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Decline of the Empire http://www.declineoftheempire.com/ en-US 2016-07-23T09:48:36-04:00 True Colors Shining Through http://www.declineoftheempire.com/2016/07/true-colors-shining-through.html Elizabeth Warren campaigned to be Hillary's VEEP pick in the last few months, which I thought was sad and pathetic. And had she been plucked from the Senate, where she's actually done some good, that would have been sadder still. But there was no need to worry about the defanging of Warren. Hillary picked Virginia senator Tim Kaine, who was waging his own more effective campaign for the office. Tim certainly knows how to get on Hillary's good side. On Monday, Kaine signed onto two letters, one to federal banking regulators and the other to the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau,...
Elizabeth Warren campaigned to be Hillary's VEEP pick in the last few months, which I thought was sad and pathetic. And had she been plucked from the Senate, where she's actually done some good, that would have been sadder still.

But there was no need to worry about the defanging of Warren. Hillary picked Virginia senator Tim Kaine, who was waging his own more effective campaign for the office.

Tim certainly knows how to get on Hillary's good side.

On Monday, Kaine signed onto two letters, one to federal banking regulators and the other to the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, urging them to loosen regulations on certain financial players. The timing of the letters, sent while Kaine is being vetted for the top of the ticket, could show potential financial industry donors that he is willing to serve as an ally on their regulatory issues.

In the letters, Kaine is offering to support community banks, credit unions, and even large regional banks.

While separate from the Wall Street mega-banks like JPMorgan Chase and Bank of America, these financial institutions often partner with the larger industry to fight regulations and can be hostile to government efforts to safeguard the public, especially if it crimps their profits.

They also represent a key source of donor funds, one that has trended away from Democrats. The Independent Community Bankers of America have given 74 percent of their $873,949 in donations this cycle to Republicans, according to the Center for Responsive Politics.

Regional banks like PNC Financial Services, SunTrust Bank, and First Republic Bank, have given even higher percentages to the Republicans.

Presumptive Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton is expected to announce her vice presidential pick on Friday. Kaine, if selected, could now help woo fundraising dollars away from Republicans, because he's able to point to his support for financial industry causes. The letters also show Hillary Clinton's campaign how Kaine could be an asset with banking interests on the fundraising trail.

The letter to the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, signed by a bipartisan coalition of 16 Democrats and every Republican senator, asked that the consumer agency "carefully tailor its regulations" to exempt community banks and credit unions. It posits these smaller banks as "essential to spurring economic growth and prosperity at a local level."

While this seems benign, tailoring rules that exempt large classes of financial institutions leaves consumers vulnerable to deceptive practices. A rule of this type could allow community banks and credit unions to sell high-risk mortgages or personal loans without the disclosure and ability to pay rules in place across the industry.

 The fact that the entire Republican caucus, from Ted Cruz and Mike Lee to Mitch McConnell, supports this idea suggests that it's not necessarily a bipartisan measure but a Republican desire that a few Democrats agree with. Kaine counts himself among those Democrats.

The second letter, sent to the heads of the Federal Reserve, the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation, and the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency, seeks to protect an even bigger subset of banks, the large regional institutions like PNC and SunTrust.

Kaine and three Democratic colleagues want regulators to change certain rules so they don't apply to these regional banks.

Some regional banks have become so large that they may reach a threshold triggering daily reporting requirements under the liquidity coverage ratio rule, which requires qualifying banks to hold enough assets to cover a 30-day period of financial stress. Kaine and his colleagues argue that would "impose significant burdens on the firms" and want the regulators to alter that threshold and exempt all regional banks, regardless of size.

Next, Kaine and his fellow senators want to eliminate so-called "advanced approaches" capital requirements — which governs the ratio of reserves banks must carry to cover potential losses — for regional banks, even if they have over $250 billion in assets. The rule "captures many regional banks that do not share the same risk profile or complexity as their larger, systemically important brethren," the senators write.

In fact, regional banks with over $50 billion in assets like PNC, BB&T, SunTrust, and Regions Financial, are among the 33 subject to annual stress tests by the Federal Reserve. In an interconnected financial system, a large regional bank that gets into trouble has as much chance of creating ripple effects as a mega-bank. It's unclear why they should be exempted from regulations deemed appropriate for all facets of the financial sector.

While Kaine has focused on protecting banks this week, he has apparently been less concerned for consumers.

He was one of 13 Democrats who did not sign onto a separate letter authored by Senate Banking Committee Chairperson Sherrod Brown, supporting a strengthening of new rules for payday lenders, so borrowers don't continue to get trapped in a vortex of debt.

And from the cheerleaders at Vox, after they noted that "Banks" were one of the winners when Kaine was selected—

It even looked for a brief, shining moment like they might be able to install Warren as the vice president.

But nope! You get boring, centrist Tim Kaine!

What are you going to do — vote for Donald Trump?

No, fuckhead, I'm gonna vote for Donald Duck.

I dedicate Cyndi Lauper's great song to Hillary.

That's why we love you, Hillary! Beautiful like a rainbow! Don't be afraid to let your colors show!

But I see your true colors
Shining through
 I see your true colors
And that's why I love you
So don't be afraid to let them show
Your true colors
True colors are beautiful
Like a rainbow

 Dave Cohen 2016-07-23T09:48:36-04:00 After Trump's Speech, Today's Keyword is 'Dark' http://www.declineoftheempire.com/2016/07/after-trumps-speech-todays-keyword-is-dark.html The usual disclaimer — we don't make this stuff up. Weekend open thread. These are headlines which are often different from the underlying URL. That means somebody in charge stepped in and changed them. Donald Trump and the Dark Soul of the GOP (Mother Jones) His Tone Dark, Donald Trump Takes G.O.P. Mantle (New York Times) Donald Trump's Dark Vision (Bloomberg) Donald Trump Takes America on a Journey to the Dark Side (NBC) Donald Trump's Dark Dark Convention Speech (New Yorker) It's Donald Trump's Party Now (Huffington Post, quote below) Clinton's campaign and supportive super PACs, meanwhile, sent out dozens...
The usual disclaimer — we don't make this stuff up. Weekend open thread.

These are headlines which are often different from the underlying URL. That means somebody in charge stepped in and changed them.

Donald Trump and the Dark Soul of the GOP (Mother Jones)

His Tone Dark, Donald Trump Takes G.O.P. Mantle (New York Times)

Donald Trump's Dark Vision (Bloomberg)

Donald Trump Takes America on a Journey to the Dark Side (NBC)

Donald Trump's Dark Dark Convention Speech (New Yorker)

It's Donald Trump's Party Now (Huffington Post, quote below)

Clinton's campaign and supportive super PACs, meanwhile, sent out dozens of emails challenging Trump's facts as the speech was delivered. Clinton campaign chairman John Podesta also scolded Trump's generally fearmongering tone.

"Tonight, Donald Trump painted a dark picture of an America in decline," Podesta wrote. "And his answer ― more fear, more division, more anger, more hate ― was yet another reminder that he is temperamentally unfit and totally unqualified to be president of the United States."

All Google News search results for "Trump + speech + dark" (includes sources not listed above, for example, Slate, WaPo, MarketWatch).

Just heard the word dark multiple times on NPR as Washington media insiders discussed the speech (Diane Rehm Show).

Just a couple observations:

Elite echo chamber. Apparently the Huffington Post got the memo late and were forced to play catch-up — Former George H.W. Bush Speechwriter Calls Trump's RNC Speech 'Very Dark And Frightening'.

HuffPo figured it out — you're supposed to put the word "dark" in the headline!

And yet, these elite motherfuckers can not figure out why millions of Americans are going to vote for Donald Trump, given the echo chamber arrayed against them.

Have a nice weekend.

Here's a nice but dark piece of music by jazz pianist Gerald Clayton.

