Links 6/5/16

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Vancouver’s former Olympic Village is now home to urban beavers Global Post (frosty zoom)

Glimpse into Onbashira, the Dangerous Japanese Log Moving Festival Colossal (resilc). Be sure to watch the video.

For young fish, plastic is basically the McDonald’s all-day breakfast Quartz

Sudden appearance of crater dubbed ‘the Gateway to the Underworld’ in Siberia is a warning to our warming planet Independent (Chuck L)

Cooling down Chicago Science Daily (Chuck L)

How to Prepare for a Collapse in 9 Steps – a Case Study with David Holmgren Walden Labs (Chuck L). You have to be pretty well off to do the initial setup. And I hate to say it, but my first step in preparing for collapse would be: “Procure a 20 year supply of antibiotics, alcohol (both the potable and medical type), bandages, and computer parts.” And set up your library.

TV: “Truly unsettling” discovery at Fukushima… problem “far greater than previously thought” — Boss reveals 600 tons of fuel melted, can’t find it eneNews (furzy). Yes, this is eneNews, but it cites ABC, which is Australia’s BBC. Here is the segment.

The Internet Back in the 1990s Compared to Now Laughing Squid (resilc)

The False Promise of DNA Testing Atlantic (Chuck L). Important.

New Chewable ADHD Medication, Adzenys, Has Some Worried PsychCentral (Emma). Not letting boys be boys any more allows for new ways to create speed addicts even younger. More at Motherboard: Orange-Flavored, Dissolvable Amphetamine for Children Approved by FDA

Pope scraps abuse tribunal for negligent bishops Washington Post (furzy)

China?

Hong Kong Vigil Remembers the Tiananmen Square Massacre Time (furzy)

European Bail-In Regulation Threatens Banks’ Trade Business Wall Street Journal

Brexit?

Google is the EU Remain campaign’s secret weapon The Register

Fed’s Brainard warns Brexit could hit US Financial Times

Russia’s Bad Relations With the West Makes Good Economic Sense Russia Insider (Chuck L)

Syraqistan

Error by Washington and Moscow Thierry Meyssan, Voltaire.net (Chuck L). Important.

Interview with Austrian Foreign Minister Sebastian Kurz Der Spiegel. On Turkey.

The Expulsion and the Evidence American Prospect

With Germany’s Armenian Genocide Vote, Has Turkey Lost Its Only Friend in Europe? Foreign Policy (resilc)

In Turkey, a Syrian Child ‘Has to Work to Survive’ New York Times (furzy)

Imperial Collapse Watch

Α Τhird World War? Paul Craig Roberts

Alleged Cult Leader Plays Shell Game With U.S. Foreign Aid WAMU (resilc)

Meet Sultana, the Taliban’s Worst Fear New York Times. Emma: “Not just the Taliban’s worst fear…..the US rejected her visa application. However, the Canadians have welcomed Maria so Sultana could try there instead. Or even the UK where Malala now resides: Maria Toorpakai: Pakistani squash player who defied the Taliban Express Tribune

Clinton E-mail Tar Baby

Madeleine Albright Unhinged Nutcase? Sic Semper Tyrannis

2016

What Bernie Supporters Want Jacobin (August West)

Top Dems in talks on how to push Sanders to end campaign: report The Hill (martha r). Wowsers. “What about ‘no’ don’t you understand?” Warren as VP as a bribe? That assures Clinton loses in the general. Two old East Coast old technocratic women lawyers with Ivy League credentials and are both with a strong propensity to be domineering will not play well west of the Acela corridor (well, save in San Francisco, Austin, Portland, and some university towns. And I am not exaggerating re Warren. In my one phone call with Warren, she came off as the most openly dominant person I have ever encountered). But no wonder Warren has been so aggressive on Twitter.

Bernie Sanders Has Already Won California Dave Dayen, New Republic

Sanders seizes momentum heading into California The Hill (martha r). I am way less optimistic. The vote suppression, by making independents request a Dem presidential primary ballot in advance, is a big help to Clinton.

California’s registered voters hit record high ahead of Tuesday presidential primary Los Angeles Times (furzy)

Poll: Are you backing Hillary Clinton or Bernie Sanders in N.J. primary? NJ.com. Martha r: “Informal, unscientific readers poll, still running. Don’t try to game it! Sanders way ahead right now. 142 delegates at stake. I did not expect him to take NJ but if this is any indication it’s quite possible.”

Could Superdelegates Really Stop Bernie Sanders? New Republic

Sanders campaign accuses Puerto Rico Dem officials of fraud The Hill

Clinton wins Virgin Islands caucuses The Hill (furzy)

WI Dem Convention Passes Resolution Against Superdelegate System Dem Convention Blog (martha r).

We can’t have more of the same: The very real dangers of Hillary Clinton’s foreign policy Salon (resilc)

Sanders to Clinton: Yes, Trump’s Foreign Policy Ideas Are Scary. But So Are Yours Common Dreams (martha r)

Clinton Rejects ‘America First’ American Conservative. Resilc: “Mr. Vicky Nuland.”

Clinton Vows to Break the ‘Celluloid Ceiling’ New York Magazine. Resilc: “Major point with flyover serfs.”

Democrats Should Listen a Lot More to Labor Nation. After 30 years of beating up unions?

Anti-Trump Voices Amplify on Internet, With Violent Results New York Times (furzy)

Since clinching the GOP nomination, Trump has gone off stride, off message Washington Post (furzy). I keep wondering if Trump really wants to win. As I’ve said repeatedly, he could not possibly want to be President if he understood the job. Or is this a bizarre exercise to let everyone know that he will not be managed or even “handled”?

Trump tweets doctored photo ripped off WCPO.com. Now I doubt Trump is capable of doing his own Photoshopping. So did he suggest this? Did some overeager subordinate give him this pic, unable to find an image of bona fide black supporters? This is the downside of Twitter: you own what you say.

No, Trump can’t get a Mexican American judge recused just because Trump wants to ‘build a wall’ to exclude illegal immigrants Washington Post

Campus rapist given lenient sentence to avoid “severe impact on him” Boing Boing (resilc)

Corruption

Hillary Clinton Super-Lobbyist Says “We’re Not Paid Enough,” Pans Obama Lobbying Reforms Intercept

Gunz

A Weekend in Chicago: Where Gunfire Is a Terrifying NormNew York Times (furzy)

Dems Should Be Worried About This Jobs Report New York Magazine

Credit Suisse Boss Faces Revolt From Bankers Over Strategy Shift New York Times (furzy)

Letting ‘Wall Street’ Walk Consortiumnews (Chuck L)

When Your 401(k) Is Better for Your Employer Gretchen Morgenson, New York Times. More nasties in fine print.

Class Warfare

The Rich Are Different, and It Matters Bloomberg (resilc)

Meaningful work not created, only destroyed, by bosses, study finds ScienceDaily (Chuck L)

Antidote du jour (furzy):

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See yesterday’s Links and Antidote du Jour here.

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285 comments

  1. scott 2

    The Onbashira is so obsucre most of the younger Tokyo residents I’ve told about it have never heard of it, yet in Nagano prefecture several cable channels have continuous coverage.

    I got to see it 12 years ago in Suwa (Chino) city while on business. I didn’t think trees that large still existed.

    1. Plenue

      What a waste of some impressively large trees. Also, the Japanese sure love any opportunity to inflict onlookers eyes with men in those horrifying fundoshi loincloths.

  2. EndOfTheWorld

    If Liz Warren was Bernie’s friend she would have endorsed him from the git go. My view is she’s as phony as a three-dollar bill.

    1. sleepy

      While she is certainly “Ivy League credentialed” as a Harvard and former Penn law professor, her educational background is a BS from the University of Houston, and a JD from Rutgers Law School-Newark. On her wiki entry it states that as of 2011 she was the only tenured Harvard law professor to have an American public university background. My point isn’t to discuss her credentials, but rather that Harvard fact, which I find astounding even though I probably shouldn’t.

      Beyond that, I’m beginning to agree with your assessment of her. I also thought her twitter war with Trump was silly.

    2. voteforno6

      I don’t know. Nobody’s perfect, and she has done a lot of good things. I’ve got the impression that she’s building a power base in the Senate, one that straddles the establishment and the leftists. Maybe she’ll use it to challenge Schumer, which wouldn’t be a bad thing.

      1. PhilK

        she has done a lot of good things.

        That’s true, but any liberal Republican from the Eisenhower era would have done the same. It’s not that she’s progressive — she isn’t. It’s that in an age of corrupt neoliberal Democrat slime like the Clintons, A. Cuomo and the like, she looks to some folks like she might be an improvement.

        1. local to oakland

          I am still grateful to her for fighting and publicizing consumer finance issues in the wake of the financial crisis. I agree that she isn’t that far left. Her issues are much more about fair contracts and equal access to opportunity. Her popular writings highlight consumer fraud, misleading and predatory financial abuse and the struggles of the working and middle class. But I will take an ally on this issue. She already has strong enemies in the financial industry. I could see how hedging her bets re Sanders made sense last winter if she wanted to stay effective even if Clinton won. She would make a good 1950s republican, but that is still better than most of what we are offered by Washington.

          1. PhilK

            I totally agree. And I don’t understand why people are so upset about her not endorsing Sanders — she’d be destroying her effectiveness within the D party, for little or no benefit to Sanders.

            “I was for Clinton until Warren endorsed Sanders.” I doubt there are many people who would say that.

      2. lambert strether

        Straddling the establishment and the left would disempower the left, and won’t be easy culturally, let alone in terms of values and interests.

    3. Benedict@Large

      How many more people does Clinton need to carry her? And why do people keep letting her do it? This woman would be NOBODY without people carrying her.

    4. Emma

      Dear End of the World, What you obviously have between your earlobes is like a three-dollar bill. Has it not occurred to you that Warren and Bernie may be taking a different tack precisely because it increases the chances of a future to believe in.

      1. EndOfTheWorld

        I’ll refrain from making an ad hominem attack on your brain tissue, as you did to mine, Emma, but I disagree with your “analysis” which makes no sense whatsoever. You’re saying Liz didn’t support Bernie because she wanted to increase his chances? You lost me. BTW, ever since the Yves Smith article stating many progressives don’t like Hill, I detect the presence on this blog of an insidious growth of Hillbots, with their favored mode of attack—ad hominem.

  3. Pat

    I see Bill Clinton is going to give a eulogy at Muhammed Ali’s funeral. I’m cynical enough to wonder how that came about. Although I suppose the Clintons could have been close to the family.

    1. craazyman

      where’s Howard Cosell when you really need him?

      (Actually, he’s probably making the introductory speech).

        1. craazyman

          that’s the point. how else could he be making the introductory speech for where Ali is now?

          maybe somebody could channel him for the funeral in this realm

      1. craazyboy

        Maybe Cassius Clay requested it. He wanted “The Great White Hope” to show up at his funeral. A real heavy hitter?

        1. craazyboy

          Kinda makes you wonder who the alternates were, tho. Maybe Foreman wasn’t on the list. But there are other sports stars. Tiger Woods? Dennis Rodman? Obama???

    2. low integer

      Ugh. The Clintons did their political calculus and decided yes, Muhammed Ali’s death was in fact leveragable to further their agenda. I did a quick search on google and no details of a prior relationship between the two families were forthcoming, but I note there are a couple of photos of Muhammed and Bill together at a formal event, including one where Muhammed has his arm around Bill.

      1. Roger Smith

        It was all calculus then too.

        These people are cold and calculated (enough to somehow pull it off). It is funny to imagine the current media emphasis on medieval and aristocratic family dramas (Tudors, Borgias, Game of Thrones…) and then to think about the Clinton’s. None of that crap is history (or historically inspired fiction). It is alive and well in the present. It is pathetic and disgusting. I hope they fall while they are alive.

        1. JTMcPhee

          Interesting that so many of us just loves us some royalty and aristocracy drama, complete with every kind of the worst practices suggested by Machiavelli and Richelieu and those late Roman emperors and their advisers. Fascination by the plebs with the machinations and motions of the predators and parasites that autocratize it over the rest of us. And of course the fascination with zombies and vampires, even the vampire squid variety, the foibles of the Few, the Games in places like the West Wing. So much to talk about with our fellow aspirants to the ten-Bagger success and a chance to be photoshopped for the cover of GQ or Washington Magazine, and twittered and nattered about over $8 coffees…

          Freedom’n’Liberty (TM) just another little fraud amongst the rest that keep the mopes entertained and cowed and Micawbered (“SOMEthing will turn up…” https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wilkins_Micawber

          It’s enough to turn one into a sort of Armchair Cynic… Especially when one takes the time to read all the links posted to this site today, and yesterday, and the day before, and tomorrow. Sure looks like our species lacks an organizing principle, or even the hope of developing one, of which the principal vector is in the direction of survival and decency, though maybe on reflection those two point in very different directions. Oh well, as long as income + wealth even minutely exceeds expenses and looting, like Micawber says, “Happiness.”

          Maybe Freud was on to something when he postulated the Pleasure Principle…

          1. Plenue

            I’ve seen it suggested A Song of Ice and Fire/Game of Thrones will ultimately conclude with the entire apparatus of aristocratic infighting being broken up, either through a capitalist revolution that dissolves feudalism or some other means. I’m particularly reminded of this bit of dialog from the show, where Daenerys expresses contempt for the entire mess, including her own families part in it:

            “Lannister, Targaryen, Baratheon, Stark, Tyrell. They’re all just spokes on a wheel; these ones on top then that one on top. On and on it spins crushing those on the ground.”

