Middle East Peace

Israel bombing Syria? That should help bring peace to the region...

Large explosion reported at Syrian army missile base in Latakia - Middle East Israel News | Haaretz:

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Farm Subsidies

Brad DeLong : Halloween on the Prairie: Congressman Tim Huelskamp Is the Most Frightening Thing I Will See All Day: The View from the Roasterie XXIII: October 31, 2013; Thursday Whiskey-Tango-Foxtrot-Bang-Query Weblogging:

“I’m from a district that pretty much ignores Washington. If you say government is going to shut down, they say, ‘OK, which part can we shut down?’” 

--Rep. Tim Huelskamp, R-Fowler, to Associated Press

As the post explains..... They certainly don't want to shut down the department that writes the farm checks.

They're only against government for other people.


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Middle East Peace

This should help the peace talks?

In effort to appease Israel's right, Netanyahu recycling old construction plans in Jerusalem - Diplomacy and Defense Israel News | Haaretz:


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Obama the Tyrant

Egypt arrests Muslim Brotherhood leader: ministry source | Reuters:

For all the Tea-baggers and other yea-hoos out there who believe Obama is an oppressive tyrant because he's forcing you to buy insurance. Here's what a really oppressive government looks like. Opposition parties are dissolved, their leaders arrested and jailed, and a few followers killed by armed forces. Makes having to have health insurance look pretty tame, eh?

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Stuff UhMurica needs to know....

THE HAND OF FATE | Gin and Tacos:

it's hard to miss the message that shit happens. Bad things are going to happen to you. People are going to screw you and you won't be able to do anything about it. As you age, the market will do all that it can to purge you from the workforce. You will get sick. The fine print Terms & Conditions that no one, anywhere, ever reads will bite you in the ass at the worst possible times. There is much we can do to prepare ourselves to weather everything that life is going to throw at us, but we can't make ourselves invincible.

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Trust

If you believe this you probably also believe that Iraq had weapons of mass destruction, Syria used chemical weapons on its own people, Egypt's military coup wasn't, and the Israelis really want peace with Palestinians.

Iran may be one month from nuclear bomb - Diplomacy and Defense Israel News | Haaretz:

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Russell Brand on revolution

Some rambling but worth the read.

Russell Brand on revolution: “We no longer have the luxury of tradition”:

"Total revolution of consciousness and our entire social, political and economic system is what interests me, but that’s not on the ballot."

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Corporate crime

Cassandra Does Tokyo: Half-Assed:

"Corporations don't commit crimes, People commit crimes"

When a corporation is found guilty and fined for breaking laws, someone should go to jail or at least lose their job. As this post points out, it was actual people, not JP Morgan the bank, that broke laws.

How many time have we heard from the free market types that the health care and education markets would work better if the actual users of the product had some skin in the game. I think our screwed up corporate economy might function a little better if corporate officers and boards had some skin in the game.

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You Are Dumb

Your Occasional Reminder | You Are Dumb:

Taxation is not theft. It's the cover charge to get into civilization.

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Liars and Cheaters

Study: Religious more likely to lie for financial gain - Salon.com:

Among those more likely to lie for financial gain were: 

• Business majors. “It could be that these students are more prone to lying by nature or training,” Childs writes. “It could also be that individuals strongly motivated by financial returns, and therefore more likely to lie for a monetary payoff, are more likely to pursue an education in business.” (Previous research has found higher levels of academic cheating among business majors.) 

• Students whose parents were divorced. This is in line with expectations, in thatpast research has found children of divorce are more likely to engage in anti-social behavior. Perhaps the belief they’ve been cheated out of a happy childhood may lead them to feel cheating is OK. 

• Those for whom religion was more important to their lives. “This is surprising,” Childs writes, as most religions “promote honesty as a virtue. It may be that students for whom religion was important feel separate from other students at this largely secular university,” and thus feel less compelled to be honest with them.

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Would you like Fries with that?

or... "Welcome to Walmart"

Mish's Global Economic Trend Analysis: Workforce, Population, Jobs by Age-Group:

The charts show something I have repeatedly said since 2008: "kids will be competing with their parents and grandparents for jobs that do not pay a living wage." 