 Dave Cohen 2016-07-22T10:22:28-04:00 Imagine A World Where... http://www.declineoftheempire.com/2016/07/imagine-a-world-where.html This is a brief follow-up to Bad Climate News Keeps Pouring In (April 8, 2016). That one was about observed negative effects of cloud feedbacks on climate sensitivity. Now, a new study released last week in the journal Nature yields more bad news about the role of clouds in global warming. This is not unexpected. I'll quote the end of the Slate story about the finding. Taken in context with other recent studies, the new results show the net effect of climate change on clouds could in fact be to encourage warming, in contrast to the consensus from just a...
This is a brief follow-up to Bad Climate News Keeps Pouring In (April 8, 2016). That one was about observed negative effects of cloud feedbacks on climate sensitivity. Now, a  new study released last week in the journal Nature yields more bad news about the role of clouds in global warming. This is not unexpected.

I'll quote the end of the Slate story about the finding.

Taken in context with other recent studies, the new results show the net effect of climate change on clouds could in fact be to encourage warming, in contrast to the consensus from just a few years ago.

In the most recent full-scale Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change report, released back in 2013, the consensus was that, on balance, changes in cloud albedo have tended to cool the climate in the more than 200 years since humans began burning fossil fuels at a hefty clip. But the error bars on this assessment were huge, wide enough to include the possibilities that clouds could potentially offset about half of global warming, or actually cause warming themselves.

By taking the first comprehensive look at the clouds themselves, the new study demonstrates that changes in clouds are probably causing more warming, not cooling, and the authors expect this warming feedback to continue. That clarity is good news for scientists who have been working for decades on this problem, but the findings could be bad news for the rest of us.

Additional details can be found in Chris Mooney's report in The Washington Post. Mooney quotes leading climate scientist Veerabhadran Ramanathan.

"My reaction was, my goodness," Ramanathan said.

"Maybe the 4 to 5 degree warming, certainly we were all wishing there was some certainty that would make it go away. So I consider the findings of this paper, the data shows major reorganization of the cloud system."

Got it?

This matters because clouds are fundamental regulators of how much solar radiation makes it to the Earth's surface (rather than being reflected back to space by white cloud tops), and how much infrared or "longwave" radiation escapes back to space once again.

The new study used satellite records going back to 1983 to show that cloud patterns have shifted on the Earth as cloud belts have pushed poleward, expanding what are called subtropical dry zones between about 20 and 30 degrees latitude in both hemispheres.

The shift is expected to exacerbate climate change, as moving clouds toward the poles means they reflect less sunlight back to space — there is less sunlight at the poles than at Equator, so the reflectivity of clouds counts for less there.

OK, that's enough.

Now I want you to try to imagine an alternative world where this latest news caused alarm bells to ring in every major capital all around the Earth. A world where DOTE does not exist because it would not need to.

In that world, this latest finding would be Front Page News. You would hear story after story about clouds and the ongoing threat of increased desertification in the Earth's subtropical zones.

In that world, you would be reading those stories because humans would generally understand and take seriously the probable longer term consequences of their actions.

In that world, world leaders, or their special representatives, and various climate scientists would be convening right now to discuss and respond to this latest evidence that human activity is altering the climate system in a way which is detrimental to and probably disastrous for all life on Earth, including human life.

There would be a sense of urgency. The "precautionary principle" would guide the discussion.

In that world, at the emergency meeting, if climate scientist Kevin Trenberth said stuff like this about the finding —

"This is a very good attempt to try and get a handle on this, but I don't think it's the final answer," says Trenberth, who notes that the time frame studied was pretty short and included a period often described as the global warming hiatus, from 1999 to 2013.

Climate researchers still have a lot of work to do when it comes to understanding clouds, says Trenberth, who believes the state of the science is still like that old Joni Mitchell song Both Sides Now, in which she sings, "I really don't know clouds at all."

— he would be laughed out of the room.

With some difficulty we can imagine such a world, and in so doing, we come to understand in a profound way that such imaginary worlds are nothing at all like the one we live in.

Here's the one we live in—

 Dave Cohen 2016-07-20T10:06:41-04:00 The Triumph Of Hope Over Experience http://www.declineoftheempire.com/2016/07/the-triumph-of-hope-over-experience.html Commenting on second marriages, Samuel Johnson, who is quoted by his biographer James Boswell in 1791, called them the "triumph of hope over experience." It doesn't seem to have occurred to anyone since that this wonderful phrase expresses a fundamental insight into the human condition. A recent article by James Lind reminds us of why this is true. It's called Our Greatest Enemy: Optimism — why optimistic groupthink is a threat to humanity. I couldn't agree more. In his first inaugural address, President Franklin Delano Roosevelt declared, "So first of all, let me assert my firm belief that the only...
Commenting on second marriages, Samuel Johnson, who is quoted by his biographer James Boswell in 1791, called them the "triumph of hope over experience." It doesn't seem to have occurred to anyone since that this wonderful phrase expresses a fundamental insight into the human condition.

A recent article by James Lind reminds us of why this is true. It's called Our Greatest Enemy: Optimism — why optimistic groupthink is a threat to humanity. I couldn't agree more.

In his first inaugural address, President Franklin Delano Roosevelt declared, "So first of all, let me assert my firm belief that the only thing we have to fear is … fear itself — nameless, unreasoning, unjustified terror which paralyzes needed efforts to convert retreat into advance."

FDR was wrong. Far worse than nameless, unreasoning, unjustified terror is nameless, unreasoning, unjustified optimism which leads to catastrophic blunders that would not have occurred if potential costs and risks had been properly weighed in advance. The greatest thing we have to fear is … optimism itself.

It seems that Michael Lind is unaware that the human animal is hardwired for hope, Humans are always overly optimistic about outcomes in big, important matters like the ones Lind discusses below.

Excessive optimism has ruined many individual business investments, investment portfolios, and romantic relationships. But individual failures are limited in their impact on society. Not so, the blunders of political leaders who wreck their nations or empires by overestimating their chances of success.

What was Napoleon thinking, when he invaded Russia? What was Hitler thinking, when he repeated Napoleon's mistake?

The Great Leap Forward of 1958-1962 is thought to have resulted in the deaths of as many as 45 million Chinese because of famine, caused inadvertently by Mao's imbecilic scheme of catching up rapidly with the West in industry through a crash program including the construction of primitive backyard steel furnaces.

Are autocrats more prone to these kinds of disastrous blunders? One would have to be very brave to question a proposal made by the Fuhrer or the Great Helmsman.

But unchecked optimism can drive democracies to disaster as well. The catastrophes that have befallen the U.S. and the world in the last generation all have their roots in excessive, even utopian, optimism.

The invasion of Iraq by President George W. Bush in 2003 may go down in history as the single stupidest blunder in the annals of U.S. foreign policy. The architects of the Iraq War believed that once Saddam Hussein was removed from power, a functioning Iraqi democracy could be set up in short order, making a prolonged occupation of the country by U.S. and allied forces unnecessary. Post-Saddam Iraq would pay for its own reconstruction, with revenues from oil sales.

Instead, the country disintegrated into a cauldron of ethnic warfare, which, merging with the chaos of civil war in Syria, has enabled the rise of the would-be Caliphate, the Islamic state, which has sought to replace al-Qaeda as the leader of global Salafist Sunni jihadism. Ignoring the warnings of many Middle East experts, George W. Bush lit a fuse that has blown up much of the Arab world.

The optimism of America's economic policy establishment has been equally extreme and out of touch with reality. In the late 1990s, many policymakers and pundits mistook a bubble in tech stocks for a new age of sustained high growth. The stock market crash of 2001 hardly dented irrational elite optimism. Between 2001 and the crash that triggered the Great Recession in 2008, many analysts were convinced that the world economy had entered what was called "the Great Moderation," an age of low interest rates and high and stable growth. This turned out to be merely the calm before a far greater storm, which took the shape of the worst global economic crisis since the Great Depression.

The bias in favor of exaggerating chances of success in war and "rosy scenarios" in economic policy seems to be shared by dictatorships and democracies alike. Individual leaders, whether they rose to power by election or force, are likely to have inflated notions of their personal ability to achieve great deeds.

