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March 30, 2012
Open Thread 2012-09
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@all
I finally stopped coughing all day and night without getting relief. Unfortunately the medicine that helped also pushed my intellectual capacity below zero. I couldn’t even read news.
Now I feel much better but I am still a bit weak and have lost my voice. This morning I couldn’t even whisper to my neighbor but had to use paper and pencil to “talk” to him. It will take a few more days to let nature fix that.
Hopefully I’ll be able to write some new posts tomorrow or so.
Meanwhile – thanks for behaving in the comments.
Killed at Home: White Plains, NY Police Called Out on Medical Alert Shoot Dead Black Veteran, 68
Are they trying to start a “race” war?
Worse than Treyvon. Adam Kind, calls the cops to bust an underage drinking party next door. Cops come, one 20y/o hides in his porch. Adam kills the trespasser who was simply hiding from the cops. Cops were 300 feet away. Adam kills the 20y/o and is off scotch free with new Wisconsin “Castle Law”
The Death of Anna Brown
Posted by: Uncle $cam | Mar 30 2012 14:15 utc | 2
be well b. Thanks for checking back in. Glad you’re on the mend. Take whatever time you need and we’ll try to keep on behaving. A pretty congenial crew here for the most part I’d say.
J
Posted by: juannie | Mar 30 2012 15:13 utc | 3
Missing you, b. But take your time getting back on your feet. We’ll still be here and so will the world and all its problems.
Still no stories in the American press today on the North Sea gas blow-out. (Not in my usual morning reading, anyway.) Is it really not too big a deal, or really something they’d rather not see too much publicity about?
Posted by: Maxcrat | Mar 30 2012 15:44 utc | 4
Here’s something to cheer us all up: George Galloway just won a bye-election in England’s West Yorkshire.
Tariq Ali’s report is at Counterpunch. Here is a snippet or two:
“Galloway has effectively urinated on all three parties. The Lib-Dems and Tories explaining their decline by the fact that too many people voted!
“Thousands of young people infected with apathy, contempt, despair and a disgust with mainstream politics were dynamised by the Respect campaign. Galloway is tireless on these occasions. Nobody else in the political fields comes even close to competing with him. Not simply because he is an effective orator though this skill should not be underestimated. It comes almost as a shock these days to a generation used to the bland untruths that are mouthed every day by government and opposition politicians. It was the political content of the campaign that galvanized the youth: Respect campaigners and their candidate stressed the disasters of Iraq and Afghanistan.
“Galloway demanded that Blair be tried as a war criminal, that British troops be withdrawn from Afghanistan without further delay. He lambasted the Government and the Labour Party for the ‘austerity measures’ targeting the less well off, the poor, the infirm and the new privatizations of education, health and the post office. It was all this that gave him a majority of 10,000.
“How did we get here? Following the collapse of communism in 1991, Edmund Burke’s notion that “in all societies, consisting of different classes, certain classes must necessarily be uppermost” and that “the apostles of equality only change and pervert the natural order of things”, became the common-sense wisdom of the age. Money corrupted politics, big money corrupted absolutely. Throughout the heartlands of capital we witnessed the emergence of effective coalitions: as ever, the Republicans and Democrats in the United States; New Labour and Tories in the vassal state of Britain; Socialists and Conservatives in France; the German coalitions of one variety or another with the Green’s differentiating themselves largely as ultra-Atlanticists, the Scandinavian centre-right and centre-left with few differences, competing in cravenness before the Empire.
“In virtually each case the two/three-party system morphed into an effective national government. A new market extremism came into play. The entry of capital in the most hallowed domains of social provision was regarded as a necessary “reform”. Private finance initiatives that punished the public sector became the norm and countries (such as France and Germany) that were seen as not proceeding fast enough in the direction of the neo-liberal paradise were regularly denounced in the Economist and the Financial Times.
“To question this turn, to defend the public sector, to argue in favour of state ownership of utilities, to challenge the fire sale of public housing, was to be regarded as a dinosaur.
“British politics has been governed by the consensus established by Mrs. Thatcher during the locust decades of the 80’s and 90’s. Once New Labour accepted the basic tenets of Thatcherism (their model was the New Democrats embrace of Reaganism). These were the roots of the extreme centre that encompasses both centre-left and centre-right exercises power, promoting austerity measures that privilege the wealthy and backing wars and occupations abroad. President Obama is far from isolated within the euro-American political sphere. New movements are now springing up at home, challenging political orthodoxies without offering one of their own. Little more than a scream for help.
“Respect is different. It puts forward a left social-democratic programme that challenges the status quo and is loud in its condemnation of imperial misdeeds. In other words it is not frightened by politics. Its triumph in Bradford should force some to rethink their passivity and others to realise that there are ways in which the Occupiers of yesteryear can help break the political impasse.”
Respect may be different but it is far from being unique. In Germany Die Linke, in France the revival of the Fronte Populaire, in Spain, Greece and Portugal the recent General Strikes, in Ireland the coming referendum campaign… all are straws in the wind beginning to blow as the volcano of revolution begins to rumble.
Posted by: bevin | Mar 30 2012 15:47 utc | 5
Don’t push it, b. Rest as long as you need to. No need to post until you’re 100%.
Thanks again for all you’re work.
Posted by: lysander | Mar 30 2012 15:47 utc | 6
Welcome back, B!
Back from the Living Dead to the Living.
Don’t you just hate being sick?
Posted by: Jake | Mar 30 2012 16:58 utc | 9
you have my empathies on the respiratory distress, b. i had pneumonia once and it nearly killed me.