Read more at http://globaleconomicanalysis.blogspot.com/#Rz2pyH71yS50M6ev.99

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ACA Website #2

Back to this. Tuesday Night Buzz: ACA Website:

A huge portion of our people think illegal drugs are a terrible problem when in reality a lot of drug's "life-destroying" problems exist only because we choose to make the drugs illegal. Smoking pot won't hurt you but getting caught with it can destroy your life.

Bad government works in a similar way. Government itself is not inherently bad but mix it with big business and allow those businesses to profit from that mix, by requiring the government to hire things done rather than do it alone, and you can about guarantee a more expensive, wasteful result. The "good" business will bleed the "bad" government for all it can.

Maximum waste and corruption occurs at the intersection of government and business.

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Pepper-spraying UC Davis cop gets worker's comp.

Pepper-spraying UC Davis cop gets $38K worker's comp | Al Jazeera America:

He should be getting some jail time.

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ACA Website

Creators of buggy HealthCare.gov site to face Congress | Al Jazeera America:

One thing that drives me crazy about the anti-government crowd is that they'll use this sort of screw-up to point out how the "big-bad-government" can't do anything right but what really happened is that the government put the project in the hands of business and they screwed it up.

Consumers got a crappy, buggy product. Government got the blame and the business owners/consultants got a big pile of money.

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A New Ideology | Ian Welsh

A good read here:

A New Ideology | Ian Welsh:

Including...

People think that their individual decisions matter, but so much of what happens is social.  A man goes to war, or not, and that has little to do with him personally.  A college student has a huge debt and that is because she is a Millenial, not a Baby Boomer.  A generation has fantastic success, but that is because they are the GI Generation in America, it is not individual, even if it feels like it.  Born 30 years earlier the exact same people would have stagnated on farms.  A generation raised in affluence undoes all the protections put on the economy by those who experienced the Great Depression, because they know better, really, and they never experienced the Great Depression or the Roaring 20s.

and 

 when you can walk out because you don’t need this job and it isn’t clear you can be replaced, bosses suddenly start treating you very very well indeed.

and 

ultimately the difference between the right and the left is this; the right thinks you get more out of people by treating them badly, the left thinks you get more out of people by treating them well. 

An ideology that believes treating people well is the better way to do things is a lot better to live under.

and 

A powerful ideology is a scary thing. If your ideology isn’t strong enough, doesn’t create enough fervent belief that people will die for it, then it won’t change the world.  But if it does create that level of fervent belief, then it will be misused, so the question is simply: will this do more harm than good?

and 

When faced, then, with a monstrous ideology, our duty is to come up with a better one, an opposing one.  Because ideology determines what we do.  It is both the lens we see the world through, and the motor that pushes us forward.

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Israeli Settlers

Such nice people.

Israeli Settlers Chop down more Palestinian Olive Trees (having destroyed 800,000 since 1967) | Informed Comment:

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Art on Acid

Artist Draws Nine Portraits on LSD During 1950s Research Experiment | Open Culture:




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Open Letter

xkcd: Open Letter:



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Sarah Palin

Sarah Palin: Barack Obama flirts with impeachment - Jose DelReal - POLITICO.com:

“Defaulting on our national debt is an impeachable offense, and any attempt by President Obama to unilaterally raise the debt limit without Congress is also an impeachable offense,” Palin wrote.

I know she give's right-winger men a big woody but she is about as dumb as a bag of hammers.

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Middle East War

Again, what is the name of that middle eastern country that might its neighbors?

Israel Air Force holds long-range drill over Mediterranean - Diplomacy and Defense Israel News | Haaretz:

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Jesus was a Roman fake?

This will be fun to watch.

Dangerous Minds | ‘Christianity was a hoax’ and scholar claims he has the proof:

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Crooks, Liars, Idiots, and Plutocrats

Crooks, Liars, Idiots, and Plutocrats » TripleCrisis:

"Economic historian Carlo Cipolla famously noted that human beings fall into four basic categories: the martyr who takes an action and suffers a loss while producing a gain to others; the genius or prodigy who takes an action by which he/she makes a gain while yielding a gain also to society; the crook (and liar too) who takes an action by which he/she makes a gain causing others a loss; and the stupid person who causes losses to others while deriving no personal gain and even possibly incurring losses."

