kidscount | The share of children under age 18 who live in families with incomes less than 50 percent of the federal poverty level.
The federal poverty definition consists of a series of thresholds based
on family size and composition. In 2013, a 50% poverty threshold for a
family of two adults and two children was $11,812. Poverty status is not
determined for people in military barracks, institutional quarters, or
for unrelated individuals under age 15 (such as foster children).
reuters | Republican
presidential candidates and lawmakers are calling for Planned Parenthood
to be investigated and its federal funding eliminated after two videos
that critics said showed the reproductive health care group is involved
in the illegal sale of aborted fetal tissue.
White
House hopeful Senator Rand Paul introduced an amendment to a highway
bill Wednesday that would cut the nearly $500 million in taxpayer
funding that goes annually to Planned Parenthood.
"Not one more taxpayer dollar should go to Planned Parenthood and I intend to make that goal a reality," Paul said.
Republican
Representative Diane Black introduced a bill on Tuesday that would
place an immediate moratorium on all federal funding for one year while
Congress investigates the group's practices. Eighty lawmakers signed on
as co-sponsors.
The videos show
Planned Parenthood officials discussing ways to perform abortions to
preserve fetal tissue for research and the costs involved. They were
secretly recorded by anti-abortion group Center for Medical Progress.
Planned Parenthood
says it does not profit from fetal tissue donation and only receives
payment for associated costs, which is legally permissible.
thescientist |Late last year, Steve Goldman of the
University of Rochester and his colleagues reported that they had
transplanted immature glial cells from donated human fetuses into the
brains of immunodeficient mouse pups. These human glial cells matured
into astrocytes and developed as the primary astrocyte population in the
newborn mouse brain. One unexpected outcome of the team’s research,
published in the Journal of Neuroscience
(34:16153-61), was that these human-mouse chimeras outperformed normal
mice almost fourfold in a variety of cognition tests, underscoring the
importance of astrocytes in regulating synaptic plasticity and neural
connectivity to enhance learning and memory. But the study also raised
important ethical considerations—namely, what biological properties
differentiate Homo sapiens from other organisms, and when should such “humanized” animals be afforded the rights that people currently enjoy.
Goldman is quick to state that the enhanced memory and learning
performance of these human-mouse chimeras did not make the mice more
human. “It’s still a mouse brain, not a human brain, but all the
non-neuronal cells are human,” Goldman told New Scientist
at the time of the publication. “This does not provide the animals with
additional capabilities that could in any way be ascribed or perceived
as specifically human. Rather, the human cells are simply improving the
efficiency of the mouse’s own neural networks. It’s still a mouse.”
At the same time, the team had ethical reservations about repeating
these types of experiments on monkeys, presumably following the National Academies’ guidelines
that no human embryonic stem cells should be introduced into nonhuman
primates at any stage of fetal or postnatal development. Is there really
an ethical difference in performing these experiments on mice as
opposed to monkeys? The scientists have not addressed this question,
perhaps because it is a difficult one to answer.
Human intelligence, as difficult as it is to define, is often thought
to be one of the most important characteristics that differentiate Homo sapiens
from all other organisms. However, the capacity to humanize animals has
the potential to complicate this assessment of being human. For
example, should the definition of human or humanlike intelligence be
psychometric, based on a constellation of cognitive processes, or should
it be neurophysiologic or neurogenetic because it is inextricably
linked to the brain? The question of distinguishing human and nonhuman
characteristics has arisen regarding our close primate relatives. Last
October, a New York Appeals Court announced that it will consider the
issue of whether chimpanzees are entitled to “legal personhood.”
Similarly, in December, an appeals court in Argentina recognized
orangutans as having basic legal rights, stating that these primates
deserve living quarters in a sanctuary and not in a zoo.
A complex ethical and philosophical issue is what defines "gene doping", especially in the context of bioethical debates about human enhancement.[2] The idea stems from research done in the 1970s to treat human diseases by fixing the underlying genes.[3] An example of gene doping could involve the recreational use of gene therapies
intended to treat muscle-wasting disorders. Other applications include
increasing muscle growth, blood production, endurance, oxygen dispersal
and pain resistance. In such cases, nothing unusual would enter the bloodstream so officials would be a lot better and not detect anything in a blood or urine test.[4]
The new gene may be identical to the natural gene and may not be in
every cell of the body. Some viruses target certain organs, such as the
kidney or liver, thus only samples taken from these areas could lead to
detection.[5]
The historical development of policy associated with gene doping began in 2001 when the International Olympic Committee (IOC) Medical Commission met to discuss the implications of gene therapy for sport. It was shortly followed by the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA), which met in 2002 to discuss genetic enhancement at Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory in New York. Also in 2002, the United States President’s Council on Bioethics
met twice to discuss the ethics of genetic technology related to sport.
In 2003, WADA decided to include a prohibition of gene doping within
their World Anti-Doping Code, which is formalized in its 2004 World Anti-Doping Code. Further, the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) met in 2003 and 2004 to discuss the science and ethics of gene transfer technology for sport.
The World Anti-Doping Agency
(WADA) has already asked scientists to help find ways to prevent gene
therapy from becoming the newest means of doping. In December 2005, the World Anti-Doping Agency
hosted its second landmark meeting on gene doping and drafted a
declaration on gene doping which, for the first time, included a strong
discouragement of the use of genetic testing for performance. In
September 2010 a WADA funded research project reported for the first
time that the direct and long-term detection of gene doping by the abuse
of gene transfer techniques is possible in conventional blood samples.[6] The first product to be associated with genetic doping emerged on the approach to the Turin 2006 Olympic Winter Games, where repoxygen was discussed as a possible substance in use at the Games.
religiondispatches | Pope Francis is popular among young Catholics, with only two percent
having a negative view of him. But the American church hierarchy is not
looked on so kindly, and there is an increasing emphasis on a separation
between politics and religion. A full 80 percent of respondents said
they felt no need to follow the bishops’ advice when it comes time to
vote, and 77 percent said Catholic politicians were under no obligation
to follow the bishops either.
They are also opposed by a wide margin to bishops withholding
communion to the divorced and remarried, those who support legal
abortion, and those who support marriage equality.