Posted by: Proton Soup | Mar 30 2012 17:07 utc | 10
apparently the cover story on the american edition of
that article irks the living shit out of me for one big reason… here’s the quote…
“The fact is that most of the world’s oil wells are in decline,” says David King, the former chief scientific adviser for the British government and the co-author of a recent Nature paper on oil supplies. “The only way to keep supply up is through the heroic discovery of new oil reserves.”
“But as I write in my cover story, those heroic discoveries are occurring around the world, from the deepwater finds off Brazil to the North Dakota tight oil that has led to a resurgence of American crude production.”
there were two of us up on the ice in the arctic islands, looking for oil and gas on a seismic job, in winter/spring 1975… the other guy flew into the ice and killed himself, and i nearly did a couple times.
were we heroes or fools?
the thing that gets me, is this: whatever we were, that was 37 motherfucking years ago.
you cant tell me that our imperial masters havent seen peak oil coming for decades.
then some asshole in counterpunch, supposedly an ecologist, writes 4000 words explaining why “The Myth of Peak Oil“.
jesus jesus jesus
Posted by: retreatingbladestall | Mar 30 2012 17:36 utc | 12
Here’s a piece from today’s BBC – http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-north-east-orkney-shetland-17561673 – , but otherwise I haven’t seen much reporting on Total UK’s gas leak in the North Sea. Typical of MSM treatment of nuke/fossil fuel ‘mishaps’, the tone has been soothing.
Posted by: Watson | Mar 30 2012 18:06 utc | 13
Retreating.. (11) has it right about that article in Counterpunch. He doesn’t understand that the evermore advanced technology needed to get at the deep sea-bottom oil, and to refine the dispersed oil particles in tar shale leads to ever lower net energy gain. This translates into ever higher extraction costs. Michael Klaire pointed out weeks ago that as it is now these sources are unprofitable at less than $90/bbl, and bound to rise. With “structural adjustments” in all the old developed economies people are reducing their petrol consumption as much as they can, and changing their cars for bikes.
That is the true meaning of Peak Oil: the bloody stuff costing so much that people try to stop using it.
Posted by: JohnE | Mar 30 2012 18:26 utc | 14
Take care and relax your mind and try to sweat and drink water, much water and try also no to think in the cooking of future water wars, who is behind?, i do not wonder if at the root are the same people, but well, they are practicing, modelling west of SAK
Posted by: Rift | Mar 30 2012 19:07 utc | 15
Completely off topic, but fascinating to a fan of Einstein’s Theories of Relativity (the Special and the common(?)).
The scientist in charge of the team which suspected it had detected a faster-than-light nutrino has resigned (despite articulating his own scepticism at the time the discovery was announced late 2011).
http://www.news.com.au/breaking-news/faster-than-light-claim-scientist-quits/story-e6frfku0-1226314977542
Many things make the story interesting:
– “C” is the (notional) Universal Speed Limit.
– You can’t have a conversation about going faster than C without including ‘mass’.
– Nutrinos don’t have a lot of mass.
– Imo, Albert deduced something he decided to keep to himself.
– Many branches of Science are divided by acrimonious disputes about the best (most fashionable) PR line required to maintain a smooth flow of research funds.
– The Big Bang theory, in its present form, only works if the products of the BB were propagated faster than C, or passed through, or were the product of, a time warp.
Posted by: Hoarsewhisperer | Mar 30 2012 19:18 utc | 17
hang in there b, sending you lots of love, good vibes and vitual soup broth from my end.
Posted by: annie | Mar 30 2012 19:32 utc | 19
“drink water, much water”, make that tea, much better … :-))
Posted by: somebody | Mar 30 2012 20:27 utc | 22
b: “Meanwhile – thanks for behaving in the comments.”
well now that you brought that up . . . 😉
“there were two of us up on the ice in the arctic islands, looking for oil and gas on a seismic job, in winter/spring 1975… the other guy flew into the ice and killed himself, and i nearly did a couple times.
were we heroes or fools?”
Am I the only one that just completely switches ‘OFF’ when that guy posts?
It’s like he tries to mash-up EVERY recent/’en vogue’ conspiro-factoid he can steal into some sort of Grand Universal General Theory of “Why We’re all F**ked and, more importantly: Who’s to Blame?”********
AND: Not only that, but he reckons it’s “A DAMN fine idea”!!™ to do it again & again & again & again again & again & again & again again & again & again & again again & again & again & again again & again & again & again, in almost every single comment he posts
——————-
******** “Jews and Big Oil” as far as I can tell, from the little I’ve read that he’s written so far
Posted by: Hu Bris | Mar 30 2012 20:31 utc | 23
well… there went the ‘good behavior’
yes, B – take care, rest and drink (sounds like a plan!)
Posted by: crone | Mar 30 2012 21:51 utc | 24
@Hu Bris
here’s another post you can switch off…
apparently you are unable to defeat the facts and the logic of peak oil as the cause of the wars… which is why your attacks are so lame…
the peak oil situation could be dealt with rationallly if we were not committed to saving israel before we save the US…
do you think the trillions we’re wasting on war expenses and the premium we’re spending for oil is good for the Us? …woulnd the US be better off spending that money in developing alternate sources of energy and overhauling our infrastucture?
do you think israel was such a good idea, right from the start, that the US should be used up in defense of israel?
Posted by: retreatingbladestall | Mar 30 2012 22:01 utc | 25
Maxcrat @ 4
Still no stories in the American press today on the North Sea gas blow-out. (Not in my usual morning reading, anyway.) Is it really not too big a deal, or really something they’d rather not see too much publicity about?
