Saturday, September 3, 2016

Cab Thoughts 9/3/16

The contest for ages has been to rescue liberty from the grasp of executive power--Daniel Webster


At the Yalta Conference towards the end of World War II, the United States, the USSR, and Great Britain agreed to divide Korea into two separate occupation zones. It worked in Palestine, right? The country was split along the 38th parallel, with Soviet forces occupying the northern zone and Americans stationed in the south. In 1947, the United States and Great Britain called for free elections throughout Korea, but the Soviets refused to comply. In May 1948 the Korean Democratic People’s Republic–a communist state–was proclaimed in North Korea.  At dawn on June 25, 1950 (June 24 in the United States and Europe), 90,000 communist troops of the North Korean People’s Army invaded South Korea across the 38th parallel. Despite the horrors of the Second World War, these people sought out more conflict.

Dozens of State Department employees have endorsed an internal document that advocates U.S. military action to pressure Syria’s government into accepting a cease-fire and engaging in peace talks, officials said Thursday. The position is at odds with U.S. policy. The “dissent channel cable” was signed by about 50 mostly mid-level department officials who deal with U.S. policy in Syria, according to officials who have seen the document. It expresses clear frustration with America’s inability to halt a civil war that has killed perhaps a half-million people and contributed to a worldwide refugee crisis, and goes to the heart of President Barack Obama’s reluctance to enter the fray. Great. The head of the CIA contradicted Obama under oath on the success and direction of the U.S. struggle against ISIS. What a mess.
U.S. ambassadors to several European countries complained that Russian intelligence officials were constantly perpetrating acts of harassment against their diplomatic staff. Some of the intimidation has been routine: following diplomats or their family members, showing up at their social events uninvited or paying reporters to write negative stories about them. But many of the recent acts of intimidation by Russian security services have crossed the line into apparent criminality. In a series of secret memos sent back to Washington, described to The WashPo, diplomats reported that Russian intruders had broken into their homes late at night, only to rearrange the furniture or turn on all the lights and televisions, and then leave. One diplomat reported that an intruder had defecated on his living room carpet.
In Moscow, where the harassment is most pervasive, diplomats reported slashed tires and regular harassment by traffic police. Former ambassador Michael McFaul was hounded by government-paid protesters, and intelligence personnel followed his children to school. The harassment is not new; in the first term of the Obama administration, Russian intelligence personnel broke into the house of the U.S. defense attache in Moscow and killed his dog.
These are nuclear armed grownups.

California has overtaken France as the world’s sixth-largest economy. Great Britain used to be fifth.

Margaret Mitchell’s Gone with the Wind, one of the best-selling novels of all time and the basis for a blockbuster 1939 movie. Mitchell was a former reporter and wrote the book while recovering from some injuries. She drew on the tales she had heard from her parents and other relatives, as well as from Confederate war veterans she had met as a young girl. She named the heroine "Pansy O’Hara;" an editor changed it to the iconic "Scarlett."

Eric Schneiderman, Attorney General of New York state, accused companies that defend their right to free speech of engaging in "First Amendment opportunism." "First Amendment opportunism!" Schneiderman characterized the statements of the energy industry, and those of global warming skeptics generally, as fraud. When you hear a government official complain about fraud in a policy debate, he's got his sights set on censorship, plain and simple. And in the context of global warming, his goal is not to win that debate through evidence, but by shutting one side down through "law enforcement."
Reminds you of Mario Monti. The  economist, former Italian prime minister and, more crucially, former European commissioner gave to Turin-based newspaper La Stampa an astonishing interview in which he calls the Brexit referendum "an abuse of democracy."
Politicians and their little quirks. No wonder people are angry.

Malthus’s “principle of population” and Ricardo’s theory of rent are two pillars of the doctrine, discarded long ago by economists, known as the “Iron Law of Wages.” According to this doctrine, those workers on the lowest rungs of the economic ladder in a free market are forever doomed to a subsistence level of survival. This pessimistic doctrine—a stark contrast to the earlier economic optimism of Adam Smith —became part and parcel of Marx’s theory of exploitation.