What’s missing from this survey, however, is the question of church
attendance. How much are these Catholics who disagree with and question
church teaching are actually showing up? Christian Smith, the head of
the National Study of Youth and Religion at Notre Dame, says the situation with Catholic millennials participating in church culture is “in fact, grim.”Only 16% of millennials self-identify as Catholic according to Pew. That 16% is the group the church is struggling to hold on to.
So if they are increasingly choosing the liberal side in the culture wars, are they really still Catholic?
Canon Law
204.1 states that a Catholic not only has to be baptized, but also
“share the profession of faith, the sacraments, and ecclesiastical
governance” to be “considered in communion with the Church.” Canon Law
208-223 has more specific rules for acting out the obligation of the
laity, but some of those rules are ambiguously stated, including 209.1,
which tells us that “the Christian faithful, even in their own manner of
acting, are always obliged to maintain communion with the Church,” or
210, which says that Christians should try to lead a “holy life” but
“according to their own condition.”
The linguistic ambiguity of Canon Law, along with the fact that very
few Catholics bother to read it, means that belonging to the church is
ill defined.
For most Catholics—and especially for younger ones whose Boomer and Gen X parents may themselves have drifted from the church, slipped in their catechesis,
or willfully ignored some of its teachings on sexual issues (the
increasingly smaller number of children born to Catholic families is
empirical evidence of that)—their Catholicism may have always been a
self-defined identity rather than a strident one.
evolution-institute | Anyone who thinks that science and religion can’t mix should read Pope Francis’s Encyclical “On the Care of Our Common Home”.
Not only does it provide an admirable scientifically informed summary
of global environmental degradation, but it correctly diagnoses the
current economic worldview as part of the problem. It is economics, more
than religion (at least as rendered by Pope Francis), that is detached
from reality.
TVOL is pleased to provide an assessment of the Encyclical by the distinguished ecological economist John Gowdy, who has served as an advisor for the Evolution Institute since 2009.
The Encyclical provides a theological argument for environmental
stewardship in addition to a scientific argument. The theological
argument is an interesting object of analysis in its own right, as I
will describe in a companion article.
NYTimes | A hidden-camera video
released last week purported to show that Planned Parenthood illegally
sells tissue from aborted fetuses. It shows nothing of the sort. But it
is the latest in a series of unrelenting attacks on Planned Parenthood,
which offers health care services to millions of people every year. The
politicians howling to defund Planned Parenthood care nothing about the
truth here, being perfectly willing to undermine women’s reproductive
rights any way they can.
The
nine-minute video clip released by the Center for Medical Progress, an
outfit apparently created in 2013, invites viewers to “Hold Planned
Parenthood accountable for their illegal sale of baby parts.” In it, Dr.
Deborah Nucatola, Planned Parenthood’s senior director of medical
services, is seen discussing the collection of fetal tissue in a lunch
meeting with two people posing as potential tissue buyers. A second
video, released on Tuesday, shows another Planned Parenthood staff member discussing fetal tissue.
After the first video’s release, Senator Rand Paul of Kentucky pledged
to “introduce an amendment to pending Senate legislation to immediately
strip every dollar of Planned Parenthood funding.” Senator Ted Cruz of
Texas called for
defunding and for “an investigation of Planned Parenthood’s activities
regarding the sale and transfer of aborted body parts.” The House Energy
and Commerce Committee is undertaking an investigation, and Gov. Greg Abbott of Texas and Gov. Bobby Jindal of Louisiana have ordered investigations in their states.
The full video
of the lunch meeting, over two hours long and released by the Center
for Medical Progress after complaints by Planned Parenthood, shows
something very different from what these critics claim. Clearly, the
shorter version was edited to eliminate statements by Dr. Nucatola
explaining that Planned Parenthood does not profit from tissue donation,
which requires the clear consent of the patient. Planned Parenthood
affiliates only accept money — between $30 and $100 per specimen,
according to Dr. Nucatola — to cover costs associated with collecting
and transporting the tissue. “This is not something with any revenue
stream that affiliates are looking at,” she said. Under federal law, facilities may be reimbursed for costs associated with fetal tissue donation, like transportation and storage.
According to a letter
sent by Roger Evans, a lawyer for Planned Parenthood, to the House
Energy and Commerce Committee, the video is a result of a yearslong
campaign of deception. The head of the Center for Medical Progress,
David Daleiden, created a fake company called Biomax Procurement
Services almost three years ago for the purpose of tricking Planned
Parenthood employees, the letter alleges, even setting up exhibits at
Planned Parenthood’s national conferences. The letter also says Biomax
offered a Planned Parenthood affiliate $1,600 for a fetal liver and
thymus, presumably to trap the affiliate in the act of accepting a high
payment for fetal tissue. The affiliate declined.
pimppreacher | Rachel should look and learn. As black as she thinks she is because
the “dues” she thinks she’s paid by attending a HBCU, studying Black
culture and history and becoming a Black woman subject matter expert in
her mind is just more insult to injury and is dismissed by us. No, she
still lacks one facet of negro culture that is essential for her to be
let into the club: The Black Church. Politicians know this and so do
Corporations which is why you see more and more corporate sponsors of
church events. All this studying of black culture and one would think
Rachel would have gone this route already by getting a black pastor
sponsor. If she wants to make it, a black pastor sponsor is a MUST. That
said, due to her DEFCON-5 Level of transgression with black women, it
is going to take someone really powerful to wash all her sins away. The
only one with this much domination and influence with black women is the
Kingpin of the Black Church itself: TD Jakes.
Yes, if
Rachel somehow got mentored and counseled by TD Jakes, she would be
redeemed. She could “church” with us and eventually get promoted to
Armor Bearer or First Assistant. He could help her get her black hair
care beauty line to be picked up at Target. The invitations to speak
would begin pouring in again, and women everywhere would come hear her
testify of how God brought her a mighty long way. She will never really
repent, but we won’t care. All that matters is that she has learned how
to preach and can make hair weave references in her messages for added
humor. Then she would meet the criteria to be a panelist speaker for
Mega Fest because she has been Jakes-Redeemed. Once you are
Jakes-Redeemed, you become Teflon. This Jakes-Redemption is a
Willy-Wonka Golden Ticket to write her own path.
