lotsofnoise: another guy that thinks we can’t follow a link

Posted by: claudio | May 7 2012 23:10 utc | 3

very interesting article on developments in Afpak, by Bhadrakumar at ATOL:
Obama has an Afghan game plan
concerning the New Silk Road, at the center of the Us strategy, an older article by Bhadrakumar: Pipeline project a new Silk Road
yes, it really seems there’s a strategy there, beyond drones, body counts, etc
at the decisive moment, the Chinese (and the Russians, I’d add) chickened out; Pakistan will be induced, by carrot and by stick, to accept; will the Taliban continue to oppose Us bases and a SOFA, without a reliable ally in the region?

Posted by: claudio | May 7 2012 23:21 utc | 5

@ Claudio
Maybe the US will have its pipeline silk road built in time for the Taliban takeover. I don’t think China and Russia chickened out. It’s the bleeding strategy. China and Russia know the longer America stays in Afghanistan, throwing good money after bad and weakening its military the better it will be for them. Why insist on a 12 year disaster when they can accept a 14 year or more disaster. Russia has agreed to be more active in the Northern supply route in exchange for a further 250 million/per year. Why refuse?
As for China it is already locking down most of the mineral mines in Afghanistan for itself. Why not let the US stay longer guarding those mines at no cost to the Chinese. As for Pakistan they might be persuaded to play ball with the US again. But not without another nice bribe to sweeten the deal like a 10% tax on all US supplies that transit their country (as has been suggested in the Pakistani parliment).
Everyone knows the US has lost the war… except for the US itself. Now all that is left is for the regional countries to milk the US empire for all the cash it can get. China and Russia would never have just agreed to let the US Military stay after 2014, so close to their nations.

Posted by: Colm O’ Toole | May 7 2012 23:51 utc | 7

“i don’t think it’s quite the same thing as these schools that call the cops to taser tantrum-throwing tykes.”
Proton it’s far far worse – the arresting of children could be said to be simply the immediate result of bad descisions being made by bad decision makers , people that will always take the route ‘safest’ for THEM (covering their asses) – but what goes on in that school is tortue – plain and simple – officially sanctioned torture, built-in to the school ethos.
Underground History of American Education
“Our official assumptions about the nature of modern childhood are dead wrong. Children allowed to take responsibility and given a serious part in the larger world are always superior to those merely permitted to play and be passive.”

Posted by: Marmite | May 8 2012 0:18 utc | 9

Marmite @#1 asked: “What sort of a sick society could possibly sanction this?”
The US isn’t the only culture that seems to be wallowing in the Dark Ages. Institutionalized barbarism is the norm and not the exception these days.
However, to answer your direct question, at least according to Fareed Zakaria, we’re talking about a culture of “…scared, fearful losers.”

Posted by: Monolycus | May 8 2012 0:48 utc | 11

@Marmite #12:
It might be comforting to imagine that we live in a world of vultures who merely exploit the corpses that nature so bountifully provides, but between the historical examples of burking“>http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/burke”>burking when there is profit to be had and the very well-acknowledged endemic rates of deliberate infanticide in Northern Asia, I think such a view borders on the willfully naive.
Still, we are discussing apples and oranges here, and if you assess one particular culture to be the less enlightened, then that is a subjective judgement call that does not bear debate. Your opinion has been noted.

Posted by: Monolycus | May 8 2012 2:35 utc | 13

Monolycus @ 11: Thanks for the Salon article,(second link) Greenwald has it nailed…..again.

Posted by: ben | May 8 2012 4:19 utc | 15

muuuuuuch better 😉

Posted by: Marmite | May 8 2012 5:55 utc | 17

As the parent of an autistic human I have to say the notion of subjecting anybody to electric shocks is barbaric and inhumane, but when it goes beyond that to juvenile humans who have a permanent chronic disability which causes them to struggle to understand how humans are meant to behave and who are frequently unable communicate anything accurate about their circumstance, including pain and/or distress, the behaviour transcends barbarism & becomes more self indulgent, a form of sadism as practiced by perverts.
The staff at that school need to be in the cell adjacent to the scum who torture Muslims because they’re all terrorists; just down from the political leaders who launch drone attacks on population centers in order to get re-elected. How? Because it’s cheaper to scare the bejesus outta citizens by beating up terror attacks with propaganda, then bombing a mob of innocent foreigners, than it is to ‘bribe’ voters by creating programs to assist the impoverished, homeless or ill.
In fact that is prolly how the ‘school’ got to torturing people with disabilities. We are already at blaming poor people for being poor, and unemployed people for not having a job despite the reality that most of the jobs have long gone offshore to societies where a living wage is deemed to be about 5 cents/month; so what is more natural than punishing humans with disabilities who have the brazen gall to keep breathing?

