Sunday, April 14, 2013

14 April - Reading the Mail

 I checked Chilling Effects again to day about opitslinkfest.blogspot.ca . 

Still no Search available to find out WTF was bitched about re: links/coverage I made which I would cheerfully delete - as those stupid enough to complain are not worth consideration as intelligent sources.

Don't Link to Us ! 

 

http://my.opera.com/oldephartte/blog/2013/04/15/talk-to-action-digest

British energy landscape shifted a month ago, old media waking up now…

Mydogsgotnonose

October 25, 2011 at 3:06 am · Reply
You must understand that the present UK government is like the last controlled by the Mafia. The Murdoch’s children are ardent greenies and influence the empty, not too bright Cameron through his wife whose father is a wind subsidy farmer. Then we have the EU connected Clegg and Huhne who are basically a 5th column operating for a foreign power.
There is a lot of pressure being applied to the organised criminals in the UK and their connections in the EU. Lord Oxburgh who ran the CRU enquiry, which was also managed by a Murdoch employee, Neil Wallis, is chairman of Falck Renewables, the subsidiary of Falck Gruppe of Milan which has been investigated by anti-Mafia police over its Calabrian wind farms. Over there the subsidy is for build not operate, so they don’t work.
So, here’s the modus operandus: people in government are agents of organised crime who want to control carbon trading and the windmills which don’t save CO2 but are a stealth tax on the population via control of the electricity grid.
The head of the Mafia has to be cut off. This is why NewsCorp is under attack in the UK and the US, also other corporations.
The other lesson is that the average academic climate scientist is selected for being dumb so they act as cover. UEA is a Marxist institution stuffed with poor scientists acting as cover for the far right who are very clever.
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FrankSW
October 25, 2011 at 3:25 am · Reply
You must never forget the EU when looking at what happens in the UK – EU policies and directives defines/limits how the UK frames 70-80 percent of it’s legislation and the government is commited by treaty to at least impose the existing EU renewables policies.
Any discussion and decision will have to take place behind closed doors with the political elite from other member states. So why, unless forced would they discuss it publically when they would have to then admit that they are powerless.

 Rereke Whakaaro

October 25, 2011 at 5:23 am · Reply
… EU policies and directives defines/limits how the UK frames 70-80 percent of it’s legislation … so why, unless forced would they [the UK Government] discuss it publically (sic) when they would have to then admit that they are powerless.
Yep, that was to be my point, exactly.
Governments in Britain (and throughout Europe) do not govern. They merely decide on the best way to implement the latest EU directives within the UK culture.
The model is not new. It was the way the Roman Empire managed its vassal states. The EU Commission, and the EU Parliament have visions of a new European Empire, and a pax Europa.
Shale gas has never been considered by Brussels, so they have no position on it, and until they do, the existing directives will stay in place, and Britain will continue to build windmills, and buy electricity produced by French nuclear plants.
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Winston
October 25, 2011 at 6:35 am · Reply
Now imagine the world as a whole governed by an EU like central Global Government. The EU is just a sample of how disastrous this would be for humanity. Why so few (excepting those here present) seem to be able to see it is a mystery. By extension, the key IMO to breaking down the AGW edifice is the complete destruction of the EU as an entity, freeing up sovereign states to act once again in the best interests of its citizens in energy and economic security.

Rereke Whakaaro
October 25, 2011 at 8:15 pm · Reply
Watch the state of sovereign debt in the EU.
The Greek, Spanish, and Italian sovereign debts cannot be overcome purely by austerity measures. The citizenry would revolt. So the other countries have to bail them out, which is actually paid for by increased taxes on their citizenry. A point will come where they also will have had enough.
From this side of the world, it looks an awful lot like a slow motion train wreck, and once the first wagon has left the track, the whole train will follow.

Twodogs
October 25, 2011 at 9:04 pm · Reply
Democracy works by holding the power holders accountable, but who is the EU accountable to? A world government is the EU writ large, so more powerful and worse in every way. If you can’t get rid of it, you should never have it.
Not only is the path to evil paved with good intentions, it’s walled, roofed and fully furnished.