Why do you
say this Ms. Justice? Well because there are so many others that are
under this protection and no one is able to touch them. Who I say? Well
let’s see, there’s Oprah Winfrey who also needed Jakes-Redemption so her
own spirituality can be finally validated. It doesn’t matter if Oprah
has or has not accepted the salvation of Jesus Christ.
Look
at Tyler Perry. Tyler, also very wealthy, needed Jakes-Redemption and
protection to steer rumors away about his sexuality. And if he were to
have a Bruce Jenner moment of courage in the future, the Teflon Jacket
he got with his Jakes-Redemption Packet (please see his $1 million
dollar donation at the last MegaFest), would still keep him from any
condemnation or loss of revenue because of it.
delanceyplace | Today's selection -- from Sapiens A Brief History of Humankind
by Yuval Noah Harari. According to Dr. Harari in this monumental
best-seller, the truly unique thing about human beings -- the key thing
that distinguishes us radically from other animals and allows us to
create large, complex social organizations -- is our ability to have a
commonly held belief about things that do not exist or cannot be
empirically demonstrated at all:
"The truly unique feature of [Homo Sapiens or Sapiens] language is
not its ability to transmit information about the [tangible]. Rather,
it's the ability to transmit information about things that do not exist
at all. As far as we know, only Sapiens can talk about entire kinds of
entities that they have never seen, touched or smelled.
"Legends, myths, gods and religions appeared for the first time with
the Cognitive Revolution. Many animals and human species could
previously say, 'Careful! A lion!' Thanks to the Cognitive Revolution
(which occurred about 70,000 years ago), Homo sapiens acquired the
ability to say, 'The lion is the guardian spirit of our tribe.' This
ability to speak about fictions is the most unique feature of Sapiens
language.
"It's relatively easy to agree that only Homo sapiens can speak about
things that don't really exist, and believe six impossible things
before breakfast. You could never convince a monkey to give you a banana
by promising him limitless bananas after death in monkey heaven. But
why is it important? After all, fiction can be dangerously misleading or
distracting. ...
"But fiction has enabled us not merely to imagine things, but to do
so collectively. We can weave common myths such as the biblical creation
story, the Dreamtime myths of Aboriginal Australians, and the
nationalist myths of modern states. Such myths give Sapiens the
unprecedented ability to cooperate flexibly in large numbers. Ants and
bees can also work together in huge numbers, but they do so in a very
rigid manner and only with close relatives. Wolves and chimpanzees
cooperate far more flexibly than ants, but they can do so only with
small numbers of other individuals that they know intimately. Sapiens
can cooperate in extremely flexible ways with countless numbers of
strangers. That's why Sapiens rule the world, whereas ants eat our
leftovers and chimps are locked up in zoos and research laboratories.
"Our chimpanzee cousins usually live in small troops of several dozen
individuals. ... There are clear limits to the size of groups that can
be formed and maintained in such a way. In order to function, all
members of a group must know each other intimately. Two chimpanzees who
have never met, never fought, and never engaged in mutual grooming will
not know whether they can trust one another, whether it would be
worthwhile to help one another, and which of them ranks higher. Under
natural conditions, a typical chimpanzee troop consists of about twenty
to fifty individuals. As the number of chimpanzees in a troop increases,
the social order destabilises, eventually leading to a rupture and the
formation of a new troop by some of the animals. ...
wikipedia | A down-on-his-luck Democratic Senator, Jay Bulworth is losing his bid for re-election to a fiery young populist. Bulworth's socialist views, formed in the 1960s and 1970s, have lost favor with voters, so he has conceded to more conservative politics and to accepting donations from big corporations. In addition, though he and his wife have been having affairs with each other's knowledge for years, they must still present a happy façade in the interest of maintaining a good public image.
Tired of politics, unhappy with his life in general, and planning to commit suicide, Bulworth negotiates a $10 million life insurance policy with his daughter as the beneficiary in exchange for a favorable vote from the insurance industry. Knowing that a suicide will void his daughter's inheritance, he contracts to have himself assassinated within two days' time.
Turning up in California for his campaign extremely drunk, Bulworth begins speaking his mind freely at public events and in the presence of the C-SPAN film crew following his campaign. After dancing all night in a club and smoking marijuana, he even starts rapping in public. His frank, potentially offensive remarks make him an instant media darling and re-energize his campaign. Along the way he becomes romantically involved with a young black activist named Nina, who tags along with him on his campaign stops. Along the way he is pursued by the paparazzi, his insurance company, his campaign managers and an increasingly adoring public, all the while fearful of his impending assassination.
After a televised debate where Bulworth drinks out of a flask on air and derides insurance companies and the American healthcare system, he decides to hide at Nina's family's home, located in the ghetto of South-Central Los Angeles. While hiding at Nina's he wanders around the neighborhood, where he witnesses a group of kids selling crack, and buys the group ice cream. After saving the group from a racially motivated encounter with a cop, he finds out they are "soldiers" of L.D., a local drug kingpin whom Nina's brother owes money to. Bulworth eventually makes it to a television appearance arranged earlier by his campaign manager, during which he raps and repeats truths Nina and L.D. told him about the lives of poor black people and their opinions of various American institutions, like education and employment. Eventually he offers the solution that "everybody should fuck everybody" until everyone is "all the same color" stunning the audience and his interviewer.
After Bulworth's TV appearance he escapes with Nina and goes with her back to her house, where she reveals that she is the assassin he indirectly hired (ostensibly to make the money needed to pay off the debt her brother owes to L.D.) and will now not carry out the job. Bulworth, finally relieved that he is not in danger of being killed, falls asleep, having not slept for the past several days.
The next morning the press and Bulworth's campaign managers converge on Nina's house, all eager to talk to him. L.D. also comes to Nina's house, and having had a change of heart says he will let Nina's brother work off his debt instead of hurting or killing him. Bulworth emerges from the bedroom looking rested, and as he steps outside he invites Nina to go with him, who eventually joins him after some hesitation. Bulworth and Nina embrace and begin to kiss as people cheer. As Bulworth happily accepts a new campaign for the presidency, he is suddenly shot in front of the crowd of reporters and supporters by an agent of the insurance company lobbyists, who were fearful of Bulworth's recent push for single-payer health care.
