Larry Elliot in the Guardian, not all Europe but this bit is on target : A period of above-trend economic growth engineered by the European Central Bank has run its course. Activity is slowing and there is an acute awareness that the weaknesses in the architecture of monetary union exposed by the last crisis have not been rectified.

To do so would involve Germany agreeing to plans for a European finance minister overseeing a pan-European fiscal policy that would raise taxes from the richer parts of the eurozone to increase spending in struggling countries. But taxpayers in Germany have no desire to write cheques for less prosperous countries and Emmanuel Macron, the politician keenest on pushing ahead with the integrationist project, is a busted flush.

"When they say I'm not popular in Europe, I shouldn't be popular in Europe", Trump told reporters on Wednesday. "If I was popular in Europe, I wouldn't be doing my job."

For the second time, French government arrests a key leader of the Yellow Vests movement, a 33-year-old truck driver, on a technical violation. The arrest is condemned by right and left wing leaders as an "abuse of power" https://t.co/ng8DPEpo94 pic.twitter.com/GzIyAgpbw8

— Glenn Greenwald (@ggreenwald) January 3, 2019

Frontex, the European Border and Coast Guard

To help identify migratory patterns as well as trends in cross-border criminal activities, Frontex analyses data related to the situation at and beyond EU's external borders. It monitors the situation at the borders and helps border authorities to share information with Member States. The agency also carries out vulnerability assessments to evaluate the capacity and readiness of each Member State to face challenges at its external borders, including migratory pressure.
[...]
Council Regulation (EC) 2007/2004 of 26 October 2004 led to the establishment of the European Agency for the Management of Operational Cooperation at the External Borders of the Member States of the European Union (Frontex).

This Regulation was repealed by Regulation (EU) 2016/1624 of 14 September 2016, establishing Frontex, the European Border and Coast Guard Agency.

Eurostar joined the Eurail & InterRail scheme last year, accepting Eurail & InterRail passes with a €30 passholder fare with great availability.  The UK has always been part of the InterRail scheme for European residents, but earth-shattering news this year is that finally after 59 years, the UK joins the Eurail scheme too!

Interior Minister Horst Seehofer said an initial analysis suggests that the material was obtained from cloud services, email accounts or social networks. He said there was no indication that federal government or parliament computer systems were compromised.
[...]
"This hack clearly isn't about extortion or financially-motivated. This is about attempting to destabilise Germany society," British security expert Graham Cluley blogged.
[...]
Tom Kellermann, the chief cybersecurity officer of Carbon Black, was among analysts saying the hack had all the hallmarks of Russian state-backed hackers.

He said it made perfect sense that none of the targets in this hacking campaign was from Germany's far right [AfD], and that it appeared aimed at "undermining the German political process and essentially stoking fires of the mob."

It's in Russia's best interests for the far-right politicians to be successful," Kellermann added.

Every EU version of the withdrawal agreement, to which Tory gov has not agreed and the NEW! ones with the concessions which Tory gov will never get, requires UK observe open IE-NI border, under the GFA. So yeah, first principles: Ima file this item in MENTAL DISORDER IS A COMMUNICABLE DISEASE.

<pick teeth, suck vigorously>
Call for medicines not to be STOCKPILEed in advance of Brexit
"According to the association, up to 70% of medicines on the Irish market either come from or transit the UK." The future of this racket is ahh precarious.

archived import/export banking
last known address


Diversity is the key to economic and political evolution.

The union wants hourly pay for all workers conducting security checks to rise to 20 ($22.81) euros. The employers association BDLS says this could amount to an increase of 30 percent in some cases.

"What we will do is vote against having no deal, we'll vote against Theresa May's deal; at that point, she should go back to Brussels and say this is not acceptable to Britain and renegotiate a customs union, form a customs union with the EU to secure trade," Corbyn said.

Please raise an URGENT QUESTION in the HoC on #FerryGate. A freight co with no employees, no ferries, no track-record, a derisory credit rating, T&Cs copied from a takeaway food company and displaying it's admin log-ins on its website should not be given £14m of taxpayer's money. pic.twitter.com/VyhFQBlQMw

— #Ode2Joy Takeaway Ferries (@lunaperla) January 3, 2019

The text [of a Concordat, agreed by Prime Minister Theresa May and Chief Minister Fabian Picardo] dispels any suggestion that the Brexit divorce arrangements relating to Gibraltar were agreed bilaterally by Spain and the UK.
[...]
The four Memorandums of Understanding are the product of months of intense negotiation between the governments of Gibraltar, the UK and Spain. They provide a time-limited framework for cooperation with Spain on issues including citizens' rights, tobacco, the environment and police and customs matters. Importantly, they state explicitly that nothing in the agreements modifies in any way the positions of each party on the issue of sovereignty.
[...]
The MoUs and the tax deal will only come into effect if the Withdrawal Agreement is approved in December by the House of Commons, where Mrs May faces stiff resistance from both her own Conservative Party and the opposition benches.
[...]
But Gibraltar itself cannot sign international agreements and yesterday, Mr Picardo wrote to Mrs May telling her that his government had approved the application to Gibraltar of the protocol within the Withdrawal Agreement.

