9/1/11

Haiti is no poster child in its treatment of women and girls

“Nobody Remembers Us” | Human Rights Watch: "This documents the lack of access to reproductive and maternal care in post-earthquake Haiti, even with unprecedented availability of free healthcare services. The report also describes how hunger has led women to trade sex for food and how poor camp conditions exacerbate the impact of sexual violence because of difficulties accessing post-rape care. It looks at how recovery efforts have failed to adequately address the needs and rights of women and girls, particularly their rights to health and security."

Time to call governments on the carpet. Humanitarianism has been a failure. It is a part way solution resulting in default genocide. Let governments prove themselves worthy in the community of nations.


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Bahrain is now a killing field

Tell the Bahraini King: Kansas City Wants Its Freedom Medal Back! | Human Rights First: "Nearly four decades ago, Bahraini King Hamad bin Isa Al Khalifa was awarded the Freedom Medal of Kansas City, Missouri from the Mayor and its residents. The Bahrain Government’s PR machine is using this and other awards he has received from various parts of the world as “evidence” of the King’s international credentials and appeal."

And will go down. The democratic revolution is inexorable. Guns will not stop it.


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For my mom 1909-2011



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Unemployment will not go down dramatically but will at least be addressed by the President

Obama Jobs Plan: 'Innovative Infrastructure Ideas' And Sector-Specific Relief: ""[T]he President will introduce after Labor Day a package of meaningful, new initiatives to promote economic growth and create jobs," the review reads. "These will build on the actions the President has been urging Congress to complete that will strengthen the economy and create jobs, but also include new measures that will accelerate job growth in the short term. These could include a mix of tax cuts to create jobs and provide economic security to the middle class, innovative infrastructure ideas to put people back to work, and some measures specifically targeted at the long-term unemployed and other specific sectors of the economy that are in particular need.""

The underlying problem is too seismic for anyone to do more than nibble around at this point. Call it Inconvenient Truth 2.

Gregory Riley: Jesus the Hellenistic Hero

Gregory Riley: Jesus the Hellenistic Hero: "The story of Jesus was the story of a kind and righteous man, a man from God, the son of God, whatever was meant by the phrase, who followed the will of God against evil to the death and thereby not only gained resurrection for himself, but could offer it to others who would do the same."

This at least ties salvation to following a way rather than reciting a creed and playing saved in church.

Global Online Privacy

LA has a mini-quake - 4.2

Magnitude 4.2 earthquake rumbles across Los Angeles region - The Washington Post: "LOS ANGELES — A magnitude-4.2 earthquake rumbled across the Los Angeles region but there are no early reports of damage."

But quakes add up in consciousness and doubtless this will join forces with our Eastern one and Irene as part of a pattern, and who knows?

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Stellar Jets Time Lapse Hubble Images (Video)

These Unprecedented Hubble Movies Just Left Me Speechless:

They left me curious. And thinking of Peirce and chance.

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It's all over but the crying

Election 2012 Polling and News, Republican Presidential Candidates, Obama, Interactive Polling Data: "Favorable images among Republicans familiar with them (Perry and Cain) , and have separated themselves from the remainder of announced GOP candidates as Michele Bachmann, Mitt Romney, and Ron Paul have tied or set new personal low Positive Intensity Scores."

The crying will come when Perry is nominated. The crying will come as he falters in the campaign. The crying will come when he returns from Texas with one big loss under his belt.




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GOP - can this be true?

FreakOutNation: "Right in Rep. Gifford’s county, a raffle is underway initiated by the county’s Republican Party. The prize is the same model of gun that almost killed the Democratic lawmaker after a bullet was shot, penetrating her brain. U.S. District Court Judge John M. Roll was murdered as well as 9 year old Christina Taylor Green. In all, nineteen people were shot, six of them fatally."

If so - use your own expletive or prayer.



