Commies for the 0.01%

Curiouser and curiouser (politics makes strange bedfellows):  even the commies think rape victims are sluts.  And come on! - the head of the IMF may have raped one of your employees in your hotel.  Of course you phone the head office!  There is no need to start to see proof of a Sarko conspiracy.

Note how sneakily this is written (my emphasis in red; I thought Martin was a straight shooter but there goes his reputation, and all for the head of the IMF!):

"The most extraordinary evidence brought forward in the Epstein article concerns the actions of Brian Yearwood, the hotel engineer, and an unidentified man, apparently a security agent of some kind, who are seen on the videotape accompanying Nafissatou Diallo to the security office where she reported the attack. About an hour afterwards, the security office placed a 911 call to the police—a delay which Epstein notes as peculiar and unexplained.
Two minutes after the 911 call is placed, bringing the police into the case officially and ensuring the public vilification and humiliation of Strauss-Kahn, Yearwood and the unidentified man appear on a security videotape giving each other high-fives and performing what lawyers for Strauss-Kahn described as a victory dance. What were they celebrating?"

Actually, if you think it through, the hotel delayed phoning in order to protect their important customer, and almost gave him the chance to flee the jurisdiction.  Then they turned right around and, with a lie about the missing phone, tricked DSK into being caught.  There are competing forces at work.

"The Strange Argument That Dominique Strauss-Kahn Was Set Up":

"Epstein makes much of the disappearance of DSK’s IMF BlackBerry. A “researcher” at the rival party who somehow has reliable access to such information has told DSK by text (to which Epstein inexplicably has access too) “that at least one private email he had recently sent from his BlackBerry to his wife, Anne Sinclair, had been read at the UMP offices in Paris. It is unclear how the UMP offices might have received this email, but if it had come from his IMF BlackBerry, he had reason to suspect he might be under electronic surveillance in New York.” Except that there was no need to have DSK surveilled in New York in order to access his email — an enterprising hacker could have hacked into the server without any access to the physical device."

This is an iffy paragraph - hacking into Blackberry's servers would be a major task, if not impossible (that's one reason why Blackberries are still used by security-conscious corporations in this age of Apple) - but the point about Epstein's info having to come from DSK himself is valid.

There are quite possibly competing conspiracies here, a set-up conspiracy and a counter conspiracy of which Epstein's article, and the mishandling of the charges by the New York prosecutor's office (Cyrus R. Vance, Jr.), are parts.  We're watching the tectonic plates of super-power grind against each other.  Even the commies are in on it!

Dancing men

"Strauss-Kahn and the Dancing Men"  Pretty good response to Epstein.  Epstein mixes the phone hack story - quite possible - with the dancing men story - improbable, and denied - to create a larger conspiracy (and Epstein's creation of conspiracies goes back to his writings on the JFK assassination, and does not reflect well on Epstein).  I still see absolutely no reason to doubt the story of the victim.  As I have already said, there may very well be a conspiracy, with the maid sent up unknowingly to meet a DSK who the conspirators knew was such an animal he would attack her.  In other words, even if he was framed (in a way), the frame-up still leaves him as some kind of monster (backed up by other stories of a lifetime of monstrous behavior that are still coming out).

The comment by 'ProfRoss' is probably correct:

"We have a different view of this overseas. DSK's philandering was legendary within certain exclusive circles, and completely unknown to the general public. Yes, there was a conspiracy at work here, but not of the usual sort. There was a decision made here to reveal the truth, as opposed to conceal it. The French let the NYPD do their dirty work. DSK simply wasn't protected; there was no cover up."

If there was a conspiracy, who did it? Lots of suspects. Sarko? The other possible candidates for the French 'left'? Somebody with money in the game in Europe who didn't like the direction the IMF was taking?

"I hate bullies and I love freedom fights"

"When the Coffers Run Dry"  Jewish threats to -  completely illegally, but what else is new with Israel? - withhold Palestinian tax revenues until the slaves of the Jews do what the Jews want are always just threats, as the collapse of the Palestinian Authority collaborators would mean that the Jews would have to fulfil their obligations under international law to look after the subjects of their illegal occupation, plus 'police' them in their vicious violent supremacist way, all of which would provide terrible problems for the Jews.  The Palestinians can always call that bluff.

"NBC and the Israel lobby"  Of course, it is the finest distilled essence of 'anti-Semitism' to even think about suggesting that the Jews control the mass media for their own - violent racist supremacist - ends.  Yet they do.

"The new gilded age"  The craziest ideas have to be introduced gradually, and suddenly one day they become established 'common sense'

"Open Letter to Chancellor Linda P.B. Katehi"  It is too bad psychopaths are impossible to shame.

"Guardians of the City: An interview with Neturei Karta’s Rabbi Meir Hirsh"  For those who think that the 'Good Jew' is a myth.

