Open Thread - Friday, February 19, 2016

"For in order for capitalism to work — in order for it to produce a good and a stable society — the traditional Christian virtues are essential."
Antonin Scalia

Australian town inundated by hairy panic tumbleweed

A town in the Australian state of Victoria has been inundated by tumbleweed.

Gardens, homes and garages in Wangaratta have been smothered by the plant, with some homes blocked in by piles more than 6 feet high.

The fast-growing Panicum effusum weed, more commonly known as hairy panic, has been drifting into the town for days. One resident claimed she spent eight hours clearing up the tumbleweed on one day, only to have it return the next.

Hairy panic is native to inland Australia. It is not uncommon in Wangaratta, but this year the dry conditions have produced a bumper crop.

Should saving the world be profitable?

Last week was not a good one for billionaires’ new vision of global philanthropy.

Mark Zuckerberg, founder of Facebook, argued that he just wanted to provide bare bones Internet access, free of charge, to poor, unconnected communities in India.

The problem was that the service, called Facebook Free Basics, would let users visit certain sites for free, then bill them for others. That’s not do-gooding, Indian authorities decided, it was a way for Facebook to monopolize the shape of Internet access in the developing world, effectively controlling which websites people could visit.

Hillary Clinton, With Little Notice, Vows to Embrace an Extremist Agenda on Israel

Former President Bill Clinton on Monday met in secret (no press allowed) with roughly 100 leaders of South Florida’s Jewish community, and, as the Times of Israel reports, “He vowed that, if elected, Hillary Clinton would make it one of her top priorities to strengthen the U.S.-Israel alliance.” He also “stressed the close bond that he and his wife have with the State of Israel.”

It may be tempting to dismiss this as standard, vapid Clintonian politicking: adeptly telling everyone what they want to hear and making them believe it. After all, is it even physically possible to “strengthen the U.S.-Israel alliance” beyond what it already entails: billions of dollars in American taxpayer money transferred every year, sophisticated weapons fed to Israel as it bombs its defenseless neighbors, blindly loyal diplomatic support and protection for everything it does?

My buddy Paul Singer ->

Hedge Fund Billionaires Fund Super PAC Ad Against Bernie Sanders and Minimum Wage Hike

A Super PAC called Future 45 started airing an ad this week saying Democratic candidate Bernie Sanders would hurt small businesses and kill jobs by raising the minimum wage and increasing taxes.

Gun violence in America, in 17 maps and charts

America is an exceptional country when it comes to guns. It's one of the few countries in which the right to bear arms is constitutionally protected, and presidential candidates in other nations don't cook bacon with guns. But America's relationship with guns is unique in another crucial way: Among developed nations, the US is far and away the most violent — in large part due to the easy access many Americans have to firearms. These charts and maps show what that violence looks like compared with the rest of the world, why it happens, and why it's such a tough problem to fix.

The Syrian Endgame, “A Lost War is Dangerous”. US-NATO, Saudi Arabia, Turkey, “Losers on The Rampage”

How a war is lost is a serious and dangerous business. After Henry Kissinger helped sabotage the 1968 Paris peace talks, for domestic political reasons, the War in Vietnam raged for another seven years. In the end Washington’s loss was more humiliating, and millions more lives were destroyed.

The Geneva process over Syria is in many respects different, because it is a charade. The NATO and Gulf monarchy sponsors pretend to support Syrian ‘opposition’ groups and pretend to fight the same extremist groups they created.

Yet the dangers are very real because the Saudis and Turkey might react unpredictably, faced with the failure of their five year project to carve up Syria. Both countries have threatened to invade Syria, to defend their ‘assets’ from inevitable defeat from the powerful alliance Syria has forged with Russia, Iran, Iraq and the better party of Lebanon.

It should be clear by now that every single anti-government armed group in Syria has been created by Washington and its allies. Several senior US officials have admitted the fact. Regime change has always been the goal. Nevertheless, the charade of a ‘War on ISIS’ goes on, with a compliant western media unwilling to point out that ‘the emperor has no clothes’.

Happy Funk Friday!

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mimi's picture

if I look at the guns percentages per people worldwide chart, I can't help thinking that in the end they will use all those guns just to kill themselves. Viva nightmares.

