An industry not known for giving freebies—ever—has decided to offer its services gratis, just in time for the COP15 climate conference in Copenhagen. When Copenhagen’s mayor, Ritt Bjerregaard, sent off a message to local hotels urging them not to assist hotel guests in town for the event hooking up with… well… hookers, the pros struck back.
The postcards the city council sent read, in part: “Dear hotel owner, we would like to urge you not to arrange contacts between hotel guests and prostitutes.” The local prostitutes became furious, protesting that the council had no right to interfere with them plying their perfectly legal—and the world’s oldest—profession.
“This is sheer discrimination. Ritt Bjerregaard is abusing her position as Lord Mayor in using her power to prevent us carrying out our perfectly legal job. I don’t understand how she can be allowed to contact people in this way,” SIO Spokeswoman Susanne M?ɬ?ller tells avisen.dk.
M?ɬ?ller adds that it is reprehensible and unfair that Copenhagen politicians have chosen to use the UN Climate Summit as a platform [to target] sex workers.
“But they’ve done it and we have to defend ourselves,” M?ɬ?ller says.
David Rees is a master of hilarious comedy and startling polemic. I rank him up there with Tom Tomorrow, Aaron McGruder, Stephen Colbert and Jon Stewart. His Get Your War On cartoon series is one of the iconic things history will recall the Bush administration by (and this is a wonderful, wonderful thing).
Aside from cartooning, Rees is a wonderful essayist and public speaker. Here’s a recent column of his from True/Slantt, which should have really appeared in The New Yorker if they had any balls:
Joe Lieberman walks into a bar with a parrot on his shoulder. The bartender turns to him and says, ?
I’m someone who, like many of you, I am sure, had high hopes for the Obama presidency. After two terms of Bush, it really felt like the country was turning the page. Inauguration Day felt like a wonderful exhalation of 8 years of just… pollution. I thought Obama would be the second coming of FDR, I really did, but almost a year later, has anything truly changed? Has anything gotten better for the common man? We all know that the Wall Street oligarchs are sitting prettier than ever, what about the rest of us?
Today’s Huffington Post had a nice bit of reporting from Ryan Grim about Ben Bernanke’s remarks to the Senate Banking Comittee today and as I read it, I was absolutely enraged. This asshole has got to go. If Obama is getting his advice from guys like Ben Bernanke (and Geithner and Rubin) we are fucking doomed!
Let this sink in:
Ben Bernanke has overseen the greatest expansion of the Federal Reserve’s balance sheet in its history, pouring trillions of dollars into Wall Street firms at roughly zero interest rates.
His generosity, however, has a limit.
In testimony before the Senate Banking Committee today, where he’s seeking re-appointment as the Fed’s chairman, Bernanke called for cutbacks in Medicare and Social Security even as unemployment rises and the middle class is endangered.
Citing legendary bank robber Willie Sutton, Bernanke said of the retirement and health care funds that are the legacy of the New Deal: “That’s where the money is.”
Sen. Bob Bennett (R-Utah) sympathized with Bernanke, saying that, because of entitlement spending, “you’re going to be looking at a situation where the Congress will be unable to provide any kind of fiscal discipline because of the mandatory spending. That puts an enormous burden on your plate.”
“Well, Senator, I was about to address entitlements,” Bernanke replied. “I think you can’t tackle the problem in the medium term without doing something about getting entitlements under control and reducing the costs, particularly of health care.”
Bernanke reminded Congress that it has the power to repeal Social Security and Medicare.
“It’s only mandatory until Congress says it’s not mandatory. And we have no option but to address those costs at some point or else we will have an unsustainable situation,” said Bernanke.
But here are several other obvious options that could make the situation sustainable—including a transaction tax on Wall Street speculation or a slight tax hike on the wealthiest Americans.
Bernanke talks as if increasing taxes on the wealthy simply isn’t an option.
Sen. Jack Reed (D-R.I.) followed Bennett and pointed out that “there’s only really two ways you can deflect this deficit, and that’s either by cutting expenditures or raising income taxes or other forms of taxes.”
Reed asked him if he could think of other ways, but Bernanke returned to entitlement money as the way to balance the budget.
“Willie Sutton robbed banks because that’s where the money is, as he put it,” Bernanke said. “The money in this case is in entitlements.”
When I read this I wanted to throw up. Apparently Sen. Bernie Sanders, one of the last honest men in government felt the same:
Sen. Bernie Sanders, an independent from Vermont who has placed a hold on Bernanke’s nomination, was apoplectic when HuffPost told him Bernanke was pushing for cuts in entitlement spending. “Bernanke wants to cut entitlement spending? Well, that confirms everything I’m saying,” Sanders fumed.
“The CEOs and top people on Wall Street make huge bonuses, and what? We’re going to cut back on Social Security and Medicare? That’s what we’re going to do?”
I think Sen. Sanders has the right idea, don’t you? Here’s what Progressive change said of Sanders (I wholeheartedly agree!)
Now, Bernie Sanders has taken the brave step of putting a “hold” on renominating Bush’s choice for another 4-year term at the helm of our economy.This is huge. Wall Street will not be happy, and they’ll go after Sanders with everything they’ve got. Most senators wouldn’t even consider going up against them like this. That’s why Bernie Sanders is a real progressive hero.
If you want to donate money to Bernie Sanders, click here.
And finally, here’s an information rich clip of Rolling Stone’s ace political editor Matt Taibbi’s take on Obama’s economic team. It’s a preview of Taibbi’s upcoming expose for the magazine titled “Obama’s Big Sellout”:
“[Bob] Rubin probably more than any other person was responsible for the financial crisis by deregulating the economy [while] in the White House. And he had a major role in helping destroy one of the world’s biggest company in Citigroup. He has one of the worst tack records you can find, but he was basically the guy who was the architect of the entire Obama policy. Obama put him in charge of everything. “
These guys are idiots. Hell, they’re practically traitorous! They’re traitorous idiots. They should be fired with extreme prejudice. And then tar and feathered.