Posted by: Debs is dead | May 8 2012 7:04 utc | 19

The Judge Rotenberg Centre comes down to the absolute power parents have over their children’s destiny
http://www.science20.com/countering_tackling_woo/judge_rotenberg_trial_ends_settlement_nothing_changes_jrc_though-89394
“If you think shutting this place down will be easy–remember that it’s been operating for over 39 years, and that as of 2007, it brought in $56 million dollars and employed 900 people. That would be a big hit in terms of employment and the benefits to the local economy derives from the JRC.
The Mother Jones article noted, and how does read this and not be horrified: “The Rotenberg Center is the only facility in the country that disciplines students by shocking them, a form of punishment not inflicted on serial killers or child molesters or any of the 2.2 million inmates now incarcerated in U.S. jails and prisons.” Why is the Massachusetts legislature protecting the JRC? Why hasn’t the DOJ stepped in and shut them down? One answer is the parents. Yes, the parents: “Massachusetts officials have twice tried to shut the Rotenberg Center down—once in the 1980s and again in the 1990s. Both times parents rallied to its defense, and both times it prevailed in court. (See “Why Can’t Massachusetts Shut Matthew Israel Down?” page 44.)”
What matters most to these parents isn’t that their children are being protected, but that they are controllable–parents are sent home with the shocking device so that they can administer the shocks when their children come home for a visit.”

Posted by: somebody | May 8 2012 7:17 utc | 21

A shocker (well, perhaps not, since they were heading in this direction long ago…)

Posted by: Maracatu | May 8 2012 11:34 utc | 23

From Krugman on the elections across the pond:
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/05/07/opinion/krugman-those-revolting-europeans.html?_r=1

Posted by: ben | May 8 2012 14:01 utc | 25

A good start for Hollande?
hehill.com/blogs/global-affairs/terrorism/225845-new-french-president-to-announce-afghanistan-withdrawal-despite-concerns-from-obama

Posted by: ben | May 8 2012 14:28 utc | 27

@ben #28
http://thehill.com/blogs/global-affairs/terrorism/225845-new-french-president-to-announce-afghanistan-withdrawal-despite-concerns-from-obama-nato

Posted by: ana souri | May 8 2012 14:36 utc | 29

“The neo-Nazis should not be ignored. Their emergence, almost out of nowhere, as a mass fascist organisation with actual Third Reich-style paraphernalia, shows how perilous the terrain is, and how much danger awaits Greece’s most vulnerable communities. Recently, the state has been stoking up racism toward immigrants and planning a crackdown on the grounds that they ‘spread diseases’.
Richard Seymour at Lenin’s Tomb is a bad guide on this matter. The SWP, in Britain has been obsessing about neo-nazis throughout its long plunge into irrelevance. While doing so it has become part of the liberal left establishment, very soft on NATO and imperialist interventions supporting what it calls revolutionaries in the pay of the Turks and Sauds.
The truth is that, in the circumstances, the neo-nazis did not do at all well in Greece. As to France: Le Pen was the candidate of a current two centuries old in French politics, the same current that threw up the anti-Dreyfusards, Action Francaise and a very solid base for Petainism. One would have expected her to do better, given that the policies she put forward were a deal more popular than the neo-liberal bromides Hollande was peddling: she was against the EU Treaty, against austerity, for social services and for national sovereignty (as opposed to licking Uncle Sam’s boots-see Hollande above).
The story is not of neo-nazis on the rise but of a swelling tide of resentment as living standards plunge, bleak prospects replace hope for the future and all the “left” has to offer is gay marriage rites, re-runs of the Battle of Cable Street and sitings (and citings) of Hitler every time an angry voice calling for the energetic exercise of the sovereign power in Parliament is heard.
It is no accident that George Galloway’s triumph in Bradford was preceded by the SWP departure from RESPECT, that Lenin’s Tomb is now a regular feature of The Guardian or that Seymour was among those urging Gilad Atzmon’s publisher to pulp The Wandering Who.
The truth is that the only parties that the people need to fear are the centrists in power or acting as false “alternatives.” The electorate is waking up and is much more worthy of our trust than any of the politicians who have been part of the same world as Rupert Murdoch and his media have been in: just about anything is better than the current slide into authoritarian tyranny behind the pied pipers of Obama and Sarkozy, Hollande and Cameron, Goldman Sachs and the Pentagon.