I live at the coast in Norway, north-east of the blow-out, like 1000 miles away, and last night, the wind-direction left me a smelly rotten-egg-stench headache-whafting surprise in the air. So, yeah, I’d say it’s pretty severe. And they still have no plans for it. Sooner or later they’ll have to light it up, or else they’ll never get close enough to deal with it.
Posted by: Alexander | Mar 30 2012 22:04 utc | 26
Alexander @25…
huh!
that’s amazing… got any urls from local newspapers confirming that the smell is coming from the lowout?
Posted by: retreatingbladestall | Mar 30 2012 22:12 utc | 27
@ 26
I’ll check. When the volcano hit Island, and all planes had to be grounded, there was a similar smell, it appeared in some local media. I’ll get back on this one.
Posted by: Alexander | Mar 30 2012 22:19 utc | 28
I can’t find anything in my local paper, not even an article about the blow-out. Maybe I just farted.
Posted by: Alexander | Mar 30 2012 22:44 utc | 29
Subtle humor: http://www.lobelog.com/jim-morins-bomb-iran-cartoon-is-simple-perfection/
Posted by: georgeg | Mar 30 2012 22:46 utc | 30
@alexander…
During the evening on Monday the gas cloud is became so large that workers aboard Shell’s Shearwater platform 6 kilometers away reported they could smell it.
…
High gas concentrations in the area along with the fact that gas is in the air as far as 6 kilometers away is telling as it shows how far from any platform a relief well must be drilled to avoid aerial gas pollution.
Growing Gas Cloud Forces Evacuation of Oil Rig in North Sea common dreams
well… six clicks…
if you live in Kristiansund, you’re about 350 miles from the blowout.
Posted by: retreatingbladestall | Mar 30 2012 22:56 utc | 31
retreatingbladestall @ 30
Yeah, that’s where I live. 350 miles might be right.. Still pretty far away though. And it was really piercing, no mistaking it, hydrogensulfide -stale rotten egg smell. I did get a headache, and a little short of breath, even claustrophobic, not good at all, when the wind blows the right way, there really is nowhere to run.
Posted by: Alexander | Mar 30 2012 23:10 utc | 32
Posted by: jawbone | Mar 30 2012 23:47 utc | 35
Apologies to all for the big red comment — forgot end tag for URL. Ack.
Posted by: jawbone | Mar 30 2012 23:48 utc | 36
NYTimes version of Obama’s decision, which was required by law. However, he could have said world’s economies are too fragile to play these energy games…imho.
Posted by: jawbone | Mar 31 2012 0:21 utc | 37
flat on my bike, tube unpatchable, rode the bus into town for a tube, i’m the only passenger, and the driver and i start talking about the situation.
the driver says, “well, i dont have any great hopes as long as that nigger’s in the white house.”
…as if “that nigger” can put the tillion barrels of oil we’ve burned back into the ground.
so obamaa doesnt want war with iran because that would mean automatic 6 or 7 or 8 dollar/gallon gas, which wouldnt be good for his chances for reelection…
israel wants war wwith iran to close hormuz and force the oil towards israel, and the high gas prices would probably scuttle obama’s chances for reelection, and the israelis would much rather have a diehard zionist republican in the white house than obama.
BUT if israel attacks, then drags america into the fight, that’s another six-foot-thick layer of israeli fingerprints on this whole PNAC operation.
Posted by: retreatingbladestall | Mar 31 2012 0:58 utc | 38
Re: the Sub-prime crisis – some potentially good news.
Judge and barrister debate ‘wall of protection’ for Standard & Poors
http://www.smh.com.au/business/judge-and-barrister-debate-wall-of-protection-for-sp-20120328-1vypo.html#ixzz1qezkn6SQ
The judge in this (Australian) Federal Court case, which concluded this week, is considering her verdict.
One hopes that S&P execs are having nightmares about cell doors clanking shut.
Posted by: Hoarsewhisperer | Mar 31 2012 3:11 utc | 40
There’s no jury in the S&P court case.
Judges are harder to bamboozle than juries and more familiar with the letter, and intent, of the law.
Posted by: Hoarsewhisperer | Mar 31 2012 3:25 utc | 41
@jawbone: There is no evidence whatsoever that Iran had a military nuclear programme:
http://www.iaea.org/newscenter/mediaadvisory/2009/ma200919.html
Posted by: m_s | Mar 31 2012 6:12 utc | 42
Khandahar(mai Lai 2?)
‘They have already paid a piddly 50k to the families of the victims. Fifty thousand dollars of your money for the life of a little 2 year old girl shot in the face in her bedroom seems a bit low to me.’
http://willyloman.wordpress.com/2012/03/30/kandahar-massacre-one-entered-the-room-while-the-others-were-standing-outside-holding-the-lights/
http://willyloman.wordpress.com/2012/03/30/kandahar-massacre-this-is-not-what-it-appears-to-be/
However, Bales’ wife seems to have a slightly different take on the subject. Karilyn Bales was finally released from her forced seclusion (she was taken by the military to Joint Base Lewis-McChord prior to the Pentagon releasing her husband’s name as the accused suspect in this case and kept there away from reporters) and allowed (apparently) to give an interview to Matt Lauer this past Monday night. I don’t think she followed the Obama re-election campaign approved script…
“I don’t think anything will really change my mind in believing that he did not do this. This is not what it appears to be,” she said. USA Today
No. This is not what it appears to be.
