Emergency Commons debate for Northern Ireland's abortion law

Speaker John Bercow said the debate would last up to three hours, and confirmed it would go ahead on Tuesday [ 5 JUNE] as the first item of public business. An application for the debate was put forward by Labour MP Stella Creasy, who proposed a discussion of repealing the Offences against the Person Act.
[...]
"Because the people of Northern Ireland cannot be held hostage to the ups and downs of the Brexit negotiations, the deals done in a hung Parliament, or the stalls in the talks in Stormont. By repealing OPA we as the UK parliament can show women across the UK we trust them all with their own healthcare, wherever they live."

Over 40 Northern Ireland same-sex couples elope to UK or Ireland to marry:BBC research has revealed the figures based on statistics from 2016.< eyebrow >

Meanwhile, the clergyman said the Irish Government should keep its promise to make abortion rare. Taoiseach Leo Varadkar has said terminations will become "safe, legal and rare", under draft legislation due to be enacted by around the turn of the year.

DUP out of step with public opinion on abortion - Sinn Fein:"I believe fundamentally in the separation of church and state, so I don't tell the church what to do and I don't think people go to mass for political advice either."

Diversity is the key to economic and political evolution.

Swiss Finance Dept

Le 10 juin 2018, le peuple et les cantons se prononceront sur l'initiative populaire «Pour une monnaie à l'abri des crises: émission monétaire uniquement par la Banque nationale! (Initiative Monnaie pleine)». L'initiative veut que seule la Banque nationale suisse (BNS) soit autorisée à créer de l'argent, et non plus les banques commerciales.

Technical note: ["]temporary customs arrangement["], 7 June 2018

The UK is committed to securing a new [!] future customs arrangement between the UK and EU, which would operate from the end of the Implementation Period, while also enabling the UK to [...] The elimination of tariffs, quotas, rules of origin and customs processes including declarations on all UK-EU trade; ... applying the EU's common external tariff (CET) at the UK's external border, alongside the Union Customs Code (UCC) ... ;and ... negotiate, sign and ratify free trade agreements (FTAs) with rest of world partners

O.F.F.S.
would you like a defined benefit plan with that or a side of chips?

Diversity is the key to economic and political evolution.

Spain swears in world's most female-dominated cabinet

Spain has inaugurated the most female-dominated cabinet in the world, as 11 women and six men took their positions in Pedro Sánchez's new centre-Left government.
[...]
Mr Sánchez acknowledged the political influence of the unprecedented strike on International Women's Day on March 8, when millions of Spanish women abandoned their workplaces and homes for the streets, describing it as a watershed moment for social progress.
[...]
Thirteen ministers referred to the cabinet as the "Consejo de Ministras y Ministros" - putting the feminine form of the noun first instead of the traditional use of the masculine form for both genders.

"We greet the most feminist government in the world," said the Madrid-based organisation, the Communication and Gender Agency.

:: PSA
In case anyone wonders, current US census estimate M:F is 1:1 (I do NOT respect decimal numbers of people.), of which minor:adult matter little to political discourse by comparison to "race or ethnicity" identities which puts to lie the cumbersome, invidious locution for those proprietary needs to discriminate between "stigma," abuses, deaths and poverty -- "women and minorities." Some know full well to which divisions they owe their "empowerment".

Diversity is the key to economic and political evolution.

''I get very annoyed!''

This audience member says Scotland should be better respected #bbcqt pic.twitter.com/aIENCe6WMG

— BBC Question Time (@bbcquestiontime) May 31, 2018

Diversity is the key to economic and political evolution.

Yanis Varoufakis on why Germany Cannot and Should Not Pay to Save the Eurozone

Sort of counter-intuitive at first glance...

Live from 6pm today

_{It is rightly acknowledged that people of faith have no monopoly of virtue - Queen Elizabeth II}

Amazon bows to the unions: new shifts and higher wages

For the first time in Europe, the e-commerce multinational Amazon signed a contract with the unions regarding the organization of work shifts. This "historic" event--as FILCAMS CGIL, CISL and FISASCAT UILTUCS have called it--took place at the large shipment hub of Castel San Giovanni (Piacenza region), where, on Black Friday last year, employees were involved in a large-scale and unprecedented protest.