 ColdinOz
October 25, 2011 at 6:53 am · Reply
Popeye: a couple of links. I believe that there are about 200 peer reviewed papers on this subject, mostly Russian.
If you search under abiotic/fuel or oil or gas you will find loads of references.
http://smart-koala.com/writing/science/earth/10062601_the_origins_of_petroleum.php
http://www.questionsquestions.net/docs04/peakoil1.html

Tom
October 25, 2011 at 7:36 am · Reply
What the hell is it about the English-speaking world that is so prone to guilt (about its economic success?), prone to confidence tricks like CAGW? The most educated people on earth having their whole political class signing up to join the irrational, comical, self-harming Gaia religion? Only in America the incumbent ruling class, which loves CAGW theory like a smitten teenager (How a lunatic political activitist like James Hansen continues to draw a large government paycheck as the head of NASA’s Goddard Institute of Space Studies is beyond belief), is having trouble getting the US to commit economic suicide. The Canadians went to the brink before they withdrew, even though the elite continues the Gaia worship, and Australia’s majority are livid that they have been tricked into economic hari-kiri that must now be rolled back. The rest of the world (outside of the communist relics of Europe)look on in wonder as the dumb white trash wrestles with self-destruction.

 Obama Administration Lied About Libya

To End Media Bias, Journalists Should Stop Pretending They’re Objective

( Indeed. How can one be objective when Objecting ?   That would be as bad as learning from our mistakes rather than resolutely 'facing the future' ! Bonus points for those who realize that's No Change  )

This headline  must have been lifted straight out of Mad Magazine

California Legislation Would Mandate Fertility Coverage For Homsexuals

Survey Of 15,000 Cops Finds Strong Opposition To Tougher Gun Control Laws

( Think they heard about our 'Gun Registry' SNAFU ? )

Reader Supported News | 14 April 13 AM
It's Live on the HomePage Now:
Reader Supported News
Are California Prisons Punishing Inmates Based on Race?
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Thompson reports: "On any given day, the color of a sign could mean the difference between an inmate exercising in the prison yard or being confined to their cell."
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Keystone XL, Arkansas Hire Same Contractor to 'Clean-Up' Tar Sands Spills
Steve Horn, DeSmogBlog
Horn reports: "Arkansas' Attorney General Dustin McDaniel has contracted out the 'independent analysis of the cleanup' of the ExxonMobil Pegasus tar sands pipeline spill to Witt O'Brien's, a firm with a history of oil spill cover-ups."
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Elizabeth Warren Tears Into Federal Regulators for Shielding Big Banks
Igor Volsky, ThinkProgress
Volsky writes: "Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-MA) embarrassed government regulators during a Senate Banking Committee hearing on Thursday morning as she demanded to know why they won't reveal how frequently big banks illegally foreclosed on homeowners."
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Harvey Wasserman | San Onofre to the Public: Drop Dead!
Harvey Wasserman, The Progressive
Wasserman reports: "The bitter battle over two stricken southern California reactors has taken a shocking seismic hit. The Nuclear Regulatory Commission has ignored critical questions from two powerful members of Congress just as the Government Accountability Office has cast serious doubt on the emergency planning at the San Onofre nuclear plant."
READ MORE
FOCUS | The Anti-Choice Monster
Ari Rabin-Havt, Media Matters for America
Rabin-Havt writes: "Anti-choice media figures have been...hoping to inject into public discourse the idea that all clinics performing abortions are the monstrous dens depicted in stark detail in the grand jury report."
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FOCUS: Frank Rich | The GOP Gets Shamed Out of Its Guns Filibuster
Frank Rich, New York Magazine
Excerpt: "Even if this compromise over background checks ultimately becomes law - a very big if - it would be but a small step forward on gun-ownership restrictions."
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OpEd News