Posted by: bevin | May 8 2012 16:09 utc | 31

as @ 29: Thanks!

Posted by: ben | May 8 2012 18:46 utc | 33

I knew I should have put a smiley on the end of comment #4
Egads, Some people are very quick to go into full-attack mode. Perhaps the individual in question might consider getting out more? for example a good stroll in the fresh air might take the completely unecessary and rather childish abrupt-edge off of one’s discourse

Posted by: Marmite | May 8 2012 19:11 utc | 35

Oh well – if I had to guess I’d say somewhere between 12 and 14 yrs old

Posted by: Marmite | May 8 2012 20:05 utc | 37

turning a blind eye to the results in France and Greece will come to no good..regardless of the percentages there is in some ways something chillingly familiar historically about the circumstances of these minor gains
http://news.uk.msn.com/uk/greece-elects-neo-nazis-amid-new-fears-for-euro-and-europe/
http://www.theweek.co.uk/europe/euro-debt-crisis/46728/greece-elects-neo-nazis-amid-new-fears-euro-and-europe
and as Nicolas Lebourg, an authority on the far right at the University of Perpignan, was yesterday quoted as saying: “Europe is a dry prairie waiting for someone to light amatch.”
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/politics/news/article.cfm?c_id=280&objectid=10804213

Posted by: lotsofnoise | May 8 2012 20:48 utc | 39

If you look at most of the opinions blogged by readers in columns on the results in europe last weekend, you will see the familiar meme of circle jerk politics in most of em.
By circle jerk politics I mean those ninnies, assisted by paid sock-puppets, who claim that the ‘hard’ left and the extreme right join up somewhere round the back beyond the edge of reason.
Virtually every post will refer to the german nazi party as the National Socialist Party with the emphasis on socialist as if just by putting the word in there the Nazis have proven they love Karl Marx.
This is a complete furphy as there is a very simple test which sorts the left from the right every time.
That is the left right across the spectrum are lovers and the right across their spectrum are haters. Lefties basically enjoy humanity in all its forms shapes, colours and sizes, while the right hates anything pretty much that doesn’t fit the mould they stepped out of.
So on the left we hate zionism but don’t give a flying fuck if the person who we are marching to the barricades with is a jew, ‘self-hating’ or otherwise. On the right they would not only bash any jews among em before they left home to go to the barricades, they would bash anyone who looked like a jew or unwhite, or ‘retarded’ or in any way different from themselves.
Ordinary peeps sense this – that leftist belief is an expression of love for humanity whilst right-wing claptrap is comes from ugliness & fear turned into hatred.
This means that for the extreme right to appeal to sufficient humans to gain power generally one of two things happens and in the case of the nazis both instances were apparent.
the first is that the left pays too much attention to the right, and wastes valuable energy and resources arguing with them instead of working directly with the people. The reasons this occurred in germany are complex partially related to the newness of the rise of fascism, people were unsure how to behave, and partially related to Russian imperialist control of a big section of the german left and stalin’s incipient paranoia.
But even before the right gets large enough to upset leftists who want to take their eyes off the ball another condition also must prevail. That is for the right to attract the support of the ruling elite and receive the sorts of resources from the rich and powerful that leftist movements must sweat blood to get their hands on.
As far as the situation in europe at the moment goes, powerful people still eschew the right because they found out in Italy Spain & Germany that a successful defeat of the left by the right often doesn’t advance their interests. Sure some will do OK but the creation of a fascist state is indeed a ‘new world order’ that does down many within the ruling elite.
Of course that will change eventually and the extreme right in europe will become accepted members of the mainstream just as they have done in amerika. It is worth noting though that even in amerika where one half of the amerikan imperial party apparatus has been taken over entirely by the hard right – the haters; professional politicians and their elite backers routinely reject most of the haters’ extreme positions in order to get the support of the people.
In fact amerika is an ideal subject for examining why it is vital that humanist political movements reject attempts to make them engage with the haters.
The reason that the left has become mired in irrelevance in amerika is precisely because the cynical professional pols and the elites who fund them can create these contrived ‘schisms’ of gay marriage, prayers in the classroom and all the rest of the irrelevant or minor issues that prevent the left from concentrating on the basic issues. basic issues like insufficiently available human needs of food, shelter, and healthcare.
That shit rarely gets talked about in any meaningful way likely to result in a worthy outcome at a national level. The pols are too busy re-litigating abortion every four years or stating their position on gay marriage or some such.
Before I get jumped on let me say I understand the concern about abortion rights but I also believe the sole reason it has become a perennial target is because humanists have taken the bait at the first sign of repeal. In doing so they have unintentionally created the ‘battle-space’ haters so enjoy blathering about.
Xtian looniness thrives when the xtians can claim they are under attack so why give the loonies any help?
European humanists would be better served if they refrained from fighting the small percentage of genuine haters in their society and instead expended that energy in working with the targets of fascist hate. Like xtianity, islam has elements of humanism contained within it and leftists would do more to advance their cause if their contact with Islamic communities encouraged followers of islam to look to those elements of their superstition than if they argue with the national front fascists or try to force Muslims to reject their customs.
George Galloway’s success in Bradford underlines the failure of most english humanist movements in this regard.