Lots from Weiss today:  "‘It’s time to stop the bully’: Adbusters editor Kalle Lasn on Occupy Wall Street, the Israel lobby and the New York Times"  On dealing with the muck of being slurred by vicious violent group supremacists who control the mainstream media dialogue.  I don't think the Jews realize how much hatred - real hatred, not the phony kind denoted by 'anti-Semitic' - this constant bullying for vicious violent group supremacist ends is creating in moral and decent people.  The entire interview is good, the kind of questions and answers you never see, due to control by, and fear of, the you-know-whos and their shabbos goy enablers, but here is the concluding answer by Lasn:

"When I see Israel acting so arrogant and so tough—here’s one of the most powerful military forces in the world, they have nukes—and when I see them cordoning off Gaza the way they do and when they attack Gaza the way they did, it just fills me with rage because this is a powerful bully that is basically turning Gaza into kind of a turkey shoot. I really see it in this kind of very visceral way, like how could they possibly get away with doing this? For me, it’s almost a very black and white battle where, let’s stop arguing about who’s right and who’s wrong, let’s just take sides and start fighting for the human rights and the other rights that the Palestinians should have, and let’s not allow the bully to always win. I mean, it’s time to stop the bully."

Sunday, November 27, 2011

The DSK PR whitewash campaign has begun (note the author is none other than Edward Jay Epstein - DSK only hires the best).  The weirdness:

"By the time Sheehan was called by the hotel at 1:03 PM, Diallo was seated on a bench in the hotel’s ground floor service area, just off the service entrance on 45th Street. Behind her was a “Dutch door,” with the upper half opened, that led to the hotel’s security office. Surveillance camera footage shows her entering the area with a tall unidentified man at 12:52 PM. She mains there until 2:05 PM. At 12:56, she is joined there by Brian Yearwood, the large, heavy-set man who is the hotel’s chief engineer. Yearwood had just come down from the presidential suite on the twenty-eighth floor, which he had entered at 12:51, according to the key records. Yearwood remained close to Diallo as she spoke to Adrian Branch, the security chief for the hotel, who remained behind the half-shut door of the security office. She can be seen gesturing with her hands for about four minutes, pointing to different parts of her body over and over again, suggesting she was telling and retelling her story.
At 1:28, Sheehan, still on the way to the hotel, sent a text message to Yearwood. And then another text message to an unidentified recipient at 1:30. At 1:31—one hour after Diallo had first told a supervisor that she had been assaulted by the client in the presidential suite—Adrian Branch placed a 911 call to the police. Less than two minutes later, the footage from the two surveillance cameras shows Yearwood and an unidentified man walking from the security office to an adjacent area. This is the same unidentified man who had accompanied Diallo to the security office at 12:52 PM. There, the two men high-five each other, clap their hands, and do what looks like an extraordinary dance of celebration that lasts for three minutes."

Three minutes? This "large, heavy-set man" danced for three minutes?

"Chavez repatriates Venezuela's foreign gold reserves"  After the brazen theft of Libyan assets - and I wonder who ultimately ended up with them? - no country should leave any assets in the hands of a financial institution connected to a country that is a NATO member.

The American left - which is desperately trying to support Obama while pretending to be part of the 99% - is embarrassing itself badly:

1. "Updated: The Shocking Truth About Naomi Wolf's Factless Assertions" (here's Wolf's useful article, attempting to make the financial corruption connections more direct).  Note the weak ad hominem attack on Phil Anschutz and the original story, which, as I have said, makes perfect sense (in fact, I'd fall over dead with amazement if there wasn't federal central organization of the attacks on the protesters, and the DHS is just the organization to coordinate it).
2. "Naomi Wolf’s ‘Shocking Truth’ About the ‘Occupy Crackdowns’ Offers Anything but the Truth"
3. "#OccupySeattle Protester Who Claimed Miscarriage Has Dubious History With The Truth"  This attack is directly based on the standard methodology of a Fox News attack, and indicates how far the American professional 'left' has fallen.

Best Obama explanation buried here:

"Atkins doesn’t get that Obama isn’t a Democrat or a Republican: he’s just for himself. The Democrat “thing” was a Chicago political necessity."

If you aim to be President and you are running your political life out of Chicago, you are going to have to pretend to be a Democrat.

"The Majority, Including Occupy and the Tea Party, Agree On Top Issues"  One of the lines of the whores for the 1% is that the 1% can't do anything as it is impossible to know what the 99% want.

"Michael Hudson: Some Modest Proposals for Reforming the U.S. Financial and Tax System"

Thursday, November 24, 2011

I don't think people are giving enough credit to the Morris/Thompson mini-documentary.  Neither is an idiot, and the Umbrella Man story is preposterous.  What conclusion can we draw from that?  Aren't all the Official Stories preposterous?  There are a number of short summaries of the final Official Story of the September 11 attacks that sound like a comedy routine.  Preposterousness seems to be part of the methodology of building a story that the Powers That Be think they can get away with, and they seem to be correct.

"Occupy Wall Street Calls Off Its Egyptian Expedition" (via the Angry Arab; my emphasis in red):

"After a tough week for protesters both in New York and in Cairo, Occupy Wall Street has stalled in planning their trip to Egypt, citing logistical roadblocks and safety concerns. A group of 20 delegates had already secured funding through a proposal passed by the General Assembly nearly two weeks ago and was excited to leave for Egypt on November 25, just in time for the country's parliamentary elections. But after being evicted from Zuccotti Park and scattered around the city, Kobi Skolnick, a 30-year-old Israeli-American and one of the main organizers of the two-month trip — for which the protest movement had funded with  $29,000 — says that they just didn't have time to get a plan together."

Hint:  there is no such thing as an Israeli-American (btw, how did the 'Israeli-American' issue even come up?).  There are Americans, and there are violent racist Jewish supremacists who attempt to pass as Americans for the purposes of running various supremacist schemes (and spring is definitely not in the air:  "Arab Spring is moving the Middle East backward, charges Netanyahu").  When Occupy Wall Street fails, we'll know why.  One of the deals you get if you play along with Jewish supremacism is assistance in surveillance (it may be politically difficult to spy on your own people) and in the repression of political dissent.