…
Posted by: brian | Mar 31 2012 8:19 utc | 43
wahabi terrorism in france and syria
http://alazerius.wordpress.com/2012/03/23/is-wahhabi-terrorism-bad-in-france-good-in-syria
Posted by: brian | Mar 31 2012 8:20 utc | 44
@38
‘the driver says, “well, i dont have any great hopes as long as that nigger’s in the white house.”‘
pure racism is alive and well in the US…Its a pity obama and the democrats will feed anti-black racism
Of course the bus driver never referee to Bush as a ‘whitey’ in the SWhiet house
Posted by: brian | Mar 31 2012 8:22 utc | 45
since when is Zimmerman a “White” or “Hispanic” name?
Posted by: scottindallas | Mar 31 2012 11:43 utc | 46
@25“apparently you are unable to defeat the facts and the logic of peak oil as the cause of the wars… which is why your attacks are so lame…”
Well since I made no mention at all of Peak Oil, I fail to understand why you seem to think that I have even attempted “to defeat the facts and the logic of peak oil”
Ok in 2 easy steps
1) M. King Hubbard’s Theory of Peak Oil makes no mention of years and years of documented Russian research showing that Oil is Abiotic in nature.,
ERGO
2)The Peak Oil Theory, given that it completely ignores ALL Russian Scientific conclusions, is a steaming crock of horse-shit
Q.E.D.
=====
Or if you don’t like thart simple 2-step Proof:
1) M. King Hubbard’s Theory of Peak Oil is based ENTIRELY on a completely imaginary (i.e: made-up, pulled it outta his ass) number: The Amount of Oil which is ‘yet to be found’
ERGO
2) The Peak Oil Theory, given that it is based ENTIRELY on a coompletely imaginary number , is a steaming crock of horse-shit
Q.E.D.
Posted by: Hu Bris | Mar 31 2012 13:00 utc | 47
@Hu Bris: Please, give me an example that abiotic oil can be created fast enough :-). Moreover, this should be part of a huge conspiracy:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/business/2010/apr/11/peak-oil-production-supply
I mean, they are the largest single consumer …
Posted by: m_s | Mar 31 2012 13:22 utc | 48
I’ve a better Idea – why don’t YOU tell me The Amount of Oil which is ‘yet to be found’ ?
Posted by: Hu Bris | Mar 31 2012 13:39 utc | 49
The idea of oil being abiotic is completely imaginary.
Posted by: Alexander | Mar 31 2012 13:41 utc | 50
Yeah – I mean, them Russians? they don’t know anything about oil, eh?
Posted by: Hu Bris | Mar 31 2012 13:53 utc | 51
Take care, b.
If it is the same virus that is making its rounds up here in Sweden it is as stubborn as it is annoying. I have been coughing for weeks and I am not alone. Saw some headlines that short term sick leave and leave for taking care of sick child (both payed for by the government) are at record levels this spring thanks to viruses.
Posted by: a swedish kind of death | Mar 31 2012 14:09 utc | 52
@m_s
As some sort of ‘refutation’ you linked to a Guardian piece from April 2010 in which the US Military seems to claim that production will fall between 2011 and 2015
it’s two main points seemed to be
• Shortfall could reach 10m barrels a day, report says
• Cost of crude oil is predicted to top $100 a barrel
Funnily enough, within approx 12 months of that article the US military was involved in bombing the shot outta Libya, a producer of some of the highest grade crude in the world
I presume that you are as impressed as I myself am, at the US military’s almost miraculous, nay superhuman, prophetic ability when it comes to subjects such as the likely short-term future price of oil
Posted by: Hu Bris | Mar 31 2012 14:33 utc | 53
“bombing the shot ” should of course read “bombing the shit ” 🙂
Posted by: Hu Bris | Mar 31 2012 14:34 utc | 54
essentially your argument seems to be that because the US Military predicted a fall in Oil production capacity, this confirms Hubbards Peak Oil Theory?
This would be the same US military that then went and bombed the shit out of a major Oil producer a year later, right?
Posted by: Hu Bris | Mar 31 2012 14:41 utc | 55
the same US military that has been threathening to bomb, or threatening to ‘green light’ Israel’s bombing of, a 2nd major Oil producer yet ANOTHER year later, right?
Posted by: Hu Bris | Mar 31 2012 14:44 utc | 56
The only example I know of where abiotic oil theorist said there would be oil, and biotic oil theorists said it would not be is Siljansringen where Dala Djupgas searched for oil and gas, finding a total of 80 barrels. Big scandal at the time, lots of people lost money there.
Oh, look the details are on wikipedia.
Posted by: a swedish kind of death | Mar 31 2012 17:47 utc | 57
I’m not interested in Hubbard or the Little Green Men or anything else. I see there are premonitions, then military is deployed, the restructuring of the Middle East is accelerated and conflicts are widened to the South Chinese Sea. There must be someone who is scared shitless …
Posted by: m_s | Mar 31 2012 18:32 utc | 58
Flare extinguished
Now that the flare has extinguished, the risk of methane flowing into the atmosphere for a long time is pretty bad.
The flare on the crippled North Sea oil platform at the centre of a gas leak has extinguished itself, the oil company Total has confirmed.
Total UK’s managing director Phillipe Guys said: “At this time there is no evidence of human error.”
The company believes the leak is coming from a rock formation above the main reservoir, at a depth of 4,000m.
Noting there is no apparent human error in this, drilling in even worse conditions in the arctic is worth a rethink.
Posted by: Alexander | Mar 31 2012 23:20 utc | 59
France (serious)…Adlène Hicheur.
is a physicist who worked at the EPFL (lausanne polytech, reputed school / research center) but was detached to CERN, Geneva.
Wikipedia, goog *Hicheur wiki* (link does not work) gives a few basic, and correct facts. Stratfor has errors and slant.
