We welcome readers' comments, questions, or criticisms sent to unknownnews@inbox.com, and we publish any emails that (in our subjective opinion) add to the discourse.       Spam won't be tolerated, we're impatient with wingnuttery, we won't fix your typos or tidy up your grammar, and our readers are usually too intelligent to insult each other. If you're responding to an earlier comment please include the link or some clue for context (like "in answer to wlgriffi on Tuesday").       Anything sent to Unknown News may be published. If you don't want it published, say so plainly. When we publish incoming emails, we edit out the sender's last name and email address (if we slip up, or if you want your full name and email address published, please let us know). 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This doesn't mean we're anti-American, redneck scum, pinko commies, militia members, or terrorist-sympathizers. It means we believe in freedom, as more than merely a cliché. We believe you have the right to live your own life as you choose, and others have the equal right to live their lives as they choose. It's not complicated. We believe freedom leads to peace, progress, and prosperity, while its opposite -- oppression -- leads to war, terrorism, poverty, and misery. We believe it's preposterously stupid to hate people because of their appearance, their race or nationality, their religion or lack of religion, how they have sex with other consenting adults, etc. There are far more apropos reasons to hate most people. We believe in questioning ourselves, our assumptions, each other -- and we especially believe in questioning authority (the more authority, the more questions). We believe obedience is a fine quality in dogs and young children, but not in adults. Like America's right-wingers, we believe in individual responsibility, hard work to get ahead, and stern punishment for serious crimes. We believe big government should not be blindly trusted. But unlike most right-wing leaders, we mean it. Like America's left-wingers, we believe in equal treatment under law, war as a last (not first) resort, and sensible stewardship of natural resources. We believe big business should not be blindly trusted. But unlike most left-wing leaders, we mean it. Like libertarians, we believe it's wrong and reprehensible to arrest people for what they think, believe, look like, wear, eat, smoke, drink, inhale, inject, or otherwise do to themselves. But unlike many libertarians, we're not obsessed with the gold standard, we don't believe incorporation is humanity's highest achievement, and we don't believe everything in life comes down to dollars and cents. We've read and enjoyed Ayn Rand's novels, but we understand that they're works of fiction. We're skeptical, and we're sick of so-called 'journalists' who aren't skeptical at all. A reader asks, what are our solutions? We propose no solutions except common sense, which is never common. We like the principles of democracy, and the ideals broadly described as 'American'. The US Constitution is a fine and workable framework for solutions, when it's actually read and thoughtfully understood by intelligent statesmen and women. So, no manifestos from us. We don't dream that big, and if there's one thing the world doesn't need it's yet another manifesto. Our suggestion is: think. A fact-based instead of faith-based approach leads to solutions for most of the recurring issues of our time, from abortion to global climate change, pollution to universal health care, careful but real regulation of industry and economy, hunger, war, terror, human rights for humans not for corporations, science not religious doctrine in public schools, equal protection and prosecution under law, etc. Approach problems without glorifying stupidity, without demonizing intelligence, and answers usually come into focus. These pages are published by Harry and Helen Highwater, happily married low-income nom de plumes and rabble-rousers from Madison, Wisconsin (with a few friends scattered around the world helping out). We try to spotlight news that hasn't gotten enough (or appropriate) attention in American media, along with our opinions and yours. We bang our keyboards against the wall, because it doesn't hurt as much as banging our heads. Helen & Harry Highwater     (from About Unknown News)

#  Angry Annie on Saturday —

The Obama administration won't punish the obvious criminality of the Bush-Cheney administration, won't punish the obvious criminality in the finance industry, won't punish the obvious criminality of BP in cahoots with the Interior Department, won't end the wars, and the President won't put his ass on the line for anything that matters. Is this guy a superputz or what?

#  Helen & Harry on Saturday —

A superputz.

#  The Blue Rajah on Saturday —

Re: Obama/Gulf: need I say my optimism is no longer? But not my sense of humor: BP shoulda done a barrel roll.