Have a good day all, with or without the nightmares.

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NCTim's picture

Of course I don't play around with electricity, chemicals or stored kinetic energy either. I suspect that there is an intelligence, or lack thereof, factor to owning a gun collection.

Please no judgement for owning so may guitars.

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The individual has always had to struggle to keep from being overwhelmed by the tribe. If you try it, you will be lonely often, and sometimes frightened. But no price is too high to pay for the privilege of owning yourself. - Friedrich Nietzsche -

shaharazade's picture

are fine by me. Multiple guitar owners are not lethal regardless of the songs they play. I applaud the ones who have an arsenal of fascist killing machines.

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MarilynW's picture

they really liven up the neighbourhood.

Guns. Experts try to make sense of mass killings, the killing of innocent strangers, they can't seem to compute it. They try to find something in the person's past.
Maybe he was abused, maybe she hated kindergarten. They avoid the availability of guns as the primary cause. If a person loves guns and guns are meant to kill people, doesn't it make sense that the person has fantasies of killing? And one day that person lives out his/her fantasies.

It works for other tools. If I stock up on guitars, I will likely play them. If I stock up on art supplies, chances are one day I will paint. If I stock up on cooking supplies, there's a strong possibility that one day I will cook.

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To thine own self be true.

mimi's picture

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islam.png
islam1.png

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NCTim's picture

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The individual has always had to struggle to keep from being overwhelmed by the tribe. If you try it, you will be lonely often, and sometimes frightened. But no price is too high to pay for the privilege of owning yourself. - Friedrich Nietzsche -

someone conservatives loved

Poland's Lech Walesa, who shot to world fame for his role in the collapse of communism, promised on Thursday to defend himself in court against new allegations that he collaborated with the communist-era secret services.

The state history institute said it had confirmed as genuine some documents offered to it by the widow of a communist interior minister suggesting Walesa, ex-leader of the Solidarity union movement that brought down communism in Poland, had been an informant of the communist regime in the 1970s.

"The personal file contains an envelope and in it there is a manually written commitment to collaborate with the secret service signed: Lech Walesa "Bolek"," said a spokesman for the institute.

Walesa, 72, immediately issued a statement saying he signed no such commitment and suggested it was forged. "I will prove it in court," he wrote in a blog.

Deputy Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki said earlier this week "Walesa has an agent's past, of course he does. For the last 27 years I not only suspected this but was almost sure".

Walesa years ago acknowledged signing a commitment to be an informant for Communist Poland's security organs but insisted he never did anything to carry it out. A special court exonerated him in 2000, saying it found no proof of collaboration.

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NCTim's picture

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The individual has always had to struggle to keep from being overwhelmed by the tribe. If you try it, you will be lonely often, and sometimes frightened. But no price is too high to pay for the privilege of owning yourself. - Friedrich Nietzsche -

don't report bad news

Many British politicians would doubtless rejoice at the news that Andrew Marr, Emily Maitlis and Andrew Neil were to leave their jobs almost simultaneously.

That is the fate that has befallen what could loosely be described as their counterparts in Japan – Ichiro Furutachi, Hiroko Kuniya and Shigetada Kishii – three respected broadcasters with a reputation for asking tough questions.

Their imminent departure from evening news programmes is not just a loss to their profession; critics say they were forced out as part of a crackdown on media dissent by an increasingly intolerant prime minister, Shinzo Abe, and his supporters.

Only last week, the internal affairs minister, Sanae Takaichi, sent a clear message to media organisations. Broadcasters that repeatedly failed to show “fairness” in their political coverage, despite official warnings, could be taken off the air, she told MPs.
...
As the host of Hodo Station, a popular evening news programme on TV Asahi, Ichiro Furutachi was at the centre of a row last spring over claims by one of the show’s regular pundits, Shigeaki Koga, that he had been forced to quit under pressure from government officials angered by his criticism of the Abe administration.

Shigetada Kishii, who appears on News 23 on the TBS network, angered government supporters last year after criticising security legislation pushed through parliament by Abe’s Liberal Democratic party (LDP).

Perhaps most striking of all is the departure of Kuniya, the veteran presenter of Close-up Gendai, a current affairs programme on public broadcaster NHK.

