Climate impacts life strategies, time orientation, self-control Science Daily
Aspartame intake is associated with greater glucose intolerance in individuals with obesity Applied Physiology, Nutrition, and Metabolism (Furzy Mouse).
Who Will Build the Next Great Car Company? Fortune
ETFs see jolt of volume as global markets gyrate FT
Biggest U.S. Banks Seen Weathering Severe Stress in Fed Test Bloomberg
Brexit
The road to Brexit: 16 things you need to know about the process of leaving the EU The Constitution Unit
Brexit: the demographic divide FT
‘If you’ve got money, you vote in … if you haven’t got money, you vote out’ Guardian. Be sure to watch the video.
Fact and fiction about the Referendum Left Unity (Richard Barbrook).
What Now? n+1
More than 2.5 million and rising sign UK petition for new EU referendum Reuters. Petition here (CA).
David Lammy MP urges Parliament to ignore EU referendum result: ‘We can stop this madness’ Independent. Lammy’s Labour.
It’s time for London to leave the UK and stay in the EU The Independent
Guarantees wanted over the future of European millions Yorkshire Post (CA). That is, EU subsidies.
Jeremy Corbyn ‘sacks’ Hilary Benn from Shadow Cabinet over reports of a coup Daily Mail. (Oddly, the BBC has many of the exact same quotes from the same Labour MPs.)
EU Reaction to Brexit Suggests Divisions WSJ
Angela Merkel pushes back on EU pressure for quick divorce FT
HELLO RAPALLO! THE INEVITABILITY OF THE NEW GERMAN TREATY ON ECONOMIC COOPERATION WITH RUSSIA John Helmer. Interesting if true.
Brexit Could Harm Italian Growth, Official Warns WSJ
Globalization and its discontents: How the Trump/Brexit movements might herald New World Orders Salon
Brexit is Only the Latest Proof of the Insularity and Failure of Western Establishment Institutions Glenn Greenwald, The Intercept
Why Brexit is worse for Europe than Britain Larry Summers, WaPo
Britain’s Democratic Failure Kenneth Rogoff, Project Syndicate
Brexit and the Future of Europe George Soros, Project Syndicate
Fed up with politics, Spanish voters expected to skip election Deutsche Welle (Re Silc).
German government agrees to ban fracking after years of dispute Guardian
ACLU Sues Federal Government for Granting Millions of Dollars to Religious Groups That Deny Young Women Access to Medical Care Common Dreams
Barack Obama, the President of Black America? Michael Eric Dyson, NYT
Neera and Me: Two Theses about the American Ruling Class and One About Neera Tanden Corey Robin. Neera Tanden, Clinton’s Rahm?
2016
Brexit Right The Atlantic. Hard to dream up an empathy-based public relations strategy while refusing to look out the Acela window, but our political class will give it the old college try.
George Will leaves the GOP Politico
Republican ex-Treasury chief Paulson slams Trump, to vote for Clinton Reuters
Obradovich: Winning the hearts of Sanders backers Des Moines Register
Draft of Dems’ policy positions reflects Sanders’ influence AP
Lawsuits may offer fodder for Trump, Clinton attack ads McClatchy
Final Update on the Oregon Results The Writing of John Laurits (MR).
Why Do Brexit and Trump Still Shock National Security Elites? Defense One (Re Silc).
Trump Slams Clinton, Downplays Brexit’s Potential Effect on the US ABC. And meets with Murdoch.
Who is afraid of Donald Trump Defend Democracy Press
Double-plus effective The Economist. Trump’s language.
How to Un-Hypnotize a Rabid Anti-Trumper Scott Adams
Clinton Email Tarbaby
Transcript of Bryan Michael Pagliano Judicial Watch, Inc. -v- U.S. Department of State (PDF; summary). It’s a little repetitious….
Gunz
How the Gun Control Debate Ignores Black Lives Pro Publica
Class Warfare
The Places We Live Jonas Bendiksen, Magnum Photos. Stunning.
Bill Cunningham, Legendary Times Fashion Photographer, Dies at 87 NYT. :-(
Can You Trust James Madison? The American Conservative
Antidote du jour:
See yesterday’s Links and Antidote du Jour here.
241 comments
Comments are closed.
Re: Neera and me.
Apart from being very funny, this is something of a must read as it confirms something I’ve always thought – the people surrounding Clinton are not just neocons, they are actually not very competent. And in many ways thats even scarier than their politics. I think a Clinton White House will closely resemble Camerons cabinet (or for that matter, Bush Jnrs’ White House) – a close knit bunch of buddies who are smart and ruthless enough to get elected, but wildly out of their depth when it comes to actually governing, and far too narcissistic to recognise this. Its a very dangerous combination.
I wouldn’t be surprised if Neera has some flunky or flunkies watch and respond to negative comments. I imagine the Hasbara concept of propaganda and narrative control is now used by anyone and everything with money. Of course, maybe it is her but where in the world does she find the time.
I think the point Corey made is that it does indeed seem that she has the time to do that, and so do others. So many ‘busy’ people are actually just running around looking important. I mean, what exactly do people like her do except scream at other people to deliver?
Agreed. Although my point is this is the age of the internet and the computer. He has no idea if he is actually communicating with Neera or a flunky or even someone totally unrelated to Neera. If it is actually Neera, and not a flunky, then she is spending a lot, a lot of time tracking comments on herself and his point is valid.
If she’s going to be chief of staff, she’s going to want to control everything without wasting time on dissenters. The people she has gone after have been vulnerable, or at least appear to be. Taking them out, talking over them or discrediting them will make her job easier next January, and spare Clinton some of the criticism she’s going to get when she goes full Republican.
Yesterday I heard her referred to as “Neera Tanden, from the Center for American Incrementalism”.
As an aside, could you imagine the consternation if Democrats gained a bunch of seats and could actually try to pass progressive programs. No falling on her sword and accepting the possible under those conditions, she’d end up with good legislation and no easy way to get away from it. (It’s not going to happen, but some days dreams are all I have left.)
“Excrementalism.” Fixed it for ya.
The Democrats would do what they did in 2009. Dither, run around in circles, scream “Republicans!,” talk about how powerless they are, curl up in a fetal position. It’s not hard to see. Just look at recent history.
Typical Clintonesqe behavior. Permeates anything they do.
They’ve taken the “Are you going to believe your lying eyes, or what I tell you?” Plan to a whole new level
Part of the problem seems to be the career paths of these people, vs. the way it was “back in the day”. College, then lobbyist/think tanks, then government office, then a cushy, high paid job in NYC or DC, advising people on how to dodge or manipulate the rules.
Steve in Flyover, the “Are you going to believe your lying eyes, or what I tell you?” Plan
perhaps it’s worth noting that this is also the plan of the totalitarian, propagandistic, big brother society/state.
Nah, it’s just Marxist. Chico, if I remember correctly.
We keep hearing that the Clintons are surrounded by a cadre of admirers who aren’t in touch with reality. This is another example.
It seemed to me in both the 2008 and 2016 primaries, “a cadre of admirers who aren’t in touch with reality” well described all of Hillary’s minions. This seems to me to be what she attracts, both in fans and eventual staff.
This story reminded me of the 9-million-views Hillary video lying for 13 minutes.
+100!
Great video.
I’m going to bookmark that on my phone. Now I won’t even have to say a single word to a hillary tribalist. I’ll just silently open the browser and begin playing it!
This brings to mind this quote, attributed to Leo Rosten:
“First-rate people hire first-rate people; second-rate people hire third-rate people.”
What does it say about Hillary Clinton, if this is the type of person that she surrounds herself with? This also confirms what Andrew Bacevich described what he found in foreign policy circles – lots of groupthink, very little in the way of original thought.
The more I find out about our supposed rulers, the more irritated I get. These people actually think they’re smarter and more knowledgeable than the rest of us?
“These people actually think they’re smarter and more knowledgeable than the rest of us?”
The current administration was infected with this from Day 1. Actually, from before the inauguration. Thomas Frank’s Listen Liberal gives many examples.
Unless there is a bolt from the blue, we seem to be faced with a choice in the general election between a narcissistic pathological liar who surrounds himself with a cult of narcissistic pathological liars, and a narcissistic pathological liar who surrounds herself with a cult of narcissistic pathological liars.
> we seem to be faced with a choice
Well, yes. That’s the reductio ad absurdum of the whole “glass ceiling” trope; doesn’t matter whether Maggie Thatcher or Sarah Palin breaks it, as long as it’s broken.
And I just finished Frank’s excellent Listen Liberal. It’s a very accessible quick read, but requires some skills in anger management …
And since this “glass ceiling” only matters to people with the power, money and privilege to reach it; their breaking it does not really affect the lives of those of us who deal with cinder block ceilings of our own . . . or leaky-roof ceilings . . . . or the threat of no ceilings at all for those who are one paycheck or sickness away from becoming homeless.
Clinton, a multi-millionaire Silk Stocking Feminist, wants to con millions of Cinder Block Ceiling people into identifying with Hillary’s desire to break through the Tiffany Glass Ceiling.
Allan,
There are other choices in voting. There are any number of wannabe Third Parties. There is Write Sanders In.
It is true that there are two actual outcomes in the coming binary Big Two election. Either Hillary or El Donaldo. But there are other ways to vote.
You have 2 out-of-touch .1%ers from NY who show contempt for anything and anyone that doesn’t further them personally. Neither will do anything to improve your life, and indeed will almost assuredly make our myriad problems worse.
Choose. 1. This is democracy. Officially, anyway.
Both cults have delusions grandeur when they should be having delusions of adequacy. Adequate is too lofty for them.
Good to see the Hillary as Veep meme is catching on. HRC’s first term will be Veep if Veep were to do the Cuban missile crisis.
Of course all of our politics is more than a big clownish. You have Sarah Palin herself as well as Sarah Palin (appropriately) making fun of Obama’s plaster columns set used for his Chicago victory speech. Then there’s all those face lifted tv reporters pretending to think important thoughts about the pie fight. Given this context, Trump is just trying to fit in.
Among the very few “sins” the clinton campaign can NEVER be accused of, taking the high road has got to be at the very top of the list.