In democracies as in autocracies, the leaders are likely to be surrounded by yes-men and yes-women, afraid to anger the leader by bearing bad news.

In all of the examples Lind chooses, among the countless examples history offers, optimism bias is only one factor, albeit an important one, among many unconscious (or semi-conscious) motivations which were in play.

Certainly the U.S. wouldn't have invaded Iraq if there weren't lots of oil there. The politicians who called for the invasion were surely aware of that. However, the invasion was politically expedient in many other ways for those who oversaw it, and highly profitable for their friends. All sorts of post-hoc rationalizations were involved. We heard them over and over again for years.

In other cases, like Ben Bernanke's Great Moderation, optimism bias seems to have been more central, though again it was not the only factor involved. For elites, the economic policies implemented from the mid-80s to 2004 (when Bernanke gave his speech) were in all cases self-serving. And thus so-called "technocrats" (optimistic economists) and politicians rationalized (defended) the status quo again and again, and of course they continue to do so today.

Still, Lind is right — no powerful leader embarks on yet another dubious enterprise without the delusional hope that all will end well. And we are not surprised that leaders surround themselves with "yes-men or yes-women" whose only purpose in life is to bolster or foster political illusions about future success. After all, that's one important reason why they got their jobs in the first place

(Other reasons include loyalty, corruption, being a team player, alleged "expertise", and so on. Underneath, it's all social and therefore primitive in human nature terms. Sigh.)

And thus Lind ends on this depressing, albeit realistic, note—

Senior statesmen with surplus gravitas can sometimes succeed in talking down over-optimistic policymakers. With other students at Yale in the 1980s, I was invited to a conversation with former German Chancellor Helmut Schmidt. Asked to name the most impressive foreign statesman he had met, Schmidt came up with a surprising choice — Soviet minister of foreign affairs Andrei Gromyko.

From his wielding of the Soviet veto at the UN Security Council, Gromyko had obtained the nickname Mr. Nyet or Mr. No. According to Schmidt, Gromyko was also known for his success at home in repeatedly blocking ill-conceived initiatives by the Soviet Politburo. The punchline?  Gromyko was in the hospital, when the Politburo made the decision to invade Afghanistan in 1979.

When asked what job he would accept in the newly-elected Reagan administration,  the conservative editor William F. Buckley, Jr., replied, "Ventriloquist."

The Cabinet post that needs to be filled, however, is neither Ventriloquist nor Echo. It is the appointee sometimes described, with apologies to James Bond, as "Dr. No," the official whose sole function is to say an over-optimistic president or prime minister:

"Are you crazy? Have you completely lost your mind? Are you a total idiot?  Don't even think it. Forget about that stupid idea right now and never raise it again."

Volunteers to be Dr. No in the next administration may apply to the Clinton and Trump campaigns. I would guess that there will not be much competition for the job.

I would apply for the job of "Dr. No" in the next administration but, unfortunately, that essential and thankless job usually goes unfilled.
 Dave Cohen 2016-07-18T11:06:25-04:00 Let The Chips Fall Where They May http://www.declineoftheempire.com/2016/07/let-the-chips-fall-where-they-may.html New polls indicate that Hillary and Donald are basically deadlocked, even in swing states like Ohio, Pennsylvania and Florida. This virtual tie follows the disgraceful corruption which let Hillary walk in the wake of that e-mail server nonsense Just now, in The Atlantic, a mainstay of the elite media, I read the following: The collapse of [Hillary's] credibility was totally predictable, and totally avoidable. That makes Clinton's actions particularly galling to Americans like me, who would never vote for Trump but who don't want to condone her conduct; who don't know whether they can trust her; and who now face...
New polls indicate that Hillary and Donald are basically deadlocked, even in swing states like Ohio, Pennsylvania and Florida. This virtual tie follows the disgraceful corruption which let Hillary walk in the wake of that e-mail server nonsense Just now, in The Atlantic, a mainstay of the elite media, I read the following:

The collapse of [Hillary's] credibility was totally predictable, and totally avoidable. That makes Clinton's actions particularly galling to Americans like me, who would never vote for Trump but who don't want to condone her conduct; who don't know whether they can trust her; and who now face a hard choice: Vote for Clinton, vote for a candidate outside the two-party system, or don't vote at all.

Clinton is still more likely than not to be the next president. But it didn't have to be this close.

Now, after that so-called "terror" attack in France—this looks like another big brain gone haywire—Donald apparently has Fox News on speed-dial. He's talking up the "war" on radical Islam. You can't wage war on big brains gone haywire. Every time this kind of shit happens, and it happens a lot lately, Donald gets a boost.

"I could stand in the middle of Fifth Avenue and shoot somebody and I wouldn't lose any voters, OK?"

All this human nonsense will go on and on and on ... basically forever, which may not be a long time if you use the appropriate time-scale. In the here and now, my "don't vote" position gets stronger every day. Voting to influence predictably absurd outcomes is futile. I'm outta the game.

So I say let the chips fall where they may. In the future, if things get really, really bad in this country, people might say to me j'accuse — "You stayed home. You only have yourself to blame. Shame on you!"

And I will reply — "Sorry, I didn't see the point of pissing in the ocean to raise the sea level."

Have a nice weekend.

 Dave Cohen 2016-07-15T12:06:11-04:00 Dissecting Our Rigged Economy http://www.declineoftheempire.com/2016/07/dissecting-our-rigged-economy.html In the last year or so there has been a spate of articles by liberal economists exploring the causes of and possible solutions to declining productivity and increasing inequality in the United States. Not only has economic growth been anemic, but what growth we've gotten has not been inclusive, which means the top earners continue to receive an outsized share of the income gains as they have for the past 35 years. I'll provide some links at the end of this post for those who want explore these issues further. The basis of Bernie's campaign was that the U.S. economy...
In the last year or so there has been a spate of articles by liberal economists exploring the causes of and possible solutions to declining productivity and increasing inequality in the United States. Not only has economic growth been anemic, but what growth we've gotten has not been inclusive, which means the top earners continue to receive an outsized share of the income gains as they have for the past 35 years.

I'll provide some links at the end of this post for those who want explore these issues further.

The basis of Bernie's campaign was that the U.S. economy is rigged to favor top earners. Broadly speaking, that is correct, but what does "rigged" mean?

Economists (and Elizabeth Warren) discuss this lack of inclusiveness in terms of "monopoly rents" or "rent-seeking" or simply "rents". What do these terms mean? (Dean Baker).

"Rent" is used to refer to an income that is generated that exceeds what would be needed to meet the same economic purpose given an alternative set of institutional arrangements.

In this sense, "rents" are accruing due to patent and copyright protection if it would be possible to generate the same amount of innovation or creative work at less expense with an alternative institutional structure. In the case of CEO pay, the question is whether it would be possible to induce the same amount of effort from comparably skilled individuals at lower pay in a different institutional structure.

The unfortunate phrase "institutional arrangements" refers in the real world to political or regulatory decisions (or neglect) which have altered the structure of markets in such a way as to increase the monopoly power of a few key players across all our major industries (e.g., finance, airlines, pharmaceuticals, telecommunications, etc.).

These changes in market structure to favor the few were accomplished by various means: lack of oversight leading to concentration of market power through mergers and acquisitions, outright government subsidies to industry in various forms, including explicit subsidies to the equities and housing markets (among others) by the Federal Reserve to create a trickle down "wealth effect" in those markets, changes in the tax structure which increase the concentration of wealth, etc.

For example, saying a bank is "too big to fail" is the ultimate subsidy. That bank has effectively been removed from the market. TBTF means the bank is immune to market forces which might, in theory, put it out of business.

That is what it means to say we have a "rigged economy." Here are a few resources not linked in above.

In today's New York Times — With Competition in Tatters, the Rip of Inequality Widens

From Obama's chief economic advisor Jason Furman — Productivity, Inequality, and Economic Rents. Furman gives us a "good news"/"bad news" scenario. Here's the bad news.

