August 25, 2013 archive

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AC Meetup: Being Left of Labour is Easier than Ever… so what’s the problem? by NY Brit Expat

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“Our starting point for 2015/16 will be that we cannot reverse any cut in day to day, current spending unless it is fully funded from cuts elsewhere or extra revenue – not from more borrowing.

So when George Osborne stands up next week and announces his cuts in day to day spending, we won’t be able to promise now to reverse them because we can only do so when we can be absolutely crystal clear about where the money is coming from (Ed Miliband, June 22, 2013 (http://www.channel4.com/news/miliband-labour-will-not-borrow-more-to-reverse-cuts).”

It has become rather obvious that the tactic of shifting the Labour party to the left is futile, even in situations where government cuts are unpopular and they can pick up votes they refuse to reverse direction (e.g., bedroom tax and changes to child care benefit). Instead of saying we won’t be borrowing to reverse changes, the idea of taxes on wealth, the introduction of a general financial transactions tax, or introducing more bands on income tax to make it more progressive or closing tax loopholes to fund these changes is not discussed.

Adoption of neoliberalism as the basis for economic policy decisions is a political decision! It is not as though there is a dearth of other choices for economic policy that do not rely on lowering wages to maintain profitability and privatisation of public services.  As such, choices in the electoral arena are essentially mainstream political parties upholding a neoliberal position. There is essentially no political party that represents the interests of the majority in the context of a grotesque attack on the social welfare state, divide and rule ideology, and privatisation of what remains of the state sector including parts of the NHS.

h/t to Elise Hendricks for the title of this piece!

Respecting Gender

[I’ve been asked to repost this here.  I hope you enjoy it.]

Awkward.  That’s about the only way I can explain the New York Times article by Emmarie Huetteman and Brian Stelter, After Sentencing, Manning Says, “I am Female”.

It’s almost like the writers didn’t even read Chelsea Manning’s statement. which is somewhat odd since the last paragraph indicated that they were aware of the issue.

And what was the issue?  Chelsea Manning had asked that people refer to her by using feminine pronouns.  The Times writers managed to write about that while referring to her only with male pronouns.

I want to thank everybody who has supported me over the last three years.  Throughout this long ordeal, your letters of support and encouragement have helped keep me strong.  I am forever indebted to those who wrote to me, made a donation to  defense fund, or came to watch a portion of the trial. I would especially like to thank Courage to Resist and the Bradley Manning Support Network for their tireless efforts in raising awareness for my case and providing for my legal representation.

As I transition into this next phase of my life, I want everyone to know the real me.  I am Chelsea Manning.  I am a female.  Given the way that I feel, and have felt since childhood, I want to begin hormone therapy as soon as possible. I hope that you will support me in this transition.  I also request that, starting today, you refer to me by my new name and use the feminine pronoun (except in official mail to the confinement facility). I look forward to receiving letters from supporters and having the opportunity to write back.

–Chelsea E. Manning

Cruisin’

The now venerable cruise missile is quite different from the Predator drones.  It relies on inboard programmed intelligence instead of remote piloting.  Sensors of the missile scan the heavens for route correction while other sensors feed ground data to stored cartographic data.  

Reporters at a hotel in one war torn capital noted that the slow-moving cruise missiles seemed to be headed for a direct strike at their hotel and then seemed to veer off as if they were reading the street signs.

There was a blow up in relations between Clinton’s White House and China when cruise missiles struck the Chinese Embassy in Belgrade.  The Chinese screamed they had painted “Chinese Embassy” on the roof.  It made me think of the challenge of realtime optical character recognition (OCR} combined with interpretation of the characters to abort the mission even as it descended on the target.

It would be an uncertain challenge indeed but perhaps no greater than the efforts needed for realtime path correction.

It appears now it is just a matter of time before we see some cruising in and near Damascus.  The slow-moving, low-flying cruise missiles are vulnerable to ground fire but resist radar that would much more easily take out drones.

Best,  Terry

On This Day In History August 25

Cross posted from The Stars Hollow Gazette

This is your morning Open Thread. Pour your favorite beverage and review the past and comment on the future.

Find the past “On This Day in History” here.

August 25 is the 237th day of the year (238th in leap years) in the Gregorian calendar. There are 128 days remaining until the end of the year.

On this day in 1768, James Cook began his first voyage to travel to the Pacific Ocean to observe and record the transit of Venus across the Sun. This would be the first of three voyages that would be hailed as  heroic by the scientific community.

