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And, yes, I DO take it personally: 06/06/2010 - 06/13/2010
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And, yes, I DO take it personally

Sunday, June 06, 2010

How rage becomes a virus - Chris Hedges on the Israeli genocide in Gaza

the sad reality is that it isn't just israel that's perpetrating this kind of atrocity... there's a very simple, straightforward reason that israel and the united states are so closely allied... how can the u.s. speak out against what it practices in its own foreign policy...?

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Of COURSE, Israel is willing to work with Washington

why wouldn't israel want to work with virtually its LAST uncritical ally in the world...?
Israel rejects UN call for international inquiry into flotilla raids

Ambassador to US dismisses Ban Ki-moon's suggestion but says Israel is willing to work with Washington

the cheese stands alone... well, almost...

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Saturday, June 05, 2010

Today's LEAST surprising "news" story

i was digging through some of my more recent memorabilia this past week and came across a brochure that was being handed out by argentine immigration and customs officials last year during the height of the swine flu "pandemic"... i was flying to buenos aires from afghanistan via dubai and sao paulo... swine flu was little more than a side topic of discussion in kabul... i saw no more than 4 or 5 people in the very busy dubai international airport wearing face masks, quite a few more in sao paulo as i was changing planes, and, when i got to buenos aires, all the officials were wearing face masks along with a goodly number of the passengers... i was surprised and remember commenting to myself on what i believed, even at that time, to be an overblown fear tactic... well, guess what...?
Reports accuse WHO of exaggerating H1N1 threat, possible ties to drug makers

European criticism of the World Health Organization's handling of the H1N1 pandemic intensified Friday with the release of two reports that accused the agency of exaggerating the threat posed by the virus and failing to disclose possible influence by the pharmaceutical industry on its recommendations for how countries should respond.

The WHO's response caused widespread, unnecessary fear and prompted countries around the world to waste millions of dollars, according to one report. At the same time, the Geneva-based arm of the United Nations relied on advice from experts with ties to drug makers in developing the guidelines it used to encourage countries to stockpile millions of doses of antiviral medications, according to the second report.

along with the multiple things that annoy me about my fellow "liberals" and "progressives" is the way they pounced on anyone who dared to question the legitimacy of the flu "pandemic" in very much the same way they do with those who question any other item of the liberal/progressive orthodoxy...

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Friday, June 04, 2010

Do you believe in coincidence...? I don't...

i tended to shrug this goldman story off, not because it didn't trip my bullshit detector, mind you...
The brokerage firm that's faced the most scrutiny from regulators in the past year over the shorting of mortgage related securities seems to have had good timing when it came to something else: the stock of British oil giant BP.

According to regulatory filings, RawStory.com has found that Goldman Sachs sold 4,680,822 shares of BP in the first quarter of 2010. Goldman's sales were the largest of any firm during that time. Goldman would have pocketed slightly more than $266 million if their holdings were sold at the average price of BP's stock during the quarter.

If Goldman had sold these shares today, their investment would have lost 36 percent its value, or $96 million. The share sales represented 44 percent of Goldman's holdings -- meaning that Goldman's remaining holdings have still lost tens of millions in value.

now i read this and i can't shrug it off any more...
Tony Hayward cashed in about a third of his holding in the company one month before a well on the Deepwater Horizon rig burst, causing an environmental disaster.

Mr Hayward, whose pay package is £4 million a year, then paid off the mortgage on his family’s mansion in Kent, which is estimated to be valued at more than £1.2 million.

had prior knowledge that the company was to face the biggest setback in its history.

His decision, however, means he avoided losing more than £423,000 when BP’s share price plunged after the oil spill began six weeks ago.

Since he disposed of 223,288 shares on March 17, the company’s share price has fallen by 30 per cent. About £40 billion has been wiped off its total value. The fall has caused pain not just for BP shareholders, but also for millions of company pension funds and small investors who have money held in tracker funds.

coincidence...? huh-uh... ain't buyin' it...

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Talk about an understated headline

check it out...
U.S. Adds Jobs in May, but Private Hiring Disappoints

so... not good news, for sure, but certainly not disastrous either, right...?
A shadow fell across America’s economic recovery on Friday, as the Labor Department’s monthly report showed that private sector job growth was considerably weaker than expected.