First-ever agreement between Amazon and unions halts inhumane work hours in Italy


Diversity is the key to economic and political evolution.

amazing pic.twitter.com/20BZbUQhVN

— Adam H. Johnson (@adamjohnsonNYC) 6. Juni 2018

from "pariah" to "closer" (IMF metric)
DW | Argentina agrees to $50 billion IMF loan
"Inflation has hit 25 percent, the Argentine peso has lost about 20 percent of its value against the US dollar, and the federal budget is in deficit. The government hopes the IMF loan will get the country back on track."
Indpendent.ie | Argentina clinches $50bn IMF financing deal
Argentina requested IMF assistance on May 8 after its peso currency weakened sharply in an investor exodus from emerging markets. As part of the deal, which is subject to IMF board approval, the government pledged to speed up plans to reduce the fiscal deficit even as authorities now foresee lower growth and higher inflation in the coming years."
REUTERS | Argentine bonds rally after IMF deal; peso expected to float
"Argentina's country risk --a J.P. Morgan measure of the difference between the country's bond yields and less risky alternatives-- fell 14 points early on Friday morning to 467 . Its 100-year bond maturing in 2117 was up 1.6 percent at 88.18 cents on the dollar as of 9:22 a.m."

Diversity is the key to economic and political evolution.

A rather long review of the book "Globalists" via NakedCapitalism

Boston Review

By the mid-twentieth century, governments--at least in the larger and richer countries--had freed themselves from the financial and economic constraints that once seemed to bind them. In the United States and elsewhere, they could borrow without limit at interest rates of their choosing, allocate credit among private borrowers, control trade and investment across their borders, and tax away concentrations of private income and wealth.

These developments are visible in Slobodian's book only in the distorting mirror of their opponents' fears--but the fears were not misplaced. Neoliberals understood that the managed economies that emerged from World War II were no longer constrained by fear of bondholders or footloose foreign investors. And there was no guarantee that they ever again would be. Those conditions had to be consciously re-created. The goal wasn't so much any particular economic outcome so much as a world in which ordinary people and policymakers experienced economic outcomes, whatever they were, as beyond human control.

Did I mention, I am an inch theorist? Here it is in practice.
MASTERPIECE CAKESHOP, LTD., ET AL. v.
COLORADO CIVIL RIGHTS COMMISSION ET AL.
Here heads exploding across the USA.

Diversity is the key to economic and political evolution.

Joisey Not California Primary. So they've got that going for them.
Democrats Head to Primaries With 20-Point Poll Advantage

The embattled senator's seat seems relatively safe in the primary, despite the fact that this time last year Menendez was preparing for a trial on criminal bribery charges.
[...]
Another seat up for grabs is the 2nd District, from which longtime Republican Rep. Frank LoBiondo is retiring.

The seat is seen as likely to switch Democratic, though the Democrat leading the polls is described as a conservative who is pro-gun.

Diversity is the key to economic and political evolution.

winding through the python ...
Homeland Security to Compile Database of Journalists, Bloggers, 5 June
5 April: "Responses are due April 13."

archived
A US censor 'gigs' 14 April

::moral
The world will be over before we know it.

Diversity is the key to economic and political evolution.

US Democratic Party adopts hardline stance ahead of Trump-Kim Singapore summit

New Yorker

In fact, Wilhelm didn't accomplish very much. The general staff of the German Army agreed that the Kaiser couldn't "lead three soldiers over a gutter." He had neither the attention span nor the ability. "Distractions, whether they are little games with his army or navy, travelling or hunting--are everything to him," a disillusioned former mentor wrote. "He reads very little apart from newspaper cuttings, hardly writes anything himself apart from marginalia on reports and considers those talks best which are quickly over and done with." The Kaiser's entourage compiled press cuttings for him, mostly about himself, which he read as obsessively as Trump watches television. A critical story would send him into paroxysms of fury.

During Wilhelm's reign, the upper echelons of the German government began to unravel into a free-for-all, with officials wrangling against one another. "The most contradictory opinions are now urged at high and all-highest level," a German diplomat lamented. To add to the confusion, Wilhelm changed his position every five minutes. He was deeply suggestible and would defer to the last person he'd spoken to or cutting he'd read--at least until he'd spoken to the next person. "It is unendurable," a foreign minister wrote, in 1894. "Today one thing and tomorrow the next and after a few days something completely different." Wilhelm's staff and ministers resorted to manipulation, distraction, and flattery to manage him. "In order to get him to accept an idea you must act as if the idea were his," the Kaiser's closest friend, Philipp zu Eulenburg, advised his colleagues, adding, "Don't forget the sugar."

At least the Germans didn't vote for him.

It's also worth noting that the towed Tesla's battery fire required 200 gallons of water and foam to put out. And then five days later - that's five days later - it reignited and had to be put out again.

Diversity is the key to economic and political evolution.