            “It’s a beautfiful dream, stopping the wheel. You’re not the first person who’s ever dreamt it.”

            “I’m not going to stop the wheel. I’m going to break the wheel.”

            We’re not supposed to admire the machinations of the powerful in these stories, we’re supposed to be revolted by them.

            1. JTMcPhee

              Re GoT: That is not the take I get from people I talk to about the meme. Or what I read about it either. Fascination, seduction, really into the soap opera interplay. But it’s a small sample, of course. And gee, we mopes who are under the wheel can hope that the folks who profit from producing the show will show us the way to break the wheel, no?

              1. Plenue

                Won’t be the first work of fiction to be completely misunderstood by the majority of the audience. One of the books spends significant time wandering the war-devastated landscape and showing the effects the constant warfare has had. There’s even a minor faction made up entirely of deserters from the various armies who have banded together for the express purpose of protecting the average peasant. This group is cut to a significant degree in the show version, though the resurgent religious movement that holds nobility accountable just like everyone else isn’t given short shrift.

                A key element of the overarching story is how petty and stupid the aristocratic class as a whole is; forever waging war on each other while ignoring the ice-zombies to the north (among many, many other failings). The story is obviously heading towards a Jon Snow-Daenerys join rule in the end, which given Martin’s habits as a writer is precisely the one thing that won’t come about. Maybe some kind of republic will arise from the ashes.

    3. optimader

      Ali (or is it his peeps?) disappoint me.
      It illustrates how shallow the black leadership/rolemodel bench is in America that BClnton would be coughed up at low tide for this.
      I am somewhat surprised BHO didn’t elbow his way in. Maybe a cameo appearance from him to offer his 10 min eulogy equivalent of yesterdays weather report..

      Where is Cornel West when you need him. Hell, I would even prefer Lewis Farrakhan to Clinton

      1. craazyboy

        I just remembered Wilt Chamberlin and his “10,000 Club”. Back in the 80s when I lived in the SF Valley I went to the same health club as Wilt. I was amazed watching the old guy(in his 50s) banging away at the weights like there was no tomorrow. He was truly committed to making his “10,000” goal. Don’t know if he ever made it, but anywhere close is impressive as hell, IMO. He would put that wimp Bill Clinton to shame. Plus I’m pretty sure Wilt required his “10,000 Club” members to be legal age, too.

        1. fresno dan

          I thought is was 20K???
          http://mentalfloss.com/article/12310/did-wilt-chamberlain-really-sleep-20000-women

          “If Wilt started at the age of 15, from then up to the age of 55 (when the book was published) he would have had 40 years to sleep with 20,000 women, or 500 different women a year–easy math.

          That works out to roughly 1.4 women a day.

          According to close friends, Wilt loved threesomes. According to legend, he was intimate with 23 different women on one 10-day road trip.”

          =========================================

          Of course, maybe he really did “SLEEP” and not have sex with some of them…
          And that was in 1991! He died in 1999, so he may have added a few thousand…

            1. fresno dan

              I still don’t understand the 4/10 of a woman – I could see how he could meet his goals if it was the bottom 4/10ths…..but what if it was the top 4/10ths????
              * !
              Duh – oral sex…

  4. Jagger

    As secretary of state, Clinton supported the unprovoked U.S.-NATO attack on Libya and joked of the lynching of Moammar Gadhafi, “We came. We saw. He died.”

    From Clinton Rejects ‘America First’.

    Am I the only one that felt this joke gave a deeply disturbing insight into Hillary’s personality? It seems as if she is actually celebrating the violent death of a human being. A violent death in which she shares responsibility. I could maybe understand it if she felt she had achieved justice balancing a deep personal injustice but that is not the case. Instead it was just the achievement of a geopolitical goal. To me, this joke suggests almost a casual disregard for the value of life. Something I would expect from a mobster rather than a human being with some depth of compassion.

      1. cwaltz

        Only in the State Dept. and DoD is premeditated murder justified.

        Is it any wonder at one time Kuchinich suggested we should have a Dept of Peace when our foreign policy so clearly shows that they are just another arm of the military?

        1. MyLessThanPrimeBeef

          And a secretary of the future.

          Plus a Department of Love.

          While we call it the department of defense, it’s often said, the best defense is offense, so, it can be, at times (perhaps too often), the department of offense.

          And, so, will some then claim the way to peace is through strength, and the Department of Peace is a de facto Department of Strength (or Power, or whatever that suits them)?

          1. Emma

            Why not elect actual comedians and be done with the tragedy of politics?!
            A ‘comedadaship’ might be the miracle America needs……Just imagine a group of Wisecrackers for real in the Oval Office….
            It’s happening in Rome right now. Those ‘revolting’ Europeans are at it again!
            Italian comedian Beppe Grillo and his 5-Star team are bringing relief & joy to Italy: http://www.reuters.com/article/us-italy-vote-mayors-idUSKCN0YQ0V7

            1. JTMcPhee

              The Brits have done pretty well with “Monty Python,” and before that “The Thin Edge…”

              And we had our own US wonderful comedians or social analysts, Will Rogers and George Carlin… Too bad the rest of us never manage to internalize and make use of the insights that people like that so kindly share.

    1. DanB

      Let us not forget, as I read earlier this year, that Hillary’s words celebrating this murder also implied that the US had not intervened to protect civilians but to oust Mummer Gaddafi.

    2. nippersdad

      Why would publicly paraphrasing Ceasar come so easily to her lips? She does nothing that is not scripted, so this was premeditated. Does she perceive herself as a modern Caesar or does she want others to? She thinks that eternal war is a positive attribute in a pol but fails to recognize that it is really only viewed that way amongst conservatives.

      She is not as smart as she thinks she is. She crossed the Rubicon only to find that half of her troops weren’t interested in following her. We are just waiting now to see who her Brutus will be, and I am in hopes it will be Obama. That legacy is going to take a lot of burnishing.

      1. lambert strether

        And in an amazing historical parallel, Caesar had to cross the Rubicon, to avoid being indicted by the Roman Senate. So he overthrew the Senate instead.

        Listening again to Mike Duncan’s podcast on the History of Rome; apparently Caesar was expert in turning enemies into friends, after defeating them, by offering them very generous terms. This is a lesson Clinton seems not to have learned.

        1. Jagger

          Caesar was expert in turning enemies into friends, after defeating them, by offering them very generous terms.

          Yes and no. Some of those enemies turned into “friends” are the same ones that used knives to kill him on the senate floor. Hard core enemies are very difficult to turn into friends.

          PS: HBO’s Rome was great fun to watch.

    3. voteforno6

      It’s not just Clinton. Remember all the people celebrating in the streets when bin Laden was killed?

      1. pretzelattack

        they didn’t cause the killing, and obl had been public enemy #1 since shortly after 911. also they aren’t running for president.

    4. Benedict@Large

      Bush (Jr) was like that also. For all of his malapropisms, he would always speak with clarity when it was about hurting or killing people.

    5. Pat

      Maybe it is too many westerns or too little description of the violence that can end in lynching, but I think the image the term lynching suggests allows that statement to be far less hideous than his death was. I’m no longer surprised at how the reaction changes about that quote when I describe how Gaddafi died from a sort of rueful that was an unfortunate choice of words to horror. And for the record I’m not particularly graphic.

    6. Buttinsky

      Hillary’s childish glee at Gaddafi’s killing reminds me very much of George W. Bush mocking the woman on death row pleading for her life when he was governor of Texas. (See Benedict@large’s comment above.)

      Back in 2012 when former Congressional aide and Democratic operative Matt Stoller diagnosed professional politicians as “narcissistic sociopaths,” I’m sure a lot of folks considered that hyperbole. But of course these people leave no room for hyperbole.

      http://www.nakedcapitalism.com/2012/06/back-obama-the-cool-self-aware-irony-drenched-con-artist.html

    7. JeffC

      Jagger, I had the same reaction to her obviously planned joke about Gaddafi’s death. What kind of sicko would think that funny or would think that anyone psychologically healthy in the audience would think it funny? And using it to show off her awareness of the Caesar quote is just pathetic.

  5. abynormal

    remember the candied cigarettes? took foeva to remove from the mkt.
    ‘…if its candy it must be alright’. they better NOT mess with my dumdums

    A Geeked-Up Generation Will Fit The Bill, Bill: “Even the humblest Party member is expected to be competent, industrious, and even intelligent within narrow limits, but it is also necessary that he should be a credulous and ignorant fanatic whose prevailing moods are fear, hatred, adulation, and orgiastic triumph. In other words it is necessary that he should have the mentality appropriate to a state of war. It does not matter whether the war is actually happening, and, since no decisive victory is possible, it does not matter whether the war is going well or badly. All that is needed is that a state of war should exist.” Orwell, 1984

  6. Marco

    Am I the only one here a little tired of Warren being held up as some progressive bird-dogging sheepdog? Warren ain’t gonna save Team D. At least not for this Bernie voter.

    1. Marco

      I know many here think NOT endorsing either Bernie and Hillary was her only smart strategic option but aren’t we a little over strategy now. Democrats will probably lose in November. Warren is good at describing the “problem” but when the “solution” presents itself (Bernie) she’s all 11 dimensional chess??

    2. johnnygl

      Interestingly and amusingly, she gets a LOT of heat on her facebook posts ripping into trump. Lots of anti-hrc comments come streaming in along with bernie-or-bust comments every time she goes on the attack.

      1. NotTimothyGeithner

        The Democrats have failed with negative attacks for three cycles now at all levels. Obama only turned around his 2012 standing when he used progressive language.

        Warren is throwing her lot in with the typical Team Blue garbage, and people have noticed.

    3. pretzelattack

      no, i didnt like her sitting out of the fray and not endorsing bernie. i just want to vote for a democrat that doesn’t admire ronald reagan and what he stood for.

    4. Left in Wisconsin

      Call me a (fill in the blank) then. I’ve been predicting Clinton-Warren for some time now, I think it will guarantee victory for the D’s, and I think it’s probably as good a deal for the D-leaning Bernie supporters as one could possibly imagine (note the qualifiers “as good” – which is not the same as “good” – and “D-leaning” in the above).

      Yves argues there is no way Clinton will pick Warren. I would argue there is no way Clinton picks (or agrees to) Warren unless she feels she doesn’t have any other option, which is exactly what I think will happen. So don’t count on an announcement any time soon, and expect more Clinton general-election pivoting first, in the hopes that her polling shows a path to victory via moderate R’s rather than hard-core Bernie supporters. Remember that even now, polling gives HRC 50-70% of Bernie supporters. But I think eventually, the polling will show that is not enough, Wall St and the R mainstream will come around to Trump, and she will reluctantly agree that she needs Warren. Then will come the negotiations with Warren to see what her demands are. (I don’t necessarily see any negotiations with Bernie to see what his demands are.) And then we will have a clearer sense as to where Warren stands (which I would hazard is not where Bernie stands but is about as far left as any non-transformative D pol).

      Maybe the FBI will come to the rescue. But if I had to put money on an outcome, it would be the above.

      1. Yves Smith Post author

        Please re-read what I wrote. I didn’t say it might not happen. I said it guarantees a Dem loss in November. A pair of technocratic old women lawyers from the East will not play well in the Rust Belt, which the Dems must win to cinch the Presidency. Remember I grew up in the Midwest. They are less tolerant of powerful women than Southerners. Southern women just have to know how to act coy and flirtatious while calling the shots.

        1. Left in Wisconsin

          Apologies if I misstated your view. I was going on what I recalled from previous posts. But sometimes I can’t even remember what I had for breakfast.

    5. beth

      After the CFPB was set up, I subscribed to their newsletter to follow how effective it would be. I can only say that what they are doing would not be happening if Warren had not fought first the Rs and then Obama to get the consumer protection bureau set up. I personally am impressed and grateful to her for what it is doing.

      CFPB has just started to reform payday lending to the extent they have the authority to do it. If you just look at the pushback from my senators, they are doing an excellent job.

      Richard Cordray seemed to start slowly but keeps trudging through the hundreds of ways the debt industry is misleading and stealing from consumers. If Warren did not do anymore than that, she would get my vote. BUT she has continued to educate the public about the corruption in the financial industry.

      Methinks you ask too much from one person. She is not perfect, but then again she is not god. Just who do you like better? Let’s man up.

      Warren, a sheepdog? Ba-a-a. No way.
      Please sign up for their newsletter.

      1. Lambert Strether

        I don’t think that the CFPB is a bad thing.

        That said, I don’t view people primarily as consumers, but as citizens. Along that more important axis, the country is doing very badly indeed. I don’t see Warren doing much there at all, no more than I see Clinton doing so.

        As far as sheepdogging, insofar as Warren would get Sanders voters to vote for a neoliberal, which Sanders is not, but which Clinton is, she’s sheepdogging. No way around it.

      2. Yves Smith Post author

        Warren is progressive only where she has developed an independent expertise, which is in banking and financial services. On every other issue, she falls in line with the center-right Democratic party house views. Even on crossover issues like student loans, as Lambert documented, her recommendations are tepid and lousy with jargon as opposed to good policy that targets the real problem.