Which one are you?


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Vote Up or Down

Eschaton: Repetition:

Whenever somebody sticks a mic in front a Democrat is it so hard to just say "Vote on the shutdown. Up or down. That's it, Mr. Speaker. Up or down. Nothing else goes through until the American people know where you stand."? 

I saw at least a couple of Democrats saying this over the weekend but I think it could back-fire so they should be careful about it. It reminds me of Obama's Red Line on chemical weapons in Syria. I could see this happening.

Democrats spend the next few days demanding an up or down count. Behind the scenes, Boehner lines up all Republicans to vote it down and calls the up-down vote. It goes down in flames with all republicans voting no. Now the pressure is on the Democrats. They've said all along the votes were there. Boehner has said all along they weren't. Boehner has given a little and he's proved his point. You're move Obama/Reid.

This would put a lot of pressure is on the Democrats to negotiate or risk losing public support. I think it could change the general public's view that its a Republican-caused shutdown and that the Democrats are right not to negotiate with terrorists. At least it would give Boehner some cover. He's tried it their way and it failed now he'll ask that they try it his way. It could turn on the Dems in a hurry.

Now an up-down vote might pass if a few republicans revolt but I think they would see that a NO vote would put the pressure on and you just can't trust this current crop to play by the rules. They play to win.


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read and post

Have you looked at the staff in in a fast food restaurant lately? I see a lot old people working, probably because they don't have enough retirement savings and can't survive on Social Security. I'd guess they are taking a lot of jobs from the 16 to 24 year old group.

A dearth of investment in young workers:

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/09/08/business/a-dearth-of-investment-in-young-workers.html?partner=rss&emc=rss&_r=0




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Libertarians

Eastern Indiana's leading anti-government libertarian bitching because the government hasn't built a bridge in his area.

3 years later, still awaiting a bridge | Palladium-Item | pal-item.com:



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Platinum Coins

Not Quite Noahpinion: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love Trillion Dollar Platinum Coins:

I just don't see how the Platinum coin idea could help. It may solve the current crisis, maybe (?), but there is enough doubt about it's legality that it would be sure to end up in the courts, might trigger even more impeachment talk, and would probably become the issue that would consume the rest of Obama's term.

Better to just hold the "we won't negotiate this" plan.

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Indiana

GOP stands firm against funding bill, will link to debt ceiling fight | WashingtonExaminer.com:

"“We’re not going to be disrespected,” conservative Rep. Marlin Stutzman, R-Ind., added. “We have to get something out of this. And I don’t know what that even is.”"

The stupid runs deep in Indiana.

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Government Shutdown

Here's the best description of the cause of shutdown that I've seen.

BURNING DOWN THE VILLAGE | Gin and Tacos:

"The House Republicans' position for the past few weeks is simple to understand: They've decided that health care reform shouldn't happen and it's OK to subvert the democratic process or fly the economy into a skyscraper in order to stop it because goddammit we're right. They know better than the courts, the president, the voters, or the Congress that passed the law. They have Truth and Rightness and Freedom and Bald Eagles on their side, so anything they do is justified. If people end up dying, so be it. They can make a disingenuous "I've made myself feel every death… see every innocent face I've murdered to save humanity" speech when their imagined victory comes."

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The US, Iran, Israel, and Syria

MENA Mashup: Bibi's Bullsh*t, Iranian Intentions, and a Syrian Solution? | MyFDL:

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How to fix the Government Shutdown.

How a Debt-Ceiling Crisis Could Become a Financial Crisis - NYTimes.com:

"That means that unless Congress raises the debt ceiling, allowing the Treasury to issue new debt, the United States may find itself unable to make all of its payments — stiffing government contractors, or state and local governments, or even its bondholders."

I think the Treasury could fix it pretty quick by "stiffing" the states who's representatives in the house pushed us into this. No Fed money for any state with a Tea-Bagger rep. Extortion can work both ways.


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