#  Helen & Harry on Saturday —

The low-key image Obama has cultivated, never raising his voice, never fighting for anything, just asking nice and smiling a lot, seems staggeringly inappropriate for the Gulf of Chernobyl. But that's the only tool in his kit, seems to be.

#  Lon Garm on Friday —

Wildwood police officer sentenced to five years for kicking suspects (but he'll be eligible for parole in just one year...)

This is more like it!!!

Chinese cop's death sentence for rape, bribery upheld

#  Man on Flute on Friday —

oh shit, this won't help the economy -- compliance costs will be 10 times the tax collected...

Stealth IRS changes mean millions of new tax forms

All business payments or purchases that exceed $600 in a calendar year will need to be accompanied by a 1099 filing. That means obtaining the taxpayer ID number of the individual or corporation you're making the payment to -- even if it's a giant retailer like Staples or Best Buy -- at the time of the transaction, or else facing IRS penalties. ...

#  Bad Medicine on Friday —

Rand Paul is not exactly a sizzling light bulb, is he? Seems like a dumb demagogue to me. He's no Ron Paul, that's for sure, and every time he opens his mouth between now and election day, the stupidity and racism of his "Tea Party" movement will be a bit more revealed.

#  Helen & Harry on Friday —

I have a touch of sympathy for Rand's position that everyone's having fun with, that business owners have the right to be racists or rednecks and refuse service to blacks, the handicapped, Jews, or whatever bigotry they wish to enforce. I don't agree, but a smart guy could make that case without coming across as callous and cruel and clueless.

Rand Paul, though, is not that smart a guy. Even in the South, it's just flat-out stupid to say such things out loud during an election campaign.

Also, judging from his interview with Rachel Maddow, he seems to have almost negative charisma, at least to me.

#  Beer Bottle 101 on Thursday —

found this at Bruce Sterling's blog, funny/good

quote: "Yes, there is this whole Vauban scene, as if some Teutonic wizard had ransacked the dreams of every idealistic urban planner in the free world and stitched together all the bits and pieces of walkable, mid-rise, mixed-use, transit-friendly, eco-conscious design in the lee of a Black Forest hillside as the setting for a fairy tale called Little Green Riding Hood Rescues Hansel & Gretel and They All Flee the Dark Forest to Live Together in Solar-Powered Social-Democratic Harmony So Luminous It Convinces the Wolf to Self-Domesticate and Form a Limited Partnership with the Witch to Provide Efficiency Retrofits at Reasonable Prices. Yes, yes. All that. Lovely. Wunderbar."

#  Helen & Harry on Thursday —

That's pretty groovy and more good news, at the same address I've just learned that Sterling's wife got her green card.

#  Ben Legume on Thursday —

This is so funny, a friend of mine (who's also a mad Croatian) had a run-in with this guy a couple of years back at the Croatian club and was told he was headed for prison etc. due to his bad attitude.

Now guess who's spending the next year locked up with paedophiles and police informers?

Former police sergeant jailed after lying about speeding fines

#  Helen & Harry on Thursday —

Many more such stories should have that kind of happy ending.

#  J.S. Magruder at Eat the Blog on Thursday —

As students toss fake "green cards" onto the field at an athletic game in a largely Latino school, people can be heard wondering aloud where they'd get such an idea? Probably, here. Or on talk radio. Or newspaper comment threads. The suspensions only came after the national media caught wind of the story. Just kids playing a prank, hardee har har har.

I'm glad Nebraska wants to model a law based on the one in AZ. After all, why should THEY get to be the most regressive state in the union? The Governor is still sticking his finger up in the air to see which way the wind is blowing before making a statement. He's kinda like that.

PS — I promise to send along something less depressing — if something less depressing happens.

#  Helen & Harry on Thursday —

I expect nothing less depressing to happen, in Nebraska or anywhere else.

