Top Diaries

The Republican Party Is Self-Destructing Before Our Eyes - Business Insider

THE collapse of John Boehner's "Plan B" reveals the Republican Party to be in a politically disastrous position.
The media narrative is shaping up to pin the full blame for sending the country over the fiscal cliff on the Republicans. News coverage of Mr Boehner is characterised by a mixture of disdain and pity. The tea-party congressmen who have sabotaged his position are portrayed as delusional zealots unable to connect their professed goals to their actions in a rational fashion.

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

by ceebs (ceebs (at) eurotrib (dot) com) on Sat Dec 29th, 2012 at 12:30:55 PM EST

Re: Last Weekend Open Thread (4.00 / 7)

TPTB are starting to realize they've lost control of the GOP to a bunch of Fundie-Con hicks and goobers.

O/T.

This diary is why I still read dKos:

What is the economic value of trust?
The old saying goes that a liar doesn't trust anyone. Another old saying is that there is no honor among thieves.
What happens when liars and thieves run the entire show? When liars and thieves are in all the positions of economic and political power?
Eventually the honest and trusting public will catch on. The rules have changed, and now there aren't any rules.
That's when society starts changing.

Worth a read.

Ever since I learnt about confirmation bias I've started seeing it everywhere

by ATinNM on Sat Dec 29th, 2012 at 12:45:22 PM EST
[ Parent ]

Re: Last Weekend Open Thread (4.00 / 4)

Yeah, well...

if you take the view that the rule of law and a functioning property register are some of the key institutional factors explaining the success of capitalism in the last couple hundred years, you're potentially looking at the end of capitalism as we know it in the US. The alternative is a complete rout of the US financial system, which is another way for capitalism as we know it in the US to, if not end, at least get reset to a tabula rasa.

(Here on ET, back in October 2010)

I distribute. You re-distribute. He gives your hard-earned money to lazy scroungers. -- JakeS

by Migeru (migeru at eurotrib dot com) on Sat Dec 29th, 2012 at 01:38:27 PM EST
[ Parent ]

Ack.

But more people will read it on dKos.

Ever since I learnt about confirmation bias I've started seeing it everywhere

by ATinNM on Sat Dec 29th, 2012 at 02:06:28 PM EST
[ Parent ]

Different angle, the DKos piece is very nice.

I distribute. You re-distribute. He gives your hard-earned money to lazy scroungers. -- JakeS

by Migeru (migeru at eurotrib dot com) on Sat Dec 29th, 2012 at 02:57:50 PM EST
[ Parent ]

ET: Get your news two years early...

Europeans think a hundred miles is a long way. Americans think a hundred years is a long time.

by Bernard on Sat Dec 29th, 2012 at 05:03:55 PM EST
[ Parent ]

Although what is reported may have come about as a direct result of The Shattering neo-conservative policies have wrought, but an onset of common sense in the republican party will not be enough to remotely restore normality.

the status quo is too far to the right in favour of parasitic and rapacious financialism. There is currently no sign of a corrective leftist sentiment in either Europe or the USA. And so we will carry on towards the precipice and I fear what happens after that

keep to the Fen Causeway

by Helen (lareinagal at yahoo dot co dot uk) on Sat Dec 29th, 2012 at 02:15:22 PM EST
[ Parent ]

The loons have taken effective control of the GOP by using the primaries to block/oust non-Fundie-Cons (aka "TeaBagger") candidates. An "onset of reason" in the next two years isn't in the cards.

Ever since I learnt about confirmation bias I've started seeing it everywhere

by ATinNM on Sat Dec 29th, 2012 at 02:28:50 PM EST
[ Parent ]

Re: Last Weekend Open Thread (4.00 / 10)

Via a regular reader

Wind power

by Jerome a Paris (etg@eurotrib.com) on Sat Dec 29th, 2012 at 12:43:39 PM EST

It has to do with cheeses made from raw versus pasteurized milk. More information here.

Ever since I learnt about confirmation bias I've started seeing it everywhere

by ATinNM on Sat Dec 29th, 2012 at 12:54:26 PM EST
[ Parent ]

Re: Last Weekend Open Thread (4.00 / 4)

Them guns is shore's hell past your eyes.

by afew (afew(a in a circle)eurotrib_dot_com) on Sat Dec 29th, 2012 at 01:02:45 PM EST
[ Parent ]

?