Bulworth's fate is left ambiguous. The final scene shows an elderly vagrant, played by Amiri Baraka, whom Bulworth met previously, standing alone outside a hospital. He exhorts Bulworth, who is presumably inside, to not be 'a ghost' but 'a spirit' which, as he had mentioned earlier, can only happen if you have 'a song'. In the final shot of the film, he asks the same of the audience.
McCain did graduate at the bottom of his class, 894 out of 899...crashed three very expensive Navy jets...two in training...A “war hero” doesn’t get promoted to squadron commander of the air field named after his own grandfather; immediately after crashing his third airplane. A “war hero” doesn’t have all military records that cover his time in Vietnam and all disciplinary actions against him censored and sealed “as a matter of national security.” A “war hero” doesn’t get 28 medals awarded “for bravery” for no other reason than being shot down and captured. A war hero doesn't allow himself to be used as a pawn and go on a celebrity public relations tour, because he’s the son of two acclaimed Navy admirals. A war hero doesn't repeatedly try to send other people's son's into war and harms way. A “war hero” doesn’t repeatedly cheat on the wife who dutifully waited for him at home and then divorce and abandon her. A "war hero" doesn't unleash the consummate tard's tard Sarah Palin on a unsuspecting American public.
theroot | As much as I love Professor Gates and ALL that he has and continues
to do to reveal the true state of affairs and the imbalances that are
yet to be addressed by the U.S. in particular, I was a bit disappointed
in the article. The article seems to suggest that there is a place on
earth where the poison of racism has been or could be eradicated! To
reiterate the sentiments of 'Haile Selassie' on this forum, THIS CANCER
has infected the WORLD.
With all the best intentions the Cuban
Government could only do its best to encourage equality. The white
scourge of Cuba that fled to Florida/the U.S. were the ones upholding
racism and oppressing blacks - period. The fact that where the money
flowed, the status quo was bound to remain unchanged does not require a
leap in comprehension. In similar fashion, despite the efforts of many
political parties to open education to lower income folks i.e. blacks,
the status quo of "white moneyed-power" remains the same throughout the
West Indies. Indeed, this is the situation with America and the climb
for blacks out of poverty remains a steep hill.
The above struggle
of blacks to deal with all they have been subjected to from the
original crossing to-date, is clearly demonstrated by Prof. Gates's own
"Many Rivers To Cross" documentary. Thus I am surprised the article
does not appear to have taken into account the effect of such oppression
on future generations. Worse than just the racism that was in play
before the economic collapse in Cuba, the economic collapse itself would
be much more devastating to the blacks already at the bottom of the
economic rung. In addition, the logic in the slaveholders' strategy to
withhold education from their slaves, is inescapable. How could the
slaves seize the reins of power without knowledge? Therefore, lack of
empowerment of blacks was almost sealed from nation to nation.
I
have travelled several times to Cuba but never used the tourist package.
Instead I was honoured to be hosted by a family in Havana, the couple
Alex and Conchita with their wonderful WELL-EDUCATED, eleven-year old
son. Yes, the downside included flies, the inability to even purchase
bare necessities (and things appeared to have gotten worse after 2008 as
well; perhaps less money in circulation due to the U.S.A's own economic
woes?), etc., etc but the love and friendliness I experienced, I had
not found on any of my other travels except maybe, in Panama. Alex and
Conchita's son could speak fluently three languages, Spanish (of
course), English and Italian! Plus he stumbled through some
conversational French. He could also play the piano. They were
brown-skinned, their neighbour had a white complexion. They had grown
up in Havana and white or brown were very good friends. I was truly
impressed by the comraderie.
It is fortunate that due to less
overt racism, the dark Cubans aren't as persecuted as black Americans.
IMO if America had not helped to suffocate the Cuban economy, there
would have been a good chance of lifting the darker Cuban farther up the
educational ladder and thereby ensuring access to positions of power.
ALL Cubans are definitely more accepting of people of different
complexions - what with half of Africa, Germans and Italians inundating
the Island every year - than are Americans. One of my most horrible
experiences was in MIAMI when my BLACK wife was almost refused service.
They don't look at your mixed complexion children and ask if the BLACK
one is adopted for instance! Cubans are so mixed that they are
accustomed to dark-complexioned people with green eyes, or three
children of the same parentage looking different to each other.
Despite, continuous mixing of races in America, you still get these
ignoramuses asking these intrusively rude questions.
Another
overlooked fact is that MOST of the impoverished Caribbean and Latin
America look to SPORTS to lift them out of poverty. Not just because
the Cuban Government used sports to give its populace a means of
validation but because it is general knowledge that the Americans are
batsh*t crazy about sports. American sports scouts traverse Latin
America and the Caribbean particularly. Cubans know that if they could
get to say, Santo Domingo, they might get recruited. There are groups
that review and broadcast scoring stats to U.S. scouts. The fact is NO
HUMAN wants to live in POVERTY and the good ole U.S.A. ensured that Cuba
would be punished for ejecting its racist, criminal overlords. Despite
the embargo, Cuba managed to educate its population. People from other
Caribbean Islands go to Cuba for its medical advantages. Cuba offers
the opportunity to study medicine for almost free, on the condition that
you return to your country and serve your people.
The last year has been an education for white people.
There has been a depth, power and richness to the African-American
conversation about Ferguson, Baltimore, Charleston and the other
killings that has been humbling and instructive.
Your new book, “Between the World and Me,”
is a great and searing contribution to this public education. It is a
mind-altering account of the black male experience. Every conscientious
American should read it.
But I think Corey Robin reads the column correctly:
Near the end of the column, Brooks actually seems to blame Coates himself for black Americans' failure to achieve the American Dream:
This dream is a secular faith that has unified people
across every known divide. It has unleashed ennobling energies and
mobilized heroic social reform movements. By dissolving the dream under
the acid of an excessive realism, you trap generations in the past and
destroy the guiding star that points to a better future.