"Russia used to be the Soviet Union. Afghanistan made it Russia, because they went bankrupt fighting in Afghanistan. Russia. ... The reason Russia was in Afghanistan was because terrorists were going into Russia. They were right to be there. The problem is, it was a tough fight. And literally they went bankrupt; they went into being called Russia again, as opposed to the Soviet Union. You know, a lot of these places you're reading about now are no longer part of Russia, because of Afghanistan."

What marks out Mr Trump's first two years is his irrepressible instinct to act as a wrecker. His destructive tactics were supposed to topple a self-serving Washington elite, but the president's bullying, lying and sleaze have filled the swamp faster than it has drained. Where he has been at his most Trumpish--on immigration, North Korea, NATO--the knocking down has yet to lead to much renewal. Mr Trump came to office with a mandate to rewrite America's immigration rules and make them merit-based, as in Canada. Yet because he and his staff are ham-fisted with Congress, that chance is now gone. Kim Jong Un still has his weapons programme and, having conceded nothing, now demands a reward from America. Europeans may pay more into their defence budgets at the president's urging. But America has spent half a century and billions of dollars building its relations with Europe. In just two years Mr Trump has taken a sledgehammer to them.

The next two years could be worse. For a start, Mr Trump's luck may be about to turn. In the first half of his term he has been fortunate. He was not faced by any shock of the sort his two predecessors had to deal with: 9/11, Afghanistan, Iraq, the financial crisis, Syria. Electoral triumph, a roaring economy and surging financial markets gave him an air of invulnerability.

Even without a shock, the weather has changed. Although the economy is still fairly strong, the sugar-high from the tax cut is fading and growth is slowing in China and Europe. Markets, which Mr Trump heralds as a proxy for economic success, are volatile (see article). Republicans were trounced in the House in the mid-terms. The new Democratic majority will investigate the president's conduct, and at some point Robert Mueller, the special counsel, will complete his report on links between Russia and the Trump campaign.

All three CIA directorates will now be headed by women https://t.co/hKzlQaVpOu

— Rachel Maddow MSNBC (@maddow) January 5, 2019

archived
this.empowerment

Diversity is the key to economic and political evolution.

Syrian anti-aircraft crews did manage to intercept and shoot down fourteen of the sixteen incoming missiles that were launched by six Israeli F-16 warplanes using US-made GPS-guided GBU-39 Small Diameter Bombs (SDBs). If the Syrian air defenses had been more reckless and gone after the F-16s themselves, they might have hit an airliner by mistake and hundreds of lives could have been lost.
[...]
As Israel is not at war with Iran or Syria or Lebanon and it persists in attacking targets in Syria based on its own perception of threats, it meets the United Nations definition of an aggressor. And its violation of Lebanese airspace to stage the attack on Syria was also an act of aggression. Both would normally be condemned in the UN Security Council but for the American veto protecting Israel.

archived israil
The Generals v the Commander-In-Chief, Dec
We have defeated ISIS
Fucking Israelis Stirring Up Big Trouble [Update], Sep
point of order

Diversity is the key to economic and political evolution.

@00:50:00
Moderator opens the floor to audience questions. The first speaker is a French-American migrant/immigrant (est'd. 1980) armed with gilet jaunes/yellow vest and fist of fury. Further disorderly commentary on proceedings, personal testimony, and declarations by "guests" ensues.

## Sociopaths teaching sociopaths manners.

Diversity is the key to economic and political evolution.

Sheley argues that criminal respondeat superior should apply only where the government can show that a crime occurred, regardless of whether or not any individual employee had the intent to benefit the corporation, show an omission by the corporation to take reasonable steps to prevent the crime, and show that the substantial risk of such a crime was objectively foreseeable to a reasonable person undertaking the corporation's enterprise.

For the past decade, Europe has seen an increasing number of people from Africa and Asia seek entry into Europe as refugees and asylum-seekers, often because they are fleeing places hit hard by climate change and increasing heat, experts say.

"Desertification can bring about poverty, health problems due to wind-blown dust, and a decline in biodiversity. It can also have demographic and economic consequences, forcing people to migrate away from affected areas," [auditor Phil Wynn] Owen said.

The countries that have declared desertification a problem are Bulgaria, Greece, Spain, Croatia, Italy, Cyprus, Latvia, Hungary, Malta, Portugal, Romania, Slovenia and Slovakia.

Walk with me.
Dems introduce bills to block offshore drilling
10-year moratorium in the Atlantic, Pacific, and Arctic oceans and eastern Gulf of Mexico
(hmmm. Obama opens/closes/opens drilling, 2015-2016)
House energy committee chair: Banning donations from fossil fuel companies 'wrong way to go'
"Where do you draw the line?"