Then again, the incident at the high school soccer game is making me feel a little bit better about the species, just because a large segment of the schoolkids seem to have cognisance enough to grasp the meanness and wrongness and want to apologize. I can take that as a feel-good walk-away moment.

I'll be curious to see whether the Nebraska legislature wants its share of laughing-stock status and boycotts. I'm guessing the answer will be yes, in Nebraska and a few other states where Republicans hold power. Evolution is a very slow process and the GOP is adamantly opposed.

#  Montgomery Scott on Wednesday —

Science fiction master Norman Spinrad undergoes cancer surgery

Hi Norman,

I've enjoyed reading most of your books, but "Little Heroes" is one of the greatest, most classic sci-fi novels in the history of Earth :-) My copy is well read and worn, but I keep it safely protected in a ziplock for the sake of posterity :-)

Hope you feel better soon,

Your Big, Huge, Majorly Ginormous Fan (in most universes),

#  Helen & Harry on Wednesday —

He's a damn good writer, a favorite from way back when I used to have an imagination, and I've sent him a get-well note (normanspinrad [at] hotmail [dot] com).

#  John R.W. on Wednesday —

"Unlike the response to other past national disasters such as Hurricane Katrina where the government was in charge, BP has been designated as the 'responsible party' under federal law and is overseeing much of the response to the spill. The government is acting more as an adviser.

Read more: BP withholds oil spill facts — and government lets it

And Obama thinks that Americans will tolerate a hands-off approach? How'd that work out for GWB ... after Katrina?

#  Helen & Harry on Wednesday —

I can't think of anything that will more quickly make the Gulf of Chernobyl into Obama's Katrina.

#  Ben Legume on Tuesday —

Any good cops?

Well here is our latest shining example of law-and-order in Australia:

"But long before he met third wife Janet Fisicaro, who he pushed from a cliff south of Sydney in March 2005, Campbell admitted to being a disgraced Victorian drug squad officer who bashed confessions out of suspects and planted false evidence."

Former Victoria Police detective Des Campbell found guilty of murder after he killed his wife by pushing her off a cliff

Keep up the good work, I have been very interested reading about the oil spill (which was a minor item here which has since disappeared).

#  Helen & Harry on Tuesday —

In answer to your opening query, I wonder what a scientific study would find, about the fundamental honesty and integrity of ordinary cops. Good and bad cops in a roughly fifty-fifty flip-a-coin roll-the-dice split, I suspect. My gut-level impression is that there are plenty of good cops, mostly the new recruits who haven't yet been fully assimilated into the culture of corruption.

#  J.S. Magruder at Eat the Blog on Tuesday —

Re: Climate Change and the Integrity of Science

Oh man, where do I begin? This is pretty horrifying:

Millard scrutinizes book, video

So last week, our congressman's wife got all bent out of shape because her son's textbook discussed global warming. No surprise there, but her argument was that she'd read a review of the textbook and a few excerpts at Amazon and based on that, decided it should be pulled from the schools. So far, the school district is saying "no", but they did let her son use a different text.

Gee whiz, don't you think calling for a textbook to be banned from the classroom merits actually reading the thing? Maybe even a close reading? A little scrutiny would lend some credibility to your batshit craziness...ok, it wouldn't, but still. Come on, the text was written for twelve year olds, I'm sure (ok, I'm not positive) she can handle it. Maybe. Geez.

It would be funny in a pathetic kind of way, except that people take this seriously. I can't even come up with a sarcastic response. HH1029

#  Helen & Harry on Tuesday —

Sigh. Thanks. How depressing, and how depressingly ordinary.

#  John R.W. on Tuesday —

Need to vent on this one. I followed your original link and read through 26 painful pages of comments, the majority of which were posted by nazis disguised as "conservatives".

