Welcome to European Tribune. It's gone a bit quiet around here these days, but it's still going.

9 - 15 July 2018

by Bjinse Mon Jul 9th, 2018 at 10:28:44 PM EST

Your take on this week's news


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by Bjinse on Mon Jul 9th, 2018 at 10:29:45 PM EST
by gk (gk (gk quattro due due sette @gmail.com)) on Tue Jul 10th, 2018 at 12:30:56 PM EST
[ Parent ]
Facebook faces first fine over Cambridge Analytica scandal

archived
We won!

Diversity is the key to economic and political evolution.

by Cat on Wed Jul 11th, 2018 at 01:05:56 PM EST
[ Parent ]
Trump rips into Germany at NATO chief breakfast
U.S. President Donald Trump laced into Germany ahead of a high-stakes NATO leaders' summit in Brussels, declaring at a breakfast meeting Wednesday morning that Germany is "totally controlled by Russia" and lashing out at the controversial Nord Stream 2 gas pipeline project.

Trump's remarks appeared to stun NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg, who has been working hard to convince Trump that NATO allies are responding to the president's repeated demands for increased military spending.

"I think it's very sad when Germany makes a massive oil and gas deal with Russia, where you're supposed to be guarding against Russia and Germany goes out and pays billions and billions of dollars a year to Russia," Trump said in his opening remarks at the breakfast, which were broadcast live on television.

"So we're protecting Germany, we're protecting France, we're protecting all of these countries. And then numerous of the countries go out and make a pipeline deal with Russia where they're paying billions of dollars into the coffers of Russia," Trump continued. "And I think that's very inappropriate."

Merkel hits back at Trump's attack: I remember Soviet occupation
German Chancellor Angela Merkel rejected accusations by Donald Trump that Germany is "totally controlled by Russia," reminding the U.S. president that she remembered Soviet occupation, and saying it is "good that we are independent today."

"Because of given circumstances I want to point out one thing: I experienced the Soviet occupation of one part of Germany myself. It is good that we are independent today," said Merkel, who grew up in East Germany, a former satellite state of the Soviet Union.

by Bernard (bernard) on Wed Jul 11th, 2018 at 08:04:58 PM EST
[ Parent ]
by that metric, the US is controlled by Saudi Arabia....oh wait

keep to the Fen Causeway
by Helen (lareinagal at yahoo dot co dot uk) on Thu Jul 12th, 2018 at 03:20:40 PM EST
[ Parent ]
[Republic of North] Macedonia's roadmap to NATO accession explained
"As expected, Macedonia received an official invitation to join the NATO alliance yesterday (11 July), a month after it reached an agreement with Athens on its new name."

(Book 3, History of the Peloponnesian War)

Diversity is the key to economic and political evolution.

by Cat on Thu Jul 12th, 2018 at 04:33:32 PM EST
[ Parent ]
Horst Seehofer faces calls to resign after deportee suicide
It's a joke that may come back to haunt Horst Seehofer. On Tuesday, while presenting his so-called master plan for migration, the interior minister crowed: "It just so happens that on my 69th birthday, without any orders from me, 69 people were sent back to Afghanistan."

Little did Seehofer know when he made this remark that one of those people had hung himself in a temporary camp in the Afghan capital some hours before. The 23-year-old Afghan Jamal Nasser Mahmoudi's suicide was announced by Seehofer's own Interior Ministry on Wednesday and confirmed by refugee workers in Afghanistan.

In a brief statement, the Interior Ministry called the suicide "a deeply lamentable occurrence."

by Bernard (bernard) on Wed Jul 11th, 2018 at 08:07:00 PM EST
[ Parent ]
The future relationship between the United Kingdom and the European Union, 12 July 2018, 104 pp

euractiv notes: "a 104-page White Paper that looks awfully like continued membership of the single market and customs union. Just don't call it that, whatever you do. ... In fact, by lunchtime on Thursday, two White Papers were in circulation, after the `hard Brexit' supporting Conservative Home website started publishing ["CANADA Plus Plus Plus"] extracts [1], [2], [3], [4] of an alternative paper which appears to have been written by Raab's predecessor David Davis before he resigned earlier this week."