The bad news, however, is that rents have beneficiaries and these beneficiaries fight hard to keep and expand their rents. As a result, political reforms and other steps aimed at curbing the influence of regulatory lobbying are important for reducing the ability of people and corporations to seek rents successfully. Such actions would help ensure that economic growth in the decades ahead is robust, sustainable, and widely shared.

From the legendary economist Robert Solow — The Future of Work: Why Wages Aren't Keeping Up. And see this excellent commentary on Solow called Free lunch: economic rent and the social contract.

From Joseph Stiglitz — Rewriting the rules of the American Economy

And finally, for a little perspective, my essay Moral Failure In Liberalized Market States.
 Dave Cohen 2016-07-13T10:52:26-04:00 Separate But Equal? http://www.declineoftheempire.com/2016/07/separate-but-equal.html Last week two unarmed black men were killed by white police officers for no reason at all. A few days ago, a black man and ex-military man named Micah Xavier Johnson shot and killed five police officers sniper-style at a black protest march in Dallas, Texas. There is more than ample evidence that Johnson had become completely unhinged before his attack on Dallas police officers. In short, there is ample evidence that Micah Xavier Johnson's big brain had gone haywire. In the wake of all this, humans have once again become very, very confused. Here is only one example among...
Last week two unarmed black men were killed by white police officers for no reason at all.

A few days ago, a black man and ex-military man named Micah Xavier Johnson shot and killed five police officers sniper-style at a black protest march in Dallas, Texas. There is more than ample evidence that Johnson had become completely unhinged before his attack on Dallas police officers.

In short, there is ample evidence that Micah Xavier Johnson's big brain had gone haywire.

In the wake of all this, humans have once again become very, very confused. Here is only one example among thousands I could cite.

Black lives matter. Blue lives matter. Both statements must be made true if the heartbreaking loss of life in Dallas is to have any meaning.

The killing spree that left five police officers dead and seven others wounded should be classified as an act of domestic terrorism. The shooter, identified as 25-year-old Micah Xavier Johnson, apparently believed he was committing an act of political violence. Our duty, to honor the fallen, is to ensure that Johnson's vile and cowardly act has the opposite impact from what he sought.

Johnson ... said he was motivated by hatred over the deaths of two more black men ... at the hands of police.

Before I get into this, I want to say that all human lives matter depending on where you're standing. The lives of those in your social in-group matter a lot more than the lives of those outside it. The antagonistic groups we're interested in today are 1) police officers and 2) black people who are not police officers.

First, and just to get this point out of the way, Johnson's "killing spree" was totally meaningless unless one deems it meaningful that humans have big brains which can go haywire and often do. If you follow that uncomfortable truth to the end of the line, you risk becoming a social pariah. Few take that path!

Secondly, what we see above is that the shooting or abuse of unarmed black men by white police officers, which is routine in the United States, has been conflated with the actions of a single black man whose big brain had gone haywire. These incidents are taken to be separate but somehow equal. What's wrong with this picture?

I'll tell you what's wrong with it — in the former case, we're talking about a real and alarming trend reflecting implicit racial bias, whereas in the latter ("killing spree") case, we're talking about a one-off. Big brains go haywire all the time, but let's be specific:

How many times have black men armed with assault rifles carried out sniper-style attacks on white police officers?

Never! — until last week (as far as I know, and read here). Certainly there's no trend.

How many times have white police officers killed unarmed black men since January 2015?

Police have shot and killed a young black man (ages 18 to 29) — such as Michael Brown in Ferguson, Mo. —175 times since January 2015; 24 of them were unarmed. Over that same period, police have shot and killed 172 young white men, 18 of whom were unarmed. Once again, while in raw number there were similar totals of white and black victims, blacks were killed at rates disproportionate to their percentage of the U.S. population.

Of all of the unarmed men shot and killed by police in 2015, 40 percent of them were black, even though black men make up just 6 percent of the nation's population.

And, when considering shootings confined within a single race, a black person shot and killed by police is more likely to have been unarmed than a white person. About 13 percent of all black people who have been fatally shot by police since January 2015 were unarmed, compared with 7 percent of all white people.

Perhaps these raw statistics don't seem quite as damning as Black Lives Matter people would like to argue, but we are talking about only the most extreme cases here — black people were shot and killed. What about "less extreme" cases like this? (Vox, July 7, 2016). This incident is described by a former St. Louis police officer who is black. Reading this account requires a strong stomach.

As a new officer with the St. Louis in the mid-1990s, I responded to a call for an "officer in need of aid." I was partnered that day with a white female officer. When we got to the scene, it turned out that the officer was fine, and the aid call was canceled. He'd been in a foot pursuit chasing a suspect in an armed robbery and lost him.

The officer I was with asked him if he'd seen where the suspect went. The officer picked a house on the block we were on, and we went to it and knocked on the door. A young man about 18 years old answered the door, partially opening it and peering out at my partner and me. He was standing on crutches. My partner accused him of harboring a suspect. He denied it. He said that this was his family's home and he was home alone.

My partner then forced the door the rest of the way open, grabbed him by his throat, and snatched him out of the house onto the front porch. She took him to the ledge of the porch and, still holding him by the throat, punched him hard in the face and then in the groin. My partner that day snatched an 18-year-old kid off crutches and assaulted him, simply for stating the fact that he was home alone.

I got the officer off of him. But because an aid call had gone out, several other officers had arrived on the scene. One of those officers, who was black, ascended the stairs and asked what was going on. My partner pointed to the young man, still lying on the porch, and said, "That son of a bitch just assaulted me." The black officer then went up to the young man and told him to "get the fuck up, I'm taking you in for assaulting an officer." The young man looked up at the officer and said, "Man ... you see I can't go." His crutches lay not far from him.

The officer picked him up, cuffed him, and slammed him into the house, where he was able to prop himself up by leaning against it. The officer then told him again to get moving to the police car on the street because he was under arrest. The young man told him one last time, in a pleading tone that was somehow angry at the same time, "You see I can't go!" The officer reached down and grabbed both the young man's ankles and yanked up. This caused the young man to strike his head on the porch. The officer then dragged him to the police car. We then searched the house. No one was in it.

And the point is...

These kinds of scenes play themselves out everyday all over our country in black and brown communities.

Beyond the many unarmed blacks killed by police, including recently Freddie Gray in Baltimore, other police abuses that don't result in death foment resentment, distrust, and malice toward police in black and brown communities all over the country. Long before Darren Wilson shot and killed unarmed Michael Brown last August, there was a poisonous relationship between the Ferguson, Missouri, department and the community it claimed to serve. For example, in 2009 Henry Davis was stopped unlawfully in Ferguson, taken to the police station, and brutally beaten while in handcuffs. He was then charged for bleeding on the officers' uniforms after they beat him.

So every time somebody treats that Dallas killing spree — blue lives matter — as akin to police brutality against black people in the United States — black lives matter — you can say "bullshit!" because that's what it is.

There's a lot more to say about that excellent Vox article by former black policeman Redditt Hudson, and maybe I'll get to it in the near future.
 Dave Cohen 2016-07-11T10:14:56-04:00 Only A Masochist Would... http://www.declineoftheempire.com/2016/07/only-a-masochist-would.html The other day I wrote a post which introduced implicit bias, which is usually used in connection with racial bias (humans have an unconscious, automatic bias against other humans who are a different color). In fact, I was taken aback when I heard the term "implicit bias" on the radio this morning. And the reason I write stuff like that is because that stuff is visible in "Flatland" every day. In the last few days, two white police officers killed two black people for no good reason. At the end of the day, that was implicit bias. Then a guy—presumably...
The other day I wrote a post which introduced implicit bias, which is usually used in connection with racial bias (humans have an unconscious, automatic bias against other humans who are a different color). In fact, I was taken aback when I heard the term "implicit bias" on the radio this morning.