The recurring arguments being used to support the police: the grandmother making a play for the cop's gun (why??); the adults in the house knowingly harboring a murderer and putting the child in danger; the "no-snitch" culture of Detroit that won't "support the cops" (relatives should instead turn on each other and invite the cops to, as happened here, line everyone up and treat them like criminals); etc, ad nauseum. And the whole time I'm reading this thinking: these people are passing around allegations passed along by the local media, who just get their information from the cops, as if they are impartial facts!

Of course, the next day we find out that A&E was filming a TV show and had cameras rolling when the cops stormed that house. See: Attorney to file suits in death of Detroit girl, 7. Turns out, according to people who've seen the video, the shot was fired before the cop even entered the house. And, oh, it was the WRONG residence. So grandma trying to disarm one of three cops bursting through her door, after a flash grenade explodes in her living room, doesn't seem all that plausible. In fact, every damn argument made above is FALSE!!

The state's all-time champion publicity whore, Geoffrey Feiger, who you'll recall represented Jack Kevorkian and then immediately ran for governor, after squeezing every last bit of notoriety that comes from being associated with terminally-ill patients choosing to end their lives, is now suing the Detroit Police. And it just reinforces the very popular idea among suburbians that the residents of Detroit just want to blame someone else for their problems and cash in (welfare queens, etc).

Could this thing be anymore of a tragedy?

As a former Detroiter, a human being with a functioning cerebral cortex and good understanding of the last century of racial politics, can all the thank-a-cop people just go blow it out your asses!!! How about we take you keyboard warriors who refer to the residents of the city as "animals" and put you in a city with 50% unemployment, no functioning city government, a school system that is daycare at best, crumbled infrastructure, no hope for near-term investment, a long history of police brutality, rampant crime and hostile border communities and we'll see how fast you pull YOURSELF up by the bootstraps you sorry sacks of shit!

I just can't stand to listen to them anymore, you guys.

#  Helen & Harry on Tuesday —

The article you sent says cops had a warrant, so I'm unsure about your comment that the raid was at the wrong residence. And I am usually unable to read the "comments" from misinformed and maldeveloped Americans after news like this, so I didn't share that agony. But I'm all on board for the general gist of your comment. If anything you're too restrained. Cops need to be fired, prosecuted, and imprisoned over this incident, and Americans need to understand that the most unusual thing here isn't the dead girl, it's the TV cameras providing an honest, unspun view of the horror.


#  John R.W. on Tuesday —

It was a duplex and they busted down the wrong door. See: LINK. The suspect was upstairs.


#  Helen & Harry on Tuesday —

All the coverage I've seen says cops had a valid warrant for both units, but it's a moot point, at least to me. I'll let the investigators sort that out. Matters not much to me whether the paperwork was in order; the conduct was heinous and must be punished.


#  John R.W. on Wednesday —

I would add that neighbors pointed out to police before this happened ALL THE TOYS ON THE LAWN. Perhaps, they might want to use some caution before going in with guns blazing. Of course not. Why would you show restraint when you can rock out with your cock out?


#  Helen & Harry on Wednesday —

It'll probably take years before there's a verdict, but my prediction is a very short jail term for the cop who pulled the trigger, a few months "administrative leave" (paid time off) for the gunman's boss, and some new rules severely curtailing media ride-alongs, rules designed to make sure that there's no video evidence next time.

#  wlgriffi on Tuesday —

Pat's too blunt?

Jewish Democratic group asks syndicate to nix Pat Buchanan's column

Comment : Love Pat. Although he's 360 degrees opposite from my views I defend his right to voice his opinion. Anytime the cry of censorship rises up it raises my dander. If the right to express a criticism of Jews is too obnoxious for the "democratic" Israeli defenders perhaps they should emigrate to Israel where they can join the censorship of Israeli critics and deported for attempting to go to the West Bank or Gaza.

===

Another dodge.

Obama to create independent commission to review Gulf oil spill

Comment : LOL!!! Another Commission "White Paper" to add to the archive shelves to gather dust. Meanwhile,look the other way.

#  Helen & Harry on Tuesday —

A blue-ribbon committee to look into the BP-Halliburton oil disaster in the Gulf of Chernobyl. Yeah, that's the ticket...