Her “crime” had been to irritate Yoshihide Suga, the chief cabinet secretary and a close Abe ally, with an unscripted follow-up question during a discussion about the security legislation.

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NCTim's picture

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The individual has always had to struggle to keep from being overwhelmed by the tribe. If you try it, you will be lonely often, and sometimes frightened. But no price is too high to pay for the privilege of owning yourself. - Friedrich Nietzsche -

link

A major chunk of Bernie Sanders' record fundraising is coming from an unlikely source: people without jobs.

Sanders raised more than $16 million in 2015 from more than 235,000 people who identified themselves as either unemployed or retired, according to filings with the Federal Election Commission. Almost all of it has come through ActBlue, an online platform for making political donations to Democrats.

Sanders has raised more money than any candidate—Republican or Democrat—except for Hillary Clinton. And he's done it while railing against the billionaire class and their influence on politics. Nearly three-quarters of the $73 million that the self-declared democratic socialist has raised has come from donations of $200 or less. In contrast, of the $108.9 million Clinton has raised, 17 percent has come from small donors.

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NCTim's picture

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The individual has always had to struggle to keep from being overwhelmed by the tribe. If you try it, you will be lonely often, and sometimes frightened. But no price is too high to pay for the privilege of owning yourself. - Friedrich Nietzsche -

link

Ukraine sank deeper into political turmoil on Thursday as the governing coalition lost its majority in Parliament after a second faction bailed out. The move by the Samopomich faction, which holds 26 seats in the 450-seat Parliament, leaves the coalition partners with 217 votes. Another withdrew from the coalition a day earlier. The developments may lead to early parliamentary elections, something President Petro O. Poroshenko has sought to avoid, fearing it could further destabilize the nation. Reformers have accused the government of cronyism and corruption

something rotten in Ukraine

Two years have passed since a popular uprising in Kiev toppled a Russia-backed regime in Ukraine. The glory of that people power moment has faded, and Western supporters are losing patience with the government as corruption hampers efforts to jump-start the economy. The gross domestic product of the war-plagued country contracted 10.5 percent in 2015. Inflation reached 43 percent. On Feb. 10, International Monetary Fund Managing Director Christine Lagarde expressed concern “about Ukraine’s slow progress in improving governance and fighting corruption.” She said it would be hard to keep financing Ukraine in the absence of real change.
On Feb. 3, 10 Western ambassadors also called on Ukrainian leaders to “set aside their parochial differences” and crack down on corruption. The statement was prompted by the resignation of reformist Economy Minister Aivaras Abromavicius, a Lithuanian who assumed Ukrainian citizenship to join the government in 2014. He said “actions aimed at paralyzing reforms” triggered his resignation. He pointed a finger at Ihor Kononenko, the senior legislator of President Petro Poroshenko’s party in Parliament and Poroshenko’s former business partner. Kononenko had engineered the appointment of a close associate to the post of Abromavicius’s deputy without telling the minister, according to text messages released by Abromavicius....
Ordinary Ukrainians’ wrath is aimed primarily at Prime Minister Arseniy Yatsenyuk. Eighty-two percent disapprove of the job he’s doing, according to a recent poll by the International Republican Institute, a Washington nonprofit.
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shaharazade's picture

Here's a good article about the Nevada caucuses. You have to read between the lines as it has an insidious slant, a anti-Saunders bias and a whiff of propagandist 'unicorn' fear regarding Bernie's policies. It goes into the Dem. 'centrist' song and dance about policy claiming...

"Clinton and Sanders both have broadly similar policies on issues close to the Latino community’s hearts, including the need for a path to citizenship for undocumented migrants".

The Guardian is blatantly against both Corbyn and Sanders they are staunchly pro neoliberal New Labour or New Democrat's in most of their opinion pieces and election coverage. This article is interesting as it shows the inroads Bernie is making in her minority 'firewalls' and yet still pumps fear and negativity about his populist economic message.

http://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2016/feb/19/el-viejito-for-president-...

'Both candidates arrived in the state on Thursday, and immediately collided over Bill Clinton’s record in the White House during a televised town hall debate broadcast live by Spanish-language channel Telemundo.