But in this mind-blowingly infantile exchange, Corey Robin doesn’t fare much better.
THIS is the kind of shit that keeps people tethered to their “phones” 24/7????
What’s next? John Lewis organizes a sit-in on the house floor until the “misogynist” Corey Robin “takes it back,” and elizabeth warren and barbara boxer take selfies singing “we shall overcome?”
Corey Robin’s monitoring twitter so we don’t have to. Some good writers such as James Wolcott are fond of the medium. Mysterious.
Good writers may well regard twitter as an artistic challenge. How to get something real said with only 140 characters. Compressed poetry. A kind of digital haiku in terms of packing meaning into extreme shortness.
Your comment reminds me of the perhaps apocryphal anecdote about Earnest Hemingway being challenged after a few drinks in a Paris bistro to write a complete story in ten words. The author responded by saying he could do it in six:
++
Hmm. Tanden’s name has been bruited about as Clinton’s chief of staff. She’s the CEO of the Center for American Progress [sic], the Beltway’s heart of the liberal version of neoliberalism, and from which many of the personnel (Podesta) in a future Clinton administration will be drawn.
I don’t see why anybody would regard nailing Tanden in a lie would be “infantile.”
I also don’t see why nailing CAP as an organization whose CEO is a liar is “infantile.”
Finally, I don’t see why a claim that elites occupy their time in trivial matters is “infantile.”
What would you have preferred? That Robin simply assert his claim, instead of doggedly proving it?
I would have preferred he choose a REAL issue to “doggedly” pursue, and god knows, between clinton and her lyin’ toadies, there are plenty.
So yes, bickering on twitter over whether someone rolled their eyes or not, and expending such rhetorical effort to prove that he was not mistaken in saying as much, strikes me as not only “infantile,” but inexcusably trivial, considering what’s at stake in this “election.”
Katniss Everdeen,
I just went to the Robin Tanden tweetstorm thingie and read some of it. It appeared relevant and important to me. Here’s why. The “issue” may appear small . . . was she there? Did her eyes roll? But the granular level back and forth and dissection of who did what and who said what and when . . . . is very revealing of the methods of deception-engineering used by Tanden. And since Tanden is a high-level clintonite, it may be inferred that Tandenian methods are used by other high level clintonites and even by the Clintons themselves.
Understanding in painstaking detail how the clintonites practice their dark arts of deception may fortify the would-be battler against those arts with the knowledge necessary to withstand those arts in practice. It is a matter of knowing the enemy.
Any military intelligence person could tell us the importance of that.
Building on what Lambert and different clue have said, I think context also matters. Robin tweeted his reaction to seeing Cornel West speaking about the Israel/Palenstinian conflict while Neera Tanden rolled her eyes. I didn’t think it was necessary to prove she actually DID physically roll her eyes. It’s Twitter. I assumed he was being metaphorical. There was tons of footage of Tanden being dismissive of Sanders’ platform concerns — not just this, but climate crisis, living wage, etc. Her attitude generally on these issues is repulsive, and her feeling as free as she clearly does to be be as insulting and dismissive to representatives of an ENORMOUS part of the electorate and of issues of life and death for millions as she is tells us very important things about Hillary Clinton, the people surrounding her, the Democratic establishment, and the ruling class generally.
And she decided that the appropriate response here was to lie and claim his statement was false. She turned it into a drawn-out back and forth. She could have said something like “I was tired after a long day. I did not intend to be dismissive of Dr. West or of the plight of children in the occupied territories” (although apparently Haim Saban has dictated that you can’t say “occupied territories”; I’m not sure what the latest euphemism is). But no, she couldn’t be polite to a major public intellectual from a demographic group she supposedly respects, who is a representative of someone with almost 2,000 delegates coming into the convention, advocating on the behalf of some of the most disenfranchised, suffering people on Earth. No, she couldn’t do that, or didn’t want to. So she lied, and dragged Corey Robin through a ridiculously long version of a journalistic time tax, knowing she was threatening him and scaring him.
And then, in the end, it turned out she was lying in every conceivable way, and she really was caught on tape rolling her eyes at Cornel West’s description of suffering and injustice. The fact that she chose to torment a major public intellectual for hours over something like this when she was lying about it the whole time is not a small thing to me. If Clinton gets into power, people will be fired and their lives destroyed, because they spoke out against her. It has already started. They are showing us who they are. We really need to believe them.
I watched Neera Tanden spend hours on Twitter harassing and threatening Shailene Woodley, the young actress, because Woodley was being an enthusiastic advocate for Bernie. Think about that. Woodley is an ACTRESS. She’s young. Her career is likely to be short regardless. The head of CAP thought it was an appropriate use of her time to stalk this kid on social media FOR HOURS insinuating that she’ll pay for backing Bernie. She either has a very easy job for which she is compensated far too much, or threatening people for speaking against Hillary is considered a meaningful and important thing for her to do. Again, yes, Tanden is being petty. But isn’t this behavior something we should be aware of? Isn’t it meaningful that a major power player in Democratic establishment politics and any potential Hillary Clinton administration is doing this — both the threats and the lies — as a matter of routine?
Katniss, I’ve been wondering about this. ISTM, Corey Robin needed to go through the energy-drain of this miniscule incident because it proved something to him that he hadn’t, yet, been able to make real. Perhaps his post is being well-received for similar reasons. The reality: we are being led by incompetent criminals who look just like us socially and educationally.
The general Sandernista crowd has been going through this process re election fraud, and they’ve been tending to words like ‘demoralized’ ‘discouraging’, psychological terms rather than direct terms like ‘crime’, ‘illegal’. Psychological terms avoid the facts of citizen rights and rule of law. They avert honest rage. ISTM, they find Bob Fritakis’ words relieving because he gives proper labels to which they cling with forlorn hope rather than solid anger.
I wonder whether many middle-class(ish) US citizens are doing their current best to kill their entrenched strictures of nice/polite and it’s a long hard slog. The working class (and those who’ve been trashed by one trauma or another) already know what Ian Welsh published yesterday: http://www.ianwelsh.net/when-violence-happens-and-the-danger-of-normality/
Maybe some people, given a little more time, will get past their subculture (and the underlying insecurities and also softness it has fostered in them). We are past several event horizons, anyway, so a longer view can be taken….
Trump’s voters have most of the correct rage while Sanders’ have most of the correct facts. Mix and stir
One weeps thinking how all the Trumpenproles could(SHOULD) have been Sanders supporters…
Why did the sentient cheeto have to run his right-wing populist bluster THIS YEAR?
Enough for one to entertain the idea of a thrown election to the Empress was the plan all along.
“Hi, Donald. It’s Bill. Have I got a deal for you…”
“Why did the sentient cheeto have to run his right-wing populist bluster THIS YEAR?”
Because he’s a lot smarter than anyone gives him credit for and he’s in this to win.
++++ for “sentient cheeto”. i wonder how many words sentient cheetos have for ‘orange’.
Why this year? Because this is the year he could finally run wild in the power vacuum of the Republicans’ hopeless bullshit. ( To paraphrase something Hunter S. Thomson once said about Nixon and Johnson).
He created a neat little feedback loop if you read though the comments. All the wannbe clinonistas are out and calling attention to how “neat and well groomed” Neera normally is.
As to the substance? Nothing. Just keep lying and pretend that the floor is yours to rule.
And yanno what- It is theirs to rule. No one is challenging them, and when some insignificant commenter challenges any of this orthodoxy, they get called a liar, and several other careerist in DC get a 150k a year fellowship from CAP, or the clinton foundation….
They still win.
Clinton’s lackey gets called a liar, properly, and several dozen lackeys get their DC wings.
This story reminds me of the ‘Correct the Record’ crowd who showed up at many a discussion on Facebook and elsewhere anytime the headline referenced controversy between Bernie Sanders and Clinton. The unmistakable fingerprints were undeniable-like finding Peanut butter and Jelly on the dishes in the cupboard and there’s only one kid in the house eating PB & J who categorically pushes back all knowledge of the fingerprints.
The push back on the part of the Correct the Record crowd always contained these memes:
1. I used to be a Sanders supporter -minor variation would be ‘I admire Sanders and was going to vote for him.’
2. Recently I’ve had doubts that the Sanders platform is of any value
3.HRC is such an amiable person, I’d love to sit down with her over Zinfandel and chicken salad.
Cookie cutter kids who harken back to the days when they’re playing in the kitchen with mom but have grown up now to be so chic and trendy.
Found an example of the cookie cutter commentariat that I was talking about. Read the comment from one sheaannmarie
Reference my numbers above:
In fact the blogger is obviously part of “Correct the Record”
If Neera is to be Chief of Staff… what happened to Huma?
Clinton e mail tarbaby–that link didn’t open for me. But on the subject, what kind of time frame are we looking at? I know there are two (at least) separate deals going—the Judicial Watch FOIA and the FBI investigation. When is Huma scheduled? Is there even a schedule?What’s the best link to follow the proceedings?
Abden is scheduled to testify before lawyers for Judicial Watch on June 28, Patrick Kennedy on June 29. http://www.judicialwatch.org/press-room/press-releases/clinton-email-update-judicial-watch-releases-former-state-department-official-bryan-pagliano-deposition-testimony/?utm_source=t.co&utm_medium=social&utm_campaign=press%20release
Judicial Watch is on Twitter @JudicialWatch
Should be interesting. We’ve now seen two emails with Abedin that are, when put together, enough to scapegoat her for this whole thing if that’s where Clinton wants to go with it: the email Clinton turned over originally where Abedin told the State Department that Clinton doesn’t want two emails or devices, and now this one she withheld where Clinton tells Abedin the opposite, that she is fine with another email or device but wants no risk of “the personal being accessible.”
Scape goat. You mean pardon surely?
But separate from Judicial Watch, the FBI is also scheduling interviews with everybody, including Hillary, correct? But they have no public schedule or timeline, I guess.
The link works for me. It’s a PDF.
Who’s paying for all of Pagliano’s lawyers?
The page was apparently moved.
I hate it when this happens
It’s a PDF file; perhaps that’s the problem. It just opened for me in Firefox.
