Sustained
economic growth is unsustainable.
Sound Bite: Obama has asked for an extra $1 billion so the Defense Department can send another Legion to the Empire's European frontier. The 0.15% increase is designed to scare Putin and make the little guys feel we haven't forgotten them.
Ready, Set, Repeat: Inflation in the Eurozone fell again in May, matching the lowest 'growth' rate in five years. But the unelected technicians in charge of the ECB pretend that the disastrously low inflation rate is “a sign of recovery”. Angela Merkel did not get the voters' message and continues to insist on “a policy aimed at competitiveness and growth.” By which she means more unemployment, fewer social services and lower wages. But now Merkel wants continuing austerity to be sold under new and improved slogans. While she insists on ever high unemployment, increased debt and continuing recession/depression for much of Europe, the ECB prepares to print money to buy up worthless assets – a program that has done so little good in the US over the last few years. Cheers.
One-Way Street: That we have not found any evidence of intelligent life elsewhere in the universe suggests either a) there is none. b) there is none currently (whatever 'currently' might mean in a relativistic universe). This leads to the possibility c) lifeforms that evolve intelligence sooner or later learn enough to eradicate themselves, and do.
Celebrate Responsibly: Sure the markets are at new all-time record highs, but the BEA reports that profits US companies made from current production fell 10% in the first quarter. Yes, it's the biggest drop since Lehman Brothers fell off the table.
Hopeful: Perhaps responding to Obama's CO2 regulation regulations, China announced that it will set an absolute cap on emissions in 2016. Neither action is sufficient, but y'gotta start someplace.
Snuffer the Little Children: The Roman Catholic Bon Secours Nuns running a home for unwed mothers killed or let die over 800 babies and young children born at the home between 1925 and 1961. The bodies were piled like cordwood in a massive septic tank. The innocents died from malnutrition, neglect, convulsions, TB, gastroenteritis and pneumonia. God moves in mysterious ways, eh?
Asked and Apparently Unanswerable: If we can trade 5 of the 'worst of the worst' from Guantanamo for one deserter, what possible reason is there to keep the place open?
The Parting Shot:
3 comments:
my opinions -
a)why not close gitmo? logically speaking, it seems obama could do so - if releasing some prisoners is something the president can do if he wants to, then he can release them all, it would seem
politically, of course, he can't - and frankly, this whole bergdahl mess is a puzzlement to me - the guy went AWOL after expressing his opposition to the whole mission (so he had more sense than the people in position to give him orders - but his is not to reason why, his is but to do and/or die, to paraphrase one of the poets of empire) - so why trade seemingly valuable prisoners for him?
b) is anybody out there? i think, using the mediocrity principle, the likeliest alternative is possibility 8 in the fermi paradox article you link to, the 'zoo hypothesis' - nobel laureate doris lessing wrote some novels using this premise
c) snuffer the little children - it's like lily tomlin says in 'search for signs of intelligent life in the the universe' [note the clever allusion to the previous point] - 'no matter how cynical i get, i still can't keep up' - the movie 'philomena' with judi dench was about these prisons for unwed mothers, but failed to plumb the depth of lies and cruelty involved
Mr. C: Love the Tomllin quote, and – like you – I remember a bunch of stories from my teen-age scifi addiction where we-the-humans were the ones in the zoo, we just perceived the function of the cage incorrectly. We still do.
My great hope is that when the aliens come, they'll find us delicious and save a few for breeding stock.
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