Read that last sentence again. Brooks is suggesting that Coates's own book
is going to destroy the American Dream for multiple generations of
black people -- a dream to which they could otherwise readily gain
access.
The opening statements of respect in this column are not to
be read literally. They're Brooks's version of "Brutus is an honorable
man." Brooks may respect Coates's book as memoir, but, as political
and cultural analysis, it's repellent and dangerous, in his view.
Don't let the kind-sounding words fool you.
guardian | Today, the thing that is corroding capitalism, barely rationalised by
mainstream economics, is information. Most laws concerning information
define the right of corporations to hoard it and the right of states to
access it, irrespective of the human rights of citizens. The equivalent
of the printing press and the scientific method is information
technology and its spillover into all other technologies, from genetics
to healthcare to agriculture to the movies, where it is quickly reducing
costs.
The modern equivalent of the long stagnation of late feudalism is the
stalled take-off of the third industrial revolution, where instead of
rapidly automating work out of existence, we are reduced to creating
what David Graeber calls “bullshit jobs” on low pay. And many economies
are stagnating.
The equivalent of the new source of free wealth? It’s not exactly
wealth: it’s the “externalities” – the free stuff and wellbeing
generated by networked interaction. It is the rise of non-market
production, of unownable information, of peer networks and unmanaged
enterprises. The internet, French economist Yann Moulier-Boutang says,
is “both the ship and the ocean” when it comes to the modern equivalent
of the discovery of the new world. In fact, it is the ship, the compass,
the ocean and the gold.
The modern day external shocks are clear: energy depletion, climate
change, ageing populations and migration. They are altering the dynamics
of capitalism and making it unworkable in the long term. They have not
yet had the same impact as the Black Death – but as we saw in New
Orleans in 2005, it does not take the bubonic plague to destroy social
order and functional infrastructure in a financially complex and
impoverished society.
Once
you understand the transition in this way, the need is not for a
supercomputed Five Year Plan – but a project, the aim of which should be
to expand those technologies, business models and behaviours that
dissolve market forces, socialise knowledge, eradicate the need for work
and push the economy towards abundance. I call it Project Zero –
because its aims are a zero-carbon-energy system; the production of
machines, products and services with zero marginal costs; and the
reduction of necessary work time as close as possible to zero.
Most 20th-century leftists believed that they did not have the luxury
of a managed transition: it was an article of faith for them that
nothing of the coming system could exist within the old one – though the
working class always attempted to create an alternative life within and
“despite” capitalism. As a result, once the possibility of a
Soviet-style transition disappeared, the modern left became preoccupied
simply with opposing things: the privatisation of healthcare, anti-union
laws, fracking – the list goes on.
If I am right, the logical focus for supporters of postcapitalism is
to build alternatives within the system; to use governmental power in a
radical and disruptive way; and to direct all actions towards the
transition – not the defence of random elements of the old system. We
have to learn what’s urgent, and what’s important, and that sometimes
they do not coincide.
guardian |With its shuttered banks, furious public protests and iconoclastic politicians, the plight of Greece,
brought to its knees by a crippling debt burden, has been gripping and
heartbreaking in equal measure: a full-blown sovereign debt crisis on
the doorstep of some of the wealthiest countries in the world.
Yet new analysis by the Jubilee Debt Campaign
reveals that Greece’s plight is far from unique: more than 20 other
countries are also wrestling with their own debt crises. Many more, from
Senegal to Laos, lie in a debt danger zone, where an economic downturn
or a sudden jump in interest rates on world debt markets could lead to
disaster.
One of the lessons from the 2008 crash was that hefty debt levels can
leave countries vulnerable to sudden shifts in market mood. But Jubilee
reports that the rock-bottom interest rates across major economies,
which have been a key response to the crisis, have in many cases
prompted governments, firms and consumers to go on a fresh borrowing
binge, storing up potential problems for the future.
Judith Tyson of the Overseas Development Institute thinktank says the
flipside of the latest round of borrowing has been investors and
lenders in the west looking for bigger returns than they could get at
home, a process known in the markets as a “search for yield”.
“Since 2012, there’s been a huge increase in sovereign debt, in Africa
in particular,” she says. Some of the countries involved were
beneficiaries of the debt relief programme that G8 leaders signed up to
at the Gleneagles summit in 2005. “They were given debt relief with the
idea that it would give a clean slate to go forward,” Tyson says.
She warns that a number of countries have since “loaded up” on debt –
and while some governments had invested the money wisely, diversifying
their economies and improving infrastructure, others have not. She
points to Ghana, in west Africa, where a sharp increase in borrowing has
been spent on what she calls “pork-barrel politics. They’ve spent it in
a frivolous way.”
Jubilee’s
analysis defines countries as at high risk of a government debt crisis
if they have net debt higher than 30% of GDP, a current-account deficit
of over 5% of GDP and future debt repayments worth more than 10% of
government revenue. “We estimate that 14 countries are rapidly heading
towards new government debt crises, based on their large external debts,
large and persistent current account deficits, and high projected
future government debt payments,” it says.
NYTimes | Mr. Bush is leading the crowded Republican field in fund-raising so far, and Mr. Trump, a billionaire businessman, argues that his personal wealth empowers him as a candidate. He also said that he will file the required personal financial disclosure forms on Wednesday or Thursday.
“Every single person is expecting something for that money and that’s not good for the country,” Mr. Trump said of Mr. Bush. “That means you can’t make deals that are good for the country.”
Mr. Bush has taken issue with Mr. Trump’s comments in recent weeks, particularly his remarks that undocumented immigrants from Mexico are criminals and “rapists.” Mr. Bush also took offense to Mr. Trump’s suggestion that he has an affinity for Mexicans because his wife is Mexican-American.
“A Republican will never win by striking fear in people’s hearts,” Mr. Bush said in Iowa on Tuesday, suggesting that his rival was preying on people’s angst.
Mr. Trump continues to stand by his remarks, but said that they have been distorted and blown out of proportion. He vowed again on Wednesday that he will win the Hispanic vote because he employs thousands of them and knows how to create jobs.
thehill | Donald Trump on Thursday fired back at criticism from presidential rival Rick Perry.