Hillary Benn, the tribune of the moderate terrorist, will hardly be missed. Craig Murray has a plausible take on it
Why don’t these clapped out blairites do an SDP ,form their own party,fail at the ballot box and get nice cushy jobs at the EU?
Oh……………
With deep apologies to Dion;
Oh, well, there’s Jez on my left and there’s Nigel on my right
And Boris is the boy, well, that I’ll be with tonight
And when he asks me, which one I love the best?
I tear open my shirt and I show “Tony” on my chest
‘Cause I’m a blairite
Yeah, a blairite
I roam around, around, around, around
In another time, I would have laughed at that Craig Murray article as paranoid nonsense. But with all that we’ve seen of the lunacy within Labour and the metropolitan ‘left’, it actually is all too plausible.
Hilary Benn
Heidi Alexander
Gloria Del Piero
Ian Murray
Lilian Greenwood
Lucy Powell
Kerry McCarthy
Seema Malhotra
All gone, like tears in the rain…will the labour party see their like again?
Apart from mr ben,Ian murray’s the only one I’ve heard of,bravely declining to vote against the vindictive welfare bill last year
Tony must be turning in his grave.
If he wasn’t nailed into it with a silver spike.
Best thing for ffing replicants. I assumed that’s why you chose Rutgers Hauers line.
PlutoniumKun
June 26, 2016 at 9:00 am
“…I would have laughed at that Craig Murray article as paranoid nonsense.”
EXACTLY the same here. I saw the movie “the Long Kiss Goodnight” (Geena Davis, Samual Jackson) last night – – surprising good, with some laugh out loud parody.
Sam Jackson – I don’t wear a gun in my belt – I could shoot off my dick.
Geena Davis (Charley) – what are you now – a sharpshooter?
I would have thought the dialog below from the movie was pure Hollywood invention in 1996….nowadays, I am not nearly so sanguine….
===============================================
PERKINS
You know, Colonel, you ought really
to have stayed dead. You don’t know
the rules of the game anymore.
CHARLY
No shit. Eight years ago, you send
me to kill Daedalus and this clown.
Now you’re working *with* him.
He crosses to the fireplace, flips the match inside.
PERKINS
Budget cuts, remember? Congress
blinded us in Eastern Europe, Central
America. Across the board, an
intelligence blackout. We had to
recruit any eyes and ears we could
find, even if it meant going to former
targets.
Pause. Suddenly Charly’s eyes go wide. She whispers:
CHARLY
Budget cuts… oh, God. Is *that*
what this is about…? The foot
soldiers, the tanker truck… Fuck
me, you’re running a fundraiser!!
Comprehension, dawning. She looks up in disbelief.
CHARLY
You’ll get all the money you want at
the next budget hearing, won’t you…?
All you need is a major terrorist
incident.
PERKINS
Interesting theory.
CHARLY
Theory, my ass. I think some
terrorists were planning a strike.
Bought supplies from Daedalus, that’s
how you knew they were coming…
(eyes widening)
No way. Don’t tell me you’re gonna
sit there and let them go through
with it, *just to get a budget
increase*.
Perkins shrugs philosophically.
PERKINS
It’s not without precedent. 1993,
remember the World Trade Center
bombing…? The CIA had advance
knowledge, don’t think they didn’t.
Worse, the diplomat who issued the
terrorist’s visa was CIA, they
*facilitated* the bombing. Purely to
justify a budget increase. Of course,
they’d no way of knowing the
terrorists would botch the job.
CHARLY
That’s not gonna happen this time…?
PERKINS
No. This time, the terrorist event
will come off precisely as planned.
This time the terrorists can’t muck
it up… because we’ve killed them
and taken over.
……
CHARLY
What’s the plan? I’m gonna die, I
wanna know.
Timothy lights a cigarette. Studies Charly.
TIMOTHY
You wanna know the plan?
He casually points to the neighboring valley, where Christmas
lights twinkle.
TIMOTHY
Santa Claus — small town U.S.A.
personified. We drive the chemical
tanker in tonight, park it. Add a
catalyst, chain reaction, it goes
hot. We evacuate. The mix heats
overnight, goes critical at 312
degrees Celsius. 8:00 Christmas
morning… Main Street looks like a
meteor strike.
HENESSEY
Are you fucking insane? You’re talking
about 10,000 people!!
CHARLY
Easy, Mitch.
(to Timothy)
How you gonna blame it on terrorists?
TIMOTHY
Those roads are treacherous this
time of year. When we dump a car to
the bottom of a ravine, with the
corpse of Imn Al Rahman in it… get
the picture?
================================================
kinda of humbling that Hollywood had a more cynical, (or is it REALISTIC???) accurate view of the US government in 1996 than I did. To give myself some credit, I don’t believe anymore that the president will be on the side of the good guys, and the “bad” CIA guys are “rogue.”
That Craig Murray article is edifying. Many thanks.
Great links today on Brexit. I think the Greenwald piece, while a bit verbose, does a nice job of tying together the economic and social aspects of voter rage on both sides of the Atlantic.
As well as pointing to the lack of empathy and self reflection in our masters and their institutions.
The Greenwald piece is dy-no-mite IMO
MikeNY
June 26, 2016 at 8:07 am
I agree absolutely
===========================================
“In 2003, U.S. and British elites joined together to advocate one of the most heinous and immoral aggressive wars in decades: the destruction of Iraq; that it turned out to be centrally based on falsehoods that were ratified by the most trusted institutions, as well as a complete policy failure even on its own terms, gutted public trust.
In 2008, their economic worldview and unrestrained corruption precipitated a global economic crisis that literally caused, and is still causing, billions of people to suffer – in response, they quickly protected the plutocrats who caused the crisis while leaving the victimized masses to cope with the generational fallout. Even now, western elites continue to proselytize markets and impose free trade and globalization without the slightest concern for the vast inequality and destruction of economic security those policies generate.”
=====================================
Considering the absolutely incompetency following the Great Recession, it is astounding to me that anyone voted to stay in the EU. It certainly is a good demonstration of how far bullsh*tery has advanced in the recent decades.
And then there’s this from Kenneth Rogoff: (Yes, the promoter of fudged economic data.)
Ya’ think Greenwald and Rogoff are talking about the same thing? (Not) The US elects presidents, who create world chaos, with less than 52% of the vote (and turnout is lowest in the world).
[lambert blushes modestly].
And there’s a lot of curation that goes on backstage.
TY Lambert. The general high quality of the links is a huge draw for me to NC, as I’m sure it is for many others.
On “The Places We Live” by Jonas Bendiksen, – One wonders where Bill Gates expected these people to raise their chickens for eggs, much less keep them off the neighbor’s roasting spit. He’s apparently backing “a goat in every hovel” for a charity, Heifer, as well.
Cry Shop
June 26, 2016 at 8:29 am
http://seattle.curbed.com/2013/1/30/10278982/bill-gates-medina-mansion
I imagine Gates thinks everybody has 5 acres – and if not, you could devote one of your 8 bathrooms to chicken raising….easy to clean. Of course, you should choose a bathroom with a skylight for natural sunlight
To be fair, Bill Gates lives just across the lake from Seattle, where it’s legal to raise city chickens and even dairy goats in one’s yard.
In our residential neighborhood, well within the Seattle city limits, we have one neighbor who has built a coop and pond in his small townhouse yard for his ducks Scylla & Platypus, minor local celebrities who can often be seen waddling along the parking strip eating clover and dandelions. Several other neighbors keep chickens (and a turkey) in their yards. Nobody objects to this. It hasn’t lowered property values. You might even see a pet chicken outside your local coffee shop.
To be equally fair, Medina, where Gates lives, would fine you for having grass that wasn’t green. Medina residents are so far removed from the Seattleites you mentioned…..kinda as far as Mars is from Earth.
That Helmer article is pure zerohedge, with its black spot and all.
On the deal between Russia and Germany:
No mention of labour. Are people part of “free movement of trade”?
re the Defense One piece on “Why Do Brexit and Trump Still Shock National Security Elites?”
The author has simply adopted what has been Obama’s modus operandi since 2009: All problems can be solved with better PR.
+1000 nothing better propaganda can’t fix.
Kagan and Nuland, the new DC foundation?
But maybe Brexit shows PR doesn’t work anymore?
The more I think of it the more the Brexit vote looks like a false flag, blame the stupid serfs for “financial instability” then ride in with the next wave of austerity and bail-ins etc. Kinda like “irresponsible borrowers” became the theme for post-2009 blame.
And do we really think actual Brexit action will survive whatever comes next in Parliament? It’s a non-binding resolution.
And how interesting that Corbyn chose Bremain, maybe that’s because the EU’s labor policies are actually less odious than Cameron’s?
Paulson, Will, Kagan, Scrowcroft
They are all “with her”, What kind of cognitive dissonance must you possess to see this list of supporters and still think Hillary is the “lesser of two evils”?
When will Cheney endorse her? At the convention? To a standing ovation of “liberal Democrats”?
If it’s neocons, the military-industrial complex, Israel, billionaires, the S&P 500, Citizen United and Wall Street – it’s gotta be good!
With a name like Smuckers, or in this case Schmucks, it has to be good.
Troof!
I’m sure the Clinton campaign think this is a good thing – which shows they haven’t learned anything. But it sets up perfect attack ads and debate points for Trump.
Learn anything? When did the Clintons ever do that?
what is there to learn? so far, hasn’t everything they have done brought them exactly what they wanted it to?
Learned nothing, and forgotten nothing.
Presumes these creatures want to learn anything about how to make the world a better place for mopes and other lesser species. Seems to me the Ruling Elites have learned one hell of a lot about how to loot, rape, demolish, glean all the extractables, dump the externalities, all that kind of stuff. Wit a lot of help from the Quisling Class of people, not all of whom are credentialed, in the several small steps below the top tier of the jungle canopy…
Comforting aphorism or whatever it is, though… Gives us mopes hope that there is some symmetry and retribution in the universe of Murphy’s Law and Red Of Tooth And Claw…
Very well said!
Yet there are still a few people in elite circles with functioning moral compasses. We saw this as recently as Friday with the sharp condemnation by Alfred de Zayas, of the transnational kleptocracy and their proposed new TPP/TISA/TTIP regime:
https://www.sott.net/article/320856-U-Ns-legal-expert-Obamas-proposed-trade-deals-Illegal-and-have-zero-democratic-legitimacy
for her encore…UNITY (of the vampires).
perfect.