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The routes of Captain James Cook’s voyages. The first voyage is shown in red, second voyage in green, and third voyage in blue. The route of Cook’s crew following his death is shown as a dashed blue line.

In 1766, the Royal Society hired (James) Cook to travel to the Pacific Ocean to observe and record the transit of Venus across the Sun. Cook was promoted to Lieutenant and named as commander of the expedition. The expedition sailed from England in 1768, rounded Cape Horn and continued westward across the Pacific to arrive at Tahiti  on 13 April 1769, where the observations were to be made. However, the result of the observations was not as conclusive or accurate as had been hoped. Cook later mapped the complete New Zealand coastline, making only some minor errors. He then sailed west, reaching the south-eastern coast of the Australian continent on 19 April 1770, and in doing so his expedition became the first recorded Europeans to have encountered its eastern coastline.

On 23 April he made his first recorded direct observation of indigenous Australians at Brush Island near Bawley Point, noting in his journal: “…and were so near the Shore as to distinguish several people upon the Sea beach they appear’d to be of a very dark or black Colour but whether this was the real colour of their skins or the C[l]othes they might have on I know not.” On 29 April Cook and crew made their first landfall on the mainland of the continent at a place now known as the Kurnell Peninsula, which he named Botany Bay after the unique specimens retrieved by the botanists Joseph Banks and Daniel Solander. It is here that James Cook made first contact with an Aboriginal tribe known as the Gweagal.

After his departure from Botany Bay he continued northwards, and a mishap occurred when Endeavour ran aground on a shoal of the Great Barrier Reef, on 11 June, and “nursed into a river mouth on 18 June 1770.” The ship was badly damaged and his voyage was delayed almost seven weeks while repairs were carried out on the beach (near the docks of modern Cooktown, at the mouth of the Endeavour River). Once repairs were complete the voyage continued, sailing through Torres Strait and on 22 August he landed on Possession Island, where he claimed the entire coastline he had just explored as British territory. He returned to England via Batavia (modern Jakarta, Indonesia), the Cape of Good Hope and the island of Saint Helena, arriving on 12 July 1771.

Six In The Morning

On Sunday

Syria: Cameron and Obama threaten ‘serious response’

25 August 2013 Last updated at 08:01 GMT

The BBC

The UK and the US have threatened a “serious response” if it emerges Syria used chemical weapons last week.

Prime Minister David Cameron and President Barack Obama spoke on the telephone for 40 minutes on Saturday.

Both were “gravely concerned” by the “increasing signs that this was a significant chemical weapons attack carried out by the Syrian regime”, Mr Cameron’s office said in a statement.

The Syrian government has denied involvement and blamed rebel fighters.

State television reported on Saturday that soldiers had found chemical agents in tunnels used by the rebels to the east of Damascus.




Sunday’s Headlines:

Save our skins: The new boom in illegal trading driving the world’s rarest species to extinction

Saudi rulers fear Egypt’s fate

CAR rebels accused of massacres

From Myanmar to China, the cinema industry tests the limits of censorship

China’s Bo Xilai rebuts testimony of ex-police chief key to his downfall

Three Things On The Internet

Each night during his evening show All In host Chris Hayes highlights three things from the internet that his viewers have tweeted to him. These were his choices for Friday’s “Click 3

Toronto Mayor Rob Ford takes down Hulk Hogan

Toronto Mayor Rob Ford defied the odds to beat wrestling icon Hulk Hogan in an arm-wrestling match at Toronto’s Fan Expo this morning.

“I own this town, man!” Ford yelled as he beat the 14-time pro wrestling champ.

The Hulk was scheduled to hold an “uncensored” presser after the match. I’ll let you know if I find the video for that.

11 Untranslatable Words From Other Cultures

The relationship between words and their meaning is a fascinating one, and linguists have spent countless years deconstructing it, taking it apart letter by letter, and trying to figure out why there are so many feelings and ideas that we cannot even put words to, and that our languages cannot identify.

#BATFLECK BACKLASH: On the Web, does Batman’s studio hear you scream?

Indeed, and one most passionately forged by the actor Richard Dreyfuss. Looking closer, we can see his engraving reads: “You read for a part, you feel good about it, you feel confident, then they cast Ben Affleck.

Zing. By the ghost of “Gigli,” that stings.

