Evening, Ian. I have been absorbed getting ready for the new semester. Endured an all day faculty retreat yesterday. Spent today getting stuff in order for the onslaught next week.

That would also appear to be a zed. Oh my.

g’evening ian. i’ve been reading the lake

hey dr (pause) dick

No one mentions the obvious things, like removing subsidies on food that’s bad for you and subsidizing food that’s good for you so that eating properly is cheaper.

My sister says that a sure sign that you are in a poor inner city neighborhood is the distance you must go to get fresh fruit as opposed to booze which seems to be on every street corner.
I think then that there is a market then for for fresh fruit and vegetables in the cities maybe hydroponics set up in old deserted buildings?

This is my favorite money quote ….French Family Values

First things first: given all the bad-mouthing the French receive, you may be surprised that I describe their society as “productive.” Yet according to the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development, productivity in France – G.D.P. per hour worked – is actually a bit higher than in the United States.

It’s true that France’s G.D.P. per person is well below that of the United States. But that’s because French workers spend more time with their families.

SO if you compare GDP per hour worked…. apples to apples…

What have you been reading or watching?

from last thread – comment from katymine @101:

Ah Oh…. this ought to be good ….. McCain made Charles Keating part of his campaign team today.

Gardens on roof tops and in abandoned lots.

They also mention the possibility of the Crimea being a problem. Didn’t I read this somewhere else a lot sooner?

Such a peaceful part of the world, surely nothing bad could happen there.

rut-roh, the latent English teacher in me picks a nit:

Maybe what America needs to do is work less hours,

should be *fewer* hours.

Yeah, I know – it pisses all my friends off too when I do that.

Regarding fat, there was a report yesterday that arsenic in our drinking water is what’s causing our epidemic of diabetes.

http://www.chattershmatter.com…..-diabetes/

Could that also have something to do with the epidemic of fat?

Re: working. One of the reasons that we older workers get canned more often is because we’re managed by younger, stupider workers. In my case, I realized long ago that I, producing eight hours of work in an eight hour day cannot compete with someone half my age, producing twelve hours of work in a sixteen hour day.

Neither do I wish to halve my effective hourly rate as a salaried worker by working extra hours for my employer.

So I work as a contractor, and I get paid by the hour, including the extra ones I put in. I DON’T get an overtime rate for those extra hours, because I’m not in a union.

But those extra hours aren’t worth the money to me. I have a house full of teens who in a few short years will depart to have their own lives, and nobody can pay me enough to compensate for time spent with them.

But the kids managing me don’t get that. Nor do they understand that their crises aren’t really crises, or that working extra hard to meet an arbitrary and unreasonable deadline is a pointless exercise, or that their employer has absolutely no loyalty to them whatsoever and will lay them off the instant it makes financial sense to do so.

No, to them I’m an arrogant old curmudgeon who comes in at eight, leaves at five, misses deadlines, and refuses to get worked up by every crisis du jour.

When I go to Europe even though I eat more than I usually eat at home….. I loose weight….. the food is fresh…. we had to work really hard to find ANY high fructose corn syrup in anything….. fruit so fresh you can smell it…. chickens who have the region and the farmer who grew it on tags….

They do sell soda…they come in little 8-10 oz bottles and THAT is your serving OR you are paying for a new one…… none of those 64oz unlimited refills…

…massive efforts to stop the fattening of America…

So to speak.

(Hey, I’m a Person of Size at the moment, I get to say stuff like that.)

I’ve been observing real America….Trading Spouses and Nanny 911….most will be voting for McCain.

I just finished reading The Five People You Meet In Heaven.
As far as what I’m watching…my butt!

Digg it

No one could have predicted.

Digg

Looks like nahant could have predicted. Hmmm now what.

Progressives desperately need to get a grip on comparative statistics with other developed nations, quote healthcare statistics, quality of life, education, freedom, etc. I did such a table a few years ago, and it was appalling. On many scales, the U.S. is falling into the ranks of the “third world.” And, indeed that is what Ronald Reagan set out to do, starting with his busting of the labor unions.

We’re all gonna die.

As to the fat frenzy, it should also be mentioned that much of that is genetic. Take a genome adapted to food scarcity and drop it in an environment characterized by food abundance and you are bound to have problems. There are almost certainly epigenetic and other environmental-genomic interactions at work here as well. What the increasing obesity “epidemic” (even the standards for normal and overweight are highly subjective and not based on substantive criteria) is not is a “moral issue”.

Or, y’know, putting in sidewalks so that people can *gasp* walk in the suburbs.

You need do design Burbs that are designed for walking sure its great to walk a few miles to a store when your a teenager but me my brothers and sister got escorted back home in a police car because he said that we were playing by the highway. I said that we trying to cross the street a few times.
My mom had sent us out into the neighborhood to sell church raffle tickets.
Today I agree with the Cop the burbs are no place for kids walking.

Linky?

Last night I talked about healthcare and Duvet Days in the UK ….. tonight it will be about holidays….. One couple from Glasgow Scotland, he worked at the Johnson & Johnson factory…… He gets 38 days holiday per year….. The administrator from the Manchester Royal Infirmary stated she gets 7 1/2 weeks….

The discussion started on why so few Americans travel to Europe….. and it started with “if you only have two weeks vacation” and well you can tell how it went down hill from there……. They were shocked that Elmore is freelance and gets NO paid vacation days……

Bring out yer dead.

That we knew. Where, when, and how are among the questions.

dugg and thanks nahant

We’re all gonna die.

heh. At this point, I’m beginning to wonder: Is that the good news or the bad news?

I feel happy!

What a great way to steal the family values issue from the GOP.
French Crime rates are nowhere near ours. What about divorce rates? Or other indicators of social stability?