He exchanged 35 e-mails with someone who is presumed to be Mustapha Debchi, member of a salafist group. Adlène has always said he only know this person thru a pseudonym, and nothing proves different. At the time he was on sick leave at home, after a medical operation. There are no other charges against him at all – just the content of these mails.
For ex. (my trans, summary, of the worst) If the State is to be punished for its military actions in Muslim countries (Afghanistan), so the State should be a pure military target, such as the /military aviation base near Annecy/.
Debchi asks him is he is willing to participate in an ‘operation’ and Adlène answers About your proposition, yes, of course, but I have a few observations (…) if your proposition is related to a precise strategy (such as working within the enemy camp and bleeding it to annul its force), I must revise the plan I formulated. In short, each time he is pressed he temporises and wanders off into other considerations.
He has been in prison for two and half years.
His defense committee – very active – includes 300 scientists and one US Nobel prize winner.
http://soutien.hicheur.pagesperso-orange.fr/index_EN.html
See the flamboyant scare mongering coupled with correct facts e.g. here, Brit TV:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Fj4kmboBrv4
The proc has requested 6 years in prison. Deliberation as to sentencing will take place in May.
Posted by: Noirette | Apr 1 2012 9:50 utc | 60
Glad to see you’re feeling better and back blogging again, b. I, too, was beginning to worry about you, as so many of us here have. What you need is a snotty-nosed kid or two around you most of the time to arm you with the necessary immunity to fight off any bug or flu that comes your way. Either that, or you should get a job working around a bunch of sick folks. It has worked for me, and I can almost guarantee that it’ll work for you, too.
The only downside to having an overly aggressive immune system, such as mine, is that it could have trouble differentiating between a foreign body and your own body, and then start attacking it as though it were also a foreign body — which has been known to happen. This is a special concern of mine, considering that autoimmune diseases tend to run in my family.
Posted by: Cynthia | Apr 1 2012 10:32 utc | 61
France…(light, this time…it is April fool but this story is actually true)
In 2008 there was yet another scandal concerning Sark’s public behavior.
He yelled casse-toi pauvre con – in Brit, piss off dumb cunt – at a farmer at the Agricultural show. Caught on camera. The public was traumatized!
Now it emerges that this incident arose because of a plan gone awry.
The farmer, unemployed, was promised a job if he would travel to Paris, get close to Sarkozy and then refuse to shake his hand – Sark would be mingling with the public and chatting. Sark was supposed to do a Chirac, show he was debonair, sophisticated, and confident.
Once somebody yelled CUNT at Chirac, and he responded with: Delighted! I’m Jacques Chirac. ha ha ha.
Why exactly it went wrong is not quite clear. The farmer went to the wrong spot at the wrong time, so Sark may not have realized who he was. Second, the farmer over-acted, and said something like ‘your hand would soil me’…He was just supposed to hold back his hand. So Sark exploded, caught in his own plot!
This was organized by D. Martinon, a spokesman at the Elysée, who was subsequently fired and shunted out of the country, to the consulate in Los Angeles.
The farmer *was* offered a job. He has e mails, SMS and letters that condition his job to keeping the affair secret. He is now 69 and and has come out of the woodwork because on 6 march 2012 Sark said on the TV that he, the farmer, was ugly. (As an excuse for insulting him!)
Posted by: Noirette | Apr 1 2012 13:33 utc | 62
Sarkozy has ordered that anyone with “contact” with militant Islamic activists, even just web sites, be rounded up. From Reuters.
Video.
Nineteen suspected Islamic militants arrested, article posted on Friday.
Sarkozy now 1-2 points ahead of Hollande for the initial election, but 8-9 points behind if there is a run-off. Hollande is losing voters to Sarko and a leftist party.
Posted by: jawbone | Apr 1 2012 21:39 utc | 63
Twice now I’ve hit “Edit” to make changes after previewing, but am immediately told my comment has posted and, in both cases, I had to fill in the being human challenge.
Anyone else having that problem?
Solution: Proof and edit before Preview or don’t use Preview.
Posted by: jawbone | Apr 1 2012 21:41 utc | 64
In a sane world, we’d be in the streets burning Washington DC to the ground… You really owe it to yourself to see how America really does it’s business…
Take the Money and Run for Office…
Direct link : here.
Posted by: Uncle $cam | Apr 1 2012 23:17 utc | 65
a swedish kind of death @ 52 above wrote: “If it is the same virus that is making its rounds up here in Sweden it is as stubborn as it is annoying. I have been coughing for weeks and I am not alone”
Exactly the same thing is going through South Korea right now and I’ve been barely functioning/ coughing up chunks of lung for nearly a month. I had assumed it was the spring yellow dust storms.
Posted by: Monolycus | Apr 1 2012 23:37 utc | 66
This is my last post for reasons, I can’t go into, suffice it to say, It truly is, “watch what you say”.
So long Moonbats, may you find peace and happiness in those you love, and tend your gardens well, for the dream is over. See you in the camps. And fuck you to those voyeurs reading this and watching, waiting and wishing to control EVERYTHING. If venting is a crime, then so be it.
This Is Not America …
Posted by: Uncle $cam | Apr 2 2012 3:36 utc | 67
Ah, my post following Uncle $cams last post is either an honor, or me looking for trouble… or both 😉
Well it looks like the feces are going to be hitting the fan this spring and summer. b’s latest post on US special forces helping Syria is just a ripple in what has become a very wavy pond. Over at the market ticker Karl has been in overdrive showing the everyone just how fucked the world of finance is. Not to mention that he has been pointing out how the MSM is using the Trayvon shooting (what honestly appears to be justified self-defense) to ratchet up a nice race war in the states – just in time for the hot months. Hot Damn! Meanwhile nothing about the kid who was dowsed in petrol and lit on fire by a couple of other youths… I guess the victim being white and the two aggressors being black (who used racial slurs against the poor color-challenged and soon to be very warm kid) isn’t worthy of the same kind coverage. lookie here!