"Violence Goes to College"  "Mark Ames: How UC Davis Chancellor Linda Katehi Brought Oppression Back To Greece’s Universities"  Why are university presidents so consistently evil?

Umbrella in the sun

The Errol Morris mini-documentary (see also here) on the Umbrella Man (Morris and Thompson are both heroes in their respective fields).  The various shooters couldn't see what was going on (but could easily see the umbrella).  The man was part of the spotting team, located right where the shots were to hit so he could immediately see when the fatal shot landed.  He could then signal for the shooting team to stop shooting.  They were to shoot until they received his signal to stop.

Is there a certain genius in coming up with the least plausible excuse to explain what you were doing?

Some think the other member of the spotting team was Orlando Bosch.

"Gentlemen. You can't fight in here. This is the War Room!"

In the spirit of Kubrick:  "Gentlemen. You can't practice journalism in here. This is the Press Club!"

"National Press Club suspends journalist over tough questions for Saudi prince"

"National Press Club suspends journalist for asking Saudi prince a tough question"

"Exposed: US press 'freedom'" (note that Tzipi got the same protection, which is probably not a coincidence, especially as the Saudis are now firm Israeli allies).

"Journalist Questions Legitimacy of Saudi Regime, Is Suspended from National Press Club"

The quibble seems to be that he is not debased enough to be considered a 'journalist', which is probably true.

So it always goes

It's funny how the elites always overreact when even the slightest criticism is pointed in their general direction, and overreact in a way that is against their own class interest. If they did nothing, ignored the protests and ordered their controlled media to censor information on the protests, they might buy themselves some time, but they cannot accept the tiniest criticism of their class position, and thus do exactly what would be required to make the protests grow quickly.  Of course, just like in, say, Egypt, the elites know they aren't prepared to throw the tiniest bone to the 99%, so there is nothing they can do to pretend to care (in fact, the plan is to divert even more money to the 1% from the 99%).  It helps that the police - not to mention the mayors, university presidents, and the like - always turn out to be subhuman buffoons, and can always be counted on to behave in a manner most likely to increase general outrage.

And so it always goes.  Relatively small protests, massive overreaction - and we haven't even begun to see the inevitable police murders of protesters yet - thus escalating the anger and increasing the number of active protesters, and so on.  As long as the anger and the source of the anger persists, the process is inevitable, and the lessons of history, even recent history, are completely lost on the elites and their buffoons.

Given how we know things work, can there be any doubt that the repression is orchestrated at the highest levels of government?  Why would the elites settle for anything less?  The 1% phone the guys at the top (of course!!!).  The Department of Homeland Security was set up with one purpose, and one purpose only, to foster Islamophobia in the United States so that Jews could kill people and steal their land in the Middle East.  However, once you set up an institution, and give it billions of dollars to do absolutely nothing useful, it needs to find a reason to justify its existence, and beating up 'hippies' fits the bill.  Obama-protecting notwithstanding, this is going to become more obvious as time goes on.

That is impossible to sustain

"Henry Kissinger: Jews Are ‘Self-Serving Bastards’"  I should immediately note that you can't trust anything said by Henry the K, as his lies tend to reflect what he perceives his audience wants to hear, but one comment, by Gaza Calling, to this typically Jew-centric Gawker posting was interesting (and the reaction of the commentators to someone having the audacity to point out one of the most obvious Jewish tricks to provide more colonialists for Israel so predictable):

"The line about "rescuing Jews stuck behind the Iron Curtain from Soviet oppression" is simpleton talk. In truth, Jews were among the most highly educated sector of the Soviet population and the whole issue about saving them was one of the biggest scams of the 20th century.

The smartest Russians, however, may have been those who stayed behind and through a backroom deal with Yelsin came into possession of all of Russia’s natural resources, making these "oligarchs" the greatest collection of thieves, perhaps, in all of history. That they were even more exclusively Jewish than were our neocons was only, of course, a coincidence, such as, for example, the Pope being Catholic.

If you want read some fascinating Kissenger talk about the ME from the 70s...read this in full...

[www.meforum.org]"

More interesting: read the document at the link, a December 1975 memorandum of conversation between U.S. secretary of state Henry the K and Iraqi foreign minister Sa'dun Hammadi. An example of the kind of lying, sprinkled with obvious truths, practiced by American diplomats, but packed full of zingers (my emphasis in red):

