Progression:
Growth in US productivity, as measured by GDP – which is a pretty
iffy measurement, but all we've got, peaked in 1972 and has since
declined to the point where today it is on a par with the agrarian
slave economy of the early 1800's. Might explain a couple of things.
Similarities:
While ISIS is destroying archaeological treasures in Syria and
Iraq, In Afghanistan the Beijing-based
China Metallurgical Group Corporation is
destroying a spectacular Buddhist complex in its race to grab 12.5
million tons of copper before
the Taliban come back to power.
Who is the bad guy
here?
Installment
Plan: As part
of the blackmail that Israel's congressional representatives have
extorted from the administration as the cost of their letting the
Iran nuclear agreement gain approval, Obama has agreed to further
increase American military aid – in both equipment and funding –
to “unprecedented” levels.
Over
Achievers:
Constituting just 5% of the world's population, enterprising
Americans manage to execute 31% of the world's mass public shootings.
Business
Plan: I
propose to bottle about 27 million gallons of water from California's
Strawberry Canyon, enough to fill about 100 million little plastic
bottles, and sell each of them for about 75 cents. The water will
come from public land in a national forest, so I'll have to get a
permit. It'll cost me $524 a year. Oh, yeah. My name is Nestle, and
the permit expired in 1988, but it's
willing to spend $7 million “to save water.”
Favors:
Is it possible that the Saudi-financed TV ads condemning the Iran
nuclear agreement were produced by Israel?
Kiss
It And Make It Bitter:
When the toxic mine waste the EPA spilled got to the Navajo
irrigation network, it provided water for their use. It was
contaminated oil-field water...
Shortcuts:
The Tea Party
wants to cultivate people's anger and get them to express it at the
ballot box. Trump is apparently happy for them to simply express
their anger and their love of country by beating up suspected illegal
aliens. And they don't even have to wear brown shirts.
3 comments:
Re EPA. To be fair, their biggest problem seems to be with the private contractors they hire.
Re Trump. What is most fascinating to watch is that even as he doubles down on the GOP's anti-immigrant rhetoric, the conversation continues to rage without even a modest focus on the companies who hire these immigrants. The "problem" could be "fixed" in about six weeks with a single law and some marquee enforcement. (But of course the economic earthquake would be awesome should that actually occur, which it won't). Yet the angry white mobs continue to march with their pitchforks and torches right past the hotels and farms and job sites on their way to protest our porous border.
Re Trump II. I think what is also fascinating to watch is the divergence between GOP primaries which are dominated by genuflecting to a minority in the extreme wing, and the Dem primaries, which seem to be contests in who can best shush and ignore the base, and do as little as possible to acknowledge it.
Re Kiss and Make it Bitter: What a pathetic comment on our country. We jump all over EPA because they "mishandled" a disastrous mine waste problem that the public inherited. OK, never mind that little detail, but why not mention the fact that EPA wasn't properly funded to deal with this particular mess? Note too that very little attention is given to the fact that the mine is still privately owned. The poor owner "saw the problem coming" but just couldn't get the regulators out of the way to "solve" the problem. Right. Boo hoo. The real elephant in the room being that the mess is largely due to shenanigans played among competing mining firms. So yeah, clearly it is EPA's fault - the scapegoat of last resort. http://www.cnn.com/2015/08/13/us/colorado-epa-animas-river-spill-owner/index.html
RE Business Plan: Whiskey is for drinking and water is for fighting! With only 22 of California's 500+ groundwater basins currently adjudicated by court order maybe the recently enacted laws regulating groundwater basins will curtail this sort of abuse. Maybe.
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