Posted by: Debs is dead | May 8 2012 22:56 utc | 41

“We should not forget that we live in a world ruled by capitalist culture and our young people know about capitalism by the things we tell them, and we did not know it either. Our enemy knows it well. This is a war of axiology, a war that takes place in the minds of men. If they succeed in changing our thinking, if they succeed in conveying the values ​​of capitalist culture in the new generations of Cuban, then they will have won the battle. This Cuban struggle against demons is the greatest challenge of youth nowadays.”
Little fresh air

Posted by: ruralito | May 8 2012 23:03 utc | 43

@DiD #41: I agree; I’d stress that the left didn’t get “distracted”, it was all too happy to divert attention from issues of peace and social inequality and insulate itself from the nefarious influence of radicals and liberals while it was fighting for the “center” in our ever emptier democracies
pro-choice stances would flow naturally from a more general humanistic and tolerant approach to reality, instead of as a stand-alone issue regarding “individuals” and their “freedoms” and “duties” and “values” and other abstractions

Posted by: claudio | May 8 2012 23:26 utc | 45

@ruralito #43:
Thanks! That reminds me…

…
Willow sky, whoa, I walk and wonder why,
They say love your brother, but you will catch it when you try.
…

(From “Unbroken Chain” – Grateful Dead)

Posted by: Dr. Wellington Yueh | May 9 2012 0:55 utc | 47

@juannie like yours my experience of the underlying attitudes motivating political belief is strictly personal – anecdotal evidence only. Insofar as you state you spent time adhering to the beliefs of Ayn Rand, I don’t think that really equates with the fascists I was trying to identify in my post.
Ayn Rand struck me as being an enabler of the elites, rather than a motivator of the masses and therefore she might advocate that neo-fascist followers be used to try and negate the effects of an organised leftist political movement; but that would not mean she agreed with their claptrap, just that she believed it should be exploited.
I would posit that deep down all conservatives are haters to some degree; the fact that you are not Juannie, reflects your return to a humanist perspective.
Just as some humanists are found wanting when they are called on to take a risk for the common good, all conservatives eventually arrive at a point ‘where the rubber meets the road’ /cliché at which they have to decide to either be a willing participant in some egregious act against others, or to forgo their belief system.
Of course back in the days before academia shunned those who considered the world from a so-called ‘marxist perspective any number of studies will have been done on the behaviours and personal belief systems of people who hold various political views but I’m not in the habit of reading such studies. One of my personal prejudices is that the odds are high that such studies would be written in impenetrably turgid prose.
Other braver souls may choose to steel themselves against contaminants and read such studies altho I reckon that it would be difficult to research this and not have yer personal political beliefs reflect in the result.
As for the weird “you can’t “produce” your way out of this with a proletariat of “workers” since at no time did I commend such an anodyne and clichéd solution to 21st century issues, I ‘m at a loss to understand why anyone would make such a vacuous remark.