        1. vlade

          Which is why I believe there’s a reasonable chance of HRC being throw under the bus with Warren as a replacement, if Trump’s polls keep going up before the DNC, as a way of getting Sanders voters in the tent.

  7. HBE

    Clinton voters.
    What benefits will she provide????

    Foreign policy: she makes “it was worth” it Albright look like the angelic picture of sanity, based on past actions and advisors (nuland) intends to directly confront Russia, and this will probably be proceeded by “humanitarian” interventions in Syria and Ukraine. Truly the foreign policy strategy of a delusional psychopath.

    Corrupt: she literally built a foundation to take bribes, and it appears more and more likely she used the SOS position to trade favors and weapons to anyone who could pay. She likely had a private email server to ensure these and likely other items were kept in the dark. It seems fairly obvious that she (and her staff) knew the email server could easily blow up in her face but felt that was better than anyone finding what she did as SOS. She would probably sell US nuclear launch codes if the price was right (no not really, but not far from the reality). She is bought and paid for from banks to Saudi Arabia.

    Trade: “she came out against trade agreements”, after pushing hard for them as SOS.

    Identity politics: This is dem. Bread and butter and she is horrible on this. Civil rights. She was a goldwater girl, so not really that supportive. She also was highly supportive of bills policy of turning imprisonment of minorities into a business. LGBT rights. she was against it right up until it didn’t look good anymore. Obama has deported more immigrants than bush (and let’s not forget most are jailed for 6months in detention centers so the private prison industry gets its piece) she hasn’t said she wouldn’t continue this.

    What positives does she have?!?! “She’s a woman” well… yes, but she’s evil first and a woman second.

    1. nippersdad

      “What positives does she have?!?!”

      She can rock the Kim Jong Il look. Something that may come in handy when her North Korean Trade Pact is wending its’ way through Congress. She would be a model spokesperson, so to speak. Only Hillary can go to North Korea?

      Nope. I got nothin’.

      1. optimader

        What benefits will she provide
        A goal for people to live for? –Life after Hillary?

        1. Pat

          Perhaps, but considering there may actually be a President Hillary Rodham Clinton, I would probably spend much of that dreading the entrance of their child as the less competent less charismatic version of them both. Dynasty you know.

    2. Ralph Reed

      “Truly the foreign policy strategy of a delusional psychopath.”

      Couldn’t it be a way to press gang the DOD into forgiving the CIA and State Department’s sophomoric Machiavellianism, and distracting them from Homeland Security violating posse comitatus with “civilian” police departments, with an order to go ahead and fight the last war.

    3. Ralph Reed

      “Truly the foreign policy strategy of a delusional psychopath.”

      Couldn’t it be a way to press gang the DOD, with an order to go ahead and fight the last war, into forgiving the CIA and State Department’s sophomoric Machiavellian antics, and distracting them from Homeland Security violating posse comitatus with “civilian” police departments.

    4. m

      Speaking of the 90s, what about the genocide in Rwanda. They all knew what was going to happen and just ran out of there. Maybe there were no resources to steal.

      1. pretzelattack

        i think that was it. no oil anyway, tho wiki tells me there are some minerals used in manufacturing electronics components. of course, what interest would the us have in manufacturing?

        1. Plenue

          There are a lot more minerals vital to electronics production in neighboring Congo, where the US-backed Rwandan Patriotic Front (which ended the Rwandan Genocide and has been the monopoly political party of Rwanda ever since) has played a significant part in prosecuting a conflict that has been running non-stop since 1996 in which as many as 6 million people have died. The US has a great interest in its Silicon Valley firms being able to continue to pump out new tech crap on a yearly basis (though almost none of the actual manufacturing is done in the United States).

      2. Gaianne

        The Rwanda genocide did not get in the way of taking the coltan for our cell phones.

        Quite the opposite.

        –Gaianne

  8. Marie Parham

    RE: How to Prepare for a Collapse in 9 steps…. Two years ago I bought 7.8 acres of wooded land in Colton, New York. The property is on a hillside with a couple of plateaus and includes an intermittent stream. Many homesteaders already live in the area and have a support organization, Local Living Venture, which offers workshops in all sorts of things from beekeeping to composting to home heating (http://www.locallivingventure.org, https://www.facebook.com/Local-Living-Venture-173368836038454/) Saint Lawrence County boasts many other perks that are consistent with the article. Land here is really cheap as evidenced by the many Amish and Mennonite farms. The County also has two SUNY colleges along with Clarkson University and Saint Lawrence University. Clarkson has done ground breaking work with their Institute for a Sustainable Environment. SUNY Potsdam has the Crane School of Music which has many performances open to the public for FREE. A major factor for me deciding to live here is the small but warm, diverse Jewish community, so small we are entirely lay led although we bring in a Rabbi for the High Holidays. It is through the Potsdam Synagogue I found someone well versed in wild edibles, North Country Foragers. (https://www.facebook.com/groups/559998644111422/) I have not developed my property yet, but I am enjoying life in my little apartment in Potsdam.
    There is a UU congregation in Canton, NY which I also plan to join. (http://www.uucantonny.org) There is something here for many NC readers. Check out the links included in this comment.

    1. JTMcPhee

      This veteran of a shoot-em-up war has to ask if the gentle people of upstate New York in their prime primeval places, the “intentional community,” have also done the other prudent stuff that includes learning the skills and attitudes that are simulated in a lot of games like Call of Duty and such, and added sufficient “well regulated militia” to the mix. And of course you have to be aware that in the Collapse, as has happened before, the meanest, most murderous folks in the pleasant little commensality you are planning to join will become the warlords and autocrats in your little gated community? One wonders who among the UU group will find it pleasurable and even easy to assert the right to tell all the other congregants what to do, and how much to contribute to the Central Fund, and as with other places humans have tried experiments in closed sufficiency, who gets to have sex with whom?

      Maybe the lizard brain can be bred or CRISPR’d out of the human genome, but then do you end up with the loving-wimp part of Captain James T. Kirk, without the vicious violent instincts that Roddenberry assumed were so necessary to make a Superlative Person?

      Please forgive the cynicism, but all preparation is based on taking a cynical view of What May Or Is Likely To Happen… And as one who against all evidence still feels and believes that my species has virtues worth preserving and prolonging, knowing that I and those closest to me are exquisitely vulnerable and mortal in the event of the Collapse, I wish you well.

      1. craazyboy

        Some of my favorite “Star Trek – Next Generation” episodes were when “Q” would blink in from the Continuum and terrorize Captain Picard over human history.

      2. flora

        True story.
        I live in a small city/large town 60 miles from a large city. 30+ years ago when threat of nuclear war with the USSR was part of emergency planning everywhere in the US, a new emergency evacuation plan for our region was announced. In the event of nuclear attack planners reasonably decided that large cities would be the most likely targets for USSR strikes. So the large city evacuation plan was as follows:

        All residents of large city will evacuate to nearby large towns (including mine) and move into the houses there. Residents of large towns required to leave their homes and evacuate to nearby small towns whose residents will likewise be required to leave their homes. etc.

        Yeah, that would’a worked. or not. That evacuation plan became the object of much ridicule.

        1. Brooklin Bridge

          We were told to get under our desks! I was pretty naif as a kid, but even I had to smile at that one.

          1. pretzelattack

            they had us move to the hallway. that extra protection provided by the walls would be crucial, in their view.

          2. HotFlash

            I went to a Catholic grade school, we didn’t do duck and cover, I think the plan was to say a rosary.

          3. Jason

            The whole “get under your desks” drill isn’t quite as idiotic as is often portrayed.

            If everyone wasn’t dead from the get-go from being too close to ground zero, and there was a bit of warning, “Duck and Cover” would provide a modicum of protection from both the thermal pulse and subsequent overpressure. So, no kiddies blinded, or with flash-burns over half their bodies, breaking things from being knocked off their feet, flensed by flying glass or impaled by various bits of debris.

            Sure, in the advent of an all-out nuclear “exchange”, you’ve probably just ensured that you’ll live long enough to die in some other unpleasant way. But in the event that the detonation is not part of a civilization-blasting apocalypse, it’s decent advice.

          4. Vatch

            In some parts of the country, schools had tornado drills, and I hope they still have them. Moving to the hallway or getting under a desk really can provide some protection from flying shards of glass.

      3. Jess

        My personal theory about the popularity of The Walking Dead is that it mirrors our fears of the future. All you have to do is replace “zombies” with “refugees”, whether that means being overrun by refugees from countries rendered unlivable by GCC, or refugees from collapsing first world societies. A constant theme of TWD is that the survivors biggest threat isn’t from the zombies, but from other survivor groups fighting for the same resources, power, and unit security.

        1. local to oakland

          Yes. I agree. Do you also have a theory for the role of vampires in the popular imagination?

          1. Massinissa

            Personally, I don’t think it was by accident that, until relatively recently, Vampires were always portrayed as aristocrats.

        2. Buck Eschaton

          My theory re all the zombie / apocalyptic stuff is that people are yearning for a Jubilee. Everything seems bottled up, trapped. There’s no flow. Everybody is locked in debt bondage or on their way to be kicked into the street. People don’t have much imagination, it’s apocalypse or Jubilee. It’s got to get loosened up one way or another. In the Gospel of John, John was a voice crying in the wilderness, I can’t help but thinking the people in the wilderness were the debt peons that had run from slavery and absolute destitution. Apocalypse genre stories are about societal leveling, making people equal again, freeing things up. That’s why Bernie, and Bernie having Stephanie Kelton on the team is so great, maybe there’s a chance we can unstop the blockages and get things flowing again and not have zombie apocalypse as an inevitability.

        3. HotFlash

          Umm, yes to Jess. I think that popular culture — zombies, vampires, and now Game o’ Thrones — are the dreams that a society has, and as Freud wrote, “The Royal Road to the Unconscious.”

          We feel at a visceral level that we are dead and still moving, that we are being attacked by dead people who were formerly our neighbours, friends and family; that wour lifesblood is being sucked by undead who value us only as livestock; that we are mere footsoldiers, pawns and fodder in a struggle among oligarchs whose interest in us is only in our current usefulness to them.

    2. Take the Fork

      If you have found a nice place in which you think you can ride out the Zombie/Nazi/Global Warming/Chemtrail/Hyperinflation Apocalypse, good on you.

      But do yourself (and everyone around you) a favor and KEEP YOUR MOUTH SHUT! If you think this is misplaced cynicism or paranoia, you are not ready.

      1. Gaianne

        For true.

        You will never hear a word from nor about those who are truly prepared.

        Peacock is not a strategy for our times.

        ‘Possum might be a better bet.

        –Gaianne

    3. Marie Parham

      Very happy four of you have had interest enough to comment on my post. Hope others have read and clicked on the links. I moved to the area two years ago as a 60 year old soon to be divorced woman from New York City. Over that time I have been amazed at how comfortable I am with the people here and how comfortable they are with me. Recommending this place comes from 2 years of becoming a part of this community. Have seen so many Bernie yard signs in the county, 1 Trump, and no others. We are in the same media market as Burlington and Bill McKibben is a member of my Public Radio Station (http://www.northcountrypublicradio.org) Tune in some weekday morning for the 8 o’clock hour. (EST)

      1. petal

        The gild will wear off of Potsdam(and surrounding area) and the rot, narrow-mindedness, and corruption will shine through soon enough. Just wait.

    4. Softie

      What you need to realize in case of social order collapse is that violence will be the king of the day, and the hungry population will kill any preppers that can be found for their stocked up resources. Don’t kid yourselves thinking that’s not gonna because you can defend yourselves. You can’t. The sheer number of city folks can overrun your ammo supply very quickly.

      1. Antifa

        Historically, whenever humans are utterly starving they eat other humans. This is history, not conjecture.

      2. Jason

        In case of such a massive collapse, 99.9% of the “city folk” are going to die. The cities will be the hearts of devastated corpselands, but anyone far enough out (two tanks of gas might be enough) and away from main arterials is unlikely to see many refugees, because they’ll all be dead. (At least, that’s how it’ll go in much of the less-populated West. The East, South, and West Coast are all screwed.

        1. Softie

          Two tanks of gas? Around 800 to 1000 miles from where I’m at? I don’t know about that. I guess I’d prefer much less developed 3rd world countries. If that’s too difficult, I’d prefer either somewhere in Brooks Range along Yukon River or someplace deep in Amazon rain forests. Perhaps that’s just me.

      3. jonboinAR

        Yeah. I live out in the country, about 40 miles from a city. I imagine doing all the prep stuff, then my imagination carries me to the collapse, and shortly thereafter we’re overrun by refugees from the city. I can’t seem to imagine a scenario where that doesn’t happen, so I never get started with the prep.

    5. Plenue

      I couldn’t help noticing that the self-sufficient, anti-consumerism hippies use Macs. Because of course they do. I’m sure someone will step in to claim the software is better for video editing etc. No, it really isn’t.

        1. Massinissa

          I love that article. True half a century ago, true today. Things really have stayed the same.

      1. Softie

        F^ck that Apple shit. Their products are full of sweat and blood of global slaves. I had a chance to visit Foxconn in 2003, and the topic that many young slaves committed suicide on company time – this was before they released iPhone – was a taboo during my visit. You wouldn’t believe what those assembly lines can psychologically reduce humans to after having to repeat very simple shifty tasks hundreds of thousands of times 12 to 16 hours a day. F^CK APPLE. F^ck their brainless consumers. I would never ever own any of their criminal products in my lifetime.