Ever since I learnt about confirmation bias I've started seeing it everywhere

by ATinNM on Sat Dec 29th, 2012 at 01:05:44 PM EST
[ Parent ]

Poke (none / 0)

Phonemically challenged? "Open your mind with a smartphone!"

You can't be me, I'm taken

by Sven Triloqvist on Sat Dec 29th, 2012 at 02:33:38 PM EST
[ Parent ]

Re: Poke (none / 0)

Smartphones now come with a can opener?

Ever since I learnt about confirmation bias I've started seeing it everywhere

by ATinNM on Sat Dec 29th, 2012 at 02:53:36 PM EST
[ Parent ]

Can open n/t (none / 0)

You can't be me, I'm taken

by Sven Triloqvist on Sat Dec 29th, 2012 at 03:49:11 PM EST
[ Parent ]

Ironic comment on certain aspects of US culture and practice.

Guns = clean as a whistle (and more of them than we want to see).

Cheeses = dirty and forbidden (and a bum rap in a trade war).

by afew (afew(a in a circle)eurotrib_dot_com) on Sat Dec 29th, 2012 at 03:08:59 PM EST
[ Parent ]

it's more than that: guns are easy to understand in term of cause and effect.

You can't be me, I'm taken

by Sven Triloqvist on Sat Dec 29th, 2012 at 03:48:20 PM EST
[ Parent ]

While cheeses are complicated.

by afew (afew(a in a circle)eurotrib_dot_com) on Sat Dec 29th, 2012 at 03:57:43 PM EST
[ Parent ]

Yeah, the germ theory of disease is really hard to understand.

I distribute. You re-distribute. He gives your hard-earned money to lazy scroungers. -- JakeS

by Migeru (migeru at eurotrib dot com) on Sat Dec 29th, 2012 at 04:59:24 PM EST
[ Parent ]

University builds cheap supercomputer with Raspberry Pi and Legos:

This is pretty cool:

Inspired by the low-cost computing power of the Raspberry Pi, a team at the University of Southampton has used the ARM-based Linux computer-on-a-board as a building block for a low-cost supercomputer--racked and stacked using Lego blocks. And they've published a step-by-step guide for anyone interested in creating their own Raspberry Pi high-performance computing "bramble."

Why they would build something this cool and then shove a 43 year old bloat-ware, conceptually obsolete, O/S on it is a bit of a crime but that's the way it goes.

Ever since I learnt about confirmation bias I've started seeing it everywhere

by ATinNM on Sat Dec 29th, 2012 at 01:15:11 PM EST

What O/S do you consider state of the art?

I distribute. You re-distribute. He gives your hard-earned money to lazy scroungers. -- JakeS

by Migeru (migeru at eurotrib dot com) on Sat Dec 29th, 2012 at 01:33:04 PM EST
[ Parent ]

Watson.

Ever since I learnt about confirmation bias I've started seeing it everywhere

by ATinNM on Sat Dec 29th, 2012 at 01:58:21 PM EST
[ Parent ]

That's state of the industry, not state of the art.

You can't be me, I'm taken

by Sven Triloqvist on Sat Dec 29th, 2012 at 02:34:22 PM EST
[ Parent ]

You know why I put it that way.

Ever since I learnt about confirmation bias I've started seeing it everywhere

by ATinNM on Sat Dec 29th, 2012 at 02:48:15 PM EST
[ Parent ]

I do. I just can't get your earlier Luddite outburst out of my mind ;-I

You can't be me, I'm taken

by Sven Triloqvist on Sat Dec 29th, 2012 at 03:39:59 PM EST
[ Parent ]

I understand the immediate engineering reasons for them to use Linux.

Ever since I learnt about confirmation bias I've started seeing it everywhere

by ATinNM on Sat Dec 29th, 2012 at 02:02:02 PM EST
[ Parent ]

.....Given the chips that we've got, and the way they are connected.

You can't be me, I'm taken

by Sven Triloqvist on Sat Dec 29th, 2012 at 03:44:53 PM EST
[ Parent ]

That plus Linux is readily available, inexpensive, and there's lots of people who know how to crank it around.

Ever since I learnt about confirmation bias I've started seeing it everywhere

by ATinNM on Sat Dec 29th, 2012 at 04:36:22 PM EST
[ Parent ]

Watson (computer) - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Software
Watson's software was written in various languages, including at least Java, C++, and Prolog and uses Apache Hadoop framework for distributed computing, Apache UIMA (Unstructured Information Management Architecture) framework, IBM's DeepQA software and SUSE Linux Enterprise Server 11 operating system.^[8]^[17]^[18] "[...] more than 100 different techniques are used to analyze natural language, identify sources, find and generate hypotheses, find and score evidence, and merge and rank hypotheses."^[19]

Emphasis mine.