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No one has pointed out the stakes of the conflict but I will


"With President Obama capitulating to John Boehner on when he'd be permitted to deliver his jobs speech to Congress, Michael Tomasky wonders whether the president will ever fight for policies he believes in."
This article and the headline noted in the link immediately above is in the same ballpark with Boehner's diss of the President. No one has pointed out the stakes of the conflict that only a few even understand and admit. Obama understands it. He has the advantage of experience that John Boehner will never begin to comprehend. As for the author of this piece (or maybe it is also the headline writer) unless you can see the present juncture of history as no less momentous than the one that Lincoln presided over, don't even bother to consider yourself a worthy interpreter of what is happening. The stakes are overturning the corporate domination of  the US led by big oil. In such a battle the winner is the one who has a mind.
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Another marriage made in hell

Exxon Partners With Russia's Rosneft to Develop Arctic, Black Sea: "SOCHI, Russia, August 31, 2011 (ENS) - Russian state-owned oil company Rosneft and U.S. oil giant ExxonMobil have agreed to jointly undertake a US$3.2 billion oil and gas exploration program in the Black Sea and in the Kara Sea on the Arctic Ocean."

Continued reliance on fossil fuels taxes the patience of reality. And reality bites back when provoked.



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Peirce suggests that truth is what does not lead us astray

Arisbe - Peirce: The Fixation of Belief (frame):

"But, above all, let it be considered that what is more wholesome than any particular belief is integrity of belief, and that to avoid looking into the support of any belief from a fear that it may turn out rotten is quite as immoral as it is disadvantageous. The person who confesses that there is such a thing as truth, which is distinguished from falsehood simply by this, that if acted on it will carry us to the point we aim at and not astray, and then, though convinced of this, dares not know the truth and seeks to avoid it, is in a sorry state of mind indeed."

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Peirce's Sign Theory, or Semiotic



Peirce's Theory of Signs (Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy): "Peirce's Sign Theory, or Semiotic, is an account of signification, representation, reference and meaning. Although sign theories have a long history, Peirce's accounts are distinctive and innovative for their breadth and complexity, and for capturing the importance of interpretation to signification. For Peirce, developing a thoroughgoing theory of signs was a central philosophical and intellectual preoccupation. The importance of semiotic for Peirce is wide ranging. As he himself said, “[…] it has never been in my power to study anything,—mathematics, ethics, metaphysics, gravitation, thermodynamics, optics, chemistry, comparative anatomy, astronomy, psychology, phonetics, economics, the history of science, whist, men and women, wine, metrology, except as a study of semiotic”. (SS 1977, 85–6). Peirce also treated sign theory as central to his work on logic, as the medium for inquiry and the process of scientific discovery, and even as one possible means for 'proving' his pragmatism. Its importance in Peirce's philosophy, then, cannot be underestimated."

                                                   Stephen's Remarkable Kindle Store

Updated 10 August 2012

How Peirce looked at phenomenal entities

Joseph Ransdell, "Charles S. Peirce (1839-1914)" at ARISBE: THE PEIRCE GATEWAY: "Peirce believed he had demonstrated that there are three basically distinct ways of regarding phenomenal entities: (1) only insofar as they bear monadic (that is, non-relational) properties; (2) insofar as they are terms in dyadic (two-term) relationships, which presupposes that they bear monadic properties, and (3) insofar as they are terms in triadic (three-term) relationships, which presupposes that they stand in dyadic relationships. All relationships of apparently greater complexity are supposedly analyzable into combinations of triadic and/or dyadic and/or monadic forms, though overt linguistic form is an unreliable guide to whether a given property is monadic, dyadic, or triadic."



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I would say the President recovers handily

Daily Kos :: State of the Nation: "Quinnipiac is now the third well-known pollster to show President Obama at record lows in just the last week: The latest surveys from Public Policy Polling and Gallup also have Obama at the worst job approvals of his term. It's hard to see where the president goes from here."

First: Republicans have no nominee they believe in.

Second: Obama in his speech finally defines his GOP sympathetic centrism in terms millions understand.

Third: The unwillingness of GOP to compromise becomes a killer albatross around their already vulnerable neck. The party either walks in lockstep off the cliff or compromises. Either way the Obama fortunes begin an inexorable march up. Leaving the pundits trying to say that isn't really egg on their face.