The site is devoted to “entertainment news,” so I’m not going to give that any weight at all. (Pun? what pun?) Now, if you want to talk about high fructose corn syrup that’s a different issue entirely…

OK egregious what is going on?? Your link goes to Wrecking More Countries: Thanks, Cheney at the top and my Digg goes to the link that has the same Title as on top! http://digg.com/political_opin…..ractomania

The Burbs are no place for kids – or any growing thing.

well, since it’s you:

http://www.americablog.com/200…..f-his.html

Fuhrer hours if McCain gets elected. That’s 120 minutes of productivity at half wages.

dugg

*shudder* Ah well, 4 months off first.

Heya Suz.

Yeah, but it does make going back to work rather a shock to the system.

My daughter was writing a thesis for her degree program in HR and it was about benefits around the world….. this was a couple of years ago and we ranked around 170 in the world in benefits…. we came in below Chili & Brazil

Take Denmark or Norway that have 5-6 weeks PAID guaranteed vacation
Sick leave, maternity leave, paternity leave ….. cradle to grave health care….

Okay, so try this: http://foodconsumer.org/7777/8…..risk.shtml

Better start listening to John Edward so we can all figure out how to arrest the mofos from the other side!!!

Well, I’ve been watching “Wall Street” the movie.

Hard to know where to start with the YouTube links, but here’s a start:

Wall Street – Greed Is Good

Oh, yum! If the Obama campaign isn’t all over this like ravens on road kill he deserves to lose.

We have the worst benefits in the industrialized world. Everyone else gets more vacation, sick leave, maternity leave, you name it – all mandated by the government.

Thanks. That was something I was unaware of.

wapo front page article on speculation (manipulation?) in the oil markets – oh and that the cftc is a bunch of fuck ups (h/t quzi). and laura rozen has more.

the party blog.

from last week, but i haven’t seen it covered here: conyers: making the world safe for gucci

monbiot on “missle defense”

If we seek to understand American foreign policy in terms of a rational engagement with international problems, or even as an effective means of projecting power, we are looking in the wrong place. The government’s interests have always been provincial. It seeks to appease lobbyists, shift public opinion at crucial stages of the political cycle, accommodate crazy Christian fantasies and pander to television companies run by eccentric billionaires. The US does not really have a foreign policy. It has a series of domestic policies which it projects beyond its borders. That they threaten the world with 57 varieties of destruction is of no concern to the current administration. The only question of interest is who gets paid and what the political kickbacks will be.

from a couple of days back, but very interesting: scott horton interviews scott horton. saakashvili was a student in scott horton’s class and horton later hired him as an intern. lots of interesting back story.

It would be great to have a list of the best references that she used.

Our recent forming of common cause with libertarians regarding matters of civil liberties, rule of law, and foreign policy is an absolutely great idea. But eventually, we have to have it out with them on matters of economics and standard of living. Now is the time to arm ourselves.

I haven’t done any research on that but in the 12 days driving 3600 km across the country …. France was thriving….. didn’t see closed stores…. very few chains and lots of local shops…….

Employers subsidize lunch for their employees with 5 euros per day which helps the economy and the restaurant industry….. local businesses…..

heya ian – how’s your corner of the world tonight?

How about preventing them from arresting us.

Some time back I worked for a company where I was doing a lot of overtime. About 20 hours a week. And charging for it. So my boss pulls me aside and says “y’know, upper management has decreed that we have to reduce overtime and you’re number 1 in your job.”

I responded, “well, my work load is about double average, so getting twice the work done in 50% more time seems reasonable to me”.

“But so and so and so and so have case counts like you, and they don’t have your overtime.”

“They come in before me and leave before me, they just don’t put it on the time sheet.”

“Doing this much overtime is harming your career, Ian. Stop.”

So, for about a month I worked no overtime at all. Crises started occuring in my cases. Problem was—those crises were seen as my fault (which they were, since I wouldn’t work overtime without being paid to stop them from happening.)

Eventually I gave in and worked the extra time for no pay.

But I never forgot that, and I made sure the company paid for it. They would have been far better off just paying me my time and a half. Far better.

Yup. My family is Norwegian and believe me Norwegians have got it down…kinda high taxes, but they have high wages and they don’t have to worry like we do about heathcare. The only really difficult thing is that they have long winters, which could be depressing, but they “light” the country up during the winter..the summers are sublime. They did nationalize a lot of things, and I think that was for the betterment of the country ultimately.

That’s what I saw too.

Wish I could ….. it died when the poor laptop croaked and went to laptop heaven…. even the techie guys couldn’t retrieve the files….

Ya just gotta love how the rethuglians have been able to make the
American worker work for such substandard benefits and now for less pay for a higher productivity rating than most other countries. Are you ready for change… I know I am!!!

Nice catch. I am very pleased to be able to say “I told you so” to folks on the oil prices and speculation issue.

Call me petty that way.

DrDick,
Orientation for the new graduate art history class today. Library tour, and we tried a new approach, using “problem based learning” for the reference collection. My group had a question about Goya painting while wearing a hat full of lit candles! It was fun, actually. Can’t believe the new semester has started. And I’m taking my vacation in mid-Sept. in Edinburgh, Scotland. Can’t wait.

Employers subsidize lunch for their employees with 5 euros per day which helps the economy and the restaurant industry….. local businesses…..

And I’ll bet people are allowed more than 30 minutes for lunch. That’s what our “lunch hour” (they actually call it that) is. I’m lucky enough to be old and mean enough to get away with flagrantly ignoring that crap, but I’m the exception to the rule. If I had to actually try to each lunch in 30 minutes I’d spend all afternoon barfing…

Regarding the “missile defense” plan, that is the one that the American Physical Society, the leading professional organization of physicists in the US, said could not work without defying the laws of physics. They said it when Reagan proposed it more than 20 years ago and have said it again since then.

oh, and this:

Perception from Wall Street

I should have put this one up first, because, well, watch.

Jittery, but otherwise good. How about yours?

That’s a common feeling of teachers under NCLB.

a day filled with glorious sunshine – and my first sunset. the sunset won the race with the fog tonight.