Now where are we going and what's with the handbasket?

by budr on Sat Dec 29th, 2012 at 03:57:29 PM EST
[ Parent ]

....i.e. a dog's breakfast.But then the emergent brain is no better wiring-wise.

Has anyone a satisfactory explanation for the fact that the cerebellum (in general) is wired left to left with the rest of its CNS, while the cerebrum is left to right?

You can't be me, I'm taken

by Sven Triloqvist on Sat Dec 29th, 2012 at 04:04:26 PM EST
[ Parent ]

I don't know.

My guess is the cerebellum was the original "brain" with the other structures evolving when the cerebellum ran out of room.

Ever since I learnt about confirmation bias I've started seeing it everywhere

by ATinNM on Sat Dec 29th, 2012 at 04:27:12 PM EST
[ Parent ]

no intelligent design was involved?

by stevesim on Sat Dec 29th, 2012 at 04:53:33 PM EST
[ Parent ]

None.

You can't be me, I'm taken

by Sven Triloqvist on Sat Dec 29th, 2012 at 06:45:03 PM EST
[ Parent ]

My preliminary research indicates Linux is used as a BIOS. If it turns out they are using Linux as the O/S - in a standard Von Neumann kinda way - then I will retract my comment.

Ever since I learnt about confirmation bias I've started seeing it everywhere

by ATinNM on Sat Dec 29th, 2012 at 04:11:38 PM EST
[ Parent ]

Sheriff Joe To Send Armed Posse To Guard Maricopa County Schools

That quote is the extent of my research on the subject. I was mostly just being ornery.

Now where are we going and what's with the handbasket?

by budr on Sat Dec 29th, 2012 at 05:17:44 PM EST
[ Parent ]

Re: Last Weekend Open Thread (4.00 / 4)

No biggie. If I'm wrong, I'm wrong.

I learned a long time ago:

a.) I'm not omniscient
b.) Not to get my ego 100% wrapped-up in an opinion, view, conclusion, etc.

Ever since I learnt about confirmation bias I've started seeing it everywhere

by ATinNM on Sat Dec 29th, 2012 at 05:25:42 PM EST
[ Parent ]

Life in America (cont.) (4.00 / 6)

Maricopa County, AZ's notorious Sheriff Joe Arpaio announced Thursday that he will deploy an armed "posse" to guard about 50 local grade schools, middle schools, and high schools, following the NRA's controversial playbook for limiting gun violence.
"I have the authority to mobilize private citizens and fight crime in this county," Arpaio said.
"We're not talking about placing the posse in the schools right now but in the outlying -- the perimeters of the school -- to detect any criminal activity," he added.

Groovy. Nothing like a gang of untrained, gun-crazed, psychopaths wandering around to create the proper educational environment.

Ever since I learnt about confirmation bias I've started seeing it everywhere

by ATinNM on Sat Dec 29th, 2012 at 03:36:21 PM EST

Re: Life in America (cont.) (4.00 / 6)

those whom the gods wish to destroy, they first make mad

keep to the Fen Causeway

by Helen (lareinagal at yahoo dot co dot uk) on Sat Dec 29th, 2012 at 04:14:24 PM EST
[ Parent ]

Birthday Blues (none / 1)

BBC: WC Handy's Memphis Blues: The Song of 1912

One hundred years ago, in the autumn of 1912, an African-American musician by the name of WC Handy published a song that would take the US by storm - Memphis Blues. It launched the blues as a mass entertainment genre that would transform popular music worldwide.

You can't be me, I'm taken

by Sven Triloqvist on Sun Dec 30th, 2012 at 05:23:39 AM EST

Artificial Insouciance (none / 0)

Roboy Is Expected To Be One Of The Most Advanced Robots To Date

"Our aging population is making it necessary to keep older people as autonomous as possible for as long as possible, which means caring for aged people is likely to be an important area for the deployment of service robots," the researchers wrote on their website.

And so it begins....