Kagan and Scrowcoft don’t matter. In the past two Presidential elections, Americans have voted decisively for a reduced international role. For promising a restoration of American leadership in the world, Sec. Clinton is swimming against the tide. Trump’s Make America Great Again is mostly focused on domestic concerns. And Paulson is the face of the bank bailout that symbolizes the domestic policy fecklessness of the “Establushment”. You can be sure that his support of Sec. Clinton will figure prominently in some Trump adds.
“Sec. Clinton is swimming against the tide.”
She is the epitome of a conventional thinker. It started with an education in law, which relies heavily on precedent, in the context of a system assumed to be perpetual and deliberately paced.
In recent years, her foundation has raised two billion dollars from wealthy beneficiaries of the status quo, including foreign countries and princes.
While the Clintons themselves are the most vulgar of nouveau riche, their role is serve as political footmen and valets catering to the mossback uber-rich.
Faced with a shift in the zeitgeist, Hillary can only dig in her heels, while desperately working the creaky electoral machinery to win ugly.
Imelda Marcos Clinton is a case study in corrupt, malevolent intransigence: Mitch McConnell in a pantsuit.
Imelda Marcos is a great comparison. Did you know that forty years after exile, she is a senator from her province in the national legislature of The Philippines?
But she could never get elected nationally.
Re: Kagan and Scowcroft don’t matter, I have to disagree. It makes for a delightful hash of Clinton supporters talking points about Nader losing the election for Gore when you point out that Bush was such a disaster that, given their logic, we must now elect his clone.
That is one that they just don’t seem to have gotten an answer to from Brooklyn yet.
From: Who is afraid of Donald Trump Defend Democracy Press
It is Hillary who embodies the most reactionary project in terms of modern capitalist development. And the unwillingness of Bernie’s supporters to vote for it, if the Socialist candidate quits, cannot only be understood emotionally, but is politically, socially and morally rational. In the current political situation, the attempt to turn Trump into “an absolute evil” is about mobilizing people to protect the status quo.
Enough said.
Exactly.
If you’re happy with the status quo, vote Hillary. If you’d like to hit the status quo between the eyes with a 2×4 your only choice is Trump.
Trump is a golfing buddy of Bill Clinton, Rudy Giuliani, and dozens of the other usual suspects. If you think that electing him will shake up the status quo you are sadly deluded. Our thoroughly corrupted two party system is no longer capable of fielding candidates for the Presidency who are even remotely interested in helping non-kleptocrats.
All of the elite pearl-clutching about the Donald is a transparent ruse to fool us rubes into thinking that they have an “anti-establishment” choice. Some of them may rightly feel that Hillary has more imperialist war-mongering cred– but they all know that the Donald is solidly behind their principal goal of continuing the global upward transfer of wealth that has marked the last four decades.
Try pointing this out to Clinton supporters in the comment sections around the intertubes!
It’s mind boggling that they see this as a affirmation. Why wouldn’t you pick Clinton against Trump?!
“Who Will Build the Next Great Car Company? Fortune”
Whoever comes out with a cheap off road vehicle that comes with brakes and steering wheel.
Yugo?
Otoh, who effing cares? Isn’t it cars that’s a big part of why the planet is getting sicker faster?
Of course it’s all just about the ten bagger, screw the other mope if s/he can’t take care of self…
Yugos had brakes?
Now imagine someone buying one of these self driving throwaway toaster/cars from a low end used car lot ten years later.
The horror, the horror.
One solution would be a multi-thousand dollar electronics recycling fee paid up front, that includes a credit towards purchase of a new throwaway toaster/car. ;-)
Probably the best part about automated cars is that the carmakers will be able to turn them off if you don’t make your payment. (This would not be true if the automated cars were part of a public network, but who wants that?)
Exactly why most new cars come “keyless.” I refused to purchase a keyless car for this exact reason.
If the autonomous car becomes a widespread reality I seriously doubt that many of the ones sold will be purchased outright by consumers. I would expect the model to be more a case of buying into a service for which you pay for an individual trip or buy a subscription to a service. I predict that that case would involve signing a restrictive agreement, giving the company a lot of your personal information (even your social security number perhaps) and allowing them to monitor you with sound and vision while in the car, keep a record of everywhere you go and what you carry, play ads on the in car entertainment system unless you pay extra to block them and sell all the data they have on your activities to other companies. Basically a nosey taxi which doesn’t employ anyone as a driver. The wealthy would have their own private self driving cars but given the trend of most of us having declining ability to purchase things I think the economics of only paying for the car for the time you actually use it and having it available to serve other people when you don’t need it alone make this model unbeatable. Add to that all the ways the company can make additional money and the power it gives them and I can’t see it going any other way. The loss of privacy doesn’t seem like it would matter to most people given how little they seem to care about that online and with smart phones. Yes, a public network of on demand self driving cars would make perfect sense but how many perfectly sensible ideas like that have managed to avoid being killed at birth in the last few decades?
– perpetualWAR: If you think you’re avoiding that sort of scenario by not buying a car with a proximity key you’re deluding yourself.
I’m sure the used car dealer will take all the old self driving cars to the optometrist to insure the human eyeball quality sensors are in good working order. Flash the upgraded firmware too.
I suspect that in the longer term we won’t be buying cars, we’ll be leasing them or having some sort of mixed driverless Uber/medium term lease model. Which is actually a good thing environmentally as it means they will have an incentive to make cars that last a long time, and might reduce the overall number of cars.
Although I’ve heard it suggested by a Bank of England economist that they actually think the lease car market (which is very big in the UK is countercyclical economically as people don’t have an ‘asset’ to offset their borrowings (as I understood the article).
George Will leaves the GOP
First Brexit, now Wexit. What’s the world coming to?
George Will is well past his sell-by date anyway. Will anyone in the GOP even notice he is gone or care?
George Will has always struck me as a close-minded, kiss-up-kick-down, judgmental racist-sexist hypocrite; a classic Republican retread. It doesn’t surprise me one bit that he has found a home in the latest version of the Democratic party.
only he didn’t join the Dem party, just became unaffiliated. He didn’t EVEN say he’d vote for Clinton, though he did say the main goal is to stop Trump which leads one to suspect that’s the easiest way as he believes it’s too late to change anything at the R convention.
Hard to imagine Will and Sanders in the same party.
But maybe that’s the ex-GOPers’ goal – infiltrate to ‘reform’ the Democratic party.
‘We are the neo-Democrats. We believe in neo-conservatism and neo-liberalism.”
I’m glad to read that he apparently isn’t dead yet. Apparently there are still ppl that give a sht what GW thinks?
And many of those “ppl” comprise a group called “politico.” It’s turd polishing at its self-reinforcing best.
I recall reading, years ago, that Will does not even craft his own crap — he has or had a number of “researchers” and “interns” to do all the backgrounding and drafting, help him select the stiletto (however pointless and dull it might prove in Big Media print), and Thrust It Home. Kind of like the Supreme Court “justices ” (sic) do, but with even less incentive to produce honorable outcomes…
OMFG! It “takes a village” to produce that vacuous twaddle? The Westbrook Pegler of our era is actually a composite?
Salon Trump/Brexit. Bovim speaks elegantly of history, of T.S. Eliot and The Wasteland and then casually tosses off such observations as
and
Bovim signals his educated brilliance while revealing that he actually knows nothing. He could take the trouble to find out more about what Russia is doing or what is said in the TPP but is too busy coming up with impressive thoughts featuring everyone’s favorite high concept poet. For the elite and comfortable the notion that recent events may “plunge us into the Eliotic realm of chaos and discord” shows little cognizance that the US has already been going around the world for the past several decades sowing “chaos and discord” (and plenty of blood) while pretending it’s all about integration and getting along.
It’s hard to say what will happen but perhaps the public finally calling bullsh*t on these boobs.
Yes, you can hold any views:
“The earnest tax-paying Germans have balked many times at the notion of bailing out their lazy EU brethren, who they see as free-riding.”
As long as you coat it with a veneer of poetry. Also, quelle surprise when you “find yourself” bike-riding along the Danube.
The induced hypnotism about Russia is astounding, Putin has been magically transformed into The Worst Guy In The World without either actions or words that were not just responses to existential provocations against him. Ask anyone and they’ll say he unquestionably shot that airliner down and is the one unilaterally provoking war on his own borders. It’s creeping into Hollywood, where the natural enemy of all things American is of course Russia, next we’ll see cartoon characters like Boris and Natasha trotted out. I just wish a politician somewhere could be FOR something not just against some external Other. Donald, Germany, France, the UK could have policy masterstrokes by reaching out to Putin, not just scaring the bejesus out of people about WWIII.
The best simple description of the Brexit vote was expressed best by the voter who summarized- if you have money you voted stay, and if not you voted out.
Marginalized people can’t be hidden forever, and when they finally make their voices heard, the results will often be unpredictable. Incrementalism only works if an honest attempt is made to change an unjust system. Deceit and more kicking the can down the road policies have reached their limits.
The more pushback on elite intransigence the better.
Bullsh*t indeed.
As a side note, invading armies seem to be assisted by marginalized and forgotten members of the invaded country. Impoverishing and neglecting your own citizens doesn’t seem like a long term security position.
I am amazed that Rogoff he has the ego to deride Britain for voting to leave the EU. His lies are in part responsible for the Austerity punishment that fueled the Brexit debate and pain that is driving other likely member states away from the EU.
But the fact that his commentary only carries the note that he is a distinguished Professor at Harvard and not, say a former professor who was sanctioned for falsifying data, is proof of the insularity and blindness of the Economics discipline.
Yeah, that was a disgusting read. As if austerity was the result of majority vote and not by mostly unelected elites being mislead by his own writing.
Links at NC are not always pleasant!
Small correction:
Rogoff was not sanctioned for falsifying data, he neglected to include some data in his spreadsheet analysis.
It was an error in defining an Excel cell, averaging 15 countries rather than 20
Unfortunately, the original results were used by austerity advocates…
Rogoff was slow to release his raw data that allowed the omission to be independently detected.
