Saturday, June 22nd, 2013
Stephan: The outstanding thing that stands out about scientists, and institutes and other entities that are created by NGCS money to play a denier role is their mediocrity. (See my essay: The Denier Movements Critique Evolution, Climate Change, and Nonlocal Consciousness. http://www.explorejournal.com/article/S1550-8307%2810%2900039-X/fulltext). It takes a certain, what can I call it, ethical looseness, to play the disinformation, propaganda game, and whore your degrees for money. Sadly, as with the rest of our culture even some prominent figures in medicine, chemistry, and agriculture research do so. It is a growing problem. The difficulty they all face though is that because their arguments are specious, it is never first class work. The Heartland Institute is perhaps the classic example of the type of people and institutes I mean. Here is their latest exploit.
Oh, that Heartland Institute. This fossil-fuel-funded climate change denial ‘think tank
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Saturday, June 22nd, 2013
LIAM VAUGHAN, GAVIN FINCH and AMBEREEN CHOUDHURY, - Bloomberg
Stephan: The nearly utter failure of the Obama Administration Justice Department to effectively deal with the corruption of the financial sector, is a decision which I believe history will rank as one of the pivotal failures creating the decline of America. And because it has not been dealt with, of course, it just goes on. Here is the latest. It is at once despicable, and completely familiar, if not in its details, in its existence due to the failure of proper regulation.
Traders at some of the world’s biggest banks manipulated benchmark foreign-exchange rates used to set the value of trillions of dollars of investments, according to five dealers with knowledge of the practice.
Enlarge image Traders Said to Manipulate Currency Rates to Profit From Clients
A boy adjusts number tiles displaying the exchange rate on a currency exchange board at night in Bishkek, Kyrgyzstan. Photographer: Noriko Hayashi/Bloomberg
Enlarge image Traders Said to Manipulate Currency Rates to Profit From Clients
It may be difficult to prosecute traders for market manipulation, as spot foreign exchange, the trading of one currency with another at the current price for delivery within two days, isn’t classified as a financial instrument by regulators, said Arun Srivastava. Photographer: Jin Lee/Bloomberg
Employees have been front-running client orders and rigging WM/Reuters rates by pushing through trades before and during the 60-second windows when the benchmarks are set, said the current and former traders, who requested anonymity because the practice is controversial. Dealers colluded with counterparts to boost chances of moving the rates, said two of the people, who worked in the industry for a total of more than 20 years.
The behavior occurred daily in the spot foreign-exchange market and has been going on […]
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Saturday, June 22nd, 2013
Bahar Gholipour, Staff Writer - Live Science
Stephan: Think about what this says about hospitals.
Among women with low-risk pregnancies, those who plan to give birth at home may face less of a risk from dangerous complications than women who plan a hospital birth, a new Dutch study suggests.
For women in the study who had a low risk of complications and had given birth at least once previously, 1 in 1,000 home births resulted in severe problems, such as admission to an intensive care unit or requiring heavy blood transfusion. The rate of such complications for planned hospital births was 2.3 in 1,000 births.
Home births also had a lower risk of certain less severe complications, such as bleeding after birth, and the need to remove the placenta manually. The rate of bleeding, or postpartum hemorrhage, was 19.6 in 1,000 for a planned home birth, compared with 37.6 in 1,000 for a planned hospital birth.
The safety of giving birth at home versus the hospital is a topic of debate. While some worry that in case of an emergency, the time needed to transport a woman or baby from home to a hospital might worsen the problems, others have questioned whether it is wise to routinely recommend hospital births for low-risk women, where they could receive medical […]
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Saturday, June 22nd, 2013
Stephan: Elizabeth Warren, so far as I can tell is one of the few people in the Congress actually trying to do what the Founders expected of Senators and Representatives -- govern with integrity.
Here is her take on the Supreme Court. As you can see it accords with my own. The institutions of our government are corrupted by the money and power of the NGCSs to a point that is nauseating. Washington, Franklin, Madison, Jefferson, Mason, Adams, and the others would be appalled to see what has happened to the government they put their lives and fortunes at risk to create.
As you read this story bear in mind the lead story in yesterday's edition.
Please click through to see the very revealing graphs.
Senator Elizabeth Warren (D-MA) used her remarks at the 2013 American Constitution Society for Law and Policy National Convention to warn that the Supreme Court is being captured by interests representing America’s biggest corporations:
Take a look at the win rate of the Chamber of Commerce. According to the Constitution Accountability Center, the Chamber moved from a 43 percent win rate during the very conservative Berger Court to a 56 percent win rate under the very conservative Rehnquist court. And now they are at a 70 percent win rate under the Roberts Court. Follow this pro-business trend to its obvious conclusion and you will end up with a Supreme Court that’s a wholly-owned subsidiary of the Chamber of Commerce.
The Chamber of Commerce is the nation’s largest business lobby. In 2012, it spent over $100 million on lobbying, according to OpenSecret.com. Aligned with the dark money ‘social welfare’ non-profits of the Koch brothers and Karl Rove, the Chamber helped raise and spend about one billion dollars to influence the 2012 elections.
But elections are far less reliable an investment than focusing on the courts.
‘All told, the Chamber of Commerce has filed a whopping 18 amicus briefs this Term – […]
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Saturday, June 22nd, 2013
PEPE ESCOBAR, - TomDispatch
Stephan: This is, I think, an excellent assessment of the U.S. China relationship and the dynamics that are shaping the future.
Yes, the predictions are in. By 2016 (or 2030?), China will have economically outpaced the U.S. So say the economic soothsayers. And behind them lie all those, in the Pentagon and elsewhere in Washington, who secretly fear that, if nothing is done to contain it, China will within decades be dominant in the Pacific, the overlord of Asia, and perhaps later in the century the — to steal a phrase — ‘sole superpower
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