You can't be me, I'm taken

by Sven Triloqvist on Sun Dec 30th, 2012 at 09:15:11 AM EST

Re: Artificial Insouciance (none / 1)

i remember when i got thrown riding broke a rib and tore some muscles leading to 3 months mostly horizontal fantasising how by the time i got to my 90's i hoped there would be a bed right next to a hot bathtub that could slide you effortlessly from one to another without some poor younger person having to strain their back helping you up and about-

i guess a robot could function for similar things like get you a cup of tea or give you a foot rub even-

i ain't skeered of em basically! bring on our (not particularly) brave new world-

taking care of the elderly can be quite grueling as well as the good parts so if robots can help with that it leaves more time for enjoying human company without feeling bad for others having to inconvenience themselves too much compensating for one's infirmity

friend's keyboard no full stops or commas working sorry!

It's a fine line between homage, parody, and consumer opportunism. Jess Walter

by melo (melometa4(at)gmail.com) on Sun Dec 30th, 2012 at 09:55:33 AM EST
[ Parent ]

ha, ha, ha (none / 0)

Microsoft Windows 8 Remains Unpopular So Far With Consumers

Consumers are thus embracing machines to consume content but not replacing their machines to create content. And part of this is that consumers and businesses alike may not want to jump to a new operating system
After the debacle that was Windows Vista, Microsoft rebounded with Windows 7. But now with a radically different interface consumers are standoffish.

Ever since I learnt about confirmation bias I've started seeing it everywhere

by ATinNM on Sun Dec 30th, 2012 at 12:11:04 PM EST

Re: ha, ha, ha (4.00 / 5)

I get fucking sick and tired of having to try to relearn EVERY aspect of computer management and maintenance every time MS decides it is time to churn their bloated, half-functioning assortment of malware into a new offering. Instead of fixing previous problems and streamlining, simplifying and refining functionality they seem to feel that just arbitrarily changing the interface constitutes change. It does, but for the worse, usually. I only went to 7 because they were announcing they would no longer be supporting XP.

I would gladly pay $100 for an operating system that commits to maintaining, to the extent possible, the previous modes of interface while continually improving security and streamlining code. We need a better solution that does not cost a whole lot more. It would be a pleasure to never have to use MS products again in my remaining life.

As the Dutch said while fighting the Spanish: "It is not necessary to have hope in order to persevere."

by ARGeezer (ARGeezer a in a circle eurotrib daught com) on Sun Dec 30th, 2012 at 01:14:05 PM EST
[ Parent ]

Re: ha, ha, ha (4.00 / 2)

Sadly, the company which made the everlasting lightbulb went bust, cos nobody needed a replacement.

We all know that, however much desired, no s/w company is ever just gonna make annual 30% ROI just fixing the faults of their last bodge. So we have to buy "new improved wonderware, with extra added bs"

keep to the Fen Causeway

by Helen (lareinagal at yahoo dot co dot uk) on Sun Dec 30th, 2012 at 01:18:39 PM EST
[ Parent ]

Sustainability is darn hard under our predatory capitalist system demanding more, More, MORE!

Secondly, the computer industry is driven by an American assumption Change = Progress.

Combine and you get, well, MicroSoft.

Ever since I learnt about confirmation bias I've started seeing it everywhere

by ATinNM on Sun Dec 30th, 2012 at 01:36:28 PM EST
[ Parent ]

The Mozilla model comes to mind. Were they to reverse engineer something recognizably like the MS UI, preferably that from XP, and offer such an OS for around $100 with a $50 annual update fee and a pledge of backwards compatibility where possible, I, for one, would certainly bite. Then those programmers who volunteer to code for them could get paid a reasonable fee. It would require a bit more coordination than does Wiki, but should be feasible.

As the Dutch said while fighting the Spanish: "It is not necessary to have hope in order to persevere."

by ARGeezer (ARGeezer a in a circle eurotrib daught com) on Sun Dec 30th, 2012 at 03:21:23 PM EST
[ Parent ]

Tiny Core Linux looks interesting. If I had the time I'd put it on an extra machine I've got kicking around and take it for a test spin.

Ever since I learnt about confirmation bias I've started seeing it everywhere

by ATinNM on Sun Dec 30th, 2012 at 04:48:05 PM EST
[ Parent ]

Re: ha, ha, ha (none / 0)

If Windows 7 is an improvement over XP I have yet to see it.

What's weird is their insistence on breaking security to download fixes, patches, applications, etc., ensuring a healthy environment for malware, customer frustration, and "computer rage." It's also dumb since they could sell more product if people had to come into a Point of Sale (RW store) to upgrade, get fixes, purchase applications, get training, & so forth.