Covering up the execution of an infant? Shame.

WikiLeaks: Iraqi Children in U.S. Raid Shot in Head, U.N. Says | Common Dreams: "A U.S. diplomatic cable made public by WikiLeaks provides evidence that U.S. troops executed at least 10 Iraqi civilians, including a woman in her 70s and a 5-month-old infant, then called in an airstrike to destroy the evidence, during a controversial 2006 incident in the central Iraqi town of Ishaqi."



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Fair is fair

Obama versus Boehner on jobs speech date: Who's the adult? - CSMonitor.com: "First, we don’t think most voters will find this as depressing as pundits did. That’s because the fight was over before they even knew about it – not everybody gets Politico’s Twitter feed, after all. Plus, they already think Washington is full of kindergartners wearing ties.

Second, the White House messed up, big time. If they were trying to stomp on the GOP debate, it was petty. If they weren’t, it was incompetent. Somebody should have checked (maybe via Politico’s Twitter feed!) and seen if that date was already taken."

'via Blog this'

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There Was A Second Freedom Summer in 1965

Veterans of the Civil Rights Movement -- You Came Here to Die, Didn't You?: "Few know that there was a second freedom summer in 1965. The first Freedom Summer was run by a confederation of civil rights organizations, though SNCC took the lead. The organizations went their separate ways in 1965, dividing up the states so they didn't overlap or compete.

The Southern Christian Leadership Conference, best known as Dr. King's organization, brought between three and four hundred young people to six Southern states for a project called SCOPE — Southern Community Organization for Political Education. Expecting the Voting Rights Act to pass in June, its purpose was to get local blacks registered to vote."

'via Blog this'

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Global democratic revolution is the best protection against terror attacks

9/11 Ten Tears On: The Threat from Al-Qaeda | Chatham House: Independent thinking on international affairs: "And yet, a fundamental change has occurred since 9/11 that has undermined al-Qaeda and the potential for increasing popular support of global terrorism: the challenge to authoritarian regimes in Arab countries through the espousal of non-violence and a call for democracy. The overriding desire for ensuring a democratic political system by both secularists and mainstream Islamists is a major challenge to violent extremism and clearly has popular support. "

'via Blog this'

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Beyond Pattern Language: Why my cyber-cities idea will work without much government involvement

Beyond Pattern Language: Why my cyber-cities idea will work without much government involvement: "As I have insisted for several years, all a cyber-city needs is entrepreneurs capable of hearing what is meant when I whisper things like car free, lego-like, sustainable and above all with a scale enabling a vital local economy"

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The Best Argument Against the Pipeline is Its Premise

Factbox: Keystone Pipeline, Page 2 of 2 - Associated Content from Yahoo! - associatedcontent.com:

Its premise is that we should continue with oil and cars when we should reduce dependence on both and build new settlements that will not flood and otherwise be endangered as current construction is. We will not solve the environmental problems without reconstructing society itself.


Linking and branding is where it's at

Facebook to Launch Music Service - The Daily Beast:

Interesting.

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How many automobile companies bit the dust?

Solyndra solar company fails after getting federal loan guarantees - The Washington Post: "“While we are disappointed by this particular outcome, we continue to believe the clean energy jobs race is one that America can, must and will win,” it said in a statement. “The Department of Energy’s overall portfolio of investments — which includes dozens of other companies — continues to perform well and is on pace to create thousands of jobs.”"

Besides isn't bankruptcy supposed to be a new beginning? I've heard that somewhere.

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Beyond Irene, Katia and Lee

Katia Roars to Hurricane Status - The Daily Beast: "The Atlantic’s latest storm, Katia, was upgraded to a Category 1 hurricane Wednesday night, as forecasters said it was too soon to tell where the storm will go. "

Nice name Katia.