Warner Bros. announced shortly before 9:30 p.m. Thursday that Ben Affleck is our new big-screen Batman. Within minutes, Dreyfuss – true to his own trained and brash and passionate style as an Oscar-winning actor – tweeted his artful thrust-and-parry, drawing first blood as the Internet responded to the casting fury that rapidly went by the handy hashtag #Batfleck.

One shakes ones head.

Late Night Karaoke

Today’s March on Washington: It’s About Jobs and Freedom

Cross posted from yesterday at The Stars Hollow Gazette

50 Years Later, the Untold History of the March on Washington & MLK’s Most Famous Speech

One week out from the 50th anniversary of the 1963 March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom – and just days away from a major march this Saturday commemorating the event – we spend the hour looking at much of its forgotten history. More than a quarter-million people came to the nation’s capital on August 28, 1963, to protest discrimination, joblessness and economic inequality faced by African Americans. Many now consider the march to be a key turning point in the civil rights movement.

50 Years Later, the Untold History of the March on Washington & MLK’s Most Famous Speech

One week out from the 50th anniversary of the 1963 March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom – and just days away from a major march this Saturday commemorating the event – we spend the hour looking at much of its forgotten history. More than a quarter-million people came to the nation’s capital on August 28, 1963, to protest discrimination, joblessness and economic inequality faced by African Americans. Many now consider the march to be a key turning point in the civil rights movement.

Saturday Night Movie

The Failure of State Monopolism

Private Gain to a Few Trumps Public Good for the Many

Robert Reich

Thursday, August 22, 2013

A society – any society — is defined as a set of mutual benefits and duties embodied most visibly in public institutions: public schools, public libraries, public transportation, public hospitals, public parks, public museums, public recreation, public universities, and so on.

Public institutions are supported by all taxpayers, and are available to all. If the tax system is progressive, those who are better off (and who, presumably, have benefitted from many of these same public institutions) help pay for everyone else.

“Privatize” means “Pay for it yourself.” The practical consequence of this in an economy whose wealth and income are now more concentrated than at any time in the past 90 years is to make high-quality public goods available to fewer and fewer.

In fact, much of what’s called “public” is increasingly a private good paid for by users – ever-higher tolls on public highways and public bridges, higher tuitions at so-called public universities, higher admission fees at public parks and public museums.

Much of the rest of what’s considered “public” has become so shoddy that those who can afford to do so find private alternatives. As public schools deteriorate, the upper-middle class and wealthy send their kids to private ones. As public pools and playgrounds decay, the better-off buy memberships in private tennis and swimming clubs. As public hospitals decline, the well-off pay premium rates for private care.



The great expansion of public institutions in America began in the early years of 20th century, when progressive reformers championed the idea that we all benefit from public goods. Excellent schools, roads, parks, playgrounds and transit systems would knit the new industrial society together, create better citizens and generate widespread prosperity.

Education, for example, was less a personal investment than a public good – improving the entire community and ultimately the nation.

In subsequent decades – through the Great Depression, World War II and the Cold War – this logic was expanded upon. Strong public institutions were seen as bulwarks against, in turn, mass poverty, fascism and then Soviet communism.

The public good was palpable: We were very much a society bound together by mutual needs and common threats. It was no coincidence that the greatest extensions of higher education after World War II were the GI Bill and the National Defense Education Act, or that the largest public works project in history was called the National Interstate and Defense Highways Act.

But in a post-Cold War America distended by global capital, distorted by concentrated income and wealth, undermined by unlimited campaign donations, and rocked by a wave of new immigrants easily cast by demagogues as “them,” the notion of the public good has faded.

Not even Democrats still use the phrase “the public good.” Public goods are now, at best, “public investments.” Public institutions have morphed into “public-private partnerships” or, for Republicans, simply “vouchers.”



America has, though, created a whopping entitlement for the biggest Wall Street banks and their top executives – who, unlike most of the rest of us, are no longer allowed to fail. They can also borrow from the Fed at almost no cost, then lend out the money at 3 percent to 6 percent.

All told, Wall Street’s entitlement is the biggest offered by the federal government, even though it doesn’t show up in the budget. And it’s not even a public good. It’s just private gain.

We’re losing public goods available to all, supported by the tax payments of all and especially the better-off. In its place we have private goods available to the very rich, supported by the rest of us.

Today on The Stars Hollow Gazette

Photobucket Pictures, Images and Photos

Our regular featured content-

These weekly features-

These featured articles-

This special feature-

Follow us on Twitter @StarsHollowGzt

Write more and often.  This is an Open Thread.

The Stars Hollow Gazette