A good part of the story was how the mainstream economics profession leapt to Rogoff’s defense, see Wolfers and Stevenson.
http://users.nber.org/~jwolfers/popular/RefereeingReinhart-Rogoff(Bloomberg).pdf
This has the astonishing suggestion that, when it comes to GDP growth, -0.1% is not very different from +2.2%:
Here’s the quote:
“But let’s not get lost in the trees. In the end, all the corrections advocated by the critics shift the average GDP growth for very-high-debt nations to 2.2 percent, from a negative 0.1 percent in Reinhart and Rogoff’s original work. The finding remains that economic growth is lower in very-high-debt countries”
This reinforces your “insularity and blindness of the Economics discipline” statement.
While I agree with the substance of your later points I’m afraid it goes beyond just a single excel error.
If you look at the Herndon, Ash and Pollin paper that analyzed their data they found that they excluded more than a few cells. They also selectively chose data to begin with and applied odd and never adequately explained weightings to skew what they had in order to achieve their outcome.
Both Reinhart and Rogoff then spent a fair amount if time traveling the world to speak about the results of their “working paper” thus spreading the gospel of Austerity based upon a tortured and, as you say long concealed, spreadsheet.
The fact that elite institutions that took their advice are still loath to change course (e.g. the ECB and IMF) is, I would argue, a major cause of the Brexit.
Re “I’m Right and You’re Not Or Part Of What You Say Is Right Except For These Cavils And Caveats” in contextuailzing the dissolution of the bonds that tie:
The story of the blind men and an elephant originated in the Indian subcontinent from where it has widely diffused. It is a story of a group of blind men (or men in the dark) who touch an elephant to learn what it is like. Each one feels a different part, but only one part, such as the side or the tusk. They then compare notes and learn that they are in complete disagreement.
It is a parable that has crossed between many religious traditions and is part of Jain, Buddhist, Sufi, Hindu and Bahá’í lore. The tale later became well known in Europe, with 19th century American poet John Godfrey Saxe creating his own version as a poem.[1] The story has been published in many books for adults and children, and interpreted in a variety of ways.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blind_men_and_an_elephant
Kind of fits with the rest of the sh!t that’s going on, one small piece of which is from the formerly informative NYT, part of the Obamanaut buried lede::
So, “The One” wants a Round Two.
This week President Obama made it official that he’s seeking a second turn. Make no mistake, that’s going to be hard.
In the prologue to “The Audacity of Hope,” Obama wrote: “I serve as a blank screen on which people of vastly different political stripes project their own views.” No more.
His tabula rasa days are gone. He now reflects fears and frustrations.
Differing factions now take a peephole view of the president’s performance — viewing him narrowly over whether he has performed as promised, or as expected, on the issue most important to them. The broader record, especially when weighed against the alternative, is virtually ignored.
For some, change has not come fast enough, if at all, or it has been change for the worse, and hope has slowly melted away. To those unhappy on the left, he’s a corporatist, war-waging, pusillanimous pushover who is silver-tongued and rubber-spined. To those who most oppose him on the right, he is a Socialist, spendthrift, republic-destroyer who is unfit, unqualified and literally, by way of his “Kenyan birth,” ineligible to be president. http://www.nytimes.com/2011/04/09/opinion/09blow.html?_r=0
“We” who blog have infinitesimal effect over what is and what will eventuate, or “Que sera, Sera, baby.” But it is fun to talk about, argue about, labor to perceive what the elephant actually sums up to…
Is there a “natural size” or range for a sustainable decent human political economy? Or (beware binary format) are “we” damned by the infortunate interconnections of “our” frontal lobes and “our” lymbic systems? http://www.addictscience.com/limbic/
I remember a National Lampoon cartoon about those blind men and the elephant.
An elephant is like a spear. An elephant is like a sail. An elephant is like a tree. An elephant is like a wall.
An elephant is soft and mushy.
Expats, as usual, get short shrift:
Some British expats are quoted saying, “I’ll have to get German citizenship” and “I guess I’ll have to apply with my kids for French citizenship.”
Erm, that sounds awfully naive. As Americans who speak of exiling themselves to Canada to escape a Trump (or Hillary) presidency will learn, countries with relatively generous social benefits do not indiscriminately welcome migrants from other rich countries.
On the contrary, most rich countries are quite selective about admitting either younger skilled workers who will contribute to the economy, or self-sufficient investors and (maybe) pensioners who will not burden their social schemes.
Labor mobility is an attractive feature of the EU, whereas NAFTA never offered it to begin with. Brits may end up having their traditional easy access to Commonwealth countries (Australia, Canada), whereas even working in Dublin post-Brexit could be a sticky wicket.
Good point. In Japan it is impossible (I’ve never heard of a verified example to the contrary) for a non-Japanese to get permanent citizenship. Even if you are married to a Japanese national, you only get a renewable 10-year visa (which typically gets hoiked in the event of a divorce).
So long as you support yourself, getting a standard work visa renewed isn’t too difficult. But if you can’t get someone with assets or an employer to vouch for you, you’re out on your ear.
Never ceases to amaze me how people just assume you can live in another country legally without one day facing a load of hassles.
All true. And remarkable, in that given its shrinking population, Planet Japan arguably could benefit from bolstering its workforce with migration.
But having a strictly ethnic conception of nationality, Japanese aren’t up for it. They tried to re-import some ethnic Japanese Brazilians, but the experiment ended in tears.
To their shock, having Japanese genes failed to prevent Brazilians of Japanese origin from becoming culturally Latin. Back to the drawing board!
If they (very quickly) joined then (even more quickly) exited the EU, they could also solve their nose-bleed currency problem, they’ve been trying for a 10% devaluation for years and not been able to achieve it. Gosh, we lopped 10% off in a single day. Who says the British can’t manage their way out of a paper bag ?
Nope. Japan is already densely populated. They don’t need more people. Perhaps they could benefit from raising the average retirement age, but more migration into the country would just worsen existing environmental problems, and possibly cause new ones.
Japan’s population shrank by almost 1 million from 2010 to 2015.
It is projected to shed another 6 million by 2030.
In principle, 7 million migrants could be accommodated in the housing left behind, without adding any infrastructure.
Not that this is on the radar screen at all.
What housing left behind? The Fukushima housing left behind?
Japan will still be overpopulated after they shed 6 million people. It is a very densely populated country, as is demonstrated in the Population Reference Bureau’s 2015 World Population Data Sheet. Japan has 3000 people per square kilometer of arable land. With the exception of aberrant city states and small island states such as Singapore, that makes Japan one of the most densely populated nations in the world. I sometimes see the Netherlands described as one of the most densely populated nations in the world, with only 1675 people per square kilometer of arable land. Clearly, compared to the Netherlands, Japan is seriously overpopulated.
Even if we ignore arable land, and just look at the number of people per square kilometer, Japan is one of the more densely populated nations in the world.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_and_territories_by_population_density
Out of a list of 244 countries and quasi-countries (Hong Kong, Puerto Rico, etc.), Japan is the 40th most densely populated country in the world. On this list, the Netherlands, number 30, is a little more densely populated than Japan. Quite simply, Japan and the Netherlands both need fewer people. Ditto for Bangladesh, by the way, although now I’m starting to wander off topic.
Um wouldn’t a little LESS labor mobility be a good thing? Less chance for your boss to send your job abroad?
We’ve all drunk quite alot of “globalist” Kool-aid but perhaps it’s time to take a closer look at the list of ingredients on the back.
(And when responding please don’t remind me how labor mobility is more “efficient”, that just means higher profits for rent-seekers, and that’s not kind of “benefit” I’m talking about).
Are you disagreeing with me or with Jim Haygood? Because I argued against his claim that Japan would benefit from more people migrating to Japan. When I said that Japan needs a smaller population, I’m not advocating emigration; Japan is one of the countries with a low enough birthrate that its population is gradually diminishing. Their population still needs to drop a lot more.
Bangladesh, on the other hand, it still growing. They absolutely must reduce their birth rate. The rest of the world isn’t big enough to absorb people from the most overpopulated countries.
Especially overpopulated countries that are going to shrink as the ocean rises.
I have heard that it is possible to get Japanese citizenship (even encouraged to do so) if you are a successful foreign-born Sumo wrestler.
An article from December 2014:
http://www.japantoday.com/category/kuchikomi/view/on-the-verge-of-breaking-sumos-all-time-record-hakuko-ponders-his-long-term-future
Excerpt:
In the past, when foreigners seldom attained high rankings in the sport, this rule was never an issue. But then came former Sekiwake (junior champion) Takamiyama (the former Jesse Kuhaulua of Hawaii), who operated Azumazeki Stable until his retirement in 2009. Another Yokozuna, Musashimaru, who had been born in American Samoa, took Japanese nationality and last year inherited the position of master of Musashigawa Stable. More recently, retired Ozeki (Champion) Kotooshu of Bulgaria became a Japanese citizen and was allowed to become a provisional sumo coach under a special dispensation in recognition of his outstanding record.
Hakuho is married to a Japanese woman, and has expressed the desire to remain in Japan and operate his own stable after retirement. It was assumed he would follow his foreign predecessors and obtain Japanese nationality. But his apparent change of heart came as a surprise, leading Shinji Hattori, Chairman of the Shonan Bank and a member of Hakuho’s support group, to sigh, “Hakuho has completely changed. Recently when he reaches out to accept the ‘kensho’ (cash prizes handed to the wrestler after winning a bout), he does it in a sloppy manner not befitting the dignity of his yokozuna rank…I’m worried about him.”
From wikipedia:
Naturalization in Japan requires the applicant to give up their current citizenship(s) either before or after, depending on the nationality, the naturalization takes place if the loss of nationality does not occur automatically. The Japanese government does not have strict rules for the naturalization process, even though the documents that need to be collected for application from applicant’s home country might take quite some time. Basic naturalization requirements differ from person to person regardless what country the applicant is from and depending on applicant’s current status in Japan. Unlike most other countries, the applicant does not have to be a permanent resident to be eligible to apply for Japanese naturalization.[3]
The criteria for naturalization are provided in Article 5 of the Nationality Act:[4]
Continuous residence in Japan for five years or more
At least 20 years old and otherwise legally competent
History of good behavior generally, and no past history of seditious behavior
Sufficient capital or skills, either personally or within family, to support oneself
Stateless or willing to renounce foreign citizenship
https://www.uscis.gov/working-united-states/temporary-workers/o-1-visa-individuals-extraordinary-ability-or-achievement
https://www.opulentuz.com/immigration/canada/canada-federal-skilled-worker/14
Ive known a couple (brit and german) of that took this angle into the US and entered the citizenship program queue.