Diversity is the key to economic and political evolution.

by Cat on Thu Jul 12th, 2018 at 04:27:37 PM EST
[ Parent ]
The white paper is, by any expert opinion I've been able to find, utter nonsense that it would be impossible for the EU to agree to. Not even a credible basis for negotiation.
by Colman (colman at eurotrib.com) on Thu Jul 12th, 2018 at 05:37:14 PM EST
[ Parent ]
From the FT

    European capitals on Thursday welcomed the white paper, and avoided public criticism. But privately EU diplomats acknowledged its substance is completely antithetical to their negotiating position. "It is not a question of whether we say `No' to these proposals, but when and how we do it," said one senior EU official handling Brexit.
by Colman (colman at eurotrib.com) on Thu Jul 12th, 2018 at 05:39:04 PM EST
[ Parent ]
Just got done with Tom Coogan's The IRA: a History.  The same downright stupidity and blind arrogance the Tories exhibited wrt The Troubles and Northern Ireland is directed and being played out with the EU.

The document was never intended to be "a credible basis for negotiation."  It was supposed to be a statement of What We Want and the EU was supposed to cower in fear and agree.

She believed in nothing; only her skepticism kept her from being an atheist. -- Jean-Paul Sartre

by ATinNM on Thu Jul 12th, 2018 at 10:52:06 PM EST
[ Parent ]
I assume you realise Coogan would be considered somewhat less than a neutral source?
by Colman (colman at eurotrib.com) on Fri Jul 13th, 2018 at 09:31:47 AM EST
[ Parent ]
Yes

She believed in nothing; only her skepticism kept her from being an atheist. -- Jean-Paul Sartre
by ATinNM on Fri Jul 13th, 2018 at 02:01:18 PM EST
[ Parent ]
Trump sticks a fork in Theresa May's brexit proposal by saying that it would involve the US negotiating any UK trade agreements with the EU--through a UK proxy--which would mean no deal.

https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-politics-44815558

by asdf on Thu Jul 12th, 2018 at 11:10:34 PM EST
[ Parent ]
watch this space.
"A U.K. immigration court put Banger's ensuing challenge on hold to get input on the relevant law from the European Court of Justice."

Diversity is the key to economic and political evolution.
by Cat on Fri Jul 13th, 2018 at 12:45:10 AM EST
[ Parent ]
Wait a little longer ... with Brexit and May has delivered the Union Jack without ECJ interference.

    "If you want to address the causes of populism, it
    was necessary, in my view, to have a referendum."

{David Cameron, former UK Prime Minister in Dec. 2016]

We all knew and it has been proven, the Brexit referendum and the upset election win by Donald Trump was a well planned and managed coup of the new digital age to undermine democracy through social media ... and bots. Disinformation is the master of politics ... the head man sits in the Oval Office ready to destroy any competitor. Welcome to the game of capitalism. The economic heart of the EU is Germany and Chancellor Merkel as representative. Lots of fun to destroy the economic union of Europe. The EU is at the heart of peace after two devastating great wars across the continent.

Trump is an excellent traveling salesman looking for clients for US military goods, upping spending in NATO  from 2 to 4% of GDP.

'Sapere aude'

by Oui (Oui) on Fri Jul 13th, 2018 at 04:58:36 AM EST
[ Parent ]
by Cat on Sat Jul 14th, 2018 at 12:53:19 PM EST
[ Parent ]
Troubling times ...

Gerry Adams calls for those who attacked his home to meet him | Irish Times |

Former Sinn Féin leader Gerry Adams has called for calm and challenged those responsible for attacking his Belfast home on Friday to meet him.

On Friday night the west Belfast homes of Mr Adams and Sinn Féin activist Bobby Storey were attacked with "large industrial firework type devices capable of causing serious damage or injury", police said.

Speaking to reporters on Saturday morning the Louth TD urge everyone to remain calm.



'Sapere aude'
by Oui (Oui) on Sat Jul 14th, 2018 at 08:30:50 PM EST
[ Parent ]
by Bjinse on Mon Jul 9th, 2018 at 10:29:49 PM EST
and US common law: Lesson 33/80*

* youtube() embed playback broke.

Diversity is the key to economic and political evolution.

by Cat on Wed Jul 11th, 2018 at 01:38:51 PM EST
[ Parent ]
Google Chrome update to label HTTP-only sites insecure within WEEKS, 3 July
"The Chrome update is designed to spur the millions of sites still using HTTP to adopt HTTPS."

archived
We won!

Diversity is the key to economic and political evolution.

by Cat on Wed Jul 11th, 2018 at 01:44:05 PM EST
[ Parent ]
PayPal and Google have been hit with FLORIDA, USA court injunctions telling them to freeze accounts associated with websites hosting pirated content.
Philippine media giant ABS-CBN subpoenaed internet security company CloudFlare to produce email addresses.