And the reason I write stuff like that is because that stuff is visible in "Flatland" every day. In the last few days, two white police officers killed two black people for no good reason. At the end of the day, that was implicit bias. Then a guy—presumably a black guy—shot and killed five (presumably) white police officers in Dallas in retaliation for recent police shootings. (I don't have the details).

OK, that's the kind of shit that happens in Flatland. What happens on DOTE is that I do my best to explain the kind of shit that happens in Flatland. Is that fucking clear?

You can do one of two things. You can mindlessly exist in Flatland and suffer the inevitable consequences, or you can read this blog to get a clue about what's going on out there. Your received clue, if you are capable of getting it, doesn't change a god-damned thing—Flatland is the human condition—but it might make your inevitable suffering easier to bear. It is the only solace I can offer you on this human-dominated planet,

Do you know what 7 billion humans on this planet means as opposed to, say, 1 billion humans? It means there is 7 times the destruction and foolishness that you get from only 1 billion humans. (I'm assuming a linear function; one could argue that each additional human adds exponentially to the amount of stupid destructive mischief it is possible to achieve.)

The other day I wrote about poor human risk assessment, and included student debt slavery as an example. (If you put literally millions and millions of young people at risk, what kind of society are you going to have?)

I am disappointed—I shouldn't be—that readers of this blog basically had nothing to say about that subject. To me, that silence looks an awful lot like bad news filtering. If you read here, you should know what "bad news filtering" is at this point. I've talked about cognitive filtering many, many times before. Of course, your familiarity with the concept doesn't guarantee that you aren't subject to it.

Still, that student debt thing—many typical Flatland behaviors are involved—is outrageous, isn't it? And that outrage is getting more outrageous, especially because college costs keep going up for all the reasons Jim mentioned in his comments on that post. (More and more college administrators paying themselves like corporate CEOs.)

And yet, only a few people had anything to say about the evil student debt thing, the associated risks, etc. Maybe if you had $35,000 in student debt you would have said something.

Hmmm ... I'm going to let Jim explain my personal view of all this.

@all: It's really very simple. Dave writes this blog, for free, with very little encouragement here, and absolutely nothing in the way of outside recognition. His typical reward is to get silence and/or grief, but still, he writes it to further clarify his thoughts and to communicate them with others. Put yourself in his shoes - you don't think this would be a deeply frustrating thing to do?

Jim has enough empathy to understand how deeply frustrating it is for me to write this blog. Well, I am the one who is deeply frustrated for exactly the reasons Jim stated.

And by the way, Lidia, groveling is not required. Suppose somebody gives you $5 every day for no reason at all. Would you eventually start insulting that person, as Lidia insulted me? You know what? Most people would indeed start making fun of the giver because being given a gift for no reason makes humans deeply uncomfortable. (Doing so violates reciprocity.)

If humans require fair exchange, DOTE readers, with some notable exceptions, have not kept up their end of the bargain. But what do I want?

As I have said in the past, I want responses to what I write—agree, disagree, more info, off-topic, I don't give a shit—which indicate that you are alive and kicking. Because when you no longer have the ability to respond to (or mourn) all this horrific Flatland bullshit, you are effectively dead. And in that case, why would you even be reading here? What are you doing? Looking for reasons to be depressed? If you are, reading just about any internet website will do.

I had hoped to turn DOTE into a very, very small corner of the world where people seeking and achieving clarity could gather together and talk about all this destructive Flatland shit and, in so doing, rise above it. Share absurd stories—did you see this one?—laugh or cry. That was clearly too much to hope for.

Is that deeply frustrating for me? Of course it is. I am not a masochist, I hope, but only a masochist would continue to write this blog.
 Dave Cohen 2016-07-08T10:10:46-04:00 Notes On Poor Human Risk Assessment http://www.declineoftheempire.com/2016/07/notes-on-poor-human-risk-assessment.html I was reading about student debt slaves (Reveal News, June 28, 2016). 42 million people owe $1.3 trillion in student debt. It's a profit center for Wall Street and the government. Here's how we got into this mess... Step by step, Congress has enacted one law after another to make student debt the worst kind of debt for Americans – and the best kind for banks and debt collectors. Today, just about everyone involved in the student loan industry makes money off students – the banks, private investors, even the federal government. Follow the link if you want the gruesome...
I was reading about student debt slaves (Reveal News, June 28, 2016).

42 million people owe $1.3 trillion in student debt.

It's a profit center for Wall Street and the government. Here's how we got into this mess...

Step by step, Congress has enacted one law after another to make student debt the worst kind of debt for Americans – and the best kind for banks and debt collectors.

Today, just about everyone involved in the student loan industry makes money off students – the banks, private investors, even the federal government.

Follow the link if you want the gruesome details. There are plenty of details.

This is yet another example of pure evil in contemporary America, but today I want to discuss this moral horror show in terms of poor human risk assessment. Here's what I wrote in my negativity bias post—

For a variety of reasons, humans (here, Americans) can not properly assess the abstract economic and social risks which gave rise to Donald Trump (and Bernie Sanders, too). But once we have Donald Trump, if he is perceived as "bad" as opposed to "good", humans are hard-wired to focus on the risk presented by Donald Trump himself, not the deeper social decay which created him.

One would think it uncontroversial that the impairment or destruction of so many young lives by means of punishing debt slavery would be a cause for much alarm in the United States. What kind of future does a society have when it sells so many of its young people down the river?

Plainly, that society has a very grim future indeed. The chart below reflects the real wages of college and high school graduates. Remember, these are the young people who have jobs, even if they are forced to live in their parents' basement.

Graduating in a weak economy has long-lasting economic consequences. For the next 10 to 15 years, those in the Class of 2016 will likely earn less, and have more spells of unemployment, than if they had graduated when job opportunities were plentiful.

Stagnant wages for college graduates, falling wages for high school graduates. Source

When we combine the student debt data with the real wage data for college graduates, the risk posed by these trends (among several others) increases considerably. We already know that high school graduates are fucked—they are voting for Donald Trump—but we can also see, on current trends, that new college graduates are fucked too, not only in the short term, but also for the foreseeable future (the next 10 to 15 years).

That is a recipe for disaster for the United States as a coherent, functioning society. And who, in terms of risk, is talking about this very large accident waiting to happen? Basically, nobody. Politicians talk about it all the time, of course, but do nothing about it. That empty talk centers around fairness and equality of opportunity, but there is no perception of basic risks to society.

This reminds me of an insightful article which appeared in The Atlantic called What If the Terrorists Are Already Here? The easy point to make is that the "terrorists" are indeed already here—they are the people profiting from student debt slavery and those unwilling to give young people a raise. In fact, the biggest "terrorist" is the Federal Government (Reveal News).

The Department of Education has little incentive to fix the core [student debt] problem. The loan program that began with the principal goal of helping disadvantaged students pay for tuition has become a moneymaker for the federal government.

The profit arises from the government's ability to borrow money at a low rate and then lend it to students at a higher rate, thus charging students more than is necessary to recoup its costs.

The federal loans issued between 2007 and 2012 currently are projected to generate $66 billion in income for the government, according to a Government Accountability Office report. Congress in 2013 lowered the interest rate on loans for incoming student borrowers, yet refused to extend the same benefit to more than 40 million student loan holders who had borrowed previously.

But what about the threat posed by "actual" terrorism as opposed to government-sponsored terrorism? This is from The Atlantic.

The statistics are as astounding as they are ignored: Americans are about as likely to be killed by their own furniture as by terrorists.

Noncommunicable conditions like cardiovascular disease, cancer, and diabetes are responsible for vastly more American deaths than terrorism.

Depending on how you count, gun violence in America kills hundreds or thousands of times more people than extremist attacks on U.S. soil.

"We spent over a trillion dollars and passed countless laws and devote entire agencies to preventing terrorist attacks on our soil," President Obama observed after a mass shooting in 2015, in lamenting the lack of government action to address the far deadlier problem of gun violence.

Gun violence is a significant problem in the United States, but in so far as we may not have a coherent, functioning society in 10 to 15 years, it pales in comparison to student debt and stagnating wages on any reasonable risk scale. David Rothkopf of Foreign Policy tried to make a similar point (with a different example).