        1. Plenue

          I’m not clear how many, if any, non-Apple tech companies have clean hands in that regard though. Computex in Tawian just ended, and there was a bunch of talk about turning Taipei into a new Silicon Valley, based on *sigh* internet-of-things ‘innovation’, over the next decade. But Taiwan already is a kind of second Silicon Valley; a huge number of computer component companies are either Taiwanese (Asus, Gigabyte, MSI, DFI, Biostar, ASRock, Realtek, VIA, G.Skill, GeIL, BenQ) just like Foxconn, or founded by Taiwanese (NVIDIA, Kingston, ViewSonic). And even companies that aren’t based in Taiwan or founded by Taiwanese (Intel, AMD, Samsung, Corsair, the list is very long) have the majority of their hardware manufactured in either Tainwan or mainland China (AMD and NVIDIA have their GPU chips solely manufactured in Taiwan, mostly from the exact same factories; their latest graphics card generation has been delayed for years simply because those factories hadn’t yet upgraded their tools to produce new, smaller nanometer chips). I’m pretty sure all of the factories in both Chinas are horrible Victorian sweatshops.

          And that’s not even mentioning the rare elements used in electronics that largely come from places like the Congo and are extracted with pure human misery.

          1. craazyboy

            All the “fabless” intellectual property semiconductor companies in Silicon Valley get their chips made in Taiwan foundries. The Japanese began to put passive component manufacturing and board stuffing in Taiwan way back in the 60s. I think it’s gonna become the only Silicon Valley.

            Per IMF data, Taiwan ranks 34th in the whole world in GDP per capita and I’ve heard the health care system is good and cheap. It may not be too bad there.

  9. Tony Wikrent

    Good morning. all! Does anyone have a URL for an actual list of Wall Street / TBTF / financial et al. fraud and violations? The New York Times had one excellent compilation in Nov 2011:

    Wall Street’s Repeat Violations, Despite Repeated Promises
    http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2011/11/08/business/Wall-Streets-Repeat-Violations-Despite-PromisesStsssss.html

    Washington’s Blog has had a few excellent compilations of links, such as
    Every Single Bloody Market Is Manipulated
    http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2016-04-14/markets-are-manipulated
    and
    http://www.washingtonsblog.com/2013/06/every-market-is-rigged.html

    But what I would really like to find is a lengthy listing contained in a report or position paper by a government agency, or think tank, or academic, etc. If you remember such a document, please let me know. Wasn’t there something like this in Yves’ book Econned? Thanks!

    1. MyLessThanPrimeBeef

      Every single bloody market is manipulated.

      That every market is manipulated is not really that evil, if it is manipulated in such a way that it goes up 10% every year.

      Perhaps, the government, being omnipotent, can guarantee that by being the sole, legal manipulator.

      Then, it will be, happy days are here again.

  10. diptherio

    Re: The Rich are Different

    One final observation: As of 2014, the median household income, adjusted for inflation, was still lower than in 2007. So was the minimum income of the top 10 percent and the top 1 percent. Even the very high minimum income for the top 0.1 percent was a remarkable 20 percent lower in 2014 than in 2007. This eloquently illustrates the main public policy story of the past 10 years: The failure to stem the last recession and stimulate a more robust recovery has harmed all Americans, including the rich.

    Bloomberg’s editor’s apparently have a fairly loose definition of “harmed.” My salary went from ungawdly to merely astronomical…I’ve been harmed! Spare me….

    1. James Levy

      It also misses the most important facet of the picture: wealth. Income rises and falls, and people do retire. What counts is their capital. That’s what they use to generate unearned income, and that’s what they pass on to progeny. My guess is that the policies of Bush and Obama made sure that the wealth of the elite was made whole. Unless you look at wealth, you are willfully or foolishly looking in the wrong place.

  11. bob

    “When Your 401(k) Is Better for Your Employer Gretchen Morgenson, New York Times. More nasties in fine print.”

    They are ALL better for your employeer. The employer gets a kickback, one way or another, for locking you into a “plan” that normally includes limited choices and lots of fees.

    It’s also getting harder to “keep” what little is offered. Your employer may match, or partially match your contributions. The match goes into what the employer wants it to (company stock), and it can take 5-7 years now for it to vest.

    With job tenures now much less than 5 years, they aren’t “contributing” anything, and what they do contribute they still control, and take back when you leave before “vesting”.

    I’ve always wondered how that churn is booked. Is it a “profit” when someone quits before vesting?

    Giant scam.

    1. bob

      The whole story is about legal claims, in civil court.

      This makes the assumption that you A) have money outside the 401k to sue, and B) can afford to spend it on litigation.

      Rich white peoples problems.

    2. nippersdad

      Dead Peasant Insurance wasn’t making its’ projected profit margin, so add ons were necessary. Now we have live peasant insurance as well. A natural progression.

    3. Katniss Everdeen

      I remember reading a story back in the enron days.

      When the end was near, enron “acquired” a small Oregon energy company. Which meant, of course, that enron also “acquired” the employees’ 401(k)s, which they, of course, promptly “invested” in enron stock.

      I’m sure you know “the rest of the story.”

  12. August West

    Hahaha. On MSHRC Joy Reid show they were discussing Warren as a VP bribe for Sanders supporters and Al Sharpton likend this ticket to the show Empire, saying it would not be a good thing. He said it would turn off any Moderate republicans from voting for HRC. I’ve personally never watched Empire but the name says it all doesn’t it?

  13. B

    ” I keep wondering if Trump really wants to win.”

    I still am skeptical that he’s serious, and I think he will step aside in favor of another candidate at the convention, likely Paul Ryan.

    1. MyLessThanPrimeBeef

      If that is the case, does he get his money or his money’s worth?

      What does he get under that scenario?

    2. EndOfTheWorld

      It’s just a joyride for The Donald. It’s clearly a win-win situation for him. If he wins, great—he can have a lot of fun. If he loses, he got a lifetime’s worth of publicity.

  14. Katniss Everdeen

    RE: Orange-Flavored, Dissolvable Amphetamine for Children Approved by FDA Motherboard

    I honestly struggle to imagine what terrible things 6-year-olds could do to convince their parents that giving them a daily dose of candy-flavored amphetamines is a good idea. Especially when “Almost 2 million of children [sic] presently diagnosed were done so between ages 2 and 5.”

    Allowing a “doctor” to “diagnose” a child as having a “serious neurobehavioral disorder” at 2 years old strikes me as just plain clinically insane. Parents who would rather cut off their right arm than take a sip of wine during pregnancy for fear of fetal damage, then willingly having that same kid pop an amphetamine pill daily, albeit one that provides a “positive taste experience” and “is proven to be more widely ‘enjoyed.’ ”

    W. T. F.

    But the loonieness is relentless:

    Bloomberg Businessweek recently ran a cover story on Nestle’s entrance into the pharmaceutical world. The company is hoping to use their food science to create medicine “as an appealing snack, not a pill.”

    Note to bloomberg and nestle: that nut’s already been cracked. It’s called a marijuana brownie and it’s been around a long time. Oh, and in most of the country, “snacking” on one will land you in jail.

    1. craazyboy

      It’s probably for kids that don’t perk up and go into attention disorder mode enough after a normal diet of sugary soft drink. But I hope it doesn’t cost much. The price of o care keeps going up!

      1. Katniss Everdeen

        Pretty soon you’ll have to show a driver’s license, sign the book and get your picture taken to buy Nestle’s Quick.

          1. Katniss Everdeen

            Well, they take clean water from lakes and rivers that are part of the “commons” and put it in non-reusable, non-biodegradable plastic bottles which people have to buy, because Flint, so I guess that one’s a “wash”…..

            1. HopeLB

              Not quite,besides the bottles themselves, the water becomes contaminated with chemicals from the plastic, especially when left in the sun.

      2. optimader

        I think the nod and wink is that the amphetamines will actually be used my the mother.

        1. JTMcPhee

          ERP, ERP, ERP! PC Violation Alert!

          So it’s just MOTHERS? and males don’t find some experiental value in dosing themselves with their kids’ amphetamines?

          And I thought the dosing of kids diagnosed with ADHD and ADD and all that with uppers was with the idea of taking advantage of the “paradoxical reactions” reported by the literature — calms kids down, enhances concentration and all that.

          Anecdote: Guy I know was diagnosed ADHD/ADD/dyslexic as a young boy. Given the Ritalin and all that. Parents discovered by pure fortuity that a cup of strong caffeinated coffee morning and afternoon did much more and better than the off-the-wall uppers. Apparently that is not a rare instance.

          1. optimader

            So it’s just MOTHERS?
            Reflections of my childhood. A friends dad was the local pharmacist. A lot of junkie mothers, at least when/where I grew up.

            And I thought the dosing of kids diagnosed with ADHD and ADD and all that with uppers was with the idea of taking advantage of the “paradoxical reactions” reported by the literature — calms kids down, enhances concentration and all that.

            It is or at least was the case . It was done to another childhood friend of mine. they ended up packing him off to a military academy HS. He ended up doing well in the end. A smart guy but like a heatseeking missile launched with the sock still covering the head Turned out to be a case of undiagnosed dyslexia mixed with a hyperactive type A personality.

              1. m

                In hospitals and long term care when there is not enough staff to care for patients they are given downers to knock them out=managable. I would think the same applies for schools with kids who are just being kids, not getting enough physical activity or are sensitive to food additives.

              1. Gaianne

                Who put the benzedrine
                In Mrs. Murphy’s Ovaltine?
                She never used to like the stuff.
                Now she just can’t get enough!

                I’m just surprised that they think we have forgotten what d- and l- amphetamine are!

                –Gaianne

                1. craazyboy

                  Ok. Here’s the headline…

                  Warning
                  AMPHETAMINES HAVE A HIGH POTENTIAL FOR ABUSE. ADMINISTRATION OF AMPHETAMINES FOR PROLONGED PERIODS OF TIME MAY LEAD TO DRUG DEPENDENCE AND MUST BE AVOIDED. PARTICULAR ATTENTION SHOULD BE PAID TO THE POSSIBILITY OF SUBJECTS OBTAINING AMPHETAMINES FOR NON-THERAPEUTIC USE OR DISTRIBUTION TO OTHERS, AND THE DRUGS SHOULD BE PRESCRIBED OR DISPENSED SPARINGLY.

                  MISUSE OF AMPHETAMINES MAY CAUSE SUDDEN DEATH AND SERIOUS CARDIOVASCULAR ADVERSE EVENTS.

          2. yasha

            And I thought the dosing of kids diagnosed with ADHD and ADD and all that with uppers was with the idea of taking advantage of the “paradoxical reactions” reported by the literature — calms kids down, enhances concentration and all that.

            My understanding, as a layperson & adult with ADHD, is that the “paradoxical reaction” theory is a myth. The reason stimulant drugs are often effective in treating both children & adults with ADHD* is their effect on neurotransmitter production. The stimulant effect itself is more of a unwanted side-effect.
            However, I’ve also read that caffeine is ineffective for ADHD, but I self-medicated with coffee for many decades before I was diagnosed and it definitely helped me focus. (Similarly, cannabis is generally bad-mouthed by ADHD authorities, but many adults find it to be helpful.)

            * The term ADHD officially includes the non-hyperactive subtype commonly called ADD and officially known as ADHD-PI (Predominantly Inattentive).

    2. tegnost

      the command economy requires that you consume medicines, citizen, don’t you want an appealing snack?

    3. GlobalMisanthrope

      Parents who would rather cut off their right arm than take a sip of wine during pregnancy for fear of fetal damage, then willingly having that same kid pop an amphetamine pill daily

      These people aren’t worried about hurting the baby, they’re worried about being blamed for something wrong with it. The same impetus leads them to treat inconvenient childhood behaviors with drugs. It’s all about how it reflects on them.

    4. yasha

      Okay, I’m an adult with ADHD and have issues with the comment accompanying the link: “Not letting boys be boys any more allows for new ways to create speed addicts even younger.” ADHD is a real condition — an alternate neurology — and not the same as childhood boisterousness. If you doubt this, attend a meeting of your local adult ADHD support group. You will probably meet people who were not diagnosed until later as an adult — people who could never finish college and have problems staying employed — who would have benefited greatly from proper treatment beginning in childhood.

      But I’m sure there are doctors out there who are misdiagnosing boys-being-boysness as ADHD and who can’t properly prescribe the right drug or the correct dosage. I wouldn’t trust most psychiatrists with making the initial diagnosis, let alone family doctors. And real treatment should combine both medication with cognitive/behavioral therapy — this combination has proven much more effective than just one or the other.

      All that said, I think chewable ADHD drugs are a bad idea. It does makes them more attractive to other kids and it makes abusable and potentially hazardous medication for a lifelong condition look awfully darn frivolous.