"Hammadi: We, of course, have different views, and I will tell you why. Iraq is part of the Arab world. We believe the United States has been the major factor in building up Israel to what it is today.
Kissinger: True.
Hammadi: It was created in 1948 and could not have lived up to this day without the United States.
Kissinger: The Soviet Union was active then, too.
Hammadi: True. That is why there were some strained relations with the Soviet Union. Our good relations with the Soviet Union are only more recent. The Communists were not popular with the masses then. But the difference is you believe Israel is there to stay. We believe Israel was established by force and is a clear-cut case of colonialism. Israel was established on part of our homeland. You don't believe that. But that is not the whole story. Israel is now a direct threat to Iraq's national security.
Kissinger: How to Iraq?
Hammadi: Israel has built up to a military power that can threaten Iraq, especially with the recent news that we read of the U.S. supplying sophisticated weapons. So it is not only the Arab world that is threatened, and Iraq being part of the Arab world, but Iraq itself. We think the U.S. is building up Israel to have the upper hand in the area. Even Lebanon—they say it affects Israel's security. A strong, powerful, nuclear Israel with the upper hand in the area. Whatever happens in the Arab world is interpreted as a threat to Israel. Even a change in government in Iraq would be interpreted that way.
Kissinger: My impression is if you change your government in Iraq, they won't object. [Laughter]. I understand your problem.
Hammadi: This is my painting of the picture now—up to 1980. You say the United States is bringing all its weight to bring about a settlement. But this is a settlement, not peace. A new wave of troubles and clashes will start because Israel is not a state to stay within what they are. Because if there is an opportunity, they will expand. The record shows it. And they are supported by the biggest power in the area. What the United States is doing is not to create peace but to create a situation dominated by Israel, which will create a new wave of clashes.
Kissinger: I understand what you are saying. When I say we are willing to improve relations with Iraq, we can live without it. But it is our policy to move toward better relations. I think, when we look at history, that when Israel was created in 1948, I don't think anyone understood it. It originated in American domestic politics. It was far away and little understood. So it was not an American design to get a bastion of imperialism in the area. It was much less complicated. And I would say that until 1973, the Jewish community had enormous influence. It is only in the last two years, as a result of the policy we are pursuing, that it has changed.
We don't need Israel for influence in the Arab world. On the contrary, Israel does us more harm than good in the Arab world. You yourself said your objection to us is Israel. Except maybe that we are capitalists. We can't negotiate about the existence of Israel, but we can reduce its size to historical proportions. I don't agree that Israel is a permanent threat. How can a nation of three million be a permanent threat? They have a technical advantage now. But it is inconceivable that peoples with wealth and skill and the tradition of the Arabs won't develop the capacity that is needed. So I think in ten to fifteen years, Israel will be like Lebanon—struggling for existence, with no influence in the Arab world.
You mentioned new weapons. But they will not be delivered in the foreseeable future. All we agreed to is to study it, and we agreed to no deliveries out of current stocks. So many of these things won't be produced until 1980, and we have not agreed to deliver them then.
Our policy is to move our policy towards peace and to improve relations with the Arab world. Iraq is not a negotiator, but I think the policy of Egypt and Syria to improve relations with us helps us to bring pressure for a settlement.
The Israelis like you better than [Egyptian president Anwar] Sadat because they like to put it in terms of a U.S.-Soviet problem. We don't want you to have unfriendly relations with the Soviet Union; we don't interfere in your relations with the Soviet Union. But basically, the Israelis prefer radical Arabs.

If the issue is the existence of Israel, we can't cooperate. But if the issue is more normal borders, we can cooperate.

We have moved toward normalization with others—except Libya. South Yemen, we will move towards.
Hammadi: We are on the other side of the fence. We have the right to ask many questions.
Kissinger: Please.
Hammadi: Given the record, what can make us believe the United States won't continue the policy of the last twenty years of giving unlimited support.
Kissinger: It depends on what you mean by unlimited support. One important change in America … Sabbagh was with me when I saw Faisal for the first time. I told him it would take a few years; we would have to move slowly. I have told all the Arabs this. It has now reached the point in America where attitudes have changed. When I testify to congressional committees, I face increasingly hostile questions about Israel. No one is in favor of Israel's destruction—I won't mislead you—nor am I.
But the support in the 1960s was $200-300 million. Now it is $2-3 billion. That is impossible to sustain. We can't even get it for New York. It is just a matter of time before there is a change—two to three years. After a settlement, Israel will be a small friendly country with no unlimited drawing right. It will be affected by our new electoral law, strangely enough. So the influence of some who financed the elections before isn't so great. This has not been so noticed. It will take a few years before it is fully understood.
So I think the balance in America is shifting. If the Arabs—if I can be frank—don't do anything stupid. If there is a crisis tied to the Soviet Union, groups in America could make it an anticommunist crusade.
Hammadi: So you think the U.S. policy after a settlement wouldn't be the same?
Kissinger: We want the survival of Israel but not dominating the area. No one can conquer the Arab world. Even if they take Damascus, Cairo, and Amman, you will be there, and Libya will be there. So if Israel wants to survive as a state like Lebanon—as a small state—we can support them.
Hammadi: What is the Israeli thinking?
Kissinger: First, they want to get rid of me. Because I made them go back. Second, in 1976, they want to provoke the Arabs—in Lebanon, in Syria—because they think if there is war they can win and create great turmoil. Third, they want to pass legislation in America to antagonize as many Arabs as possible. So we get the anti-boycott, anti-discrimination, anti-arms sales legislation. They hope the Arabs will go back to a situation like 1967-1973 when the Syrians and Egyptians adopt an anti-American line. So they can say they are the only American friend in the Middle East. What they want is what you predict—that they be the only friend. We want other friends, to reduce that argument.
Aide: Your Excellency, do you think a settlement would come through the Palestinians in the area? How do you read it? Is it in your power to create such a thing?
Kissinger: Not in 1976. I have to be perfectly frank with you. I think the Palestinian identity has to be recognized in some form. But we need the thoughtful cooperation of the Arabs. It will take a year or a year and a half to do it and will be a tremendous fight. An evolution is already taking place.
Aide: You think it will be part of a solution?
Kissinger: It has to be. No solution is possible without it. But the domestic situation is becoming favorable. More and more questions are being asked in Congress favorable to the Palestinians.
Hammadi: Do you think a Palestinian state is possible?
Kissinger: We don't exclude it as a matter of principle. You can't do it now.
Hammadi: What about Palestinians who are now refugees? The Palestine area is now crowded—Gaza and the West Bank.
Kissinger: They should have a choice, either to stay where they are or go to a Palestinian state.
Hammadi: You think some in, say, the Galilee area might choose to leave Israel and join the new Palestinian state?
Kissinger: In Galilee?
Hammadi: Arab Israelis.
Kissinger: I have told friends that peace isn't a final end. Wars begin elsewhere between countries that are at peace. Only in the Middle East do wars begin between countries that are at war. But we support the existence of Israel. We draw the line at the destruction of Israel.
Aide: The Palestinians already put aside this idea. This is my personal view. Because the Israelis are trying to buy land in the Galilee area, and there is resistance. The Communist Party in the area is using it in the municipal elections. Is this because the Israelis are looking to the creation of a Palestinian state and want to buy this land?
Kissinger: It could be in their minds. I am not familiar with it.
Aide: This is being used by the Communist Party in the area. The Israelis know you Americans are behind the idea of a Palestinian state.
Kissinger: We have to be careful and move gradually. The Israeli press accuses me. I have said we can't move to the Palestinians until they accept the existence of the State of Israel and Security Council Resolution 242. I have never excluded the recognition of the PLO; I have always tied it to recognition of Israel and 242. The implication is we will do something if they do recognize Israel and 242.
Aide: Kaddumi says: "How can we recognize Israel if they don't recognize the PLO?"
Kissinger: With all respect, what Israel does is less important than what the United States does."