"Every once in awhile, we ought to let facts guide what our fears are," Rothkopf said...

What a good idea!

"When you look at polls of the top 10 fears of the American people, it tends to be things like public speaking, flying, things that will never kill anybody, when it really should be sugar."

Sugar! Right. Obesity and its associated health risks, including diabetes. Sugar over-consumption is indeed a real and significant risk to the American people.

Rothkopf sat on a panel "during a session on homeland security at the Aspen Ideas Festival, which is co-hosted by the Aspen Institute and The Atlantic." Here's what happened.

"Are we focused on the right bad guys? … Are we too guided by what dominates the headlines?" Rothkopf asked Jane Holl Lute, the former deputy secretary of the U.S. Department of Homeland Security.

Well, if you want to focus on the "right" bad guys, and in so far as Jane Lute is former deputy secretary at U.S. Department of Homeland Security, Jane might have turned the focus on herself in so far as student debt slavery helps fund that useless department and the government generally.

But, astonishing to say, Jane did not do that. (I'm just kidding. Of course she didn't  )

Instead, Jane talked at great length about the threat posed by terrorists who come from outside the country as contrasted with the threat posed by homegrown terrorists. I will skip that long and pointless discussion. Here's how The Atlantic writer finishes up.

Still, the question remains whether U.S. and European governments are excessively focused on the very real threat of terrorism, wherever it is originating from, and neglecting graver threats.

Hmmm... is the Pope catholic?

"Leadership, it seems to me, is sometimes about saying, This is what we should be focused on. This is where the real risk lies," Rothkopf said. "There are some countries where there have been multiple terrorist attacks, where they're able to manage them and digest it and handle it a little bit better. And it causes less terror as a consequence."

It was a last attempt to steer the security conversation away from the vortex of terrorism. But the vortex prevailed.

During the nearly hour-long session, the panelists rarely strayed from the topic. Sugar wasn't mentioned again.

There you go. Sugar wasn't mentioned again. That tells you all you need to know about human risk assessment.
 Dave Cohen 2016-07-05T11:14:12-04:00 What Liberalism Has Become http://www.declineoftheempire.com/2016/07/what-liberalism-has-become.html The progressive website Naked Capitalism provides a links page everyday which I have found useful lately in so far as this has been an Outstanding Year in Flatland (see most of the posts I've written in the past 6 months.) Today's links include an excellent article called What Liberalism Has Become. That article cited an Amazon review of Thomas Frank's new book Listen Liberal: Or, What Ever Happened To the Party of the People? The theme in all cases is that classic Democratic "liberals" actually represent and embody America's elites. No argument here. In fact, that's been a major revelation...
The progressive website Naked Capitalism provides a links page everyday which I have found useful lately in so far as this has been an Outstanding Year in Flatland (see most of the posts I've written in the past 6 months.)

Today's links include an excellent article called What Liberalism Has Become. That article cited an Amazon review of Thomas Frank's new book Listen Liberal: Or, What Ever Happened To the Party of the People?

The theme in all cases is that classic Democratic "liberals" actually represent and embody America's elites. No argument here. In fact, that's been a major revelation for millions of people this year. I thought you might find some of that Amazon review interesting. Here it is, with some emphasis added. I also made a few edits for clarity.

[Frank's] explanation of why the Democratic Party does not represent the interests of its largest constituency is grounded in the moral judgment of its leadership. That judgment prefers "meritocracy" or social hierarchy built on the claim to superiority based on (actual or claimed) knowledge rather than social solidarity, which is the underlying principle of organized labor.

Frank explicitly denies the possibility of any change in the US political party structure and calls for a moral transformation of party leadership consisting in the abandonment of the sense of moral superiority linked to college credentials.

For someone who spent his entire adult life in the academia, Frank's analysis certainly rings true. This institution is filled with "stuffed shirts" who rise to the top by becoming adept in what passes for "right thinking" at the moment, hiding their lack of originality under obscure technical jargon, and collecting handsome rent from their credentials, titles, and positions.

Allowing this bunch near the halls of power can indeed be risky. As William F. Buckley quipped "I'd rather entrust the government of the United States to the first 400 people listed in the Boston telephone directory than to the faculty of Harvard University."

Yet this moral explanation and moral remedy that Frank offers is somewhat disappointing when we consider the fact that similar transformations occurred in socialist and social democratic parties in many European countries as well. This coincidence cannot be simply explained by the change of heart of the people leading those parties. We must look into the structural determinants.

What structural elements are missing from Frank's narrative, then?

That is always the right question to ask — what is missing?

One clue can be found in his bibliography — despite impressive documentation of his claims, his bibliography misses a rather obscure, to be sure, work by Walter Karp titled "Indispensable Enemies".

This book attempts to answer the same question as Frank's work does — why don't the US political parties represent the interests of their constituents? — but the answer it provides emphasizes the structure of the party system rather than the [moral] preferences of party leaders.

Karp's explanation is a variant of what is known as Robert Michels' "iron law of oligarchy" which in essence claims that...

Here it is.

the leadership of an institution is first and foremost concerned about its own power within the institution rather than the power of the institution itself.

In case of US political parties, the party bosses are more concerned with keeping their control of their respective parties than with winning elections, and they tacitly cooperate by excluding any challenge to their leadership by dividing up their respective turfs in which they maintain their respective monopolies.

Paradoxical as it may sound, such behavior is well known outside politics where it is referred to as oligopoly or niche seeking.

Karp's thesis offers a much better explanation of the abandonment of the working class and middle class constituents by both parties than the preference for meritocracy claimed by Frank. Even from Frank's own account of the Democratic Party's 'soul searching' in the aftermath of Humphrey's defeat in 1968, it is evident that that the emerging party leadership was not afraid of losing a series of elections (McGovern, Mondale, Dukakis) before they could cement their hold on the party under Clinton.

Clearly, a party whose leadership's main goal is to win elections would not make such a cardinal mistake as losing elections for 20 consecutive years by abandoning their core constituency.

Likewise, Obama's abandonment of the "hope" promise led to a spectacular loss of both houses of Congress and numerous state legislatures, but that did not persuade the party leadership to change course.

Au contraire, they are determined to keep the course and undermine any challenge to the party leadership (cf. Sanders). This is not the behavior of a general who wants to win a war (cf. Robert E. Lee), but of one who wants to keep his position in his own army (cf. George McClellan).

That completes the interesting part. Here's the obligatory hope, which involves swapping out one set of ruling elites for another in the Democratic Party.

Taking into account Karp's explanation of partisan politics would also offer a far more dramatic finale for Frank's book. Instead pleading for a moral change in the existing party leadership, a more effective solution would be to replace that leadership with a new one by using the same gambit of counter-scheduling as Clinton did against labor, and voting against Hillary Clinton in November.

That would surely result in the electoral loss for the Democrats in the coming election, but it would certainly help to wrest control of the party from the leaders who "betrayed" their main constituents.

Perhaps this is not the road that Frank, and many life-long Democrats for that matter, are willing to travel, but it certainly makes a better and more uplifting story — one that gives the downtrodden masses, whose side Frank takes, a promise of doing something about the problem instead of pleading  to their superiors, hat in hand, for a change of heart.

Don't hold you breath waiting for a "change of heart."

Have a nice weekend.