#  Mick Caffeine on Tuesday —

Conspiracy of Banks Rigging States Came With Crash

[...] The secret conversation was part of a conspiracy stretching across the U.S. by Wall Street banks in the $2.8 trillion municipal bond market.

The call came less than two hours before bids were due for contracts to manage $90 million raised with the sale of West Virginia bonds. On one end of the line was Steven Goldberg, a trader with Financial Security Assurance Holdings Ltd. On the other was Zevi Wolmark, of advisory firm CDR Financial Products Inc. Goldberg arranged to pay a kickback to CDR to land the deal, according to government records filed in connection with a U.S. Justice Department indictment of CDR and Wolmark.

West Virginia was just one stop in a nationwide conspiracy in which financial advisers to municipalities colluded with Bank of America Corp., Citigroup Inc., JPMorgan Chase & Co., Lehman Brothers Holdings Inc., Wachovia Corp. and 11 other banks. [...]

=====

Credit-Card Industry Faces ‘Volcanic’ Senate Eruption

Credit-card firms caught off-guard by U.S. Senate passage of curbs on debit fees are facing what one executive sees as a “volcanic” eruption of legislation, including possible limits on interest rates. [...]

The biggest merchants have exploited a populist disdain for banks to push through the measure, which would damage consumers and “the vast majority” of retailers, said William Sheedy, group executive of the Americas for San Francisco-based Visa, the world’s largest card-payment network.

“The Durbin amendment is anti-consumer and irresponsible in a way that the big-box retailers and their lobbyists don’t want their consumers to know,” Sheedy said today in a telephone interview. “It would have been impossible absent this political environment for this kind of amendment to be slipped into the reform bill.” [...]

Yeah, right, haha.

#  Helen & Harry on Tuesday —

Anything Senator Richard Durbin (D-Illinois) authors can be assumed to be advantageous to big business and harmful to the republic.

As for the banks rigging billions in auctions, the surprise here isn't the rigging, or the brazen but utterly ordinary crookedness of the American finance system, and it certainly won't be a surprise when these organized crime outfits pay a small fine to make the scandal disappear. What's news is merely that it made the news at all, however briefly. Which is nice.


#  Mick Caffeine on Wednesday —

Well, the key takeaway here is that the banks -- ALL of the biggies -- were caught, red-handed, in a conspiratorial ripoff scheme, AGAIN.... A big conspiratorial ripoff scheme.

They were all in on Enron. Deeply involved. Partners.

They were all involved in bogus subprime lending scheme, among other mortgage-related things, such as passing crap mortgages to Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. They we all involved in the internet stock bubble. They were all involved in every major financial ripoff scheme. Caught in the act. These is RICO stuff. Thousands of employees at these banks should be headed to prison and their assets seized under the RICO laws. The banks shouldn't have been bailed out, they should have been told to call a bail bondsman!


#  Helen & Harry on Wednesday —

Check my chain of logic here, and tell me if there's some flaw in my thinking:

1. Without general public confidence in the integrity of the system financial markets can't work.

2. Since there is no integrity in much or most of the financial markets, we have reached the limits, I think, of what can be exposed without quickly crashing what little remains of a system built on fraud.

Thus 3. I suspect we won't be hearing much coverage of this in mainstream media.

But as with so many other things I expect, I'd love to be wrong.


#  Mick Caffeine on Wednesday —

Well, Point 1: accepted.

Point 2: key players/entitites involved in the financial system are criminals and/or dupes of criminals, but many parts of the financial "system" are not fraudulent; unfortunately, the foundation of the system is controlled by criminals and frauds.

Point 3: the financial system "crashes" when the controllers of the overall big system want it to crash. Every time it crashes they get richer. They make money shorting and foreclosing, then they make money on the bailouts and buying on the way up using money lent by the government at low interest rates. At bottoms "they" buy abandoned property for pennies on the dollar in deals that are guaranteed to not lose money (this is happening now.) As to why media coverage is a "fail", which corporation has the stomach for making career ending, possibly suicidal moves?