The
former Texas governor "failed on the border. He should be forced to
take an IQ test before being allowed to enter the GOP debate," Trump tweeted Thursday afternoon.
The
comment came hours after Perry issued a blistering statement that said
Trump was mistaken on border security and only offered "a toxic mix of
demagoguery and nonsense."
It was another in a series of jabs between the two candidates, to which Trump countered in another tweet by saying that Perry "doesn't understand what the word demagoguery means."
Perry,
whose "oops" moment during a televised debate during the 2012 campaign
kneecapped his previous White House bid, has himself addressed the
relationship of intelligence and the presidency.
"Running for president is not an IQ test," Perry said in December when preparing to exit office.
"It
is a test of an individual’s resolve; it is a test of an individual’s
philosophy; it is a test of an individual’s life experiences," Perry
said then, alluding to his 14-year tenure as governor.
thehill | Donald Trump lashed out at Charles Krauthammer, a conservative
columnist and Fox News analyst, after Krauthammer panned the potential
2016 contender, citing his low standing in presidential polls.
Trump fired off multiple tweets late Thursday evening calling the pundit a "dummy" and "overrated clown," and even taking issue with him over the Iraq war.
"He
was born in Canada. If you know and when we all studied our history
lessons, you are supposed to be born in this country, so I just don't
know how the courts will rule on this."
Trump, who says he is
exploring a bid for president in 2016, was part of the "birther"
movement that questioned President Obama's birth place, as well as the
veracity of his birth certificate. He recently took credit for getting
Obama to release his birth certificate while speaking at the Conservative Political Action Conference in February.
After flirting with a 2012 presidential bid, Trump has announced an exploratory committee for 2016 and says he will not renew his contract for his TV show, "The Apprentice" on NBC.
Cruz confirmed his bid for president on Monday morning during a speech at Liberty University.
“It’s
going to take a new generation of courageous conservatives to help make
America great again, and I’m ready to stand with you to lead the
fight," he said in a video touting the speech.
aljazeera | The reality of the Iran deal: Congress can't 'kill' it. US President Obama does not need congressional approval to sign an Iran deal or go to the UN to lift sanctions.
I keep hearing very reputable journalists report that the new law on
Iran sanctions will give Congress the ability to "kill" any potential
agreement.
I don't think that is right, but I've been doubting myself because so
many people are saying it. I've gone back three times and read the
bill.
Here is what the law actually does. It gives Congress the power to stop the US president from lifting US sanctions on Iran.
If you look at the numbers, it's pretty certain that they will only be able to stop him for a short time.
It doesn't stop President Barack Obama from making the agreement or going to the UN and lifting international sanctions.
So I've been trying to figure out how that could "kill" any potential agreement.
The only thing I can think of is the mentality that the US is the centre of the world is behind the assumption.
Let's assume for the sake of argument that Congress will override a
presidential veto and forbid him from waiving most US sanctions on Iran.
I can only guess that these people are assuming that without US
sanctions relief Iran would walk away from their side of the bargain.
Why would they do that? They would basically be saying "I can now do
business with the entire globe except America, but that is just not good
enough."
The White House doesn't believe Congress can now say yes or no to a
deal. This is what White House Press Secretary Josh Earnest said as the
bill was making its way through Congress:
"The bill that has passed by the Senate Foreign Relations Committee
with bipartisan support essentially is a vote to vote later on
congressional sanctions and not the decision about whether or not to
enter into the agreement, that would certainly resolve some of the
concerns we've expressed about the authority that is exercised by the
president of the United States to conduct foreign policy."
The president would never give up his right to act as the sole "decider" on foreign policy.
He doesn't need congressional approval to do whatever he feels like
at the UN. He was smart enough to not frame this as an official treaty.
The Senate would have had to weigh in on that and with the lobbying that is taking place, it never would have passed.
I have to think the reason behind this mischaracterisation is coming
from some members of Congress. They can tell their constituents that
they are "being tough".
They can vote their disapproval knowing, in the end, it won't change a thing.
theatlantic | Some of the greatest moments in human history were fueled by
emotional intelligence. When Martin Luther King, Jr. presented his
dream, he chose language that would stir the hearts of his audience.
“Instead of honoring this sacred obligation” to liberty, King thundered,
“America has given the Negro people a bad check.” He promised that a
land “sweltering with the heat of oppression” could be “transformed into
an oasis of freedom and justice,” and envisioned a future in which “on
the red hills of Georgia sons of former slaves and the sons of former
slave-owners will be able to sit down together at the table of
brotherhood.”
Delivering this electrifying message required emotional
intelligence—the ability to recognize, understand, and manage emotions.
Dr. King demonstrated remarkable skill in managing his own emotions and
in sparking emotions that moved his audience to action. As his
speechwriter Clarence Jones reflected,
King delivered “a perfectly balanced outcry of reason and emotion, of
anger and hope. His tone of pained indignation matched that note for
note.”
theatlantic | The nuclear agreement highlights the limits of American power—something the president’s opponents won’t accept.
“Mankind faces a crossroads,” declared
Woody Allen. “One path leads to despair and utter hopelessness. The
other, to total extinction. Let us pray we have the wisdom to choose
correctly.”
The point is simple: In life, what matters most isn’t how a decision compares to your ideal outcome. It’s how it compares to the alternative at hand.
The same is true for the Iran deal, announced Tuesday between Iran and six world powers. As Congress begins debating the agreement, its opponents have three real alternatives. The first is to kill the deal, and the interim agreement
that preceded it, and do nothing else, which means few restraints on
Iran’s nuclear program. The second is war. But top American and Israeli
officials have warned that military action against Iranian nuclear
facilities could ignite a catastrophic regional conflict and would be
ineffective, if not counterproductive, in delaying Iran’s path to the
bomb. Meir Dagan, who oversaw the Iran file as head of Israel’s external
spy agency, the Mossad, from 2002 to 2011, has said
an attack “would mean regional war, and in that case you would have
given Iran the best possible reason to continue the nuclear program.”