Posted by: Debs is dead | May 9 2012 3:00 utc | 49

@ DID & Claudio:
The last 3 election-cycles in the US have been full of diversions from real issues.
In both elections where Bush suppossedly ‘won’, one of the MAJOR wedge issues was ‘gay marraige’.
‘gay marraige’ also featured promenently during Obombers election campaign, and it’s rearing it’s moronic head in the current election-cycle too.
As a non-USer I found this hilarious.
Your country’s economy is going down the toilet due to the enormous financial burden of several foreign wars (all beneficial to a certtain ‘shitty little country’) and what are the fools arguing about?
Gay F’n Marraige!
seriously, the stupidity of the average US voter is beyond parody – and IMHO the ‘progressives’ are as bad as, if not worse than, the reactionary right-wingers

Posted by: Marmite | May 9 2012 10:31 utc | 51

A TED talk/video from Jonathan Haidt on the moral roots of liberals and conservatives. (Unfortunately he kinda ruins it all by quoting the excerable Samantha Power.)
“Psychologist Jonathan Haidt studies the five moral values that form the basis of our political choices, whether we’re left, right or center. In this eye-opening talk, he pinpoints the moral values that liberals and conservatives tend to honor most.”
These are ideas that Haidt develops at greater length in his new book, “The Righteous Mind: Why Good People are Divided by Politics and Religion.”
Judging from the TED Talk, above, Haidt seems to essentially conclude that Right Wingers are in fact as moral and possibly even more moral than Liberals/Left-wingers
Anyone interested in this topic would be far better off reading the book above rather than the obviously politically-motivated book by Chris Mooney, mentioned by juannie earlier.
Mooney writes for a publication which is clearly a paid PR-shill website: DeSmog blog, which is a Pro-AGW blog run by a private professional Marketing Agency.
IMHO ‘Science’ and paid PR-shilling are a bad mix.
This is the kind of thing Pro-AGW folks like to highlight when the right does it, but for some strange reason they ignore it when their own side does it – so much for myth of Left-wing/Liberal ‘morality’, eh?
Mooney is trying to be a left-wing Ann Coulter. The Coulter/Mooney formulation is simple, direct, and lucrative. You can sell a lot of books by providing a suppossedly-reasoned, but deliciously and ridiculously, hyperbolic rant about why the other half are idiots and/or crooks.

Posted by: Marmite | May 9 2012 14:00 utc | 53

“Other braver souls may choose to steel themselves against contaminants and read such studies altho I reckon that it would be difficult to research this and not have yer personal political beliefs reflect in the result.”
That’s one of the weirdest statements I’ve yet read on this blog.
Essentially you appear to be saying that reading studies such as the ones you mentioned might actually cause one to change one’s mind – that one’s ideological ‘purity’ might be ‘tainted’ by reading such studies.
Sounds, to me at least, more like a rallying call in favour of willful ignorance than anything else.

Posted by: Marmite | May 9 2012 14:06 utc | 55

@ b
A direct result of the Liberal/progressive love-affair with ‘Humanitarian Intervention’.
A finer example of the perfidy of the so-called ‘Moral High-ground’ lately so beloved of the ‘official/mainstream’ Left.
Another arrow in the corpse of the ridiculous notion of a (self-constructed) ‘Moral High-ground’ being the natural home of the Left

Posted by: Marmite | May 9 2012 17:03 utc | 57

it’s almost as if you lot have never even heard of the Freudian notion of ‘projection’.
highly amuzing to watch
I have no problem with that statement.
No – and I doubt anyone here ever thought you would have a problem with it. That you’re comfortable enough publicly admitting your determination to keep a firmly closed mind is a little surprising though.
No doubt many people feel as you do, but few a foolish enough to actually admit it in public.
It’s fairly obvious by now that you live in terror of reading anything with which you might disagree, or that might challange your certainties.