"For we wrestle not against flesh and blood, but against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this world, against spiritual wickedness in high places."
--Ephesians 6:12, KJV


#  Siskiyousis on Wednesday —

As far as I can tell, it is the same thing – these corps make war anywhere they can and profit hugely no matter who is involved on the ground or at the govt level.

Innocents trapped in the banking system? They go along to save their jobs? How long can that last? Did not work too well for the bottom-level jobs at Enron, did it? Is there really job-security in the civil-service sector? Long run... what happens in the Long Run, anyway?

Fabulous quote; the best use to which I have seen it put, perhaps ever.

No mention of Literal Evil but hiding in or behind Powers...


#  Mick Caffeine on Wednesday —

I *still* do a little banking with "Satan's Little Helper, Inc." (massive, heinous criminal bank run by demon spawn).

I just use them to hold/dispense spending money. Could switch to a local bank but I figure I might move away and then it would be convenient to already have an account. Have had the account for 15 years. I don't quickly abandon any business relationship where I am personally treated well. First time they fuck up though, they're history.

I figure they're not as evil as those other banks.

Maybe that's why people tolerate so much evil, they're comfortable with it. It's easy to go along and get along.

#  Theo Lipschitz on Monday —

TSA plans to x-ray 2 of every 3 air passengers even though millimeter wave scanners are equivalent in cost and results. Risks of x-raying entire population of country: incalculable over the long term. But the US government never did *do* long term -- just political expediency and try not to get fired before collecting juicy pensions...

- 5% of population is genetically vulnerable to DNA damage.

- not scanning head and neck areas would reduce basal melanomas, most likely cancers from x-raying, but TSA claims that would be inconvenient to them.

- scanning is "optional". now. but eventually that could turn into mandatory (because after all, flying isn't a "right", and there are no rights, just whatever they say today for whatever reason suits their "careers").

Scientists Question Safety Of New Airport Scanners

#  Siskiyousis on Monday —

Wondering how the cruise companies will cope with the oil thing once it hits the Caribe Islands... not far beyond is the edge of the Atlantic and the Gulf Stream.

Holy Crapshoot when it gets into the gulf stream; talk about altering deep sea temperatures! (should we hope for only a Mini-Ice Age, or a Melt-down?)

Giant Plumes of Oil Forming Under the Gulf

Scientists are finding enormous oil plumes in the deep waters of the Gulf of Mexico, including one as large as 10 miles long, 3 miles wide and 300 feet thick in spots. The discovery is fresh evidence that the leak from the broken undersea well could be substantially worse than estimates that the government and BP have given.

#  Bill M. on Monday —

I have been reading your blog fairly regularly for several years and never written because, ok, frankly I think you're a little over the edge with your absolutism on freedom to smoke drugs and hire prostitutes and so forth. I have always thought you're about 25% just plain nuts. But I have to pat you on the back for your reports on the oil flood. I read the NY Times and WS Journal and watch CNN and nobody is giving this anywhere near the coverage it deserves. Where are the paid media professionals? This is 9/11 on a much, much larger scale. People two blocks from the World Trade Center were unscratched, but people hundreds of miles from the coast are going the have their lives ruined. Anyway, thank you for your coverage that deserves some kind of award.

#  Helen & Harry on Monday —

No awards for us, thanks. Thanks is enough.

#  Drew Farmington on Tuesday —

You do know that prostitution is legal in Nevada. Is the state of Nevada "just plain nuts"? Or did they realize that morality-based laws against victimless deeds are what is "nuts"? Prostitution is everywhere. It will never go away, ever. That's like trying to outlaw dogs chasing cats, or cats chasing mice.

Gambling is legal in many states now because the tax revenues are impossible to ignore, morality be damned. The biggest casino of all is Wall Street. Gambling used to be illegal, now it is legal some places, illegal in others.