Mubarak in Amerika

"Oakland Mayor Jean Quan Admits Cities Coordinated Crackdown on Occupy Movement" and a comment by 'ahmedia':

"Mubarak playbook… Night raid, media blackout… and coordinating assault …"

"Did Feds Coordinate Occupy Wall Street Crackdowns?"

"Update: 'Occupy' crackdowns coordinated with federal law enforcement officials":

"Over the past ten days, more than a dozen cities have moved to evict "Occupy" protesters from city parks and other public spaces. As was the case in last night's move in New York City, each of the police actions shares a number of characteristics. And according to one Justice official, each of those actions was coordinated with help from Homeland Security, the FBI and other federal police agencies.
The official, who spoke on background to me late Monday evening, said that while local police agencies had received tactical and planning advice from national agencies, the ultimate decision on how each jurisdiction handles the Occupy protests ultimately rests with local law enforcement.
According to this official, in several recent conference calls and briefings, local police agencies were advised to seek a legal reason to evict residents of tent cities, focusing on zoning laws and existing curfew rules. Agencies were also advised to demonstrate a massive show of police force, including large numbers in riot gear. In particular, the FBI reportedly advised on press relations, with one presentation suggesting that any moves to evict protesters be coordinated for a time when the press was the least likely to be present."

"Mayors, police chiefs talk strategy on protests" (I think this is the sanitized Official Story provided as a public service by the AP)

There is push-back from the 'left' on this, based on the fear it is a right-wing attack against Obama (who left the country just before the multitude of simultaneous raids, no doubt a big coincidence).

The 1%, hard at work

"Big Finance Moves In" by Mike Whitney:

"Greek Prime Minister Georgios Papandreou and Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi have both been forced from office and replaced by representatives of big finance. Mario Monti, who will replace Berlusconi, was formerly the European Chairman of the Trilateral Commission and a member of the Bilderberg Group. He is also listed on Goldman Sachs board of international advisers.
Lucas Papademos, who will replace Papandreou, was formerly the Vice President of the European Central Bank (ECB), and served as Senior Economist at the Federal Reserve Bank of Boston in 1980. He’s also been a member of the Trilateral Commission since 1998.
It’s also worth noting that the ECB’s new president, Mario Draghi, is a trustee at the Brookings Institution, a Fellow of the Institute of Politics at the John F. Kennedy School of Government at Harvard, a former member of the Board of Directors of the Bank for International Settlements, and a former Managing Director at Goldman Sachs."

I guess it is no time for subtlety.

"'Vulture Capitalism': Iceland’s New Bank Disaster" by Olafur Arnarson and Michael Hudson and Gunnar Tomasson:

"After the September 2008 crash, Iceland’s government took over the old, collapsed, banks and created new ones in their place. Original bondholders of the old banks off-loaded the Icelandic bank bonds in the market for pennies on the dollar. The buyers were vulture funds. These bondholders became the owners of the old banks, as all shareholders were wiped out. In October, the government’s monetary authority appointed new boards to control the banks. Three new banks were set up, and all the deposits, mortgages and other bank loans were transferred to these new, healthier banks – at a steep discount. These new banks received 80 percent of the assets, the old banks 20 percent.
Then, owners of the old banks were given control over two of the new banks (87% and 95% respectively). The owners of these new banks were called vultures not only because of the steep discount at which the financial assets and claims of the old banks were transferred, but mainly because they already had bought control of the old banks at pennies on the dollar.
The result is that instead of the government keeping the banks and simply wiping them out in bankruptcy, the government kept aside and let vulture investors reap a giant windfall – that now threatens to plunge Iceland’s economy into chronic financial austerity. In retrospect, none of this was necessary. The question is, what can the government do to clean up the mess that it has created by so gullibly taking bad IMF advice?"