Another side of Tehran

laboo foroosh — لبو فروش « Tehran Shake: "Today though, I long for Tehran’s “Payeez” and can’t stop thinking about the “Vali Asr” Avenue (i.e. Pahlavi Ave.) and its trees in the fall. The nostalgia of pomegranate juice stands, the smell of “laboo and baghela forooshees” in the narrow streets of Tehran, near Meydoon e Vanak on a rainy day. There is so much life and extreme emotions there. Shawhin often says, “Tehran feels like the center of the universe once you get to know it.” I must agree. "

Nice to see someone centering down on what the whole world needs to consider.

'via Blog this'

Global Online Privacy

Best comment on CIA sports flights renditions snafu


Absolutely hilarious that a civil trial in an empty courtroom yields this bonanza of detailed information. Clearly, this is one of those stories that insists on outing itself despite the best efforts of the spooks to keep their dastardly deeds safely in the dungeon. 


Cap tip laboo
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I'll tell you why growth is sluggish

Obama Prime-Time Speech: Where Are the Jobs? - The Daily Beast: "The places where it devoted the most money—education, clean energy, and infrastructure—have remained sluggish."

Education, energy and infrastructure are a single package and we need the guts to say so. We cannot have clean energy until we agree to build inclusive cyber-cities along our interstates, magnets for rural populations, Only 10k are needed to create a cell of a cyber city. This is the infra structure solution squared, cubed, ad infinitum. Education cannot grow properly in a completely stratified society. Energy cannot resolve until we create a viable model for car free communities of 10 K. It's only a matter of time before eyes open to this triad of sluggish things, sluggish because they go together and call for courage beyond the pale of present volition. Oh wait, that speech. Will it be Philadelphia Two? If it is, I take this all back.

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Soon to have a blog of its own

BEYOND CREED - Stephen Rose : IUniverse:

All these books and sites tie together into one major thrust - a revaluation of values in this century. They are pieces of a puzzle that the world is engaged as we speak in solving.

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How pictures serve memes and propaganda (Image)

Irene: Death to America! — BagNews: "Here’s the latest example how visual media likes to frame natural disasters through a nationalistic lens (the flag as a dominant symbol or “actor”), the impact inferred as a blow to America’s self-esteem and/or survival equated to the strength of the American character."



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Jesus Came to Vindicate Abba

Jesus Came to Vindicate Abba - Associated Content from Yahoo! - associatedcontent.com:

"Jesus came to vindicate Abba
And gave a name that could not be besmirched
To do so was a criminal assault on religion and governance"

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Well naturally, and thought as well

The Mind's Eye - Technology Review: "One of your basic contentions, I say to the British artist David Hockney, is that there is always more to be seen, everywhere, all the time. "Yes," he replies emphatically. "There's a lot more to be seen." "

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The tiny window of freedom upon which the world hangs


This is an original theory that is perhaps older than the planet 
Its time has come
The only freedom human beings have is the freedom to choose the values they will live by
There are only four principal values that the enable us to make real progress
They are the root value of non idolatry 
Which means worship nothing giving first place to nothing save Abba
Or whatever your name is for one who lives within you waiting to be heard
There are three related interactive values
 Tolerance
Helpfulness
Democracy 
Seen as extending the same rights to all
The struggle of this century is to arrive at a philosophy that understands this
Oh 
Freedom means one can make the choice now

Global Online Privacy

I love it my taxes going for face recognition I can easily foil

5 Unexpected Places You Can Be Tracked With Facial Recognition Technology | News & Politics | AlterNet: "But nothing drives innovation like the promise of government contracts! In the past few years, face recognition technology has advanced substantially, moving from 2-d to 3-d scanning that can capture identifying information about faces even in profile. Another great leap forward, courtesy of Identex (now L-1 Identity Solutions, Inc.), combines geometric face scanning and "skinprint" technology that maps pores, skin texture, scars and other identifying facial marks captured in high-resolution photos. "

It's a good thing government does a few things that are better than this thing.

Global Online Privacy

Nothing I think is important made Twitter Trends

Top 10 Twitter Trends This Month [CHART]:

But that is no reason to stop. Who would expect non-idolatry to leap to the fore when soccer reigns?

The Live Aid criticism is salient

5 Embarrassing Failures History Class Turned Into Victories | Cracked.com: "Now, when another government gives foreign aid to an impoverished country like Ethiopia, the donor government can set conditions, and enforce them. If you blow the money on weapons to fight your civil war, you don't get any more money."