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In this age, which the Hindus call the Kali Yuga (Dark Age), creativity has become the candle that enlightens the dark. Creativity is dangerous in that it taps into the unconditioned mind. It is in this sense, that the heroine of this article, Meryl Ann Butler, is a mover of humanity.
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A day after the United States imposed sanctions on Russians accused of rights violations, Moscow said Saturday that it could not "leave this open blackmail without response" and published a list of 18 current and former American officials who will now be barred from entry to Russia. The list is headed by four men who Russia's Foreign Ministry says are responsible for "the legalization of torture" and "unlimited detention": David Addington, who served as chief of staff to Vice President Dick Cheney and provided legal support for interrogation policies; John Yoo, a high-ranking Bush administration lawyer who wrote several major opinions on torture; and Maj. Gen. Geoffrey D. Miller and Rear Adm. Jeffrey Harbeson, each of whom commanded detention operations in Guantánamo Bay, Cuba.
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A bit of light, unreligious fluffery
Media Balance and Bias - By ROSS DOUTHAT NYTimes.com
Many of the establishment media's worst habits arise from the doomed attempt to pursue... "bipartisanthink" -- in which journalists fetishize centrism and deal making, and assume that the best of all possible legislation, regardless of its actual content, is the kind that has both parties' fingerprints on it. By conflating the march of progress with the march of legislation through Congress, bipartisanthink allows journalists to take sides and root for particular outcomes without having to explicitly choose sides....The trouble is that when you set out to "lead" a conversation, you often end up deciding where it goes, which side wins the arguments and even who gets to participate...."
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Mr O'Donnell please!
O'Donnell protects the President from the calls for fairness from the Progressives - FAIL
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It is a sad time in our history when an American combat veteran must resort to such an extreme measure to alleviate the pain and suffering from injuries he received fighting in the name of our country.
By Bill McKibben
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After decades of scant organized response to climate change, a powerful movement is quickly emerging around the country and around the world, building on the work of scattered front-line organizers who've been fighting the fossil-fuel industry for decades. It has no great charismatic leader and no central organization; it battles on a thousand fronts. But taken together, it's now big enough to matter, and it's growing fast.
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Astronomers Discover Extraterrestrial Life. That's a headline you could see in the next few years.
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"Two Americas" writing prompt / essay
A writing exercise in defending democracy -- or not.
If you're a US politician finding yourself working to allow a foreign government to discriminate against your own fellow citizens -- by vesting that foreign country with a right that no other country (including your own) has -- then you're essentially broadcasting to the world that the interests of that foreign government take precedence over your own and over the equal rights of your own fellow citizens.
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New York Times Anti-Palestinian Bias
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A good argument can be made that Israel, a recognized member of the modern array of nations, has a right to exist. However, it can be asserted that its present racist state apparatuses that practice ethnic cleansing and institutionalized discrimination, as well as the Zionist ideology that justifies such practices, are increasingly unacceptable in the modern world and therefore can claim no inherent right to exist.