  15. tegnost

    The rich are different…kocherlakata
    “The message for policy makers: If they want to address inequality, they will have to take a nuanced approach, recognizing that both the top 1 and 10 percent contribute to the phenomenon, and that incomes at the very top are highly volatile. They might, for example, want to raise tax rates on the top 10 percent compared to the middle, but be more careful about any further increase in marginal rates on the top 1 percent, considering the importance of entrepreneurship in generating jobs and growth.”
    This is an amusing apologia. Taxes on the bottom roughly 40%, medicaid clawbacks where your entire net worth is sacrificed upon your demise, 40% to 90% (this article sets the bound by only talking top 10%)have massive health tax unless they’ve got a cadillac plan, (doesn’t that somehow conjure the “welfare mothers meme?”) but the top 10%, starting at a lowly 157,000, which in itself screeches out for attention, have been left out of this orgy of command economics, what to do? Well we’d better tax the bottom 9% of this group because the jeff bezos of the world are “job creators”, and if we make it too hard on them, they’ll stop “creating”. Ok, got it…interesting how the chart shows the top 10 had no income loss, while the top 1% had a barely noticeable blip, showing how much more they suffered than the merely rich who really should pitch in more before any job creators have to pay anything someone who’s better at reading charts could probably illuminate the disparity between the charts, for instance is the top 1% included in the 90% chart or is it for the 90th % by itself, or 90%-100%, or 90-99% i’m unsure

    1. craazyboy

      kocherlakata is major idiot. He should have his head permanently bandaged because his thought process is so obviously painful. His data collection is even worse. I assure you, any detailed study would show little “entrepreneurship” among the 1%. Is there anyone that still thinks S&P 500 CEOs, hedge funds, investment bankers (M&A activity) are generating job growth rather than actually reducing it????

      1. Jess

        “kocherlakata is major idiot. He should have his head permanently bandaged because his thought process is so obviously painful”

        Craazyboy for the win.

      2. inode_buddha

        “Is there anyone that still thinks S&P 500 CEOs, hedge funds, investment bankers (M&A activity) are generating job growth rather than actually reducing it????”

        Yes. They are called “Conservatives”

        1. craazyboy

          I think we’d need to make the distinction between what they believe vs. what they say. Back when I was a youngster learning the knowledge of the corporate ecosystem, I was often treated to little bits of business wisdom. One was “You don’t leave a $50,000 job to start your own business.” At the time, $50,000 was in the top 2% of income level. So the advice was the 2% keep the bird hand and do not chase the entrepreneurial bird in the bush. Although some did of course. Worked out very well for Gates and Jobs and some others. But you can’t make the exceptions the rule.

    2. pretzelattack

      the medicaid estate wasting clawback compared to the demise of the estate tax. nice way to ensure that wealth stratification grows.

      1. ChiGal

        And sickeningly those with real wealth hire lawyers to create trust funds so they can be in nursing homes on the public dime, sucking ever scarcer $ away from the truly indigent, who are the ones who will suffer the clawback.

  16. optimader

    to be pretty well off to do the initial setup. And I hate to say it, but my first step in preparing for collapse would be: “Procure a 20 year supply of antibiotics, alcohol (both the potable and medical type), bandages, and computer parts.” And set up your library.

    maybe just procure a 100yr supply of scotch and (and poptarts–the new transportable currency) to barter for whatever else you need

    1. Robert Hahl

      A British study found that printed porn will be one of the most valuable commodities after a collapse.

        1. craazyboy

          I’d be more comfortable with Old Masters. They still wear make up and cool shoes.

            1. craazyboy

              Not that old. Maybe as old as a Jill Kelly, 1995 vintage.
              Can’t go wrong with CA girls.

      1. hunkerdown

        The British would say that, wouldn’t they? Perhaps the sort of horrid social breakdown they had in the early 1940s (OH in a bomb shelter: “Are there any women here who are pregnant?” “We’ve only been here ten minutes!”), made permanent, would serve them and us better than anything else.

      2. HotFlash

        Printed porn, good idea! I will add that to my Doomsday portfolio of sewing needles and thread, useful hardware bits (nails, screws, nuts and bolts), small tools and the best — knowledge of 50 ways to distill stuff (oh, you know, stuff in general — water, alcohol, what have you).

        1. Harry

          Doh! I can’t believe I have been so blind! Of course, I must buy up a stock of printed porn before HRC ‘s coronation.

  17. Alejandro

    Re; “The Rich Are Different, and It Matters”

    What a contemptible piece of detached wonky wonk rationalization…insinuating that “inequality of the rich” can somehow proffer “insights” into the formerly known “defining issue of our time”…insights will not be forthcoming from those that aspire to “wallow in excess” and have no clue what it means to “enervate in poverty”.

  18. Robert Hahl

    Google is the EU Remain campaign’s secret weapon The Register

    Why use Google when there is duckduckgo.com?

  19. Brooklin Bridge

    Sanders seizes momentum heading into California The Hill (martha r). I am way less optimistic. The vote suppression, by making independents request a Dem presidential primary ballot in advance, is a big help to Clinton.

    Agreed, I’ve also heard that people are going to be given bogus voting forms for independents that will not even be counted. It makes sense to pull out all the voter suppression stops because California is so important, but why wouldn’t vote suppression also be heavily used in NJ? After all, it’s also an important state delegate wise. More difficult there?

    1. Jim Haygood

      ‘Wouldn’t vote suppression also be heavily used in NJ?’

      When I used to live there, a letter arrived from the voter registrar addressed to my heirs. It asked them to kindly confirm my sad death, so that my name could be removed from the registered voter list.

      Later, after moving away (and not having voted for a decade), another letter was forwarded to me out of state, offering convenient re-registration in time for the primary.

      Like many other aspects of the Bridgegate State, its voter registration system is an antiquated and corrupt joke, emanating a distinctive mercaptan whiff of “refinery row” on the Turnpike.

      1. Brooklin Bridge

        Zounds! Love mercaptan whiff of “refinery row”, .what a line!

        Sanders deserves a lot of credit. It’s overwhelming.

    2. Waldenpond

      Yes, the instructions are to push the provisionals which are never counted unless a voter specifically demands a D crossover ballot. When registering people you can point out the common glitches and the steps to take but so many register online and don’t realize the traps that are put in their way.

      Yesterday VI results and today PR results are not encouraging.

      On the other hand, I dropped off cases of water, fruit, granola bars etc for canvassers and phone bankers yesterday. I stopped by today to check and nearly two-thirds was cleaned out so I got more. I’ll go back tomorrow with another round and get the car cleaned up for rides Tuesday.

    3. 3.14e-9

      Tens of thousands of mail-in ballots already have been trashed because voters didn’t ask for the right ballot (in other words, “There’s no conspiracy. Bernie supporters just didn’t follow the instructions.”) I read else where but now can’t find the link that 80% of California voters vote by mail. Worse, they have no way of verifying IDs of mail-in ballots. More links to follow…

      http://www.kcra.com/news/many-ca-independent-voters-left-out-of-presidential-primary/39854480

      1. Waldenpond

        We have motor id. The system uses dmv records and passes your signature over. If you don’t us motor voter, you get a card and submit a signature or go to your elections board. All ballots are verified by signature. It’s good to update your signature as they change over time and your ballot will be rejected if it doesn’t match.

  20. Jim Haygood

    How to prepare for a Clinton collapse in 9 steps … here’s step 1:

    Crisis of Character: A White House Secret Service Officer Discloses His Firsthand Experience with Hillary, Bill, and How They Operate Hardcover – June 28, 2016

    Former Secret Service officer Gary Byrne exposes the truth behind Hillary, Bill, and their public facade.

    Posted directly outside President Clinton’s Oval Office, former Secret Service uniformed officer Gary Byrne reveals what he observed of Hillary Clinton’s character and the culture inside the White House while protecting the First Family. Now that a second Clinton administration threatens — their scheme from the very beginning — Byrne exposes what he saw of the real Hillary Clinton.

    In CRISIS OF CHARACTER Byrne provides a firsthand account of the scandals–known and unknown–and daily trials ranging from the minor to national in scale.

    Having witnessed the personal and political dysfunction of the Clinton White House–so consumed by scandal and destroying their enemies, real and imagined–Byrne came to understand that, to the Clintons, governing was an afterthought. He now tells this story–before voters go to the polls–in the hopes that Clinton supporters will understand the real Hillary Clinton.

    http://tinyurl.com/zc3epm5

    Veteran Clinton watchers will recognize this as a replay of the Arkansas state troopers expose of 1994.

    The multimillionaire Clintons — particularly Empress Hillary — find it difficult to deal civilly with the servants Secret Service. Their bodyguards respond in kind when they can.

    With the Clintons, there’s ALWAYS another “dirt dump” on deck. Mostly likely, the next one is from an FBI agent, who’s probably pounding the keys on his Underwood as we speak. Let’s roll!

    1. Jim Haygood

      This is so stratospherically over the top that it beggars belief:

      To dress up the [Laureate Education LBO] in 2010, Bill Clinton was brought in to serve as “Chancellor,” a part-time position for which he collected $16 million through early 2015. This extraordinary compensation was never properly disclosed until 2015.

      Many of those on the hook paid Bill and Hillary big fees for speeches as well. Bill Clinton was thus collecting from both Laureate equity and debt suppliers.

      Laureate’s CEO, Doug Becker, is involved as a Clinton backer, Clinton Global Initiative and Clinton Foundation donor, and is involved in the International Youth Foundation, a recipient of favors and money from the Clinton-led Department of State.

      Incredibly, in 2013 the International Finance Corporation announced a record setting $150 million investment in Laureate at a time when its financial condition was rocky at best. Clinton’s involvement sealed the deal.

      Then the Clinton Global Initiative and Clinton Foundation entered into a joint venture with Laureate to create CGI-University. Yet none of these related party disclosures are included in any of the Clinton Foundation or Clinton Global Initiative filings for relevant periods (starting in 2008 or so).

      http://dailycaller.com/2016/06/02/trump-u-is-nothing-compared-to-laureate-education/#ixzz4AjPhRR9x

      I flatly did not believe that the government-owned IFC would invest in Laureate Education. But IFC’s own site confirms its $150 million “investment”:

      http://tinyurl.com/grmt63s

      And Bloomberg confirmed “Bill’s” $16.5 million take from Laureate:

      “Since 2010, Bill Clinton brought in just short of $16.5 million for his role as honorary chancellor of Laureate Education, a for-profit college company.”

      http://www.bloomberg.com/politics/articles/2015-07-31/hillary-and-bill-clinton-paid-43-million-in-federal-taxes

      This is absolutely eye-popping, industrial-scale grift.

      1. fresno dan

        Wow!
        good thing Bill was only a “honorary chancellor” – if he had been a real chancellor he would probably have gotten in the 9 figures…

  21. DJG

    Onbashira, matsuri, and a reminder of what the Japanese know: The exuberance of Japanese culture is pointed up by matsuri. And if you think that Onbashira is a bit particular, look up the naked matsuri, in which men run around in their fundoshi.

    But what I also recall is that the Japanese and their eight million gods are mirrored by Roman religion and its eight million gods. Every house in Rome was guarded by lares and penates–several of each! The more gods the better. And carrying the gods around on carts was common in Roman festivals, of which there were dozens. This mindset imbued Roman Catholicism, which still maintains all kinds of matsuri. The blood of Saint Januarius (Gennaro) bubbles in its flask every year in Naples. The Mamuthones dance every year in Sardinia. The kami want us to be content and happy–although they demand some discomfort occasionally. I once read that people carrying the mikoshi (the float with the god in a tabernacle) will sometimes engage in jostling and some mayhem. Fortunately, in Catholic festivals, you can usually get away with giving the saint some money or new clothes, although photos of Sicilian Easter matsuri show plenty of crowds and jostling.

    We (collectively) agonize over greed, oppression, and climate change. Maybe one of the answers is to dismantle monotheism and its absurd demands (sacrificing the Son to the Father?) and invite the eight million gods back into the world to make it magical once again.

    1. MyLessThanPrimeBeef

      Yes, the naked festival with men in loin cloth jumping off the temple.

      The culture has survived Confucianism to preserve their pagan past (whereas in China, not much is left of what that freer world that was written in the Book of Songs), and very tribal, in the good sense of that term, that people are closer to each other.

  22. Take the Fork

    On Turkey: the situation has deteriorated swiftly and will likely continue to do so. Europe and the West should look to the interests of their own populations.

    NATO could be very useful here, once Turkey is expelled.
    NATO troops should garrison Europe’s southeastern border in Greece and Bulgaria.
    NATO fleets should interdict refugees.
    NATO should support the declaration of a viable Kurdish state.

    Turkey’s inclusion in NATO made sense seven decades ago. Those conditions no longer obtain.

    So while Trump’s calls to dismantle may or may not be good politics, it would be terrible policy. Although the threat to do so might have a positive effect by ending the cranial-rectal inversion that still dominates elite circles in Berlin, Brussels, London and Paris.

    At least the Poles are not waiting to see how it all turns out: http://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-36442848

    1. JTMcPhee

      NATO should go to hell, where it belongs. NATO and all the people that suck off its many teats. Not that the world is not just too full of people who happily play out the end game of the species. For money, and bits of power, and the FUN of it all.

  23. DJG

    An interesting evocation of the tensions about language in China: Official tensions, regarding the imposition of Putonghua. Personal tensions, about how to speak a language that isn’t one’s mother tongue.

    https://lareviewofbooks.org/article/language-fact-rey-chows-not-like-native-speaker/

    I know that we have several experts in Chinese culture who comment regularly here. What is your take on this article?