Posted by: Marmite | May 9 2012 23:27 utc | 59

Irony or not my statement obviously wasn’t articulated clearly enough, I was trying to say that the findings in such ‘research’ would merely inform us of the researcher’s own political beliefs. I didn’t say I wouldn’t want to read something which challenged my own beliefs. As it happens I enjoy reading well-argued contrary points of view, altho like others I don’t derive pleasure from reading hateful and/or fraudulent claptrap.
I wrote upthread I believe studies on the character of persons of particular political beliefs would most likely have been written ‘back in the day’ when left wing researchers were tolerated in academia. In other words the odds are high that the research would come from a leftist perspective, but I wouldn’t wanna read the stuff because I think it would likely be badly constructed dialectic which wouldn’t inform beyond alerting readers to the political proclivities of the author/s.
That is harsh and probably unreasonable, but life is short & I prefer laughing to wallowing. Which is why this debate won’t go further. On my part at least.
The original post was made in the hope we could stimulate a bit of discussion about the nature of political involvement and hopefully come up with some viable ideas about instituting real & lasting change to a corrupt & inhumane society. Yet here we are again – just a few wrestling over a side issue.
I realise it seems strange to advocate a form of humanism, & not believe that most of the disciplines that are corralled under the subject heading “Humanities” can ever be studied using the sort of scientific rigour that need be applied to most of the disciplines that corral under the “Sciences” heading.
Yes I’m being deliberately vague here, altho boxes, phials of poison and cats are items that come to the forefront of consciousness when considering this.
One reason for equivocation is to avoid affront to anyone who believes their humanity’s objectivity has been called into question. I was trying to make broad observations based on what I’ve experienced. Another reason is there are a few areas of study in humanities-type subjects where scientific method can be objectively applied.
As for the contention that rightists believe in what they are doing I don’t believe I ever said they didn’t. What I said was pretty self-evident really; that humanists (which is my preferred term for those who want to live in an inclusive and tolerant society where the wealth is shared) are people who feel affection for other humans, enjoy human company regardless of the person’s character, gender, race or other specificity, at least until a particular human shows him/herself to be completely unworthy of that admiration.
Rightists or conservatives on the other hand are happier in a society where sections of humanity are left out of the community because of some perceived failing of the particular group those peeps are believed to belong to. To do that conservatives have to be able to hate a group for what they believe they are; for my mind making the conservatives intolerant haters.
However when it comes down to professional pols – for wont of a better term, I’d reckon that group were comprised almost entirely of ‘haters’ or at the very least sociopaths incapable of feeling love or hate no matter which side they claim to be on.

Posted by: Debs is dead | May 10 2012 2:05 utc | 61

I seem to be always late. Anyway.
About analyses like Haidt’s above, 52, Marmite.
All these kinds of attempts at understanding political attitudes, beliefs, opinions, voting etc. etc. are all basically individualistic in nature, and follow Anglo-Saxon empiricism and a model of man as ‘an island’ (in a sea-scape, OK.)
So they go on to conclude that Republicans have stiffer lips and Democrats eat more ‘adventurous’ food, to be really trivial. It is men are from Mars and women from Venus kind of stuff. I’m not dismissing it entirely, but it seems to feed more into group differences than anything, and can’t possibly illuminate political attitudes. (Marmite goes on to contest, just to be clear, I’m not dissing a poster.)
This approach completely ignores group belonging (which might be anything, e.g. Black, young, rich, State worker, immigrant, etc. and crossed and multiple), group cohesion, and so on, which is the no. 1 driver. Ppl are not alone, ever, they have roots, they have friends, they occupy a position in society.
Second, left aside (and possibly the no 2 driver) is family tradition (mingles with group cohesion), family structure and interaction. For ex. ppl in nuclear families (even if truncated) and ppl growing up in extended families develop different pol. attitudes on the left-right spectrum. This last clearly accounts for the Greek vote, skewed to the ‘left’, with (say?) lonely male voters going for Golden Dawn. It also accounts for Sarkozy conserving support in regions (east and south-east) that are trad. more ‘Northern’, more individualistic, have less supportive families, push and demand individual success, etc. This is just one example, there are *many* others.
Moral values are elaborated in childhood, they are not some arcane, mysterious property of the ‘brain’ of the individual.

Posted by: Noirette | May 10 2012 18:30 utc | 63

“No, I do not live in terror of reading or hearing anything of which I might disagree, but I consider it a potential learning opportunity. You see, my primary motivation in life is to learn and to grow and to hopefully eventually transcend my frailties and errors.”
recent behaviour by you in relation to certain side-issues would suggest otherwise, but nonetheless I’ll accept your explanation as is and accept that it was offered sincerely. It’s personally been my experience that on ceretain subjects you have a closed mind. It’s actually been my experience that rather than read and respond rationally to opposing views, for which there is supporting evidence, you’d much rather run around making silly and completely unproavable accusations. But then all of us have blind-spots – perhaps that just happens to yours?