“Bill Clinton has been on the campaign trail making some very nasty comments about me,” Sanders said, apparently alluding to a comment the former president made equating the candidate’s populism to that of the Tea Party. Sanders went on to criticize Bill Clinton’s trade deals, Wall Street deregulation and welfare reforms.

That drew a sharp rebuke from Hillary Clinton, who appeared on stage after the independent senator from Vermont. “I just don’t know where all this comes from,” she said. “Maybe it’s that Senator Sanders wasn’t really a Democrat until he decided to run for president.”

The Clinton campaign is busy lowering and justifying the expectations in Nevada

But in recent days, Clinton campaign officials have been playing down their candidate’s prospects; campaign manager Robby Mook, the architect of Clinton’s Nevada victory in 2008, and Brian Fallon, the campaign spokesman, both caused eyebrows to raise when they suggested the state was “80% white”.

“Both Mook and Fallon know that 80% figure is ludicrous, and the attempt to make Nevada seem like Iowa and New Hampshire is a spin too far,” wrote Jon Ralston, the most influential pundit in the state, pointing out that around half of the state’s population are minorities.

He added: “I don’t smell a rat. I smell something much more pungent from the Clinton campaign: fear.

I find it sad when poor and even middle class people are so inundated with negativity and fear they say stuff like this.....

“She’s more realistic about what she can get done. She’s not sugarcoating anything.”

or this....

“But it is not his time. This country is not ready for his dream.”

It's a good read, although kind of sad that people the most in need of some economic and social justice are too fearful to support a candidate that is bucking the status quo Clinton Machine. The corporate media is complicit and it does seem younger people in minority communities who get their information online are not buying the fear or the lies coming out of the Democratic propaganda fear riddled Wurlitzer machine.

While labor leaders back Clinton, low-wage workers and indebted students are being drawn to the message of radical economic change propagated by the 74-year-old senator from Vermont who some are calling “El Viejito” (the little old man).

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Pluto's Republic's picture

I like your observation about the Guardian's neoliberal bias. Definite Anglo thinking there, but I am always surprised about the pushback in the Reader's Comments. Ironically, the defenders of Anglo think are mostly the Americans commenting there. The Brits are dry and sly in attacking the neoliberal view.

The US pundit class — both Republican and Democrat — is now committed to the coordinated message that what Bernie is proposing is impossible in the United States — ie. the US could never fully educate all its people because it's too expensive and the US government cannot afford it. Ditto health care, affordable housing, etc. These arguments obviously don't work across the pond since those countries provide such human rights and they fully invest in the human capital of their citizens. So great is their pity for Americans on foreign boards, that they rarely mention that. But if they do, Americans respond with, "We don't have a homogenious culture like you do." Clearly a dog whistle for "The blacks will abuse it. That's why we don't have anything nice."

I've been dogged for my entire online life with “That's not realistic; it can't be done in the US." and "The country is not ready for that.” — whenever I discuss human rights. I realize Americans are brainwashed, but I'm burned out on caregiving, too.

I've made my peace with the fact that Americans really aren't ready for human rights. Nor do they deserve them. Their attitudes about carrying guns in the public square, about global murder of foreigners for resource theft, their passive acceptance of war crimes and torture as public policy, their lust to incarcerate and murder their own through capital punishment, and their primitive superstitions about "god" and their own constitution demonstrate how underserving of human dignity they are. I acknowledge that current politics have caused a nacent spark of awareness across both parties. It brings to mind:

War is when the government tells the people who it's enemies are. 
 
Revolution is when the people figure it out for themselves.

Nonetheless, I am completely indifferent about elections at the Federal or local levels. At best, they show the will of the people, which allows for the argument that Americans are genetically similar to Orcs. The fact that they would stoop to participate in a demonstrably fake democracy is the best argument for why they deserve more of the same. Their will be done.

I've yet to see, in all this time, any hope that America's stupor will lift via enlightenment.

But I would definitely celebrate that for the sake of the rest of the world.

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shaharazade's picture

but still after swearing off time and time again getting all tweaked about the US culture's Idiocracy and the ensuing farce of democracy , I cannot stop myself from getting caught up in the populist, democratic, humanistic, fray that seems to erupt intermittently. Ask me this country is too big and too diverse Culturally, historically and regionally do come to mind when thinking about of sanity or common ground. Then into the intentionally stirred culture war mix comes the Democrat's who operate solely out of pumping fear of the Republicans. The R's in turn just get more and more insane as the Democrat's move right. Could be a plan, says my tendency towards paranoia. Simplistic I know but hey I'm just a fool whose intentions are good.