When I was young and stupid (even more so than now) I worked at a job I’d become so proficient at that on average I completed all my assignments in 36 hours per week. Management offered to put me on salary and I thought, “Wow, work 36 hours, get paid for 40… no-brainer.” Needless to say, as soon as I agreed, they found more work for me to do. For the next two years I worked 60+ hours every week.

Orientation sounds like more fun than the “faculty retreat” and vacation in Scotland definitely sounds fun. I will be teaching four classes and getting intellectual whiplash. I am teaching two lower division introductory courses, an upper division history of theory class, and a graduate seminar in contemporary theory.

In the USA we’ve been taught to fear the dreaded “socialism” — while more ‘civilized’ societies seem to understand that if you pay your fair share toward health care/child care and care for the unable, then life will be better for all. In the USA we go ballistic about paying for universal health care, but so many do not even flinch at seeing their tax dollars go for war crap. Brain washed, indeed. And getting worse. Now the right is after contraception as ‘killing life’ — it’s time, folks, to stand up or be steamrolled. How do we move what we know on this site to a broader audience?

Sure hope something BIG happens in the world of Obama to break this cycle.

The Repug spin story is OMG they pay over 50% income TAX OMG OMG… boogie man boogie man….

BUT…I want everyone to add up what they pay either through their employer & out of pocket for your health care…. PLUS what we lose in our life span from the lack of time off and the BAD outcomes from mothers & fathers not having time bonding with their new babies AND how having guaranteed sick leave would reduce health care costs because people would actually get well before going back to work

Ask me….. I was told to stay off work 3 months from my surgery last fall but trying to live on 66% of my income sucked and the medical bills were piling up.. so I went back in 2 months….

Having spent the last couple of years doing intermitent temp jobs, I’ve seen some really awful places to work. Yeah, half-hour lunches and ya gotta punch in and out. Noting the time you take your ten minute break and you better get your water or coffee on that break, missy!
Blech. Just inspires me to work harder on my music and writing.

And, I still remember my shock when an American client told me she had to get back to work in two weeks after having her kid, while my co-workers were taking 9 months to a year off after having their babies.

I’ve seen girls go back to work in less than a week of having a kid. McDonalds does not pay much but they do give managers free food.
Hmmm that reminds me I have to remember to ask Kirk the long term effects of eating McDonalds food almost every day during and after a pregnancy.
After watching the film “Super Size Me ” I remembered the girls from my old job.
I think a tax on fat and unhealthy food is needed. If the GOP screams free choice lets just hand them a gun and say do you want to make suicide legal?
Then we hand them a gun and say free choice, you first, its quicker this way than 30yrs of obesity and death by lard.
I’m not saying tax the business out of business just tax them an extra $1 for a Quarter Pounder.
This way the rich could still choose and the poor without healthcare getting drivethrough as they speed between two jobs maybe gets 2 veggy 1/4 pounder burgers instead because they are cheaper now.
When you first switch over to veggies you sometimes want to eat more because you don’t feel full, I’m not quite there yet.
I’m at I’m eating veggies now by choice not poverty.

Evening Ian and Suz! Aloha, Late Niters…! ;-)

Worse, they do not seem to flinch at subsidizing some of the largest corporations and incompetent fat cat executives (Wall Street bailouts anyone?), while refusing to help the poor.

well, i wouldn’t have even been following the issue if hugh hadn’t been pounding on it for months.

very interesting, imo, that we finally get a pretty good article on it (and on the front page and not with pincus back on A16) – but only after prices have started to come down. i wonder if someone wasn’t already unwinding their positions? and i wonder if 2008 won’t play out like 2006 – where prices went down before the election (and it sure looked then like goldman sachs might have had something to do with it then). or maybe the bush years are just making me too cynical.

actually thought the scott horton interview would be of interest to you.

Suzanne. Pictures!!! I want to see pictures…although your description of the area is great on your site….sounds so gorgeous…magical.

Do some posts compare France to America throw it on late late night.

I recently when a couple weeks without eating meat, first time I’ve ever done anything like that. I was starting to feel pretty lousy. Since then, I only eat meat every other day, seems to be working okay.

Do some posts compare France to America throw it on late late night.

and do it in Bush-speak.

hey, a little (*very* little) challenge is good, no?

and the snark-potential is enormous….

We’re screwing ourselves for their profit and thanking God that we even have a job. But, there’s another way to live and the Europeans are living it. It’s FDR’s way, which we abandoned when we elected Ronald Reagan. Suddenly everyone, DFHs included, identified with the wealthy because they were sure that they’d win the lottery and didn’t want the government taking all of their profit. I swear to god, just before the 1980 election, I talked to a woman on welfare who was voting for Reagan, because he’d get rid of the welfare queens and there’d be more for her.

Perhaps “civilized” should replace “social”, i.e., “civilized democracy” rather than “social democracy”, which has socialistic/communistic connotations that have been programmed into our society here as “evil” by the really evildoers.

Lower gas prices are very important for Republican chances. (See Stirling today.)

Horton looks like something to listen to, though at 45 minutes it’ll have to wait. I rarely listen to/watch things, unless I feel I need the visual/emotional context. I can read far far far faster.

Excellent old video.

It might be hard on the stomach though I hear Bush talk and my veins start sticking out all on their own.

Wow! Intellectual whiplash, indeed. That is a heavy load. I don’t see many of our faculty teaching more than three classes each semester. You must be a man of man of great patience.

gotta get a digital camera – its on one of my lists — somewhere (laughing)

America is very, very “ill”. She needs healthcare and a purge of the political corruption, and she needs it fast. She’s serious right now, if not critical.

I eat more when I try to do without meat, still two bowls of beans have a lot less fat than 1, 1/4 pounder. How many bowls of beans, humas, veggy burgers etc would you have to eat to equal the fat in 1, 1/4 pounder?

i wonder if someone wasn’t already unwinding their positions? and i wonder if 2008 won’t play out like 2006 – where prices went down before the election (and it sure looked then like goldman sachs might have had something to do with it then). or maybe the bush years are just making me too cynical.