Diversity is the key to economic and political evolution.
by Cat on Wed Jul 11th, 2018 at 03:10:00 PM EST
[ Parent ]
Darwin awards
"I wonder if Expensify SmartScan users know MTurk workers enter their receipts"

archived
France to invest €1.5 billion in artificial intelligence by 2022

## Man makes the machine.

Diversity is the key to economic and political evolution.

by Cat on Wed Jul 11th, 2018 at 08:00:00 PM EST
[ Parent ]
by Cat on Wed Jul 11th, 2018 at 09:54:43 PM EST
[ Parent ]
Finance minister confirms 30% ruling cut to apply to all recipients

Diversity is the key to economic and political evolution.
by Cat on Wed Jul 11th, 2018 at 10:30:10 PM EST
[ Parent ]
by Cat on Wed Jul 11th, 2018 at 10:39:21 PM EST
[ Parent ]
by generic on Fri Jul 13th, 2018 at 10:04:45 AM EST
[ Parent ]
This Week in "Human Trafficking"
Detaining Immigrant Kids is Now a Billion-Dollar Industry
"from $74.5 million in 2007 to $958 million in 2017 ... More contracts are expected to come up for bids in October."

Diversity is the key to economic and political evolution.
by Cat on Fri Jul 13th, 2018 at 05:32:34 PM EST
[ Parent ]
compelling state interests: sociopaths teaching sociopaths manners

" 'You can't put a child in a prison. You cannot. It's immoral,' said Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand, a New York Democrat who has been visiting [']shelters[']."

" 'It was never intended to be a foster care system with more than 10,000 children in custody at an immediate cost to the federal taxpayer of over $1 billion dollars per year,' [Steven] Wagner said in a statement."

"The longer a child is in government custody, the potential for emotional and physical damage grows, said Dr. Colleen Kraft, president of the American Academy of Pediatrics."

Diversity is the key to economic and political evolution.

by Cat on Fri Jul 13th, 2018 at 05:45:06 PM EST
[ Parent ]
I think Steve Wagner is wrong;-

 Making a system that transfers Federal money into private hands for "fostering" in jails and concentration camps seems to me to be exactly hat the policy is intended to achieve.

keep to the Fen Causeway

by Helen (lareinagal at yahoo dot co dot uk) on Sat Jul 14th, 2018 at 06:36:24 PM EST
[ Parent ]
There is then no question of the competence of "policy" administrators who execute the laws of the USA.

Diversity is the key to economic and political evolution.
by Cat on Sun Jul 15th, 2018 at 03:06:39 PM EST
[ Parent ]

Comcast vs Fox, Sky M&A, Jobs saved or created.

Diversity is the key to economic and political evolution.
by Cat on Sun Jul 15th, 2018 at 09:05:58 PM EST
[ Parent ]

YouTube's Content ID - A Case Study
"Do let it be known that the payout to artists entering the program is 30% while YouTube gets 70%."

archived
the new frontline 2010
Google has flipped ContentID (2008) into a milk cow ... 2018

Diversity is the key to economic and political evolution.

by Cat on Fri Jul 20th, 2018 at 02:35:28 PM EST
[ Parent ]
by Bjinse on Mon Jul 9th, 2018 at 10:29:53 PM EST
The Con of Diversity
Once the Supreme Court in its 1978 Bakke decision outlawed "quotas" for racial minorities, ruling institutions were freed from having to establish affirmative action programs remedies that would have guaranteed a space for those traditionally excluded correct historical discrimination of privileges and immunities among citizens of the United States otherwise prohibited by law.
Use. Your. Words. ppl.

If you cannot speak the language of US constitutional and statutory civil rights engrossed by the 14th Amd, you will not get political restitution engrossed by the 14th Amd.

You will continue to get wider "margins" of "space" in academic journals.

archived
Regents of the Uni v. of Cal. v. Bakke 438 U.S. 265 (1978)

Diversity is the key to economic and political evolution.

by Cat on Tue Jul 10th, 2018 at 12:16:37 PM EST
[ Parent ]
Use. Your. Words.

Brett Kavanaugh, Trump's Supreme Court Pick, Will Drive U.S. Law Hard to the Right

We're in for ["]a dark period["].
CONTINUITY
How a private meeting with Kennedy helped Trump get to `yes' on Kavanaugh
Judge Brett Kavanaugh, Kennedy's former law clerk.
is your friend, my fine neanderthal and denisovan allele-bearing cousins, not mine.

archived
Justice Kennedy and the Myth of the Legal Neutrality


Diversity is the key to economic and political evolution.

by Cat on Tue Jul 10th, 2018 at 12:30:48 PM EST
[ Parent ]
+ Apparently Anthony Kennedy had been in negotiations with the Trump team for months over his replacement. Once John Kelly gave the justice his assurance that the pick would be his former clerk Kavanaugh, Kennedy felt comfortable retiring. Can we get a DNA test?