I am laughing so goddamn hard at this video of Trump inexplicably putting his water bottle on the floor, and Pence immediately doing the same for no reason whatsoever. pic.twitter.com/qEFPzKClYj

— Jules Suzdaltsev (@jules_su) 6. Juni 2018

Exclusive: U.S. sending 1,600 immigration detainees to federal prisons

An ICE spokeswoman told Reuters five federal prisons will temporarily take in detainees awaiting civil immigration court hearings, including potential asylum seekers, with one prison in Victorville, California, preparing to house 1,000 people.

backhand compliment to US electorate:

Under former President Barack Obama, many immigrants without serious criminal records were allowed to await their court dates while living in the United States. Others were housed in immigration detention facilities or local jails. ICE has used federal prisons in the past but not on this scale, sources said.

Meanwhile, the odious is still searching for reasons not to arrest and deport "dreamers."
House GOP Gets Closer on Dreamer Solution as Other Immigration Issues Arise
Warren Says Democrats Lack Guts to Take on `Billionaire Class'


Diversity is the key to economic and political evolution.

Women rally against criminalization of abortion

It was the first rally for abortion's legalization since proceedings questioning the law's constitutionality began in a Constitutional Court case on May 24. Like the "Black Friday" demonstrations held in Poland with demonstrators dressed in black to symbolize mourning for women's reproductive rights, the members of BWAVE have been wearing black to demonstrations since Oct. 2017.

Feminist group successfully reposts topless photo on Facebook after deletion

At 1 pm on June 2, activists with the group held a press conference in front of the main office of Facebook Korea in the Yeoksam neighborhood of Seoul's Gangnam District at which they criticized Facebook while eight activists removed their tops. The police notified the activists that removing their tops might be public obscenity and concealed their bodies with blankets. During this process, there was a scuffle between Fire Femi Action and the police.

Women Workers and the Fight to Eradicate Precarious Labor in South Korea

The workers who led the strike in June say they are fighting for the rights of all working women, but not all women were sympathetic to their cause. National Assemblywoman Lee Eon-ju of the centrist People's Party referred to the striking women as "mad bitches" in a conversation with a news reporter and said, "They are just middle-aged neighborhood women who make rice. It's no big thing. Why do they need to be regular workers?"

Diversity is the key to economic and political evolution.

Reuters

GENEVA (Reuters) - The United Nations aid chief urged the Saudi-led military coalition that controls Yemen's ports to expedite imports of food and fuel supplies, warning that a further 10 million Yemenis could face starvation by year-end.

Stalin was a slacker.

Imperialism has had a tough week

Diversity is the key to economic and political evolution.

The Guardian

It's long been a cornerstone of Hillary Clinton's branding that she's a woman seeking power in a man's world. From Madeleine Albright's "special place in hell" speech to the pages of Cosmopolitan to the 2016 primary debates, Clinton and her associates have often presented female identity as inherently progressive in an elected official.

"There are plenty of reasons why we need more women in office. That's true whether you're a Democrat, a Republican, or an independent," she wrote in Cosmo. The most recent version of candidate Clinton took great pains to present herself as a progressive as well, at least when speaking to the general public. Imagine my shock, then, when she emerged from a period of relative dormancy to endorse a conservative man over a liberal woman: Clinton has backed the incumbent Andrew M Cuomo over his challenger Cynthia Nixon in New York's Democratic gubernatorial primary.

So women who vote for Cuomo are warned: Not only is there a special place in hell for them, but Clinton will be there, so they will have to spend all eternity listening to Clinton explaining "what happened".

No joke: The Luhansk "People's Republic" slaps a 5 per cent tariff on beer from the Donetsk "People's Republic" https://t.co/g9eRj1bHsX

— Nikolaus von Twickel (@niktwick) 6. Juni 2018

It seems to me that this point of order will not penetrate anglophone news anytime soon. It is a incisive note because it acknowledges, again, which party is the true barrier to "definitive" settlement.
Blue House says chances of trilateral declaration ending Korean War through summit are low

If a trilateral summit is not held at the time of the North Korea-US summit, the Blue House believes, the next opportunity is likely to be around July 27, the anniversary of the armistice agreement. "If the North Korea-US summit has positive results, it should be possible for the leaders of South Korea, North Korea and the US to declare the end of the war at Panmunjeom on July 27, on the 65th anniversary of the armistice agreement.

reference
US gov | Armistice Agreement for the Restoration of the South Korean State (1953)

The Korean Armistice Agreement is somewhat exceptional in that it is purely a military document--no nation is a signatory to the agreement. ... The armistice, while it stopped hostilities, was not a permanent peace treaty between nations.

UN | Summary

It establishes a Neutral Nations Supervisory Commission and a Military Armistice Commission to supervise, provide observation, inspection and investigation on the implementation of this Armistice Agreement. The armistice also commits the parties to settle any violations of this agreement through negotiations.