Funny that we're in the middle of a big propaganda blitz that Iceland did the right thing and is a model for us all, while it looks like a slightly more sophisticated defalcation.

"You Are The 98%" (found via here, with much better comments).  He sounds like an old man waving his cane at the kids and yelling for them to get off his lawn.  What all these guys don't understand is that their clueless reaction is one of the important results of the actions of the protesters.  In fact, it is the reaction of the establishment - which is already involving violence - which is the key to the protest.  I did however like his comment on Naomi Klein, a problem, not a solution, just like Žižek, Krugman, Chomsky, and all the other elites who want to take charge/credit for what the people are starting to do:

"Grant me that when Naomi Klein is invited to speak for the 99%, at least 45% are looking at each other like, wtf, who let Linda Tripp in here? "

Monday, November 14, 2011

"Archaeologists resume work at contentious worksite of Jerusalem museum":

"Archaeologists have resumed excavating the Jerusalem site where the Museum of Tolerance is to go up, amid controversy surrounding the exhumation of skeletons in what had been a Muslim cemetery for nearly 1,000 years.
In addition to fielding objections to the museum site, the Simon Wiesenthal Center, which is sponsoring and financing the project, also has to contend with the recent resignation of the two architects who planned the museum. But for all the troubles, construction of the museum is scheduled to begin in the next few weeks."

"Police Find Gun Used in Unsolved Murder Series":

"Police may be a step closer to solving one of the most mysterious murder series in German criminal history after a potentially crucial clue turned up in an investigation into another high-profile crime.

The murder series involved execution-style killings of nine shop owners, eight of them of Turkish descent and one Greek, in cities across Germany between 2000 and 2006. The press dubbed the murders the "doner killings" because the victims were all small businessmen and included two kebab shop owners, a grocer, a tailor, a flower seller and a key cutter. The only link that police found between the murders was the weapon used -- a Czech-made Ceska 83 pistol with a 7.65 millimeter caliber. Now investigators suspect the killings may be connected to an ongoing case involving a trio of fugitive neo-Nazis in eastern Germany. Two of them, identified only as Uwe M. and Uwe B., robbed a bank in Eisenach a few days ago and then shot each other in a trailer. There, investigators later found a police-issue pistol that linked them to the murder of policewoman Michele Kiesewetter in 2007 in Heilbronn in eastern Germany.
Their roommate and accomplice, Beate Z., is now in jail after handing herself in to police earlier this week. She is accused of blowing up the house where they lived in Zwickau. The trio was known to police in Thuringia because of their suspected bomb-making activities in the 1990s and connections to a far-right group known as the Thüringer Heimschutz."

"Why the Washington Post won’t fire Jennifer Rubin"  While I admire the effort, i don't think Greenwald ever answers his own question.

"Have you been able to successfully update to Firefox 8?":

"I love Firefox. I first tasted Firefox via Firefox 2 and have been a loyalist since then, even with many of my friends and family defecting to the competition such as Chrome. However, Firefox is really starting to piss me off. Whereas Firefox used to be the standard in Internet browser excellence, it has now become a bloated, poorly coded piece of crap. I hate to say this but I find Firefox crashing on me as much, if not more, than Internet Explorer; not to mention how it bleeds memory like RAM grows on trees."

My attempt at Firefox 8 crashed before it loaded. I'm now using the last semi-stable version, 5.0.1, with very few extensions, although I only use it if I have to.

Friday, November 11, 2011

"Fracking Insiders Admit To Employing Military 'Psychological Operations' On American Citizens"

Hilarious story of the day:  "Canada’s top spy watchdog resigns" (my emphasis in red):

"The head of the Security and Intelligence Review Committee, the watchdog for Canada’s spy agency, has resigned.

Arthur Porter had been appointed Canada’s top spy watcher by Prime Minister Stephen Harper last year, but recently came under fire for doing business with a consultant who has surfaced in global arms deals and an alleged plot for a coup in Africa.

In his Nov. 9 resignation letter, Dr. Porter wrote that he remains a proud Canadian citizen for whom “integrity, honour and respect hold tremendous meaning.” But he told the Prime Minister he felt compelled to step down because “a scurrilous portrayal” of his business dealings “had the potential to tarnish” the Security and Intelligence Review Committee.

“Dr. Porter has submitted his resignation to me, and I have accepted it, effective immediately,” Mr. Harper said in a written response circulated by his office.

The National Post reported this week that Dr. Porter struck a short-lived $200,000 business deal last year with Ari Ben-Menashe, a Montrealer who has published a memoir about his 1980s-era arms-dealing exploits. The globe-trotting consultant also has made international headlines for using a secret video camera to implicate a past client – Zimbabwe’s opposition leader – in a supposed coup plot.

Dr. Porter said he didn’t know about Mr. Ben-Menashe’s past when he entered a business arrangement with him. He also wrote a letter of recommendation for Mr. Ben-Menashe on Privy Council Office stationery as banks moved to shutter the consultant’s accounts."

I'm not really sure what a quasi-fascist state needs with a spy watchdog anyway.

"Obama’s Influential Mideast Envoy to Resign"  Not a convincing resignation story.  The Jews are replacing him as head of the American government.  While he managed one of his jobs, ensuring that Middle East peace negotiations not occur on his watch, he was an abject failure on the other, tricking the stupid gentiles into fighting yet another War For The Jews against Iran.