Alcohol is legal but it used to be illegal, and before that it was legal.

Pot was legal for almost 200 years in the U.S. The Founding Fathers grew it, for fuck's sake.

Hugo Chavez just outlawed currency trading. No more buying and selling money. He vows to punish these "criminals".

The list just goes on and on and on and on. It isn't nuts to oppose wasting valuable tax resources and making permanent "criminals" out of millions of people, people who will forever find it difficult to find good-paying honest employment.

Most of these laws are passed and enforced by people who have, are and will continue to enjoy the pleasures they seek to punish in others. Elliot Spitzer, Arnold Schwarzennegger, Bill Clinton, George Bush, etc., etc., all enjoyed themselves some "illegal" goodies while enthusiastically punishing others.

Bah. Control Freaks: control yourselves, leave the rest of us alone.

#  wlgriffi on Monday —

Noam Chomsky barred by Israelis from lecturing in Palestinian West Bank

In the only true democracy in the Middle East?????

#  Bernie C. on Sunday —

This discovery is fascinating in its own right, but also because it shows that Roger Penrose's speculations about quantum effects in human consciousness are not completely out of the realm of possibility -- if plants can dig it, why not mammalian brains?

Untangling the Quantum Entanglement Behind Photosynthesis

[...] What may prove to be this study's most significant revelation is that contrary to the popular scientific notion that entanglement is a fragile and exotic property, difficult to engineer and maintain, the Berkeley researchers have demonstrated that entanglement can exist and persist in the chaotic chemical complexity of a biological system. "We present strong evidence for quantum entanglement in noisy non-equilibrium systems at high temperatures by determining the timescales and temperatures for which entanglement is observable in a protein structure that is central to photosynthesis in certain bacteria," Sarovar says. [...]

===========

The Emperor's New Mind

The Emperor's New Mind: Concerning Computers, Minds and The Laws of Physics is a 1989 book by mathematical physicist Sir Roger Penrose.

Penrose presents the argument that human consciousness is non-algorithmic, and thus is not capable of being modeled by a conventional Turing machine-type of digital computer. Penrose hypothesizes that quantum mechanics plays an essential role in the understanding of human consciousness. The collapse of the quantum wavefunction is seen as playing an important role in brain function. [...]

#  Boots Akimbo on Sunday —

Here's the problem, or a small part of it. The skill and drive it takes to run for national office in the electronic age is enormous and impressive and Obama has a huge amount of that skill. He's one of the best ever.

The willingness to rethink everything and the gut-check courage it takes to break from generations of stupidity and a status quo of corruption and accommodation is a very, very different skill set, probably mutually exclusive. Obama has a complete lack of this second and to me more important talent, and he has no awareness of this lack, and therefore no interest in learning or trying or even thinking anything different.

He ran for President to be President and so his mission is already accomplished. Dream come true, every day of the week. What you and I or even he thought he might do as President is irrelevant and isn't on his to-do list at all.

Tell me I'm wrong.

#  Helen & Harry on Sunday —

Why would I do that, when you're so clearly right?

#  AK on Saturday —

Garzon suspended ahead of trial (Fascism alive & well in Spain)

Spanish judge Garzon suspended ahead of trial

Spain's crusading judge Baltasar Garzon was suspended from his post Friday ahead of his trial for abuse of power linked to a probe of Franco-era crimes, judicial sources said.

The body that oversees the judiciary, the General Council of the Judiciary (CGPJ), decided unanimously to suspend Garzon, two days after the Supreme Court cleared the way for his trial.

#  Helen & Harry on Saturday —

Garzon has a track record of going after bad guys other courts don't have much interest in, and he had scheduled hearings looking into the illegal acts of several Bush-Cheney administration war criminals. But I'm sure that's just coincidental, as the Spanish officials seem to be much more concerned about his hearings about people who were disappeared seventy years ago.