    Also, language, which is a tension among Trump voters, has different meaning in the U S of A. An unofficial motto of my neighborhood in Chicago is that seventy languages are spoken. That’s a long way from the content of this essay about standardization.

    Yet there has been a rather odd kind of standardization in U.S. writing: I’m seeing much, much overcorrection (between the Democrats and I). I’m seeing the usual attempts to ape the Brits by importing lots of English semi-archaic words: amongst, bespoken, whilst. U.S. insecurities about speaking U.S. English.

    1. DJG

      And to add another curve, Italy presents another situation: Official Italian is taught in schools, spoken in the media, and written in newspapers and books. Yet strong “dialects” still exist: I just finished reading Zerocalcare’s graphic novel, Kobane Calling, is in which the narration in standard Italian, Zerocalcare speaks “romanesco,” and English is used when he arrives in the Middle East. And the English used is highly amusing and lively.

      The use of “dialects” that are independent languages also has all kinds of cultural valences in Italy. Up in Piedmont, there is much use of Piedmontese, very often with the sly wit of the Piedmontese. Yet Piedmontese has a literature. And a dear friend of mine in Roma, someone born in Venice, teased me not so long ago about calling Venetian a dialect. Venexian is a language–one that her highly educated grandfather spoke almost exclusively. It was the language of state. It has a literature–Gozzi and Goldoni, among others.

      The dilemmas of speaking. The comparative simplicity of the situation in the USA, where one language dominates.

      1. Isolato

        When I lived in Italy during the 1970s Italian was a second language for many in the more rural areas. So local was the dialect that someone could name what little nearby hamlet you were from by your accent. Piedmontese, like Siciliano is impenetrable to Italian-only speakers. But I suspect decades of media saturation are moving everyone towards the literal middle, the Tuscan dialect that is officially “Italian”.

        1. Kurt Sperry

          Almost nobody in Italy uses Italian for regular conversation, if you listen to familiar people talking among themselves they will with near certainty be using a local dialect or language. Yes, even in Tuscany. Italian is used in writing or for formal or official discourse or in the media. I was quite disappointed to learn that becoming somewhat proficient at Italian (to the point of being able to understand radio, TV or movies) was often woefully inadequate for understanding overheard conversation. Italian is for when everyone must understand what is being said and people from any area may be present.

    2. Jim Haygood

      In Chinese, the most dramatic difference (regardless of local dialect) is between the traditional Chinese characters used in Taiwan and Hong Kong, versus the simplified character set introduced during 1956-64 by the communist government of China.

      From the SCMP (March 2016):

      At the start of last month, it emerged that the Education Bureau’s latest consultation document said local pupils should learn to read simplified characters.

      Traditional characters are the norm. The simplified form is used on the mainland, but deemed inferior to the traditional form by some, and sometimes mocked as “crippled” or “mutilated characters”.

      The state-run People’s Daily urged people not to politicise the issue and pin derogatory labels on simplified characters, while Legco president Jasper Tsang Yok-sing said people didn’t need teaching simplified characters and could learn them on their own.

      Some say the policy is part of a hidden government agenda to do away with traditional characters along with Cantonese and further “mainlandisation”.

      http://tinyurl.com/hvw2c6v

      For Chinese who can’t read traditional characters, historical documents from before the introduction of simplified characters in 1956-1964 are inaccessible (unless a translation app has been released, which wouldn’t be surprising).

      Similarly, as U.S. public schools drop cursive handwriting from their curricula, original historical documents such as the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution become illegible to the latest generation. Anyhow, those antiquated old screeds are full of terroristic agitation against authority that’s best put to rest. /sarc

      1. MyLessThanPrimeBeef

        At one time, the goal was to move to an alphabet based written Chinese language.

        To those progressives in China, even the simplified characters were a hindrance China’s need to de-stigmatize her shameful past (that allowed the Westerners to overtake her in the last 600 years).

        The Ming founder, the Hongwu emperor, thought the Song Chinese (the previous indigenous Han dynasty – the Mongols with their Persian tax collectors did not count) wasted too much time engaged in drinking tea (at the time, the Match form, i.e. whisked powder tea, and borrowed and introduced back to their home country by Japanese Buddhist monks). Thus, the Chinese started drinking steeped tea that had been fermented first – it was much faster and ‘simpler.’ (A modern wage earning serf reader will no doubt understanding this rational perfectly).

        I think the reason to simplify Chinese characters was based similarly – the Chinese wasted too much time writing their characters, and too much perfecting the art of calligraphy, with the idea that people could judge a scholar’s character by his calligraphy.

        Thus, with the need to modernize China, to put Westerners in their proper place, they had to learn from some white people (Marx, Lenin, et al), ironically, and simplify writing.

  24. NeqNeq

    Re: Collapsing in Place

    What are unavoidable taxes like in the Melbourne area? In many places things like property tax, utility fees (assessed with prop tax), and the like often go up when economic decline happens. Paying those bills means getting cash, but the cash income discussed in the article will decline when the “dystopia” hits. Who spends money on touring a house when they don’t have the money to pay rent and buy food?

    Just another marketing piece IMO. Which is too bad because there is a lot of good that could arise from real discussions.

    Curious: how far are we from peak-homestead in this cycle?

  25. Alex morfesis

    Stanford afluenza rapist…ok florida greens…here is your chance…turns out the defense was paid for by daddy million dollar homes real estate agent from lutz, the uppity high end (for florida) town in the north east part of tampa bay…same town dick bove(kris kringle) lives and works out of…protesting in front of his million dollar listings might rattle a cage or two along the way…handing the homeowners listing with the father a thank you note, reminding them they are financially contributing to the welfare of an animal…along with information where they might actually donate money towards crisis centers…california misogyny…six months because he has never been “caught” before….

      1. lambert strether

        Appalling. And then there’s the father’s clemency letter, asking why ruin this young man’s life over “twenty minutes of action.”

        “Twenty minutes of action.” I kid you not.

        1. Massinissa

          …. Damn. Was he really at it that long? I was under impression the guy was at it for 3-4 minutes when those Swedes came along. 20 minutes is a LOT of action…

  26. Howard Beale IV

    Trump wants the Presidency, and he won’t be handled-that’s why you all who are hoping for his win should get ready. Trump is as subtle as a sledgehammer. To use the language of wrestling, where he spent a fair amount of time with the ultimate showman Vince McMahon, Trump is running the ultimate work.

    1. MyLessThanPrimeBeef

      One of the worst sins of Trump (and he has many) is that while sheeple and serfs are perfectly OK being exploited, as long as you whisper sweet nothing to them, as long as the circuses are good, everything is honky dory.

      But this rube, bumpkin guy, he insists on saying out loud what is politically incorrect.

      He has had to mess things up…like (surprising to many in the country) displaying openly racism here (and everywhere in the world).

      1. Howard Beale IV

        Yep-he’s actually saying what the GOP has been trying to hide even since Lee Atwater said his famous “You can’t say ni-CLANG ni-CLANG ni-CLANG” treatise. Now they’re stuck with him, barring any unfortunate happening to him. Now we’ll see how many GOP House/Senate candidates he campaigns with, especially those who may get pushback over TPA/TTIP. This could become a Donnybrook (heh….)

  27. Kim Kaufman

    Barack Obama Once Proposed Cutting Social Security. Here’s What Changed His Mind.

    http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/barack-obama-grand-bargain-social-security-expansion_us_5751f92de4b0eb20fa0e0142

    “Now that the grand bargain is firmly off the table, said the former administration official, Obama likely doesn’t want his legacy on Social Security associated with an offer made under duress to Republicans — and one that the GOP immediately and swiftly ran away from. Instead, Obama is aligning himself with the new movement to increase benefits.”

    “Obama’s remarks are vague enough to encompass Third Way’s preferred reform package, which would combine benefit increases for the most vulnerable groups, in addition to cuts for earners with higher incomes, according to Horwitz. “

  28. Sluggeaux

    Please move the story about the white Stanford swimmer, who avoided prison for dragging an intoxicated woman behind a dumpster and forcibly penetrating her, to the topic “Class Warfare.”

    The sentencing judge was a Stanford “Old Boy” who imposed just about the most lenient sentence possible after a presiding over the horrible ordeal of a jury trial and in the face of a complete lack of remorse or empathy for the young woman who woke up on a hospital gurney bleeding, having to pick debris out of her bruised vagina.

    I can guarantee you that Judge Aaron Persky would not have imposed such a lenient sentence in the case of similar conduct by a person of lower social status.

    1. Katniss Everdeen

      I must need to get my ears cleaned out.

      I can’t even hear all those shrieks of “Misogyny!” that I’m certain must be happening ever since Donald Trump awakened the nation to this grievous evil.

  29. Katniss Everdeen

    RE: Clinton Vows to Break the ‘Celluloid Ceiling’ New York Magazine

    “So we’re moving toward answering the age-old question: Are Americans ready for a woman director?”

    Finally a candidate bold enough to confront this “age-old” agony.

    So many ceilings, so little time.

    Am I a horrible person for secretly hoping that one of these ceiling-smashing exercises results in an irreversible coma? Metaphorically speaking, of course.

    1. Jim Haygood

      ‘So many ceilings, so little time.’

      She who smash ceiling need pointed head. — apocryphal proverb

    2. craazyboy

      I first read that as…

      Are Americans ready for a woman dictator?”

      hahaha. These things can happen when I’m not wearing my reading glasses.

  30. Jim Haygood

    High comedy, comrades: a frayed-collar WaPo journo-ho attempts to refute a Trump tweet, and ends up stepping into deeper dog doo with the help of an Ivy League eclownomist:

    The Federal Reserve (naturally) has lots of data on money in circulation, including this chart of [note] printing orders by year since 1995. It doesn’t match the graph Trump tweeted [of Federal Reserve assets soaring due to QE].

    Data.gov (a great resource, by the way) has the number of notes produced each year from 1980 to 2012 in various denominations.

    Update: We have an answer. Dan Ludwinski of the Cornell University Department of Economics explains what the Trump graph shows.

    “The ‘money printing’ graph is assets held by the Federal Reserve,” he wrote in an email. “The majority of these assets are excess reserve balances — money deposited by commercial banks and held by the Federal Reserve.

    Calling this “money printing” is laughably inaccurate. This is money that is taken out of circulation and held by the Fed. Anyone who has taken econ 101 knows that this is a decrease in the money supply.”

    http://tinyurl.com/hl5pja2

    Wrong — all wrong; laughably wrong; perniciously wrong. QE didn’t “take money out of circulation” or “decrease the money supply.” The Fed bought debt securities by crediting the sellers with freshly-created bank reserves.

    The money supply didn’t go up as much as the Fed had hoped, had those excess reserves been lent out as briskly as expected. But it sure as hell didn’t go down.

    How does a clueless, misinformed know-nothing like Luddwinski [sic] end up on the faculty of Cornell? Is our childrens learning?

    1. Katniss Everdeen

      Cornell is “ivy league,” which selects for “clueless, misinformed know-nothings.” It’s the functional equivalent of hip dysplasia in in-bred, pedigreed dogs.

        1. Katniss Everdeen

          I was referring to the “ivy league” in general, and its increasingly exclusive role as purveyor of the “best and the brightest” “minds” in public policy for the entire country. Of which they know little and care less.

          I don’t think it’s only the economics department, but law, public health, social work, business, political science, journalism, medicine and whatever discipline(s) concerns itself with “defense” policy and strategy as well. I probably missed a few.

          The point is that it is a closed, self-congratulatory, self-aggrandizing system that is unjustifiably impressed by its own merit and worth, that devalues any uncredentialed one or thing, and recognizes no failure except of an “outsider.” And those are myriad.

          And they’re breeding.

          1. Synapsid

            Katniss Everdeen,

            …exclusive role as purveyor of the “best and the brightest” “minds” in public policy for the entire country…”defense” policy and strategy as well, then.

            I see. There’s more there, you know, in the ol’ Ivy League.

            I would suggest that it’s best not to refer to the Ivy League when you’re actually referring to only a part of what the schools included in it work on and have to offer. I understand that you’re speaking from within this site but on the face of it you’re painting with an awfully broad brush. If you’re taking a whack at Cornell economics or some such, put that up front. That would be useful context for what is to follow.

            Best to avoid dog whistles.

          2. craazyman

            what about the English department?

            sometimes these people think being a cunning linguist is all there is to it! can you believe that shit? that doesn’t give birth to words that are truly alive. ho ho ho

            nobody ever answered my question from yesterday. Can a straight guy whose a drag queen be a misogynist? I think so, yes, but only on a part time basis. That’s no excuse though. It’s like the jobs data, even part time and you’re considered employed.

            CB can you believe the other day I went from under 150 to 174, in one day! That’s like the start of a 10 bagger. When I bought GLD it went from 174 to under 150 before hitting 100! I don’t know about this, I guess you gotta get lucky. (Just having fun Altheia, you do sound pretty cool actually).

            1. craazyboy

              I try to never think of complex things like drag queens and 10 baggers on Sunday because Sunday is supposed to be a day of rest.

              But that reminds me. Aletheia hasn’t been around the past few days. Think she may have scored a sleeping bag date out in the woods there? You may have moved too slow and blown it, dude!