Posted by: Marmite | May 11 2012 4:39 utc | 65

cobweb
four grey women
Need Poverty Worry Guilt
lie in wait far away
a person is born
grows up
starts a family
builds a home
these four phantoms
lie in wait
hidden in the foundation
they build
a second home for him
a labyrinth
in a blind alley
he lives loves
prays and works
fills the home with hope
tears laughter
and fright
the four grey women
play hide-and-seek
with him
they lurk in chests
closets bookcases
they feed on gloves dust
mothballs swampy ground
eat books
fade mousegrey
in the icy moonlight
sit on paper flowers
the children clap their hands
trying to kill a cloths moth and some other moth
but the moths turn in silence
silence into music
the four grey women lie in wait
the person invites
other people
to christenings funerals
weddings and wakes
silver and gold anniversaries
uninvited
through the keyhole
enter the four grey women
first to appear is Guilt
behind her looms Worry
slowly Need grows
Poverty bares her teeth
the home turns into a cobweb
voices groans
gnashing of teeth
and rattling can be heard
awakened gods
drive off
pesky humans
and yawn
written by Tadeusz Rozewicz from ‘grey area’ 2002
included in ‘Sobbing Superpower’ translated by
Joanna Trzeciak, published Norton & Co.
ISBN 978 0 393 06779 8, 2011

Posted by: lotsofnoise | May 11 2012 13:20 utc | 67

Tweet from a Yemeni
BaFana3 For the 1st time. | #Yemen : Air force planes drop leaflets in Abyan – ask citizens to stay away from ALL Al Qaeda-held locations.
Mass bombing will begin in 3, 2, 1, —

Posted by: b | May 12 2012 17:38 utc | 69

My hit, before I read your post ran, was Janis. She really rocks with an exuberance that is reminiscent of Janice. Never heard of them before but now I’m aware.
Salute did!

Posted by: juannie | May 12 2012 20:55 utc | 71

The Golden Boys Mondo Bossa -una outra vez

Posted by: wenis | May 13 2012 15:09 utc | 73

This is what passes for ‘economic analysis’ now in Germany.
Greece Can No Longer Delay Euro Zone Exit
The conclusion of the article are a joke. There is nothing to save Spain and Italy after a Greek forced exit. Both will be obliterated on the debt markets the second that happen. Both will see a run from their banks. Then France and other countries with similar debt ratings will replace Spain and Italy as the next on target.
And of course the implicit racism on the whole article is a ‘bit’ distasteful. Even when around the third part they start to blame the politicians, even as those are the main allies of the ‘good paying europeans’, but keep asking to punish even more the citizens.

Posted by: ThePaper | May 14 2012 17:16 utc | 75

I assume that b and others will have interesting input regarding this bit of good news from Macedonia, with detailed links.

Posted by: Hannah K. O’Luthon | May 15 2012 5:33 utc | 77

Whocouldhaveknown: Concern grows over jihadist numbers in eastern Libya …

Posted by: b | May 15 2012 19:23 utc | 79

Statens Straalevaern, in Norway, have many places in Norwegian mountains, Jotunheimen, recently measured 70 kilobequerel/m2, which is higher than allowed for grassing in meatproduction. Apparently, more places in Norway still has too high levels for foodproduction 26 years after Chernobyl, and as measurements progress, warnings for more areas will be issued.

Posted by: Alexander | May 18 2012 17:04 utc | 81

I’m tuned in to the SpaceX web site to watch the launch of the Dragon cargo craft, which should take place in about 15 minutes. Here’s the link:
SpaceX WebCast
It’s not terribly spectacular, but it’s a significant turning point in which space travel is switching over from government agency to private enterprise. This will be a good thing and a bad thing. I’m optimistic that the good will be a more permanent presence in space, without the petulant budgetary axe hanging overhead. The bad…don’t wanna think about that right now! 🙂

Posted by: Dr. Wellington Yueh | May 19 2012 8:44 utc | 83

The Total gas blowout from Elgin platform in the Nort-sea has been stopped by injecting mud into the leak. Total started the operation succeded with the operation two days ago, after the leak had dropped from 200 000 M3/day to 50 000 M3/day. Luckily the pressure of the leaking gas had been subsiding, and the injection of mud seem to have successfully stopped the remaining leak. The Planned drilling of two releaf-wells has been canceled, though one of the two had got well underway, but thankfully were not needed.

Posted by: Alexander | May 19 2012 10:53 utc | 85

@Hannah – the Turks will be steaming about that …

Posted by: b | May 21 2012 17:41 utc | 87