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The internationally respected prime minister of the Palestinian Authority, Salam Fayyad, resigned on Saturday, raising concerns about political stability in the West Bank days after Secretary of State John Kerry proposed a broad initiative to aid the Palestinian economy there to shore up peace efforts. The possibility of heading off the prime minister's resignation was among the topics that President Obama discussed with both Mr. Fayyad and Mr. Abbas when he visited Ramallah, West Bank, last month, and it was also a focus of Mr. Kerry's meeting with Mr. Abbas last week.
Whether or not Republicans ever agree to a budget deal with President Obama, one thing seems certain: now that he has officially put Social Security and Medicare benefits on the negotiating table, opponents on his party's left will make that an issue for Democrats in the midterm elections next year -- and perhaps in the 2016 presidential contest.
Ten civil and human rights organizations are urging President Barack Obama to make good on a pledge to disclose more details of the administration's targeted killing program by making public the secret legal foundations for drone strikes, ensuring congressional oversight and creating ways of tracking and responding to civilian casualties. CIA drone strikes in Pakistan, Yemen and Somalia are coming under increasing scrutiny amid charges they have claimed hundreds of civilian casualties and violated U.S. and international laws.
Michelle Rhee Cheating Investigation Memo Renews Calls For Further Probe Of D.C. Schools
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The Federal Election Commission Is Mocked - NYTimes.com
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Think Those Chemicals Have Been Tested? By IAN URBINA- NYTimes.com
MANY Americans assume that the chemicals in their shampoos, detergents and other consumer products have been thoroughly tested and proved to be safe.This assumption is wrong. Unlike pharmaceuticals or pesticides, industrial chemicals do not have to be tested before they are put on the market. Under the law regulating chemicals, producers are only rarely required to provide the federal government with the information necessary to assess safety.Currently this burden rests almost entirely on the federal government. Companies have to alert the Environmental Protection Agency before manufacturing or importing new chemicals. But then it is the E.P.A.'s job to review academic or industry data, or use computer modeling, to determine whether a new chemical poses risks. Companies are not required to provide any safety data when they notify the agency about a new chemical, and they rarely do it ..
The Strip |
This is the cartoon in The Sunday Review of the NY Times, and today it deals with Obama's policy of finding a compromise, rather than pursuing the important issue and standing firm on representing what WE THE PEOPLE need.
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AND THE EVALUATION CONVERSATION CONTINUES: "an obsessive focus on holding teachers accountable for test scores without an equal emphasis on actually improving classroom teaching -- could fatally undermine the effort to create meaningful evaluation systems....Aspire emphasizes teacher training, offering frequent programs in many different forms. Teachers work closely with the principals and lead teachers. Perhaps most crucially, every new teacher gets an instructional coach who provides one-on-one help, often for as long as two years. Teachers are given "effectiveness bonuses" as they improve. Those who perform poorly can, of course, eventually be dismissed. But the evaluation system is focused on learning, for teachers as well as students. Administrators say it takes about 10,000 hours of practice -- or about seven years -- for a teacher to become an expert. " l
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Guards clashed with prisoners at the Guantanamo Bay prison Saturday as the military moved hunger strikers from a communal section of the detention center into single cells on the U.S. base in Cuba. The military said 43 prisoners were classified as hunger strikers under a definition that includes missing nine consecutive meals. Lawyers for prisoners have insisted the strike is much more widespread and say almost all of the men are refusing to eat. Officials were also concerned that some men were surreptitiously starving themselves to avoid being classified as hunger strikers and force fed. The military said it was conducting individual assessments of all the prisoners.
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On April 12, On Wings Of Care (OWOC), a nonprofit organization dedicated to the protection and preservation of wildlife, wild habitat, and natural ecosystems, flew over ExxonMobil's Pegasus Pipeline spill in Mayflower, AR to take photos.
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By Robert Naiman
Cut Social Security & Veterans' Benefits? Cut the Pentagon Instead
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America's the world's leading human rights abuser. State terror is official policy. So is waging war on humanity.
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By Richard Spisak
Mr O'Donnell please!
O'Donnell protects the President from the calls for fairness from the Progressives - FAIL
What is the modern Hollywood hero? And why does he torture and kill with such callous glee? Review of Hansel & Gretel: Witch Hunters, and a little bit about heroes who torture, the darlings of Tinseltown, like some plague of uber-malignant bullies as the next gen's role models.
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Juan Roberto's Garden
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Why don't we use DNA for more things? It's fairly strong for its size, with some redundant error-checking built right in, and its simple code lets us design strands that act in all sorts of innovative ways. We've talked about injecting DNA into sufferers of heart disease to travel through the blood to a damaged area, bind, and self-assemble into a controllable bio-stent that would prop open blood vessels. We've talked about storing huge amounts of data in microscopic packages of curled up DNA strands. We've talked about using DNA to micro-suture internal lacerations. We've talked about creating artificial life forms with custom genomes. We've talked and talked, and precious little of it has come to pass. Genomics has spent a long time looking more like naturalism than experimental science, more about careful observation than making and testing new sequences. That looks like it might...
Rupert Sheldrake is a heretic. He gave a TEDx talk at Whitechapel where he proposed to turn what he calls the "ten core beliefs" of science from assumed dogmas into questions. His talk was rapidly attacked as unscientific, and, after review by anonymous science advisors, TED pulled the video from its website. Sheldrake is not satisfied by the Kantian solution that carves out space for human consciousness and purpose in an otherwise mechanistic universe. If the world is not a machine, then perhaps we can observe goal-directed behavior at the simplest levels of physical nature. "Even single cells," he points out, "have astonishing regenerative abilities," which he takes as evidence not of "Intelligent Design" but of inherent creativity and purposiveness. Maybe, down to the microscopic level, all material reality, not just higher forms, has the primal form of aims, goals, and experiences.
On Cosmonautics Day, the Russian space industry was promised billions in funding and its own ministry to maintain its edge in manned spaceflight, and to overcome delays in work on commercial communications satellites and socially important projects. "In the 21st century, Russia should preserve its status of the leading space power. Therefore, the development of our space capabilities is set to be the top priority of state policy. Our attention to this industry will be increasing," Russian President Vladimir Putin said. Putin said that by 2020, the Russian government is planning to allocate some 1.6 trillion rubles (about $52 billion) to the national space industry. Russia must "keep the leader's experience of the manned flights and catch up in other space exploration programs," Putin said, adding that to achieve this, Russia is already constructing new launching site.
Europe's challenge of Google on its privacy policy ignores us and our privacy.
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A poll on my modest proposal to end the current gridlock in Washington, DC by simply letting the citizens of (Red) States vote to secede from the United States and presumably form Jesusland.
By Jack Payden-Travers
Tax Day & Religious Freedom
Editorial urging that we PAY TAXES FOR PEACE, NOT WAR.
By James Armstrong II
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It's the same tired song and dance. The Berkeley (California) City Council is considering a "Compassionate Sidewalks" proposal to improve the lot of homeless street people. Evidence suggests, however, that the ultimate aim of the plan is to "disappear" street people in the vain hope of stimulating local business growth by attracting consumers in their place who are now themselves facing tough economic times.
By William K. Black, J.D., Ph.D.
The New York Times Thinks Bleeding Cyprus Is 'Strong Medicine'
The economic truth, proved repeatedly during this crisis, is that austerity is to "medicine" as bleeding a patient was to "health care."
When Barack Obama starts writing his lucrative autobiographical recollections, there may be a few pages where he explains how he endured this double life ordering so-called precision attacks that kill many innocent children and their mothers and fathers while mourning domestic mass killings in the U.S. and advocating gun controls.
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"There is no one perfect way to predict summer sea ice loss in the Arctic," said Wang. "So we looked at three approaches that result in widely different dates, but all three suggest nearly sea ice-free summers in the Arctic before the middle of this century."
As school districts across the country consider placing more police officers in schools, youth advocates and judges are raising alarm about what they have seen in the schools where officers are already stationed: a surge in criminal charges against children for misbehavior that many believe is better handled in the principal's office.
By Bob Patterson
Leaked or Stolen?
What will happen if Kim Jong Un can do the things that American Intelligence says he can't possibly do?
It's as if the brand new Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant cannot wait for Iraq to be back to that sinister, gruesome period between 2004 and 2008, when the body count could make Bruce Willis cringe. So what's a Pentagon in retreat to do? Shock and awe them all over again? Oh, no; this option is not for Iraq or the Islamic Emirate of Syriastan; it's only on the table for Iran.
Even those directly affected say they are told little, mostly generalities from ExxonMobil public relations people. As RT.com reported April 7, "Town residents say they are being kept in the dark over compensation and the cleanup by Exxon."