              1. aletheia33

                i overheard that.

                after nobody craazy, opti, or otherwise responded that night to my last 2 post(s) cries for attention and interest, i crawled away cast down and in a huff.

                i am now hiding under a rock, breaking off stalactites and stalagmites to build a circular structure to contain my heat. i will be burning some printed porn to practice surviving the avocado, i mean apoplecalypso. bet you can’t find me

                (they better not post this post 2x, the first one was vaporised into the ether)

                1. craazyman

                  we all thought you got abducted by aliens. we’re relieved.

                  it must be hard being up there in Vermont, there’s not even an NFL football team witihin 100 miles. Maybe when Bernie gets elected Vermont can get its own team. there’s lots of reasons to vote for Bernie but that’s certainly one of them, I gave him $200 so far.

                  the news has been more or less the same now for about 2 years. The links change. but the news remains the same. Macro news that is, I mean. sometimes I almost runout of things to say. Thank God there’s Youtube

                2. craazyboy

                  apoplecalypso? You’re from CA? Lots of CA girls were always worried about the apoplecalypso, but that was when we only had earthquakes to think about. Those are only bad if the ground opens up right beneath you and you fall about 3 miles into molten lava. Otherwise I’d say it’s just being paranoid, and even if it did happen there is no known ward against one, so it’s just best to adopt a fatalistic attitude and try and get laid one last time while you still can. Many CA girls would agree with my reasoning, once I explained it to them.

                  Don’t burn the printed porn! (what’s with this “printed” anyway. Everyone knows it’s all vids nowadays) The idea is that it will become like money! You need to read up on MMT. I’m sure someone around here will provide some links.

                  If you’re hiding in a cave in Vermont, and I’m on the other side of the country…I’m not taking any bets that I can find you. I know my limits.

                  1. aletheia33

                    well actually, that was aimed at craazyman as i have not given up hope of some sort of encounter. however brief. as i understand he only takes short breaks from his bouts of solitude. so as i believe he is somewhere in new york, though it’s not clear if mainly upstate or down, or maybe it’s about equal, perhaps with a little encouragement from you he could see his way clear to making it up here for a little spot of bushwhacking. he did say he is mr. woods.

                    i’m not really that hard to find, you just follow the trail of molten lava leading into the forest… it may still be smoking a bit but it’s really not dangerous. maybe you could reassure him a bit on that, being familiar with lava from living in CA seducing women just before the apoplecalypso opens up under their feet. it sounds like you could be very reassuring. i suspect that is what he needs. he probably has cold feet and wants to keep them that way. can’t say i blame him, really.

                    anyway, at least he seems to be relieved that i was not abducted by aliens. that could be a good sign. between you and me i can see that he is a bit fragile. of course i understand that. only the most sensitive people are worth knowing, really. and they are usually quite intelligent, as he obviously is. so, anyway… i’ll just leave it there for now.

                    1. craazyboy

                      I have been trying to give craazyman encouragement, because I can pick up on these subtle signs women give, after being in CA so long. Maybe in New Yawk they are just more forward and direct and craazyman just doesn’t realize he’s being “hit” on. Or maybe it’s shyness on craazyman’s part. This is the first time I’ve seen him in a potential romantic encounter. But I understand how first you have to make sure you are talking to a real female. We had the same problem in CA. And that applies when meeting them in person too.

                      I think craazyman has mentioned he lives in Queens. So that should be easy to remember. Vermont is almost next door.

                      A lot of times we just joke about alien abductions. We know it doesn’t happen that often. They only do it when they get bored for some reason. Most of the time it’s cattle mutilations and crop circles. But if craazyman is joking, that’s a sign he’s loosening up and things may start to happen soon. I’ll try and nudge him along too.

            2. aletheia33

              you can be a straight guy and be a misogynist. you can be a drag queen and be a misogynist. but you can’t be a straight guy and be a drag queen. even if you swing both ways.

              it’s really not that hard

              webster’s 11th: drag queen noun circa 1941 (maybe you were born before then and never quiet caught on?) “a male homosexual who dresses as a woman for comic or theatrical effect”

              i am beginning to wonder if maybe YOU are a (very confused) drag queen (all protestations to the contrary)? don’t worry, if you are i will not be shocked. we can still be friends

              … wow now you think i’m hot AND cool? i don’t know if i can handle this. it’s a good thing you just said “pretty” cool. that’s a less intense pressure on me. somewhat.

          3. Ulysses

            While I share your general distaste for much of what the Ivy League stands for, there are plenty of decent people still doing good, solid academic work in the ancient eight. My friend Nick Salvatore, for example, teaches at Cornell and has also written a very fine biography of Eugene V. Debs,

            Eugene V. Debs
            Citizen and Socialist

            Debs himself was a man who never tired of railing against pompous elites, yet he wasn’t completely dismissive of scholars and scholarship.

    2. José

      It really looks like it’s the mentioned economist and not Trump who gets it “laughably innacurate”.

      When the Fed bought debt securities from depository institutions (commercial banks) then base money – “reserves” – increased, but “money” (deposits) didn’t. The banks just swapped one type of asset for another – securities out, reserves in.

      When the Fed bought securities held by the nonbank private sector, however, both base money and money increased.

      Anyway, banks can’t lend out reserves, except to other banks – because only banks are allowed to keep deposits (aka “reserves”) at the Fed.

      1. Jim Haygood

        Correct. But having excess reserves on tap frees banks from any lending constraint imposed by reserves.

        Arguably banks weren’t and aren’t reserve constrained. But that’s a whole other issue. Trump was correct that QE drastically increased the Fed’s assets.

  31. Jim A

    Re: The rich are different.
    ISTM that the article assumes that all speculators are entrepreneurs. And I would argue that while all entrepreneurs are speculators, the reverse is NOT true. Indeed passive investment in existing companies in the hope of price appreciation does little to grow the economy and create new products and innovations. Rather it is a sign that Wall street has more money that it can effectively find productive uses for.

  32. makerowner

    The “Error by Washington and Moscow” article is full of absurdities. The CIA created the HDP? Salih Muslim is a traitor to the YPG who has made a secret deal with Hollande and Erdogan to move the Kurdish population from Turkey to Syria? Erdogan is actually in favour of the YPG? It cites secret meetings and treaties with no evidence, etc.

    1. makerowner

      Further research reveals that the author is a 9/11 “truther”, and believes that the Beslan school siege was planned by the CIA.

      1. human

        So ad hominem attack and straw man arguments are the accepted manner of refutation? Voltairenet’s insight and analysis are a much welcome breath of opinion from the European perspective and view. When you can cite sources of your own, I will review them also.

        Yes, Mr Meyssan is the original 9/11 Truther. His website set up shortly after the event, “Hunt the Boeing,” caused many to confront uncomfortable truths, some of which have become conspiracy facts as history has a tendency to uncover.

        1. EndOfTheWorld

          I’m a 9/11 truther, I guess. I don’t accept the government lies on the subject. Jet fuel doesn’t burn hot enough to melt steel.

          1. Jess

            Except it doesn’t have to melt it, just weaken it to the point where it cannot sustain the loads placed upon it.

            As for the temperatures involved: If you own a luxury high-end hi-perf turbocharged car the exhaust temperatures reach about 1800 degrees F and that’s enough to make the exhaust manifolds glow red. That’s which standard automotive gasoline, which tops out at about 96 octane. Jet fuel is 140 octane.

            First thing I thought when I saw those buildings burning was, “They’re coming down. Only a matter of time.” Minutes, as it turned out.

            1. human

              Except it doesn’t have to melt it, just weaken it to the point where it cannot sustain the loads placed upon it.

              All 90,000 tons of structural steel? And evidence shows that temperatures in excess of of a few hundred degrees centigrade happened only in very small localized areas. We’re talking a few square feet each at the most. The fires burned out very quickly under low oxygen conditions, as indicated by the heavy black smoke. This is all easily researched. Mythology aside.

              Guess we all have to replace our car’s exhaust manifolds now … as well as our barbecue grills … just to be on the safe side.

            2. Yves Smith Post author

              Steel framed buildings have had fires of up to 30 hours and never collapsed or even shifted. Even the NIST expert expressed his concern, basically the way that the building fell from a fire could be explained only if the steel was extremely defective, which seemed implausible for that much steel.

      2. low integer

        I couldn’t give you an accurate figure for the probability of two(!) skyscrapers collapsing into their own footprint without using controlled demolition techniques, however they are so small as to be nonexistent.
        There is also WT7.

      3. Timothy Hagios

        I would like to make the following point. The Pentagon is meant to be defended in the event of a real war, and is presumably surrounded by anti-aircraft batteries as well sophisticated radar systems. I doubt that anyone would have much success flying a small, single-engine plane anywhere near there. Yet a huge airliner was allowed a direct hit while the nation was in a heightened state of alarm. Either someone was asleep at the switch, or…

  33. Synoia

    New Chewable ADHD Medication, Adzenys, Has Some Worried

    My son was diagnosed with ADHD, in about 1986/7, and during the “process” I asked what’s the percentage of incidence? I was told 40% of boys are diagnosed with ADHD.

    To which my response was “bullshit.” At 40% incident it is either a pandemic or a normal condition, and you are treating normal behavior on one end of the normal distribution of behavior in boys.

    My solution is simple” Male Kindergarten and First Grade teaches. Boys will be boys, and do not need a “liquid cosh” to behave as girls.

    And my second point is ALL out behaviors have developed because the behavior gave our gene pool an evolutionary advantage, over people without that behavior.

    And the conclusion is: Obama, Trump, Bill and Hillary Clinton exhibit our peak of evolutionary behavior. And now I can either go and shoot myself and have a stiff drink which I contemplate our superb leaders and their exemplary behavior.

  34. Kris

    The Rich Are Different, and It Matters –
    “The message for policy makers: If they want to address inequality, they will have to take a nuanced approach, recognizing that both the top 1 and 10 percent contribute to the phenomenon, and that incomes at the very top are highly volatile. They might, for example, want to raise tax rates on the top 10 percent compared to the middle, but be more careful about any further increase in marginal rates on the top 1 percent, considering the importance of entrepreneurship in generating jobs and growth.”

    This just doesn’t ring true. First, the author is looking only at income, not wealth – the vast invested capital the 1% have that makes money for them without their doing anything to earn it. If wealth were included, it would be obvious how much more the 10 percenters were hurt by the recession than were the 1 percenters. Second, is it really true that 1) entrepreneurs are responsible for an out-sized proportion of job creation, and, conversely, 2) that those who do create the most jobs reside in the 1%? I would like to see a much more fine-grained analysis of all these questions before glibly announcing far-reaching policy suggestions.

  35. Plenue

    “Thousands of people gathered in Hong Kong’s Victoria Park to commemorate the brutal suppression of pro-democracy protesters in Beijing at the hands of the Chinese Army 27 years ago ”

    Yeah, that’s exactly what happened in Tiananmen Square. Totally. Eeyup.

    1. Kurt Sperry

      http://www.cjr.org/behind_the_news/the_myth_of_tiananmen.php

      I’ll play link roulette and post a link to a piece by Jay Mathews who was Beijing Bureau Chief for WaPo published here in the Columbia School of Journalism. This mainstream reportage really contradicts the narrative/mythology most of us have heard about Tiananmen Square. We should at the least make ourselves familiar with dissenting accounts.

      1. Jeff W

        One point that Jay Mathews mentions, quoting human rights experts George Black and Robin Munro, is that “what took place was the slaughter not of students but of ordinary workers and residents — precisely the target that the Chinese government had intended.” That’s actually a far more important point than where the actual killings took place (although, no doubt, it is important to have as accurate an account as possible).

        From the Frontline documentary “Tank Man”:

        In Beijing one in 10 of the population was joining in … all of the old people, all the little children, so it was massive,” explains Jan Wong, a foreign journalist in Beijing at the time. “You had doctors and nurses and scientists and army people demonstrating. The Chinese navy was demonstrating, and I thought, ‘This is extraordinary because who’s left? It’s just the top leaders who aren’t out there.’

        [emphasis added]

        And there were demonstrations across China in the days leading up to, and following, what happened on June 4. It’s not that the “student protests” might snowball into something larger—there was something of a genuine popular movement of nationwide proportions occurring.

  36. Elliot

    Re: collapse, and moving to the rustic unpopulated parts of the country; even Bernie supporters don’t want the city to move to the country.

    Don’t. You are not welcome.

    Yes, rich people, we don’t love you, and we don’t want to plow your road in the winter when you can’t get your Lexus up the driveway.

    We don’t want you and your buddies taking over local politics, we don’t want you vacuuming up land and water for your private fiefdoms, we do not want you to “harvest” all the wildlife to put in your private freezers, decimating the wildlife in a season or two. There is no room for you.

    We also are not interested in your “superior” philosophical and religious ideas, your general carpetbagging, nutty gold coin fetishes, your voting against school levies cos you private schooled your kids, your buying up downtown buildings and turning out local businesses for your vanity projects, nor your building monstrous McMansions blotting our previously untrammeled views and raising our property taxes while you live off the proceeds of your previous McMansion.

    The restaurants are closed here on Mondays, we don’t have an apple store, or a yoga studio, or a maker factory, and we don’t want one.

    When the hippies came in the 60’s and the 70’s, they came to be part of something, to take part, not to use us as something to hide behind or a pantry to rifle through for personal gain, and especially not as a place to create their own exclusive enclaves.

    Stay home. Take care of yourself and your family where you are.

    1. hunkerdown

      Perhaps y’all country folk could bring some pitchforks into town and fight our zealot colonists here so’s you and we aren’t fighting them out there?