There has been a significant correlation between the decline in Obama’s lead and gas prices.

This is a great idea! And we need to hear more about your trip this summer. The thing I found in France is the fruit is to die for — berries, grapes, pears…just beautiful and delicious.

Right.
There is no talking to the right, though. They already know everything. And they are quick to throw the “communist” rubric to toss fear into the supposed conversation. I am a liberal. Probably I’m a republican/conservative/socialist. Is there a club for that? I believe in states’ rights. I am about conservative fiscal policies (which the Bushites haven’t even heard of!) and believe in people and in helping people to rise to their best possible abilities. I am also naive!

This was for 77 TCU.

Regarding the “missile defense” plan, that is the one that the American Physical Society, the leading professional organization of physicists in the US, said could not work without defying the laws of physics. They said it when Reagan proposed it more than 20 years ago and have said it again since then.

A post on that would be great especially if you could explain the physics to everyone. Cutting starwars could save America so much money.

That which does not kill us just makes us stronger. That’s why I bench press Caddies. 8-)

” That which does not kill us must have missed”
Samurai Cat

one more linky:

Standing up for justice in the Middle East

The Free Gaza Movement, a diverse group of international human rights activists from 17 different countries, will soon set sail from Cyprus to Gaza in order to challenge the Israeli blockade of the Gaza Strip. I’m proud to stand with them. Over 170 prominent individuals and organizations have endorsed our efforts, including the Carter Center, former British Cabinet member Clare Short, and Nobel Peace Prize laureates Mairead Maguire and Desmond Tutu.

that’s all i got.

Hummus has quite a bit of fat in it (from the sesame), though it is better for you than animal fats. Can’t say about the veggie burger as I have never tried one (and will not do so). Would depend on what they put in it. Some manufacturers add significant fat to boost the flavor (soy ain’t got much on its own). Again this may be better than animal fats, but may not if it is hydrogenated.

That’s why I bench press Caddies. 8-)

just don’t drop one or you’ll never get the correct yardage to the hole again…

oops – wrong kind of Caddie?

thank you for the link to stirling (i missed that one).

that podcast doesn’t have transcripts (agree about reading much faster than listening, and being able to cut-n-paste is nice. but i use podcasts as a way to try to con myself (not always very successfully) into doing stuff like house cleaning. the idea being to listen while i wash.

I feel the same way as you do. It needs a new name for what that is. A name that the globalist and (yes, I hate to say, fascists — that is, a government run by corporations) haven’t yet demonized. That is why I said a “civilized democracy”. We are on the bad side of the cusp of democracy here, because of voter fraud and all of the corporate influence. We aren’t really in a democracy right now…we are in a weird limbo that pretends to be democratic via propaganda, but sadly it isn’t really the case. There is hope though, because we still have a voice. When the “people” are pressured into even more hardship and poverty…there will be an uprising. The problem is…there is a race against time…do “they” police state us into suppression first…or do the people stand up and throw the bums out and hold them accountable. This election is crucial. McCain wins…we are in the first huge civil battle of the 21st Century. I hope we turn the tide…Now! But, they will try to steal it. They will not go quitely. The fact that the economy is the way it is right now may actually save our country. My 2 cents.

Afraid I do not understand the physics myself. I am a cultural anthopologist. I do, however, trust the premier physics organization to understand it.

apparently not working is considered a feature and not a bug.

Regarding the “missile defense” plan, that is the one that the American Physical Society, the leading professional organization of physicists in the US, said could not work without defying the laws of physics. They said it when Reagan proposed it more than 20 years ago and have said it again since then.

A friend of mine was a technical consultant to the SALT negotiating team back in the mid-70s. He assured me back then that anti-missile systems won’t work. And they managed to get the U.S. to stop wasting money on them.

Reagan resurrected them under the heading of “star wars”, and people credited that nonsense for driving the Soviet Union to bankruptcy, which is utter nonsense.

After detente, some of his former colleagues met their Soviet counterparts, who said in astonishment, “What happened. We thought America was brilliant for resisting their military-industrial complex and not wasting money on anti-missile missiles, but we weren’t so lucky. But then in the 80s, you guys tumbled for it too. What happened?”

The point is that serious missile system have too many counter-options to get shot down, e.g., they can send out too many decoys. What’s dangerous is that the existence of an anti-missile system can tempt a fool like Bush or McCain to believe that they have a first-strike capability: “The anti-missile system will take care of anything that might get past our first strike.” And that is what Putin is afraid of.

I’m not a vegetarian, but some of those vegiburgers are really good…especially if you spice them up. I think you just have to look at them for what they are…like..potato pancakes..they can be boooooring…or they can be really good. Just sayin’.

i wonder how good the correlation is. i have the daily WTI spot prices (link from hugh) in an excel file already. but i don’t know the best source for a compilation of polling data. any suggestions?

Thanks there is a lot about France to learn McCain likes their nuclear power safety record but I’m not sure he knows how government regulated the industry is.
Chris in Paris at America blog is always raving about how cheap cell phone service, cable tv and the internet is over there. They have food inspectors checking local stores.
The EU checking food and medicine is much better than our system.
I bet the Chinese did not dare send poison cat food, or human Food to Europe.
Why because the EU would probably ban their food products in a heartbeat.
In America the GOP says who cares nobody important that I know shops at Walmart.
Are we losing respect did China send the EU crap food or just us? Katymine could you find out?

Ian, regarding holidays.
I am fortunate to have 21 days of vacation each year. There is a new policy in my place of employment that states that no matter one’s position, if it does not include the supervision of others, the employee only gets 14 days of vacation. In my opinion, those that work at the bottom seem to work harder, physically (we are talking moving books and books and really heavy stuff) and should have at LEAST equal days of vacation. Am I wrong?

You wouldn’t have time for anything else. I haven’t eaten fast food in over 5 years. The mere thought of it disgusts me at this point.