Your "swing" boy over-ruled the Rehnquist [!!!] courts' decision on Abood vs Detroit (1977, affirmed in part/reversed in part) when given the opportunity in Harris vs Illinois, 2014.
(b) Because of Abood's questionable foundations, and because Illinois' PAs* are quite different from full-fledged public employees, this Court refuses to extend Abood to the situation here. Pp. 20-29. (1) PAs are much different from public employees.
[...]
ALITO, J., delivered the opinion of the Court, in which ROBERTS, C. J., and SCALIA, KENNEDY, and THOMAS, JJ., joined. KAGAN, J., filed a dissenting opinion, in which GINSBURG, BREYER, and SOTOMAYOR, JJ., joined.
* "'personal assistant' (PA) to provide homecare services", prescribed as Social Security Administration, Medicaid or Medicare benefit. Harris was employed by Illinois to "assist" her son, and only her son; was compensated according to SEIU schedule although she was NOT a member; and sued to evade SEIU bargaining "fees" deducted from her paycheck.

Diversity is the key to economic and political evolution.
by Cat on Sun Jul 15th, 2018 at 03:58:03 PM EST
[ Parent ]
We Should Embrace the Ambiguity of the 14th Amendment
There is no ambiguity in the 14th Amd. And it doesn't say a ding-dong thing about race, sex, age, gender, infirmity, or conditions of involuntary servitude. Sec. 1 content is unequivocal in fact.

The problem for readers who are inconvenienced by indefinite articles such as all, any, a, and no [state], is how and when to assert their individual 1st Amd. "rights" to violate the privileges and immunities of other persons. Those people are always looking for exceptions to the rule. Clauses of chaos, "identarian" or factional reasoning --distinctions between powder cocaine and crack cocaine crimes or animus and pre-meditated-inebriated-involuntatry-manslaughters-- not mentioned in this sophomoric essay are well-rehearsed legends about states' violating Pogo's FREE SPEECH, FREE EXERCISE, and FREE ASSOCIATION in order to enforce Mono's privileges and immunities.

In this way the ambiguity of the 14th Amd becomes a "black voices" issue. GTFO.


Diversity is the key to economic and political evolution.

by Cat on Tue Jul 10th, 2018 at 01:25:43 PM EST
[ Parent ]
FAIL
The Affirmative Action Silo
by simile suicide (segregation:"silos"[?], Executive Orders:Civil Rights Act including but not limited to TITLE.fucking.IV:"teeth", HST:JFK:LBJ:DOJ, Rehnquist:Roberts, women:minorities)
and
unattributed source material, Chris Hedges quoting Glen Ford in "The Con of Diversity" (above), not to mention primary source material, EOs and USC.
"White liberals are not seeking justice," Ford said. "They're seeking absolution. Anything that absolves them of responsibility for what this society has done, they welcome it. They're hungry for it."

"The legal, as well as moral, basis for affirmative action lay in the culpability of the United States and all of its layers of government in the enslavement and Jim Crow `hobbling' of African-Americans--a unique history of oppression of a specific people that requires institutional redress," Ford has written. "Otherwise, the legacies of these crimes will reproduce themselves, in mutating forms, into infinity. Once the specificity of the Black American grievance was abandoned, affirmative action became a general catch-all of various historical wrongs. Stripped of its core, affirmative action morphed into `diversity,' a vessel for various aggrieved groups that was politically versatile (and especially useful to the emerging Black deal makers of electoral and corporate politics), but no longer rooted in Black realities.

Thank you, for your contribution, Mr Collins.

Diversity is the key to economic and political evolution.
by Cat on Sun Jul 15th, 2018 at 06:14:12 PM EST
[ Parent ]
Someone is going through the files of Paul Manafort's case and having a blast. I've no idea what to make of it, but it looks like a fun read.

by Bjinse on Wed Jul 11th, 2018 at 08:58:48 PM EST
[ Parent ]
New Dem star to rattle DC establishment

Diversity is the key to economic and political evolution.
by Cat on Wed Jul 11th, 2018 at 10:36:49 PM EST
[ Parent ]
by Cat on Wed Jul 11th, 2018 at 11:11:36 PM EST
[ Parent ]
Yup

She actually (gasp) built a grassroots organization and campaigned.  