  37. Plenue

    Can anyone much more knowledgeable about things nuclear than I comment on the possibility that at least some of the missing fuel at Fukushima isn’t lying underground but was fired into the air by the explosion? This has been a consistent claim by certain types since 2011. If true shouldn’t Tokyo be one giant cancer zone now, and we’ll see hundreds of thousands or even millions of residents develop tumors in a short span of time in the coming years/decades? And what about the global ramifications? How much of this is hyperbolic fear-mongering and how much is plausible?

    1. MyLessThanPrimeBeef

      It seems as though the inventor of Godzilla peeked into the future so many decades ago and brought it back into his movies.

    2. Aumua

      I suggest for anyone to read the ABC article carefully, and then go back and observe the spin that ENENews is putting on it. Bottom line for me: I don’t trust a single word I read from that site.

      1. hidflect

        ENENews is run by some delusional Ozzie who posts all the time on an uber-conspiracy site called http://godlikeproductions.com/ Check it out and you’ll see how insane it is. His name is Citizen Perth. The alarmist crap he pushes out on ENENews is a dangerous disservice to anxious people who want to find out what’s really happening. It causes people to inevitably discount and ignore real dangers once they see his posts are nonsense. I was in Japan during and after the meltdown and his site caused a lot of panic and hysteria.

        1. Yves Smith Post author

          Stop it. That is pure ad hominem.

          The article quoted and linked to ABC, which is an extremely reputable news source, and the ENENews story did not misrepresent it.

    3. craazyboy

      I read the Japanese government put a news blackout on it too. Sorta related was they were concerned bad news would be bad for Japanese fishermen. Not that there would be any testing or anything to guarantee safety. Just keep hush. Then I think the WTO did their part and said countries could not block Japanese food imports. (they also have a pretty large vitamin and supplement industry) Obama chimed in and said there would be no Federal testing of radiation levels in the pacific.

      So maybe it’s not a problem. Or is. Time will tell, maybe.

    4. Gaianne

      Some of the fuel undoubtedly went into the air. If you can still find the video of the explosion of unit #3–which happened in daylight–you will find you are looking at a fizzle-yield fission explosion, or something approximately as bad.

      On the other hand, it is likely, if unproven, that some of the reactor cores have already left their containment buildings. There are many indications of this. In any case, note the Japanese now admit themselves that at least one of the cores has intermittently, but spontaneously restarted fission.

      –Gaianne

      1. optimader

        It was an offshore prevailing wind at the time, had it been to the north it would presumably be a different story in Tokyo right now A friend of mine was the Cpt of a commercial flighton approach up the coast to Tokyo when that sht was going down and was not advised to redirect around that area by the Japanese (nor his employer).very pissed about that.

        one of the cores has intermittently, but spontaneously restarted fission
        detectable due to short lived radioactive species being emitted..

      2. aletheia33

        i will never forget what that explosion looked like on the videos.

        can you explain at all in simple layperson terms what a fizzle-yield fission explosion is? i never heard that term before.

    5. Aumua

      Sure would like to see some sources cited for some of the wild claims being tossed about here.

      a) the original explosion was a fission explosion.

      b) it is likely that the reactor cores have left the containment buildings.

      c) one of the cores has started up fission reaction again.

      d) Ok, there’s been no federal testing, but that doesn’t mean there has been no testing, there has, and only very minor elevated radiation levels have been detected anywhere but right off the coast from the disaster. Link

      I know NC is not a science site (unless you count economics as a science I guess), and don’t get me wrong. Fukushima is a huge disaster which will continue to produce consequences for the environment for a long time. I just really don’t like fear mongering, and I’m naturally very skeptical of anything that looks like fear mongering.

      Just because something sounds like what you already believe is true, is a poor reason for swallowing it whole without any corroboration or verification.

      1. low integer

        This thread prompted me to do a little catch up on Fukushima, and there is not much credible new info available. Here is (what I consider to be) an interesting link, although it is from 2011. I note that google, when searched for “Chris Busby”, the name of the physicist who is interviewed in the linked article, returns many pages dedicated to exposing him as a fraud, so many in fact that it looks like there has been quite a lot of effort put into reducing his credibility. A similar pattern emerges when searching for nuclear physicist Arnie Gunderson, who also spoke out about Fukushima. Both are accused of being anti-nuclear activists who are in it for the money. I also note that the International Atomic Energy Agency is a very powerful entity. Busby’s answer to this question certainly would not have been to their liking:

        – What can the world/the international community do to help Japan cope with the crisis and support the victims of Fukushima Daiichi?

        “I believe that the international nuclear industry is responsible and should be forced to pay.”

        Another excerpt:

        “I have car air filters from Fukushima and Tokyo. We have found high levels of radioactive particles in these. In my March/April paper I predicted more than 200,000 additional cancers in the next 10 years within a 200 KM radius of Fukushima. I have seen nothing to change my mind. In fact it is worse than I thought then and said on TV. I have been hoping all along that I was wrong, and even now there may be some good development that I had not expected or foreseen, but the situation is bad and I am very sorry. I have been helping some lawyers who are making a legal case to have the children evacuated. The problem is that dose rate, MicroSieverts per Hour, cannot be used to reassure on the basis of comparisons with annual natural background. The exposures are internal and the risk model of the ICRP, which is based (ironically) on the external exposures at Hiroshima, cannot be used. This is the key issue. There is a more accurate model, the ECRR, one which has now been translated into Japanese and is available on the internet.”

        and his credentials:

        Chris Busby is Scientific Secretary of the European Committee on Radiation Risk (ECRR), Visiting Professor in the School of Biomedical Sciences, University of Ulster, and Guest Researcher at the Federal Institute for Crop and Soil Research, Julius Kuehn Institute, Federal Research Centre for Cultivated Plants in Braunschweig, Germany.

        Overall, I get the sense that there is a significant cover up of the extent of the problem, but I may be, and hopefully am, wrong.

  38. mundanomaniac

    “Folks (like Trump) born under a Sun in Twins are the perfect brokers in zodiac. As the preceding signs Aries and Taurus motivate the attacker and the defender, the third sign Twins has a third point of view containing points of both parties. Essentially they are sober (= air element). A Twin is a living “number three”, Twins are above the parties, like their element air they have no fix standpoint. In his elaborations on Mercury, the ruler of the Twins, Carl Jung called Mercury the trickster, not straight out bad, but good with the good and bad with the bad.
    By the way John F. Kennedy was a Twin.”

    Concerning Mr. Trump here is a little astrological pondering I wrote in March.

    http://astromundanediary.blogspot.de/2016/03/the-donald-in-front-of-triumph.html

    1. Vatch

      Astrology can be fun, but it should never be taken seriously. For example, air is not an element, although hundreds of years ago, people believed that it was. The primary elements in terrestrial air are nitrogen, oxygen, and argon. There are small amounts of hydrogen (in atmospheric water vapor) and carbon (in carbon dioxide). Air is a mixture.

      1. hunkerdown

        Depends on what the definition of “is” and “element” are. Plot is an element of fiction. Unobtainium is, perhaps, an isotope of McGuffin, which is an element of fiction. Fire et al. are elements of human experience, according to modern Western astrology.

        I’m not sure that Science has much truck to comment on taxonomies far, far outside its cemetery gates.

        1. Plenue

          Playing words games isn’t going to change the fact that the movements of planets and stars have no magical, mystical influence on human affairs whatsoever. Astrology isn’t even a coherent set of woo; the forecasts vary wildly from publication to publication. It’s entirely arbitrary bullshit largely knowingly concocted to steal money from rubes.

  39. fresno dan

    http://www.kniferights.org/CA_S218861.pdf

    A police officer found a Swiss Army knife in a pocket of defendant
    Emmanuel Castillolopez‘s jacket. One of the blades was fully extended.
    Defendant was convicted of carrying a concealed dirk or dagger in violation of
    Penal Code section 21310. Penal Code section 16470 defines a ― ‗dirk‘ or
    ‗dagger‘ ‖ as ―a knife . . . that is capable of ready use as a stabbing weapon that
    may inflict great bodily injury or death.‖ Under this definition, ―a pocketknife is
    capable of ready use as a stabbing weapon . . . only if the blade of the knife is
    exposed and locked into position.‖ (Ibid.)
    The Court of Appeal reversed defendant‘s conviction, ruling that there was
    no substantial evidence that the open blade of the Swiss Army knife was ―locked
    into position‖ within the meaning of Penal Code section 16470 because the knife
    could be closed simply by folding the blade back into the handle. We agree that
    defendant‘s conviction cannot stand and therefore affirm the judgment of the
    Court of Appeal.

    ===================================================
    Now, I don’t profess to know all the intricacies of knife law, but it was news to me a Swiss army knife is a dagger.

    I am mildly interested in the issue because Freddie Gray was arrested for carrying an illegal knife
    http://www.cnn.com/2015/05/06/us/freddie-gray-knife/

    Hmmm….it seems figuring out if knives are illegal needs several attorneys and appellate courts. Being a cynic, I might wonder how many white middle class people get arrested for having Swiss army knives.

    I would also say that any state’s attorney who brings a case with regard to a Swiss army knife is unfit for their job, but real law and order doesn’t apply to the legal/police complex…

  40. Daryl

    > Top Dems in talks on how to push Sanders to end campaign: report

    Not sure I understand. Isn’t that what they’ve been doing from day 1?

    1. craazyboy

      The Washington Post already wrote the postmortem on why Bernie lost to Hillary. So you gotta give all of them an “A” for effort , at least. Not a word about rigging elections and no media coverage, but the article starts off with how Bernie lost the black vote in the US – being important in a black majority country such as ours, I would have to guess.

      http://www.msn.com/en-us/news/politics/how-bernie-sanders-missed-his-chance-to-beat-hillary-clinton/ar-BBtTq0k?ocid=spartanntp

      1. Jim Haygood

        DEWEY DEFEATS TRUMAN

        Amazon’s halfwit CEO lays an egg.

        Let’s rub his pasty, bug-eyed face in it.

    2. cnchal

      Top Dems in talks on how to push Sanders to end campaign: report

      They are gonna show him the horse’s head.

  41. Anttifa

    The claim that substantial amounts of the radioactive contents of any nuclear reactor can go up into the air during a meltdown is as absurd as saying a campfire can suddenly vanish up into the sky. For the melted fuel rods to do that would require an actual nuclear explosion in which all or most of the radioactive material becomes super-critical enough to explode. Mushroom cloud, the works.

    A nuclear reactor which melts down is more akin to a huge underground coal fire, spewing smoke and pollution without cease for many decades. But the coal does not explode. It burns, producing smoke and pollution. Melted nuclear fuel is not dense enough to go up in a mushroom cloud, but it most definitely burns, and its smoke and pollution is in the form of radioactive particles and heat.

    The three melted cores at Fukushima are sinking into the earth, but the experts at TEPCO have long since arranged to pump sea water onto them, keeping them cooled enough to burn less hot, thus producing less radiation and heat than they would if left without water. Whatever amount of radioactivity they produce mostly goes into the ocean, which is large enough to dilute it tremendously. Some goes up into the atmosphere to be borne away on the prevailing winds, and while this airborne radioactivity has poisoned Tokyo and is continuing to poison Tokyo, it is not enough to appreciably reduce the size, weight, or potential radioactivity of the three melted blobs beneath three of the Fukushima reactors.

    The biggest danger of Fukushima’s three blobs is that they will follow the natural paths of the groundwater, and eventually meet and merge into one blob, either under the reactors or in the open ocean. That would represent such an increase in heat that even the ocean’s immense amount of water could not cool it, and we will see a huge nuclear fire just offshore.

    1. Plenue

      “this airborne radioactivity has poisoned Tokyo and is continuing to poison Tokyo”

      How bad a poisoning are we talking about?

      1. hidflect

        I bought an expensive Geiger counter and tested it all around my area in Tokyo. There were no discernible readings above normal but much of the radiation can be particularized alpha radiation which Geiger counters wont pick up. However, if you ingest any of those particles you will be irradiated continuously and probably suffer cellular damage/cancer. In this way, alpha radiation can be more deadly than gamma which just blows right through you.

          1. low integer

            Alpha particles are essentially a helium atom with no electrons and can therefore only travel a few centimetres centimeters inches in air after being emitted before they ionize one or two atoms in close proximity and gain the electrons required to become a normal helium atom. Thus, clusters of say, uranium isotopes that are undergoing alpha decay (and emitting alpha particles), such as would enter the atmosphere after a nuclear “event” like Fukushima and then settle over a large area, are not easy to detect.

    1. cwaltz

      Someone should explain to him that the charges would be improper handling of classified material, it doesn’t belong on a private NON SECURE server and it doesn’t matter if it was hacked, we have people in jail who were charged simply because the opportunity was there for it to be hacked.

  42. Plenue

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UJ4Ugjcy46M

    So, looks like infighting at the IMF. The guy who said the IMF wouldn’t sign off on another bailout without some debt-relief was going off the reservation; Lagarde had to rush back and slap him down. Also, why is the head of the IMF visiting Kazakhstan?

    1. Yves Smith Post author

      Late to see this! Thanks!

      This confirms my long-standing theory that Poul Thomsen and his team are the ones in revolt, but have a lot of support from the other worker bees.

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