Ever since I learnt about confirmation bias I've started seeing it everywhere

by ATinNM on Sun Dec 30th, 2012 at 01:43:19 PM EST
[ Parent ]

Re: ha, ha, ha (none / 0)

I've always wondered exactly how they can make their update system crackproof, it seems like an obvious target so they must have some clever gimmick going down

keep to the Fen Causeway

by Helen (lareinagal at yahoo dot co dot uk) on Sun Dec 30th, 2012 at 01:45:53 PM EST
[ Parent ]

Re: ha, ha, ha (4.00 / 2)

Windows has more holes than a Swiss cheese.

Windows security holes

It's because (a) security is not part of the basic O/S design, (b) they breach their own security by allowing 'hooks' to enable them to download into program memory, and (c) the hardware boards themselves are insecure.

I've been ~~fighting~~ working with MicroSoft products since 1976 and they've always been intellectually lazy. They find a first approximation of an answer, apply it, and skip the test-and-redesign phases.

Ever since I learnt about confirmation bias I've started seeing it everywhere

by ATinNM on Sun Dec 30th, 2012 at 03:01:15 PM EST
[ Parent ]

Re: ha, ha, ha (4.00 / 2)

The MS updates occur in background and with no notice that security has been dissabled, but updates for non-MS products do. This is primarily a problem if malware spoofs you into thinking it is from a legitimate company that you use, like Adobe. It is probably part ass-cover and a larger part the contempt which MS routinely displays for its customers.

As the Dutch said while fighting the Spanish: "It is not necessary to have hope in order to persevere."

by ARGeezer (ARGeezer a in a circle eurotrib daught com) on Sun Dec 30th, 2012 at 03:07:18 PM EST
[ Parent ]

A large part of the change to the UI was to make more opaque and difficult the entire file management process. If one spends much of their time performing such tasks this is not so much a problem. But for those of us who only occasionally have to venture into less routine activities it can be disabling. They act as though it were entirely reasonable for the casual user to have large portions of their UI always well up in their minds. Were MS to buy up and reserve for MS employees housing and businesses within a sufficiently large radius around Redmond they would be an ideal testing ground for certain military technologies.

As the Dutch said while fighting the Spanish: "It is not necessary to have hope in order to persevere."

by ARGeezer (ARGeezer a in a circle eurotrib daught com) on Sun Dec 30th, 2012 at 03:13:46 PM EST
[ Parent ]

Just came home from three weeks in Thailand and Laos to get the kids to see their great-grandmother.

And the bathroom ceiling had fallen off. Apparently, a leak from the watertank cause that.

Like I needed that...

Earth provides enough to satisfy every man's need, but not every man's greed. Gandhi

by Cyrille (cyrillev domain yahoo.fr) on Sun Dec 30th, 2012 at 01:22:22 PM EST

Sorry to hear it, and you're gonna have problems getting someone for the next couple of days

keep to the Fen Causeway

by Helen (lareinagal at yahoo dot co dot uk) on Sun Dec 30th, 2012 at 01:43:49 PM EST
[ Parent ]

Indeed, that was one of my first thougts. It would have far too simple for it to happen in summer, of course.
Or to happen when, well, at least the unemployment benefits had started to come in. Or something.

Or I didn't have 3 people coming over Wednesday night. Well, come to think of it it could have been worse : it would have been four if the two adults had not split at the beginning of the month.

Earth provides enough to satisfy every man's need, but not every man's greed. Gandhi

by Cyrille (cyrillev domain yahoo.fr) on Sun Dec 30th, 2012 at 02:04:15 PM EST
[ Parent ]

Should not the landlord be responsible? Or is that you?

As the Dutch said while fighting the Spanish: "It is not necessary to have hope in order to persevere."

by ARGeezer (ARGeezer a in a circle eurotrib daught com) on Sun Dec 30th, 2012 at 03:25:07 PM EST
[ Parent ]

Yes, it's our flat. Well, at this stage it's still mostly the bank's of course. But in 28 years it should be ours -if still mostly standing by then.

I hope that the insurance will cover us well. Whether it's ours, or the development's one (if the problem comes from a communal part it should be the development's, which would mean they'd pay the franchise, but I doubt it).