 Dave Cohen 2016-07-01T11:22:43-04:00


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We've all had that day: the one where you accidentally hit "Reply All" on an email intended for one or get rear-ended as you're backing out of the veterinary clinic where you've just spent your life savings to find out that the results on your cat's blood work are "inconclusive."
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Here are the winners. Congratulations!
Visit the RMV website "Express Lane" to save time by conducting transactions online.
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Goat's Milk and Its Uses - With Information on Milking and Making Cheese, Butter and Creamby Various
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This book contains classic material dating back to the 1900s and before. The content has been carefully selected for its interest and relevance to a modern audience. Each publication has been professionally curated and includes all details on the original source material. This particular instalment, "Goat's Milk and Its Uses" contains information on cheese, butter and milk. It is intended to illustrate the main uses of goat's milk and serves as a guide for anyone wishing to obtain a general knowledge of the subject and understand the field in its historical context. We are republishing these classic works in affordable, high quality, modern editions, using the original text and artwork.
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Oral drug improved survival in patients with non-operable basal cell carcinoma.[© M&S Fotodesign - Fotolia.com]
Curis and partners Roche and the Roche subsidiary Genentech reported positive data from a pivotal Phase II trial with vismodegib (GDC-0449, or RG3616) in the treatment of advanced, inoperable basal cell carcinoma (BCC). The 104-patient Erivance BCC/SHH4476g study showed that treatment with vismodegib resulted in an overall response rate of 55%. Median progression-free survival evaluated by independent review was 9.5 months.
Curis says Genentech anticipates filing for regulatory approval of vismodegib during 2011. Roche's application for approval of the drug in Europe will depend on planned discussions with the European Medicines Agency. Roche is separately evaluating vismodegib in a Phase II study in patients with operable forms of BCC.
The international Phase II Erivance BCC study in inoperable BCC included 71 patients with locally advanced BCC (laBCC) and 33 patients with metastatic BCC (mBCC). The laBCC cancer patients had failed or weren't suitable for radiotherapy. The trial results showed an overall response rate of 43% for the laBCC patients and 30% for mBCC patients, as assessed by independent review (the primary endpoint). Study investigators assessed the overall response rates at 60% and 46% for the laBCC and mBBC cohorts, respectively (secondary endpoint). The clinical benefit rate, defined as patients who experienced response as well as those who experienced prolonged stable disease for over 24 weeks, showed that vismodegib therapy shrank tumors, healed visible lesions, or prevented further lesion growth in 75% of patients, as assessed by independent review.
Vismodegib is an oral compound designed to selectively inhibit Hedgehog pathway signaling, which is implicated in over 90% of BCC cases, Curis notes. The candidate was originally discovered by Genentech, and jointly validated in collaboration with Curis through preclinical studies. Clinical development of vismodegib is being carried out by Genentech in the U.S., Chugai in Japan, and Roche in the rest of the world.
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text: Photos of the Day: Aug. 30 Updated Aug. 30, 2012 4:17 p.m. ET fullscreen PUSHING ON: Spain's Juan Jose Mendez competed in a cycling trial at the Velodrome during the 2012 Paralympic Games in London Thursday. Facundo Arrizabalaga/European Pressphoto Agency … BEHIND THE CURTAIN: A man took a photo from between curtains before a welcome ceremony for German Chancellor Angela Merkel at the Great Hall of the People in Beijing Thursday. Ng Han Guan/Associated Press … CHOLERA OUTBREAK: Cholera patients lay at the Wellington cholera treatment unit in Freetown, Sierra Leone, Wednesday. At least 229 people have been killed in the country's worst cholera outbreak in nearly 15 years. Caroline Thomas/AFP/Getty Images … WET BOOTS: A man lifted his leg to let water run out of his boot in Waveland, Miss., Thursday. Residents of the storm-saturated Gulf Coast ventured out Thursday to examine damage from Hurricane Isaac as local governments lifted curfews. Rogelio V. Solis/Associated Press … RESTRAINED: Wesley Thomas tried to rush the defense table during a hearing in Ludowici, Ga., Thursday. Soldiers Isaac Aguigui, Christopher Salmon and Anthony Peden face the death penalty if convicted of murdering his stepdaughter and another soldier. Prosecutors say the defendants also planned to assassinate President Barack Obama. Stephen Morton/Associated Press … MAKING A PATH: Boats full of passengers struggled to move through water hyacinths in a part of the Buriganga River in Dhaka, Bangladesh, Thursday. Andrew Biraj/Reuters … BULL RUN: Horsemen led bulls during a bull run in Cuéllar, Spain, Thursday. Cuéllar's is considered to be the oldest running of the bulls of Spain. Juan Martin Misis/European Pressphoto Agency … LEAVING: A vehicle drove near the so-called Rosebud fire in Montana Wednesday. Rapidly expanding wildfires across a broad swath of southern Montana have caused injuries and burned homes, buildings and vehicles, authorities said Thursday. Bob Zellar/Billings Gazette/Associated Press … TOUGH LOVE? A mentally challenged patient was pinned down on the floor as he underwent a traditional Islamic soul-purification healing called 'ruqyah' at a rehabilitation center run by the Indonesian Red Cross in Solo, Indonesia, Thursday. Associated Press … STRONG SILHOUETTE: A miner attended a protest to block the entrance of the Carbosulcis mine in Carbonia, Italy, Thursday. As many as 100 Sardinian miners armed with explosives have barricaded themselves underground to try to pressure Rome into keeping the mine open. Alessandro Bianchi/Reuters … BREAD BY CANDLELIGHT: A boy waited for customers as he sold bread at night along a street in the old part of Kabul, Afghanistan, Thursday. Mohammad Ismail/Reuters … LIGHTS UP: Mourners attended a vigil in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, Thursday. Tens of thousands of mourners gathered in Meskel Square to pay their respects to former Prime Minister Meles Zenawi, who died last week. Carl de Souza/Agence France-Presse/Getty Images … Replay Photos of the Day: Aug. 30 More Slideshows Photos of the Day: July 29 Photos: Wildfires Rage in California of SHOW CAPTION HIDE CAPTION fullscreen Show More Archives