This is a point that flies in the teeth of GOP false logic. Only governments can back up the motives behind humanitarian impulses. It is simple and true and saying it is a liberation from centuries of false philosophy and posturing at the edges of tragedy. Cut to the governments or end up simpletons. Make them responsible. Make their power legitimate not dictatorial. This is a path of realism.

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Abba's Way: 67 Some argue that the past contains the now

Abba's Way: 67 Some argue that the past contains the now:

"Some argue that the past contains the now.
Or that the now must hold all of the past.
Which would explain my presence, I suppose.
But this would be less than what truly is."

More at the link above.

Getting to the nitty gritty of a workable value system

Pragmatism and Abba's Way - Associated Content from Yahoo! - associatedcontent.com: "Abba's way does not merely believe that things must work. Abba's way believes there are inherent impulses within each human being pointing to universal values that, when made central, work to move history forward in ways that can indeed be measured and deemed efficacious and true."

Sure it's five pages but it goes fast.

Sales prospects are good. I wonder why.

Abba's Way - Stephen C. Rose : IUniverse:

Some ideas get here before their time has come.

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The only way is for India and the rest of the world to give up the big oil nightmare for good

How to Save the Taj Mahal? | History & Archaeology | Smithsonian Magazine: "The Indian press has been filled with reports that the latest government efforts to control pollution around the Taj are failing and that the gorgeous white marble is deteriorating—a possible casualty of India’s booming population, rapid economic expansion and lax environmental regulations."


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While Boehner and Cantor play tawdry games, the President is at work

As part of jobs plan, Obama calls for speedy infrastructure permitting - The Hill's E2-Wire: "President Obama put more meat on the bones of his jobs agenda Wednesday, outlining a plan to quickly permit major infrastructure projects pending approval at several federal agencies.

He signed a presidential memorandum instructing federal agencies to each identify three major infrastructure projects that will create jobs and can be greenlighted by the Obama administration within 18 months."

Cap tip Yglesias.

Global Online Privacy

Ah someone agrees with me finally

Less Work, More Living by Juliet Schor — YES! Magazine: "Millions of Americans have lost control over the basic rhythm of their daily lives. They work too much, eat too quickly, socialize too little, drive and sit in traffic for too many hours, don’t get enough sleep, and feel harried too much of the time. It’s a way of life that undermines basic sources of wealth and well-being—such as strong family and community ties, a deep sense of meaning, and physical health."



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He said, she said

Exclusive: Condoleezza Rice fires back at Cheney memoir - Yahoo! News: ""It certainly doesn't sound like me, now, does it?" Rice said in the interview. "I would never -- I don't remember coming to the vice president tearfully about anything in the entire eight years that I knew him.""

And in this case she wins.

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"A third of children born in the year 2000 will develop Type 2 diabetes during their lifetimes"

Presidential Proclamation -- National Childhood Obesity Awareness Month | The White House: " Since the 1970s, the rate of childhood obesity in our country has tripled, and today a third of American children are overweight or obese. This dramatic rise threatens to have far‑reaching, long-term effects on our children's health, livelihoods, and futures. Without major changes, a third of children born in the year 2000 will develop Type 2 diabetes during their lifetimes, and many others will face obesity‑related problems like heart disease, high blood pressure, cancer, and asthma. As a Nation, our greatest responsibility is to ensure the well-being of our children. By taking action to address the issue of childhood obesity, we can help America's next generation reach their full potential."

'via Blog this'

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Winning The War Within Collected Sonnets: Forty Deliver us we pray deliverance


Winning The War Within Collected Sonnets: Forty Deliver us we pray deliverance:
Deliver us we pray deliverance
Come rescue us come carry us away

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In 2012 Vote Your Empty Pocketbook

Report: top corporations spent millions on politics, paid no federal taxes | The Washington Independent: "Five top U.S. corporations racked up millions in profits last year and paid no federal taxes. They spent money instead on political campaigns and it was money well spent. Over the last decade, Bank of America, Boeing, Chevron, ExxonMobil and General Electric handed out $78.7 million to state political campaigns and $45.3 million to federal campaigns, according to a report released Wednesday by the National Institute for Money in State Politics. In return, the corporations in 2009 won $3.7 billion in tax breaks overall and paid $0 in federal taxes. They enjoyed a combined profit of $77.16 billion in 2010."