Earth provides enough to satisfy every man's need, but not every man's greed. Gandhi

by Cyrille (cyrillev domain yahoo.fr) on Sun Dec 30th, 2012 at 04:07:31 PM EST
[ Parent ]

If there is more than one tank on your roof or if the tank is a common tank there is hope for others to pay, if not, your insurance may well help - if water damage is not excluded.

As the Dutch said while fighting the Spanish: "It is not necessary to have hope in order to persevere."

by ARGeezer (ARGeezer a in a circle eurotrib daught com) on Sun Dec 30th, 2012 at 11:25:17 PM EST
[ Parent ]

aaaarrrggghhh

:((((

by afew (afew(a in a circle)eurotrib_dot_com) on Sun Dec 30th, 2012 at 04:31:11 PM EST
[ Parent ]

I feel like a scratched record (how much longer before nobody gets that reference ?), but here's more evidence of the cluelessness of New Labour and the Blair-ite hordes who stamped around Westminster for 13 years enacting Thatcherite policies like they'd just invented them.

David Blunkett, a man who befouled several Cabinet positions during this period, is now moaning in the Guardian that people aren't on the streets over the current government's cuts.

so some people have taken him to the woodshed. A sample.....

David Blunkett wonders why there is no 1980s-style "revolutionary fervour" in the face of the current deluge of cuts to local government and services (The hidden truth of local cuts will soon be revealed, 28 December). The answer is staring him in the face. New Labour's determination to collude with the neoliberal experiment begun under Margaret Thatcher (Thatcher's role in plan to dismantle welfare state revealed, 28 December) progressively deprived mainstream politics of the language and experience of non-marketised provision for the public good. One result is the cuts to local authority funding that Blunkett bemoans - but in whose ideological underpinning he and his colleagues colluded.
Where was the New Labour equivalent of the cabinet "riot" that apparently put a temporary brake on welfare state dismantling in the early days of the Thatcher government? If recent pronouncements are anything to go by, "one nation" Labour seems equally unlikely to change the political weather. Ed Miliband wants to head a party "as much of the private sector as the public sector" (Report, 28 December). The order of words is important - Labour is still on the defensive in the face of the market assault initiated by Thatcher. The signs are that the persuasive counter-commentary you ask for (Editorial, 28 December) will have to come from outside the political mainstream.
[xxxx]
* David Blunkett asks: "So why isn't there the revolutionary fervour that there was back in the 1980s?" One could extend his question to cover the general lack of resistance to the stream of ideological hatred spewed out by the government. Does it occur to the former home secretary that 13 years of a privatising Labour administration that laid the foundations of academy schools and PFI in the NHS may be part of the answer?
[xxxx]

keep to the Fen Causeway

by Helen (lareinagal at yahoo dot co dot uk) on Sun Dec 30th, 2012 at 04:16:03 PM EST

Who remembers Bill Brandt? (none / 0)

You can't be me, I'm taken

by Sven Triloqvist on Sun Dec 30th, 2012 at 04:17:24 PM EST

Re: Who remembers Bill Brandt? (none / 0)

um ...

who?

Ever since I learnt about confirmation bias I've started seeing it everywhere

by ATinNM on Sun Dec 30th, 2012 at 05:22:09 PM EST
[ Parent ]

There's a lot of discussion on dKos about the revelations of the co-ordinated efforts by various "agencies" to shut down and neutralize the "Occupy" protests

but what has really got everyone's attention was the apparent plan to assassinate the OWS leadership. Some of the people there who took part have had a bit of a meltdown, which is natural, and are calling for a discussion about what the heck they're doing electing governments which try to kill them

keep to the Fen Causeway

by Helen (lareinagal at yahoo dot co dot uk) on Sun Dec 30th, 2012 at 05:28:55 PM EST

Of COURSE TPTB used their power to squish the Occupy Movement. What did the OWS people think would happen?

Ever since I learnt about confirmation bias I've started seeing it everywhere

by ATinNM on Sun Dec 30th, 2012 at 05:38:39 PM EST
[ Parent ]

Whilst nobody would be surprised at co-ordinated efforts to stop he Occupy movement, however disappointing, it's the fact that they openly discussed assassinating them.

that's when it becomes very scary

keep to the Fen Causeway

by Helen (lareinagal at yahoo dot co dot uk) on Sun Dec 30th, 2012 at 05:55:01 PM EST
[ Parent ]

Wait, you're thinking the state protecting corporate interests with invasions and drone culture has qualms against assassination?