"UNESCO Lodges Complaint Over Haaretz Cartoon"  The famous Jewish sense of humor strikes again.

Thursday, November 10, 2011

"Sarkozy overheard telling Obama that Netanyahu is a 'liar'":

"Obama was also reportedly heard asking the French president to try to persuade Palestinian leaders not to pursue membership of other U.N. agencies, because he would be required under U.S. law to withdraw funding for them.
Palestinian leaders have said that they won’t be applying to join other U.N. organizations."

If the last sentence is true, the collaborator Abbas just couldn't resist one last betrayal.

Annual World Conference of Fascists, 'Accidental' Edition.

"Balfour’s Apartheid Legacy"

Honey conspiracy theory

Depending on the group identity of Mark Weiss (see also here), this might be sauce for the gander.

King Crab

Wednesday, November 9, 2011

I'm wondering if the 'open mike' was a scheme by Sarko and Barry to send a message to World Jewry, and the Jewish Billionaires in particular, about Bibi.

More hilarity (my emphasis in red):

"The report's summary says that since 'Iran is not providing the necessary cooperation, including by not implementing its Additional Protocol [to the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty], the Agency is unable to provide credible assurance about the absence of undeclared nuclear material and activities in Iran, and therefore to conclude that all nuclear material in Iran is in peaceful activities.'"

This sounds like a good start on a proof for the existence of God.

"There’s Nothing Idealistic About the One-State Solution" Both Cook and Neumann agree that the Jews will eventually agree to something sane; they just disagree on what that sane thing will be (one-state or two-state).  Both are wrong.  Anti-Assimilation Land has a magical hold on the collective Jewish Brain.  Israel is an evil that will have to be killed with fire, and that fire will come the next time the Jews decide to slaughter yet another group of innocent gentiles in yet another innocent and non-threatening country.

Sunday, November 6, 2011

"Occupy Wall Street responds to controversy over Gaza flotilla"  Translation:  we have a bad case of the Jews.  I guess they can kiss any intellectual/romantic/spiritual connection to Tahrir Square goodbye.

More hilarity:  "Libya and the Left".  He must not be talking about the 'Left' that was a big fan of carpet bombing, flagrant breaches of UN mandates, mass murder, and ass-rape of  Gadaffi.

"BP Oil Spill Whistleblowers And Experts Continue To Mysteriously Die"  Considering what we know BP has done and is doing, the odd murder here and there is no surprise.  The list would be more coherent if Ted Stevens wasn't on it.

"The Netanyahu Guide to Middle East Peace"

"Could Jews become a minority in Israel? Higher Palestinian birth rates could lead to power shift in one-state solution"

"'Hannibal' policy: Israel's plan to kill its own soldiers"  I'm certain the 2006 Jewish attack on Lebanon was started by sending Israeli soldiers over the border with the intent that they be killed.  The Jews are a hive, and each individual is just another worker bee.

Pizza in 'Breaking Bad'.

Iran is on everybody's mind

Much as I hate the lite-ness of Uri Avnery, he is amusingly - and, I must say, obviously - correct about the latest spate of 'Iran talk':  "Why Israel Will Not Attack Iran".  I'd worry when the Israelis are not making a big deal about it.  This recent outburst is the usual need for military dictatorships to talk about wars rather than face domestic problems, coupled with frustration at being snookered by Obama's clever 'terrorism' ruse.

And speaking of which:  "U.S. backs away from sanctions on Iran central bank".  The only American sanction that actually would have bothered Iran is off the table!

"Saudi monarchy founder assured UK on Palestine"  Some Saudi princes are Zionists, some aren't, but the history of Saudi Zionism goes back a long way, and it would be interesting to know if the division is based on family origin (i. e., is there a secret Jewish strain in the Saudi royals?).   In any event, the 'Arab Spring' revitalized the Saudi Zionists led by Prince Bandar.  The counter-revolution is clearly Zionist-inspired, and is showing up in all manner of disagreeable ways. 

It hits the fan

Republicans are of the opinion that international institutions consist of a bunch of hippies in drum circles figuring out ways to thwart American Imperialism.  Of course, the reality is that Americans are the most selfish group of bastards in the world, and wouldn't be in any international organization if it didn't advance the interests of American big business.

Palestinian initiative and American Jewslavery have combined to force the Americans to follow the Palestinians around, removing themselves from every international organization which the Palestinians manage to join.  This will mean that American big business will lose all the protections that these organizations provide. In a world where Americans have stopped making things, and rely for their prosperity on shuffling paper around and exploiting intellectual property rights. the lack of the protections provided by the international community is going to get very interesting.