Personally, I’m sick and tired of the race baiting bullshit that has always been used to keep the USA divided and the elites in charge. Anyone remember the ’60’s and what happened to the black power movement of that time? This shit has been happening since the earliest plantations in the states had to deal with ‘slave’ revolts that included black slaves and white indentured servants rising-up against the landed gentry. The plantation owners soon figured out how they could use the race card to their advantage and in an instant created both middle management and 300 or so years of race issues in the USA. HooHa.
And the financial crisis is still booming along, full of mirth and joy as it begins to rip apart the fabric of our illusions. HaHaHa is what I’d like to feel, but I’m a tad bit worried – where is all this crazy crap is going to lead?
Peace
I’m curious Dave, what you are basing your assessment that Zimmerman was acting in self defense on.
Posted by: lizard | Apr 2 2012 14:19 utc | 69
Sorry that this link to a pdf file is a day late, but it seems to me to remain noteworthy for its deeper implications, somewhat akin to those that might be adduced from a critical analysis of the conceptual apparatus underlying this marginally similar link cited by P. Krugman.
Posted by: Hannah K. O’Luthon | Apr 2 2012 15:47 utc | 70
This homage to Karl Marx seems to me well worth a look.
Posted by: Hannah K. O’Luthon | Apr 2 2012 16:04 utc | 71
“black slaves and white indentured servants”
I LIKE that
Post-modern tip-toeing-through-the-tulips
What you REALLY meant to say was
““black slaves and white SLAVES
but your post-modern progressive pre-programming prevented you from doing so 🙂
Posted by: Hu Bris | Apr 2 2012 18:58 utc | 72
okay, I think it’s time to drop my obscenity poem. b, if you find this poem distasteful, please delete it. I’ll understand.
nigger, faggot, asshole
sluts with cunts that feed
on cock and ball propulsion
spitting spurts of seed
obscenity is everywhere
I mean holy fucking shit
some psycho mother fuckers
simply refuse to quit
they revel in their power
and some, they get new hearts
these psycho mother fuckers
really tear shit apart
meanwhile, the angry rabble
go blindly for the throat
hatred loves division
and by those lines, we’re toast
but niggers aren’t just black folk
and cunts aren’t only chicks
and cock is just a hard rock word
for penis, schlong, or dick
the real mother fuckers
the ones who feed on war
spill their death in poison waves
that wash upon the shore
our atmosphere is awful
and the state of hate is strong
please don’t read this poem aloud
and kids, don’t sing along
Posted by: lizard | Apr 2 2012 21:15 utc | 73
@ nikon – all that glitters . . . . . .
Oil ain’t the only gold
http://www.dollarvigilante.com/blog/2012/3/28/mexican-drug-war-reality-tv.html
“The global drug trade is a key underlying factor in understanding world events. It has become the blood vessel of the global economy, without which the system would collapse.
It is what provides liquidity to the banks.
It makes all those involved, from Afghanistan and Kosovo to Columbia and Wall Street, wealthy beyond imagination.
It feeds the Prison-Industrial Complex with its drug offenders.
It feeds the Military-Industrial Complex with the resulting violence and arms sales.
It feeds the Pharmaceutical-Industrial Complex with the outlaw of natural medicine. More importantly, it provides off-the-record cash for funding acts of terror, assassinations and other black operations by governments.
Could you imagine the Government Accountability Office’s (GAO) reaction assessing the receipts detailing how official government funds were used for the MLK assassination? Other examples might include when Nicaraguan Contras were trained in Veracruz, Mexico by CIA/DFS narco assets. Or the case of E Howard Hunt, who was deeply involved in the drug trade as well as the JFK assassination.
Posted by: Hu Bris | Apr 2 2012 21:25 utc | 74
Hubris – I ment what I wrote, none of that preprogramed shit for me. There is a hell of a lot of difference between selling yourself into a bad position and being kidnapped from the land, don’t you think?
Lizard, I didn’t link to the stuff I’ve been reading regarding the sanford shooting because I just assumed that the informed folks here would have already looked. But there is a wealth of stuff over at the Market ticker at the moment including this latest letter from someone in the Zimmerman family which, if true is going to turn this case on it’s head. Why I think it was in self defense… well for one the gun didn’t cycle, which means the last empty was still in the weapon and would have needed to be ejected manually before the thing could fire again. There seems to be several reasons for this, I’m guessing it’s due to the closeness of the two combatants, but there are other reasons too. But that lil’ gem makes me believe there was some close quarter fighting happening, Zimmerman was pulling his weapon to defend himself… probably wanted to show the fucker beating him that he was armed, and the weapon fired sort of by accident.
Also, if you look at the timeline of what happened when (cell phone call logs) it appears Trayvon got to where he was going and then decided to double-back to find Zimmerman who at the time was also headed back to his vehicle. I don’t have much time to write or I’d go look the website up that has a great google image of the ‘gated community’ showing who was where when.
Sigh…
Peace
Oh I forgot, great poem full of truth!
@DaveS
that’s interesting. right now I’m of the thinking that, once the 9-1-1 call was made and dispatch told Zimmerman not to follow, whatever transpired after the fact shouldn’t have happened.