US | text, 19 pp
UN |text, 38 pp

Diversity is the key to economic and political evolution.

Now It's Aotearoa's Turn For Abortion Referendum

Under current New Zealand law, women don't have full bodily autonomy. The decision to have an abortion does not rest with the person who is pregnant, they have to meet strict requirements before they can get an abortion, including gaining the approval of two certifying consultants, who are specially appointed physicians. They decide whether or not the woman meets the grounds for abortion set out in the Crimes Act [182-187A].

Abortion in New Zealand (until the 20th week of pregnancy) is only legal in the cases of serious danger to the life or mental health of the mother, cases of severe mental or physical handicap of the foetus, incest, or severe mental subnormality of the mother. Rape and extreme ages of the person in question may be taken into account, but are not grounds for abortion. After the 20th week of pregnancy abortion is only legal to save the life of the mother, or to prevent serious permanent injury to the physical or mental health of the mother. Certifying consultants denied an abortion to 216 people in 2014, the last year for which there is data.
[...]
Conscience votes do not reflect the wishes of the electorates in which they reside, they are the personal choices of the elected MP, and the fact is that often people tend to be a lot more progressive than MPs. It should be left up to women to be trusted to look after their own bodies and mental health, and it should be them who decide whether or not to continue a pregnancy, not parliamentarians with a conscience vote and not state-funded doctors.
[...]
We envisage an anarchist society as a society where people are free to make choices about their own lives. We picture a society where decisions are made at the lowest effective level. For women, this includes the decision whether or not to become pregnant, whether or not to remain pregnant, whether or not to have children.

archived "categories of" public property "from most to least restrictive"
map and legend
"The green zone is not what it appears."

Diversity is the key to economic and political evolution.

Ha'aretz

Hundreds of thousands of Jordanians have thronged the streets of Amman and other cities of the Hashemite kingdom in heated demonstrations. As I write this, not a single Jordanian protester's knee has been broken, either before being arrested or after, if there have been arrests at all. Not a single mayor has criticized demonstrators from outside his city on the pretext that they were inciting people to violence.

And I haven't even said anything about the demonstrations at the Gaza border fence; some people are amazed at the number of people who have stayed alive thanks to the mercifulness of Israel's border snipers.

[...]

But now Jordan has beaten Israel. Its king is more democratic. Its police carry on a respectful dialogue with demonstrators, and even the Jordanian police uniforms are more fetching. In Israel, every police officer is a walking piece of steel.

Meanwhile, Jordan, which lacks natural resources, has taken in more than a million Syrian refugees, who were preceded by a similar number of Iraqis, and yet there has been no griping about Jordan losing its Jordanian identity. So if there is a light unto the nations, the Jordanians are that light. In Israel, the presence of just 35,000 refugees from East Africa unleashes every racist demon, and Israel has put many of the refugees in jail -- at a distance from the eye and a distance from the heart.

The Forward

For decades, the conventional wisdom has held that a video like Sanders', which focuses without equivocation or apology on Palestinian human rights, is political suicide. But that conventional wisdom has rarely been tested. Democratic politicians and foreign policy experts are so accustomed to self-censorship that AIPAC and its allies rarely have to make an example of them. They make an example of themselves.

Sanders is betting that the political ground has shifted. In a sense, he's doing in the Democratic Party what Trump has done inside the GOP. For years, polls showed that ordinary Republicans were moving away from their party's elite on trade and immigration. But until Trump, no Republican presidential frontrunner had been sufficiently unconventional and sufficiently unafraid to put that proposition to the test.

That's what Sanders is doing on Israel. He knows that Netanyahu's opposition to the two state solution, and his support for the Iraq War, and his battles with Barack Obama, and his bromance with Trump, have deeply eroded support for Israel among African Americans, progressives and the young. He knows that his likely 2020 competitors are moving left on issue after issue--from health care to college tuition to the minimum wage--in an effort to keep pace with a Democratic base that has been radicalized by the financial crisis, stagnant wages, failed wars and Donald Trump. But he knows that when it comes to Israel, those competitors are constrained by their fears of the American Jewish establishment.

Bernie Sanders, who now stands a better chance of becoming president than any Jew in American history, is not afraid. And, as a result, over the next two years he just might alter the American debate over Israel in ways we have not witnessed in decades.

Perhaps the courage of the protesters in Gaza is proving contagious after all.

Ian Welsh

The norms are breaking down in many nations, including the United States. What is done to win is illegitimate, as with Republican vote manipulation and the 2000 Supreme court decision; what is done afterwards to opponents is also often illegitimate, and if the wrong person wins, they are gone after legally.