Other countries have similar programs. The hitch is you need to have what is perceived as an “extraordinary knowledge or skill, which can be a bit ofa moving target..
These particular guys happened to be experts in the field of solid fuel/waste gasification. At the time, somewhat arcane knowledge in the US, but ~100+ yr operational experience in UK/Germany.
We have one of these, a French national. All you need to do apparently is get one of the boss’s buddies to write a glowing letter and you’re good to go. It just happened a couple of months ago-after reading the letter, I nearly vomited and am still disgusted by it. It isn’t something I’ll forgot any time soon. It’s all about the set-up. She is no better than any other immunology PhD(post doc) but was made to sound like the second coming, on par with a Nobel prize winner. It worked and she has her extraordinary skillz visa.
Second coming pah! I have a third coming candidate who actually rode with 2 of the four horseman, so I think my h1b candidate takes precedence.
that’s the basic deal. Friend of a friend ..
Yes, there was some very interesting reporting by John Harris in the Guardian from France and Spain, talking to ‘expats’, i.e. English retirees in Spain and France. They are very upset at this, even the little Englanders. There are hundreds and thousands of them. The biggest short term threat to them is if sterling falls – most of them depend on pensions or house rental incomes. But in the longer term, it’ll be difficulties with the health system, etc., that will be a serious problem.
I don’t think it will be an issue for the many British working in Dublin – there are anglo Irish agreements on this which pre-date the EU. But for others, its a serious problem.
Yves linked this yesterday – good for a snigger: Thousands Of British Refugees Make Dangerous Journey Across The Irish Sea
Waterford was the point of entry for the Normans. 900 years of sore botty.
Solution: Become a citizen of a poor country first (hopefully not to hard).
Then, go back to Canada (or Germany or France), as a citizen not from a rich country.
.
Those ‘younger skilled workers’ help grow the GDP (new ways to cut down trees, more efficient/intelligent robots to replace human workers, more profitable GM seeds, more diverse ethnic restaurants, smarter NASA scientists, more neoliberal economists, wiser Zen monks – not sure this last one will grow the economy – , etc).
Perhaps, but many cities, like Vancouver, Sydney, etc are not affordable, thanks to other, more affluent, economic migrants.
Vancouver and Sydney are just larger scale versions of Monaco: safe-havens for money generally procured by dubious means in poorer countries.
RIP Bill Cunningham.
For those of you who don’t connect w/the name Bill was THE pre-eminent street chronicler of fashion. Not a slave to skinny runway models he peddled around New York accumulating the collective zeitgeist of NY fashion, the remarkable creativity and beauty of our dress. His pictures were always loving and indulgent. Then, on Sunday, the NYT would favor us w/a collection of his latest poems of our costume.Truly he will be missed.
Yes, I miss him already.
Surprise! Cunningham showed that creativity is not a monopoly of “the creative class”!
I always went to the Times site to play his weekly video; now one less of the dwindling reasons go there.
What is Acela? I’ve now seen it referenced several times and have no idea what it is. Looking it up, I can only find a reference to Amtrak.
HaHa. It IS a train. One on which, apparently, a lot of “deep thinking” goes on.
When the “deep thinkers” are not brawling over the use of “devices” in the “quiet car.”
What happens on Acela, stays on Acela. Or not. From 2013:
Former spy chief overheard giving off-the-record interview from Acela train
Fellow passenger tweets details as former CIA and NSA director Michael Hayden ‘bashes’ Obama administration
But it is so much more than “just a train”.
It runs between DC and Boston. The tickets for the Acela trains cost almost twice as much as tickets on the “regular” Northeast Corridor trains And the time savings from taking an Acela train versus the “regular” train can be measured in the tens of minutes.
The appeal of the Acela is that since one is slapping the whole thing onto their corporate expense account cost is not an issue. More importantly, one doesn’t have to mix with the great unwashed (who would take a cheaper regular train).
Best of all, when they meet on the trunk line that runs up the Northeastern US, the “regular” train has to pull aside so the Acela can pass by.
It’s kind of a metaphor for our country today. Or what it would be like if Hillary came to your house for a 4th of July picnic.
So it’s like the Nozomi. Except the Acela runs at 1/3 of the speed, is way more infrequent, and still smells of the great unwashed.
Actually, the “Northeast Regional” is cheaper, has WiFi just as good, has far superior seats, and isn’t stuffed to the gunwales with preening meritocrats. And the passengers are not noticeably unwashed.
I disagree. The “library-like atmosphere” (certainly for introverts like me) is a public good, a commons.
People shushing the unquiet in the quiet car are performing a public service, IMNSHO. If people want to yammer on their devices, or play games that beep, or their music, the whole rest of the train is for them. I don’t want their noise in my head, and that’s what the quiet car is for.
The Quiet Car is an example of exactly the sort of “innovation” we ought to be encouraging: Bottom-up, not technical, and social:
Finally, a nice feature of the Quiet Car is that you don’t pay extra for it. That is, it’s not market-based!
UPDATE That people like Chris Cilizza — he’s the one who turned me on to Jon Ralston, and I don’t mean that in a good way — hate the Quiet Car, that’s all the more reason to think it’s brilliant, in my view.
Kind of obscure, but I remember in one of Biden’s speeches, whilst he was running for the Presidency in ’08, his ruminating upon those families sitting around their kitchen tables trying to figure out how to pay their bills, whose lights he could still see on late into the night from his seat on the Acela. Only memorable because this was after he had pushed the very bankruptcy bill that made it so much harder for people to discharge their debts.
I have always thought of that as a cameo performance of someone who self evidently did not understand or care what those who didn’t travel in his circles thought of him, or why. It was just so remarkably, jaw droppingly tone deaf at the time. Anyway, Acela corridor is code for wealthy, insular carpetbaggers.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/High-speed_rail#Evolution_in_North_America
When the “deep thinkers” are not brawling over the use of “devices” in the “quiet car.”
IMO, and I’m not talking about the “yeah, on the 1223- pickme up at the station, ok bye” -when the fabric of civil behavior in the Commons is torn asunder by some asshole/w a cellphone -on trains in particular –the drunks in the evening, young idiots anytime (girls typically on my trains) East Asians programmers in the morning and all the rest of the legion of inconsiderate idiots w/ earbuds talking at 1.5 normal volume about utter bllsht, there should be dispensation on some of the criteria that constitute Assault.
It will be difficult and controversial in the beginning, but as the social object lesson matures people will hopefully if not begrudgingly observe some of the more basic considerations of civilized society behavior in times of yore.
Brent Oppenheimer — a marketing consultant who dreamed up the Acela name — said Acela’s teal fin logo was inspired by the serenity of a sea turtle gliding through pristine water.
After 9/11 Acela grabbed a lot of market share from airline shuttles, thanks to TSA hassles.
Thank you everyone for the information. I left NYC in the late 90s which I guess was before the Acela was running.
So, it’s a federally funded train for the 1% just like the FasTrak commuter lanes in Southern California are federally funded express lanes.
Well it costs enough money to be somewhat prohibitive to take regularly but I bet a lot of tourists take it. Federal funding for trains has been cut back drastically over time and is not the problem (we need MORE federally funded trains, all other modes of transportation get federal funding and most are more environmentally wasteful).
http://www.lowtechmagazine.com/2013/12/high-speed-trains-are-killing-the-european-railway-network.html
Ironically the Hiawatha service between Chicago and Milwaukee in the 30s -50s was regularly hitting +100mph.. An 80 min trip for regular commuter service.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hiawatha_Service
…The Hiawathas were among the world’s fastest trains in the 1930s and 1940s, and these trains reached some of their peak speeds on this stretch, directly competing with trains from the Chicago and North Western Railway which ran on roughly parallel tracks. A 90-minute non-stop service between Chicago and Milwaukee was first introduced in the mid-1930s, and this later fell to 75 minutes for several years. A self-imposed 100 miles per hour (161 km/h) speed limit was routinely exceeded by locomotive engineers, until the Interstate Commerce Commission rules imposed a stricter limit of 90 mph (145 km/h) in the early 1950s, and the train slowed to a schedule of 80 minutes, though with the addition of the Glenview stop. Ultimately, the speed limit fell to 79 mph (127 km/h) in 1968 because of signaling changes, and the scheduled duration went back to 90 minutes end-to-end.[7
“It’s time for London to leave the UK and stay in the EU”. As the nation state is more and more desacralized, we should expect secessions to become as routine as divorce. Needless to say, political and intellectual elites are way behind the curve on this. Radical secular developments, aka history, always take longer to come to fruition than anticipated, but they then unfold much more rapidly than conceivable. Even though Trump hails from NYC won’t De Blasio and the NYT be morally obliged to call for #NYCexit, if Trump wins? Learn to think and prepare that within 20 years there will be as many as 30 nations in North America.
As mentioned the other day NYexit was proposed by Norman Mailer and some pals years ago. They however were joking.
Calexit and Texit can’t be far behind.
Would it be possible for a NOLEXIT?
–New Orleans secedes from LA lol
Statement from Sanders on the platform decisions this week. No mention of the fact that the Clintonistas also said no to single payer which is possibly his most popular proposal.
For some reason Bernie thinks he can resuscitate this corpse. I have no idea why.
I can’t wait to see what he does when the main body rejects the proposals as well.
Did you see the Cornel West video where he carefully and calmly explains why he cannot vote for their platform? He receives audible scoffs, moans, and groans. It is pathetic.
Could we have a link anyone?
Would love to see our precious brother West on that.
His excellent comments on the DNC’s rejection of medicare for all:
https://www.healthcare-now.org/blog/dnc-drafting-committee-votes-against-single-payer/
I will try to post it for tomorrow. I saw it in a tweet video which I have no idea how to link to (a dumb feature of Twitter-embed or no dice”.