The rise of the indies does cheer me up. The fact that a huge x amount of people here do not even bother to vote or participate is depressing but understandable. It's just intimidating to most people to turn and face the wind. Sure a certain % of us here in the US are violent gun toting nasty global killers who can't even grasp human rights but every once in a while behind our ongoing and historic insanity I do see a glimmer of the spark of universal human rights. Even among the so called RW rednecks in my state, Oregon, the people who live in Burns a rural eastern OR (not a liberal place) rejected the invading 'Merican' gun toting moron militia of cowboys. Get out of here they said. Your scaring our kids as at the same time they berated the Fed. land grabs.

I can't argue with that. Who's worse the Feds with their greedy domestic and mad global policy with their killing of anyone globally who dares to to say Nie! to their sick Empire. A 30? something percent of lunatic domestic assholes who are given equivalence and power by the Democratic party does not really to this fool make the people who live here deserving of what the Democratic party has wrought by not offering any opposition. In my opinion they are way worse then the obvious lunatic Republicans as they prey on fear and pump the this is inevitable and nothing else is never ever possible.

If you dare to upset the powers that be your toast cause Goldman Sachs rules the world and 'terrist's are gonna kill yer family'. Who believes this shit? Seems to me it's wearing thin across all the cooked up divides. As for burning out , I'm burned out too. Why do they stoop to believe this is a real democracy? I guess it's easier then believing you have been duped. I always thought that this was why the hard core Bushies hung in there after everything was relieved, as though it was not obviously apparent at the time. 'But mom he's a good old boy.' It's hard to wrap your mind around the fact that 15 years later where still stuck in the mindset that caused 9/11 and the insane political aftermath that ensued.

Enough of my ranting and raving about what has been and is occurring here in the US. I don't think we deserve this. We're not as a people a majority who believe that

" carrying guns in the public square, about global murder of foreigners for resource theft, their passive acceptance of war crimes and torture as public policy, their lust to incarcerate and murder their own through capital punishment, and their primitive superstitions about "god" and their own constitution demonstrate how underserving of human dignity they are. about carrying guns in the public square, about global murder of foreigners for resource theft, their passive acceptance of war crimes and torture as public policy, their lust to incarcerate and murder their own through capital punishment, and their primitive superstitions about "god" and their own constitution demonstrate how underserving of human dignity they are."

Seems to me your taking the worst of what the US is about and ignoring and diminishing the voices that are saying enough is enough! What do you think they are ranting about. Give a little credit to those of us who are well aware of what is going down. Rigged the game is. Instead of piling on invective about what we are as Americans and how lost we are all are in this cooked up nightmare scenario take a look the people throughout our short history who have have stood up and said enough is enough. No humans are undeserving of human dignity. Punitive scorched earth that condemns all Americans seems mighty short sighted when you look at what ordinary humans have managed to through out global history bring down. I guess I'm a optimist but I just don't think people including deluded 25-30% maniac Americans are this stupid. Human rights are not dead and gone they lay there under the insanity of US policy and will rise again as they are self evident truths. That is what that dick slave holder Jefferson wrote and it still holds true.

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.--That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, --That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness. Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shewn, that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security.--Such has been the patient sufferance of these Colonies; and such is now the necessity which constrains them to alter their former Systems of Government. The history of the present King of Great Britain is a history of repeated injuries and usurpations, all having in direct object the establishment of an absolute Tyranny over these States. To prove this, let Facts be submitted to a candid world.

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lotlizard's picture

my views re the struggle for freedom and human rights better at this moment in time than any U.S. politician or government official of any stripe.

At least, that’s the way it seems.

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mimi's picture

Democracy Now! Turns 20: A Freewheeling Look Back at Two Decades of Independent, Unembedded News

I just wonder what Amy Goodman did before she started Democracy Now. I don't remember when I started to listen regularly to her show in the morning. I have not lost my admiration for her work. She has built something so valuable. Enjoy her anniversary special. Can't embed it. Didn't find it on YouTube.

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