#  churrero87 on Saturday —

Cop shot motorcyclist in the back. In the back.

Found guilty. Claims he saw a gun.

I suspect a bit of road rage was involved. Itchy trigger finger...

See dashcam and today's verdict story.

#  Helen & Harry on Saturday —

Shooting somebody in the back used to be seen as the ultimate in cowardice, but this guy will probably be hailed as a hero. His victim is paralyzed for life.

#  Renegade Gargler on Friday —

I avoided looking at Glenn Greenwald's latest column because the topic painfully reminds me of what we've lost -- our hope, faith and belief in an ideal America of freedom, liberty and justice. Knowing the opposite leaves me bitter, cynical and pessimistic.

But it is more than a rehash of the many attacks on the Bill of Rights. He connects the dots. And by extension, demonstrates the catastrophic failure of our government -- they deal with all problems by ignoring reality and intelligent approaches. A US government "solution" to a problem is likely to be the one thing that could mutate a "problem" into a catastrophe (which then creates needy voters and opportunities to award emergency no-bid contracts to contributors...)

New Target of Rights Erosions: US Citizens
by Glenn Greenwald

Excerpt: [...] As Robert Wright explained (again) in an excellent New York Times Op-Ed this week, as long as we continue to invade, bomb and occupy Muslim countries, there are going to be people (including within our country) who want to return the violence to us. That will happen no matter how repeatedly we re-write our rules of justice and acquiesce to more core liberties being taken away. But not only do we show no signs of slowing down in the behavior that causes us to be Terrorist targets, each new attack causes us to intensify that behavior through the use of the most circular logic imaginable. President Obama said this week that we must continue to fight in Afghanistan because of the recent Terrorist attacks aimed at the U.S.; of course, a primary reason there are Terrorist attacks aimed at the U.S. is because we continue to kill Muslim civilians around the world, including in Afghanistan. It's a never-ending, self-perpetuating cycle: we attack people in the Muslim world, causing Terrorist attacks aimed at the U.S., and then cite those episodes as a reason to further attack people in the Muslim world, etc. etc.

That endless cycle would be bad enough standing alone. But it's accompanied by a relentless and still ongoing transformation of our political system. We never ask what we're doing to cause Terrorism and how we can change our actions to weaken it. We instead ask only one question each time the word Terrorism is uttered: which new rights can we get rid of now? [...]

#  wlgriffi on Friday —

Transocean, Doomed Rig's Owner, Seeks to Limit Its Liability

Comment : As usual the Law will side with the offender who has political clout.

#  Mick Caffeine on Friday —

Big news today, J.P. Morgan advises buying gold and gold mining stock, saying that demand for gold is potentially "unlimited".

JP Morgan: Gold Could Now Face 'Unlimited' Demand

How to say this?

Merrill, Goldman, Morgan Stanley, JP Morgan, etc., beware their freely given advice because they don't give away things of value, ever.

When those evil bastards say "buy" you should seriously consider selling, and when they say "sell", that means it is probably time to buy. They're probably going short today!

GLD ETF, weekly, 3 years, w/RSI

The weekly Relative Strength Indicator just hit 70, going up. Historically this signals an extreme over-bought condition. The RSI could go up to 80, perhaps over the next month or two. But prudence suggests traders now begin to take profits. Reduce trading positions gradually and sell to JP Morgan if they want to buy, hahah.

A similar chart is seen for the US Dollar Index, now massively "over-bought":

US Dollar Index, weekly, 3 years, w/RSI

Good bears, the prudent kind, will be looking to buy what is on sale. Even if gold will eventually hit $3000, or even $1500, the odds favor being able to buy in the future for less than today's price. If everyone else jumps off a cliff, will you follow? I suggest carefully walking down and emptying their wallets after they hit bottom...

#  Siskiyousis on Friday —

Oh, those Evil Bastards...

As I have been counseled repeatedly all my life: "Are you going to spend good money on that just because it is on sale?"

Those Evil Bastards...