I am definitely not vegetarian or likely to become one, though I have cut down on meat in recent years. I think my problem with veggie burgers (or worse yet vegie bacon) is it is trying to be meat. When I do eat vegetarian dishes, I prefer traditional Asian vegetarian cuisines. They taste really good in their own right, are nutritionally balanced, and are what they are. If I want a burger (which I rarely eat), I will eat meat.

This whole Georgia/Russia build up, is the Neocon (including Putin’s) way of creating a crisis in order to keep those in control in control. Don’t be fooled. W meant every word when he made the comments about Putin’s soul. They are compadres. One is the son of the Director of the US CIA and the other is an ex-KGB (maybe double agent).

Bushco must go and McCain must be defeated. Any voter irregularities must be dealt with this time. America must not rollover.

What’s dangerous is that the existence of an anti-missile system can tempt a fool like Bush or McCain to believe that they have a first-strike capability:

exactly. they are NOT a defensive technology.

and even if it doesn’t temp the crazies – it encourages an arms race (need more missiles to over come the anti-missile system).

IMHO, we need to look to Europe to see how citizens of a 21st-Century, industrially developed democracy live. And the fact AFAICT is that they are pretty much operating under the New Deal, without our detour through Reaganism.

Veggie burgers are great, fresh not refried pinto beans though I was the only kid in first grade who’s belly button stuck out past his stomach thanks to pinto beans or P@J every day although we had meat with dinner.

That is exactly my point…a vegiburger should be viewed as a vegiburger. It is not fake meat..it is what it is…if it can be made to taste great that is fine. If one chooses not to eat meat and replace it with vegiburger while viewing it as fake meat, it will never be appealing. It is in the perception of what it is. It is what it is. It isn’t meat.

The less you get paid the worse you get treated seemed to be a universal rule. I got really pissed when the mail room girls and guys were forced to work overtime without pay. Just execrable behaviour.

No one mentions the obvious things, like removing subsidies on food that’s bad for you and subsidizing food that’s good for you so that eating properly is cheaper.

My sister says that a sure sign that you are in a poor inner city neighborhood is the distance you must go to get fresh fruit as opposed to booze which seems to be on every street corner.

TCU stole mine.

Just a quick drive-by. I think I may have too many jobs to hang out here so much when there’s also a family to cook for. Hmmmm….. ditch the kids? Quit blogging? Quit the job? Or just sleep even less?

The best I’ve found is TMP Election Central and then click through to their second page of polling numbers. If you click on say “Rasmussen” on one of the rows, you’ll get to Rasumssen’s page where they’ll have six days of data displayed.

That is not an appropriate/satisfactory answer, but it is where my search for actual data would start.

In the EU food and chemical manufacturers have to prove their products are safe where in America we have to fight for a kazillion years with that many deaths to fight for them to make the stuff safe….

It is the opposite They have to prove safety before they can sell it and we have to fight them to our deaths to make it safe….. what a system…

I’d love diaries from both of you! I’m headed to Paris and maybe Brittany in Sept. 2009 to plan for the next Medical History Meeting (that is Mr.CE, not me! — I’m just along for the vacation). Last time I was in Brittany my sister and I did a study of fishermen and seafood. Buying and eating, that is.

a vegiburger should be viewed as a vegiburger.

And with catsup, onion, pickles, and mayo, who can tell the difference?

It all depends on whether you legislation is intended to protect the consumers or the corporations. I think it is pretty obvious who is being protected where.

Reagan resurrected them under the heading of “star wars”, and people credited that nonsense for driving the Soviet Union to bankruptcy, which is utter nonsense.

It was lower oil prices and increased military spending that brought the USSR down. Income goes down expenses go up equals bankruptcy at some point.
Just like increased war spending and higher oil prices is killing us today.
If Bush 2 knew real history and not the self serving lack of real scholarship myths of the Neocons he might have figured this out.
Propaganda is dangerous to the ruling class once they start to believe their own lies.

We really need to educate America as to what works elsewhere. Americans have been propagandized since infancy that our system is the only one that can work, and the fact that it doesn’t just meets we have to drop the tax rates for the rich yet further.

Well, if you sold the kids, you wouldn’t need the job, and then you could both blog and sleep.

You’re so welcome!

teach the kids to cook for you?

Bin Laden is bleeding us to death just like the conservatives say Reagan bled the Soviet Union. And Bush and McCain are aiding, abetting, emboldening, and giving comfort to bin Landen by furthering his announced goal of bankrupting America. The charge is TREASON.

I know a lovely Bed & Breakfast AND a restaurant to die for in San Malo….. Bistro du Solidor…. OMG….. you will want to extra bread to mop everything…..

thanks, i might take a look tomorrow … you’ve got me curious now.

The problem is that the United States has this ideology that is based upon the old word, freedom. Freedom to invent and create and develop businesses that are not raped by a government, and the citizens surrounding and working for and with will profit by a burgeoning local economy. That is no longer the case.

The businesses actually rape the citizens now…so to speak. We are out of balance. The “needs” of our society are healthcare, energy, food, water, and infrastructure…those things should be nationalized and the profits on the world market should be reflected in benefits to the citizens.

The rest of the economy…entertainment, manufacturing, etc., should be free enterprise…we build, others buy…It is all worthless if the basic needs of the country to maintain the survival of the population is nonexistent. If we are a democracy, we run the government, not the other way around. A democracy is a population running the country, and the population deserves dividends.

The point is that serious missile system have too many counter-options to get shot down, e.g., they can send out too many decoys. What’s dangerous is that the existence of an anti-missile system can tempt a fool like Bush or McCain to believe that they have a first-strike capability: “The anti-missile system will take care of anything that might get past our first strike.” And that is what Putin is afraid of

I agree first strike capability is what Putin and I am afraid of in the hands of Bush.
But I love tech talk and hearing exactly why the system won’t work and how easy and cheap the counter measures are well interesting to me.
I read hybrid cars tech details for fun too!