The Palestinian State

"Palestine Can Now Join the International Criminal Court"  The solid vote it got at UNESCO is evidence of international acceptance of Palestine as a state.  Note the comment (scroll down) by Chris2 (my emphasis in red):

"Israel depends, for its existence, on the apathy of the American public, which as a backdrop, highlights the fanatical commitment of a lobby which is well financed but very short of constituents.
AIPAC is only powerful because most American voters care so little about foreign policy that they lap up the most extraordinary nonsense about Israel and Cuba (as another example.)
But all this is changing now. The Depression is biting very deeply in the States, quite apart from the fifty million families reduced to food stamps and an equal number without any medical insurance,, the latest Congressional figures show that half of the population lives in poverty or very close to it.
In short people are beginning to ask what happened to the nation’s legendary wealth. And a very obvious part of the answer is that hundreds of billions have been spent pursuing the discredited policies of the Jabotinsky zionists.
Israel is the keystone of the US ” security architecture” in western eurasia. The preservation of this colony, by increasingly complex and costly manouevres, by dividing its enemies, breaking up their states, betting heavily on three legged outsiders like the Saud family or the kleptocrat emirs in the Gulf, utterly discredited, worn out tyrants such as Jordan’s Hashemites and the latest sysyphusean labour, in the shape of replacing Mubarak with another Mubarak, has become the central obsessive work of the United States. All the power of the Pentagon, all the resources of the State Department are devoted, primarily, to strengthening Israel’s position.
But the task is quite impossible: Israel spends all its energies (most of them derived from US taxpayers’ subsidies) to weakening its position. Ir refuses to contemplate the chance of making Peace while everything is in its favour. Instead of cashing in on its victories it pirouettes on a precipice and warns the world that it is endangered.
And everything it does costs the Poor Bloody Punter in Peoria more money (an Iron Dome!) and the lives of more kids from the Appalachians, more R and D for Boeing and Lockheed and more billion dollart a year bases. Mr Karimov is just another element in the edifice of which Israel is the keystone. The prospect of war and peace in the Indian sub-continent is intimately linked with Pakistani alliances in the Gulf and Brahmin empathies with Zionists. Washington is a city obsessed with Israel.
And Israel is but a tiny colony, a pumped up Southern Rhodesia, an Algerie with a dwarf root system. In the current burgeoning crisis in the United States the fact that the government has earmarked about a trillion and a half dollars (and equivalently outlandish sums) annually for decades, simply to preserve Israel’s right to insult and humiliate all comers is going to require justification a little more profound than those currently on offer: 1/ That Europe’s Jews are the descendants of Palestinians exiled more than a millenium ago; 2/ That God wants the Jews to rally in the Holy Land so that they can be liquidated to prepare the way for the return of the Messiah.
The story of the period of US superpowerdom is its weakness for fascism. It was that which lay behind the Cold War, the refusal to come to terms not only with a Soviet Union exhausted and eager to treat, but with the anti-fascist forces from Italy’s communists to Ho Chi Minh, Mao and North Korea, which gave rise to the Cold War, which ended with the boot being put in (to the cheers of Croatians fascists and their German friends) to the last Partisan legacy, Tito’s Yugoslav Federation. Throughout the Cold War the US nursed the poisonous remnants of the Nazi axis, protecting Franco and Salazar from their angry populations, cossetting ex-SS groups in every city in north and south America, employing fascists to hunt down communists…it is an old story. And the Jabotinsky zionists are the one fascist party which can claim uninterrupted continuity from the 1930s. The one fascist party that is, besides the original wellspring of fascism which is from the Southern States, the old alliance between vicious business interests and KKK racism, whose current form is the Republican Party, which was the segregationist Democracy of the Solid South and the New South. The principle of extreme inequality and forced labour which is the spectre haunting the modern world.
Americans who cannot feed their kids, whose kids schools are broken down, unstaffed and unequipped, who are paying the world’s highest prices for pharmaceuticals, are losing their homes and are unable to find jobs, where BMW workers are earning $12 an hour (and are envied) are beginning to wonder why.
It is in these circumstances that Palestine’s calls for peace and a just settlement will in future be examined, whether the Zionists like it or not."

Occupy Wall Street isn't anti-Semitic, but it is definitely not 'good for the Jews'.

"Palestinians aim to join 16 other UN agencies":

"It's not just UNESCO: The Palestinians' top envoy in Geneva said Tuesday he believes that joining the U.N. agency for culture, education and science will "open the door" to joining 16 other U.N. agencies within weeks.

Ibrahim Khraishi, the top Palestinian envoy at the U.N. in Geneva, told The Associated Press that Palestinian diplomats are now planning to capitalize on Monday's landslide vote to allow the Palestinians into UNESCO by preparing papers to join the other U.N. agencies and a variety of other international organizations."

"How’s that for turnaround time? — US cuts off funding for UNESCO" People criticize my intemperate and tendentious language, but when I say Jewslave, I mean Jewslave.  It is simply not possible to deny it.  Watch the video!  To add to the surrealism of Jewslavery, Victoria Nuland, a Jew (naturally; a gentile might go squishy under the questioning - note how Nuland was brought back from the Bush Administration just to deal with these sticky and embarrassing situations!), is married to ultra-neocon Robert Kagan, co-founder with William Kristol of the . . . Project for the New American Century!  You really can't make this stuff up!

"Palestine Granted Full UNESCO Membership Despite US Threats":

"Three hours later the US announced that it was cutting UNESCO funds to punish members for voting to grant full membership to the Palestinians. A US state department spokeswoman said a payment of some $60m (£37m) due next month would not be made, but said that while continued US funding was impossible, "the administration wanted to remain an active member of UNESCO". Anyone like to give a reason why they should? Perhaps all those nations whose stolen cultural property is sold there because they have no "1970 Convention article 9 MOU" might like to take a vote on whether the US has been as active as they could have been and whether it should stay if it's not going to pay. According to UNESCO's constitution, if a country is in arrears in its payments to UNESCO for more than two years, it could lose its voting rights in the body."