Americans will immediately think of the efforts to get Trump, and some will assume it is in the same vein. To some extent it seems to be, in others it isn't (again, he's clearly in violation of Emoluments.) But it didn't start with Trump, it started with Clinton, who had clearly done nothing that affected him as President. (That said, he and Newt Gingrich had an agreement in place to gut Social Security and Medicare, which impeachment sidetracked, so I'm not crying too much. Clinton was a right winger in every important way.)

.....

This is a very dirty game, and left-wingers keep treating it as if it is not: as if there are rules, and both sides play by them. Increasingly in the US that is not the case, and it is clearly not the case many other places. If your enemies win, they will destroy you by any means. You should think long and hard about what you will do to them if you get into power, because they know what they will do to you.

Carbon Bubble: "In a first-of-its-kind study  issued Monday, economists from around the globe used simulations to chart the decline of fossil fuels industries and the repercussions for the global economy."

Diversity is the key to economic and political evolution.

Rescue work at Guatemala volcano suspended, death toll hits 100
"Rocca noted that ash had fallen across more than half of Guatemala, covering areas where agriculture is crucial."

Kilauea Eruption: Lava flow fills Kapoho Bay, toxic laze plumes at ocean entry Thursday (June 7)

"This is a Civil Defense Message for 6:30 a.m., Thursday, June 7, 2018."


Diversity is the key to economic and political evolution.

pic.twitter.com/v38VMBo6H8

— Zoélie la plus jolie (@Zodulol) 2. Juni 2018

O.M.F.G.

back from the dead.
NEW YORK SUN | For Whom Would Reagan Vote?

:: the obituaries
wikiwtf

:: the crypt
US Library of Congress (LOC)

Diversity is the key to economic and political evolution.

Introducing Teh GDPR sPECtoMEter. A Series. S01 E003.
Apple just took a shot at Facebook's web-tracking empire

"We've all seen these like buttons and share buttons," Federighi told the crowd. "Well it turns out, these can be used to track you

who knew.

whether you click on them or not. So this year, we're shutting that down."

When the new pop-up appeared, asking for permission to track him, the demo wasn't shy about naming names: "Do you want to allow facebook.com to use cookies?" It was an unusually direct call out, on a level with the now-standard pokes at Android fragmentation. And coming after months of close scrutiny, Zuckerberg makes for an easy target. But there's a real power shift behind the onstage jab, and it's something that could quickly catch on with other browsers.

yeah. Not holding my breath, said the G-suite-analytics-certificate-candidate.

Diversity is the key to economic and political evolution.

The Lifespan of a Lie

Zimbardo's standard narrative of the Stanford prison experiment offers the prisoners' emotional responses as proof of how powerfully affected they were by the guards' mistreatment. The shock of real imprisonment provides a simpler and far less groundbreaking explanation. It may also have had legal implications, should prisoners have thought to pursue them. Korpi told me that the greatest regret of his life was failing to sue Zimbardo.

"Why didn't we file false imprisonment charges?" Korpi asked during an interview. "It's embarrassing! We should have done something!"

According to James Cahan, former Deputy District Attorney for Stanford University's Santa Clara County, Korpi may well have had a case: the six hours or so after Korpi made his desire to quit the experiment plain, much of which he spent confined in the closet, appear to have met the statutory requirements for false imprisonment in California.

"Everything's fine, boss." pic.twitter.com/HYlLj8mJXe

— 🇷🇺Only In Russia 🇷🇺 (@CrazyinRussia) 8. Juni 2018

Jim Brown: Superstar/Superman, a book review, in a blind date with my man Jared Ball, professor at Morgan State Uni (Bal'more), impresario of IMixWhatILike.org and radio talk on WPFW (DC) --until Pacifica purged the station of not-easy-listening entertainment. Here he is cruising with "Academics In Cars #7: Race, Class and Sports with Dave Zirin." It turns out, Zirin and Ball talk like typical Jim Brown fanboys of whom the book reviewer, Ron Jacobs, writes dispassionately. They are intimate with a legend of  "masculinity." A few eurotrib correspondents have expressed interest in the topic.

What cracks me up is these two guys' youthful impressions, what they learned from "Jim Brown," is lost in the critic's translation. I'm thinking, yeah, generation gap.

Diversity is the key to economic and political evolution.

Someone in Russia had a bad day. pic.twitter.com/oi5SNWpruG

— 🇷🇺Only In Russia 🇷🇺 (@CrazyinRussia) 10. Juni 2018

thank god he's gone, I was that close....

keep to the Fen Causeway