I’m always uncomfortable when the media gets hold of something, though. and I sorta gag whenever I see that Al Sharpton promo on MSNBC about the blueberry pie.
I’m trying to build up the guts to post this poem on at the local blog I write for, but I’m not sure. I’ve got about an hour to decide, otherwise the wine might decide for me…
Posted by: lizard | Apr 3 2012 4:44 utc | 76
Sorry to read that you’re leaving, Uncle. Hope things are OK. Will you still be reading here? Knock once for yes, twice for no… 🙂
Cheers!
Posted by: Dr. Wellington Yueh | Apr 3 2012 4:55 utc | 77
After reading Uncle $cam’s a dieu I just wanted to add my regrets to those already expressed. I hope that this “goodbye forever” will turn out to be like death
in a TV soap-opera, that is, final only until the “plot” takes a sufficiently improbable turn and the scriptwriters need a resurrection.
I trust also that b is once again in good health.
Meanwhile, the following three links (all from the same somewhat suspect source, Central Asia Newswire) would seem to indicate that geopolitical seismic shifts in Central Asia are shaking out the last residues of the Neocon Grand Design for the region.
Posted by: Hannah K. O’Luthon | Apr 3 2012 5:34 utc | 78
hey Lizard,
i like this poem. Am i allowed to steal it and send to friends )attributed to lizard of cours….!
cheers
sabine
Posted by: sabine | Apr 3 2012 5:35 utc | 79
Lizard–
One of the big points in the story that people have been led to believe is that Zimmerman was told to “quit pursuit” and that isn’t what the dispatcher told him… rather dispatched asked him, “Are you following him?” and him saying, “Yes.” 911 then responded to Zimmerman: “You don’t have to do that.” Which is a lil’ different than telling him to quit following the potential perp.
Since some might be interested, and I happen to be in the midst of this at the moment, here is some photographic evidence I would submit to the jury:
Who pursued who?
What amazes me is there is something like 180 or so black guys killed a week in the U.S. because of foul play, yet this is the killing that sticks in the media’s craw? Something stinks is what I say.
Peace
USA ha put a reward for $10M on capturing Hafiz Saeed, blamed for the 2008 attacks on Mumbai.
There are no evidence against him, but he has argued that Pakistan should not reopen supply-routes for NATO to Afghanistan. Then the risk is USA might assascinate him with a drone-strike, as he has spoken out against USA using drones on people politically against the USA.
Posted by: Alexander | Apr 3 2012 13:46 utc | 81
Uncle, i am sorry to see you go. but i know what you mean.
b has my e mail if you ever want to get in touch.
Posted by: Noirette | Apr 3 2012 15:34 utc | 82
@sabine
sure, I write under the name William Skink, and a bit more shameless self-promotion: my twitter handle is @madpoet19.
Posted by: lizard | Apr 3 2012 16:11 utc | 83
“I ment what I wrote, none of that preprogramed shit for me. There is a hell of a lot of difference between selling yourself into a bad position and being kidnapped from the land, don’t you think?”
” selling yourself into a bad position”
THAT is how you think all those poor ‘white trash’ got to the US?
Boy, they really got you hook line and sinker did they not?
Obviously you’ve swallowed the lie that Blacks were kidnapped and treated terribly whereas Whites chose it off their own bat, you poor deluded fool.
Many poor whites that ended up in the Americas WERE Kidnapped, and were then sold into what people like you like to euphemistically call ‘Indentured Servitude’ – (you’re so un-racist, you have one term for something done to blacks and a differnt term for the exact same thing done to Whites /sarc)
Obviously you’ve NEVER heard of the Irish – a race of people that have been 2 times now in the last 400 years, nearly genocided off the face of the earth
Many of those that somehow managed to escape being just plain oputright murdered, WERE kisnapped and brought to the Americas and given for free as slaves to plantation owners – The plantation owners did not even have to pay for them – whereas they DID have to pay for Black slaves
SO . . .white slaves were usually treated FAR WORSE than the black slaves, simply because the Black slave had more value because he could be sold for moneywhere it is well known that they were treat
But it’s plain to see that all that pathetic post-modern progressive pre-programming is preventing you from admitting when you are wrong
Then I should not be surprised – ‘progressives’ (the American type anyway) are some of the most racist and least informed people I have ever had the dubious pleasure to interact with – Essentially they are a mirror image of the idiocitc White Trash racists they like to denegrate –
Where the White Trash might dislke Blacks – the Progrssive definitely HATES Poor White People
Posted by: Hu Bris | Apr 3 2012 17:37 utc | 84
so much so that the average ‘progressive’ will completely refuse to accept that, when it comes to Slavery, Poor Whites had it every bit as bad, and in many cases far worse, than Blacks
Essentially ‘Progressives’ have Fetishised the slavery-past of Blacks while completely ignoring, and also denegrating, the very well documented Slavery-past of Whites
Posted by: Hu Bris | Apr 3 2012 17:44 utc | 85
P.S:
“‘progressives’ (the American type anyway) are some of the most racist and least informed people I have ever had the dubious pleasure to interact with ”
they are almost the same as Fox News viewers in their desire to remain ignorant of actual historical events –
‘progressives’ probably get all their history from Hollywood Blockbusters, and think it to be the truth
Posted by: Hu Bris | Apr 3 2012 17:48 utc | 86
It is recorded that well over one-half of white immigrants to the West Indies during the 17th century were irish slaves, being shipped in by the British to build the colonies.
The earliest known case of irish slavery dates back to 1612, where there were settlements of irish slaves put to work in British settlements along the Amazon.