You think I’m joking?
As we prepare to go back to war in Afghanistan, voices of dissent are ringing loud across the country and the Internet. Michael Moore:
Following President Obama’s announcement on Tuesday of a short-term troop surge in Afghanistan, an emotional Michael Moore told CNN’s Larry King, “I feel very bad for him.”
“I feel even worse for our troops,” Moore went on, blinking back tears. “And I feel a real sadness for the parents of those soldiers.of ours over the next eighteen months who will not come back home.”
“Our own CIA says there’s less than a hundred al Qaeda in Afghanistan,” Moore explained. “What are we doing in Afghanistan? This is absolutely insane. ... We have been in this war for twice as long now as the US was in World War II. ... We’re going to have 100,000 troops there to find these killers—who aren’t even there!”
The Bush administration permitted the world’s most notorious terrorist mastermind to escape because it needed additional justification to invade Iraq, according to a Democratic lawmaker from New York.
Rep. Maurice Hinchey (D-NY) leveled the allegation during an interview with MSNBC host David Shuster on Monday afternoon.
“Look what happened with regard to our invasion into Afghanistan, how we apparently intentionally let bin Laden get away,” he said. “How we intentionally did not follow the Taliban and al-Qaeda as they were escaping. That was done by the previous administration because they knew very well that if they would capture al-Qaeda, there would be no justification for an invasion in Iraq.”
“They deliberately let Osama bin Laden get away?” asked an incredulous Shuster. “They deliberately let the head of al-Qaeda get away right after he, right after the 9/11 attacks? You really believe that?”
“Yes, I do,” Hinchey replied. “There’s no question about that. The leader of the military operation in the United States called back our military, called them back from going after the head of al-Qaeda because there was a sense that they didn’t want to capture him.”
Time will tell how much longer America can keep this up. Hard to play World Police when you can’t pay your cops. Bad, bad times indeed.
Author Charles Hugh Smith discusses his latest book Survival+, an indispensable guide to understanding global turmoil and transformation, weaving a full spectrum of intellectual disciplines—history, political economy, ecology, energy demands, marketing, investing, health and the psychology of happiness—into a uniquely comprehensive book that offers practical principles, not just for surviving, but prospering in the difficult decades ahead.
Kung fu master Chen Pengxian wasn’t just winging it when he claimed he could create the smallest carving in the world.
So Chen, 42, carved an entire sentence in Chinese characters on a fly’s wing to prove his ability.
The sentence - which translates as ‘I am at the bottom of her valley of no love’ - was taken from his favourite martial arts novel.
“I have studied king fu for 20 years and I used the breathing techniques I had learned to stop my hands from shaking because one slip would have torn the wing to pieces,” he explained from his studio in Taipei, Taiwan.
David DeGraw, at the Amped Status blog asks: Are we nearing a tipping point as rapacious elites push a heavily armed populace too far?
Never before has the United States had so many citizens with so little means, little to no income and heavy debt. Debt and costs of living have now shackled U.S. citizens just as they have shackled people throughout the world. The economic hit men have now hit the United States as well and millions of American citizens are now effectively sentenced to a slow death.
This hilarious video is made by Debbie Glasband who recently volunteered in eastern India for 6 months, working with the tribal people you see in this video. They are indigenous to Koraput, the second poorest district in India. Due to their poverty, illiteracy and status as the bottom of the caste system, they are often taken advantage of by landowners and local officials who deny them their rights, steal what little money they do have and treat them with disdain.
The video stars people from Puki and Nua Kerenga villages, two of many villages that were displaced by hydroelectric dams and mining projects. Forced onto land that is difficult to cultivate, they have resorted to migrant work and borrowing money from landlords in order to survive.
For tribal people who are landless, raising goats is a great alternative source of income. Families who breed goats can earn a good profit selling the kids in the local market. The extra income provides a safety net for families that can be used for things like medicine, food during lean periods and farm equipment.
Comic writer and lord of nerd hell Warren Ellis posted this t-shirt design today, which will be available to purchase for one week only. I dig the sentiment and the “Ladies and Gentlemen We Are Floating In Space”-style design. Leave it to somebody with government health care to tell us backward Americans what we’re missing out on. Warren says:
TOTW is basically a joke that Ariana and I pull each week in our joint guise as the International Electrophonic Unit. Basically, we take some of the stupider things I?
The State Department has released numbers on human beings trafficked into the United States, specifically the Midwest, to be used for slave labor and forced prostitution. While I can’t say I’m surprised, and suspect this has been going on for some time, the numbers are sobering. While America pretends to somehow be better than the rest of the world, the truth is that not only do we face the same problems that the so-called “developing” world does, but that in many cases we are far behind the standard of living of the rest of the world.
The grim truth is that while human trafficking is considered a problem that belongs to the Middle East and Africa, slavery never died anywhere, not even in our own country. Human trafficking networks still operate in broad daylight in Europe and, apparently, here. While the so called civilized world prides itself on having eliminated slavery, we have only eliminated the institutionalized form (and not even that, if you take a critical look at, say, prison labor in federal and private jails alike). Slavery?
, an indispensable guide to understanding global turmoil and transformation, weaving a full spectrum of intellectual disciplines—history, political economy, ecology, energy demands, marketing, investing, health and the psychology of happiness—into a uniquely comprehensive book that offers practical principles, not just for surviving, but prospering in the difficult decades ahead.
