you only use “Washington” speak, you can do anything and justify it by ever so clever rationalizations. Indeed, putting on my tinfoil hat, I wonder if Trump is a McGuffin, a false flag operation so that the establishment can earnestly proclaim how appalled they are they there are people who would advocate torture ….(Jeb! proclaimed the US does not torture….and yet, not a peep from the MSM – dare I say an “extraordinary” departure from reality)
    Unless one is a real stickler for language, most people view the word “extraordinary” as synonymous with “great” – e.g., it was an extraordinary performance. I have to say I had no idea with regard to the definition of rendition, which I thought only had the meaning of “his rendition of Othello was extraordinary” used as a term for moving prisoners.

    How many people have been secretly executed by the US? As bad as not knowing the answer to that, is that apparently not many people WANT to know the answer… (the OFFICIAL answer is probably something akin to: reassigned to locales outside the continental US, which means everyone can SAY, “we don’t extrajudicial execute – – we merely reassign to different locales …. )

    1. aet

      “Absence of evidence is not evidence of absence.” – But this statement is not always true! Only sometimes so. And thus, the absence of evidence means nothing other than what it says – that there is an absence of evidence. For…

      “…in some circumstances it can be safely assumed that if a certain event had occurred, evidence of it could be discovered by qualified investigators. In such circumstances it is perfectly reasonable to take the absence of proof of its occurrence as positive proof of its non-occurrence.” – Irving Copi, quoted from:

      https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Evidence_of_absence

      And as to this specific matter of the USA committing “extra-judicial murder”, here being discussed? I reply: “Extraordinary claims require clear and convincing evidence.”

      And a simple “justification” of a belief in the actual commission of such heinous crimes, by means of referring to a sometimes-its-true-and sometimes-it-isn’t statement which itself only draws attention to the undisputed fact that there is a complete absence of any and all evidence of such crimes ever occurring – just doesn’t convince me that such crimes have occurred in the past or are occurring now.

      Suspicion in the absence of evidence is not evidence, not of absence nor anything else.

      “Absence of knowledge is not knowledge” – now there’s a statement that is always true!

  25. JEHR

    Re: Global Warming Could Yield Catastrophic Effects Sooner Than We Think

    I tend to agree with David Suzuki who takes a medium position between “we are too late to change things” and “there is nothing to worry about.” He says we cannot know what the future will bring–whether we will perish soon or whether we will have nothing to worry about. However, he thinks that fossil fuel use needs to be reduced and finally eliminated as a source of energy.

    PS: Suzuki is 80 years old now and says he is in the “death zone” but doesn’t treat that as a negative thing so much are realistic. He has done a life-time’s worth of work for environmental issues for Canada and the world.

  26. readerOfTeaLeaves

    Interesting election. I don’t see that the NYT understands WTF is going on in this country.

    Here’s a report on the Idaho caucuses from the Idaho Statesman:
    http://www.idahostatesman.com/news/politics-government/election/article67443622.html

    Something is happening in this nation.
    I’m familiar enough with Boise to find this all fascinating. Plenty of these voters are coming out because they are inspired.

    This is a nice article with lots of quotes from ‘normal people’.

    And FWIW, word has it that Sanders is going to speak in Yakima, WA. That is *not* a high-income area; it’s conservative, agricultural based (as is a lot of Idaho), and for Sanders to go there is gutsy as hell.

    1. flora

      re: NYT and reporting. I keep thinking of the story of the Tower of Babel in Genesis. There’s the King James version everyone has heard of and the lesser known DWS/DNC verson:

      Genesis 11: 5-8

      5 And the DNC came down to see the city and the progressive movement, which the children of men builded.

      6 And the DNC said, Behold, the people [is] one, and they have all one language; and this they begin to do: and now nothing will be restrained from them, which they have imagined to do.

      7 Go to, let us go down, and there confound their language, that they may not understand one another’s speech.

      8 Let us go down, and there cause a great darkness, and a media blackout, that they may not see one another’s successes.

      DWS/DNCV

      /s

  27. JEHR

    Re: Antidote du Jour

    I saw my first flock of red-winged blackbirds one fine day before we had a Nor-Easter which blew in both snow and cold temperatures. I spoke to them and told them they were too early this year. We have had a series of storms and I haven’t seen them back yet. Brave souls, those birds. We have a nice area of cattails near our place which they use each year to make their nests and raise their babies.

  28. Alex morfesis

    I dreamed I saw joe hill last night…
    Hillary lost the nomination last night…have stayed away from looking at the delegate numbers until last night…but having been involved slightly in two improbable victories against the daley machine(braun and rush) did not want to get too excited for anyone…but…it is over for hillary…she had to crush the bern last night and all she could do was steal rizona…

    He might have enough delegates on the morning of april 27 to wrap up the nomination…

    A very special mayday present this year for those that are into that stuff

    I dreamed I saw joe hill last night

  29. PaulHarveyOswald

    I seriously thought “Angry Bloomberg” was a source, a Bloomberg derivative perhaps, like “FT Alphaville”. Or an Onion-esque parody. “Why Voters Will Stay”, what does that mean? Stay where? So I clicked thru. Oh, “…Stay Angry” from Bloomberg. Oh, well, just as better.

  30. Plenue

    Re: Karadzic

    One of the things I’ve seen time and again among certain portions of the left is the fervent belief that the splintering of Yugoslavia was caused by the West. They present this bizarre fairy tale vision of a peaceful, happy multi-ethnic country that was perfectly fine until the West started interfering. I’ve read quite a lot about Yugoslavia and its death, and I see no reason to think it was anything other than a fundamentally domestic affair. There are divides in the Balkans that stretch back as far as the Byzantine era. I’m not excusing the NATO bombing, which if nothing else was completely illegal, but Yugoslavia was not some foreign sabotage job. And while every faction committed atrocities, the Serbs went above and beyond. It’s quite disheartening to see someone like Chomsky, who is usually consistently honest and adamant about source material and first-hand documentation, continue to obfuscate about what happened at Srebrenica.

    And now we’re seeing similar revisionism about Rwanda. I clearly remember Bruce Dixon of Black Agenda Report once casually saying in a Real News interview that our understanding of Rwanda was totally wrong and the Tutsis, specifically the Rwandan Patriotic Front, are the ones who did the killing. Really? The RPF carried out massacres of their own people in areas the RPF wasn’t even in at the time of the killings? Now the RPF aren’t nice people, they likely killed as many as 40,000 people during their invasion, but to shift the blame for circa 1,000,000 deaths like that is to me insane. There’s a huge body of evidence supporting what some will dismissively call the ‘official story’ about Rwanda. Sometimes things are exactly what they appear to be.

    1. Skippy

      Some French researchers did an interesting paper a few years after and to summarize – it had more to do with traditional land inheritance and marriage rights revolving around first born sons, and other social tensions. Seems a lot of opportunistic killing when on during fog of hate….

      Skippy…. I did note this in a conversation with R. Kline and linked it…

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