Sanders is the DNC’s last real chance to rescue the Democratic Party from obscurity. Once he is disposed of, the Party will have thrown away with both hands its’ future voting base, the younger cohorts. The Republicans were derided for being a party of the old and reactionary. Now it’s the Democrats’ turn.
And this process needs to be as noisy and visible as possible. #Messy
Agreed. I’m looking ahead to the Party conventions. Will there be #BloodInTheStreets?
Apropos, the judge who ruled the “Security Zone” for the convention in Cleveland is too large. This could get more than interesting.
See: http://www.wkyc.com/news/local/judge-scraps-protest-rules-for-rnc/253994585
Bernie should boycott the convention, it’s the only way he gets any leverage at all.
So does CLASH (CLimate Aggression, and Self-control in Humans) provide support for analyzing time preferences based on geographic location?
If so, then: Hmmm….
Amazing. I came to the conclusion that Larry Summers enunciates days ago. It’s an even bigger risk for Europe than it is for Britain. The “Made in Britain” campaign (of blessed memory, to be shortly re-exhumed) is a step in the Responsible Nationalism that Summers calls for. And far from the grinding ongoing Austerity budget that Osborne wanted to impose ad-neverendum, a big fiscal investment – to include spreading the infrastructure budget broadly across the “Leaver” regions of England and Wales is an important plank in building the bridge to a livable future. Which Britain can sustain with its independent currency and still comparatively low Debt to GDP ratio.
One thing that confuses me about the Remainer argument: that Britain giving up on the golden opportunity of free labour movement across Europe for its own citizens is a big loss. But Britain is the prime purveyor of English, which is the common language of Europe (which they have to continue to speak in Brussels and Berlin even after Brits are gone), is one of the stronger economies with a richer welfare system, and that makes it a greater draw for Poles and Romanians and Greeks, than Poland, Romania and Greece are for the vast majority of young Brits, the 16 year old school leavers who will never get a degree and not be in a position to learn a minor European language. So free movement is in practice completely asymmetrical, and disadvantageous as far as the preponderance of regional Brits is concerned.
Britain still has cards to play, with respect to the US and Regional security, with respect to Europe and trade, and with respect to all other other nations around the world. A responsible next leadership (not Boris) needs to realize this. It is a moment for big Statesmanship, not petty accounting.
FWIW disclaimer: I had a proxy vote and I voted Remain. Some of my family in the North West of England voted Leave. I understand why.
Switch to an Irish brogue: “Bejasus, let’s screw dem Greeks! Over a pint, to be sure. Are ya havin’ anytin’ yerself, Helmut? Hang on – get yer hands off me balls.”
English is the lingua franca of the European Union because of omnipresent US influence and dominance, especially television, movies and internet, NOT because of Britain (though indirectly, of course, because the United Kingdom is the mother country of the former colony which became the US, Canada, Australia and New Zealand).
English has taken on a life of its own. If Koreans, Japanese and Chinese wish to speak to eachother in a neutral language, what will that neutral language be? Maybe Russian someday, but for now . . . English. That will stay true even if US eclipses in power completely.
Also of Southeast Asia.
Maine governor’s wife busses tables for the summer:
One imagines the Bushes, venturing out from their Kennebunkport compound, sniffing in horror at these cloth coat Republican throwbacks, getting their hands dirty to make a living.
“Serving the people” wasn’t supposed to mean actually setting plates in front of them.
Gee, I wonder if her husband knows?
Governors daughters are worth $20 more an hour….
If I change my email address used in comments, will my comments start getting stuck in moderation, or is there no effect?
It seems to me the “moderation” purgatory is actually rather random. Unless, of course, you’re profane or (worse) less than lucid.
Am I just late to the party, or is it new that H Clintons campaign is fielding internet ads through the Outbrain “service?”
What a country! Political campaigns run through “Infomercials!” This is a literal manifestation of ‘Pay to Play.’
Are they? Got a link or a screen dump?
This is more difficult than I imagined. Outbrains’ home page is self promotional junk. No leads to a list of clients. No way to access particular ads in house, as it were. Googles’ results for “Clinton ad on Outbrain” lead to either Outbrain advertorials or straight Clinton campaign stories. For several pages of ‘results.’ I’ll keep on trying, but, as of now, blind luck seems to be my best bet.
That’s fine, thanks!
About Dyson and Obama . . . . it is as that Web TV comedian whose show Obama was on said . . . ” How does it feel to be America’s last black president?”
Thanks to Obama, non-black America will wake up to its world of economic hurt and pain and say . . . ” another black president? Been there, done that. No! No more. Never again.” And we could thereby be denied a potential President Harold Washington type of president. And that is another of Obama’s great decomplishments. Or negachievements, if you prefer.
The aftertaste of the Barack Obama horse and pony show is ever so bitter.
“Secret negotiations have been under way for some time between high German and Russian officials, to which Chancellor Angela Merkel has been excluded. Warned by US Assistant Secretary of State Victoria Nuland, and in a recent coded communication from outgoing President Barack Obama that she must act to save her authority, and enforce European Union sanctions against Russia, Merkel has also received an ultimatum from her cabinet and party. This was delivered in the form of a page torn out of an Old German bible in which a large black spot had been inked. Either she step aside in secret, Merkel understood the signal, or she will be forced to resign in public.”
The stuff about the black spot in the Old German bible deserves to be included a sequel to “The Da Vinci Code.” The One True Heir to Jesus Christ could reprise her role and backed and protected by The Priory, getting herself in the middle of heart pounding international espionage between Clinton Presidency racing to crush German efforts to stop Clintons WW3 agenda with Russia for final global hegemony. Throw in Nazi sub plots and maybe a modern day twist with today’s Germans providing the final heroic push defeating both the Nazis, Clinton war agenda, and the Catholic Church hierarchy all in one.
On a serious note, great news if true. The “Russian nationalists” like Alexander Mercouris have long speculated that Germany will not in the end tolerate US interference with commerce with Russia and certainly don’t want to be turned to rubble in a war with her. Reproachment with Germany will put en end to Clintons’s WW3 agenda with Russia – that’s good for planet Earth.
I didn’t like that Black Spot much either. That said…. “Interesting if true,” and was one always asks with stories like that, “Why now?”
I thought that, as per “Treasure Island,” the Black Spot was a sign used by Pyrates. How appropriate.
Probably being ironic. The old bible page was specific to “Treasure Island” to’t LJSilver chastised his pirate horde for blasphemy or some such.
I missed that! I haven’t read “Treasure Island” since grade school.
So here you are, a German capitalist oligarch, and Brexit says that the unwashed think they have something to say about all that austerity and sovereignty of finance. Maybe you’re thinking, that heck with this neoliberalism, let’s just do it the old fashioned way and turn up the dial on authoritarian fascism. Russia may be a better partner than the US, they’re closer to home and we can get some tips on herding our masses. And it puts us in a stronger negotiating position with the US.
A big part of neoliberalism is the appearance of benevolence. But the contrast between the promises and that results is starting to show. When the charade stops working, why keep it up?
I discount most of the story itself, partly because of the John leCarre plot borrowings that characterize a certain kind of story. But why exactly someone is pushing this particular tale right now is of some interest.
I love Dilbert, but really loathe Scott Adams. As a member of the LGBT community whose greatest joy in adulthood has been finding and marrying the love of my life, here’s every flip-floppy and unflattering position Trump has taken on “teh gays”:
DONALD TRUMP: OPPOSES NATIONWIDE MARRIAGE EQUALITY
Un-hypnotize that.
HRC lost a bit of its street cred with its Clinton endorsement. Look for some better sources out there to use for reference.
Regardless of how one feels about the HRC (and I’ll be the first to admit I came away from a personal meet-n-greet with Joe Solmonese in the mid-00s and distinctly recall thinking ‘well, this guy’s not really going to be any help’), they do cite their sources from Fox, CBS, NYTimes, etc. So feel free to follow each and every link instead of just reading their takeaway sidebar.
“Mr. Cunningham’s position as a perennial outsider among a set of consummate insiders was part of what made him uniquely well suited to The Times.”
Blech!!
#StillSandersMarch in LA today. Twitter says thousands, don’t see any wide angle photos. Twitter also claiming LA/SF “just flipped” but that’s not shown on the SoS website. (Recently districts within each “flipped” by a small amount, but many uncounted ballots). Hmmm…
Twitter doesn’t say anything. Twitter accounts do…
Yes, that was sloppy. Usually I check out specific accounts, people or orgs that I recognize, including bias, that give clear statements, transparent links, and RT indicators. Even following hashtags for specific events there have been enough ties to known entities and/or clear indicators of on-the-scene accurate reporting. Tracking hashtags on the topic of the Sanders candidacy, outside such known accounts, has opened a new (to me) window on how people use Twitter and some very misleading techniques. Trying (really!) not to inflict it on the NC commentariat, but the “flipped” theme keeps popping up.
Your point is well taken.
Although, selectively prioritizing some tweeters and banning others does give “Twitter Imperial MegaCorp” a say…….
One long pic: https://twitter.com/_Anunnery/status/747159125247700992
ding, doing ttip dead. per French pm valls.
https://www.rt.com/news/348499-valls-france-eu-ttip/
Europeans went into the streets in large and determined numbers. And Americans…went to WalMart instead.
M of A: birth defects caused by poisonous Japanese insecticide, not Zika.
http://www.moonofalabama.org/2016/06/not-the-zika-virus-but-fighting-it-is-likely-to-have-caused-birth-defects.html
Er, meant to say “not mosquitoes.” The insecticide has been widely used to kill mosquitoes in the affected area of Brazil.
Bernie Sanders Mounts Democratic Convention Platform Fight
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/bernie-sanders-dnc-platform_us_57701cf1e4b017b379f643a2?section=
“On Friday, Sanders affirmed that he will vote for Clinton in November and will work to make sure she defeats presumptive GOP nominee Donald Trump. But he is not yet prepared to endorse her until she adopts more of his progressive policy positions.”
It may not be much or amount to much when it’s over – but he’s not just rolling over. I’d love to see a floor fight over TPP.