"Life shrinks or expands in proportion to one's courage." - Anaïs Nin

by Crazy Horse on Sun Dec 30th, 2012 at 06:13:34 PM EST
[ Parent ]

A very important part:

I'm still in kind of a state of shock, but facts matter, and there's a lot of wild speculation flying around. So let me point out what we know, and what we know that we don't know.
First: We do not know who "they" are. The FBI document does not tell us. This might be a lone actor, a terrorist organization, or a private security contractor. "If Deemed Necessary" seems to imply one of the latter two, because there was a decision making process that would potentially deem assassination necessary. "Suppressed sniper rifles" seems to suggest multiple shooters, and thus an organized group.
We do not know any of this. It could be any of these. This could have been a single actor, and an FBI agent who doesn't write very clearly. Bad writing happens.
What is clear, though, is that we need more information. We need answers.
We shouldn't jump to conclusions about any of this. What we know is bad enough. What we know is this:

"They" were planning an assassination of Occupy leaders.

The FBI knew of the plans, and did nothing to warn us, ignoring their own policies.

Anything more than that is conjecture."

Quite, and a reasonable conjecture is that the FBI didn't inform OWS (who ? as pointed out, there were no official leaders) because they didn't find the threats plausible or had seen that the "plan" was just tough talk by some fringe group.

Or maybe not (and I'm no friend of the FBI), but as said above: "facts matter" and as also pointed out, there aren't many at the moment.

Maybe it's because I'm a Londoner - that I moved to Nice.

by Ted Welch (tedwelch-at-mac-dot-com) on Sun Dec 30th, 2012 at 06:19:42 PM EST
[ Parent ]

Yea, that's a reasonable point, but I think that if I'd been heavily involved in OWS and read that in my paper, I think I'd feel concerned. So I'm not surprsed there's a bit of a stink on dKos.

keep to the Fen Causeway

by Helen (lareinagal at yahoo dot co dot uk) on Mon Dec 31st, 2012 at 04:25:58 AM EST
[ Parent ]

If the threats weren't plausible there would be little or no reason to redact them, and there would have been - or should have been - follow-up documentation stating 'This threat isn't plausible.'

Of course the US has shootings aplenty, and not a few critical and very public assassinations in its history.

So I'm not sure what 'not plausible' means in this context.

In any case, previous 'not plausible' threats by so-called Islamic fundamentalists, which were led and inspired by FBI agents, have resulted in decades of jail time.

But presumably that's different. No one serious cares about OWS protesters.

by ThatBritGuy (thatbritguy (at) googlemail.com) on Mon Dec 31st, 2012 at 07:38:18 AM EST
[ Parent ]

I don't know what the FBI redaction/privacy policy is - do you ? Nor do I know whether there was in fact any follow-up documentation - maybe there was some, do we know that all related documents have been supplied ? - maybe some phone calls were made.

The fact that there have been shootings does not mean that all threats to do so are equally valid, I'm sure the FBI gets lots of reports of threats and decides some of them are not serious. Not every bar-room boast is serious.

Obviously I'm not defending everything the FBI has done. Like the article's update, I'm noting that there are a lot of unknowns about this case and little has been established as fact:

What is clear, though, is that we need more information. We need answers.
We shouldn't jump to conclusions about any of this.

Maybe it's because I'm a Londoner - that I moved to Nice.

by Ted Welch (tedwelch-at-mac-dot-com) on Mon Dec 31st, 2012 at 01:54:14 PM EST
[ Parent ]

They could have done it with drones, or with a carefully designed commando operation with direct video link to the White House.

I distribute. You re-distribute. He gives your hard-earned money to lazy scroungers. -- JakeS

by Migeru (migeru at eurotrib dot com) on Sun Dec 30th, 2012 at 06:48:33 PM EST
[ Parent ]

The Obama administration has assassinated American citizens outside of the US. It's a small step to doing so in the US.

I'm upset about it but I'm not surprised.

Ever since I learnt about confirmation bias I've started seeing it everywhere

by ATinNM on Sun Dec 30th, 2012 at 07:58:33 PM EST
[ Parent ]

Yea, but the dKos crowd must have really believed in the constitution and the first amendment. It must be a hard thing to realise that Hoover's ghost is still in charge

keep to the Fen Causeway

by Helen (lareinagal at yahoo dot co dot uk) on Mon Dec 31st, 2012 at 04:27:28 AM EST
[ Parent ]