The headline numbers suggested a reason to be optimistic — employers added 431,000 jobs and the jobless rate fell to 9.7 percent from 9.9 percent in April.

wrong...
But the underlying numbers showed that almost all of the job growth came from the 411,000 workers hired by the federal government to help with the Census. Most of those jobs will disappear in a few months.

By contrast, the private sector created 41,000, far short of expectations of 150,000 to 180,000 jobs. And the number of long-term unemployed, those who out of work for 27 or more weeks, remained at its highest rate since the Labor Department began collecting such data in the 1940s.

how about a headline a little bit more in line with the truth, like this one for instance...

Long-term unemployment remains highest since the 1940s

our precious stock market isn't easily fooled, however...

The markets were sent skidding immediately after the opening, after the Labor Department’s report on job growth in May fell short of expectations.

[...]

The Dow Jones industrial average closed below 10,000 for the third time this year, ending at 9,931.22, down 324.06, or 3.2 percent. It was the Dow’s lowest close in almost four months. The Standard & Poor’s 500-stock index was down 3.4 percent, and the Nasdaq composite declined 3.6 percent.

ya gotta love that "short of expectations" part... no shit...

but it ain't only the labor market stats that are weighing things down... no sir...

The euro also continued its decline, dropping to less than $1.20 on concerns about the fiscal troubles in Europe.

While the markets have been bedeviled for weeks by worries mostly over debt problems in Spain, Portugal and Greece, the boundaries of the problem shifted to Hungary after its government sent worrying signals about its finances. Investors fled the country’s assets, and the euro slipped to $1.1992 in afternoon trading in London, its lowest level since March 2006.

our so-called news media, no doubt responding to the urging of our super-rich elites, continue to try to paper over the deepening world financial crisis... but no matter how much they try to soft-pedal it, things just ain't gettin' better...

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Thursday, June 03, 2010

As long as we're talking about Israel and the attack on the Gaza peace flotilla

here's a two-fer from al jazeera...
Al Jazeera's Jamal Elshayyal has been released by Israeli authorities following Monday's deadly raid on the Mavi Marmara aid ship that was destined for Gaza.

Our producer, who reported from the ship as Israel launched the raid, was on the top deck when the ship was attacked.

Here, he tells his account of what happened.



next up, glenn greenwald...
Though international criticism has been mounting against Israel's raid on civilian aid ships bound for Gaza, reaction from the United States has been cautious.

Glenn Greenwald, a former constitutional lawyer and civil rights litigator, said this muted response is due to the "huge political price" US politicians must pay for being seen as adversarial to Israel.

In an interview with Al Jazeera, Greenwald, a contributing editor for Salon.com, said what is clear is that the Obama administration has given its full support to the Israeli government once again.



none of this, of course, will be aired on u.s. news outlets...

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An American condemnation of Israel ... would be an act of senseless insincerity

glenn, as is so often the case, hits the bulls-eye...

read it here...

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With so many intelligent opinions available, why does the NYT offer space to an official, paid, Israel apologist?

what the hell do you expect to hear about the attack on the gaza peace flotilla from the israeli ambassador to the united states...? hmmmmm...? and why does this guy deserve space that could otherwise be taken up by someone who could provide an intelligent, contextual perspective on the situation...? why does the nyt seem to feel the need to provide an outlet for someone who is paid to dispense a carefully spun defense of the country he serves as an ambassador...?

the headline on the op-ed and the credentials of the author tell you all you need to know about the content of the piece... no need to read further...

OP-ED CONTRIBUTOR
An Assault, Cloaked in Peace
By MICHAEL B. OREN
Published: June 2, 2010


[...]

Michael B. Oren is Israel’s ambassador to the United States.

in a day and age where literally everything is spun and propagandized to the hilt, we desperately need dispassionate, rational, contextualized discourse but apparently we're not going to get it any time soon...

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Tuesday, June 01, 2010

Damn...! It's REALLY hard to keep the ol' chin up...!

the never-ending oil spill steadily killing the entire caribbean ecosystem, israel intent on exterminating the palestinians by insuring they starve to death, predator drone attacks murdering innocent civilians in afghanistan and pakistan and, on the home scene, continuously accelerating foreclosures, jobs being erased by the thousands... let's all keep a stiff upper lip, eh...? tomorrow's another day...

ri-i-i-ight...

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