Diversity is the key to economic and political evolution.

Monbiot in the Guardian: The purpose of this brain hacking is to create more effective platforms for advertising. But the effort is wasted if we retain our ability to resist it. Facebook, according to a leaked report, carried out research - shared with an advertiser - to determine when teenagers using its network feel insecure, worthless or stressed. These appear to be the optimum moments for hitting them with a micro-targeted promotion. Facebook denied that it offered "tools to target people based on their emotional state".

We can expect commercial enterprises to attempt whatever lawful ruses they can pull off. It is up to society, represented by government, to stop them, through the kind of regulation that has so far been lacking. But what puzzles and disgusts me even more than this failure is the willingness of universities to host research that helps advertisers hack our minds. The Enlightenment ideal, which all universities claim to endorse, is that everyone should think for themselves. So why do they run departments in which researchers explore new means of blocking this capacity?

##Sociopaths teaching sociopaths manners


Diversity is the key to economic and political evolution.

Reset to frontpage from the archives, thus less visible ...

RIP: Finbarr Flood 1938-2016

○ Obituary: Finbarr Flood, former Shelbourne FC player and chairman

Thanks Frank for reposting!

Here, again, he extends the logic of prudential capitalism to unrequited love of democratic society ( 1 = 1 ).
Capitalism and Race Redux  

Diversity is the key to economic and political evolution.

○ Brain abnormalities found in victims of US embassy attack in Cuba | The Guardian - Dec. 6, 2017 |

Anurogryllus celerinictus

○ What Americans Heard in Cuba Attacks: The Sound | AP - Oct. 2017 |

'Sonic attack' on US diplomats in Cuba was just a very loud cricket, scientists say

Two scientists presented evidence that those sounds were not so mysterious after all. They were made by crickets, the researchers concluded. The scientists did not rule out that the diplomats had been attacked - only that the recording is not of a sonic weapon, as had been suggested.

Alexander Stubbs of the University of California, Berkeley, and Fernando Montealegre-Z of the University of Lincoln in England studied a recording of the sounds made by diplomats and published by the Associated Press (AP) .

"There's plenty of debate in the medical community over what, if any, physical damage there is to these individuals," said Stubbs in a phone interview. "All I can say fairly definitively is that the AP-released recording is of a cricket, and we think we know what species it is."

○ 'Sonic attack' on US embassy in Havana could have been crickets, say scientists | The Guardian - Jan. 6, 2019 |

The robot, called Promobot, was going to be on display at the annual tradeshow to showcase how robots can work as hosts in museums, hotels, banks, shopping and business centers. Promobot can maneuver around obstacles, move both its head and arms and has a display to interact with people and give them information.

According to the company, all of its robots were moving in a line but one veered off course and into the street where it was hit by the Tesla. The passenger in the car decided to try self-driving mode in the Tesla, Promobot said.

CES Revoked an Award for a Female Pleasure Device for Being 'Immoral' - Motherboard

A sex tech company won an award for innovation in robotics from the Consumer Technology Association (CTA), the organization that produces CES--and then it took it back, deeming the women's pleasure product too "immoral, obscene, indecent, [or] profane" for its tastes.

Try as it might to separate itself from adult industry consumerism, CES was founded alongside--if not thanks to--the sex tech industry. From the 90's until 2012, CES coincided with the AVN Adult Entertainment Expo in Las Vegas, and the two shows grew up together as consumer tech like home video cassette recorders and displays developed with an evolving porn production industry in the 90s, and attendees to CES wandering over to meet porn stars at the Adult Entertainment Expo. Since its beginnings, companies showcasing wares at CES also often showcased "booth babes," scantily-clad women hired to show off the products.

LaFollette will cap his political legacy collaborating with Bob Wagner (D-New York) in posthumous draft and enactment of first federal labor relations act (FDR admin, 2nd 'New Deal', 1935).

Inadvertently (d. 1925) opened a seat for the cretin McCarthy.

Diversity is the key to economic and political evolution.

#BREAKING: Bonfire spreads out of control in #Scheveningen Beach 🏖 , #Netherlands 🇳🇱 , causing ashes to fall across the city 🌃 . pic.twitter.com/pjk7dDZ3oZ

— srb news (@srbnews0) January 1, 2019

Put the old fishing village of Scheveningen with its shops in danger ... more video's Telegraaf.nl

Druzgocąca tragedia w Koszalinie. Pięć radosnych, wchodzących w życie Dziewcząt zostało z życia wyrwanych. Niech Pan Bóg ma swojej opiece Ich Rodziców i Najbliższych. RiP

— Andrzej Duda (@AndrzejDuda) January 4, 2019

"A devastating tragedy in Koszalin. The five joyful young girls at dawn of life, so abruptly torn away from all of us. May God take care of their parents and loved ones. RIP"

Teenagers die in fire at 'Escape Room' game venue in Poland