I’d like to see a stake driven through TPPs proverbial heart.
For anybody who still takes Clinton policy positions seriously (probably nobody on this site), I’d be curious to see their spin on thy the Clinton platform people don’t want a TPP opposition plank in spite of the fact that their own candidate still pretends opposition herself. Of all the issues, this is the one where the veil of “let’s pretend” is the thinnest.
Bloomberg has Lagarde Live…THEY ARE LAUGHING AND MAKING JOKES
has the GB exit been the plan all long?? EU easier to deal with in pieces?
now they’re sneaking in Putin threats…right into dinner invitations and travels.
“I have to look at the Future and do it as positively as I can” Lagarde
well DOW FUT are down 900 AGAIN.
OMYGOD – DEXIT! That’s certainly scary.
oops, remove a zero…bloomberg is now ‘warning’ that tomorrows markets will be Orderly.
can’t type w/o laff’n
Just saw some cell phone footage of the fracas in Sacramento.
A group of apparently LGBT activists attacked a Neo Nazi demonstration with sticks and baseball bats. Some skinheads pulled knives and fought back. Several stabbed. ‘Strangely,’ no police presence visible in the short video.
From one of the ‘tinfoil hat’ sites I watch: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JTAM9RweF-0
I watched that. That was violence that kind of reminded me of some of the Ukrainian riots leading up to the war. They weren’t brawling. There were people there trying to kill. In the start of the video, one guy, on the ground and clearly having trouble trying to get up and then a guy runs up with a baseball bat or board and used a baseball swing to hit him in the back of the head. That was a killing blow on a guy barely able to attempt to get up. If I were on a jury, and the guy who used the bat was on trial, I would vote for conviction on attempted murder.
You watch, knives and bats this time, it will be guns next time.
good point…what began as a ‘rumble’, shake off some frustrations, will soon turn deadly. justice will be too little too late…boiling points everywhere.
@ambrit…ya know…i hear knives and i think WESTSIDE STORY WITH A BUNCH DANC’N. i do NOT condone violence but me don’t think a few cracks on the nazi will further cripple their situation
Sadly, it might enhance an ‘us’ versus ‘them’ narrative. If the stabbed were mainly from the attacking group, then I’d surmise that no one thought this idea through beforehand. I hope no permanent damage.
it made me wonder which would be the most effective weapon in that situation. probably not the most constructive way to think about it.
the bats should’ve had the advantage…at least to knock knives out of hands. so ambrits correct…both were unprepared. i just saw the pics and the bloody nazi look stunned. this is all so misguided and saddening…considering how all our asses are on the same line.
Yes. This will spread as the apparent immunity from police interference is bruited about.
When the organs of the State begin to favour one side or another, all pretense of “civil” society disappears. Down South, really Down South, like South America, force majeure has a long and dishonourable history. America prided itself in overcoming, in general, such tragic flaws in the social matrix. Now we are sliding back down the slippery slope.
Stay safe aby.
it made me wonder which would be the most effective weapon in that situation
An aerosol can of https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/N,N-Dimethyltryptamine
Everyone would have walked away very confused seeing elves for about 15 minutes.
A standard dose for vaporized DMT is 15–60 mg. In general, this is inhaled in a few successive breaths. The effects last for a short period of time, usually 5 to 15 minutes, dependent on the dose.[100] The onset after inhalation is very fast (less than 45 seconds) and peak effects are reached within a minute. In the 1960s, DMT was known as a “businessman’s trip” in the US because of the relatively short duration (and rapid onset) of action when inhaled.[101
“Machine Elves”[edit]
One common feature of the hallucinogenic experience caused by DMT are hallucinations of humanoid beings, characterized as being otherworldly. The term Machine Elf was coined by ethnobotanist Terence McKenna for the experience, who also used the terms fractal elves, or self-transforming machine elves.[93][94]
Hallucinations of strange creatures had been reported by Szara in the Journal of Mental Science (now the British Journal of Psychiatry) (1958) “Dimethyltryptamine Experiments with Psychotics”, Stephen Szara described how one of his subjects under the influence of DMT had experienced “strange creatures, dwarves or something” at the beginning of a DMT trip.[95][96]
Other researchers of the experience described ‘entities’ or ‘beings’ in humanoid as well as animal form, with descriptions of “little people” being common (non-human gnomes, elves, imps etc.). This form of hallucination has been speculated to be the cause of alien abduction experiences through endogenously occurring DMT.[97][98]
Cliff Pickover has also written about the “machine elf”-experience, in the book Sex, Drugs, Einstein, & Elves.[99]]
I Love NC…never know what or who lingers
Bludgeons are way better weapons than knives. No contest.
Plus most people don’t know how to use a knife in a fight. You need to stab, not slash.
Not to mention that most people don’t even know how to stab, and “go for the heart” – which is actually pretty hard unless you either know what you’re doing or are incredibly lucky.
Boris: “The only change – and it will not come in any great rush – is that the UK will extricate itself from the EU’s extraordinary and opaque system of legislation: the vast and growing corpus of law enacted by a European Court of Justice from which there can be no appeal. This will bring not threats, but golden opportunities for this country – to pass laws and set taxes according to the needs of the UK.”
pixie dust & unicorns in every pot
Whole Foods Is Getting Killed by Aldi. Is a Millennial Grocery Chain the Fix?
http://www.bloomberg.com/features/2016-whole-foods-365/
There’s an Aldi coming to our area so we were curious to check one out. Huge disappointment. If you can boil water, it’s not for you. It’s essentially just one big microwaveable grocery store. The “produce” section was just sad. I don’t really see the appeal even to someone who doesn’t like to cook when at minimum a store like Trader Joes offers both fresh and convenient. Aldi also wasn’t cheap.
So I’m left wondering what exactly is the appeal. The raw cement floors?
Aldi’s almost complete lack of overweening spectacle has a certain appeal.
You are aware Aldi owns Trader Joes, right?
All is well in the garden…what a kuntree dis amerika ist yah ??
2 trowmendooz choices to leads…
“Colonel Klink”
or
“Empre$$ Cixi”
actually, we could be stuck with field marshall schaeuble und hist diktacts
so at least there is that…
technically, one could write in a candidate by “mail in” ballots and fax or email the ballots to some central depository and count the votes before election day to prevent chicago machine politics or hanging rove chads from stealing an election…
& to insure a victory…
But that might require work…and if there is one thing most complainants love to do..is not work towards a freed world…that is just too much work…
So maybe it is time to go sit on a beach and learn to play a guitar…
Lagarde suggested Merkel for the job of ‘brokering’ Brexit…i swear i’m not drinking I HEARD IT LIVE
This now up at the Guardian:
http://www.theguardian.com/politics/2016/jun/26/labour-crisis-how-coup-plot-jeremy-corbyn-gathered-pace
The salient point is perhaps this:
“It had not unfolded as either the plotters or the leadership team had expected, even though a small group of Labour MPs and advisers had been telling journalists for months to “expect movement” against Corbyn on 24 June.”
“Their plans had been based on the assumption that the UK would vote to remain, and hopes were not high that an overwhelming number of MPs would back a coup or that ousting him would be successful.”
FOR MONTHS. (and this clearly implies that the Guardian was among the briefed.) So-not actually a response to the actual referendum result or labor’s performance in it AT ALL.
IBEX35 (Spain) 7,632.5… -1181.8… -13.41% lordie
According to Bloomberg, last Friday Spain’s IBEX-35 index fell 12.35% to 7,787.
A Sunday night futures quote at 7,632 indicates a further 1-2% drop on Monday morning.
Spain’s flagship bank Santander (U.S. ADR trades with symbol SAN) took a 20% whacking on Friday. That’s the one I’ll be watching tomorrow.
Europe’s banking system exists on a mechanical ventilator and ECB feeding tubes. Pull the plug on its life support, and Europe flatlines.
Would euthanasia constitute an act of mercy in this situation? Discuss.
@Jim Haygood, ‘euthanasia constitute act of mercy’…yes, as i eyeball all the red. but this would disrupt an ‘orderly’ unwind of the largest debtors. (i’m thinking China)
i’ll watch SAN too and GB better hurry up an pick an exit formula…
re: Brexit Is Only the Latest Proof of the Insularity and Failure of Western Establishment Institutions
This may be the most cogent synthesis I’ve read since the start of the US primary season. Accolades, Mr. Greenwald. I hope the takeaway isn’t lost in all the commotion:
“The solution is not to subserviently cling to corrupt elite institutions out of fear of the alternatives. It is, instead, to help bury those institutions and their elite mavens and then fight for superior replacements.”
Having witnessed the Clinton faction of the DNC Platform Committee smother the Sanders contingent (along with their own single payer supporting base the day after Brexit) supports Greenwald’s conclusion. It’s an exercise in fultility to reform or transform the Establishment Institutions under current conditions. Just watch Neera Tanden perform linguistic contortions like, “So first of all, I don’t really want to couch my comments in opposition…” and then go on to defend ‘language’ that protects market based health insurance in lieu of single payer. Vile.
re: The Places We Live
These slums are filled with people who love their families and who’d like to live dignified lives in reasonably accomodating spaces. There’s no clearer testament to the insularity of the ruling class than the neglect in those photos and stories. If slums are the worlds fastest growing human habitat (expected to double in 25 years) where is the massive jobs program that might erect safe quarters? It’s not like the arrow of time is an unelucidated phenomenon…
Haaretz: With Brexit, Israel Loses a Major Asset in the European Union
Britain helped moderate and balance EU decisions about the peace process, blunt criticism and even harness the member states against anti-Israel moves at the UN; voices sympathetic to the Palestinian cause could now become more dominant.
read more: http://www.haaretz.com/israel-news/.premium-1.727102
No one today has given a shout out to Sonic the Hedgehog. He’s, or she’s, the one giving the victory sign in today’s antidote. C’mon folks. Have we no history? Did we spring full formed from the brow of Jove? I know for a fact that we’re not Minervas. (At least I’m not.)
Oh, I’m so slow, it’s risible. That’s a hedgie! It exited every Brit trade it had Wednesday. Last quadruped standing!
I just thought it was cute! “Hedgie” didn’t even cross my mind!