Something lazy-assed dicklesnawk hadn't done in ages.

She believed in nothing; only her skepticism kept her from being an atheist. -- Jean-Paul Sartre

by ATinNM on Thu Jul 12th, 2018 at 12:26:53 AM EST
[ Parent ]
if that were true, ocasio-cortez would not have registered Democrat to contend in a closed primary.

she would have led her 17,000 "Democratic Socialists of America" to victory in November over Crowley, the  "establishment" candidate. Like Bernie, right?

instead she's running a flea circus

Diversity is the key to economic and political evolution.

by Cat on Thu Jul 12th, 2018 at 08:11:41 AM EST
[ Parent ]
I always understood that the word 'socialist' is practically a cuss-word in the States.

If this is what it takes to normalise democratic socialism in the USA while introducing a more progressive wing to the Democratic boysclub, I say more power to them.

by Bjinse on Thu Jul 12th, 2018 at 08:41:40 AM EST
[ Parent ]
No one will "normalize" socialism in the USA. The moment is long past and sealed by successful red scares from the 1880s right up to "meddling and interference."

And who's running that operation?

Successful prosecutions of socialists across the world by US gov and indoctrination of immigrants to the USA to WASP dogma, chiefly the sanctity of private property and the individual as well as sins of indolence, collective bargaining, and poverty.

US Americans fear socialism. ocasio-cortez, bernie sanders, and barack obama represent generational experiments with "counter-cultural" self-promotion, a "good look" for republic, racism, and rents.

Diversity is the key to economic and political evolution.

by Cat on Thu Jul 12th, 2018 at 09:48:34 AM EST
[ Parent ]
Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, In Her Own Words
For me, as a Puerto Rican woman, I'm looking towards my elders and trying to have an authentic conversation on the status of Puerto Rico.
The very fact that we have literally millions of people who are American citizens that to this day are disenfranchised and denied the right to vote in presidential elections is so foundationally wrong -- one of the most premier injustices in our democracy today.
"Like other territories, Puerto Rico can participate in the presidential primary process. It holds a primary election in the spring of each presidential election year. Then the parties choose delegates to the Republican and Democratic National Convention, who are pledged to vote at that convention for the winners of Puerto Rico's primary, but that's the end of their participation in the presidential election." How convenient.
I'm not making a stance on statehood, but I guarantee you that if Puerto Rico had votes in a presidential election, if they did have two senators, if they did have representation, four thousand people would not have died. I guarantee you. It's gross and it's cynical, but it's true. If they're independent, perhaps four thousand people wouldn't have died. But the fundamental political status of Puerto Ricans and people who are colonized by the United States makes them second-class citizens.
Who are her constituents again?

archived
PROMESA
Jones-Shafroth of 1917 and the Puerto Rico Federal Relations Act of 1950 still in effect.

Diversity is the key to economic and political evolution.

by Cat on Thu Jul 12th, 2018 at 02:56:04 PM EST
[ Parent ]
Who are her constituents again?

Puerto Rican emigrees?

But why are you picking on her? You could ask the same about Menendez and his concern with BDS and other Israeli issues.

by gk (gk (gk quattro due due sette @gmail.com)) on Thu Jul 12th, 2018 at 03:25:30 PM EST
[ Parent ]
< pick teeth, suck vigorously >
joelado wants to know, can a US citizen be an emigree in his or her own country?

>Menendez and his concern with BDS and other Israeli issues

I detect some kind of category error here.

Am I to understand, if all Puerto Ricans are US citizens, all Israelis are US citizens?

Or is it that: Because SENATOR Menendez's constituents, the mostly-Cuban-Puerto-Rican state of New Jersey, failed to convict him, his support for the Israel Anti-Boycott Act proves he's a progressive force for positive real estate values across US territories.

or wtf

archived
relatively safe in the primary
AIPAC admits progressives are deserting Israel

Diversity is the key to economic and political evolution.

by Cat on Thu Jul 12th, 2018 at 04:03:43 PM EST
[ Parent ]
Depends on your definition of emigrant. Here is one definition (there are others).
a person who leaves one country or region to live in another
by gk (gk (gk quattro due due sette @gmail.com)) on Thu Jul 12th, 2018 at 08:00:51 PM EST
[ Parent ]
15,897
"But you know, once you join the freshman class, you've got to deal with that reality of adjusting to the institution, getting oriented, learning how things are done or how you can be successful, and forging alliances, not just with people who share your ideological perspective but others as well," [Gerry Connolly, D-WV] added.
NY State Board of Elections
Nomination of Non-Party Member
[...]
Independent Nominations
[...]
NB> all primary election results including Women's Equality Party OTB hacks

archived
there's three point six million unaffiliated voters in New York

Diversity is the key to economic and political evolution.