Officious: adj: 1. Excessively eager in offering unwanted or unneeded advice or help. 2. Acting in pompous or domineering manner, especially in trivial matters. ety: Earlier, someone officious was dutiful or helpful. Over time, the word acquired a negative sense. From Latin officiosus (dutiful), from officium (service). Earliest documented use: 1487.
USAGE: “Zimmerman, wearing a banker’s collar and projecting an officious air into the room, continued.” Sonia Smith; Unfriendly Climate; Texas Monthly (Austin); May 2016.
Mississippi-headquartered Cal-Maine Foods is the largest producer of eggs in the United States with a staggering 40 million egg-laying hens. That’s a lot of chickens, and each one lays an average of 250-300 eggs per year!

Trump says a lot of stupid things. One was his criticism of the judge who he said would be biased because of his Mexican heritage. But there is more to this. This is simply Trump going the wrong way on a well-established one-way street. In speeches before she became a Supreme Court justice, Sotomayor said, “I would hope that a wise Latina woman with the richness of her experiences would more often than not reach a better conclusion than a white male who hasn’t lived that life.” She also said, “Whether born from experience or inherent physiological or cultural differences … our gender and national origins may and will (emphasis added) make a difference in our judging.” So national origin and gender does make a difference? Latina women make better decisions than white guys? Are we allowed to say that? “Whether born from experience or inherent physiological or cultural differences … our gender and national origins may and will  make a difference in our judging.” I do not think many could say that without criticism.
"This is simply Trump going the wrong way on a well-established one-way street"--that's a pretty good line.
 
Terrorist attacks in Western countries accounted for a small percentage of world-wide incidents, representing 4.4 per cent of terrorist incidents and 2.6 per cent of deaths over the last 15 years. Does anyone find that reassuring?

The Laureate Network is described as the “world’s largest for-profit university network.” It has a lot of big-money investors, mostly Democratic Party supporters: Henry Kravis, George Soros, Steve Cohen and Paul Allen. George Washington University law professor Jonathan Turley wrote recently: “Laureate Education has been sued over such programs as its Walden University Online offering, which many have alleged is a scam designed to bilk students of tens of thousands of dollars for degrees.” He added: “Students say that they were repeatedly delayed and given added costs as they tried to secure degrees, leaving them deeply in debt.” It sounds very similar to the predatory Trump University. I wonder why we haven't heard much about it. Oh, wait.  Former President Bill Clinton is the “honorary” chancellor of Laureate International, the parent of Walden. 
Who is .....Sarah Morewood?
A Sand Lake couple’s pet parrot could be used as evidence to prove Glenna Duram murdered her husband Martin. A few weeks after his death last May, the couple’s parrot started repeating a loud, profane argument between a male and a female. A parrot. A blow for equality of species. This is the parrot's report: The man told her to, “Get out.” “Where will I go,” she replied. Then, in what family believes are his last words, "Don’t f----ing shoot.”These words might indicate the defendant did the deed. Would the parrot have to be sworn in? Are there parrot deities he would swear to?
There is a book out by Michael Shelden that claims that Herman Melville may have coveted his neighbor's wife, a certain Sarah Morehouse.
When the Germans invaded the Ukraine, some 2.5 million Ukrainians were shipped to Germany as slave laborers, and Ukrainian Jews were subjected to the same vicious racial policies as in Poland: Some 600,000 were murdered. 
Golden oldie:
http://steeleydock.blogspot.com/2013/03/obama-and-juliet.html

“Our most effective response to terror and to hatred is compassion, it’s unity, and it’s love.”So said Loretta Lynch, the American Attorney General. This is an amazing statement. Imagine what this implies. Is the ISIS movement something other than a deranged, anti-social, self-destructive, homicidal, maniacal death cult?  What could she mean? This is an American leader. She sounds like a college sophomore half-wit. When they sit around at White House meetings, do they all talk like this? It's like the country is being run by The Temperance Union.
One surprising thing about Britain's vote to leave the EU is that the British economy has been doing better than a lot of European countries. Unemployment in the United Kingdom has fallen to 5 percent, its lowest level in a decade. In contrast, the average unemployment rate among countries that (unlike Britain) have joined the EU's common currency, the euro, is still above 10 percent. Many economists argue that's not a coincidence -- that poor policies by the European Central Bank have systematically weakened growth in countries that have adopted the euro,  that other problems in those countries, like their problems with high debt, were made worse by the ECB's tight-money policies.
AAAAaaaannnnnnndddddd.....a picture of Sarah Morewood:

No comments: