Let's see if that works.

Ad astra per aspera

Today, in an article on the attempt to draft the ultra-Orthodox, they report.

In Haredi communities the mood is defiant. Mea Shearim is a closed, strictly ultra-Orthodox community on the outskirts of Jerusalem's Old City. Apart from the murmur of prayers in the yeshivas and the occasional shout of young schoolboys, its old stone alleyways are hushed. Men in broad hats and frockcoats walk the streets quickly, their eyes cast to the ground. Life here has not changed for hundreds of years and no one thinks it will change now.

Wikipedia, on the other hand, says

Mea Shearim was established in 1874 as the second settlement outside the walls of the Old City by a building society of 100 shareholders.[2] Pooling their resources, the society members purchased a tract of land outside the Old City, which was severely overcrowded and plagued by poor sanitation, and built a new neighborhood with the goal of improving their standards of living.

This is hardly a trivial matter. Zionist history regards the move outside the city walls as a key event, and the belief that it has been there for centuries (as opposed to merely looking that way) displays amazing ignorance.

On the Left Coast of America, the birds are not up yet, but the Chris Hayes addicts are

Guardian - Deborah Orr - Private sector efficiency? This lie has to stop

A rumour has been doing the rounds - unfounded but all too credible - that health secretary Andrew Lansley wants to scrap the 49% cap on the proportion of private income that NHS institutions can earn. One wouldn't want hospitals holding back, just in case they accidently nosed over into the forbidden 50%, would we? That might hamper private-sector efficiency.

It doesn't seem credible that the Conservatives can carry on believing the private sector is more efficient while actually in the process of drafting in the public sector army (which I've heard prides itself on efficiency) to address the mess the private sector G4S has made of Olympic security. G4S are not only inefficient, but delusional and cowardly. They didn't even admit they were fouling up until the last possible moment.

But neo-liberal faith in the magic of the profit motive continues, however facile the arguments are in theory, and however clearly wrong in practice. The only real efficiency the private sector has is that its failures go bust, while public-sector failures must struggle on.

keep to the Fen Causeway

Guardian - Tanya Gold - Eva Rausing's story is part of the white noise of the age

If an obsessive drug user from anywhere other than Belgravia - or Knightsbridge, or Mayfair - were caught with 52g of cocaine, prison would be a likely outcome. But not for Rausing. Her lawyer corresponded with the Crown Prosecution Service, and Prince Charles, a global expert in the magical power of prestige to soothe any practical problem, said she deserved a second chance. The judiciary bowed to wealth: no charges were brought against the Rausings. Sir Ian Blair, then the Metropolitan police commissioner, was furious, and said the decision not to prosecute "reminds me of the 19th-century legal comment often attributed to Sir James Mathew: 'In England justice is open to all - just like the Ritz.'"
[....]
So this is the oldest story - of the law's viciousness towards the ordinary, and its polite reticence towards the wealthy, and it feels like the white noise of the age. The dialogue against the poor, the unemployed and recipients of welfare is rising to a scream under this coalition government, and it is producing a criminal justice system to match: with so many feckless you need at least the appearance of muscular punishment.

I read again yesterday of Nicholas Robinson, the student jailed for six months for "looting" a £3.50 bottle of water during the riots last year, and the evening and weekend courts planned for the Olympics, so justice can be swiftly meted out. We are segueing, in all the details, towards a darker age. Eva Rausing was unlucky, but her death tells not how similar the rich and poor are in essence, but how different.

keep to the Fen Causeway

Independent - Ben chu - Libor: They all knew - and no one acted

Regulators on both sides of the Atlantic failed to act on clear warnings that the Libor interest rate was being falsely reported by banks during the financial crisis, it emerged last night.

A cache of documents released yesterday by the New York Federal Reserve showed that US officials had evidence from April 2008 that Barclays was knowingly posting false reports about the rate at which it could borrow in order to assuage market concerns about its solvency.

An unnamed Barclays employee told a New York Fed analyst, Fabiola Ravazzolo, on 11 April 2008: "So we know that we're not posting, um, an honest Libor." He said Barclays started under-reporting Libor because graphs showing the relatively high rates at which the bank had to borrow attracted "unwanted attention" and the "share price went down".

The problem being that, the wider the systemic corruption, the less likely it is that anything will be done about it

keep to the Fen Causeway

Following some Ha'aretz links on the Wagner controversy, I found the following article from last month. It includes the following paragraph

Hitler incorporated as much Wagner into the fabric of the Third Reich as he could. Nazi Party conferences usually opened with recordings of the opera "Rienzi," which was one of Hitler's favorites - when he committed suicide in the Berlin bunker he was found to be in possession of the musical score.  He identified with the hero of the story, the leader who came from the gutter, unified his people and led them to greatness.

The correct story is that the Wagner family gave Hitler the autographs scores of Wagner's early operas, and they have not been found since. That's basically all we know, though there are lots of theories about what may have happened to them. I initially dismissed this as "merely corroborative detail, intended to give artistic verisimilitude to an otherwise bald and unconvincing narrative," and didn't give it any more thought. What do you expect from a journalist? Then I got to the last line

The writer is head of the Kantor Center for the Study of Contemporary European Jewry, at Tel Aviv University and is the chief historian of Yad Vashem.

El Comfidencial: Los parados que cobran renta activa y viajen al extranjero perderán el paro (14/7/2012)

Algunos de los españoles parados que salgan al extranjero, con cualquier motivo y por el tiempo que sea, perderán automáticamente la prestación por desempleo. Así lo establece el Gobierno en el Real-Decreto ley de medidas antidéficit aprobado ayer y publicado este sábado en el Boletín Oficial del Estado.

...

A partir de ahora, no obstante, la salida al extranjero, "por cualquier motivo o duración" interrumpirá la inscripción como demandante de empleo. En aquellos supuestos en los que se cese en la demanda de empleo, se exigirá un periodo de 12 meses "ininterrumpido" desde la nueva inscripción, de modo que a los desempleados que tenían derecho a la prestación por desempleo no les valdrá con regresar a España; tendrán que esperar un año para poder recuperar el derecho a cobrar el paro.

De esta forma, ciñéndose a la literalidad del texto, quedaría restringido el derecho a la libre circulación de estos parados españoles inclusive dentro de la Unión Europea (dado que no se precisan excepciones sobre el destino). Así, un parado español no podría acudir a una entrevista de trabajo en Berlín sin arriesgarse a perder su subsidio durante un año, ni trasladarse allí un mes para buscar empleo.

The unemployed who receive "active [reinsertion] income" and travel abroad will los their subsidy

Some of the unemployed Spaniards who go abroad, for any reason and for any length of time, will automativally lose their unemployment benefits. So is established by the Government in the Royal Decree of deficit-fighting measures approved yesterday and published this Saturday in the [Boletín Oficial del Estado] Official Journal.

...

From now on, however, going abroad "for any reason or length of time" will interrupt the inscription as jobseeker. In those cases where people cease to be jobseekers, am "uninterrupted" period of 12 months will be required after a new inscription so that the unemployed who had a right to an unemployment subsidy will not have enough with returning to Spain; they will have to wait for a year before recovering their right to receive the subsidy.

In this way, taking the text literally, the right to free movement of people would be restricted for these unemployed Spaniards even within the EU (given that no exceptions are given on destination). Thus, a Spanish unemployed will not be able to go to a job interview in Berlin without risking to lose their subsidy for a year, nor move there to seek work.

That's a good thing for Germany now that a recession is coming...

If you are not convinced, try it on someone who has not been entirely debauched by economics. — Piero Sraffa

30 seconds to sum up Romney's Bain problem

keep to the Fen Causeway

If you are not convinced, try it on someone who has not been entirely debauched by economics. — Piero Sraffa

The Independene: Citizenship test to be rewritten by the Government (01 JULY 2012)

Immigrants will have to learn the first verse of the national anthem and be tested on key historical facts as part of the overhaul designed to place a greater focus on the nation's culture and past, The Sunday Times said.

...

It will tell immigrants the UK is "historically" a Christian country with a "long and illustrious history" and include sections about key battles as well as British inventions, discoveries and culture.

A section on the Queen will also be included, with would-be-Britons also expected to memorise the profiles of famous artists, writers and playwrights such as William Shakespeare.

See Confessions of an immigrant: Knowledge of Life in the UK (2 July 2012)

On a more sinister level, the test handbook apparently served as one long propaganda piece. Drawn up by the Labour government in 2005, and unrevised since 2007, its subtext seemed clear: Labour governments are good to immigrants, and have a history of loosening restrictions, while Conservative ones are bad and keep tightening restrictions on immigration - and a point was made of highlighting whether it was a Labour or Conservative government responsible for relevant changes of law. In the book's potted account of the history of immigration in Britain, no mention is made of the Harold Wilson government's 1968 Commonwealth Immigration Act, probably the most racist piece of post-war British legislation, which severed non-white Commonwealth immigration whilst leaving white immigration almost intact. The manual might as well have had a bright red cover and the heading "VOTE LABOUR" atop every page. It therefore comes as no surprise that Theresa May has got round to announcing a revised edition, and I fully expect it to have a comparable "VOTE CONSERVATIVE" subtext.

(See the July 2 Salon)

If you are not convinced, try it on someone who has not been entirely debauched by economics. — Piero Sraffa

Goldman Sachs and a Sale Gone Horribly Awry - NYTimes.com

THE business deal from hell began to crumble even before the Champagne corks were popped.

In 1990, Jim and Janet Baker demonstrated the DragonDictate-30K speech recognition system.

The deal, the $580 million sale of a highflying technology company, Dragon Systems, had just been approved by its board and congratulations were being exchanged. But even then, at that moment of celebration, there was a sense that something was amiss.

Any idiot can face a crisis - it's day to day living that wears you out.

And as usual when abroad, doing my best to talk politics with the locals. Curious thing...I've met no one who wants Turkey in the EU. Quite a few who admit having wanted to a few years ago, but none now. Can't say I'm surprised though I should note in passing that any reference to Turkey as anything other than a European nation is met with a protest. (For example, my flight back to Paris is, as with many flights from the middle east, at a very late hour, here at 4am. I've remarked that in Amman or Muscat there are great places in the airport where, once past security, one can sleep in waiting for the flight, and asked if here in Antalya it is the same, to which the reply has been no, it's just like in Paris, do you have the same there? To which of course the answer is no...non plus.)

I'd also add that all about me is growth. Construction everywhere, motorways being built or upgraded, new businesses opening, unemployment low, very low by European standards. The other day, in central Turkey, I chatted with a young Frenchman of Turkish origin from Lons Le Saunier, on vacation to visit grandparents, but who within a week of being here was offered a job. He tells me he's probably not going back.

Seing what I see is similar to what I saw in similarly promising and European Spain, 25 years ago. With the exception that the Turks don't have a German central bank to block their development and growth. And, if I were a young man, 25 years ago, I'd probably be learning Turkish, because this place looks like a place to be in many respects.

Hell, I may just learn Turkish at my own (middle) age.

I would be ashamed to admit that I had risen from the ranks. When I rise it will be with the ranks, and not from them Eugene Debs