Michael Hayden, who ran the CIA under George W. Bush from 2006 to 2009, has warned
that an attack would “guarantee that which we are trying to prevent: an
Iran that will spare nothing to build a nuclear weapon.”
Implicitly acknowledging this, most
critics of the Iran deal propose a third alternative: increase sanctions
in hopes of forcing Iran to make further concessions. But in the short
term, the third alternative looks a lot like the first. Whatever its deficiencies,
the Iran deal places limits on Iran’s nuclear program and enhances
oversight of it. Walk away from the agreement in hopes of getting
tougher restrictions and you’re guaranteeing, at least for the time
being, that there are barely any restrictions on the program at all.
What’s more, even if Congress passes new sanctions, it’s quite likely
that the overall economic pressure on Iran will go down, not up. Most
major European and Asian countries have closer economic ties to Iran
than does the United States, and thus more domestic pressure to resume
them. These countries have abided by international sanctions against
Iran, to varying degrees, because the Obama administration convinced
their leaders that sanctions were a necessary prelude to a diplomatic
deal. If U.S. officials reject a deal, Iran’s historic trading partners
will not economically injure themselves indefinitely. Sanctions, declared
Britain’s ambassador to the United States in May, have already reached
“the high-water mark,” noting that “you would probably see more
sanctions erosion” if nuclear talks fail. Germany’s ambassador added
that, “If diplomacy fails, then the sanctions regime might unravel.”
The actual alternatives to a deal, in other words, are grim. Which is why critics discuss them as little as possible.
medium | So what gives? What happened to this generation of leaders?
There
is something very different about many of today’s so-called leaders.
And it is not merely that we, or they, are the helpless victims of “late
capitalism”, or any other number of modish buzzwords, for, like every
kind of buzzword, that sophomoric grad-school 101 level non-explanation
does not illuminate much at all, except perhaps our own outmoded
beliefs.
It is that they are demagogues. Let’s review what “demagogue” actually means. Here’s a decent definition:
“a
person, especially an orator or political leader, who gains power and
popularity by arousing the emotions, passions, and prejudices of the
people.”
Let me explain
why that’s important, using the example of the 80s. A generation of
conservative politicians then — Thatcher, Reagan — and the like — ripped
up and rewrote social contracts wholesale.
So
what is the difference between them — and the Merkels and Schauebles,
Osbornes and Camerons, Jindals and Jebs, of today? A very great one
indeed. There was great intellectual and perhaps moral support for the
decisions the leaders of yesterday — in the age of modernity — took.
Here’s a simple example. We may disagree now over trickle-down economics, since prosperity hasn’t trickled down. But at the time there was at least a reasoned position in support of it, built on a consensus amongst thinkers. You may think of the Laffer Curve as a simple illustration: it may have been proven largely wrong now, but at least there was an effort to produce a reason to slash public services then.
The neo-demagogues of meta-modernity are very different. There is no serious intellectual, moral, or ethical support for their decisions at all. There’s
not a serious economist left in the world who agrees with their
economic policies; political scientist with their social policies;
etcetera. As a simple moral measure of how far today’s not-quite-leaders
have slunk, consider: even the Pope—in his much celebrated Laudato Si — has challenged them to rise to today’s great challenges.
Demaogues are irrational, insensible, not beyond
reason — but scurrying in the abyss deep below it. They are simply, as
the definition simply says, “arousing the passions and prejudices of
people”. Let’s take immigration as a simple example. David Cameron’s
government has literally banned immigration in the UK. But decades of
the logic — not to mention evidence — confirm that immigration only benefits
advanced economies. So demagogues do not act rationally or sensibly,
reasonably or sanely — whether in terms of economics, morality,
politics, or anything else that might justifiably be called a system of
thought. Why not? They prey on our emotions; they exploit our biases and
prejudices; like magicians, they devour our fears and dangle before us
our wishes. They are sorcerers of our animal beings. Pumping the bellows
of unreason, they stoke the dark fires that burn deep in the human
soul.
It’s true: empiricism
alone can never guide us in the human world — but still, we must
struggle not merely to be prisoners of our biases and prejudices. And
that is precisely what demagogues reduce us to.
Unthinking servants of our own worst selves. The selves that, instead
of thinking, dreaming, wondering, rebelling, defying, creating,
loving — are filled with spite, greed, jealousy, fear, and, at last,
hate, of the self and the other, of god and man, of life and death
alike.
stratfor | Several nations supported the German position from the beginning —
particularly the Eastern European nations that, in addition to opposing Greece
soaking up European money, do not trust Greece's relationship with
Russia. Germany had allies. But it also had major powers as opponents,
and these were brushed aside.
These powerful opponents were brushed aside particularly on two
issues. One was any temporary infusion of cash into Greek banks. The
other was the German demand, in a more extreme way than ever before,
that the Greeks cede fundamental sovereignty over their national economy
and, in effect, over Greece itself. Germany demanded that Greece place
itself under the supervision of a foreign EU monitoring force that, as
Germany demonstrated in these negotiations, ultimately would be under
German control.
The Germans did not want to do this, but what a nation wants to do
and what it will do are two different things. What Germany wanted was
Greek submission to greater austerity in return for support for its
banking system. It was not the government's position that troubled
Germany the most, but the Greek referendum. If Germany forced the Greek
government to capitulate, it was a conventional international
negotiation. If it forced the government to capitulate in the face of
the electoral mandate of the Greek public, it was in many ways an attack
on national sovereignty, forcing a settlement not in opposition to the
government but a direct confrontation with the electorate. The Germans
could not accommodate the vote. They had to respond by demanding
concessions on Greek sovereignty.
This is not over, of course. It is now up to the Greek government to
implement its agreements, and it does so in the face of the Greek
referendum. The situation in Greece is desperate because of the
condition of the banking system. It was the pressure point that the
Germans used to force Greek capitulation. But Greece is now facing not
only austerity, but also foreign governance. The Germans' position is
they do not trust the Greeks. They do not mean the government now, but
the Greek electorate. Therefore, they want monitoring and controls. This
is reasonable from the German point of view, but it will be explosive
to the Greeks.
The Potential for Continental Unease
In World War II, the Germans occupied Greece. As in much of the rest
of Europe, the memory of that occupation is now in the country's DNA.
This will be seen as the return of German occupation, and opponents of
the deal will certainly use that argument. The manner in which the deal
was made and extended by the Germans to provide outside control will
resurrect historical memories of German occupation. It has already
started. The aggressive inflexibility of the Germans can be understood
as an attitude motivated by German fears, but then Germany has always
been a frightened country responding with bravado and self-confidence.
The point of the matter is not going away, and not only because the
Greek response is unpredictable; poverty versus sovereignty is a heady
issue, especially when the Greeks will both remain poor and lose some sovereignty.
The Germans made an example of Cyprus and now Greece. The leading power
of Europe will not underwrite defaulting debtors. It will demand
political submission for what help is given. This is not a message that
will be lost in Europe, whatever the anti-Greek feeling is now.
NYTimes | If
a meeting on Monday between Puerto Rico and its creditors is any
indication, restructuring the island’s $72 billion in debt could be a
long process.
At
that meeting, the commonwealth’s finance team said it had not yet
determined how it would seek to revamp the island’s obligations.
The
roughly 350 creditors, such as hedge funds and money managers, that had
packed into a Park Avenue auditorium on Monday afternoon were told they
would have to wait several more weeks until a working group made up of
Puerto Rico political leaders came up with formal recommendations for
ending the island’s fiscal crisis.
“I
ask for your patience while we develop a credible plan that meets all
of our stakeholders’ objectives,” Melba Acosta Febo, the president of
the Government Development Bank for Puerto Rico, told the creditors
gathered at Citigroup’s executive headquarters.
The
meeting, which lasted more than an hour, was the first time that
creditors heard directly from Puerto Rico officials since Gov. Alejandro
GarcÃa Padilla declared two weeks ago that the island’s debt was not payable.
The government spent most of its presentation on Monday reiterating the
bleak condition of the island’s economy and calling for drastic measures
like cutting sick leave for local workers and lowering the minimum wage
to jump-start hiring. It has more municipal bond debt per capita than any American state.
theatlantic | “Most educated people are aware that we are the outcome of nearly 4 billion years of Darwinian selection, but many tend to think that humans are somehow the culmination. Our sun, however, is less than halfway through its lifespan. It will not be humans who watch the sun’s demise, 6 billion years from now. Any creatures that then exist will be as different from us as we are from bacteria or amoebae.”
Among the several questions that jostled for the uppermost in my mind was this: Where is the fiction that can rise to the level of this stupefying reality? (Only one novelist, Julian Barnes, was sufficiently struck to include Rees’s passage in a book, but that was in his extended nonfiction memoir about death,Nothing to Be Frightened Of.) I quite soon came to realize that there was indeed a writer who could have heard or read those words with equanimity, even satisfaction, and that this was J. G. Ballard. For him, the possibility of any mutation or metamorphosis was to be taken for granted, if not indeed welcomed, as was the contingency that, dead sun or no dead sun, the terrestrial globe could very readily be imagined after we’re gone.
As one who has always disliked and distrusted so-called science fiction (the votaries of this cult disagreeing pointlessly about whether to refer to it as “SF” or “sci-fi”), I was prepared to be unimpressed even after Kingsley Amis praised Ballard as “the most imaginative of H. G. Wells’s successors.” The natural universe is far too complex and frightening and impressive on its own to require the puerile add-ons of space aliens and super-weapons: the interplanetary genre made evenC. S. Lewis writemore falsely than he normally did. Hearing me drone on in this vein about 30 years ago, Amis fils (who contributes a highly lucid introduction to this collection) wordlessly handed meThe Drowned World,The Day of Forever, and, for a shift in pace and rhythm,Crash. Any one of these would have done the trick.
For all that, Ballard is arguably best-known to a wide audience because of his relatively “straight” novel,Empire of the Sun, and the resulting movie by Steven Spielberg. Some of his devotees were depressed by the literalness of the subject matter, which is a quasi-autobiographical account of being 13 years old and an inmate in a Japanese internment camp in Shanghai. It’s not possible to read that book, however, and fail to see the germinal effect that experience had on Ballard the man. To see a once-thriving city reduced to beggary and emptiness, to live one day at a time in point of food and medicine, to see an old European order brutally and efficiently overturned, to notice the utterly casual way in which human life can be snuffed out, and to see war machines wheeling and diving in the overcast sky: such an education! Don’t forget, either, that young Ballard was ecstatic at the news of the atomic obliteration of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, an emotion that makes him practically unique among postwar literati. Included in this collection is a very strong 1977 story, “The Dead Time,” a sort of curtain-raiser toEmpire—Ballard’s own preferred name for his book—in which a young man released from Japanese captivity drives a truckload of cadavers across a stricken landscape and ends up feeding a scrap of his own torn flesh to a ravenous child.
Miracles of Life(a book with a slightly but not entirely misleading title) will soon enough discern that he built on his wartime Shanghai traumas in three related ways. As a teenager in post-war England he came across first Freud, and second the surrealists. He describes the two encounters as devastating in that they taught him what he already knew: religion is abject nonsense, human beings positively enjoy inflicting cruelty, and our species is prone to, and can coexist with, the most grotesque absurdities.
A Foundation of Joy
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Two years and I've lost count of how many times my eye has been operated
on, either beating the fuck out of the tumor, or reattaching that slippery
eel ...
April Three
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4/3
43
When 1 = A and 26 = Z
March = 43
What day?
4 to the power of 3 is 64
64th day is March 5
My birthday
March also has 5 letters.
4 x 3 = 12
...
Return of the Magi
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Lately, the Holy Spirit is in the air. Emotional energy is swirling out of
the earth.I can feel it bubbling up, effervescing and evaporating around
us, s...
New Travels
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Haven’t published on the Blog in quite a while. I at least part have been
immersed in the area of writing books. My focus is on Science Fiction an
Historic...
Covid-19 Preys Upon The Elderly And The Obese
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sciencemag | This spring, after days of flulike symptoms and fever, a man
arrived at the emergency room at the University of Vermont Medical Center.
He ...