Bin Laden is not bankrupting anything. Bushco is. Bin Laden was a CIA asset. He is our creation or I should say “their” creation. We be the enemy..

After we were back and having dinner with Elmore kids talking about Europe and their benefits…… both of his kids have been to Europe…. the waitress implied that it would be impossible to have guaranteed sick and vacation days……

In Greece if your employer does not pay for the number of days up to the country minimum the government will pay for the rest so that every Greek have the same number of days off.

There’s the teaching and then there’s the “holding at gunpoint”. Neither has worked so far.

Chris, I have family in St Malo. Email me.

In regards to the missile shield to protect Europe from Iran. I know that Ahmdadinejad has been outspokenly belligerent towards Israel, but has Iran spent anytime at all calling Poland or France the great satan?

That shield is a cock-up to target Russia.

-G

The problem, as Adam Smith so wisely observed a couple of centuries ago, is that the interests of capital and society are not the same and in fact often conflict. Contrary to Mr. Smith’s advise, we have put the interests of capital ahead of those of society. Capital (and capitalists) have always been rapacious and always will be (not all individuals, but in general). The truth is that any system fundamentally grounded in greed is going to produce bad results.

just like the conservatives say Reagan bled the Soviet Union.

I never once heard during the 80’s that, that was Reagen’s plan. There was no hint the USSR was going to fall. Or that oil prices would keep getting lower.
Taking credit for things after the fact and then claiming credit for them seems to be a GOP signature move.

Even if they had, you might not want to actually eat the result.

LOL!

kids.

You said what I was trying to say…so eloquently.

(gasp!) You mean… Greed is actually not Good?

Sigh, send it to me.

Truth is that Iranian missiles do not have the range to hit many if any European targets (except in Russia). Last I heard, their longest range missiles only had enough range to hit Israel.

Wow! That is wonderful. I’ve never been there, but I’ve read all about the walled town.

Not sure I like the clientele who come looking to BUY teenagers. But thanks for the thought.

how’s your French? their english is lousy.

Frankly, IMHO, it is inherently evil, as is anything derived from or grounded in it.

greed is the creed

See that alone could be a post what a novel concept prove a chemical is safe first before you use it? I wonder what EU autism rates are?

I’ll send a FB message, ok?

My ex’s ancestors were from St. Malo. We spent a few weeks there going through all the archives in the area. We stayed in a cute town near there, but I have forgotten the name…it had a huge-crescent shaped beach and got yelled at by the woman who ran the place we stayed at *g* pretty much every day…she made awful food and got mad if we weren’t there for the meals. Amazing area.

As the British might say “Here Here”
There once was a time when corporations were in partnership with their workers. The benefits and pay were fair and the opportunity to advance was there without stabbing your co-worker in the back! RayGun sure started the downward spiral of this unspoken pact when he broke the air traffic controllers union! Now every corporation is out to break the unions and drive pay and benefits down and push the all the costs on the workers without compensation for doing so.

St. Cat or something.

I think what brought the ussr down was that the ruling class let their kids travel abroad, where they could observe that they were being lied to about how wonderful things were in the home country. They came back and whispered to their friends about the lies. The beauty of it is, this can work for us as well, until foreign travel and communications are gradually squeezed in the name of fighting terrorists. Pogo was right, just not in the way he intended.

Exactly.

If we were proposing a series of interceptors in Israel it would be far more understandable. But the whole notion that Iran is bent on attacking Europe, who I believe are the Iranians’ prime oil trade customers is rather disingenuous.

Russia knows they are being squeezed and are reacting to it.

Not that I agree with them, but it is a cause and effect sort of thing going on.

-G

My comprehension is great, my verbal skills are poor to fair. Mr. CE is totally fluent.

I want diaries here to whats the latest word. There are a lot of people here I would like to read more from.

g’nite firepups

This just in.

pain free sleep wishes tex

L’Ascott Hôtel

This is the second year I have used the website booking.com to book hotels. If you read the reviews and be sure to pick one that is an 8 or greater….

night Betsy

You obviously have not read any labor history. The birth of the industrial revolution and modern capitalism was a period of horrendous abuses of workers. This was only abated by the rise of unions. The brief period from the end of WWII through the 60s was an aberration which was already shifting away from any semblance of mutuality by the mid-70s. It is the prime object of capital to exploit labor as much as possible. That is after all the source of all profits.

Aloha, Muffin! Pain free sleep…!

Have to agree. If I were the Russian, I would be pissed as hell and kicking up as much fuss as I could.

Night Betsy.

Sweet dreams, TexB.

This was fun, thanks All! I’m usually pretty shy but I loved tonight. Thanks Ian for the total Distractomania.

Aloha, Hmmm, how’s the Bay area…?

Ding. But the pendulum turns once again in the opposite direction…the workers are beginning to suffer..the tipping point is near…people will rise up sooner or later…My Hungarian friend always said, once a revolution is over the next one begins (we are sort of seeing that in Russia now)…we in America are almost there with the oil prices and the lack of work. When the truckers cannot afford to transport food and other goods the tide will totally turn. The “leaders” know this, so the oil prices may drop so that they can maintain the grip on society…for awhile. What makes the difference is when people can’t feed themselves, and that is beginning to happen now. Homes are being lost and there is an inability to feed families. That is what creates tipping points. We are the masses. The rulers are a small group with their guardians (e.g., Blackwater types)…they never prevail and the cycles starts anew. Fortunately, we have a great Constitution. It exists whether they pretend to take our rights away or not. We don’t have to let them do it…actually they can’t.

Night Betsy.

-G

Night Christine.

Aloha, CT! Warm here tonight — how rare! how strange! Actually The Sweetie and I are only just back from LA (family wedding), and next week it’s off to summer vacation in your neck of the ocean. We are very, very ready for that!

Its over front page on Huffpo…. its Mittens who will be McBush VP….. hahahahaha… only 911 & a verb could be better….

And how there? Vog tolerable I hope?