In 1625 James II, the English monarch, issued a proclamation that all irish political prisoners were to be sold as slaves to English planters who were colonising the new world. When it became apparent that there were not enough political prisoners to meet the demand for slaves, the British began going after the local population.
The slaves were primarily sent to South America and the Caribbean Islands to build the English colonies.
Irish slaves were preferred to African slaves as they did not cost as much and were more easily obtained.
By 1636, Ireland was considered a prime source of supply for ‘servants’ throughout the British colonies.
By 1637, on the Island of Montserrat in the Caribbean, the irish heavily outnumbered the English colonists, and 69 percent of Montserrat’s white inhabitants were irish. virtually ALL of them were SLaves
In 1641, Ireland’s population was 1,466,000, but by 1652, in just over a decade, due to both murder and slavery, it had more than halved to just 616,000.
From 1651 to 1660, between 80,000 to 130,000 irish were transported by English slavers.
It is worth noting, that these are only the figures that were recorded, while it is known that the English did not see it as necessary to record the transport of all irish slaves. When viewed with the fact that very often irish slaves were classified as being English, it becomes clear that the actual figure is much higher.
In 1656, English military leader Oliver Cromwell’s Council of State voted that 1,000 irish girls and 1,000 irish young men be sent to Jamaica. Cromwell’s measures against irish Catholics are widely considered to have been bordering on genocidal.
In June of 1657, the monarchy passed a law that attempted to cleanse the land of the irish people stating:
“Those who fail to transplant themselves into Connaught or Clare within six Months… Shall be attained of high treason… Are to be sent into America or some other parts beyond the seas…” Those who return are to “suffer the pains of death as felons by virtue of this act, without benefit of Clergy”
Or as it has been more poetically put… ‘To hell or to Connaught’. The province of Connaught was not desired by the English due to the poor quality of the land. Many lives were destroyed in this great upheaval.
The affects of these racist laws, the degradation and suffering caused by the slave trade, and the sudden but massive decline in irish population would forever shape the Islands future, both socially and psychologically.
Posted by: Hu Bris | Apr 3 2012 17:55 utc | 87
so, Dave, next time you start spouting on about slavery being a Black thing, don’t be surprised if someone pops up and advises you the STFU since you obviously do not know what you are talking about
Posted by: Hu Bris | Apr 3 2012 17:56 utc | 88
and before you say – “ah yes but that was in the 1600’s, blacks suffered slavery well into the 19th Century”
White Irish were enslaved and transported to colonies as free labour for plantation owners, well into the 19th century
Progressivges like you Dave like to call it ‘Indentured Slavery’ because then you can fetishise Black people, to show how ‘un-racist’ you are, while denegrating Whites –
Reverse Racism: The mark of a true American ‘Progressive’
Posted by: Hu Bris | Apr 3 2012 18:03 utc | 89
The indentured servants who served a tidy little period of 4 to 7 years polishing the master’s silver and china and then taking their place in colonial high society, were a minuscule fraction of the great unsung hundreds of thousands of White slaves who were worked to death in the US from the early l7th century onward.
Up to one-half of all the arrivals in the American colonies were Whites slaves and they were America’s first slaves. These Whites were slaves for life, long before Blacks ever were. This slavery was even hereditary. White children born to White slaves were enslaved too.
Whites were auctioned on the block with children sold and separated from their parents and wives sold and separated from their husbands. Free Black property owners strutted the streets of northern and southern American cities while White slaves were worked to death in the sugar mills of Barbados and Jamaica and the plantations of Virginia.
There are many recorded instance of Free Black-men who owned White Slaves
Posted by: Hu Bris | Apr 3 2012 18:11 utc | 90
The Establishment has created the misnomer of “indentured servitude” to explain away and minimize the fact of White slavery.
So that people like you Dave could go around pretending that Whites were never enslaved – that in fact White people were sooooo stupid that they actually CHOSE to be slaves.
Posted by: Hu Bris | Apr 3 2012 18:15 utc | 91
In the US census of 1850, the term mulatto appears for the first time due primarily to inter-marriage between Irish and African Americans.
The Irish were often referred to as “Negroes turned inside out and Negroes as smoked Irish.”
A famous quip of the time attributed to a black man went something like this:
“My master is a great tyrant, he treats me like a common Irishman.”
Posted by: Hu Bris | Apr 3 2012 18:18 utc | 92
Hu Bris–
Thanks for the detailed history lesson… you live up to your name.
I’d love to send you a big fuck you, but then that’s probably what you’re hoping for.
Really, did you even read any of the other shit I just wrote about or are we going to spend the whole lesson visiting ancient history?
Peace
No Dave – I just figured that your ignorance had been allowed to free reign for too long and it was time to give it a kick in the ass, and point out what an ignorant racist asshat you are
Posted by: Hu Bris | Apr 3 2012 18:34 utc | 94
If you don’t like it I suggest you either educate yourself a little before you open your big fat mouth on subjects you know little about, or just stfu when it comes to the subject of slavery
it’s up to you really which ever you choose in the end
Posted by: Hu Bris | Apr 3 2012 18:37 utc | 95
personally I just think that anybody that says out loud:
“White people were sooooo stupid that they actually CHOSE to be slaves.”
is a damn moron and really should think twice before ever opening their mouth in public again
Posted by: Hu Bris | Apr 3 2012 18:39 utc | 96
‘s true alright, no doubt about it . . . .Sorry bout that
But people saying stuff like
“White people were sooooo stupid that they actually CHOSE to be slaves.”
does have that effect on me
Posted by: Hu Bris | Apr 3 2012 21:57 utc | 98