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New evidence has emerged that proves the US intentionally lied about the true nature of its controversial drone strike operations.
Greater Grand Theft Cyprus
Hit 'em again harder is policy. Cyprus is Exhibit A. It's pound of flesh demanded got greater. " Could it possibly get any worse ," headlined Cyprus Mail?"
How pure is our integrity, our fearlessness, our passion and ability to change the world?

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Dr Hirth (King's) adds: "The deep similarities we see between how our brains and those of insects regulate behaviour suggest a common evolutionary origin. It means that prototype brain circuits, essential for behavioural choice, originated very early and have been maintained across animal species throughout evolutionary time. As surprising as it may seem, from insects' dysfunctional brains, we can learn a great deal about how human brain disorders come about."
God Made a Dog - YouTube
Great video, two minutes, for any dog lover--and those who don't, for some unknown reason, like dogs. I am reminded of a quote from Mark Twain: Heaven goes by favor. If it went by merit, your dog would go in and you would stay out.
Ladies, you may want to sit down for this. You've probably spent hundreds of dollars over the years on bras - not to mention time spent finding one that doesn't dig into your skin, leave red marks on your shoulders and look lumpy under your t-shirts. Perhaps you even cleared out space in your apartment for a special bra-dryer. And it may all be for naught - at least if a French researcher is to be believed. Jean-Denis Rouillon, a sports medicine professor from Centre Hospitalier Universitaire de Besancon in France, took on the weighty task of studying the effects of bras on women's breasts. After 15 years, he found that the garments do nothing to prevent breasts from sagging - and may even increase it. "Our first results confirm the hypothesis that the bra is a false need," Rouillon said, according to France Info. "Medically, physiologically, anatomically, the breast does not benefit..."
DNA's unique structure is ideal for carrying genetic information, but scientists have recently found ways to exploit this versatile molecule for other purposes: By controlling DNA sequences, they can manipulate the molecule to form many different nanoscale shapes. Chemical and molecular engineers at MIT and Harvard University have now expanded this approach by using folded DNA to control the nanostructure of inorganic materials. After building DNA nanostructures of various shapes, they used the molecules as templates to create nanoscale patterns on sheets of graphene. This could be an important step toward large-scale production of electronic chips made of graphene, a one-atom-thick sheet of carbon with unique electronic properties. "The work shows the potential of self-assembled metallized DNA nanoarchitectures as lithographic masks for wafer-scale patterning of graphene-based...
The military justice system at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, which has been dogged by charges of secret monitoring of proceedings and defense communications, became embroiled in a fresh controversy Thursday when it was revealed that hundreds of thousands of defense e-mails were turned over to the prosecution. The breach prompted Col. Karen Mayberry, the chief military defense counsel, to order all attorneys for Guantanamo detainees to stop using Defense Department computer networks to transmit privileged or confidential information until the security of such communications is assured.
The runaway inflation that was supposed to follow reckless money-printing -- inflation that the usual suspects have been declaring imminent for four years and more -- keeps not happening. For a while, rising gold prices helped create some credibility for the goldbugs even as their predictions about everything else proved wrong, but now gold as an investment has turned sour, too. So will we be seeing prominent goldbugs change their views, or at least lose a lot of their followers? I wouldn't bet on it. Everything is political; and goldbuggism, which fits so perfectly with common political prejudices, will probably continue to flourish no matter how wrong it proves.
 

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