The key insight I got from talking to experts was that anti-missle missles, while technically defensive, are also offensive in that they make first-strikes seem like a more viable idea.

Just a quick drive-by. I think I may have too many jobs to hang out here so much when there’s also a family to cook for. Hmmmm….. ditch the kids? Quit blogging? Quit the job? Or just sleep even less?

A solar oven just dump the rice, bread, steaks whatever in aim toward the sun on a sunny day and then come home to cooked food. They don’t work so well in Seattle. But Texas should be fine.
Their are plans on the net to make one cheap.

http://www.solarcooking.org/plans/

or you can buy one although the prices have gone up a bit since I bought.

http://www.solarovens.net/

Time Magazine says it’s the Mitt-bot for McCrazy’s V.P. pick:

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/…..15647.html

Actually, in the absence of a strong labor movement, they always succeed and have done so here for most of American history. Remember, they control most of the wealth and resources. The reason it is different in Europe is the presence of a strong labor movement and an associated socialist movement. When the working classes are motivated, aware, and united they can exercise considerable control in democracies (which is why the Rethugs hate democracy), since we outnumber the capitalists.

hahahahahahahaha

mcsame and the mittster..

Nite ChristineEdmonson, Nite Tex Betsy:)

ok – how many people do I owe Cokes to?

Mainly the Kona side is getting hit, as usual! it was a decent day with some nice trades to keep the temp down…! ;-)

wow. from ian’s link to stirling above:

Do not underestimate how good the Obama spring will feel. Do not underestimate how disastrously bad the executive of George W. Bush has been, and how good things will feel after a lost decade for the American economy. Do not underestimate how giddy people will be.

For a little while.

-:-

By rights we should be seeing a great liberal wave. The abject failure of the conservative theory that if the government takes care of war, defense, and the dollar, all else will right itself, is writ large across the financial collapse that is now going into its stagnationary, in the sense of the opposite of inflationary, phase. Instead, a liberal Reaganite, petty, small minded, with a big mouth and a huge reserve of money thrown at him by frightened voters who simply want some change, is the presumptive Democratic nominee. Barack Obama is destined to be a catastrophe for America, for the Democratic Party, for the Progressive movement which backed him. He is going to destroy his would-be friends, reward his enemies, spend money he does not have, make promises he will not keep, and plunge into ruin an American Economy that he and his advisors do not understand, because they are a generation out of date.

Fork…. that puts Arizona back in the deep red….. dang…. Mit nearly beat McBush in the primary

Romney? What is this, some sort of pathetic Olympic pile-on?

…opleaseletitbetrue oplease oplease opleaseletitbetrue…

mcsame and the mittster..

will there be make-up sex kissing?

JoeLie is gonna be *so* jealous…

Dr. Dick 179. Exactly. That is why We the People are actually always in control..the problem is they try to make We the People believe that we aren’t. We are. It is just a propagandic illusion fed by the media. Smoke and mirrors.

but ya forgot to deduct the dog lovers.

Ah good, then Maui should be in the clear starting from, oh, say, next Tuesday.

Two words: Snorkel Honolua.

A must read. Thanks as always, Ian, for pointing us to Stirlings work.

Go Mitt! Heh, heh. Except…when they mess with the voting machines..we are in trouble.

“I knew Vice President Cheney. Governor Romney, you’re no Dick Cheney.”

You will never see footage of Romney “walking”.

Can’t say I would go that far, but I have very modest hopes for Obama. He will be much better than Bush or McCain, but he is a centrist corporatist (all Chicago machine politicians are). He is mildly liberal on social issues and mildly pro-corporate on economic issues. I am still waiting to see what his foreign policy will look like outside of leaving Iraq. Frankly, the best case scenario I see is that he is essentially Clinton II (whihc ain’t all that great from a progressive standpoint).

Actually not such an illusion when the votes disappear in puffs of digital logic.

Oh, and Cheney chose Mitt. McCheater is so lame. He has no independent thought and is completely powerless as an individual. Mitt is ultimately powerless too. He must have passed Godfather Kissinger’s sniff test.

A cone of invincibility.

Just what Dickhead Cheney and his warmongering pudslappers need to play with the red button.

-G

Why?

-G

Olympics are over already for tonight?

Would Addington stick around to work for Romney?

got something olympic for late late nite jayt…

McCrazy and Mitt.

A noun, a verb, POW, and a corporate raider.

We lost New Orleans, because we were trying to run the country on the cheap. It’s called “deferred maintenance.” It’s the conservative way. That what you get when you turn a large government over to people who don’t believe in large governments. SUCKER!

Agreed The collapse of propaganda did have an effect. I think the lack of economic opportunity caused by lower oil prices as well as the lies about higher living standards did the USSR in.
The USSR spending on no return on the asset military spending instead of building their economy combined with lower oil prices and higher spending on the military well they went broke. People can handle being poor just so long as there are no rich people near by or they get jealous.
Gorby unloaded a bunch of areas that were not ethnic Russian because they would have been to costly to maintain control of.
Gorby cut expenses then somehow the Russians seemed to think that Milton Friedman was a good economist?
When oil prices get low again Russia will be right back where they were.

ya talked me into it. *g*

Ummm…because he walks really, really weird…some say it’s because of back injuries…I say he has a tight a**hole. Very *nal.

*gah* I want that Adder as far away from the WH as possible… Preferably in The Hague…!

I just don’t get it….. the base the wingnut religious right base is going to go ape sh*t over this….. the mormon vote would always vote Repug

Cool. At least he is capable, competent. Why should you care, because Dems do not necessarily win the presidency this time despite massive public discontent with the Repub brand. And at some level I hope we care that the leader of our country is capable.

