SAR #15157

Science is true until it's not, then it is again.

Kiss My Arcadia: Greek Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras has again dismissed the IMF/EU terms for another bailout as “absurd”. For now the Greeks are gaining three more weeks of dithering by choosing to pay their IMF debt in one installment at the end of the month, making this week's default a non-event. The Greeks do not want any more austerity measures, do not want to leave the Euro, and cannot pay their debts. The EU/ECB/IMF want austerity, want Greece in the Euro and want their money back. So what's the problem?

An Education: On average, recent college grads are earning $17.94 an hour – 2.5% less than 2000's grads made. But they've got higher student debt, so that's okay.

Practice Season: The G7, playing Lucy, is meeting in Paris to discuss their plans for the December climate change summit. They are expected to, once again, promise to actually live up to their promises of financial assistance to the poorer nations, playing Peanuts, that have, like the football, been repeatedly snatched away. It's the only game in town, so the poor nations will have to go along with the charade – even though little or none of the $100 billion a year promised them in 2009 has yet shown up.

On The Campaign Trail: As the Republicans tumble out of the Clown car and urge cutting Social Security and making the peasantry wait to age 70 for full retirement and 65 for half-pay, remember that nearly half of all households age 55 and over have no retirement savings.

All In Fun: For eight years, teachers at Texes' Sulpher Sprfings Middle School have been handing out special “Huh?” certificates as part of their annual “Ghetto Classroom Award” ceremony for kids who need “supportive services for learning disabilities.”

Timing: Just as Congress and the people begin making noises about curtailing the surveillance state, along comes the Turner Joy a massive Chinese (?) hack of government data. So naturally Congress does a 180 and insists the NSA grab up and control even more of the drivel that makes up the internet. Because we should trust our data security to the folks who just lost all their data, right? Meanwhile the FBI says we cannot encrypt our data or the foes of freedom will win. 
 
This Time It's Diffferent: The IMF is giving Iraq $830 in “emergency funding” to help stabilize its economy as it fights ISIS. Never mind that the US spent $12 billion a month for then years and topped that off with $60 billion in reconstruction funding, the IMF's money will do the trick. Unless it, too, disappears into corruption and poorly thought projects.

Relevance: MoMA, in paying the boss $2.1 million while cutting the staff's benefits, shows that modern art is not out of touch with the rest of America, where the boss benefits while the workers go hungry. Too bad it's not just another joke by Rothko.