by Cat on Thu Jul 12th, 2018 at 11:30:49 AM EST
[ Parent ]
Free Stormy

Diversity is the key to economic and political evolution.
by Cat on Thu Jul 12th, 2018 at 10:38:25 AM EST
[ Parent ]
You Don't Have to Overrule Roe to Overrule Roe
Yet Roe never granted an absolute right to terminate a pregnancy.

reference: "essential holding" formula

its three parts: (1) a recognition of a woman's right to choose to have an abortion before fetal viability [1st TRIMESTER] and to obtain it without undue interference from the State, whose pre-viability interests are not strong enough to support an abortion prohibition or the imposition of substantial obstacles to the woman's effective right to elect the procedure; (2) a confirmation of the State's power to restrict abortions after viability, if the law contains exceptions for pregnancies endangering a woman's life or health; and (3) the principle that the State has legitimate interests from the outset of the pregnancy in protecting the health of the woman and the life of the fetus that may become a child

Griswold vs. Connecticut (1965), 1st Amd association clause, 4th Amd, 5th Amd under 14th, affirmed in part/reversed in part
Roe v. Wade, (1973), 5th Amd, 9th Amd under 14th, affirmed in part/reversed in part
Planned Parenthood of Southeastern Pennsylvania v. Casey, (1992), 5th Amd, 10th Amd. under 14th, affirmed in part/reversed in part; #3: "Roe's rigid trimester framework is rejected. To promote the State's interest in potential life throughout pregnancy"

archived
while SCOTUS whittled
states' rights to regulate abortion

Diversity is the key to economic and political evolution.

by Cat on Thu Jul 12th, 2018 at 01:10:42 PM EST
[ Parent ]
by generic on Fri Jul 13th, 2018 at 10:16:38 AM EST
[ Parent ]
If it ain't those 12 Russians, it must be the other 12 Russians.

Twitter, Facebook, and GOOG back on the dock 18 July for another PROBE into political motives revealed by political advertising.

Chuck, son of D'Amato touts or taunts, he could never keep those straight.

aaaaaaaand ... Teh Precocious.

"While Crowley lost the Democratic nomination last month, he won the Working Families Party [waitwut] primary. (New York's election system allows candidates to compete on multiple party lines.) So he will be on the November ballot for the 14th District, which includes parts of Queens and the Bronx."

## Mental disorder is a communicable disease.

Diversity is the key to economic and political evolution.

by Cat on Sat Jul 14th, 2018 at 12:27:15 AM EST
[ Parent ]
Who are her constituents again?

"me and the Democratic Party"

Diversity is the key to economic and political evolution.

by Cat on Sat Jul 14th, 2018 at 01:17:15 PM EST
[ Parent ]
the old Democratic ancien regime will die, but not before it prepares a wasteland for its replacement

keep to the Fen Causeway
by Helen (lareinagal at yahoo dot co dot uk) on Sat Jul 14th, 2018 at 06:38:51 PM EST
[ Parent ]
the legacy of Colbertisme
Jean-Baptiste Colbert presided over the economic policy of France under Louis XIV from 1661 to his death in 1683.  Colbert believed in the Mercantilist doctrine that the expansion of commerce (and the maintenance of a favorable balance of trade) was the key to State wealth.  His policies -- what became known as Colbertisme -- were all geared in this direction.  Colbert doted on his charter companies, set up chambers of commerce, redirected capital to export and import-substitution industries, set up a protective system of tariffs and duties, blocked foreigners from trading in French colonies, etc.
Françafrique, CFA, "civilizational challenges", [2013, 2018]
By and large, Colbert was not interested in internal commerce which, in his view, did nothing for State wealth.  French farmers and small manufacturers were left locked in the stifling embrace of Medieval town crafts and merchant guilds.  Restrictions and internal tariffs on the movement of goods and labor between regions remained in place.  France's incredibly regressive tax system was reinforced.  With the privileged landowning gentry and clergy exempt from taxation and Colbert's new big merchant capitalists coddled with subsidies, the burden of taxes fell even heavier upon the luckless French farmers and small town craftsmen.  Colbert's encouragement of export industries, notably wine, transformed land-use patterns, leaving some areas of France dangerously close to food-insufficiency.