Unfortunately, We the People are not currently in control and have not been since Reagan. It is about power and control over wealth and resources, which has dramatically shifted toward the top of the income scale over the last 30 years. Much of this has been accomplished through propaganda to convince working people that they will benefit from this somehow. Much has also been accomplished through the deployment of great wealth to subvert the political process. This happens through using campaign financing to limit the public’s choices to those acceptable to the elites. It also happens through buying off our elected official. The deck is stacked, the game is rigged, and we are getting screwed. The Republicans and the rich have been waging extreme class warfare for the last 30 years while we the people have been out to lunch and they are kicking our asses.

i think what stirling is saying is that won’t be good enough – not beyond the first giddy beginning.

(i should include a disclaimer that i don’t comment on stirling’s posts and haven’t for years – ever since he called me an ass and told me to learn to read first, so i’m sure he would not think i’m capable of understanding what he writes. but i don’t let that stop me *g*).

I just don’t get it….. the base the wingnut religious right base is going to go ape sh*t over this….. the mormon vote would always vote Repug

never look past the possibility that McCrazy is Just. Not. That. Smart.

Check out The Brad Blog He has two very good posts on just such subjects as election fraud!

Sorry Suzanne, the time flys by. Are you diving? That is the most important thing I need to know…

no hints *g*

Well said, as was Dr Dick’s reply.

Unfortunately, difficult to be sanguine as the middle and (God help them) the lower classes become more expendable. I cringe at mention of the service economy.

“deferred maintenance.” My dad called it running a power plant into the ground, he designed and worked on them its cheaper to do regular maintenance he said.
Lots of industries like to cut costs this way then a few years later they all seem to be in trouble.

Sorry, that was cryptic of me (…yet again…). Office of the VP is a very scary place, see the lessons Cheney & Addington & Rummy learned from Iran-Contra. That’s why the potential of Biden in the VP slot scares me, he’s a very serious person who appears to have an agenda, but one he hasn’t really shared. Whereas Romney though clearly a true corporate fascist mainly seems like a bit of a clown, so I assume someone else would be running him, hence the Addington question. THough I guess I could see Romney running an Infra-Guard activation…

This time it is ALL about the judges…. we NEED a Democratic congress and judges who are not Federalists…

To tell you the truth…I’d rather have Romney as president than McBush. He has a nice family, and I don’t think he’d be as insane and reckless and endanger their lives as McBush would. He’d have to move to Mars to save his family from nuclear holocaust, whereas I don’t think McBush would bother about his loved ones in the same way — he’s to warped and obsessed with war.

Think Dickens’ London or the 18th century sweatshops. That is what they want to bring back.

This is interesting Katy…

More Americans want church and politics separate: poll

The survey by the Pew Research Center found that 52 percent of Americans thought that churches and other religious institutions should stay out of politics, an increase of eight percentage points since 2004, when the last U.S. presidential election was held.[…]

A huge shift came from voters who described themselves as conservative, with 50 percent saying churches should stay out of politics compared to 30 percent in 2004.

Brad has been staying a lot in Arizona to help with our election issues. We have a very active Election Integrity group which is a caucus in the State and Maricopa County Democratic Party….

Here’s hoping that that 50% care enough to turn out for the election.

Maybe they finally got around to reading the Gospels. Rabbi Yeshua was quite explicit about it: Render unto Caesar, that which is Caesar’s and unto God, that which is God’s. Indeed, elsewhere he rejected all engagement with the world at all.

late late nite upstairs

I knew it!

You are assuming that people rose up because their standard of living was declining, but the average Russian had nothing. They were acting in the 90’s as if it were WWII still and they were encircled by enemies-Nazis. They were prepared to endure living on nothing, and I mean insufficient food for even professionals, because of propaganda that said they were the superior country besieged by evil enemies. The parallels are painful. It broke when the propaganda was shattered which is why places like fdl are so crucial.

Ever notice that the folks who complain that home foreclosures are the fault of the ex-homeowners for getting in over their heads are the same people who defunded the public education that would have taught those same ex-homeowners how finance works?

I’m not even sure of that. They see labor as fungible, not US centric. Can be obtained from anywhere.

Point taken Egregious but Russia could have competed with the West if oil prices had stayed high especially with Reagen’s military spending we could have just as easily been the ones to go broke.
Then Russian Neocons would be claiming that, that was the plan all along.
Assuming that Russia is also cursed with Neocons that is.

I think then that there is a market then for for fresh fruit and vegetables in the cities maybe hydroponics set up in old deserted buildings?

Erm, who’s going to foot the bill for all of that artificial light?

Gardens on roof tops and in abandoned lots.

But there is so much heavy metal pollution in these soils, and in urban air.

Yeah, I know – it pisses all my friends off too when I do that.

Hell you can get lots of people p-o’d just by using proper English!

Could that also have something to do with the epidemic of fat?

Diabetics have difficulty metablolzing fat, not just carbs. So, perhaps yes to your Q.

Perhaps this has been discussed already, but obesity is going to get a an attention-boost very soon from disgruntled real estate developers and builders.

I attended a seminar about changes forthcoming in the building codes. Since the 1990’s , the requirements for the ADA have been absorbed into the model building codes used all over the USA. This makes the ADA locally enforcible on a day-to-day basis instead of by Civil Rights law suit. The common standard for both is called ANSI A117.1.

When the ADAAG was enacted, it was based on physiological studies of the handicapped and the devices they used to get around. Basically, the 5 foot turning circle for a wheelchair is a determination based on the size of the chair and the person in it. Well guess what? Since that data was collected and today, chairs and people got bigger. Obesity may not be the precise word, but certainly the people who are confined to wheelchairs are (as a group) larger than before. And the chairs are now motorized and dimensionally larger.

So what does that do to your turning radius and to the width of aisles and doorways?

In a few short years, the turning radius is going to be increased to 6 feet and possibly 6 feet – 6 inches. The laws providing equal access will remain, but the technical criteria will have to adjust to suit the times. What was once accessible will no longer be accessible.

And the same scientist who collected and collated the physiological data in the 1980’s was responsible for updating it. The work has been vetted well.

The cost of building more space has always given builders and developers issues, and this one promises to be politically charged and focused on obesity as much as anything else.