'via Blog this'

Global Online Privacy

Obama Got Bucket of Intelligence, GOP Empty Thimble

Why President Obama was smart to reschedule his jobs speech - The Fix - The Washington Post: "Reaction was swift — with Republicans crowing that the president had caved and some Democrats grumbling privately about the mishandling of such a basic piece of political planning.

But Obama and his political team were smart to reschedule the event for (at least) three reasons."


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The charming and Neanderthal gentleman from Texas, Rep. Ron Paul

Richard Reeves: Who Pays for God’s Revenge? - Truthdig: "Last week, in a truly extraordinary performance, Rep. Eric Cantor, the majority leader of the House, argued, in effect, that the federal government does not have an obligation to make good those parts of the general population whose lives have been nearly demolished by flood, fire and earthquake. He was joined by other Republicans, notably the charming and Neanderthal gentleman from Texas, Rep. Ron Paul, who essentially believes government should have no role in anything."

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Too bad Obama's best economic adviser is not alive anymore

The Theory of the Leisure Class: I:

"Manual labour, industry, whatever has to do directly with the everyday work of getting a livelihood, is the exclusive occupation of the inferior class. This inferior class includes slaves and other dependents, and ordinarily also all the women. If there are several grades of aristocracy, the women of high rank are commonly exempt from industrial employment, or at least from the more vulgar kinds of manual labour. The men of the upper classes are not only exempt, but by prescriptive custom they are debarred, from all industrial occupations. The range of employments open to them is rigidly defined. As on the higher plane already spoken of, these employments are government, warfare, religious observances, and sports. "

However ...

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How the democratic revolution worked in Tripoli

Libya: The Rebels' Secret Collaborators in Tripoli - TIME: "A number of Tripoli residents shared stories similar to Tarsin's. They risked imprisonment and even death to help the rebels who were fighting to end the 42-year rule of Muammar Gaddafi."


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Whoops! Thorstein Veblen a long long time ago

The Theory of the Leisure Class: I: "The institution of a leisure class is found in its best development at the higher stages of the barbarian culture; as, for instance, in feudal Europe or feudal Japan. In such communities the distinction between classes is very rigorously observed; and the feature of most striking economic significance in these class differences is the distinction maintained between the employments proper to the several classes. The upper classes are by custom exempt or excluded from industrial occupations, and are reserved for certain employments to which a degree of honour attaches. "



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The bubble economy and the inflationary bottom

The I-word - Boston.com: "That particular nightmare never came to pass, thanks to drastic measures taken by the Federal Reserve. For the better part of the past 30 years, the dollar has stayed stable, reassuring American families and the nation’s trading partners, with the central bank standing guard over the economy and doing everything necessary to keep inflation low."

Its funny. Our costs at the market for dairy and fruit have gone up and things at the dollar store are a dollar no more. Yet I get Amazon offers for a meal that would cost $150 if it was not for their $75 coupon. Inflation appears nonexistent for the privileged whose income and worth is 20x that of the the rest. Poor and lower income whites, Blacks and Hispanics scrape by. Inflation is a constant. We have a bubble economy for the better off with prices pre-inflated so there is wiggle room. Where prices are real - at the bottom -  inflation is happening right now.



Abba's Way: 68 On Wandering

Abba's Way: 68 On Wandering:

"Some wander, some stay put, I move at will.
Sometimes to places anchored in the past.
Sometimes to seek out places to be known.
A wanderer might be a stranger too.
I wander but each place I am is home.
A wanderer may never move at all."

Continues at the link above.

New Tao Posts: The masters of the Tao see grace in everything

New Tao Posts: The masters of the Tao see grace in everything:

New blog.


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