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Double Indemnity - 70th Anniversary Limited Edition (Blu-ray + DIGITAL HD with UltraViolet)
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this review is of the NEW Universal 2 dvd set.... which is a three star value.
Typical of Universals crappy Deer Hunter 2 DVD set..we've got a classic movie....with extras that could easily fit on one DVD...but Universal tries to make this into a bigger "ticket" by stretching it out.
The movie....its a classic...I've got the original release on DVD. The EXTRAS are
1) an introduction by Robert Osborne, nothing special and watched once you'll be irritated having to see it again every time you hit PLAY..
2) commentary tracks by the usual suspects (including the king of bloat Richard Schickel) and Universal has two so they put two more extra features on their package for these..
3) a half hour film noir primer , that's been done better on the WB noir sets and again features the same film professors etc that we are growing all too familiar with.
4) a 1 hour and 15 minute TV version from the 70's starring Richard Crenna ...which is the ONLY feature on the second disc.
I'll give Universal a bit of credit...the film itself does seem a bit improved over the initial out of print release...but closer scrutiny of the two would be necessary and I've got a life so I'll leave that to others.
Bottom line....Universal is hard to figure out...they take some multiple classic titles and stuff em onto flipper DVDs (info on both sides) and crank em out cheap..ie the Brando,Wayne,Cooper,Lombard sets....and then they take other films and run the package to two discs for no other reason than to make it "seem" important and packed with extras. They use strange fat cases to make it seem like these are books full of goodies instead of space filling clear plastic...Read more ›
But this September the Museum of the Moving Image in NYC screened their newly restored 35mm print of this film. It was stunning gorgeous B&W imagery (think the 2-disc special edition of Casablanca which came out last year). I'll be checking Amazon every few weeks to see if its release has been scheduled!
This would be frustrating for any film but is downright shameful treatment of a cinema classic. We can only hope someone will spend the time and money necessary to restore the print for a new theater run, as has been done with other older films. Perhaps then, DVD buyers will get the version of this classic they deserve.
It's a pity the DVD is so very poor. It's really awful. I can't stress this enough. It's very grainy, there are no bonus features at all, and there's no liner notes at all. Extremely shoddy treatment of such a wonderful film. I'd like to see a special edition of this film produced as soon as possible, and done right!
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Let me tell you the screen heats up when Fred MacMurry and Barbra Stanwick get together in this film. No need for nudity here the chemistry between these two is enough. Read morePublished 1 day ago by Stephen
One of THE best. A must-see. A great example of just how superb the actors could be in the studio system, from top-billed star to character actors.Published 2 days ago by J
A great film it never have seen it it is a must for old movie fans and maybe even a new generationPublished 21 days ago by Amazon Customer
Double Indemnity is what happens when all the elements of fil-making come together in glorious perfection.
This is a film noir production. Read more
A great study of how to film in Black and White. It's a lot more about staging and exposure than just converting color to black and white.
Great story line, too. Read more
Look up "film noir" and this movie should come up as definitive. That and who doesn't love Edward G. Robinson?? M'yeah, see!Published 1 month ago by Frank Babayan
This one of the greatest American films of all time and certainly the best film noir. While it does tone down Cain's original novel to comply with the old Hayes Code, it's still a... Read morePublished 1 month ago by dawkins jr
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Sunday Morning Bible Study
During the church year (September to June) we gather every Sunday from 8 – 9:00 am to study scripture and reflect on how God's word informs our living today. While we will certainly learn a lot about how people of long ago understood God to be moving in their lives, we will also create a safe and sacred space in which we as people of faith in this time and place, we can hear what it is God may be calling us to in our own life. We are holding Bible study at this time so as to not conflict with choir rehearsal at 9:00 a.m. Please consider making a morning of it – Bible Study, Choir and then worship! We are currently reading the the Letter to the Hebrews. Please join us!
Living Water Prayer Service
On Wednesday mornings from 7:30 – 8:15 am we gather in the small chapel off the sanctuary for prayer. This time of prayer called "Living Water" is based on the passage in John's Gospel where Jesus encounters the Samaritan women at the well (John 4:14). It gives us an opportunity to drink in the stillness of the peace and presence of God so that we will be filled and will not thirst as we go into the busyness of our weeks. We begin with 20 minutes of centering/meditative silence. Afterwards we engage lectio divina, listening with our whole hearts to a passage from scripture and sharing the invitation we may have heard for ourselves. In closing we light candles of prayers for celebrations and/or concerns we may have.
Lunch Bunch
The third Tuesday of very month, the Lunch Bunch gathers from 12:00 – 1:30 for a time of conversation and fellowship. Most months we meet at church in the reception room but several times a year we will head out to explore some place new, like our excursion to the Mary Wakefield Estate in Milton pictured here. Bring a brown bag lunch and enjoy the dessert that is provided.
Well Spring
Well Spring is our women's group. We usually meet on the third Wednesday of the month from 6:30 – 8:00 p.m. Our time begins with a simple meal and catching up with one another about our lives before moving into a deeper conversation that is topically focused. This past year we focused on the theme of Pilgrimage. Our final gathering for the 2015 -2016 church program year will be on Wednesday, May 25th.
Book Group
Book Group meets on the last Tuesday of the month in the reception room, 7 – 8:30 PM.
The book to be discussed will be posted monthly. This year (2015-2016) we will explore a variety of choices among novels. poetry, short stories and drama. For more information, please get in touch with Priscilla Kelso ([email protected]) or Tom Vawter ([email protected]).
Java Gents
Java Gents is an informal monthly breakfast hour for the men of the UCW congregation. It provides friendly fellowship and mutual support to the men. Java gents meet the third Friday of each month in the church reception room at 7am. Buz Bedford cooks up a full, hot breakfast. Jay O'Beirne hosts the lively discussion of timely topics, and personal goings on among the men.
All Church Retreat
Coming away together to share in fun, learning and the beauty of God's good creation is now a regular part of our life at UCW. Stay tuned for the dates of our next all church retreat!
Waban Health Worship
On the third Wednesday of the month UCW and the Waban Health and Rehabilitation Center (located in Waban Square behind the Waban Market) hold a shared service in the activity room at Waban Health. We sing, reflect on scripture, pray and partake of communion together. This is a Spirit filled time of loving fellowship and praise filled worship. If you are interested in joining in this midweek service please see Pastor Stacy ([email protected]).


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Investments are not FDIC-insured, nor are they deposits of or guaranteed by a bank or any other entity, so they may lose value.
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Investors should carefully consider investment objectives, risks, charges and expenses. This and other important information is contained in the fund prospectuses and summary prospectuses, which can be obtained from a financial professional and should be read carefully before investing.


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My foot found a lego last night, and i screamed like a sissy!
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Member of our body that is located at the lower end of the leg, normally used to walk, to run, and to play soccer. However, it is also used as a substitute to a telephone, or to annoy people with it's smell.
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I mean, it's not like there is a tuna vegetable or animal that it can be confused with.
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I agree with you that it does seem redundant. However, this is common with other kinds of fish as well. Many people say "codfish" instead of "cod". Here is a recipe for "trout fish" croquets.
This convention has important meaning to a huge number of fish names: catfish, lionfish, swordfish, sunfish, cowfish, etc.
Also, it provides extra clarification for someone who wouldn't know what a "tuna" or a "cod" is otherwise. Anyone learning English as a second language will probably learn the meaning of "fish" early on, but may not know the more specific names.
Tuna or cod is not always fish, just as cheddar is not always cheese.
In both cases, it distinguishes the primary item from items merely flavored with the item.
Tuna fish is almost always the meat of the Tuna. Seldom is it the fish itself alive and/or whole; for those uses, "tuna" is used without "fish." Tuna salad is a mixture of tuna and mayonaise, and often some diced pickles and/or onions. Tuna sandwiches are sandwiches using tuna, and can be grilled or tuna salad. Tuna crackers are tuna flavored crackers. Tuna alone also can be a crude aphorism for female genitalia.
Cheddar is both the cheese, and the city where the recipe originates. Several cheeses are likewise named for their place of origin, most notably swiss, münster, and berkswell. But cheddar crackers are not made of cheddar, nor do they originate in cheddar, but are flavored with cheddar cheese. Cheddar spread is mostly cheddar cheese,
Cod can be the fish, or the meat of the fish; a cod dinner is seldom just codfish, but usually also chips (fries) and/or hushpuppies (corn fritters). The USS Cod is a submarine. Cod is also an extremely common acronym, most commonly for "Cash on Delivery." Codpiece is a male pubic covering; cod at one point was slang for the scrotum, so codfish was a way of ensuring one was talking about fish and not men's genitals.
Speaking of corn fritters, I've never met a fritter that wasn't made with cornmeal; I'm TOLD they exist... Likewise, most have also wheat flour and whole kernel corn. It's another case of a term that at first appears to be redundant, but really isn't.
Tuna is used to mean the fish, and the flesh of that fish (which is also called tuna fish).
Tuna is also the edible fruit of a cactus, or the name of that cactus.
As a fisherman I can tell you that:
"Tuna-fish" refers to the stuff in a can that is used to make tuna-fish salads or similar items. It is typically albacore.
"Tuna" refers to the the meat in steak form and served raw (as sushi/sashimi), grilled, or pan seared. It is typically yellow-fin or blue-fin.
Other fish such as catfish, swordfish, lionfish, etc. obviously need the fish qualifier as a cat, sword, and lion as stand alone words are completely different things. Also, while there is a tuna cactus (it is the fruit part) it most commonly referred to as the prickly pear cactus.
Below the first picture is "tuna-fish" and the second picture is "tuna". Tuna is perhaps the only fish where preparations are this vastly different.
I think the reason cheese gets appended to Cheddar much more often than to Double Gloucester, Brie, Camembert, Wensleydale etc. is because it's the most common type. The archetypal cheese, as cod is the archetypal fish. (and I've heard codfish, but not haddockfish or salmonfish). And in UK at least, tuna is the most common canned fish.
As an archetype, it often thus gets to represent not just it's own particular type, but all cheeses. After a restaurant meal I might ask for some Cheddar Cheese - I may not really care which cheese I get, but most likely if they have any, they'll have that. If they do have alternatives I'll doubtless be offered them, but I'd be irritated by a waiter who included cheesecake in the offerings after I'd asked for Cheddar Cheese.
I think of tuna fish as the chopped up stuff in a can.
Tuna, on the other hand, I think of as whole fish.