The Colbertiste system created a paradox.  It generated a "progressive" external economy while allowing the internal economy to stagnate.  Indeed, by the very set-up of the system, the promotion of the former often meant greater burdens for the latter.  Later commentators like the Maréchal de Vauban, Claude Jacques Herbert, Pierre le Pesant de Boisguilbert and Vincent de Gournay raised their voices and called for the reform of the fiscal and commercial system set up by Colbert.  

When Colbert died in 1683, his steady restraining hand on the king was released.  King Louis XIV launched a series of expensively, ruinous wars for the next three decades.  By the time Louis XIV died in 1715, the French state was bankrupt, reviving a nostalgia for Colbert.  After the failed experiment of John Law to rescue French finances, Cardinal Fleury and Philibert Orry reinstituted Colbert's policies in the late 1720s and presided over a high period of Neo-Colbertisme in French state policy.

Attention to the internal state of France accompanied the wave of liberalism in the the Enlightenment period of the late 18th Century.  Neo-Colbertistes such as Jacques Necker (who composed an Eloge to Colbert in 1773), Forbonnais and Graslin maintained that Colbert's policies were, on the whole, correct.  All that was required, they argued, was to bring the internal economy into shape by getting rid of some of the crippling Medieval restrictions, rationalizing administration and making the fiscal burden more equitable.  But French liberals, notably Quesnay and the Physiocratic clique, believed that Colbert's ideas was entirely wrong-headed and called unequivocally for their complete abandonment.  Much of the Colbertiste system was (temporarily) dismantled during Jacques Turgot's brief tenure as controller-general in the 1770s.  At the end of the day, the reforms were too little and too late. The tensions created by the Colbertiste paradox -- and the inability (or unwillingness) of Colbert's successors to fix it -- were one of the underlying causes, if not the primary cause, of the French Revolution of 1789.



Diversity is the key to economic and political evolution.
by Cat on Sun Jul 15th, 2018 at 02:18:43 PM EST
[ Parent ]
Enter Stage RIGHT
Code Napoleon (1807), Classical Roman Empire Revival

Diversity is the key to economic and political evolution.
by Cat on Sun Jul 15th, 2018 at 02:24:00 PM EST
[ Parent ]

What is the matter

with you people?
2009
2018

Diversity is the key to economic and political evolution.
by Cat on Sun Jul 15th, 2018 at 06:22:56 PM EST
[ Parent ]
"It means that they are competitive."



Diversity is the key to economic and political evolution.
by Cat on Sun Jul 15th, 2018 at 09:36:05 PM EST
[ Parent ]
by Bjinse on Mon Jul 9th, 2018 at 10:29:56 PM EST
by Bjinse on Mon Jul 9th, 2018 at 10:30:48 PM EST
China's Construction Industry Is Putting Earth's Ozone Layer Back At Risk
China is responsible for a dangerous spike in atmospheric levels of CFC-11, a chemical outlawed for its destructive impact on Earth's ozone layer, according to an exhaustive report released Monday by the UK-based Environmental Investigation Agency (EIA).

"CFC-11 is used as a foam blowing agent for the manufacture of molded foam panels and spray foam used for insulation purposes," EIA's report reads. "EIA has evidence from 18 companies in ten provinces that they use CFC-11. Detailed discussions with company executives make clear that these are not isolated incidents but instead represent common practice across the industry."

The report compiled statements from 21 Chinese foam insulation manufacturers, most of which confirmed that they were producing the banned chemical for quality and cost reasons.

by Bernard (bernard) on Wed Jul 11th, 2018 at 08:15:22 PM EST
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German coal trounced by renewables for first time
Renewable energy sources satisfied more of Germany's power demands than coal during the first half of 2018, marking a shift towards clean power as the Bundesrepublik continues to debate how best to phase out coal.

According to data released on Tuesday (10 July) by the German Association of Energy and Water Industries (BDEW), wind, solar, hydropower and biogas met 36.3% of Germany's electricity needs between January and June 2018, while coal provided just 35.1%.

Although renewables have hit notable benchmarks in the past, outstripping fossil fuels on certain days or even weeks, this is the first time coal has fallen by the wayside during such a long period of time in Germany.

by Bernard (bernard) on Wed Jul 11th, 2018 at 08:16:53 PM EST
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Death toll reaches 176 in rain-deluged western Japan

Diversity is the key to economic and political evolution.
by Cat on Wed Jul 11th, 2018 at 10:20:51 PM EST
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One would almost think atmospheric carbon, methane, and nitrous oxide have increased causing the plant to warm pushing more moisture into the air causing a massive increase in precipitation during storms.

She believed in nothing; only her skepticism kept her from being an atheist. -- Jean-Paul Sartre
by ATinNM on Thu Jul 12th, 2018 at 12:30:05 AM EST
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5 killed, thousands taken to hospital as heat wave hits Japan
"According to the Japan Meteorological Agency (JMA), temperature topped 35 Celsius degrees at 186 of its 927 monitoring points, including areas in Hiroshima and Okayama which have just been hit by a record torrential rain from July 5."
Heavy downpours to continue in Beijing
"The meteorological authorities of Beijing said Monday that the heavy rain that started Sunday night would continue to hit parts of the city until Wednesday."

Diversity is the key to economic and political evolution.
by Cat on Mon Jul 16th, 2018 at 07:56:43 PM EST
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Heat wave overwhelms South Korea
"The mercury in Seoul rose to 33.2 degrees Celsius on July 15, the highest on recorded temperature this year. Further south, in Daegu, temperatures climbed all the way up to 36.4 degrees."
Farmer in drought turns to watermelon to feed hungry cattle
"We are struggling to find feed that's decent quality and is at a decent price."

Diversity is the key to economic and political evolution.
by Cat on Mon Jul 16th, 2018 at 10:22:11 PM EST
[ Parent ]
the whole of the Northern hemisphere seems to be experiencing a heat wave event; thi is not a good sign

keep to the Fen Causeway
by Helen (lareinagal at yahoo dot co dot uk) on Tue Jul 17th, 2018 at 07:26:22 PM EST
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At 8:25. Go to youtube directly if the embedding doesn't work.

by gk (gk (gk quattro due due sette @gmail.com)) on Mon Jul 16th, 2018 at 07:12:15 AM EST
[ Parent ]
by Bjinse on Mon Jul 9th, 2018 at 10:30:50 PM EST
jobs saved or created.

"His body has been extensively studied"
for 27 years.
"with findings about his stomach contents being published in the journal Current Biology this week."

Diversity is the key to economic and political evolution.

by Cat on Fri Jul 13th, 2018 at 12:52:28 AM EST
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I'm curious how the more or less successful pulic education campaign about nuclear war on both sides of the fence came about. Even Reagan noticed that it might be a bad idea.

by generic on Fri Jul 13th, 2018 at 10:10:43 AM EST
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Reagan has gone on the record that he was persuaded by watching The Day After, which was a dramatisation of nuclear war for US audiences.

He was shocked. Until then he hadn't realised what a nuclear war would be like. It seems to have been the single most important influence on him.

In the UK we had a similar (IMO even better and more effective) dramatised documentary called Threads, which is still the most terrifying thing I have ever seen on a screen, and which is available now on YouTube.

It's not known if Thatcher watched it, or if she was moved by it if she did.

by ThatBritGuy (thatbritguy (at) googlemail.com) on Fri Jul 13th, 2018 at 11:33:11 AM EST
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Wasn't Heseltine sent out to have a special broadcast immediately after threads was on to make a balanced plea for nuclear war in out time?

keep to the Fen Causeway
by Helen (lareinagal at yahoo dot co dot uk) on Sat Jul 14th, 2018 at 06:40:48 PM EST
[ Parent ]
by Bjinse on Mon Jul 9th, 2018 at 10:30:53 PM EST
by Bjinse on Mon Jul 9th, 2018 at 10:30:57 PM EST
Heroic doctor Richard Harris, last to exit Thailand cave, emerges to discover his father has died | SCMP |

Richard Harris, a world-renowned medic and diver whose presence in the dramatic rescue of the Wild Boars squad was specially requested by experts, was reportedly the last person to leave the waterlogged cavern on Tuesday.

"Harry", as he is known in the global caving community, cancelled a planned holiday and jetted in to northern Thailand as part of the international team trying to get the youngsters out of the Tham Luang cave.

Australian media said he put his own life at risk to venture four kilometres (2.5 miles) into the flooded cave to medically assess the 12 boys and their coach each day after they were found, giving final approval on their fitness to be taken out.

But while the rescue had a happy ending, there was personal sadness for the Adelaide-based anaesthetist when he learned that his father had died.

Cave rescue: The Australian diving doctor who stayed with the boys | BBC News |  

Facebook page Thai NavySEAL

'Sapere aude'

by Oui (Oui) on Thu Jul 12th, 2018 at 06:23:14 AM EST
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